Having the Eyes of Your Understanding Enlightened
Posted by Pastor Pat on November 5, 2009
Read Ephesians 1:15-23
In order to treat this passage appropriately, it must be read in light of what was just stated in 1:3-14: God as a trinity in the totality of His essence and energy redeemed His people from sin’s debt by forgiving their sins and then adopted them as His sons and daughters. All of this was freely bestowed and lavishly dispensed.
As those who are sons and daughters, Paul now prays for their continued growth in the knowledge of Him. Just as God can bless because He is blessed, so can He now give knowledge of His glory because He is the Father of glory.
Whatever the weight of the information given in verses 3-14 it is now expressed along three distinct petitions. The two ideas (vv. 3-14 and vv. 17-23) must be seen as complimentary and parallel. First, Paul prays that his audience would know the person of Christ. Christ as the agent through whom the Godhead works and reveals is central to the entire story. Unless and until we grasp this, nothing else matters. And when we do grasp this, nothing else matters. It is impossible to overstate the issue. If Jesus is not the centerpiece of one’s own personal story, then there is nothing but ultimate darkness and despair. The story of God was written in such a way that it cannot make sense apart from Jesus Christ as the cornerstone on which the entire structure rests, or as the linchpin that keeps the wheels from falling off the axle of life.
