Review 2: The Mystery of Christ Revealed

Ephesians 3:14a

Sermon Transcript by Rev. Ernest O’Neill

Let’s turn in our Bible to 2 Corinthians 5:14. Well known verses to us, but they’re applicable
today to the study. 2 Corinthians 5:14, “For the love of Christ controls us, because we are
convinced that one has died for all; therefore all have died. And he died for all, that those who
live might live no longer for themselves but for him who for their sake died and was raised. From
now on, therefore, we regard no one from a human point of view; even though we once regarded Christ
from a human point of view, we regard him thus no longer. Therefore, if any one is in Christ, he is
a new creation; the old has passed away, behold, the new has come. All this is from God, who
through Christ reconciled us to himself and gave us the ministry of reconciliation; that is, in
Christ God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and
entrusting to us the message of reconciliation. So we are ambassadors for Christ, God making his
appeal through us. We beseech you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God. For our sake he made
him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.” Amen.

We’re studying Ephesians and what I’m trying to do is synchronize us so you’ll excuse some
accelerated exiguous these days. The verse that we’ve reached is Ephesians 3:14 and I’ve not very
graciously dragged London together with Raleigh so that we’re both more or less on 14, so Ephesians
3:14 runs like this, “For this reason I bow my knees before the Father.” For this reason I bow my
knees before the Father; for what reason? Well, if you look back to 3:1, “For this reason I, Paul,
a prisoner for Christ Jesus on behalf of you Gentiles,” then a dash and that’s probably rightly
interpreted as a parenthesis of Paul’s where he’s talking about his particular stewardship to this
particular group of people and then he repeats it in 14, “For this reason I bow my knees.”

Now let’s go back to the first this reason therefore, in 3:1, “For this reason I, Paul, a prisoner
for Christ Jesus on behalf of you Gentiles,” he’s talking about the Gentiles and the reason is there
in the previous chapter if you just go back to 2:19, “So then you are no longer strangers and
sojourners,” you Gentiles, “But you are fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household
of God, built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus himself being the
cornerstone, in whom the whole structure is joined together and grows into a holy temple in the
Lord; in whom you also are built into it for a dwelling place of God in the Spirit.” For this
reason I bow my knees to the Father.

Really, it’s a lesson on how we think of our business associates. That’s really what it is, because
Paul is talking here not to Jews, not to God’s own people, not to God’s well known children, but
he’s talking to the Gentiles, the people who are regarded as outside the fence, the people who are
regarded as not Christians, as not children of God. And he’s saying, “For this reason I bow my
knees to the Father, because you are part of God, the same as we are.” Now how do you prove that?
Well, it’s not too difficult and we know it ourselves. I think John 1:3 is very definite, the word,
“All things were made by him, and without him was not anything made that was made.”

That includes the person that you don’t enjoy doing business with very much. Irritable, or using
bad language, or bad tempered, or utterly selfish, or obviously greedy, or acquisitive, or
preoccupied with getting as much money as they can, that person is one of the things that were made
by Christ. All things were made by him and without him was not anything made that was made. It

doesn’t matter what they’re like, they were made by Christ. And you remember how strongly that’s
brought out in those Colossians verses, Colossians 1:15 where it talks about Jesus as the very image
of God himself and the first-born of all creation. And just look at it again because it is so
strong and is so refreshing really in the way we think of other people.

Colossians 1:15, “He is the image of the invisible God, the first-born of all creation; for in him
all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions
or principalities or authorities,” or dictators, or hateful people, or angry people, or selfish
people, or unpleasant people, “All things were created through him and for him. He is before all
things, and in him all things hold together.” And that I think is hard for us to grasp, that the
person who was nasty to us last week was nasty to us by the strength of Christ’s life. Christ
continued to hold that person together as they were nasty to you. Christ continued to hold together
the Roman soldiers as they pushed a spear into his side. In him all things hold together and all
things were made through him and were made for him.”

