“More than We Can Ask or Imagine” (Eph 3: 20–21): The Resurrection of Christ in Ephesians and Its Ongoing Multidimensional Cosmic Consequences

Abstract

While most Christians might imagine the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead as a single event, for the author of Ephesians, the resurrection is a continuing event of cosmic proportions. In a very real way, the Epistle to the Ephesians is an extended reflection on the ongoing multidimensional cosmic consequences and transformations that result from the death of Jesus and his resurrection, whose impact not only affects the macrocosm in which Christ sits triumphantly at the right hand of God, “far above every principality, authority, power, and dominion” (Eph 1: 20–22), but also the microcosm of the Church, “his body, the fullness of the one who fills the universe in every way” (1: 23), transforming those who compose the smallest microcosm, the baptized who form a Christian household and who, gathered at table to share Eucharist (5: 17–6: 9), are “seated with Christ in the heavenly places” (2: 6), already participating in the eternal Messianic banquet. This is to say that, for this author, the resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth is the catalyst for an ongoing and ever more evolving “new creation” of humanity and, indeed, the entire cosmos, with “Christification”—the full maturation into the divine “Christ nature” (Eph 4: 13, 15–16) as the telos or goal for the whole universe (Eph 1: 10).

1. Introduction

While most Christians might imagine the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead as a single event, for the author of Ephesians, the resurrection is a continuing event of cosmic proportions that begins first with Jesus of Nazareth. To put it another way, for this author (someone who knows both Paul’s genuine letters and Colossians and alludes to them throughout1), Christ’s resurrection has ongoing multidimensional cosmic consequences and transformations that affect the trajectory of history. This is to say that, for this author, the resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth is the catalyst for an ongoing and ever more evolving “new creation” of humanity (Eph 2: 10,15; 4: 24; cf. 2 Cor 5: 17; Gal 6: 15) and, indeed, the entire cosmos, with “Christification”—the full maturation into the divine “Christ nature” (Eph 4: 13, 15–16)—as the telos or goal for the whole universe (Eph 1: 10). In a very real way, the Epistle to the Ephesians is an extended reflection on the ongoing multidimensional cosmic consequences and transformations that result from the death of Jesus and his resurrection, whose impact not only affects the macrocosm in which Christ sits triumphantly at the right hand of God, “far above every principality, authority, power, and dominion” (Eph 1: 20–22; 4: 10), but also the microcosm of the Church, “his Body, the fullness of the one who fills the universe2 in every way” (1: 23; 3: 19; 4: 10), even affecting those who compose the smallest microcosm, the baptized who form a Christian household and who, gathered at table to share Eucharist (5: 17–6: 9), are “seated with Christ in the heavenly places” (2: 6), already participating in the eternal heavenly Messianic banquet.

One might be tempted to see a Stoic universe reflected in the macrocosmic and microcosmic dimensions of the author’s worldview, a universe where all know their proper place in hierarchically vertical relationships of inferiors subordinated to superiors. Such a view would be understandable; the cosmology of Ephesians does indeed share similarities with Stoic cosmological speculation, and this comes as no surprise since Stoicism, particularly forms of Stoic cosmology, had a widespread influence on the Roman world in the early imperial period, more than any other philosophical school of the time.3 Christopher Gill explains that besides “being the dominant philosophical movement in the period, Stoicism was also strongly embedded in Greco-Roman culture and, to some extent, in political life, and the ideal of living a properly Stoic life remained powerful” (Gill 2003, p. 33). Stoicism had such a widespread impact on the Mediterranean world of the first two centuries AD that even thinkers who did not consider themselves Stoics could not help but betray Stoic influences.4 The above said, today it is widely recognized that ancient cosmological speculation, particularly in the Roman period, could be a bit eclectic and not always consistent, even among the Stoics themselves.5 Indeed, even though writers of the Roman imperial period had a solid education in Stoic philosophy, including Stoic cosmology, they could nonetheless be creative and original as they adapted Stoic ideas to their own aims (Lapidge 1989, p. 1428). This certainly is true of the author of Ephesians whose cosmological vision is creative and original; while incorporating concepts from the cosmologies of the time, the author adjusts them, as we will see, to Paul’s own downwardly mobile Christology in view in Phil 2: 5–11.

With this in mind, we should inquire first as to what is meant by the term “cosmology” and, secondly, what kind of cosmology, exactly, is in view in Ephesians? Most importantly, how does the author’s particular cosmology, with all it inherits from both contemporary cosmological speculation and Pauline Christology, describe the “new creation” that results from the resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth? From there, we should then consider the message that the author offers us today.

As this essay will argue, the author’s intention is not so much to describe a Stoic cosmological worldview that reinforces traditional Greco-Roman vertical relationships of subordinates to superiors6 but, instead, to contemplate the ongoing ripple effects of the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ on every level of the universe, both macrocosmic and microcosmic. This includes the macrocosm of the entire universe, as well as the multiple microcosms contained within it, such as the “new creation” emerging as the Universal Church, as well as, within that, the microcosmic “new creation” of the domestic church and, within that, the still smaller microcosmic “new creations” of each of the baptized, “Jew or Greek, slave or free, male and female” (Gal 3: 28; 6: 15; 2 Cor 5: 17; cf. Eph 5: 21–6: 9; Col 3: 10–11), each sharing in the new life of the Risen Christ (Eph 4: 21–24).

