The Drama of the Ages

Ephesians Study
Chapter 3

Ephesians 3:10  — The Drama of the Ages

Amplified Bible:

Ephesians 3:10  [The purpose is] that through the church the [complicated, many-sided wisdom of God in all its infinite variety and innumerable aspects might now be made known to the angelic rulers and authorities (principalities and powers) in the heavenly sphere.

The goal: The many-sided wisdom of God might be made known to principalities and powers in the heavenly sphere.  And, we thought the cross was just about us.  Not so.

What Paul is saying is very interesting.  We shall have to pull some other scriptures into it to make sense of it all.  In Job 1:6 we are told: “Now there was a day when the sons of God came to present themselves before the LORD, and Satan came also among them.”  

There are many ideas on who the sons of God were.  Jesus is called the Son of God.  Other beings on earth are called sons of God.  Any creature created by God could be called a son of God.  There are thoughts that sons of God were fallen angles.   Some say that they are the created sons that rule other created worlds that have not fallen.  

This scripture is rather mater of fact…like a council meeting of some sort.  The next comment is that Satan (Accuser) came ALSO among them.  It sounds like a difference was made between them and him.  Satan is asked from where did he come.  He says that he came from walking around the earth…he is taking credit for being in charge of earth  Then the story goes on to tell about Satan accusing Job.  Sometimes we overlook the fact that he also accuses God.  Are you getting the picture of what happened in the Garden of Eden…it is a repeating story throughout history.

Verse 10 speaks of principalities and powers that are in the heavenly sphere.  The full extent of the cross has a significance to these principalities and powers.  Why?  Lucifer/Satan was not immediately destroyed because then the other beings (heavenly and earthly) would have served out of fear and his accusations towards God would have seemed to be true.  God wants to be served from a love motivation, not fear/force.  Do we hear fear/force/guilt from the pulpit?  It is not from God.  He has all power but He does not force anything or anyone.  The Bible is full of examples of where God lets things play out in the dynamics and choices and consequences.  

Cain and Abel are good example of the significance of the cross.  Their instructions were to bring an offering/lamb sacrifice which Abel did.  Abel’s sacrifice was accepted.  Cain brought the fruit of his own hands…his labor.  This offering was not accepted by God.  There is no labor of our own that is acceptable.  The animals were created by God.  He alone put the blood in the animals…the life is in the blood according to the scripture.  Cain’s offering had no life-giving properties.  It could not represent the Lamb of God.  It was man-centered.  It was works-centered.  It was rebellion…the sin of witchcraft.  1 Samuel 15:23 King James Version (KJV) “For rebellion is as the sin of witchcraft, and stubbornness is as iniquity and idolatry. Because thou hast rejected the word of the Lord, he hath also rejected thee from being king.”

Often, we think of witchcraft as some kind of “woo woo.”  That is not what this verse in 1 Samuel says.  It is iniquity and idolatry because the Word of God has been rejected.  It is a matter of not being aligned with God and His truth.  It is a matter of Lordship…God or Satan.  Out of the heart, behaviors are either for God or against Him.  Cain had rejected the instruction of God; he entered into rebellion (witchcraft) doing the works of his own hands.

This speaks so much to us.  Again, it is a matter of Lordship.  That is why it was OK for the disciples to cast lots to determine a replacement disciple for Judas.  The act was not in rebellion against God’s word.   Proverbs 18:18 says, “The cast lot puts an end to strife And decides between the mighty ones (New American Standard Bible).”

It may seem that I have gotten a long way from Paul’s message here in Ephesians 3, but these principalities and powers spoken of are watching the planet earth drama unfold…like they did Job’s story.  Satan said that Job was only righteous for what it got him.  He accused God of holding a protecting hand over him.  He challenged God to prove Job and, thus, Himself.  What a dilemma.  Sounds like the Garden of Eden again.  Sounds like the woman caught in adultery again.  It is a repeating story…a method that Satan uses over and over, hence, the name Accuser.  