So there is no one on the other side of the tracks for Jesus, and there is no one on the other side
of the tracks for any who are made in him and by him and are his children, and that’s what these
verses bring out. And there’s a verse in Romans 8:29 that really puts the whole truth right in the
middle of old Einstein’s infinity and eternity. Romans 8:29, it follows that famous Romans 8:28,
“All things work together for good.” And then in 29, “For those whom he foreknew he also
predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, in order that he might be the first-born among
many brethren.” And God who foreknew what Hitler would do, who foreknew what that person that you
don’t like would be, he predestined them to be conformed to the image of his Son in order that he
might be the first-born among many brethren.

So God foresaw what they all would do. He foresaw what they would choose, what choices they would
make and he predestined them to be conformed to the image of his Son, somehow to bring them into
conformity to his Son. It’s not for us to say how God will bring that about, but he undoubtedly did
that. He determinedly looked at them and saw in them the murders they would do, and the wrong
choices they would make, and yet he still predestined them to be conformed to the image of his Son.
He made them so they could be made like Jesus and he thinks of them that way. And that’s why of
course Paul says that wild thing in 2 Corinthians 5 that we read, just almost uninterpretable
really, in the light of our normal attitude to things.

2 Corinthians 5:14, “For the love of Christ controls us, because we are convinced that one has died
for all; therefore all have died.” And unless you just ignore it completely, you have to make some
sense of it. You have to say, “Well, that’s a plain statement, we were all made in Christ, we are
held together in Christ, and when Christ died we all died, all,” and you can’t get rid of the all.
It’s just so strongly there, all died, and if Christ died for all then all died. And what we do of
course, you know is we all say, “Oh well yes, you know, in a kind of way that’s true. Christ died
symbolically to represent all of us, you see, he’s the goat and we put all our sins,” and back to
the old thing, the substitution not the representative. But this is presenting him as the
representative.

This says so strongly, Christ died for all not so that all would not have to die, but when he died
all of us were in him and we died with him. So Christ died for all. However, it appears that they
are like today, they died with Christ and they are people that Christ has borne inside himself. He
has borne their sins, he has borne all the things they did inside him, he’s borne their hatred and
their anger, he’s been forced to put his hand out and hurt someone within whom he himself lives. So

he was forced to hurt himself in a sense, by these very people, but yet he holds onto them and they
die and are resurrected and made new with him. And he sees them that way and that’s the way they’ll
be until – well, that’s not our place.

We don’t know. Barth is baffled he says, “Perhaps just before the abyss they will turn.” But he’s
driven like the rest of us to avoid universalism and yet driven by the verses of scripture to see
that God holds onto his children to the very end it seems. And certainly, that all have died
because Christ has died and it’s because of that that Paul says the things he says. You remember,
in Ephesians 2:1, he begins the whole presentation, “And you he made alive, when you were dead
through the trespasses and sins in which you once walked,” when you were dead.

So many of us think, well, look at them, they’re dead, they’re dead in their sins, they have no
feeling for God, they have no respect for him, they curse him. But that’s when God made them alive,
“When you were dead through the trespasses and sins in which you once walked, following the course
of this world, following the prince of the power of the air.” These people care nothing about
religion. They care nothing about humanity. They’re driven by the powers of the air. Yes, but it
is while they were doing that that he made them alive, “Following the prince of the power of the
air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience. Among these we all once lived in
the passions of our flesh.”

“But God,” in Verse 4, “Who is rich in mercy, out of the great love with which he loved us, even
when we were dead through our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ (by grace you have been
saved), and raised us up with him, and made us sit with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus,
that in the coming ages he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in
Christ Jesus. For by grace you have been saved through faith; and this is not your own doing, it is
the gift of God – not because of works, lest any man should boast. For we are his workmanship,
created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.”
And you can almost see him reaching out his arms to them and saying, “We are God’s workmanship
created in Christ Jesus for good works which God has prepared beforehand that we should walk in
them.” And he’s saying, “We, we together died with Christ and were raised in him,” and that seems
to be the attitude.

