DOES EPHESIANS 1:1-11
SUPPORT CALVINISM?
QUESTION: Calvinists say that Ephesians 1:1-11 clearly
establishes the absolute all-inclusive sovereignty of God, including the unconditional
predestination of the elect to salvation. How do you interpret this text?
ANSWER: A right understanding of Ephesians 1:1-11
begins with the recognition that God’s purpose for Israel was from the
beginning limited to preparing for the coming of the Messiah, namely, for the incarnation
of God the Logos as the human person Jesus of Nazareth. Once the Messiah came,
it was God’s eternal purpose to merge all believing Israelites and all believing
Gentiles into one new body called the church. This is the main point of
the book of Ephesians, and it is the key to understanding the often misused passage
in Ephesians 1:1-11.
It is quite obvious that Ephesians
puts considerable emphasis on God’s purposive will, or on what God desires to
decides to do. Verse 5 says, “He predestined us to adoption as sons through
Jesus Christ to Himself, according to the kind intention [eudokia] of his
will [thelēma].” Verse 9 says, “He made known to us this mystery of His
will [thelēma], according to His kind intention [eudokia] which
He purposed [protithēmi] in Him.” Then in verse 11 we read that “we have
obtained an inheritance having been predestined according to His purpose who
works all things after the counsel of His will.” In this last verse we find
three words—prothesis, boulē and thelēma—practically piled on top
of one another in an effort to stress the concept of eternal purpose.
This last verse also says that God
works “all things” that the counsel of His will. This is why determinists such
as Calvinists speak of an eternal decree that is all-inclusive and universal:
does not Paul say all things? But those who take this in an absolute
sense have ignored the immediate context of the main theme of Ephesians as a
whole. The term “all things” (panta) is not necessarily absolute and
must be understood within the limitations imposed by the context. This is seen
quite clearly in 1 Corinthians 12:6, which says that God is the one “who works
all things [panta] in all persons.” The language is exactly parallel to
that of Ephesians 1:11; even the verb is the same [energeō. Yet the
context of 1 Corinthians 12 clearly limits “all things” to spiritual gifts from
the Holy Spirit, and verse 11 says so specifically: “But one and the same
Spirit works all these things, distributing to each one individually just as He
wills.” In a similar way, the context of Ephesians 1:11 does not allow us to
think of the “all things” in an absolutely inclusive sense, but shows us the
specific focus of God’s purpose which is in view here.
What is this focus? The key to a
proper understanding of this lies in Paul’s reference to “the mystery of His will”
in verse 9. What is the mystery of which Paul speaks here? He refers to it
again in chapter 3, where he marvels that he in particular was given the
privilege of knowing this mystery. He says that “by revelation there was made
known to me the mystery, as I wrote before in brief. By referring to this, when
you read you can understand my insight into the mystery of Christ” (3:3-4). “To
me,” he exults, “the very least of all saints, this grace was given, to preach
to the Gentiles the unfathomable riches of Christ, and to bring to light what
is the administration of the mystery which for ages has been hidden in God”
(3:8-9). We must be careful not to make the mystery too general, as if it were
simply the fact of Christ or the fact of salvation. No, it is much more
specific than this. Paul states it most specifically in 3:6, namely, “that the
Gentiles are fellow heirs and follow members of the body, and fellow partakers
of the promise in Christ Jesus through the gospel.” This is the great mystery “which
in other generations was not made known to the sons of men, as it has now been
revealed to His holy apostles and prophets in the Spirit” (3:5). And the
Apostle Paul, who was appointed to be the Apostle to the Gentiles, was simply overwhelmed
by this fact. No one was more committed to Jewish exclusiveness than Saul of
Tarsus; thus no one was more amazed at the fact that God was now, in Christ,
abandoning the exclusiveness and uniting the Gentiles (the Gentiles!)
with the Jews into a new kind of body called the church (3:10). In chapter two
he comments on the fact that Jesus broken down the barrier that divided Jews
and Gentiles and thus made the two groups ito one new man, reconciling them both
in one body to God through the cross (2:11-16). Even his reference to marriage—“the
two shall become one flesh”—reminds him again of this great mystery, that the
two groups (Jews and Gentiles) have become one body in Christ and His church
(5:31-32).
This is the same mystery than he is
writing about in chapter one of Ephesians. Yes, God works all things after the
counsel of His will, but what specific counsel or plain is in view? The plan to
unite the Jews and Gentiles in one body called the church (3:10) to the praise of
His glory. This specific purpose is seen in the verses that immediately follow
1:11: “. . . to the end that we who were the first to hope in Christ would be
to the praise of His glory. In Him, you also, after listening to the message of
truth, the gospel of your salvation—having also believed, you were sealed in
Him with the Holy Spirit of promise, who is given as a pledge of our inheritance,
with a view to the redemption of God’s own possession, to the praise of His
glory” (1:12-14).
In these verses (as in 1;4-11) that “we”
refers to Jews and the “you” refers to the Gentiles. In this case Paul
identifies himself with the Jews, whom he calls “the first to hope in Christ.” In
the previous verses he dwells on God’s purpose for the Jews as a nation: how
God chose them (“us”) before the foundation of the world, how He predestined
them to adoption as sons, how He offered them the gospel of grace first (see Romans
1:16; 2:9-10). It should be noted that the references to predestination in Ephesians
1 are actually predestination of the nation of Israel, not of individual
believers. Paul’s main emphasis up through verse 12 is on God’s purpose for the
Jews (“us”). But then in the next verses he begins speaking in the second
person, “you,” i.e., you Gentiles. In verse 12 he says that “we who were the
first to hope in Christ” were used to the praise of his glory, but now “you
also” have been brought into the sphere of salvation “to the praise of His
glory” (v. 14). This is the theme he continues to develop, then, in chapters
two and three especially.
Thus we see that the “all things” in Ephesians
1:11 does not have a universal reference; God’s purposive or decretive will
does not include all things that happen in the whole scope of nature and
history. It does include the establishment of the church, however, as the body
which unites Jews and Gentiles under the one head, Jesus Christ (cf. 1:10).
This is probably the main reference in Ananias’s commission of Saul of Tarsus
in Acts 22:14, “The God of our fathers has appointed you to know His will” (see
also Colossians 1:17), namely, his will to join Jews and Gentiles into one
church. (Jack Cottrell, The Bible Versus Calvinism [The Collected Works
of Jack Cottrell 4; Mason, Ohio: The Christian Restoration Association, 2018], 191-94)