Cosmic Atonement & Corporate Solidarity in the Book of Ephesians (Ty Gibson)

Ty Gibson

WHAT IS COSMIC ATONEMENT?

We’re here to study the book of Ephesians, which means we’re here to engage our intellects. Hopefully, by the grace of God, we’re going to engage our hearts, our emotions. Hopefully, by the grace of God, it’s going to impact the way we see the people around us so that we begin to love one another more carefully, more like Jesus loves. So, we’re here to do something practical, not just academic. We’re not simply trying to master big sweeping concepts. We’re looking for God to literally raise the quality of our lives and the way we see one another, the way we relate to one another. And the book of Ephesians will do that for us.

Now, John has given us a large overview of the book of Ephesians. So, I want you to know ahead of time that what’s going to happen now is we’re going to break down chapter by chapter, verse by verse. We’re going to break down the whole book of Ephesians over the next few days. So, you’re going to hear some of the concepts that John mentioned in passing, but that redundancy, that repetition is intentional. So, we’re not stepping over one another. We just basically got the aerial view. So, this is the lay of the land. This is the forest. And now we’re going to begin to land in the forest and examine patches of that forest, individual trees. We’re going to begin understanding the things that were just in large sweeping language presented to us in greater detail. Understandable?

So in the book of Ephesians, I have tonight chapter 1 verses 1-10. Now, as we move through our time together from God’s grand plan, big overview, I’m dealing now with cosmic atonement. It’s a pretty lofty title. You’re about to find out what is meant by this idea of cosmic atonement.

So, in order for us to most effectively grasp the material, I’m going to tell you what I’m going to tell you, or more precisely, what Paul’s about to tell us. Here’s Paul’s reasoning in verses 1-10. Basically, in Christ, Paul is teaching us God has past tense already redeemed us. He has forgiven us. We are accepted. There’s nothing we can do in order to earn that redemption, that forgiveness, that acceptance. This is our position.

Now Paul reasons forward and says that this was an epic act of grace on God’s part. One version says a lavishing of grace. This is amazing what God has done. He has redeemed us, forgiven us, and accepted us. And this was an epic act of grace.

But then Paul shifts gears. But this he tells us this epic act of grace entailed something more. What’s the something more? Well, Paul then says, well, the something more is that it was also a supreme act of wisdom and prudence on God’s part by which the whole universe is made one in Christ.

Now, I’m fully aware of the fact that right now we’re thinking the whole universe. I mean, what are we talking about? Stars and galaxies and constellations. Well, from a biblical perspective, the Apostle Paul operates with the assumption of a heaven and earth cosmology. And from Paul’s perspective, not only is Earth inhabited or populated, that would be us approximately 8 billion humans. According to Paul and according to all of scripture, as we’re about to discover, the heavens are populated.

You could say with theological accuracy that we live in a populated universe. We live in a universe in which humans are not the only rational, sentient, volitional creatures alive in the universe. If we could reach out far enough and travel the universe at large, we would discover ancient civilizations of unfallen worlds, and we would be delighted to spend time with them.

But here’s the thing. Presently, they wouldn’t be super delighted to have us visit. There is a very real sense in which our world has been quarantined because if you haven’t noticed, you’re a pain in the neck. And so am I. We have problems. And that’s an understatement.

And so we were originally as humans created in the image of God to have free reign of the universe. The universe was to be our cosmic playground, if you will. Can you imagine what it would be like to not be quarantined to planet Earth and just to be able to travel to worlds afar and to meet creatures of all different descriptions who have never sinned, worlds that are defined by perfect pure innocence?

POPULATED UNIVERSE AND COSMIC CONFLICT

The only suffering that they’ve ever witnessed is at a distance seeing what’s taking place on planet Earth with human history. The Apostle Paul says in a passage not in Ephesians that our world is—he uses the word theatron in the Greek—a theater. Our world is a theater and that means there are bleachers. This world is the stage. To quote Shakespeare, all the world is the stage and we are the actors. Shakespeare lifted that from Paul. This is a Pauline concept.

