With Me In The Winepress – Ephesians 1:2-3
Part Two of our new Bible Study on the book of Ephesians.
Ephesians 1:2 (ESV)
2 Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.
Grace, one of my favorite definitions of this word is the Divine influence upon the heart, and the gratitude that resorts from it. Verse two of Ephesians is a reflection of Genesis. Man fell, and God spent His time bringing about the events that would enable us to experience redemption.
The Father pursued His wayward children all the way to Calvary, beginning as He walked in the garden in the cool of the day. I can’t imagine how The Lord must have felt after the fall of man. The heartbreak and the anguish, knowing that they were hurting, confused, scared, and in pain. In that moment He instantly issued a promise to them that things would not always be this way.
Genesis 3:14-15 (ESV)
14 The LORD God said to the serpent, “Because you have done this, cursed are you above all livestock and above all beasts of the field; on your belly you shall go, and dust you shall eat all the days of your life.
15 I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and her offspring; He shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise His heel.”
In the conversation, the first person God addresses in verse fourteen is the serpent. He pronounces judgement on the serpent and by extension the enemy before He ever speaks to Adam and Eve. In the process of the enemy’s judgement, He gives Eve and Adam hope.
Before He gets to the pain of child bearing, He grants the promise in it. Before He gets to the thorns and thistles of the ground, God shows Adam all things will be under the feet of Him Who would crush their enemies.
Isaiah 32:17-18 (KJV)
17 And the work of righteousness shall be peace; and the effect of righteousness quietness and assurance for ever.
18 And my people shall dwell in a peaceable habitation, and in sure dwellings, and in quiet resting places;
In two verses Isaiah words it so perfectly. The work of righteousness shall be peace, and the effect of righteousness quietness and assurance for ever. Or as the songwriter said, “Blessed Assurance, Jesus is mine”. God’s plan was to cleanse us, wrap us in His righteousness, and through His holiness we have peace.
Ephesians 1:3 (KJV)
3 Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who hath blessed us with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ:
It is why The Lord uses the word Father back to back in the second and third verse of the first chapter in Ephesians. Eve’s promise is Ephesians rejoicing, what The Father said in a garden now saddened, He accomplished in another garden.
John 19:41-42 (ESV)
41 Now in the place where he was crucified there was a garden, and in the garden a new tomb in which no one had yet been laid.
42 So because of the Jewish day of Preparation, since the tomb was close at hand, they laid Jesus there.
Instantly my mind, and possibly yours, went to Gethsemane, and that is completely part of this, but we can forget one thing. John said there was a garden outside of the tomb. The commentator John Gill seemed to think the garden also belonged to Joseph of Arimathea.
He said that rich men would have gardens throughout the city for pleasure and convenience. John Gill also points out it was a new tomb where no one had been laid. Historically that matters regarding how Jews buried their dead, but spiritually this was a tomb that no one else could have been laid in.
This was Joseph’s tomb, a man’s tomb, not The God Man’s tomb, and yet Jesus borrowed it. The Incarnation of God in the flesh only happened once. While it was God’s plan, it had never happened in time before, nor would it ever again. God did not need, nor have a tomb, because He could not die, until He became something that could die.
Again, God’s promise to Eve, He would become something that could take man’s place. It wasn’t God’s tomb, it was man’s, but God in the flesh used it. He wrapped Himself in flesh, was born in a Manger, so He could take our place in death.
Because He is God, the Psalmist David said, it wasn’t possible for death to hold Him. Jesus said, if I lay down My life, I will pick it up again. I suspect that Eve did not completely understand it when God said it, but as a spotless lamb The Son Of Man died, as God He rose from the dead.
John was saying as The Word Of God, The Seed, He was planted in the tomb, and rose as the first fruits of the Resurrection. Mary didn’t realize it was Jesus, she thought He was the Gardener, and she was also right. The Master Gardener, The Rock Of Ages, became The Seed that is The Word, so we could experience new life, His life.
Ephesians one and three goes on to explain that God placed every spiritual blessing we have in Christ. He is our righteousness, our hope, our armor, and our all. Righteousness and peace are because of Christ, every need we have He supplies. Because of Him, we are now children of God. We grow in the presence of The Gardener, as the planting of His garden.
