[Core Theme and Lecture Objectives]

Ephesians 1:3-23 is at once the Apostle Paul's hymn of praise and prayer offered to God, and a text that proclaims God's redemptive economy of uniting all things in Christ, as well as the identity of the church—established when God set Christ as head over all things for the church and made the church the body of Christ.

Paul first praises God for having given us every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ. Before the foundation of the world, God chose us in Christ so that we might be holy and blameless before Him in love, and according to His good pleasure He predestined us through Jesus Christ to be adopted as God's children. This grace was given to us freely in the Beloved, and its purpose is the praise of the glory of God's grace. Moreover, in Christ we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of sins, and God has made known to us the mystery of His will, that in the economy of the fullness of time He would unite all things in Christ, things in heaven and things on earth (Eph 1:3-10).

Paul continues by saying that in Christ we have been predestined according to God's will and have become His inheritance, and having heard the word of truth—the gospel of salvation—and believed in Christ, we were sealed with the promised Holy Spirit. This Spirit is the guarantee of our inheritance until the redemption of God's own possession, and all of this is to the praise of God's glory (Eph 1:11-14). Therefore, having heard of the faith of the saints in the Lord Jesus and their love toward all the saints, Paul does not cease to give thanks and pray for them (Eph 1:15-16).

Paul then prays that the eyes of the saints' hearts may be enlightened. He asks that the saints may know the hope of God's calling, the riches of the glory of His inheritance in the saints, and the exceeding greatness of God's power toward those who believe (Eph 1:17-19). And he proclaims that God, by that power, raised Christ from the dead and seated Him at His right hand in the heavenly places, far above all rule and authority and power and dominion, and every name that is named, not only in this age but also in the age to come (Eph 1:20-21).

Furthermore, God has put all things under Christ's feet and given Him as head over all things to the church, which is His body, the fullness of Him who fills all in all (Eph 1:22-23).

Thus Ephesians 1 is a vital text that together displays the salvation of the saints, God's redemptive economy, the exaltation of Christ, the subjection of all things, the unity of all things, the identity of the church, and the majestic relationship between the church and Christ who fills all things.

KPGM's Anthropocene missiology reflects on the redemptive economy of God proclaimed in this text within the crisis-laden condition of the Anthropocene. The crisis-laden condition of the Anthropocene is a sign of the times revealing that human sin does not remain confined to the individual's inner life or moral dimension, but has expanded into the structural sin of an entire civilization—reaching into ecosystems, economy, politics, science and technology, culture, education, religion, law and institutions, war and the international order. In this respect, the crisis of the Anthropocene is not merely an environmental problem but an ecological crisis and a crisis of civilizational history, in which the order of all things created by God has been gravely distorted by human greed, pride, and disobedience.

Accordingly, this lecture seeks first, following the text of Ephesians 1:3-23, to examine every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places that God has bestowed in Christ and the calling of the saints. It also seeks to reflect on God's intention in setting Christ as head over all things for the church and in establishing the church as the body of Christ—the fullness of Him who fills all in all. Furthermore, within the crisis-laden condition of the Anthropocene, the lecture seeks to reflect together on how the church is to live as a holy and blameless missional community according to the law of God.