Paul says that our world is a stage upon which events are unfolding and unfallen worlds are observing what’s taking place on planet Earth. And the thing that they’re watching for, now listen, the thing that they’re watching for, the thing that they’re interested in, as cosmic scientists, if you will, observing what’s happening on planet Earth, what are they looking for? They’re looking for what effect does the grace of God have on these people. How does it impact them? Does it change them? Does it have a deep transformative influence? Does it change them from being hard and jaded to being sensitive and empathetic? Does it open them up to other possibilities other than their own egocentric narcissistic impulses?

Is it possible for these creatures, these fallen beings, is it possible for them to have the quarantine lifted and let them travel throughout the universe? And is it possible that they would not spread the rebellion and the suffering that is so normal to their existence? Because we don’t want it up here. We don’t want it out here. I’m not sure if it’s up or out, it’s wherever it is.

So Paul is aiming for something very high. So let’s just get into the text. Let’s just walk through the passage. Let’s do that. Let’s just go through verses 1-10 right here in what’s the opening salutation.

The Apostle Paul basically—I’m not exaggerating for effect—actually this should be verses 1 and 2. I’m not exaggerating. Paul reveals everything that is about to follow in the book of Ephesians in this opening salutation. It’s all here in embryonic form.

Notice what Paul says. Paul, an apostle of Jesus Christ by the will of God, to the saints who are in Ephesus and faithful in Christ Jesus. Grace to you and peace from God our Father and from the Lord Jesus Christ.

Now, this just seems like a very simple opening greeting, but it’s not. It’s theologically dense and rich and it’s revolutionary. It is extremely subversive. Why? Well, because there’s a context here. There’s a historical context. There’s a theological context into which Paul is writing this letter. This is the sociological, theological, religious setting into which Paul is writing.

This is a world in which there are Jews and Gentiles. Now the word Gentiles is a biblical word, but we need to understand that what this means is Jews and everybody else, literally the rest of everyone, the whole human race. There’s the chosen people of God and the rest of y’all.

And from Paul’s standpoint in the first century, this division between Jews and Gentiles was not a pleasant division. This was hostile. This was extremely difficult to navigate. There were all kinds of rules and strictures. You couldn’t violate. You couldn’t touch. You couldn’t drink from. You couldn’t use a utensil. You couldn’t do anything that would in any way contaminate you as a Jew with anything that was the rest of y’all.

This was an extremely difficult situation, and essentially, to put it in modern terms, it was a very, very hostile us and them climate. There were insiders, which we’re going to be looking at in greater detail in chapter 2 of Ephesians. David will be unpacking that for us. There were insiders and there were outsiders. There was a deep separation, and that separation was characterized by enmity, by hostility, by hatred.

Have you been on social media? Their world was our world. Our world very much now is beginning to feel like that first century hostility. And all of this was based on a distorted picture of the character of God. Because listen very carefully, the bottom line of our theology is simply this: everybody ultimately acts out their picture of God. Whatever you believe to be fundamentally true about God’s posture toward you, you will tend under pressure to reflexively manifest that attitude toward others.

“US AND THEM”: HOW OUR PICTURE OF GOD SHAPES RELATIONSHIPS

You will treat God the way you perceive God treating you. And if you are in a transactional relationship with God, which is to say, if the gospel has not completely, radically changed your thinking, your feeling, and your relational dynamics, if when you fail, you are outside from God in your emotions and you feel like you got to do something to get God to love you again, to get God to be good with you again, that emotional vibe of now I’m out and God is against me—if you have to earn God’s favor, the people in your life will have to earn your favor.

You will operate with a premise of judgment rather than a premise of grace. When pressures come upon you, you will find yourself looking for your own us and them bifurcation so that you conveniently have somebody to hate in order to not deal with your own guilt and shame. As long as you can find somebody to feel really nasty about, you’re self-medicating against your own shame, your own guilt. You are compensating for unresolved issues in your own life.

Here’s the truth of the matter: you’ve never encountered anybody who is fundamentally worse than you. You’re as bad as it gets. You’ve never seen anybody do anything so bad that you wouldn’t do precisely the same thing given the same pressures, circumstances, genetics. We’re fundamentally sinners. We are fallen creatures capable of anything, whether we believe that to be true of ourselves or not. Under pressure, normal people do really hideous things.

And so all judgment against our fellow humans has its feeding ground in misconceptions of the character of God. And all of this division and hostility and enmity was grounded in bad theology, which is to say distorted pictures of the character of God.

