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5 min readOpening
"For through him we both have access to the Father by one Spirit." In a single verse from Ephesians 2, Tim Keller locates the core of Christian identity and the engine of Christian community. But he is not simply describing a doctrine. He is diagnosing why modern people desperately want an experience of God yet resist the conditions that make it real. The sermon, recorded in 1993, moves between biblical theology, cultural critique, and personal testimony to argue that genuine "access" to God is neither a commodity to be consumed nor an irrational mysticism, but a costly, transformative encounter that binds believers together and makes the church a plausible sign to skeptics.
The Corporate Plausibility Structure
Keller begins with the verse's context: Paul is explaining why the church matters. In a world fractured by ethnic, class, and moral divisions, the church is supposed to be a community so unified that outsiders are forced to ask questions. Jesus himself, Keller notes, understood how hard it is to believe the claims of Christianity. So he prayed that his followers "may be one, even as we are one, that the world may know you sent me." The church's corporate life, in other words, is the "plausibility structure" that makes the gospel credible.
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What you'll learn
- 1 (00:03) **Introduction: The Corporate Context of Access** - Keller frames the verse Ephesians 2:18 ("For through him we both have access to the Father by one Spirit") within Paul's larger argument about the church's remarkable unity.
- 2 (07:42) **Two Grounds for Christian Unity** - Keller reviews the first ground (the blood of Christ gives believers the same legal standing) and introduces the second ground (believers share the same experience of access to God).
- 3 (11:18) **The Need for Access: The Modern Hunger** - Keller argues that modern people are starved for genuine experience and are dangerously prone to seeking God as a commodity.
- 4 (23:48) **The Danger: Wanting God as a Commodity** - Keller warns that modern people want the intimacy of God without the commitment of marriage—they want "three pounds of God" that won't disturb their lives.
- 5 (28:47) **The Christian Alternative: Spirit and Truth** - Keller presents Christianity as the path that avoids both the dry rationalism of the West and the anti-doctrinal mysticism of the East.
- 6 (32:41) **Pascal's Experience of Access** - Keller closes with the story of Blaise Pascal, a brilliant mathematician and philosopher, who had a life-changing encounter with God.
- 7 (36:29) **Concluding Prayer** - Keller prays that the congregation would not just know *about* God, but have access to the Father, becoming a community where God's presence is so real that outsiders sense it and are drawn in.
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Show Notes
This sermon was preached by Dr. Timothy Keller at Redeemer Presbyterian Church on March 14, 1993. Series: Salvation From the Outside In. Scripture: Ephesians 2:18.
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