Articles
All Spiritual Blessings Are In Christ
All Spiritual Blessings Are In Christ
“3 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,..” (Ephesians 1:3).
A simple listing of such blessings is astounding: In Christ believers are holy, blameless, adopted as sons, redemption, forgiveness. Notice the number of times that it specifically states ‘in Him, before Him, through Jesus, in the Beloved, in Christ’! Such promised blessings are not for Jewish people but for ALL those who are IN CHRIST, whether Jew or Gentile.
Thus, we take notice of the ‘we’ in verses 4-12 (the believing Jews including Paul), and then the ‘you also’ in vs. 13. The ‘you’ is identified in 2:11-13 as those who were gentiles. They have received the same spiritual blessings by reason of being IN CHRIST.
As Paul had concluded in Gal. 3:28; “There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free man, there is neither male nor female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus.”
The deciding basis of such spiritual blessing is not keeping the law of Moses and circumcision, but being IN CHRIST. “… all of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ” (Gal. 3:28). Again: “3 Or do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus have been baptized into His death? 4 Therefore we have been buried with Him through baptism into death, so that as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, so we too might walk in newness of life” (Romans 6:3-4).
Hugh DeLong