To the degree that I rest in God’s love for me and I believe that I am forgiven, I am redeemed, I am accepted, that position of redeemed, forgiven acceptance changes the way I see you. It changes the way I’ll respond to you if you hurt me. It doesn’t mean I won’t be hurt if you violate me, but it does mean that I’ll never justify hatred in the name of Jesus. I’ll repent of my hatred and know that I’ve fallen short of the glory of God by hating you.

So this is the world into which Paul is writing. This is the hostile climate, and he comes along and he says, “Hey, I’ve got the gospel of Christ to preach to you.”

Paul is the primary practitioner of the gospel of Christ. Let’s be very clear here: none of the things that we encounter in the book of Ephesians are original to Paul. Paul is simply expounding on what is present in Christ. It’s not the gospel of Paul; it’s the gospel of Christ. Jesus is the subject. Paul has examined him and Paul is, let’s say it this way, doing theology on the premise of what he sees in Christ. Are you tracking?

Everything that he’s explaining in the book of Ephesians is expository of Christ. The Christ event, that is to say—this is shorthand—the Christ event is shorthand for the incarnation, the perfect life of love, the self-sacrificing death, the resurrection, and the ascension of Christ.

The Christ event, that thing, that portfolio of powerful grace, the Christ event shattered all those hostilities and enmities and divisions because in the person of Christ, we see God in Christ opening his arms in a massive embrace of everybody, Jews and Gentiles. These ethnic barriers don’t exist from the standpoint of the gospel of Christ.

And Paul gets this. He didn’t always get it. In fact, he had spent his whole life as a Hebrew of the Hebrews—his language for himself—which is to say he was as devoted to the Hebrew religion as you could possibly be. He was a Pharisee. And Paul had spent his life actually fine-tuning the enmity between Jews and Gentiles.

And listen very carefully now: no human being, not you, not me, not Paul, no human being’s self-centeredness and enmity is so deeply rooted in our natures that the only way we could ever possibly see anything different is by direct divine intervention called revelation.

PAUL’S CONVERSION FROM HOSTILITY TO GRACE

And that’s what Jesus did to Paul. Jesus just said, “Stop,” struck him down in an act of violent grace. He’s on the ground, he’s blind, and he says, “I’m Jesus whom you’re persecuting.” Paul has this radical conversion experience, and everything that he has ever believed has to be completely put aside, and he has to relearn his whole religion over again in the light of the gospel of Christ. And this is the guy that Jesus chose.

Now come back to that opening salutation, verses 1 and 2. Make the correction: Paul, an apostle of Jesus Christ by the will of God. Now, notice—I’m going to highlight something here—to the saints who are in Ephesus and faithful in Christ Jesus. Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.

What? The word saints here is hagios in the Greek, which means holy. This is you—Paul is saying to not Jews, but to Gentiles, to the outsiders, to the them, to those that we’re supposed to feel something negative about, those that we’re not supposed to feel positive toward—he calls them hagios. You’re the saints of God.

I know that you’ve been told and you’ve been taught and everybody has made it out to be that it’s just Jews that have the favor of God. No, no, no. You are the holy people of God. You are chosen. You are the chosen people. Israel now is converging into a single body called the body of Christ, which becomes new Israel.

I would like to spend more time talking about that because there’s a lot of confusion right now about Israel in the news. The fact is that we’re Israel. We’re Israel. According to the New Testament, the Israel of God is anybody who names the name of Christ. We are the Israel of God. And anybody else can be. All you have to do is say yes to Jesus and you’re a Jew. From a biblical standpoint, it’s a narrative designation, not an ethnic designation. It’s a covenantal relationship with God. It’s not an ethnic designation.

So you, you Gentiles, you people in Ephesus, you outsiders, you that we’re supposed to hate, you are the holy, set-apart, special people of God. And then he pronounces grace upon them. The grace of God is upon them. The whole world is under the impression that God favors them and nobody else, and Paul says, “No, you exist under the favor of God.” They’re like, “What? Who, us?” “Yeah, you. You.”

And then he says, “Peace upon you.” There is no hostility in God toward you because you belong. You’re in. You’re in. You’re not out. Your whole life you’ve been told you’re on the outside. No, no, no, no, no. You’re on the inside. You are redeemed. You are forgiven. You are accepted. Christ is for you. The Messiah is for you.