It seems to be God’s own attitude. His attitude doesn’t seem to be, “When you’ve changed, when
you’ve turned, when you’ve become what I want you to be, then I’m prepared to be concerned with
you.” His attitude is, “I love you. I have you in my Son. We’ve borne all that you’ve been over
these years. Come, we’re here together.” And you know, just look at it in that verse that we read
in the New Testament lesson 2 Corinthians 5. It’s the whole spirit of those verses. 2 Corinthians
5:16, “From now on, therefore, we regard no one from a human point of view.” We don’t look at them
as to what they appear like, what they seem to be, “Even though we once regarded Christ from a human
point of view, we regard him thus no longer. Therefore, if any one is in Christ, he is a new
creation; the old has passed away, behold, the new has come. All this is from God, who through
Christ reconciled us to himself and gave us the ministry of reconciliation; that is, in Christ God
was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and entrusting to
us the message of reconciliation. So we are ambassadors for Christ, God making his appeal through
us. We beseech you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God.” But that’s the spirit.

Not thinking of them as non-Christians that we have to pray for that they’ll come into the light
like us. But dear people, who are made in Jesus and whom Jesus still bears within himself. Dear
people who have died with Christ and have been raised with him and we are saying, “Come, be

reconciled to God.” We’re treating them as people who have experienced what we’ve experienced. And
you know, I’ve said it once before, which do you think is most likely to bring them in? You
standing off praying for them, trying to share your Bible with them and some verses, and slip them a
track and hoping that they see truth? Or, you embracing them as dear friends who are in the same
Savior as ourselves and gradually they begin to sense that, that you accept them and you really seem
to accept them almost more than their mother, or their father, or their brother, or their sister,
all of whom have some judgmentalism in them, but you don’t seem to have any and they can’t
understand it, but they kind of feel it’s nice and it seems right.

And, “I wonder what this person really thinks? They seem to be to be quite serious and what they
say and their attitude certainly is what I’d like it to be. I would like there to be a God
somewhere who is thinking of us, and who is kind, and who looks after us, and cares about us. And
I’d like – I’d like to think that and that’s the kind of world I dream of. Hmm, well maybe I should
start thinking that way a bit.” Of course, of course, of course, they’ll come more readily. But
you might be pulling somebody in who ought not to be in. You might be pulling a goat into the sheep
fold who shouldn’t be in, and we’re burdened with that, we’re burdened with settling their eternal
destiny and making sure that we know whether they are justified in coming into heaven.

That isn’t our place at all. Jesus said plainly that even he didn’t know the times and certainly we
are not only ignorant of the times, but we are not fitted to be the judges of the people. And I
still remember that verse, I can’t remember where it is, but it’s in Romans and I remember coming
across it and the Greek gives – when you go to the original Greek it comes out very clearly, that
this is not a time for condemnation, this is a time for the grace of life. And whatever we do these
days, it’s not the time for judging, it’s not the time for condemning. We’re not called upon to
sort out that – what is an impossible task.

I don’t know what’s going to happen at the end, only God does. But it’s very plain that the verses
of scripture imply that it’s not just the Jews, but the Gentiles also, and it’s not just the
Christian Gentiles, it’s the people who are not thought of as Christians, that they also were
included in Christ and they will not be lost because they weren’t included in Christ. We don’t know
if they can be lost because they eventually die in unbelief, but they certainly won’t be lost
because they’re not included in Christ and our responsibility and our attitude to them is based on
the present moment.

We are not called upon to behave to them as if they’re condemnation has already been settled and as
if hell had already opened up. We are called upon to treat them as they are at this moment and even
God himself, when they were dead in their trespasses and sins made them alive and raised them up,
and his Son Jesus bore them even while they were crucifying him.

So, I’d just ask you what is your attitude to your customers and to the people that you meet
day-by-day and I would say that I certainly have been tinged for a long time with the normal
attitude of religious people and Christian people, and it is that those people do not believe in the
same things as we do and do not think the same way as we do, and we must pray for them that they
will think the same things as we do. And all the while, God looks upon them as a precious part of
his dear Son and longs for them to know that they also have been crucified with him and have been
raised, and now sit at his right hand and he wants them to enjoy that place, and to come into that
revelation. They’ll do it a lot easier if we believe for them and we think that way about them.
Let us pray.