An example of this drama unfolding is what happened to the Son of God when He was tempted and later crucified.  The devil is always trying to put doubt in His mind: “If you be the Son of God…”  Who else would He have been?  In the question is implied more than His power; it is asking that Christ prove Himself.  Why?  Because there was so much at stake in the redemption of man, and Satan used doubt about identity just as he did in the Garden of Eden.  Jesus said in John 12:32 that if He was lifted up, He would draw all men to Him.  The last thing that Satan wanted was for Jesus to stay on the cross!  

John 16:8-11 says that the Holy Spirit will convict the world of sin, and of righteousness, and of judgment (see verse 11, it is the ruler of this world that has been judged).  The cross and resurrection sealed something for Satan who claims to be the ruler of this world.  In Ezekiel 28, there is a description of the covering cherub (Lucifer) who wanted to be God.  In Ezekiel 28:14, it says that he walked back and forth in the midst of fiery stones.  Commentaries have many different things to say about this, but the below listed commentary says this:  in … midst of … stones of fire — In ambitious imagination he stood in the place of God, “under whose feet was, as it were, a pavement of sapphire,” while His glory was like “devouring fire” (Exodus 24:10, Exodus 24:17).  Jamieson, Robert, D.D.; Fausset, A. R.; Brown, David. "Commentary on Ezekiel 28:14". "Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible". "http://www.studylight.org/commentaries/jfb/view.cgi?bk=eze&ch=28". 1871-8.

In Exodus 24:10 it says: “And they saw the God of Israel: and there was under his feet as it were a paved work of the sapphire stone, and as it were the body of heaven in his clearness.”  According to Exodus, the children of Israel saw God and a pavement of sapphire under His feet.  The pavement has something to do with  where God walks.

In John 19:13, it is said that Pilate brought Jesus to a place called “the pavement” for His trial.  There really are not coincidences in the scriptures.  In Ezekiel 28, there is a drama unfolding regarding Satan (King of Tyre).  He claimed to be God.  What was an accusation against Jesus: He claimed to be God.  Isaiah 14:12 on gives a description of Lucifer’s fall and it was about being above God…like the Most High.  

Satan went through a type of court trial.  Jesus endured the same.  At the crucifixion, the multitudes inspired by evil said, if He is the Son of God, let Him come down and save Himself.  Some scholars suggest that what Satan did during the wilderness temptation and the crucifixion was to “suggest” to Christ that He was that fallen covering cherub talked about in Ezekiel and Isaiah.  What a burden to bear when to prove yourself would have jeopardized the redemption plan.  

In Genesis 3:15, we have the promise of Jesus' bruised heel and Satan’s fatal wound to the head.  Christ was crucified on Golgotha (the place of the skull).  A cross was driven into that skull and Christ’s blood ran down that cross and on to the ground.  Genesis 3:15 was fulfilled very literally at the cross.  Jesus said those heartbreaking words, “My God, My God, why have you forsaken me?”  I want to suggest that the Son felt so alone in all of this drama that He questioned Himself.  That is what broke the heart of the Son…to feel the separation from the Father.  Never-the-less, He stayed on His cross.

This has been a long “from the chapel” but I have felt constrained like Paul to present this drama.  He understood when he visited the third heaven what had happened.  Unless we put scripture upon scripture, we will miss the magnitude of the drama of the “ages” as he puts it.  There is something more at stake than our salvation.  That was only part of the picture.  God’s character must be vindicated (like Job) in order that He can be proclaimed not only just but the justifier. Romans 3:26: “To declare, I say, at this time his righteousness: that he might be just, and the justifier of him which believeth in Jesus.”

This study has been in the works for several years.  I cannot take full credit as many of the ideas are from others.  I have not been able to see the cross in the same light since this study.  When Jesus stayed on the cross, irregardless of His personal outcome, it was faith…not in Himself but in the Father.  We really do not prove our identity by coming down from our crosses.  It is staying on them that every vestige if self is demolished.  My  God, my God, why hast though forsaken me?  Sometimes, we do not see past the cross.  The Lord knows how that feels, too.