In the last Bite, I said we would look in dictionaries this time. Nope. Not yet. I was wrong. We have the rest of the passage. I like to finish one process before moving on to another process.
By the Way
Another thing, in the last Bite I had a section I affectionately (and with giggling) called “I don’t know what to call this” about the past, present, and future tenses. The contents of that section should have been in observation. Remember this list?
- Observation
- Interpretation
- Application
Yep. I missed some observation and didn’t realize I’d put it into the interpretation section until last night at approximately 2:30 am. Whether it was in the wrong Bite or not, I’m thankful I observed and shared it…but I wanted to let you know it is technically one of the things I try to notice in my process of observation.
In this Bite, we will continue the same process we were conducting in the last Bite: mentioning missing observations, asking the question “why did Paul write this?”, drawing with crayons, and cross referencing.
The Actual Bite
Have you had a stretch of time in your life when it just seems like the darkness will not lift? When there are no corners of the darkness that are wrinkled and have some light exposed. Years ago that was a reality for me when I lived in a metropolis where it seemed the spiritual darkness was physically tangible. Reaching out with a knife, I could’ve cut it.
Well-meaning people had coffee cup verses they shared with no effect. For me, the only thing that began the lifting of the darkness was the baby steps of learning more about God and who he was. Specifically for me at the time, Jesus and the statement in Hebrews of “consider Jesus”. Here in this section, God put forth his Son. Knowing my Dad who gave his Son on my behalf would be considering Jesus as well. That is what we are doing in this next few verses: considering God and Jesus.
If you are plodding through some darkness, I don’t have any fix-it-all verses. All I have is the study of God’s character and nature and I will study it with you. Just like we talked about in the last Bite, unless God moves, we will remain in our natural state. Let’s learn more about God together and see how he moves. Let it roll around in our spiritual mouths and taste how good he is. It was the reason Paul wrote the passage so let us honor him by joining him in his worship.
Quoted below is our section.
20 that he worked in Christ when he raised him from the dead and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly places, 21 far above all rule and authority and power and dominion, and above every name that is named, not only in this age but also in the one to come. 22 And he put all things under his feet and gave him as head over all things to the church, 23 which is his body, the fullness of him who fills all in all.
Ephesians 1:20–23 (ESV)
Oh the concepts available here to study! In order to keep things manageable, which is one of my goals, we are not going to cross reference all of these here and now. In fact, I believe I will leave the powerful and beautiful doctrine of Christ being raised from the dead for an entire separate Bite. Or I might save it for when we are in Ephesians 2. I haven’t decided. Stay tuned.
Today we will consider these phrases:
- Seated him at his right hand
- Put all things under his feet
- Gave him as head over all things
Let’s head out into the exciting terrain of scripture and learn!
Seated Him at His Right Hand
As we approach these descriptions of Jesus, we want to remember that Paul has a reason for bringing each of these expressions to his audience. In their culture, the idea of being seated in a particular place meant something to the recipients. We will see what we can discern from other examples of folks being seated in the NT.
We always like to keep our concentric circles in mind, but in this case, there are no examples that I could find where Paul spoke about sitting again. We will look at a few examples in Acts and one in Revelation to see what we can see.
21 On an appointed day Herod put on his royal robes, took his seat upon the throne, and delivered an oration to them. 22 And the people were shouting, “The voice of a god, and not of a man!” 23 Immediately an angel of the Lord struck him down, because he did not give God the glory, and he was eaten by worms and breathed his last.
Acts 12:21–23 (ESV)
I realize that the sitting down part was in the first verse, but I think the eaten by worms part is such great literature written by Luke. I didn’t want to deprive you.
In seriousness, I believe the result of taking a seat is clear especially because of the worms. The fact that Herod delivered an oration as well as the chanting that was going on about Herod’s perceived identity possibly reveal some of what his taking a seat meant. Can you see some element of authority there? Obviously misguided because he was ultimately eaten by worms for not giving glory to God, but still he thought he had authority. Let’s keep investigating.
The next examples are in Acts 25. I will share those back-to-back.
6 After he stayed among them not more than eight or ten days, he went down to Caesarea. And the next day he took his seat on the tribunal and ordered Paul to be brought.
Acts 25:6 (ESV)
17 So when they came together here, I made no delay, but on the next day took my seat on the tribunal and ordered the man to be brought.
