Ephesians has a stunning vision of the future new creation. Due to its realized eschatology, Ephesians uniquely imagines the fulfillment of this vision in the present. It explores the threads of the new creation imagined in Ephesians. It investigates how the writer imagines this breaking into the present. It argues that by using a pronounced realized eschatology, Paul exhorts his readers to join God’s mission to bring the future into the present in Christ with God’s character.
The first section explores the new future the writer imagines throughout the epistle. These explicit threads are examined: all things in heaven and earth brought together in Christ (1:10), the inheritance and redemption of believers (1:14; 5:5), God showing in the coming ages the riches of his grace in kindness upon believers in Christ (2:7), and the wrath of God coming on the children of disobedience (5:6). These passages open the way to consider the social (race, marriage, gender, social status, interpersonal relationships) and personal ethical dynamics (relational, sexual) that dominate the letter and will characterize a renewed humanity in the renewed creation.
The second part examines how the writer draws on this new creation vision to help believers live in the present. The implications for present life based on the future include: in Christness (throughout); the heaping up of present salvific blessings anticipating the future in 1:3–14; the subjection of everything under Christ’s feet and his headship over all things, his being given to the church, his body, and God’s present filling of all things in 1:20–23; the implications of the realized eschatology in 2:5–6 for present life; the vision of future racial unity for the present in 2:11–22; and the ethical vision of the future in 4:1–6:9 to be reflected in the present church community.
The third section acknowledges that while Ephesians has a heightened present eschatology, this new creation is now but not yet. It’s not yet-ness is seen in these things: the presence of sin, a hostile world, the corruption of the flesh, flawed relationality within people (2:1–3), racial and cultural hostility and alienation (2:11–13), flawed ethics (2:3; 4:17–19; 5:3–6), and hostile demonic powers (2:2; 6:11–12). The paper explains how the writer dynamically uses the new creation vision to excite readers to participate in, with, and by Christ in God’s mission to the world. The picture summons people to do good works (2:10), build radically inclusive countercultural churches (2:14–22), proclaim Christ and this vision to the world (3:1–13; 4:11; 6:15, 17), live by God’s ethical virtues, establish families of mutual love and service (4:1–6:9), resist the powers (6:10–17), and pray always, as prayer draws the power of the future into the present transforming humankind and creation (1:15–23; 3:14–21; 6:18–20).