21 to Him be glory in the church by Christ Jesus to all generations, forever and ever. Amen.
Chapter three ends the first half of Ephesians dealing with our positional truth in Christ. Chapters four to six set forth how we apply our positional status with God to experience. We need to know who we are before we do what we do.
21 to Him
“To Him” refers to God the Father.
be [the] glory
God deserves to be glorified for what He has done for us in Christ and in the church. If God does the doing, then God gets the glory. Since the working comes from Him, the glory goes to Him. The word “glory” in the Greek is preceded by a “the.” “The glory” is due the Father. This is His intrinsic glory.
in the church
The church is a masterpiece of the grace of God. Grace is what God does as over against what we do. The Father gets “the glory” in the church because He has done something wonderful by doing what He did for the church.
The place of the church in this doxology is appropriate because the universal church holds status, or position with God, forever because of Christ. Our status is the same as Jesus has before God. God is glorified in this because He did the doing regarding the church; it was all His work that made the church possible.
by Christ Jesus
There is a correlation between the church and Christ. We cannot separate the church in Christ and the ultimate glory of God. Since Jesus is the mediator of how God blesses us, Jesus is the only way to glorify God.
to all generations,
Every generation should glorify God.
forever and ever.
Our praise to God will last throughout eternity (Ro 11:36; 2 Ti 4:18). Ascription of praise will never come to an end.
Amen.
By an “amen” Paul asserted what he just prayed.
PRINCIPLE:
We give God glory for the grace He gives to the church.
APPLICATION:
God’s power manifests His purpose for creation. That purpose of creation is to manifest His glory. He especially gets this glory because of what He did in Christ.
Theology proper, or the doctrine of God and His works, is the foundation of all doxology. We praise God, for He is the provider for everything we are and do. The first half of Ephesians dealt with who we are; we have privilege before God because of Christ. The last half of Ephesians is what we should engage in because of who we are (chapters four to six). Positional truth is the basis for application. What God has done for us is the reason we do what we do.
Greetings,
I am new to this web-site and am in the process of reading the commentary on the book of ephesians which i to this point find very insightful, but it ends at 3:21 and there are 6 chpts to this book.
Could someone inform on how i go about accessing the rest or is this book, commentary a work in progress. Thank you, and bless all in Christ Jesus.
Glenn, this is the current book I am working on. I am going overseas in a few days and will not get back to Ephesians for some time. Also, Ephesians is not edited as yet.