Acts 25:17 (ESV)
In these two examples, Festus is the one who took a seat. He was the Roman governor of Judea, so he was a figure of authority. In the first usage, the narrative describes Festus as taking his seat on the tribunal and casting orders (doing something with authority). In the second usage, the narrative describes Festus describing what he did. In either case, Festus took his seat and then started performing tasks of authority.
The last example we’ll look at here is in the Revelation.
4 Then I saw thrones, and seated on them were those to whom the authority to judge was committed. Also I saw the souls of those who had been beheaded for the testimony of Jesus and for the word of God, and those who had not worshiped the beast or its image and had not received its mark on their foreheads or their hands. They came to life and reigned with Christ for a thousand years.
Revelation 20:4 (ESV)
For me, Revelation is a strange piece of literature in scripture and not one that I typically run to in order to make the rest of scripture clearer. But we are focused on what does it mean when someone is seated and how it correlates to authority. If it even correlates to authority. Because as students of the Word, we leave the preconceived ideas we haul around in our spiritual backpacks at the door as much as possible.
In his vision, John saw some thrones and those to whom the authority to judge was committed seated on them. It looks conspicuously like being seated has something to do with authority.
Oh! I just found another example of someone seated on a throne, also in the Revelation of John.
11 Then I saw a great white throne and him who was seated on it. From his presence earth and sky fled away, and no place was found for them. 12 And I saw the dead, great and small, standing before the throne, and books were opened. Then another book was opened, which is the book of life. And the dead were judged by what was written in the books, according to what they had done.
Revelation 20:11–12 (ESV)
There is one seated which cause the earth and sky to flee and dead stood before him for judgment. (If we have read what has come before, we find out that this person uses a number of monikers among which are: the Alpha and the Omega, the Lord God, the one who is and who was and who is to come, the Almighty. That’s Jesus. The one seated here in chapter 20 is Jesus.) If there are people waiting for judgment in front of someone, they have authority, wouldn’t you think? I think we can start drawing a conclusion about why Paul drew his audience to thinking about Jesus seated.
- Herod donned his royal robes, took a seat on a throne, and delivered an oration.
- Festus took a seat on the tribunal and gave orders for Paul to be brought before him.
- Those to whom authority was given were seated on thrones.
- In John’s vision, Jesus will have a seat on a great white throne and will have great and small stand before him for judgment.
Culturally, as Westerners, we think less about the posture of a person in authority and more about maybe hats or crowns. There are all the people in authority in the Roman Catholic Church. There are royalty that wear crowns. But for people in Paul’s day and much of the world today, the way authority is shown is whether the person is sitting–particularly where the person is sitting. Thrones, right hand, left hand, etc. Paul is trying to tell the recipients that Jesus is in a position of authority now as well as in the future.
Old Testament Allusion
A tool in our Bible study tool box that we want to develop is the ability to recognize allusions to the Old Testament. Now, some allusions are easier to pick out from the text, and some are obscure.
In our current section of scripture, we have an allusion the ESV translators put in a footnote. Now, keep in mind that what the translators put in as footnotes is not inspired. They are alerting us as to how they think Paul was making a connection. He may have been, he may not have been. We are going to explore it and see what we see.
If you look at the footnote in the ESV, it looks like this:
When we look up Psalm 8:6, this is what we find:
6 You have given him dominion over the works of your hands; you have put all things under his feet,
Psalm 8:6 (ESV)
The translators think Paul is alluding to this phrase in the OT: you put all things are under his feet. In English, it certainly looks like a similar phrase. If Paul did make this as a connection from the OT, what did he mean by it? Why is he calling his audience’s attention to it?
If you read the context in Psalm 8, the referent for his is “man” or more specifically “mankind”. God gave dominion and all things under man’s feet. Reading the context in the psalm, he even put mankind a little lower than heavenly beings. It appears David was writing a hymn calling the congregations to sing and worship God. One of the reasons was this verse about the dominion he gave to mankind and how he put all things under mankind’s feet. In the beginning, God put mankind in authority over all things. (You can read Genesis to see how it was when God created the world.) It was how things were supposed to be and God is worthy of worship in part because of it.
You may be asking “why is Psalm 8 an allusion in Ephesians when Paul in Ephesians is clearly not referring to mankind?” Great question. Let’s keep investigating.
