エフェソの信徒への手紙2:4-7　Ephesians 2:4-7,

しかし、憐れみ豊かな神は、わたしたちをこの上なく愛してくださり、その愛によって、罪のために死んでいたわたしたちをキリストと共に生かし——あなたがたの救われたのは恵みによるのです—— キリスト・イエスによって共に復活させ、共に天の王座に着かせてくださいました。（エフェソ2:4-6）

「憐れみ」と翻訳されているエレオスというギリシア語は、「困窮している人によって起こされる感情で、その人を助けて困難を取り除こうとすること」という意味です。紀元前3世紀に翻訳されたギリシア語版の旧約聖書を読むと、この言葉は「慈しみ」を表すヘセドというヘブライ語の訳語として用いられています。出エジプト記の34章6節と7節には、神様がモーセに「主」というご自身のお名前を宣言し、ご自身がどのような方であるかを示される場面があります。そこには次のように記されています。「主は彼の前を通り過ぎて宣言された。『主、主、憐れみ深く恵みに富む神、忍耐強く、慈しみとまことに満ち、幾千代にも及ぶ慈しみを守り、罪と背きと過ちを赦す。しかし罰すべき者を罰せずにはおかず、父祖の罪を、子、孫に三代、四代までも問う者。』」

ギリシア語版の旧約聖書を読むと、日本語の旧約聖書で「憐れみ深く」となっている箇所はエレオスでない別の言葉になっているのですが、「慈しみとまことに満ち」と「幾千代にも及ぶ慈しみを守り」の「慈しみ」という言葉は、本日の聖書の箇所で「憐れみ」と翻訳されているエレオスという言葉です。日本語で「憐れみ」と言うと「同情」する感情のことだという印象を受けます。確かに、神様は苦しむ人々に同情してくださる方です。しかし、それだけでなく実際に「慈しみ」を示してくださる方でもあります。すなわち「罪と背きと過ちを赦す」方なのです。

もしかすると、みなさまの中に旧約聖書の神様は怒りと裁きの神様で、新約聖書の神様は愛と赦しの神様であるという印象をもっておられる方があるかもしれません。しかし、旧約聖書の神様と新約聖書の神様が別々というようなことは決してありません。神様は罪に対して「怒り」ますが、「怒り」を示したのちに「罪と背きと過ちを赦す」「慈しみ」深い方なのです。ですから、本日の箇所の前の3節に記されているように、神様は「生まれながら神の怒りを受けるべき者」に対して怒りをお示しになっただけでなく、本日の箇所の4節にあるように「憐れみ」をもって愛のわざを行ってくださいました。その愛のわざは、独り子イエス・キリストを与えて、イエス・キリストの十字架と復活によって罪の奴隷の状態にある人類を救おうとするわざでありました。　　　　　　（2月16日の説教より）

The Japanese phrase “Shiku Hakku,” which literally means “four kinds of suffering and eight kinds suffering,” is used to describe the great difficulties that people go through. For example, we say that we went through “Shiku Hakku’ when we were studying for an exam, or that we went through Shiku Hakku” because of debt. However, the phrase originally comes from Buddhist teachings. Dr. SAEGUSA Mitsuyoshi, a Buddhist scholar and professor emeritus at Tsukuba University, gives the following explanation of the term “Shiku Hakku” in the Nihon Dai Hyakka Zensho (Comprehensive Encyclopedia of Japan) published by Shogakkan.

Buddha looked directly at the reality of life, and discovered that it was full of things and events that did not go as he wished, and he called this “Ku” (suffering). This suffering is not only external to the self, but also internal, and ultimately stems from the finitude of human beings and the self-contradictions that arise from this. When we analyse this suffering, the four greatest are “Shou” (birth), “Rou” (old age), “Byou” (illness) and “Shi” (death). These are followed by “Aibetsuriku” (the suffering of separation from beloved ones), “Onzoueku” (the suffering of meeting those we hate), “Gufutokku” (the suffering of not being able to obtain what we seek) and “Gounzyoku” (all things are full of suffering). And adding these four kinds to the four greatest, there are the eight kinds of suffering. These cannot be avoided even if we try, and rather than avoiding them, Buddha and Buddhism teach that we can transcend them and achieve liberation by deepening our understanding of and experience of these sufferings as they are. (Translated by MIYOSHI Akira.)

