Friday of Week 28 of Ordinary Time – First Reading

Commentary on Ephesians 1:11-14

Today we continue our reading of God’s plan of salvation at the beginning of the Letter. As Paul continues his panoramic vision of God’s plan for the whole human race and the whole of creation, he speaks today first of the Jews, his own people, and then of the Gentiles or ‘pagans’ (that is, non-Jews) who had responded to God’s call.

Paul begins:

In Christ we have…obtained an inheritance…

In using the word “we”, Paul speaks to his fellow-Jews. He tells them that Christ is at the centre of God’s plan. Whether we speak of the whole of creation or the individual, it is only in relationship to Christ that there is a meaningful future destiny. Christ is the paradigm for all creation, the visible ‘re-presentation’ of God himself among us. He is the Alpha and the Omega. However, Paul goes on now to speak, not of the whole of creation, but of those who have responded to God’s call in Jesus.

In saying “we have…obtained an inheritance” (in some translations, “We were claimed as God’s own…”), he speaks of the Jewish people, who were called in a special way to be his witnesses to the coming of the Messiah. The completion of their call would only take place in Jesus, who, of course, was also a Jew, a descendant of David and a son of Abraham (see the genealogies of Matthew: 1:1-17 and Luke: 3:23-38).

Paul writes that the Jews:

…were the first to set [their] hope on Christ.

That is to say, it was among the Jews that God would become incarnate and it was they who gave witness over the centuries to the hope of a saviour Messiah. A number of Jews would recognise that hoped-for Messiah in the person of Jesus, but many others would not. These latter still live in the hope of a Messiah yet to come.

Paul continues:

In him [i.e. Christ] you also, when you had heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation…believed in him…

Paul, in saying “you also” is speaking to the Gentiles—very likely the majority of his readers—who have heard the message of the gospel, have accepted it and have become followers of Jesus.

They, like their Jewish brothers and sisters, have been “marked with the seal of the promised Holy Spirit”. Paul completes his trinitarian account of God’s plan with the Spirit, since the giving of the Spirit shows the plan has reached its final stage. The Gentiles, too, are called to share exactly the same salvation as the Jews. The proof of this is the clear evidence that the Spirit has come upon them and made them his own. They also share in that special kind of freedom that Christ gives to those who are truly his own, and which puts an end to the moral slavery they experienced during their pre-Christian life.

Nevertheless, though this gift has already begun, it is only given in a hidden way while the unspiritual world lasts, and will only be given fully when the Kingdom of God is complete and Christ comes in glory.

There is a great wealth of ideas in this magnificent presentation of what God has planned for his people through the saving work begun by his incarnate Son and carried out by the Spirit. These words are addressed as much to us as they were to the original readers of this letter. They can provide an endless source for prayer, reflection, praise and thanksgiving when we realise the kind of God we believe in.

Let us, too, ask him to help us live up to the calling which has come from him—a calling going back to long before we were even thought of.

Read more