EPHESIANS 1 COMMENTARY

EPHESIAS 1 COMMETARY
Written and edited by Glenn Pease
PREFACE
I have made this commentary by quoting the best comments of many authors, and
the purpose is to save others time in research so they do not need to read all of these
authors to get this material. Each author quoted has some unique insight into the
text, or they express it in a unique way. I add my own comments when I thinks I
have a unique way of expressing the truth Paul is trying to communicate to
believers. This is the most profound of Paul's letters, and so sometimes the
comments are very long, for there is so much to say to cover the concepts he is
conveying. Some issues are so involved that I have put them in the Appendix for
those who want to dig deeper. My numbering system for each author and each
paragraph may confuse you. It is the way it is because I have had to add many
things along the way, and so have had to squeeze them in by adding letters to
numbers to make room for newly discovered material. This will continue to happen,
for this is not a finished product. There is much yet to be discovered about this great
revelation, and as I do, I will add to the study by inserting new paragraphs with new
numbers and letters. May God bless all who study this book with a greater grasp of
the wonder and beauty of the Savior and Lord who inspired Paul to write this
marvelous book to enlighten the minds, and inspire the hearts of all God's people.
There are always quotes where I have not found the author, and I will gladly give
credit if that knowledge is conveyed to me. There also may be those who do not wish
their wisdom to be displayed in this way, and I will remove it if they let me know
that is their wish. My e-mail is glenn_p86@yahoo.com
ITRODUCTIO
PRAISES OF THE BOOK.
1. It has been called “The queen of the Epistles,” “The crown and climax of Pauline
theology,” “the Grand Canyon of Scripture,” “The Holy of Holies in Paul’s
writings,” “The Alps of the ew Testament,” and “The Epistle of the Heavenlies.”
Coleridge the poet and philosopher said it was, “The divinest composition of man.”
It was the favorite letter of John Calvin and Dr. John Mackay, Pres. Emeritus of
Princeton Theological Seminary said of it, “The most contemporary book in the
Bible.”
2. The following quotes establish the high esteem in which Bible teachers have held
this great letter of Paul.
John Calvin called Ephesians his favorite book.

John Knox, when he was dying, requested that the book of Ephesians be read at his
death-bed.
John Bunyan, when in prison based his famous work Pilgrims Progress on the book
of Ephesians.
F.B. Myer, the great devotional writer, called Ephesians preeminently the epistle of
the inner- life.
A.T. Pierson called it the third heaven experience.
Martin Luther called Ephesians the holy of holies. And also, the most important
document in the T, the Gospel in its purest form,
J. Sidlow Baxter called Ephesians the Alps of the ew Testament.
Ruth Paxson called Ephesians the Grand Canyon of Scripture, meaning that it is
breath-takingly beautiful.
John Mackay, the former president of Princeton Theological Seminary, was
converted at the age 14 through reading Ephesians. He called it the
greatest...maturest...and for our time the most relevant of all Paul's writings.
One writer has called it the Grand Canyon of Scripture meaning that it is
breathtakingly beautiful and apparently inexhaustible to the one who seeks to
explore its breath and length and height and depth.
Among the Epistles bearing the name of St. Paul there is none greater than this,
nor any with a character more entirely its own. . . . There is a peculiar and sustained
loftiness in its teaching which has deeply impressed the greatest minds and has
earned for it the title of the 'Epistle of the Ascension. (Salmond)
If Romans is the purest expression of the gospel (as Luther said), then Ephesians is
the most sublime and majestic expression of the gospel. (Lloyd-Jones)
Lloyd-Jones also said of Ephesians: It is difficult to speak of it in a controlled
manner because of its greatness and because of its sublimity.
The English poet S. T. Coleridge called it one of the divinest compositions of man.
Dr. A. T. Pierson called it the Switzerland of the T, and rightly so, for in it Paul
rises to the most exalted Alpine heights of impassioned reasoning, exhortation, and
doxology.
3. “Klyne Snodgrass in his commentary on Ephesians states that: Pound for
pound it may well be the most influential document ever written. Within the
history of Christianity, only the Psalms, the Gospel of John, and Romans have been
so instrumental in shaping the life and thought of Christians.... He goes on to say,
This letter is the most contemporary book in the Bible. Apart from a few terms

