Here is the next section of Ephesians, chapter 1 verses 6-9:
...to the praise of the glory of His grace, which He freely bestowed on us in the Beloved. In Him we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of His grace which He lavished on us. In all wisdom and insight He made known to us the mystery of His will, according to His kind intention which He purposed in Him.
I see two words that intrigue me so I'm going to park here and take a look...
the first is lavished - "the riches of His grace which He lavished on us"
The second is mystery - "He made known to us the mystery of His will"
...to the praise of the glory of His grace, which He freely bestowed on us in the Beloved. In Him we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of His grace which He lavished on us. In all wisdom and insight He made known to us the mystery of His will, according to His kind intention which He purposed in Him.
I see two words that intrigue me so I'm going to park here and take a look...
the first is lavished - "the riches of His grace which He lavished on us"
The second is mystery - "He made known to us the mystery of His will"
First:
lavish is the greek word perisseuo and it means to "exceed a fixed number of measure, to be left over and above a certain number or measure." It means to give and give to the point that the receiver can hardly handle the abundance...there's almost no room left!
Think of it: Jesus has REDEEMED us...paid for our salvation by dying on the cross. Redemption means to pay a price for freedom ...it's the Greek word lootruo, which means, “to liberate on the receipt of a ransom.” (Gaebelein)
God just unloaded the ransom money, a true fortune. This should never be taken lightly. The cost was monstrous. Our gratitude should be the same. Stop right now and thank Jesus for what He's done for you to give you a path to Heaven. We can never comprehend the vast fortune of grace paid for our salvation.
Second:
The mystery is something made available to us once we become Christians. WE get to see GHod's will unraveling before us! Epheisans 2:10 says we are created in Christ Jesus to do good works, and we start seeing these roads open up before us.
“In the New Testament sense a mystery is something which is hidden to the heathen but clear to the Christian.” (Barclay)
The Greek word is musterion and it means " a hidden or secret thing, not obvious" or as Strong's says, a hidden truth, "secret counsels which govern God in dealing with the righteous, which are hidden from ungodly and wicked men but plain to the godly."
The late Bible scholar Ray Stedman helps explain:
Verse three of the first chapter is in many ways the theme of the letter---in Christ---is the key:
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.
"There are many who take the phrase, "the heavenly places," which appears several times in this letter, as a reference to heaven after we die, but if you do this, you will miss the whole import of Paul's letter. While it does talk about going to heaven some day, it is talking primarily about the life you live right now. The heavenly places are not off in some distant reach of space or on some planet or star; they are simply the realm of invisible reality in which the Christian lives now, in contact with God, and in the conflict with the devil in which we are all daily engaged."
God opens up the road map and lets us peek at the next road ahead, or the ways we can find a detour around frustration or temptation. Thank the Lord for the revealing He makes known. What a gracious Lord!