Do you see up there in the footnote in Ephesians there is also a cross reference for 1 Corinthians 15:27? Let’s check that out and see what light it sheds. Often it is the case when NT writers quote the OT or make allusion to it, they give us the interpretation for the OT. Which is good because sometimes it is hard to understand, especially in relation to the new covenant.
27 For “God has put all things in subjection under his feet.” But when it says, “all things are put in subjection,” it is plain that he is excepted who put all things in subjection under him. 28 When all things are subjected to him, then the Son himself will also be subjected to him who put all things in subjection under him, that God may be all in all.
1 Corinthians 15:27–28 (ESV)
Context here in 1 Corinthians is a brief comparison between Adam and Jesus. Jesus came to right the wrongs done in Adam (by a man came death, by a man has come also the resurrection of the dead). There is a progression Paul lays out for his readers that we will not dig into deeply here, but we will look at it briefly. My intention here is to gain some experience with the fact that there are connections between the Old and New Testaments.
The interpretation that Paul gives in 1 Corinthians seems to explain more clearly what is going on. Let’s try to organize the information we see comparing the two representatives.
| Adam (representative of man) | Christ (perfect representation of God) |
| given dominion/all things under his feet (Ps 8:6) | given dominion/all things under his feet (Eph 1:21-22) |
| by a man came death (1 Co 15:21) | by a man has come resurrection from the dead (1 Co 15:21) |
| in Adam all die (1 Co 15:22) | in Christ all made alive (1 Co 15:22) |
| Adam did it wrong (the Bible and observing the world) | Christ has come to make all things right (a lot of places in scripture, but one example is Eph 2:1-10) |
As I see it, Adam did what he was given to do wrong. Adam was given dominion over the earth. Which means he was given authority and that all things were put under his feet. In Genesis, mankind redefined the authority and made himself a god. That is why we have a broken world now. But that isn’t so much the point of this text.
David in Psalm 8 calls God’s people to worship God for who he is and what he’s done regardless of what mankind has done. Then in the NT, Paul shows the audience that Jesus came and in him, all things are made right. Or at least they are in the process of being made right. Perhaps even a bit of the already, not yet is at play here as well. Reading in 1 Corinthians 15, we can definitely see this concept described in verses 24-28.
Gave Him as Head Over All Things
Let’s look at the cross references that will help us interpret what Paul means by the concept of Jesus being head over all things.
This phrase has at its core, this word head. In Greek, κεφαλή kephalē. Here is the color wheel from Logos Bible Software and the corresponding cross references in Ephesians and Colossians.
Remember the Basics literary device article I published earlier? This one? Here is the real, live example in everyday Bible study. Head is a synecdoche. Representing the whole with a part. Cool, huh? Let’s explore a few of these cross references together and then you can take off from there, exploring more if you’d like.
As I copied the next verse in order to bring it over here, I realized that it and its surrounding verses may cause some of us some amount of angst. Please join me in remembering that this is God’s Word. It is good and right and true. What people do with it or the wrong ways they put it into action in no way calls the Word, or the God of the Word, into question. Leave your backpack at the door. Still. We must allow the Word to wash our minds of wrong thinking. Be clean! We both know that won’t happen by the grit of our teeth. But it will happen by the truth being allowed to penetrate our hearts and then change our minds. So let’s take a collective deep breath and proceed. Together, my fellow student.
23 For the husband is the head of the wife even as Christ is the head of the church, his body, and is himself its Savior.
Ephesians 5:23 (ESV)
This concept of the husband being head of the wife is a representation, like a beautiful painting of a tree is not a true tree.
Let’s start listing what we are learning about this idea of head, shall we? We will include what we see from Ephesians 1:22 as well as 5:23.
- Christ is given as head over all things
- Christ is given as head to the church
- Husband is head of wife
- Christ is head of church
Why does this business about Christ being head of the church or the husband being head of the wife matter? If we read on in the Ephesians 5 passage, Paul states
24 Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit in everything to their husbands.
Ephesians 5:24 (ESV)
(Breathe. In, out, in, out. No backpacks here. Let’s just study the Word.)
What this further description tells us is that the church should submit to Christ. What represents that is the beautiful painting of a marriage done well. The marriage should represent the relationship between the church and Christ. If we rearrange this chiastic structure, it might shed light on what Paul was trying to convey.
