Everything and Everyone
Ephesians 1:3-11[1]
From the perspective of someone who is “outside” the
church, I think there has always been something about our “gospel” that doesn’t
sound like very good news. The “standard” script has been something like this:
“we’re all sinners, and we deserve to be punished; God really does love us,
though, so he sent Jesus to take the punishment we deserve, so that we could be
forgiven and go to heaven when we die.” Since we’ve heard that message all our
lives, it makes sense to us. But I think what most people “outside” the church hear
is, “You’re no good the way you are; If you don’t change, God is going to get
you; If you believe like me, act like me, hang out with me, become like me,
then you get to go to heaven when you die. If you don’t, you’re going to hell.”
To me, that doesn’t sound like very good news at all!
I believe the Scriptures contain a very different gospel—one that truly is good news. Our Psalm text for today alludes to it. “The earth is the Lord’s” means that everything and everyone belongs to God, both by virtue of the fact that he created us in the first place, and by virtue of the fact that he gave his son Jesus Christ to redeem us all. It means that God reigns over everything and everyone. That word “reign” might not mean much to us, but from the perspective of the Bible, God’s reign means peace, it means salvation, it means life for everything and everyone![2] It means that God also cares for all things and for the whole human family. It means that God not only deserves praise from all peoples, but also that God will be praised by all peoples.[3]
The idea in the Bible that all peoples are blessed, they
witness God’s saving work, and they acclaim him in worship may sound strange to
us who have been taught the traditional “gospel.” However, this understanding
of God’s redemptive purpose runs through the whole Bible. From Genesis to
Isaiah to Jesus to the Book of Revelation, the good news is that God is working
to establish his saving reign world-wide, a kingdom
which will bring mercy and freedom and new life to everything and everyone,
everywhere.
I believe that’s what Paul is talking about in our lesson
from Ephesians for today when he speaks of gathering all things together under
the lordship of Jesus Christ. Paul believed that the return of Christ would be
a day when the entire created order would be reconciled to God and restored to
its rightful place under the lordship of Christ.[4] He says it this way: “God’s secret plan has now been revealed to us; it is a
plan centered on Christ, designed long ago according to his good pleasure. And
this is his plan: At the right time he will bring everything together under the
authority of Christ – everything in heaven and on earth” (Eph. 1:9-10, NLT).[5] That doesn’t sound to me like it leaves out anyone or anything. I like a phrase
from The Message translation, where
it says that God takes “such delight” in carrying out this plan for everything
and everyone.
I’m not ashamed to say that I believe that God’s ultimate purpose is to redeem all humanity. I really fail to see what is good about the news that those of us who are “in” will inherit an eternity of blessing in the presence of God, while those who are “out” are going to suffer an eternity of torment. I never have seen the “good news” in that message. The Christian hope is that God’s redemptive purpose will prevail—for everything and everyone. This is the message of the Psalms, the message of the prophets, and it is the message of Jesus: the fulfillment of God’s reign which brings salvation. The good news insists that, despite all indications to the contrary, “God’s cause will prevail in the world.”[6]
I realize that all of this may sound either outrageous or too good to be true. Some of us who have spent our lives seeking to live for God may bristle at the thought that those who never gave God a second thought may receive the same “reward” as we will. But then, it’s not really about “rewards” at all. Our gospel is a gospel of grace—of receiving something undeserved. That’s true for all of us. It’s a gospel of unconditional love, which creates in us the confidence to take the risk of believing something that may sound too good to be true. After all, if God’s love is unconditional, then it’s unconditional for everyone, not just for you and me. And that’s what gives us the assurance to believe that God not only chooses to save everything and everyone, but also that God has the power to accomplish that seemingly outrageous plan![7]
I realize some of you may be scratching your heads at this
point.[8] We’ve
heard the “good news” that those of us who believe in Jesus will be saved while
those who don’t will be “left behind” for so long that when we’re confronted
with this aspect of biblical teaching it seems either outrageous or too good to
be true. But the “full” gospel is that God intends not just to save a chosen
few, but rather every one of his beloved children and every inch of his
precious creation. It’s the message that begins with Abraham, and it runs
through the whole Bible. And so in the New Testament the Apostles looked
forward to the day when “every knee” would bow in worship and acknowledge
Christ as Lord (Phil. 2:10-11). They believed that the plan behind all of this
is that God is in the process of “making all things new” (Rev. 21:5, NJB).
How that will happen I don’t profess to understand
completely. There are complications involved. But despite that, it is a
breathtaking message; a message that truly is “good news.” To me it seems like
these days most of the news is “all bad, all the time.” I think we could do with
some good news. I think the people around us could do with some good news. And
so perhaps the challenge of this passage is that we become a people who reflect
the hope of this outrageous good news![9] God’s plan is that through Christ he’s going to redeem everything and everyone.
And as the Scripture says in The Message translation, God takes “great
delight” in seeing to it that this plan will be fulfilled!
[1] © 2024 Alan Brehm. A sermon delivered by Rev. Alan Brehm PhD on 7/14/2024 for
Hickman Presbyterian Church.
[2] James
L. Mays, Psalms, 311. Cf. also Shirley C. Guthrie, “The Way, the Truth,
and the Life,” Presbyterian Outlook (
[3] Psalm 48:10; 57:5, 11; 66:4; 72:19; 86:9; 96:1, 7; 97:6; 98:4, 7; 108:5; 145:21.
[4] 1 Corinthians 15:28; Ephesians 1:10; Colossians 1:20; Philippians 2:10-11.
[5] Cf. Jürgen Moltmann, The Trinity and the
Kingdom, 39-40: “our hope is directed towards that divine future in which
God will have all his creatures beside him to all eternity. That is to say, our
hope is for the day when all things will be restored and gathered in a new,
eternal order.” Cf. also Pheme Perkins “The Letter to the Ephesians,” New Interpreters Bible XI:378:
“Ephesians assures us that … somehow the universe is ordered so that all things
return to God in Christ.”
[6] Hans Küng, The Christian Challenge, 120.
[7] Emil Brunner, The Christian Doctrine of
the Church, Faith, and the Consummation, 344: “this love lasts forever and
that it will not rest until it possesses us wholly.”
[8] Cf. Karl Barth, Romans, 38, 108-9,
where he acknowledges that idea that a God of grace and mercy loves us
unconditionally with a love that will never let us go is something “so unheard
of, so unexpected” that it can only appear to us as something “incomprehensible
and meaningless,” as a “vast impossibility.”.
[9] Cf. also Jürgen Moltmann, The Church in
the Power of the Spirit, 292-93, where he speaks of the Christian community
as “the sign, the instrument, and the breaking-in of the new order of all
things” and therefore not as “the exclusive community of the saved,” but “the
initial and inclusive” expression of “the world freed by the risen Christ.”
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