Paul, an apostle of Jesus Christ by the will of God, he’s pronounced this grace and peace upon them. But I want to highlight now, he says, “You are the faithful in Christ.” The word Christ here is the New Testament Greek for Messiah, the Hebrew.

This is: you are the faithful in Christ. We are whoever we are of any nation, of any ethnicity, it doesn’t matter Jew or Gentile, anybody who names the name of Christ. We are faithful in Christ while being unfaithful in ourselves. Don’t take this as a compliment; this is grace. You are being treated better than you deserve. You know this if you’re honest with yourself.

We are the faithful in Christ. This is the gospel. In Christ, here’s what happened, here’s the gospel according to Paul in all of his letters, but also in the book of Ephesians: in Christ, God became one of us to represent all of us.

IN CHRIST: GOD EMBRACES AND REPRESENTS HUMANITY

The universal embrace: he lived a life of perfect covenantal faithfulness. And because he lived a life of covenantal faithfulness, he said, “You’re faithful by my act of faithfulness.” He died on the cross as us and for us. It was substitutionary only in the sense that Jesus died for us as an act of self-sacrificing love. What’s happening at the cross is that he literally died as us, as one of us, as an actual member of the human race.

This is why in Galatians he can say: I am crucified with Christ; nevertheless, I live, yet not I, but Christ lives in me, and the life which I now live, I live by the faith of the Son of God who loved me and gave himself and died for me.

What? This is amazing. When Jesus died on the cross, who died? Everybody. Jew, Gentile, it doesn’t matter where you’re from, who you are. The entire human race was represented in the crucifixion of Christ. When Jesus died on the cross, he died as one of us for all of us.

And then he rose from the dead, praise God, and ascended to the right hand of the Father, victorious over Satan, sin, and shame. It has no right and no power over you and me. Even when you fail, you fail within the parameters of this grace. You just repent, get up, and truck on.

But you don’t wallow in your sin, your guilt, and shame because you’re not a pagan. You don’t believe that your righting can make God right. You believe that God is already right toward you. Therefore, that’s the ground you have to stand on. You can just get up: “I’m sorry, that was wrong, I shouldn’t have done that, that was horrible, I repent,” and you get up and you keep moving on. But you’re not out of his grace. You are with him because he’s with you.

This is what Martin Luther, the great Protestant reformer, said over and over again. I don’t know if you’ve read his writings; you should at least read his commentary on the book of Romans—it’ll rock your world. This is what the great Protestant reformer meant when he said—and it sounds crazy at first, but Paul, he got this from Paul, and we just read it in Ephesians 1—Luther came along and he said to the people, he said, “You are simultaneously righteous and sinful.”

You know you’re sinful; just take a look at yourself. Unless you’re completely delusional, you know that you are a sinner. But the gospel says you are righteous in Christ, not in yourself. You are the faithful in Christ. Grace and peace be to you. Grace upon you, peace upon you. It’s all good, it’s all good with Jesus. You’re going to be fine.

You’re going to get old in this world, you’re going to get kind of bulgy and bumpy, you’re going to start looking weird, then you’re going to die, then you’re going to be resurrected on the premise of his resurrection, and then you’re going to just walk into eternity future. God’s got you. You don’t need to indulge anxiety about your salvation. You are redeemed, you are forgiven, you are accepted. Live there, live there.

This concept is sometimes described by theologians as corporate solidarity. That is to say, when Jesus became a human—track with me here—when he became a human being, he entered into solidarity with the human race. He became one of us. Corporate, corpus, it’s the word body. He became a part of the corporate human body.

Jesus entered into empathetic solidarity with us. The incarnation of Christ is the greatest act of empathy in all of universal history. He said, “I’m just going to go be with them; I’m not just going to be God in their presence, I’m going to become one of them, I’m going to become a human, I’m going to become a member of the human race, and I will never, ever be separated from them.”

And then having taken our humanity upon himself—watch this—with our humanity, he lived a perfect life of covenantal faithfulness, he died a perfect death of covenantal self-sacrifice, and then he came forth from the grave with our flesh and took it to the right hand of the Father.