2. Ancient Greek Cosmology and the Cosmological Language of Ephesians

In response to the questions above, we can begin by defining “cosmology” as the way the structure and mechanics of the “cosmos” (i.e., the physical universe) are understood or imagined. In the ancient world, the topic of “cosmology” would have also included considerations regarding both the origin and purpose of the universe (White 2008, p. 90). In its most original sense, the Greek word kosmos (κόσμος) means “order” and was used synonymously with “poiēsis” (ποίησις) to indicate something well-constructed in an orderly way.7 The word kosmos also came to refer to social order, or “the sum of individual things gathered into a totality”; it is related to the verb “kosmeō” (κοσμέω), “to order”, “to bring to order”, “to regulate”. Pythagoras (570–495 BC) is credited as the first to call “the sum of the whole by the name of kosmos because of the order which it displayed” (Aetius 2.2.2; Wright 1995, p. 3). In time, the word kosmos came to signify the universe itself, synonymous with “the whole” (“to holon”, τὸ ὃλον) or “the all” (“to pan”, τό πᾶν), or “all things” (“ta panta”, τὰ πάντα) and even “heaven” (ὁ οὐρανός). By at least the 5th century BC, a distinction was made between the kosmos itself and the vastness of infinite space beyond the kosmos which surrounded it, embracing all that exists, referred to as “all things”, or “ta panta” (τὰ πάντα), what can be understood as “the universe” (Sasse 1980, “κοσμέω, κόσμος, κτλ”, TDNT, p. 870; Adams 2008, pp. 6–7). Around the same time, the idea developed that the whole of the universe is a vast macrocosm that is reflected in its smaller parts (the various kosmoi, which were the “microcosms” that formed it) and vice versa (Allers 1944, pp. 338–39; Wright 1995).8 In other words, to understand the whole, “the macrocosm”, one only needed to know and understand an individual part of the whole, i.e., a “microcosm”, and then to draw parallels to the whole. Similarly, to understand the part, the “microcosm”, one only had to look to the whole, the “macrocosm”. This idea became widely shared among the various Greek schools of philosophy by the 4th century BC. Eventually, it was simply accepted without question as established “fact”.

For Plato (c. 428–348 BC), this had ethical implications: to live a virtuous life and achieve genuine and lasting happiness, and even immortality (“insofar as it is possible for human nature”), it was necessary for the human to “think (“phronein”, φρονεῖν) about that which is immortal and divine” by contemplating the universe as a whole, in all its order and beauty (Timaeus 90c).9 Building on earlier cosmological speculation, the Stoics taught that all the concomitant elements of the universe are united to each other so profoundly that what happens to one element affects all the others in a sympathetic relational unity of the parts to the whole and the whole to the parts. As Michael Lapidge observes, “Like the body of a living being, that of the universe was so constituted that all parts moved and responded—sympathetically, as it were—with all the others” (Lapidge 1989, p. 1382). In other words, for the Stoics, the entirety of the universe in all its parts is formed in such a way as to function as a whole; this is to say that what happens in one part of the universe affects the whole, as well as its constituent microcosms.

Developing from Plato, Stoicism constructed its cosmology in a way that made the relationship of the whole to the parts and the parts to the whole fundamental to its entire philosophical system, particularly its ethics (Lapidge 1978, pp. 161–62; Adams 2008, p. 16). A contemporary of the author of Ephesians, the Stoic moralist and teacher Epictetus (55–135 AD), taught that the starting point for a moral life was the relationship between the human being and the universe. Although Epictetus did not leave behind any tract on Stoic cosmology (Lapidge 1989, p. 1414), he nonetheless instructed his young disciples about its value for learning how to live a good and moral life: “I beseech you to learn from Chrysippus what is the administration of the universe, and what place therein the rational animal has; and consider also who you are, and what is the nature of your good and evil”. Epictetus’s instructions to look to the “administration of the universe” find an echo in other philosophers and writers around the turn of the Common Era and into the Roman imperial period, such as Posidonius (135 BC–51 BC), Cicero (106 BC–43 BC), Manilius (first half of the 1st century AD), and Seneca the Younger (4 BC–65 AD), among others who shared the common belief of the time that the study of the universe, or cosmology, was necessary for ethical human living.10

The elements of ancient Greek cosmology described above, such as considerations regarding both the origin and purpose of the universe, the order inherent in the universe, the distinction between the universe (“ta panta”, τὰ πάντα), and the various kosmoi which fill it, as well as the concepts of macrocosm and microcosm and the sympathetic relational unity between them, with implications for ethics, are all essential for understanding the cosmology of the “new creation” of Ephesians. A careful reading of Ephesians within its 1st century AD context reveals that its author was familiar with the prevailing cosmologies of the time. One need not read too far into Ephesians to realize that, more than any other book of the New Testament, this epistle is intentionally cosmological in character. In view in just the second sentence of the Greek text of this epistle (Eph 1: 3–14, the longest sentence in the New Testament) is the vast macrocosm of the universe (“ta panta”, τὰ πάντα, vv. 10–11), containing within it various “microcosms”: “the heavenly places” (οἱ ἐπουράνιοι, 1: 3, 20; 2: 6; 3: 10; 6: 12)11; “the heavenly realms” (οἱ οὐρανοί, 1: 10; 3: 15; 4: 10; 6: 9),12 the “world” (ὁ κόσμος, v. 4),13 as well as “the earth” (ἡ γῆ, Eph 1: 10).14

