Paul, an apostle of Jesus Christ by the will of God, to the saints who are at Ephesus, and faithful in Christ Jesus;

We can look at this last phrase in verse one as another name for Christians given by God. Remember, he is addressing the church at Ephesus in general. He is not simply speaking to the "good Christians". There is no indication here that he is talking to a group within the church at Ephesus, but rather to the church at Ephesus as a unit. As we saw the prior section, this says wonderful things about the new nature created in us in Christ.

The Greek word for faithful refers to one who is "believing". It can also refer to one who is loyal or trustworthy with regard to some charge or command. Thus in this word we see both areas of meaning we spoke of when we were talking about the idea that are called saints. We are "believing ones", that speaking of an essential attribute of the makeup of our person. However, we are also those who were trusty or loyal with regard to our behavior. Paul here characterizes these Ephesian Christians as those who had both believed the gospel, and were living that belief out in the real world.

This is another point that we must understand. Christians are faithful to God! This is not to say that Christians do not have their unfaithful moments, we most certainly do have such moments. However, it is Christian’s nature to be faithful. Unfaithfulness will be the aberration in his life, not the norm. For some this is very difficult to grapple with. Many in Christianity today have been taught that is acceptable, if not the norm for one profess Christ and yet be unfaithful to him. We think of Uncle Jack who professed Christ years ago , or Tom, the guy who made the profession at a revival, or Sally who walked the isle in evening service last month, and, wanting to be positive and generous, we try make allowance for the unfaithful behavior we see. Now, this is not to say that Christians cannot behave in unfaithful fashion. We certainly can. However, there is a line over which one who is genuinely saved will not step. Those whose lives are characteristically unfaithful, at the very least, run the danger of being self deceived. Our prayers and our exhortations should treat them as such. Christians are characteristically faithful to God. Thus, Paul and refer to them here in verse one as "the faithful".

This also makes a sobering point concerning the gospel. Many today proclaimed that one can be a true Christian and still behave as they behaved before they received Christ. Some even go so far as to say that a person can have a "moment of faith", and then can even turn their back on Christ and become anti-Christian! They would demand that we view even such as these as genuinely saved people. The proponents of such an "easy-believe" gospel do great violence to the true message of salvation in Jesus Christ.

Rather, the Bible teaches that Christians, real Christians, will show the spiritual life that they now possess in their actions. It or words, real Christians will act like Christians not like non-Christians. To put a Biblically, there will be fruit in their lives and that fruit will be visible and it will "remain". The concept of a "fruit-less" believer is foreign to the word God. God knows of no such Christians.