An actual member of the human race is right now seated in heavenly places at the right hand of the Father. Our brother, a member of the human race, a specimen of the human race right now is enthroned at the right hand of God. His name is Jesus and he’s our Savior, but he’s also our brother. He’s holding our space for us.

He’s like, “Hurry up, come on, I want you to be here with me because you are in me, I am your corporate head, I am your second Adam, I am the son of Abraham, I am the son of David, I am a member of the human race, I’m the son of man, I’m your bro, I am a member of the human race, and I am waiting for you to be with me where I am because I’m already with you where you are.”

He entered into corporate solidarity with us. You could say it like this: salvation for all is an accomplished historical reality in Christ.

You say, “Well, how could that be, Ty? Is Paul teaching universalism?” Now the word universalism, that’s a big highfalutin academic word for the idea that literally every member of the human race, whether they want to or not, is going to be saved, have eternal life, etc., etc.

We don’t subscribe to universalism—I’m putting that in quote marks as a concept, as a theological construct. But here’s what we do believe, and we believe it because Paul teaches it: that the whole human race is represented in Christ, that God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son, that he died for all, he resurrected as a member of the human race. He is our corporate representative.

So Jesus historically objectively accomplished the salvation of the human race. Now, faith is the appropriate response to that as we’re going to learn as Ephesians unfolds.

But then, oh, Paul just goes into some very deep stuff. Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ. There’s his corporate solidarity language again. Just as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before him in love.

This is what he’s chosen us for. But you have to remember every step of the way who he’s talking to: this is the letter to the Ephesians. This is Paul very clearly indicating that the chosen people category includes anybody who wants to be chosen. Literally anybody can say, “Me too.” “Yep.” “You too.” “How about me?” “Yep.” Are there any stipulations that would exclude me? No, no, no.

He chose us—us here is the Gentiles to whom he’s writing. There are no ethnic exclusions. Now, as we work through the book of Ephesians, we’re going to discover that this chosenness is a high calling that does entail moral engagement with the things of God. But our acceptance and our redemption is not premised on our moral compliance.

Our moral compliance emerges from—as we’re going to discover in a message that is going to be delivered by Angelo—we’re not saved by good works, but we are saved for good works. Are you tracking? One is the cause, the other is the effect. And if you get it switched around again, you’re a pagan, I’m a pagan. Salvation by works is the one false religion that will trip us up if we allow it to.

I’ve lost five pounds in the first few minutes of this. Okay. So here we are where the Apostle Paul says that we’ve been chosen before the foundation of the world.

Now, listen very carefully: Paul is working out, one of the concepts that he’s working out is this: the Jew-Gentile separation and the hostility is man-made. God never intended it. God entered into covenantal relationship with Israel on behalf of the world. The blessing was for the world, and the whole world was to be invited in.

The covenantal people of God was a missional designation, not a salvational designation. By choosing Israel, God wasn’t saying only Jews can be saved; he was saying, “I’m choosing you, would you go to the whole world for me and invite them in?” And they then allowed their egocentric, self-centered, fallen natures to get in the way, and they developed all kinds of hurdles and walls, and they misunderstood.

But God chose the Gentiles before the foundation of the world. God always wanted the door wide open to everybody.

GOD’S COVENANT WAS ALWAYS FOR THE WHOLE WORLD

This wasn’t God’s intent; people did bad things with theology in order to exclude others. The position of Christ in the heavenly realm is your position.

Are you a Gentile? Be careful, that designation is gone. You guys, it’s over, it’s over. I mean, yes, technically, ethnically, you know, I suppose my ancestors—I got to do that whole spit thing where you find out where you’re from, I think I’m from Wales or something like that, Scotland, something like that, Ireland, I don’t know—so technically I’m not a Jew, but spiritually, covenantally, narratively, I’m Jewish.

We are the Israel of God. The wall of separation between Jews and Gentiles shattered in Christ, and we are in heavenly places in Christ.

Now, when he says that he’s chosen us to be holy without blame before him in love, this is the New King James Version. Now, you can go one of two ways with this. David read the New International Version, which says that holy without blame before him, period, and then in love, then it follows with what God did in love.

Both are theologically accurate. The grammar, the way it’s divided by whoever the translators were, is, you know, suspect; humans are putting the periods and the commas, etc. This translation is suggesting that something really remarkable is happening, and the other is remarkable as well, that holiness or being designated the special people of God puts us in a blameless state—a blameless state, a state of innocence before him. This is our objective position.

