Audio Transcript

Well, the month of May is coming to an end for us. And that means, in our Navigators Bible Reading Plan, we are wrapping up the book of 2 Samuel, the Gospel of Mark, and Paul’s epistle to the Galatians. That will clear the slate for us to begin June with fresh readings in 1 Kings, Luke, and Ephesians.

And that will land us in Ephesians 1:18, one of those beautiful texts we come back to over and over on the podcast for all sorts of issues and challenges in our lives. It’s so deeply rich and necessary for living the Christian life right, to understand this text, that we must pray it: “Having the eyes of your hearts enlightened, that you may know what is the hope to which he has called you, what are the riches of his glorious inheritance in the saints” (Ephesians 1:18). A text like that — an awakening like this — is necessary if we are ever going to escape the clutches of our entertainment culture and find personal awakening and global revival. That’s just a few of the connections made on the podcast previously, as you’ll see in the APJ book on pages 302–303.

But to embrace Ephesians 1:18 and feel its influence in our lives requires that we first understand Ephesians 1:18. And that’s today’s question to Pastor John, on the phone with us. “Hello, Pastor John, my name is Cristina, and I follow you from Italy. I appreciate how you and the team at desiringGod.org make such wonderful Christ-centered resources, and I particularly appreciate your fairness and honesty in dealing with all kinds of tricky Bible questions. Here’s mine. Personally, I struggle with interpreting Ephesians 1:18. ‘[I pray that] the eyes of your hearts [may be] enlightened, that you may know what is the hope to which he has called you, what are the riches of his glorious inheritance in the saints.’ Namely, is this about what God is going to inherit in us, the saints? Or is it about what we as poor, empty-handed people are going to inherit? Do we inherit from him? Does he inherit us? What’s the inheritance and who inherits it?”

Well, Cristina, you’re not in a class by yourself because in English the wording is ambiguous. (And frankly, it is in Greek as well, though not quite as ambiguous.) So, let’s get it in front of us. In the first fourteen verses of Ephesians, Paul laid out the magnificent saving work of God from eternity to eternity. And then, in Ephesians 1:16, he turns from theology to prayer. It’s a beautiful example of how we need both theology (Ephesians 1:1–14) and then divine supernatural spiritual illumination (Ephesians 1:15–23) — just a beautiful example of how to go about seeing and savoring the glories of God.

Whose Inheritance?

So, here’s the key text that she’s referring to: “[I pray] that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give you the Spirit of wisdom and of revelation in the knowledge of him, having the eyes of your hearts enlightened, that you may know” — and then Paul mentions three things (she’s asking about the second one):

1. “What is the hope to which he has called you” — or, literally, “what is the hope of his calling.”
2. “What are the riches of [the glory of his] inheritance in the saints.”
3. “What is the immeasurable greatness of his power toward us who believe, according to the working of his great might.”

“The riches of the glory of the inheritance is what God gives us, not what he gets.”

That’s Ephesians 1:17–19. And Cristina’s question is, What does this phrase mean — “the riches of [the glory of his] inheritance in the saints”? Does it mean that God inherits us, the saints, or does it mean that we, the saints, will have an inheritance from God? And I think the correct interpretation is the second one — namely, the inheritance is given by God and is in or among the saints. We receive it into our midst and in our hearts. I don’t think Paul means that God gets us as an inheritance.

And there are at least four reasons why I think this.

Four Reasons from the Context

First, Paul is praying that the saints would have the eyes of their heart enlightened to grasp the majesty and glory and riches and wonder of the things he’s been talking about. And just before the prayer, we read this: “In him you . . . were sealed with the promised Holy Spirit, who is the guarantee of our inheritance until we acquire possession of it, to the praise of his glory.” That’s Ephesians 1:13–14, just before the prayer begins. So, the most immediately near reference to an inheritance is not God getting one but giving one to us for his glory. So, I think it would be natural to think that’s what he’s praying about, that we would grasp that inheritance.

Here’s the second reason for thinking it’s God giving an inheritance rather than getting one. If we look at what comes later as a possible help and filling in of a description of what the inheritance is, I think we find it in Ephesians 2:6–7. See if you don’t think so.

[He] raised us up with him and seated us with him [with Christ] in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, so that in the coming ages he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus.

So, what he calls “the riches of [the glory of his] inheritance” in Ephesians 1:18 I think he describes in Ephesians 2:7 as “the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us.” In other words, the riches of the glory of the inheritance is what he gives us, not what he gets.

Third, if we focus on the three specific realities that Paul wants us to see with the eyes of the heart and grasp in a profound way, it turns out that he uses the very same wording with regard to each of them as to whether they come from God or go toward God. For example, he wants us to see the hope of his calling; two, the glory of his inheritance; three, the greatness of his power. Now, that’s a significant level of symmetry or of parallel, and I think it would be really strange if the modifier his had a different meaning in regard to the inheritance than it has in regard to the calling and the power. It’s his calling in the sense that he gives it. It’s his power in the sense that he has it and gives it. And it’s his inheritance in the sense that he gives it. That’s argument number three.

Finally, if you do a word study (which I did) and look up all the places where Paul uses the word inheritance or inherit or heir, we find that in all of Paul’s uses of these words, they never refer to God inheriting or God’s receiving an inheritance or God’s being an heir. So, I conclude that Paul in Ephesians 1:18 is talking about the riches of the glory of the inheritance God has laid up for the saints.

Now, before I stop, of course it’s not false that the church is God’s treasured possession and he will rejoice over us. Indeed, that spectacular experience may well be part of the inheritance he gives to us. But the focus of Ephesians 1:18 is what we will inherit, not what God will inherit.