When reading this epistle alongside other thinkers of the time, various macrocosms come into view, particularly in the first half of the epistle, along with their parallel, sometimes interpenetrating, microcosms, the smallest of which are found in the second half of the epistle. For example, in a way that looks first to the universe as an introduction to its ethics, the Epistle to the Ephesians is composed almost as if in reply to the challenge of Epictetus. Although replacing Chrysippus with Paul, the epistle begins by providing, from a Christian perspective, a description of “the administration of the universe” (1: 3–23; 3: 10–21) and then reflects on the place therein provided to the readers (1: 3–14; 2: 13–3: 6), reminding them who they are (1: 4–5; 2: 19; 5: 1) while all throughout offering them numerous insights into “the nature of their good and evil”. As for the “administration of the universe”, it is described in the most superlative terms of lavishly bestowed riches of grace, every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places, and the providential plan and purposes of the Divine intention from even before the foundation of the world (1: 3–14). As for the place provided to the readers, although once “dead through trespasses”, they have been “made alive together with Christ” and “raised up with him” (2: 5–6). Now, in Christ, they sit with God in the heavenly places, “no longer strangers and aliens, but fellow citizens with the holy ones and members of the household of God” (2: 1–19). As for who they are, the readers are told that they are God’s chosen ones, destined from even before the foundation of the world to be God’s own beloved children, redeemed and forgiven, made “holy and blameless” through the blood of Christ (1: 4–7; 5: 1). As for “the nature of their good and evil”, the readers are reminded of the great good freely lavished upon them: God’s unearned and unmerited gift of saving grace (2: 5, 8). They are then reminded of the evil they knew when they were “separated from Christ, alienated from the commonwealth of Israel, strangers to the covenants of promise, without hope and without God in the world” (2: 12). Their good lies in “putting on the new humanity” they have been provided as God’s children, “newly created after the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness” (4: 24), their evil in the corrupted humanity of their former way of life (4: 22), before they “learned Christ” (4: 20, 22).

Not only does Ephesians seem designed as a response to the ethical challenges of its time (particularly that of Stoicism), but it is even structured according to the expectations of traditional Stoicism that ethics begin first with cosmology. This is apparent in how the epistle is divided into two main segments, with the first half (1: 1–3: 21) primarily cosmological in focus and the second half (4: 1–6: 24) concerned with ethical living. To be sure, the completion of the first half of the epistle with “Amen” (3: 21) makes for a clear division marker with the paraenetical instruction that immediately follows in 4: 1. This suggests that the cosmological meditations in the first half on the nature of God, Divine providence, and Divine hegemony—topics integral to any Stoic discussion of cosmology—actually serve to introduce the ethical instruction of the second half in which readers are urged to “live a life worthy of their calling” (4: 1) in imitation of God as God’s “beloved children” (5: 1). Thus, the two main parts of the epistle function together to form an integrated whole so that what is described in the first half of the epistle on the macro level (e.g., God’s benevolent providential care and hegemony of the entire universe), is to be reflected on the micro level in the lives of the readers as they interact with each other in their household churches and in their homes (5: 17–6: 9).

As though to emulate the basic unity of the universe itself, the author’s integration of the two major sections of the epistle into a unified whole reflects a Stoic cosmology where the various parts (τὰ μέλη) of the cosmic body are indivisible from each other and function in “sympathy” with each other, so that what happens on one level affects the whole. In this, the author of Ephesians resembles Seneca’s sage capable of grasping a unified view of both “philosophy”, what in Seneca’s time was equated with “wisdom”, and of the universe as a whole:

By studying the parts we can be brought more easily to understand the whole. I only wish that philosophy might come before our eyes in all her unity, just as the whole expanse of the universe is spread out for us to gaze upon! It would be a sight closely resembling that of the cosmos … The mind of the sage, to be sure, embraces the whole framework of philosophy, surveying it with no less rapid glance than our mortal eyes survey the heavens.15

As if in response to Seneca’s description of the philosophical mind quickly capable of “embracing the whole” through the parts, the author so designs the entire epistle in such a fashion as to offer to the sage reader (Eph 5: 15, 17) “a sight closely resembling that of the cosmos”. By holding in view the sage’s own grasp of the whole, the author challenges the readers to comprehend more than merely philosophy, the wisdom of this world (1 Cor. 3: 19). Instead, they must penetrate even the “wisdom of God” (Eph 1: 17; 3: 10), even as far as the expansive reaches of the “breadth and length and height and depth” of the love of Christ (Eph 3: 18–19) who fills “the universe in every way” (τὰ πάντα ἐν πᾶσιν), that is, the entirety of the universe (Eph 1: 23). This is so that, “with the eyes of their heart enlightened” (Eph 1: 17) through careful reflection on the epistle’s two parts, its meditations on the macrocosm in the first half and its paraenesis for the microcosm in the second half, the readers will come to a unified view of the whole universe in all its parts, which Christ dearly loves and serves as its Head, and thus better comprehend thereby their own special place and role within it.

3. God’s Saving Plan and the “New Creation” in View in Ephesians

While the cosmology of the author of Ephesians resembles that of the Stoic moral teachers of the time, it is nonetheless important to keep in mind the observation made earlier regarding the flexibility with which thinkers in the author’s world could make adjustments and adaptations to whatever they borrowed from a Stoic worldview. The same is true of the author of Ephesians. As we will see, what the author appropriates from mainstream Stoic cosmology is adjusted to suit the epistle’s particular Christo-centric cosmovision. When constructing the epistle’s cosmology, the author incorporates and develops much of Paul’s Christology and ecclesiology and, to a lesser degree, eschatology,16 as well as a Pauline scriptural hermeneutic, as these are distilled from the undisputed letters and, indirectly, from Colossians. At the core of Paul’s Christology is what Christ achieves through his cross and resurrection, which for Paul is nothing less than a “new creation” (2 Cor 5: 17): the ongoing transformation into Christ of the individual human person and humanity as a whole (Rom 5: 15; 6: 4, 2, 11; 1 Cor 1: 2; 15: 22; 2 Cor 5: 14–15; Gal 3: 28; 4: 19; cf. Eph 2: 10, 13; 4: 15, 22–24; Col 2: 6, 12; 3: 1–11). For Paul, baptism is a participation in Christ’s death so as to be raised with him to an entirely new life (Rom 6: 4, 13; c. Col 2:12–13; 3: 10; Eph 4: 22–24). This “new life” is the result of taking on an entirely new human nature, the nature of the Risen Christ: “As many of you as were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ” (Gal 3: 27; Rom 13: 14; cf. Eph 4: 24). Paul describes his own experience of baptism into Christ in a way that points to the profound transformation that baptism effects: “I have been crucified with Christ; it is no longer I who live, but it is Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me” (Gal 2: 19–20; cf. Eph 5: 2). In short, “Anyone in Christ is a new creation: the old has passed away; look, new things have come into being” (2 Cor 5: 17). Paul, of course, does not write a schematized cosmology17; instead, his epistles presume that his first century AD readers understand more context and background than he offers. What might be implicit in Paul’s “cosmology” Ephesians makes explicit in a more structured and schematized way, with multiple interrelated and overlapping dimensions of the universe in view.

