The Gifts of Christmas

 The scriptures referred to are Ephesians 1:3-19.

Someone has pointed out that when you are a child the excitement of Christmas is all about getting to open your presents. When you are an adult, however, it is all about watching your children or grandchildren open their presents. And science backs this up. Studies on the elements of happiness have shown that you get more bang for your buck, so to speak, if you buy something, not for yourself, but for someone else.

This shouldn't surprise us because God is the original giver. He gives us a world full of good things and he gives us abilities and opportunities to enjoy them and use them to spread the joy. Sadly, we have often used them to do things other than what they were intended for. We have, in the words of Genesis, “corrupted” or “ruined” God's world and filled it with violence. (Genesis 6:11) God sent Jesus to change that by changing us. Like we said last week, he wants to change us from mere creations of his into his children. And he loves to give his children gifts.

So in today's passage from Ephesians Paul speaks of those gifts. “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places...” Or as William Barclay translated the last part, “with all the spiritual blessings which are only found in heaven.” In other words, these are blessings only to be found in God's presence. And then Paul goes on to list them, though this is obscured by the fact that in the Greek, verses 3 through 14 are one long sentence. But there are at least 3 blessings that Paul mentions. And they all come from what we discussed last week.

In verse 5, Paul wrote, “He destined us for adoption as his children through Jesus Christ...” The blessings he is talking about come from the fact that God adopted us. Barclay says that for an adoption in ancient Rome, scales and copper were brought out. The natural father would sell the child to the adoptive father and then symbolically buy the child back—twice. But not on the third time. The adoptive father would then go to a magistrate and plead the case for adoption. So you really had to want to adopt the child.

In speaking of the first blessing, Paul says, “In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses...” Redemption literally means “buying back” and was used of paying a ransom or buying someone out of slavery. In this case, Paul is talking of slavery to sin, the destructive and self-destructive ways we act. (Romans 6:16-18) And the price is not copper but iron, so to speak: the iron-carrying blood spilled by Jesus on the cross. He loves us enough to pay that high a price.

As part of our redemption our sins are forgiven by God. The Greek word translated “trespass” literally means “a false step, a slip up.” It can mean “a falling away” after being close to something, like the truth, or someone, like, in this case, God. It can be inadvertent. Sometimes we don't realize that we are drifting away from God. And Paul says that this is “according to the riches of his grace.” It's not that we deserve to be redeemed and forgiven. We haven't earned it. We can't. God is gracious, granting us blessings that we have no right to expect.

Paul gets to the second blessing in verse 11. “In Christ we have also obtained an inheritance...” Here he is reminding us that, once adopted, a person has the same rights and privileges as a natural born child. He can inherit a portion of his father's property. In our case our inheritance is the kingdom of our God and Father. In Revelation, after John sees the new heaven and new earth, the One on the throne tells him, “He who overcomes will inherit all this, and I will be his God and he will be my son.” (Revelation 21:7) Lest you think this is referring to Jesus as son of God, in the letters addressed to the 7 churches in chapters 2 and 3 of Revelation, numerous promises are made to believers who overcome, or conquer, which is another good translation of the word.

First Christ says, “To him who overcomes I will give the right to eat from the tree of life, which is in the paradise of God,” In other words, we inherit eternal life. (Revelation 2:7)

Then Christ says,“He who overcomes will not be hurt at all by the second death.” In other words, we need not fear punishment in the afterlife. (Revelation 2:11)

Christ says, “To him who overcomes I will give some of the hidden manna. I will also give him a white stone with a new name written on it, known only to him who receives it.” (Revelation 2:17) In other words, we will receive the bread of heaven, ie, Christ. (John 6:33-35) The white stone might be a token for admission to the Messianic banquet. And the new name recalls Isaiah 62:2 where it says, “You will be called by a new name that the Lord himself will give you.” A new name is given to each new person in Christ.

Christ says, “To him who overcomes and does my will to the end, I will give authority over the nations....I will also give him the morning star.” (Revelation 2:26, 28) In other words, as Paul says to Timothy, “If we endure, we will reign with him.” (2 Timothy 2:12) As it says later in Revelation, “...with your blood you purchased humans for God from every tribe and language and and people and nation. You have made them to be a kingdom and priests to serve our God, and they will reign on earth.” (Revelation 5:9-10) In other words, we are a royal priesthood and will rule as such. And in Revelation 22:16, Jesus identifies himself as the morning star. In other words, we get Jesus and we will always be with him. (1 Thessalonians 4:17)

Christ says, “He who overcomes will, like them, will be dressed in white. I will never blot out his name from the book of life, but will acknowledge his name before my Father and his angels.” (Revelation 3:5) In other words, our filthy garments will be cleansed by his blood. (Revelation 7:14) And we have assurance of eternal life and being one of God's people.