Now, my experience varies from day to day depending on, you know, whether I’m having a good day or a bad day. I rise and fall. And the definition of a righteous man in scripture is the righteous man falls seven times and he gets up.

And so before him is our designation, the imputed righteousness of Christ in love, in love, his love lavished upon us, generating love for him in us, back to him.

Now, this is where it gets very, very interesting because Paul says that God in Christ has predestined us to adoption as sons by Jesus Christ to himself.

Now this phrase: to the praise of the glory of his grace. Paul is saying here that there is glory to God, a magnification of his character, a clarity about who God is, the righteousness of the character of God. The glory of God is present in his grace as he lavishes grace upon us.

Onlooking worlds say, “God is amazing, look at how he’s treating them,” and they praise him. They praise him on the premise of how he treats us. You and I are redeemed, forgiven, and accepted, and the angels and the unfallen worlds are like, “Praise God, God is awesome, his glory is magnified by his grace, his grace is what turns the table in the universe as we’re about to discover.”

In him, we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins according to the riches of his grace. Again, it’s grace that is lavishing this redemption and forgiveness upon us.

Now, here’s where we make a turn; please track with me here, track with Paul. Redemption, forgiveness by his grace, which he made to abound toward us in all wisdom and prudence.

What? According to Paul, grace, the lavish grace of God upon you and me and everyone, the fact that God is a God of grace and he’s pouring out his grace upon us—according to Paul, this is, yes, it’s marvelous, yes, it’s gentle, yes, it’s compassionate, yes, it’s merciful, yes, and it’s also wise and prudent of God to do so.

Now, I don’t know how that sets with you. At first glance, when I began to realize this, I thought, you know, I’m fine saying, “God, it’s very kind and merciful and compassionate of you to forgive me.” That feels natural, right? “God, it would be wise and prudent of you to forgive me.” That doesn’t—I don’t know about that.

Well, the way I did it with my hand on my hip, this is a problem because that’s not what Paul’s after. Here’s what Paul is telling us here: that the grace of God generates praise in the onlooking universe. It was an act of wisdom and prudence on God’s part to forgive us. Why? Well, let’s unpack it.

Because in lavishing grace upon us, there’s something else that is being accomplished in addition to my redemption and your redemption. Praise God for our salvation, right? But there’s something else going on here: having made known to us the mystery of his will according to his good pleasure which he purposed in himself.

THE WISDOM OF GOD’S GRACE

Very, very a lot of words there: that in the dispensation of the fullness of the times—this is Paul’s way of saying simply this: when the time was right, Jesus came, when human affairs were such, when people could see the difference between good and evil was very pronounced and obvious, when people had a palpable longing for intervention, human history and culture and so the social connections and the divisions and the hostilities and the politics and the economics and everything was of such a nature that Jesus came just at the right time when humanity felt its need.

Something like that is what he’s after. You can read about it in greater detail in the book Desire of Ages, the chapter called “The Fullness of the Times.”

Now, he says here that when time shall have reached its kind of climactic point, when it was just right for Jesus to intervene and to come, that he came—now check this out—that he might gather together in one all things in Christ, both which are in heaven and which are on earth in him.

That’s a mouthful, yes or no? So let’s just close with prayer. No, we have to figure this out, we have to figure this out.

So these words in green here, gathered together in one, as John just pointed out to us in the opening message, is a single Greek word that I would be happy to give anybody a $100 bill for if they can right now just call it out perfectly. And only I know whether you’re going to say it perfectly, so I’m not giving $100 to anybody.

But gathered together in one is a single Greek word, and it means as John pointed out, something like to sum up, to finalize, to unify, to consummate.

Now what is Paul saying? That Jesus came into the world—listen, listen, listen—yes, to redeem us, yes, to lavish grace upon us, but in lavishing grace upon us and redeeming us, he was also performing an act of wisdom and prudence that has the effect of unifying the whole universe, bringing the whole cosmos together in Christ in some sense.

What does he mean? What’s going on here? Well, heaven and earth. According to the Apostle Paul, the sacrifice of Christ on the cross of Calvary, what we sometimes call the atonement of Christ, the gospel of Christ, encompasses heaven and earth.