Following the initial greeting of Eph 1: 1–2, the epistle begins with an extended blessing directed to “the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ” (1: 3a), the “one God and Father of all”, who created the universe (3: 9), and who transcends it, even while permeating all of it: “who is above all and through all and in all” (Eph 4:6; cf. Rom 11:36; 1 Cor 8: 6). Motivating this extended blessing is the extravagant love of this Father “who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places” (1: 3), and his loving, gracious and generous choice of the baptized, adopting them as his own children “through Jesus Christ” (1: 4–5), “to the praise of his glorious grace that he freely bestowed on us in the Beloved” (1: 6). This abundantly generous Father “has made known to us the mystery of his will” (1: 9–12; 3: 9), the divine plan to bring the entire universe (“ta panta” (τὰ πάντα) under Christ’s headship (ἀνακεφαλαιώσασθαι τὰ πάντα ἐν τῷ Χριστῷ),18 both on the macrocosmic level, “things in the heavenly realms” (τὰ ἐπὶ τοῖς οὐρανοῖς), as well as on the microcosmic level, “things on earth” (τὰ ἐπὶ τῆς γῆς, Eph 1: 10, 22).

With allusions to Phil 2: 9–11, the author then contemplates the vast expanses of the universe where the victorious Risen Christ is seated at God’s right hand in the “heavenly places” (οἱ ἐπουρανίοι, Eph 1:20) with “all things19 under his feet” (Eph 1: 22; cf. 1 Cor 15: 25–27). The same Christ who “humbled himself even to death on a cross” (Phil 2: 8) is now highly exalted “far above all rule and authority and power and dominion, and above every name that is named, not only in this age but also in the age to come” (Eph 1: 20–22; cf. Phil 2: 9–11). Yet beyond even the exalted Risen Christ in view in Phil 2:9–10, the Christ whom the author here contemplates is cosmic. His headship, which will extend over the entire universe in the “fullness of time” (1: 10), already extends “over all things for the Church” (Eph 1: 22; cf. Col 1: 18), which is similarly described in cosmic proportions as Christ’s “Body”: “the fullness of him who fills the universe in every way” (Eph 1: 23), a “fullness” which the author describes as “the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge” (3: 18).20

Within the macrocosm of the universe exist various microcosms, which themselves are formed by still smaller microcosms. There is the kosmos in view in 2: 1–3, “this [present] world” (ὁ κόσμος οὗτος), a world of “darkness” ruled by evil spiritual forces (Eph 2: 1–3; 6: 11–12; cf. Rom 3: 23). Within this dark kosmos is the earthly microcosm of the world of human beings; because of their ignorance and hard hearts, all are “alienated from the life of God” (Eph 4: 18). Like the demonic forces that rule over them, their lives are loveless, surrendered to ego-driven desires and pursuits (2: 1–3). But this world of loveless darkness is “passing away” (1 Cor 7: 31) and will at some point face God’s just condemnation (Eph 5: 6; cf. Rom 1: 18; 2: 5, 8; 3: 5; 5: 9; 9: 22; 1 Thess 1: 10; 5: 9; Col 3: 6).

Summarizing Paul’s depiction of the wretched condition of humanity without Christ in Romans 1–3, the author describes the situation of the readers before their baptism: they were spiritually dead through “trespasses and sins”, living “according to this present kosmos” (κατὰ τὸν αἰῶνα τοῦ κόσμου τούτου), under the domination of the same evil spiritual influence at work among “the children of disobedience” (Eph 2: 1–2). In that state, all once lived according to the “passions of the flesh” (“sarx”, or σάρξ), and were “by nature” (“physis”, or φύσις) “children of wrath, like everyone else” (Eph 2: 3). Linking Paul’s idea of “sarx” (the word Paul uses to refer to human nature corrupted by egocentric desires21) with “physis”, or “nature”, the author describes the pitiable condition of humanity—and human nature—without grace: it is spiritually dead because it is “alienated” from God’s love, the source of all life (Eph 2: 1–3; 4: 17–18; cf. Rom 4: 17b; 6: 23). Under the rule of evil spiritual forces, human beings untouched by God’s grace are, in a very literal way, the “walking dead” (Eph 2: 1–3).

This sorry situation, however, is intolerable to a loving and gracious God who has a saving plan in mind (Eph 1: 5–7, 9–12; 2: 5–8; 3: 9): an entirely “new creation”. God’s saving plan is at work in Christ’s complete descent (Eph 4: 9–10) into the microcosmic dark world inhabited by humans, that is to say, his becoming human (Phil 2: 6–8), even “one flesh” with the humanity he so dearly loves (Eph 5: 32–32). So profound is Christ’s complete embrace of the human condition that he will not spare himself any of the horrors that can be experienced in this dark world, even those of the cross (Phil 2: 8). God’s plan is also at work in Christ’s resurrection and subsequent exaltation (Eph 4: 8; 1: 7–8, 20–21), as the Risen Christ brings “the walking dead” to new life (Eph 4: 22–24; 5: 14).