And the great theme of Buddhism is how to be liberated from these “four kinds of suffering and eight kinds of suffering.” Christianity teaches that human suffering comes from the rupture of our relationship with God, who is the source of life. When Eve broke God’s commandment in the Garden of Eden, God pronounced judgment on her, saying, “I will surely multiply your pain in childbearing; in pain you shall bring forth children. Your desire shall be contrary to your husband, but he shall rule over you” (Genesis 3:16). God also told Adam, “Cursed is the ground because of you; in pain you shall eat of it all the days of your life” (Genesis 3:17). Then God pronounced, “By the sweat of your face you shall eat bread, till you return to the ground, for out of it you were taken; for you are dust, and to dust you shall return” (Genesis 3:19). That is, the Bible teaches that because the ancestors of human beings rebelled against God, the source of life, human beings have become dominated by the sin of rebelling against God, and is no longer able to have proper fellowship with God. And according to Christian teachings, the state of having lost proper fellowship with God, the source of life, is a state of suffering and death. The Large Catechism of Church of Christ in Japan asks and answers about the state of human beings who have become slaves to the sin of rebelling God as follows.

Q48. What is the real state of human beings who have become slaves to sin?

A It is that human beings do not try to serve God and other people, but instead become self-centred and seek only their own interests and glory. This ultimately manifests itself in the form of idolatry, where people make their own shame into a source of glory and their own stomachs into gods. Furthermore, by making other people the victims of their own desires, they create division, conflict and strife, and not only do they become enemies of God, but they also become enemies of other people, pushing themselves and the world to the very brink of destruction. (Translated by MIYOSHI Akira.)

In his letter to the Ephesians, the Apostle Paul describes how human beings are in a state of slavery to sin, and how God has rescued them from this state through Christ. First, in the verse 1 before today’s passage, he says, “And you were dead in the trespasses and sins.” In other words, before the believers of the Ephesian church came to believe in Christ, they were spiritually dead, having committed “the trespasses and sins” of worshipping idols of gods created by human beings, and having lost their fellowship with the true God. The following verse 2 explains that this is actually the result of following the devil. In verse 2, he says, “You once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience.” Furthermore, in verse 3, he confesses that he himself was also a slave to sin, saying, “We all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind.” Even someone like Paul, who had lived his life faithfully observing the Old Testament laws, was ultimately living “in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind” because he was fixated on his own righteousness and his own goodness in observing the law. The sins that the Gentiles, such as the people of Ephesus, had committed before becoming Christians were clearly sins that went against God’s teachings. However, the sins that Jews like Paul had committed before becoming Christians were difficult to know, as they appeared to be following God’s teachings, but in reality they were living a self-centred life. And since they were both sinners, Paul says that both Gentiles and Jews were “by nature children of wrath.” That is, all human beings were in a miserable state of being “by nature children of wrath.”

In the passage that follows, Paul tells us how we can be saved from this miserable state. Verses 4-6 read as follows.

But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved— and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus.

There are a number of important points in this long passage. First, God is “rich in mercy.” The Greek word translated as “mercy,” i.e., eleos (ἔλεος), means “the emotion aroused by someone in need and the attempt to relieve the person and remove his trouble.” If you read the Greek version of the Old Testament, which was translated in the 3rd century BC, you will find that this word is used as a translation of the Hebrew word “hesed,” which means “steadfast love.” For example, in Exodus 34:6-7, there is a scene where God reveals his name “the Lord” to Moses and shows who he is as follows.

The LORD passed before him, and proclaimed, “The LORD, the LORD, a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness, keeping steadfast love for the thousandth generation, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, yet by no means clearing the guilty, but visiting the iniquity of the parents upon the children and the children’s children, to the third and the fourth generation.”

When you read the Greek version of the Old Testament, the word of the English Old Testament that say “merciful” are actually a different word from “eleos,” but the words “steadfast love” of the English Old Testament are the Greek word “eleos” which means “mercy.”  When you say “mercy” in Japanese, you get the impression that it means “sympathy.” Certainly, God is the one who has “sympathy” on those who are suffering. But he is also the one who actually shows “steadfast love.” In other words, he is the one who “forgives iniquity and transgression and sin.”