Not only are humans impacted by what Christ has done—let me say that again—it’s not just humans who are impacted by what Christ did, not just humans. The whole universe is impacted by what Christ has done. In what sense? How?

Well, whenever you read the heavens, just tuck this verse away in your notes: Revelation 12:12. And there are many others that point this out. Please notice that when Paul talks about the heavens, he’s not talking about stars and suns and galaxies and constellations.

When the Bible speaks of the heavens, it means something specific: “Rejoice, O heavens, and you who dwell in them.” You who dwell in them. According to this passage, the heavens are populated, right?

And the whole book of Revelation very interestingly has descriptions of all these heavenly entities and beings. You got four living creatures, you got 24 elders, you got 10,000 times 10,000 angels pulling from Daniel chapter 7. The universe is populated.

Now watch this, watch this. Paul says very clearly that the universe is populated with ancient unfallen beings who are observing like theological scientists the way God loves us, and they are praising him for it.

They’re like, “Look at the way God is treating them, certainly he should occupy the throne forever and ever, just and true are his ways, I mean, who wouldn’t want this God to be the sovereign monarch of the universe forever and ever?” He’ll never violate anybody.

Look what they did, they were his enemies, they crucified him, and he just kept on loving them, he just kept on loving them, he just kept on loving them and forgiving them. This God of ours, oh my goodness, how can we not love him, how can we not praise him, how can we not worship him?

Are you tracking with what Paul is sensing here, that in redeeming us, the whole universe is blown away by God’s grace? The whole universe is like, “Whoa, look at what God has done.”

And so this summing up, this gathering together in one all things, it’s something like the great summing up of the covenant story of scripture in Christ.

HOW THE CROSS IMPACTS THE WHOLE UNIVERSE

He is the point at which the whole story, the whole biblical narrative reaches its pinnacle in Christ. So Jesus—he has all kinds of names; here’s a new name for him: he’s the rose of Sharon, he’s the bread of life, he’s the water of life, he’s also the great summing up.

He is the great summing up. He’s the one who has summed up everything. He is the one who took the entire biblical story and brought it to a point, and the point is the love of God for every member of the human race as hard evidence on the table of the universe for everybody to look at. Hallelujah.

And as he sums up the covenant story, check this out: the great summing up of the covenant story produces the great unification of all things in Christ.

And he does all of this because it is the good pleasure that he purposed in himself. God just does whatever he pleases; aren’t you glad for that? He purposed in himself to do what pleases him.

I mean, that sounds tyrannical until you realize that the only thing that pleases him is to lavish grace and love upon you and me. God’s like, “I’m going to do whatever I want, I’m going to love them, I’m going to do whatever I want, I’m going to forgive them, I’m going to do what pleases me, and what pleases me is to redeem them, I’m going to do the good pleasure of my will, and what I please to do is to accept them, I’m just going to accept them.”

Why? Because that’s what I want to do. That’s what I want to do. And I’m God, I mean, who’s going to stop me? I can do whatever I want. So, I’m just going to love them and redeem them and accept them. That’s what I’m going to do.

And this is the good pleasure of my will. And this will produce the gathering together in one all things in Christ, both which are in heaven and which are on earth in him.

In closing, I want to read you a passage of commentary. You like Bible commentaries? No. No, you don’t, come on. There’s only one person on these premises who loves Bible commentaries, and that’s David Asscherick. Yes, we love Bible commentaries.

Here’s Bible commentary on this passage; now, just track with it, look at all of it: “Through the plan of salvation, a larger purpose is to be wrought out even than the salvation of man and the redemption of the earth—a larger purpose, something more than saving me, something more than saving you.”

I mean, isn’t that what it’s all about, just saving my miserable hide? No, no. There’s a larger purpose at play here.

Watch this: “Through the revelation of the character of God in Christ, the beneficence—that means the goodness—of the divine government would be manifested before the universe, the charge of Satan refuted, the nature and result of sin made plain, and the perpetuity—that’s the eternal nature—of the law of God fully demonstrated.”

This is the larger purpose. Now, she’s not done: “Through Christ’s redeeming work, the government of God stands justified.”