Developing Paul’s idea of the “new creation” in 2 Cor 5: 17–21, the author describes the “new creation” that Christ’s boundless love (Eph 3: 19; 5: 2) achieves: through baptism, that is, through the regenerative participation in the death and resurrection of Christ (Eph 2: 5, 10; 4: 24; cf. Rom 6: 8, 11; 1 Cor 15: 22; 2 Cor 5: 15; Gal 2: 19–20; Col 2: 13), each of the baptized has been “delivered through Christ’s blood” (1: 7) from the dark, loveless world under whose rule they had lived their whole lives (2: 1–10). In place of the “old self” (literally, the “old human being”, ὁ παλαιός ἄνθρωπος), “corrupt and deluded by its evil desires”, the baptized are now to clothe themselves with “the new self”, that is, the “new human being” (ὁ καινός ἄνθρωπος), “created according to the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness” (Eph 4: 24; cf. Rom 6: 4; 2 Cor 5: 17). In other words, in place of their old, corrupted human nature (“physis”, or φύσις, Eph 2: 3), they are given a new human nature: Christ’s own (4: 13, 15, 21–24; 3: 17, 19; cf. Rom 13: 14; 1 Cor 15: 53). Bearing Christ’s nature, each becomes a cherished “member” of Christ’s own Body (Eph 3: 6; 4: 4, 12, 16; 5: 29; cf. Rom 12: 5; 1 Cor 6: 15; 12: 12–27). Still more, by virtue of their baptism, the rank and status of their previous way of life when they inhabited the world of “darkness” (Eph 5: 8, 11; cf. Col 1: 13) prior to being “saved by grace” (Eph 2: 5, 8; cf. Rom 3: 24; 11: 5–6), is now replaced by the highest status possible, the bestowal of υἱοθεσία, of being specially chosen by God to be God’s own dearly beloved son or daughter (Eph 1: 5; 5: 1, 8; cf. Rom 8: 14–21; 9: 8, 26; Gal 3: 26; 4: 5–6, 27–28, 31; Phil 2: 15; 1 Thess 5: 5). In short, they who had previously been “dead through [their] trespasses”, God brings back to life “together with Christ” and raises them up with Christ, seating them “in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus” (Eph 2: 4–7; cf. Rom 5: 10). This is to say that, through baptism, each one shares not only in Christ’s death and risen life but even in his exaltation, and now lives on a whole other plane, indeed, in an entirely different kosmos, that of the “new creation” of the emerging Church.

Moving beyond the smallest microcosm of each individual baptized person, at another level a totally new and unforeseen feature of the “new creation” also emerges: the “one new humanity” that Christ “creates in himself” as he brings together into “one Body”—his own—those whom the author describes as belonging to mutually hostile ethnic groups, namely, Jews and Gentiles (Eph 2: 14–16; cf. Gal 3: 28; 6: 15–16; Col 3: 11, 15).22 To Israel was given the “covenants of promise”, while Gentiles are “aliens from the commonwealth of Israel, strangers to the covenants of promise, having no hope and without God in the world” (Eph 2: 12). Through their shared baptism, however, both Jewish and Gentile Christ believers now form one Body in Christ and partake together in Christ’s peace (Eph 2: 14–17; 4: 3; cf. Rom 14: 17, 19; 1 Cor 7: 15; 2 Cor 13: 11; Gal 5: 22; 6: 16; Phil 4: 7, 9; Col 1: 20; 3: 15; 1 Thess 5: 13, 23). Through Christ’s achievement, they who were once “far off” are “no longer strangers and aliens”; they have become instead “fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God” (Eph 2: 17–19). This is a “new household” for the “new creation”. It is “built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets” and “Christ Jesus himself is the cornerstone”; in Christ, the entire structure of this new household is “joined together and grows into a holy temple” into which the Gentiles have also been “built together spiritually into a dwelling place for God” (Eph 2: 20–22; cf. 1 Cor 3: 9, 16–17; 6: 19; 2 Cor 6: 16). This new unity between what were formerly mutually hostile ethnic groups represents the unity of the macrocosmic Church as a whole: all together the baptized form “one body”, Christ’s Body; they are animated by the “one Spirit”, Christ’s own; they live under “one Lord”23, and together share “one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all” (Eph 4: 4–5).

In a way to emphasize their profound unity in Christ, the author reminds readers that, as members of Christ’s Body, the baptized are also “members of one another” (Eph 4: 25; cf. Rom 12: 5), each one with his or her own special gift that contributes to the good of the whole (Eph 4: 7–16). What each is given as gift and grace of Christ’s own nature is to serve the Church’s ongoing maturation into Christ, that is to say, its ever-deepening “Christification”, until the entire Church “grow[s] up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ, from whom the whole Body, joined and knit together … builds itself up in love” (Eph 4: 15–16). Christification, then, is the goal, the telos of the “new creation”, both microcosmically (for the individual baptized person) and macrocosmically (for the Church as a whole). In this way, through one baptized person at a time, in the gracious plan of God’s abundant, forgiving love and saving grace, the Church, Christ’s continually growing Body, emerges as an ever-developing new kosmos, a continually “new creation” (Eph 2: 10, 15; 4: 24; cf. 2 Cor 5: 17; Gal 6: 15), the achievement of the powerful redemption brought about by Christ’s blood shed on the cross (Eph 1: 7–14, 22–23; 2: 13, 16; cf. Rom 3: 25; 5: 9; Col 1:20; 2: 14). All this is God’s free “gift” (Eph 2: 8; Rom 5: 15; 6: 23), according to the generously lavished “riches of Christ’s grace” (Eph 1: 6–8; 2: 5, 7–8; 4:7; cf. Rom 3: 24; 5: 2, 17, 20–21; 6: 14; 2 Cor 9: 14).

In a very real way, each baptized person, as a member of Christ’s Body, is a microcosm of the whole and is, therefore, indivisible from the macrocosmic Church, the Body of Christ (Eph 3: 6; 4: 1, 12; 5: 23; cf. Rom 7: 14; 12: 5; 1 Cor 12: 12, 27; Col 3: 15). As we will see below, the same applies to other microcosms contained within the Church, for example, the microcosm of husband and wife (5: 21–33) and, moving up from there, that of the household church as it gathers for Eucharist (5: 17–6: 9). Reading Ephesians’ cosmology through a Stoic lens, there exists an unbreakable bond that links macrocosm with microcosm, a sympathetic relationship shared between them. What one experiences affects the other. In the same way, the continually growing macrocosmic Church is itself a microcosm of the cosmic Christ. On both the macrocosmic and microcosmic levels, that is to say, both as the universal, even cosmic Church in view in Eph 1: 22–23, and as individual baptized persons, the Church enjoys an indivisible sympathetic relationship with Christ as Christ’s own Body (Eph 1: 23; 3: 6; 4: 4–16; 5: 23, 30; cf. Rom 12: 4–5; 1 Cor 12: 12–27; Col 1: 18, 24; 2: 19; 3: 15).