Perhaps some of you have the impression that the God of the Old Testament is a God of wrath and judgement, and the God of the New Testament is a God of love and forgiveness. However, there is never any such thing as a separate God of the Old Testament and a separate God of the New Testament. God shows “wrath” at sin, but after showing his “wrath,” he “forgives iniquity and transgression and sin” and reveals “steadfast love.” Therefore, as written in the verse 3 before today’s passage, God not only showed his wrath to “by nature children of wrath,” but also, as written in verse 4 of today’s passage, he showed his “mercy” and performed works of love. These works of love were to give his only begotten son Jesus Christ, and to save human beings, who were in the state of being slaves to sin, through the cross and resurrection of Jesus Christ.

The second point is that God “made us alive together with Christ” and “raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus.” God raised up Christ from the dead and seated him on his heavenly throne, as we read in 1:20-21 of this letter as follows.

He (God) worked in Christ when he raised him 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 above every name that is named, not only in this age but also in the one to come.

The resurrection of Christ is recorded as a historical fact in the four Gospels. Paul also testifies to the historical fact of Christ’s resurrection in 1 Corinthians 15:3-5 as follows.

For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received: that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the Scriptures, and that he appeared to Cephas, then to the twelve.

Furthermore, the ascension of Christ into heaven is recorded in Acts chapter 1. As for his enthronement in heaven, in Philippians 2:9 Paul says, “God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name.” The author of the Epistle to the Hebrews also says in 12:2 that Jesus “for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God.”

In this way, the resurrection and ascension of Christ are also recorded in other passages of the Bible. However, the unique feature of today’s passage, which is not found in these other passages, is that God made those who believe in Christ alive together with Christ, raised them up with him and seated them with him in the heavenly places. As I mentioned at the beginning of my exposition of the Epistle to the Ephesians, this means that God has resurrected those who believe in Christ from a state of death in the spirit, not the body, and has set them on his throne in the heavenly places, freeing them from the slavery of sin in the spirit. When teaching the people of Ephesus and the surrounding area, who believed in the spiritual dominion of the gods, such as the Greek goddess Artemis, Paul would have emphasised that those who believe in Christ are physically on earth, but in spirit they have been resurrected with Christ and are seated on the heavenly throne, having been freed from the spiritual dominion of the gods. Being freed from the spiritual dominion of the gods is not a problem that only people from 2000 years ago had to deal with. Also, in modern-day Japan, many people pray to the gods enshrined in Shinto shrines and entrust their wishes to them, and the people who run the country’s politics are the first to pray to the gods of the shrines for protection for themselves, the people and the country, too. Some people may think that it is only natural for Japanese people to do this, but isn’t this way of thinking itself actually a form of slavery to something invisible?

The third point is that, as the inserted words “by grace you have been saved” indicate, it is not by our own works but by God’s grace that we are saved from the slavery of sin. In 1:7 of this letter, Paul says, “In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of his grace.” The phrase “redemption through his blood” expresses the idea that Christ’s death on the cross redeem us from sin. Those who believe in Christ’s atonement for sin through the cross can receive forgiveness of sins and be freed from the slavery of sin. Many people may say, “I don’t do anything that bad, so I don’t need forgiveness of sins.” However, just as a small cigarette fire can cause a whole forest to burn down, ignoring your own sins, even if they seem small, can lead to the destruction of your whole life. If you say “I don’t need forgiveness of sins” and leave the problem of sin as it is, your sin will continue to grow in power and eventually your whole life will be controlled by sin. And you will end your life as a slave to sin. In order to avoid this, it is necessary to believe in and accept the grace of the forgiveness of sins that God has given you through Christ.

In verse 7 at the end of today’s passage, Paul writes, “in the coming ages he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus.” The phrase “in the coming ages he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace” means that the salvation grace of God will be completed and revealed in the world to come. In other words, those who believe in Christ are already resurrected with Christ in the spirit and seated on the heavenly throne while they are still alive in this world, but God’s salvation grace will be completed and revealed in the world to come, when they are resurrected in their bodies of eternal life. This will be realised at the Last Judgement on the Last Day.

I think there are people who are currently experiencing various sufferings. Does Christianity teach that if you believe in Christ, you will be free from the various sufferings of life? No, it does not. Christianity teaches that by believing in Christ, people can be freed from the slavery of sin and reconciled with God. And by being reconciled with God, we are given the strength to live by trusting in God and endure our sufferings. As it says on the front cover of the weekly bulletin of our church, we know that “suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope” (Romans 5:3-4).