It really is amazing how cheaply you can pick stuff up on kindle. I bought Calvin's complete Bible commentaries the other day for just over three quid - brilliant! The fact is I've had the hardback versions sitting on my bookshelves for four years or more but barely picked them up, but now I'm burrowing in to his commentary on Ephesians. It's good. Really good.
At one point he picks up on the phrase "the God of our Lord Jesus Christ" in 1:17. He then makes the simple point that, "the Son of God became man in such a manner, that God was his God as well as ours."
Why is that significant? Well I'm glad you asked. Calvin goes on to explain:
"And the reason that he (God) is our God, is, that he is the God of Christ, whose members we are."
The Son of God became a man so that God the Father would be his God. So that in his human nature Jesus Christ would know the Father as his God. We by nature cannot know God as our God - not because we're human, humans are supposed to relate to God as their God, but because we're naturally sinful. The Son of God became a perfect sinless human, who therefore, in his humanity, did know the Father as his God, so that when we're joined to Christ by faith we know God as our God too.
The humanity of Christ, and our union with him as believers, meant that Jesus could say, "I am ascending to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God." (John 20:17)
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