4. At the Center of the “New Creation”: The Downwardly Mobile Christ of Philippians 2: 5–11/Eph 4: 9–10

The catalyst for the “new creation”, animating and empowering its continual growth, is the downwardly mobile Christ of Philippians 2: 5–11 and Eph 4: 9–10. In fact, the author constructs the epistle in such a way that at its very center is a paraphrase of Phil 2: 6–11: “He who descended into the lower parts of the earth … is the same one who ascended far above all the heavens, so that he might fill the universe” (“ta panta”, τὰ πάντα, Eph 4: 9–10).24 This passage, a clear allusion to the death, resurrection, and exaltation of Jesus, is not only at the center of the text, it is central for understanding the author’s entire cosmology, cosmological ethics, message and, in particular, the difference that Jesus’s death and resurrection make for the developing “new creations” of each individual baptized person, the Church, indeed for the whole of the universe, both in “this age and the age to come” (Eph 1: 21; 2: 7). To put it another way, the descent and exaltation in view have a purpose: “so that he might fill all things” (Eph 4: 10) and “give gifts to human beings” (τοῖς ἀνθρώποις, Eph 4: 8). Indeed, the language of gift, grace, and fullness abounds on every level of the emerging new kosmos of the “new creation” in view in this epistle. This explains why Eph 4: 9–10 has parallels throughout, whether on the macrocosmic scale of the entire universe (Eph 1: 20–23) or on the microcosmic scale of each of the baptized who, as they come to “know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge”, will be “filled with all the fullness of God” (Eph 3: 19). Yet notice the pattern: first the downward mobility, the descent, then exaltation, and with exaltation abounding fullness, grace, gift. The language used is hyperbolic because the gifts are beyond measure and expectation, beyond what can be asked or imagined (Eph 3: 20).

The gifts of Christ crucified and risen come into sharper focus when read within the Stoic principle of the sympathetic relational unity of the parts to the whole and the whole to the parts. What Christ achieves in his death and resurrection has consequences for every level of “the new creation” that is his Church. So Christ, so his Body: with descent is exaltation, with fullness of life, fullness of love (Eph 1: 4, 15; 2: 4; 3: 17–19; 4: 2, 15–16; 5: 2, 25–33; 6: 23, 24). This same pattern of downward mobility and exaltation is what gives shape and form to Christ’s “new creation” on every level, whether microcosmic or macrocosmic.

This becomes all the more apparent as we consider how, in Ephesians, the profound, intimate and inseparable union between Christ and the Church is described as a “great mystery”25 (Eph 5: 32; cf. Eph 1: 9; 3: 3–6, 9–12) where Christ, the Great Lover of the Church, “gave himself up for her” (Eph 5: 2, 25; cf. Gal 1: 4; 2: 20), an allusion to Christ’s total kenosis, his complete self-emptying on the cross (Phil 2: 6–8). As we considered earlier, Christ’s becoming “one flesh” with the Church begins on the most microcosmic level of the man, Jesus (Eph 4: 21; Phil 2: 7), and his full embrace of the human condition—even to the cross (Phil 2: 6–8). Because Christ himself became human, his complete descent (Eph 4: 9–10), to the lowliest and most humiliating of all deaths (Phil 2: 8), as well as his exaltation as the cosmic Risen Christ (Phil 2: 9–11; Eph 1: 3–14, 20–23; 2: 4–1, 13–22; 4: 8–16), are for the sake of “giving gifts to human beings” (Eph 4: 7–8), ultimately with the goal of bringing them into God’s loving, redemptive plan of “the new creation”, both individually and collectively as the Church. In return for so much love, the Church then “takes on the mind of Christ” (Phil 2: 5) when lovingly and generously offering her own complete gift of self to Christ as His Bride (Eph 5: 24, 31). What the author describes in Eph 5: 26–27 of the Church as a whole as Christ’s Bride is true on the most microcosmic level for each person immersed in the waters of baptism: each one becomes Christ’s dearly beloved for whom he died and rose and, as a cherished “member” of his own Body (Eph 5: 30; 3: 6; cf. 1 Cor 6: 15; 12: 12–27), is “cleansed with the washing of water by the Word” and made resplendently beautiful and holy, without “spot” or “wrinkle” or “blemish” (Eph 5: 26-27). On the macrocosmic scale of the universal Church, this is described as Christ’s headship over “all things for the Church, which is his Body, the fullness of him who fills the universe in every way” (Eph 1: 22–23). Remembering the sympathetic relationship between macrocosms and their microcosmic parallels, the author also holds this “great mystery” in view on the most macrocosmic scale when reflecting on the divine plan to bring the entire universe (τὰ πάντα)—both the “heavenly realms” (τὰ ἐπὶ τοῖς οὐρανοῖς) and the earth (τὰ ἐπὶ τῆς γῆς)—under Christ’s headship (ἀνακεφαλαιώσασθαι) in “the fullness of time” (Eph 1: 9–10).26

In the same way, the downwardly mobile Christology of Phil 2: 5–11 and Eph 4: 9–10 also shapes the cosmological ethics and transformed relationships of those who inhabit the “new creation”. To illustrate, within this new kosmos of the emerging Church is the microcosm of the domestic church, that is to say, the Christian household. The baptized pater familias, the male head of the household, must now look to the abundant love and lavish graciousness of God the Father and imitate it (Eph 1: 3–9; 5: 1) in the way he serves and guides his Christian household as a microcosm of the “household of God” (Eph 2: 19). At the same time, as a “member of Christ’s Body”, the baptized pater familias is a microcosm of Christ. As such, he must look to Christ and learn from Christ’s own self-giving, self-denying, downwardly mobile love for his Body and Bride, the Church; he must love his wife like Christ, for she, too, is a member of Christ’s Body: Christ loving Christ in his members. And, like Christ, the baptized pater familias must also love his wife as himself (Eph 5: 33) because she is a member of his own body as well, both as someone who is baptized (Eph 4: 25) but also in the mutually exclusive loving union that they realize as they “share one flesh” (Eph 5: 31; Gen 2: 24).