Christ says, “Him who overcomes I will make a pillar in the temple of my God. Never again will he leave it. I will write on him the name of my God and the name of the city of my God, the new Jerusalem, which is coming down out of heaven from my God, and I will also write on him my new name.” (Revelation 3:12) In other words, besides providing support in service to God, the person will be identified as someone who belongs to God, who is a citizen of his heavenly city and who will receive a full revelation of Jesus' character.

Finally Christ says, “To him who overcomes I will give the right to sit with me on my throne, just as I overcame and sat down with my Father on his throne.” Again, it is part of our inheritance to reign with Christ. In the ancient Near East it was common for sons to reign alongside their fathers as co-rulers. We know this from the fact that the dates of their reigns overlap. So as Jesus rules alongside his Father, we will rule alongside him. What a remarkable inheritance!

And lest you be worried that “overcome” or “conquer” means this is something we must do through our own strength, I remind you of what Jesus said to the disciples. “I have told you these things so that that in me you may have peace. In the world you have trouble and suffering, but take courage—I have overcome the world.” (John 16:33) If we remain in Christ, we too will overcome the troubles and suffering the world inflicts on us. As Paul, facing his execution no less, said, “I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.” (Philippians 4:13) In Romans 8, after listing things that threaten to separate us from the love of Christ—trouble, distress, persecution, famine, nakedness, danger and sword—Paul says, “In all these things, we are more than conquerors through him who loved us.” (Romans 8:37)

So the second spiritual blessing Paul lists in Ephesians is a tremendous array of what he calls in verse 18 “the riches of his glorious inheritance.” And the third blessing builds on that. Paul writes, “In him you also, when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation, and had believed in him, were marked with the seal of the promised Holy Spirit; this is the pledge of our inheritance toward redemption as God's own people...” The Holy Spirit we receive when we respond to the gospel and believe or put our whole trust in Jesus Christ is the pledge or down payment on our inheritance. Normally an adopted child would go to live with his or her parent. In this case, however, God comes to live with or in us. As Jesus says, “If anyone loves me, he will obey my word, and my Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our home with him.” (John 14:23) Or to put it another way, Jesus says, “...I am in my Father and you are in me and I am in you.” (John 14:20) Through the Holy Spirit, Jesus lives in and through us. Thus Paul prays that the members of the church, the body of Christ, may know “what is the immeasurable greatness of his power for us who believe.” (v. 19) Or as Jesus put it, “I tell you the truth, anyone who has faith in me will do what I have been doing. He will do even greater things than these, because I am going to the Father.” (John 14:12) And indeed believers united and working together in his Spirit have preached the good news to more people that Jesus did when on earth, and through schools have taught more people than he did, and through hospitals have healed more people than he did, and through food ministries have fed more people than he did when he fed the 5000. Because, of course, he did it through us, the body of Christ, by means of his Spirit. As he said, “I am the vine; you are the branches. The one who remains in me—and I in him—bears much fruit, because apart from me you can accomplish nothing.” (John 15:5)

These are just some of the spiritual blessings we receive as children of God. I don't think this list is exhaustive, any more than I believe Paul's list of the gifts of the Spirit in 1 Corinthians 12:4-11 are. After all, Paul uses the word “immeasurable.” That wouldn't mean anything if we could enumerate them all. We don't even know everything about this creation in which we live here and now. God is infinite and I imagine that part of the pleasure of being with him for eternity is exploring all that is wonderful about him and in him. As the psalmist says, “You will show me the path of life. In your presence is fullness of joy. In your right hand there are pleasures forevermore.” (Psalm 16:11) This life is just a taste of the innumerable good things God has in store for us.

Of course, right now we experience much less pleasurable things, which are part and parcel of our current existence in this fallen world. Yet of them Paul says, “For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which will be revealed toward us. For the creation waits with eager expectation of the children of God to be revealed.” (Romans 8:18-19) Imagine that: something so glorious that all our pain, all our losses, all our sufferings will fade in comparison when it arrives. And what is it all creation is waiting for? Us. Not as we are but as we will be when our transformation—our sanctification and glorification—is complete, when we are no longer babes in Christ, dependent on milk and soft foods, but fully grown and mature in Christ. As John says, “Beloved, now we are children of God, and it is not yet revealed what we will be. But we know that, when he is revealed, we will be like him, for we will see him just as he is.” (1 John 3:2) When Jesus returns and we see him face to face, it will be like looking in a mirror. What he is, the full revelation of the God who is love, we will be too.

You know what all children want? They want to be grown up, like their parents. They want to be wise and to be able to understand the things they don't as yet and to do the things they can't as yet. If we are children of God, we want to be like him. We want to be as loving and wise and fair and good as he is. We want to be like Jesus.

Well, he has given us all the gifts, all the tools we need to grow up into what he is. So let us not just count our blessings, let's put them to use. However long it takes, how difficult it turns out to be, it will be worth it.