See the chiastic structure? (The Greek letter chi <he> is shaped like the English “X”.)
Husband is head of the wife in the same way that Christ is head of the church.
What if we flipped it? Like in the last Bite where we considered it as an opposite in the section about Hope? Would we have a problem if we flipped the X here? Like this:
Would anyone who loves Jesus have trouble with him being the head of the wife? Of course not. Because he is trustworthy and good. For the painting of the one relationship (marriage) to be like the other (Christ and the church), the heads must be like one another.
In every case, are husbands like Christ? No. And that takes us back to the same concept we covered with the allusion to the OT above. Christ comes because in Adam, humankind has not done it right.
Our topic here is what does it mean that Paul uses the synecdoche of Christ as head. We are not addressing marriage here. Without a doubt, it will arise as the topic (like when we get to Ephesians 5), but I will restrain myself for now.
However, when we see a marriage that has the direction of proper relationship between husband and wife, doesn’t that make you want to be around that married couple? Where there is joy, love, nurturing, respect, fun, one-ness there is fullness of life. Have you ever seen or experienced a marriage like that? The relationship that advertises “MARRIAGE IS AWESOME!” Though, let’s be clear, even the best marriage is still just a poor illustration of the perfection that Christ is as head of the church. Marriage is the cave painting that helps us understand what the headship of Christ over the church looks like.
In no marriage is there the same devotion that Jesus has. Jesus dropped every distraction and hobby all the way from heaven to earth. Jesus cared to death. And then he rose from the dead. All so we wouldn’t have to taste death. Jesus provided for every need including leaving the Comforter, the Holy Spirit. No husband can do what Jesus came to do.
Only a cave painting.
Let’s organize what we’ve learned in a list.
- Christ is given as head over all things
- Christ is given as head to the church
- Husband is head of wife
- Christ is head of church
- Wife submits to her head
- Church submits to her head
There are several more verses to look up that I listed above. I will leave some exploration for you to do on your own. And I don’t want us to have too big a Bite.
Wrap Up
When we began this Bite, we wanted to know why Paul was busy telling us all of this information about God and Jesus. Have you started to have a glimmer about his purpose? Did you see a theme through the concepts we explored here? Let’s consider what we learned.
In the section about being seated, there seemed to be an air of authority either taken by the one seated or given to the one who would be seated.
In our investigation about the allusion to the OT, the giving of dominion is closely related to having all things under his feet. More words about authority or rule, right? Plus we have the idea about how in Adam all he was given to do was done wrong. In Christ, all is done perfectly. More hints of authority.
Finally, in the section where we looked at cross references that mention Christ being head, there were other words associated that demonstrated a type of ranking. (Oh, there is so much I had to leave out of that. We will get to it later!) The point is that the church submits to Christ. Definitely more authority.
When there is darkness, please join me in considering Christ. He is good and just. He is the one who comes to put all things right. He is benevolent leader. Paul wants the audience to recognize the character and nature of God and who God put in authority over all things until the appointed time. He wants to draw them (and us) into worship of the Savior of the world. Again, let the truth we’ve learned resonant in your soul like the booms of fireworks you not only hear but FEEL. Trust the truth, even in the darkness. We can trust the truth together.
As I wrap up a Bite at the end each time, I try to draw out something that we talked about together in the article. This time, I would like to share my experience about the value of having a learning process. A system of learning that fits your life and tool box.
I was tackling the allusion section and bemoaning to my beloved while cooking breakfast how I didn’t know how to write what I needed to write to bring you along in the study. Funny how when I sat down here at my desk to study and write, I followed my own method (duh) and the Spirit lead me in what to notice and then share with you.
The methodology is simple. The Bite for today is to adopt the method that you will DO and then DO it to learn about God from his Word. You may not be able to do all that I talk about in these articles, but you can modify to fit your life. Even it is only to make lists. DO it. Observe the snot out of the text and take that with you into your day. Know your God. Not the God the meme or the podcast or even the pastor presents. Know the God of the Bible for yourself.
Learning about God methodically will keep you on the rails of orthodox theology and will, like me, help you to be able to explain it to someone else. Oh magnify the Lord with me!
I think next time we will start to look at the phrase raised from the dead. Remember I said I hadn’t decided what we were going to do with it yet? Considering it a little next time seems in order. It is such a major theme in the NT, there have to be multiple Bites.