This has concrete practical implications. In place of the unilateral subordination of wife to husband—the expectation of “the world of darkness” (Eph 5: 8, 11)—is the transformed relationship presumed in the exhortation in Eph 5: 21 to mutual subordination “in fear of Christ” (ὑποτασσόμενοι ἀλλήλοις ἐν φόβῳ Χριστοῦ). The expression “in fear of Christ” is a reference to Christ as master (“kyrios,” κύριος, also translated as “lord”): the same Christ who lowers himself in Eph 4: 9–10 and Phil 2: 6–8 is exalted as “Kyrios” of all (Eph 6: 9; 4: 5; cf. Phil 6: 11; Col 4: 1).27 Subordination, therefore, is given to Christ. At the same time, all in the household, through baptism, are transformed into “members of Christ’s Body” (Eph 3: 6; 5: 30) and, therefore, “members of one another” (Eph 4: 25; Rom 12: 5). To show subordination to Christ, the baptized must show subordination to each other as members of Christ’s Body. For this reason, without eliminating the wife’s subordination in view in Col 4: 18 (the cultural expectation supported by the Roman institution of patria potestas that culturally and legally enshrined a father’s absolute “power” over all his household), the author rewrites it into an exhortation to mutual subordination—“in fear of Christ”. Just as a wife subordinates herself to her husband—who, like herself, is a member of Christ’s Body—he, too, offers subordination to Christ in mutual subordination to his wife since she, like him, is also a member of Christ’s Body. In their mutual subordination, they subordinate themselves to Christ of whose Body they each are members (Belz 2014).

Outside the “new creation” of the Church, in the dark, gloomy world of the “children of wrath” (Eph 2: 1–3), the pater familias, the male head of the household, holds the highest rank; he himself rules over his household as its lord. Everyone submits to him. However, as we saw above, in the “new creation” of the Church there is only one Lord: Jesus Christ (Eph 4: 5). Christ is then Lord of the Christian household as well, not the baptized pater familias (Eph 6: 9). For this reason, Christ’s self-sacrificing love is to be the pattern for the baptized pater familias: Christ “loved the Church and gave himself up for her” (Eph 5: 25). The next verse, “cleansing her with the washing of water” (v. 26), is both a reference to baptism and an allusion to Phil 2: 7: “He emptied himself, taking the form of a slave.” On the bride’s wedding day, her female slave would help her bathe to prepare for her wedding. Female slaves had the least rank in a Greco-Roman household. Within the analogy of Christ as groom and head of his Church, as Christ bathes his Bride, he takes the lowest place in the household, himself exemplifying the teaching in 5: 21 and its allusion to Gal 5: 13: “For the sake of love, be slaves to one another” (Belz 2014, p. 239). This is how Christ loves his Church: his descent—his “giving himself up”—is now her exaltation as his love transforms and re-creates her, making her holy and resplendently beautiful (5: 25–27). In the same way, Christian husbands are to love their wives to the extreme of Christ, even to the point of “giving themselves up” for their wives, taking the lowest place in loving, humble service to their wives, even as the Christian wife shows her love by doing the same, returning love for love in mutual subordination, as does the Church with Christ (5: 21–33; cf. Gal 5: 13). Again, on the microcosmic level of the “new creation” of baptized husband and wife, the mutually loving total self-gift of Christ and his Church must become the normative expression of the couple’s own relationship of mutual subordination and reciprocal self-gift.

Because the “new creation” of the Christian household is a microcosm of the “household of God”, the exhortation to mutual subordination in 5: 21 is not limited to the husband and wife in view in 5: 21–33. It is intended for all the baptized members of the household, including the transformed relationship between masters and slaves (Vasser 2024). In loving mutual subordination to each other as members of Christ’s Body, those living within the Christian household must faithfully reflect the “household of God” (Eph 2: 19) for each other. Accordingly, in the microcosmic household of the “new creation”, we see something not seen anywhere else: slaves and free sit at the same table without distinction as the pater familias, his wife, his children, even his slaves, all gather as Church together for Eucharist (Eph 5: 17–6: 9). This is because, by virtue of their common baptism, they have all been “raised up” with Christ Jesus and “seated” with God “in Christ” in the “heavenly places” (Eph 2: 6)—slaves as well as free, male and female (Gal 3: 28; 4: 7; 1 Cor 12: 13; cf. Phlm 1: 16; Col 3: 11). In this way, the table of the microcosmic household church becomes transformed into a true table of Eucharist, a genuine reflection of Christ’s table where all in the larger macrocosm of the Church are seated with Christ—all sharing the same high dignity (Eph 2: 6).