Watch this: “The omnipotent one is made known to who? To everybody, to us, the whole universe.” The omnipotent one is made known as the God of love. That’s the whole point, that he came to do that, to make this clear.

Now watch this: “Satan’s charges are refuted and his character is unveiled, we know who he is now, he murdered the Son of God at the cross of Calvary, we don’t like him, we align ourselves against him.”

Watch this: “Rebellion can never again arise, sin can never again enter the universe.” Are you not happy about this? “Through eternal ages, all are secure from apostasy.”

What? In Christ, the war between good and evil is resolved on all levels with such finalizing clarity that evil can be eradicated from existence without the possibility of it ever raising its ugly head again. Hallelujah.

GOD’S LARGER PURPOSE IN SALVATION

She’s not done: “The atonement will never need to be repeated, Jesus will never have to suffer and die again, the atonement will never need to be repeated, and there will be no danger of another rebellion in God, in the universe of God.”

Can you see why the onlooking universe is so excited? Yes.

“That which alone can effectually restrain from sin in this world of darkness—the love of God manifested in Christ at Calvary—will prevent sin in heaven.”

The significance of the death of Christ will be seen by saints and angels. The significance of the cross of Calvary: we’re not the only Bible students in the universe, we’re not the only ones who are theologically motivated, we’re not the only ones who are super psyched about understanding the character of God. The whole universe is examining the character of God, and the cross of Calvary is their study.

“Fallen men could not have a home in the paradise of God without the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world.”

Shall we not then exalt the cross of Christ? The angels ascribe honor and glory to Christ, for even they are not secure except by looking to the sufferings of the Son of God.

It is through the efficacy of the cross that the angels of heaven are guarded from apostasy. They look at Calvary and they say, “Nope, we’re not going in the direction that Satan and the fallen angels went, no way, God is too good, God is too amazing, his grace is too good, we know who God is and we know who Satan is, and look at the effect of his grace on these people, look at them, they’re forgiving one another, we can let them come visit, they can travel.”

Without the cross, they would be no more secure against evil than were the angels before the fall of Satan. Angelic perfection failed in heaven; human perfection failed in Eden, the paradise of bliss.

All who wish for security in earth or heaven must look to the Lamb of God. Unbelievable.

The plan of salvation, making manifest the justice and love of God, provides an eternal safeguard against defection in unfallen worlds as well as among those who shall be redeemed by the blood of the Lamb, you and me.

The death of Christ on the cross of Calvary is our only hope in this world, and it will be our theme in the world to come. Oh, we do not comprehend the value of the atonement.

The greater purpose of God is cosmic atonement, total immunity to evil for the whole universe, eternal security for all creation, pure innocence sustained forever and ever.

A fundamental shift of consciousness and perspective and motivation is what Paul is asking us to engage in. The love by which we are redeemed must ultimately become the love into which we are redeemed.

The objective reality of God’s love in Christ must take up residence in my heart and life so that something like a moral development takes place where I begin to move from a fixation on me and my personal salvation to become—now I’m going to grow spiritually—now the salvation of others, and then I’m going to grow a little more: the eradication of evil, then I’m going to grow a little bit more: the glory of God is what drives me, that’s what’s motivating me, that’s what the focus is.

So, in closing, Paul is asking us essentially to move from “God save me” to “God, I align myself with you against evil in favor of righteousness.” We take on the whole armor of God and we become militant against evil, and we are no longer merely concerned with our personal salvation.

So I’m asking you in an appeal tonight to release all anxiety about your personal salvation. Why? Because you are redeemed, you are forgiven, you are accepted. Salvation is his department; get out of God’s chair.

COSMIC ATONEMENT AND ETERNAL SECURITY

Release all the anxiety about your personal salvation and become obsessed with magnifying the beautiful goodness of God’s character for the whole universe to see and to drink in in their observation of the impact of God’s grace upon our lives.

Okay, pray with me over this message.

Father in heaven, Ephesians chapter 1 verses 1-10, unbelievable, Paul has said so much here and we’re just getting started. Father, please attend us, send your Holy Spirit upon our hearts and minds, tutor us, guide us, teach us, open us up to your leading, Lord. Help us to grow to become secure enough in Christ that we can become passionate about the eternal security of the universe against evil. We love you because you have first loved us, in Jesus’ name, amen.