The above said, the author of Ephesians is a realist, quite aware that the transformation into Christ offered in baptism is not automatic. On the contrary, there are threats to the “new creation”. Even as the baptized have been “saved by grace” (Eph 2: 5, 8), their own constant efforts are necessary to grow and develop to mature spiritual adulthood, even “to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ” (Eph 4: 3, 13). The readers are warned not to grow slack and slink back to their previous way of living, their “old self” (Eph 4: 22–32; 5: 3–18), but instead to engage the work of spiritual self-renewal continually, always clothing themselves with “the new self”, literally, the “new humanity”, Christ’s own humanity given to them in baptism (Eph 4: 22–24). In other words, they must cooperate with the great grace given them (Eph 1: 6–7; 2: 5–10) by their own determined participation in the ongoing hard work of “new creation”. This requires their persistent vigilance in order “to stand against the wiles of the devil” (Eph 6: 11; 4: 27). They must never let down their guard but are to “be strong in the Lord and in the strength of his power”, putting on the “armor of God”: the “belt of truth”, the “breastplate of righteousness”, the “shield of faith, … the helmet of salvation and the sword of the Spirit, which is the Word of God,” praying at all times, keeping alert, and persevering in prayer for each other (Eph 6: 13–19). In this way, they will be empowered (3: 16–20) to “grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ, from whom the whole Body, joined and knit together by every ligament with which it is equipped, as each part is working properly, promotes the Body’s growth in building itself up in love” (Eph 4: 16).

5. The Ongoing Importance of the “New Creation” in Ephesians: Summary and Conclusions

Unlike other cosmologies in the ancient world which described a universe where all knew their proper place in upwardly vertical relationships of inferiors subordinated to superiors, the author of Ephesians contemplates something different: this present world with its “children of wrath” (Eph 2: 3) is being replaced by an emerging “new creation” in development, headed by the cosmic Kyrios (Eph 1: 22–23), the Risen Christ whose ascent was only achieved through total descent (Eph 4: 9–10; cf. Phil 2: 6–11)—because in his kingdom (Eph 5: 5), the only way up is to go down. On the microcosmic level of this newly developing world, a new humanity (Eph 4: 24) is coming to life through baptism into the Risen Christ (Eph 2: 1–10), one person at a time, after dying to “the old humanity … corrupted through deceitful desires” (Eph 4: 17–24). Collectively, this new humanity forms the “new creation” that is the Church and so intimately shares in the life of the Risen Christ as to “grow into” Christ (Eph 4: 13, 15) as “members of Christ’s Body” (Eph 3: 6; 5: 30) and thus “members of one another” (Eph 4: 25).

As members of Christ’s Body, the Church, the baptized, that is to say, those made into a “new creation” by the Risen Christ, become “subordinate to each other” (Eph 5: 21) as a way of being “subordinate to Christ” (Eph 5: 24). Accordingly, the upwardly vertical relationships of the author’s Roman world (supported by a Stoic worldview) become inverted as the members of Christ’s Body are empowered (Eph 3: 16, 20; 6: 10) to “grow into Christ” (Eph 4: 15) who “gave himself up” for his beloved Church (Eph 5: 2, 25), a clear allusion to the downward mobility of Christ in Phil 2: 5–11. Following Christ downward, the members of his Body show their subordination to him by subordinating themselves to each other (5: 21). In this way, their downwardly mobile vertical relationships become transformed into the horizontal relationships of those who share the same dignity as beloved sons and daughters of God (5: 1).

This has implications even on the microcosmic level of the Christian household as the baptized express their subordination to Christ through their mutual subordination to each other: husband and wife, parents and children, master and slave (Eph 5: 21, 24; 6: 1–9a). Sharing the equal status of the baptized, the human distinctions that once divided them now fall away (Eph 5: 14) as they assemble together to “give thanks” as a new kind of family formed by the Risen Christ, “with all humility and gentleness, with patience, bearing with one another through love” (Eph 4: 2, 15; 5: 2), thus making their table a faithful reflection and extension of Christ’s own (Eph 5: 17–6: 9; 2: 5–6).

So what might be the author’s message for us today? What difference does the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ make to human beings today, both individually and collectively? What ongoing difference does it make to the Church? To the world?

For this author, because of Christ’s death and resurrection, we who are baptized into his Body are given the same amazing power that was at work in his resurrection (Eph 1: 19–20; 3: 16–20), the power to become like him, to become ourselves a “new creation”, individually as baptized and collectively as his body, as Church together, by following him in his own downward mobility, which allows us a share in his death and resurrection and the possibility of taking upon ourselves his own nature, his own humanity as the Risen Lord. This divinizes us. “Clothing ourselves with the new self” (Eph 4: 24), the Christ nature, we are given a whole new life, a whole new way of being, of living in the world, with Christ “dwelling in our hearts through faith”, rooting and grounding us in love (Eph 3: 17). This es empowers in us an entirely new way of perceiving reality so that, “with the eyes of the heart enlightened” (Eph 1: 18), we are able to contemplate what we could never see or know before: the “breadth and length and height and depth” of Christ’s love, a love beyond our power to understand or know fully, but not beyond our power—by the grace of Christ—to be “filled with all the fullness of God” (Eph 3: 18–19), beyond what we could ever ask or imagine.

What is more, for the author of Ephesians, the death and resurrection of Jesus make a huge difference for the Church, even today. The Church cannot exist apart from the life of the Risen Christ continually growing within her, filling her, expanding her. The Church cannot grow, she cannot become all that she is destined to be without the transformations that can only come from following Christ in the pattern of his own downward mobility, sharing in his death and resurrection. But as the Church follows Christ in his descent for the sake of love, the Church thrives and enjoys continual growth as Christ’s ongoing and ever-growing “new creation”.

As we reflect on the author’s message, we can say that the “new creation” to which the Risen Christ invites us all can make a huge difference for the world even today: if we choose to grasp onto the grace and promise that it offers, it can even move our evolution forward individually and collectively as we come to “take on the mind of Christ” in ways that can positively transform our relationships, not only in our families and workplaces, but even as a family of nations around the world. As we contemplate our world today, in all its fragility and brokenness, in all its pain, wars, and violence, a world fraught with so many frightful threats of mutual destruction, the author of Ephesians assures us that despite all appearances, even now the Risen Christ deeply desires to give each human being, as well as humanity as a whole, more, far more, than we can ever ask or imagine. For this he died and rose.