and the treatment of slavery, Ephesians could have been written to a modern
church. It describes human beings, their predicament, sin, and delusion, but much
more it describes God's reaching out to people to recreate and transform them into
a new society. It describes the power God's Spirit gives for living. It shows who we
really are without Christ and who we become both individually and corporately
with Christ.
4. Grace Bible Church states, Although the Epistle to the Romans is the most
theological or systematic presentation of salvation, Paul's letter to the church at
Ephesus is considered the most majestic or exalted presentation of salvation in the
ew Testament, perhaps also its deepest book. Someone has summarized it this
way: The style of St. Paul may be compared to a great tide ever advancing
irresistibly towards the destined shore, but broken and rippled over every wave of
its broad expanse, and liable at any moment to mighty refluences as it foams and
swells about opposing sandbank or rocky cape. With even more exactness we might
compare it to a river whose pure waters, at every interspace of calm, reflect as in a
mirror the hues of heaven, but which is liable to the rushing influx of mountain
torrents, and whose reflected images are only dimly discernible in ten thousand
fragments of quivering color, when its surface is swept by ruffling winds F. W.
FARRAR
5. Arthur Pink wrote, Ephesians Presents the inestimable treasures of divine
wisdom, the knowledge-surpassing manifestations of God’s love to His people. The
book sets forth the riches of his grace (Eph. 1:7), yes, the exceeding riches of his
grace (Eph. 2:7), the riches of his glory (Eph. 3:16), and the unsearchable
riches of Christ (Eph. 3:8). Ephesians contains the fullest opening up of the
mystery, or the contents of the everlasting covenant. Here we are shown in greater
detail than elsewhere the intimate and ineffable relation of the Church to Christ.
Here as nowhere else we are conducted unto and into the heavenlies. Here are
revealed depths which no finite mind can fathom and heights which no imagination
can scale.
6. D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones has written that...Much of the trouble in the church
today is due to the fact that we are so subjective, so interested in ourselves, so
egocentric... Having forgotten God, and having become so interested in ourselves,
we become miserable and wretched, and spend our time in ‘shallows and in
miseries.’ The message of the Bible from beginning to end is designed to bring us
back to God, to humble us before God, and to enable us to see our true relationship
to him... And that is the great theme of this epistle.
7. R. W. Dale, Considering the length of time that Paul had lived in Ephesus, it is
remarkable that the epistle does not contain any of the kindly messages to personal
friends which are so numerous in other epistles of his. The explanation seems to be
that the epistle was intended for the use of more than one church. In some very

early manuscripts there is a curious omission of the words at Ephesus in the
first: verse. I imagine that Paul left a blank to be filled up by the copyist, and that
while one copy was meant for the saints at Ephesus, another was probably meant
for the saints at Laodicea, and perhaps another for a third church in the same
neighbourhood.
1 Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of
God, To the saints in Ephesus, the faithful in
Christ Jesus:
Amplified: PAUL, A apostle (special messenger) of Christ Jesus (the Messiah), by
the divine will (the purpose and the choice of God) to the saints (the consecrated,
set-apart ones) at Ephesus who are also faithful and loyal and steadfast in Christ
Jesus: (Amplified Bible - Lockman)
Phillips: Paul, messenger of Jesus Christ by God's choice, to all faithful Christians
at Ephesus (and other places where this letter is read): (Phillips: Touchstone)
1. Paul uses his name as the first word in the letter instead of our custom of signing
a letter at the end. It was the custom of the time, and it really makes more sense
than our way, for we have to look at the end of the letter to make sure whose words
we are reading. There is no question with Paul, for he starts right off with his name.
Paul was proud of his new name, for as Saul he was an attacker of Christ, but now
as Paul he is a backer of Christ as an Apostle of Christ. He is one of the greatest
trophies of God's grace in the Bible. He is what he is by the grace and will of God. It
was not his choice to be an Apostle. He is an appointed one from the Anointed one.
God sent Jesus into the world, and Jesus chose to send Paul into the world with his
gospel of grace, for he could preach from experience that God is indeed gracious to
the sinner, and he means it when he promised to forgive and receive the sinner into
his kingdom. Listen to Paul's own testimony in I Cor. 15:8-10, ..and last of all he
appeared to me also, as to one abnormally born. 9 For I am the least of the apostles
and do not even deserve to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the church of
God. 10 But by the grace of God I am what I am, and his grace to me was not
without effect. o, I worked harder than all of them -yet not I, but the grace of God
that was with me.
1B. Paul was an apostle not by choice, but by the will of God. He was running away
from God's will, but Jesus grabbed him on the road to Damascus and chose him to
be his representative to the Gentile world. Barclay wrote, He meant that any

power he possessed as a delegated power. The Sanhedrin was the supreme court of
the Jews. In matters of religion the Sanhedrin had authority over every Jew
throughout the world. When the Sanhedrin came to a decision, that decision was
given to an apostolos to convey it to the persons whom it concerned and to see that it
was carried out. When such an apostolos went out, behind him and in him lay the
authority of the Sanhedrin, whose representative he was. The Christian is the
representative of Christ within the world, but he is not left to carry out that task in
his own strength and power; the strength and power of Jesus Christ are with him.
Paul goes on to say that he is an apostle through the will of God. The accent in his
voice here is not that of pride but of sheer amazement. To the end of the day Paul
was amazed that God could have chosen a man like him to do his work.
1C. A lot of facts about Paul are wrapped up in this one brief comment: The
Ephesians epistle was a circular letter written to the entire Roman province (written
in the third person) in A.D. 62 by Paul, the only apostle to the Gentiles and the
Church of Ephesus located in western Turkey while in his second Roman
imprisonment. A circular letter means that it was not just for Ephesus, but for
other churches as well. Dr. Leon L. Combs wrote, It is important to note that the
oldest manuscripts do not have Ephesus in the first verse. The book was written
shortly after the middle of the first century. The earliest complete manuscripts of
Paul’s epistles dates to about AD 200 and these manuscripts do not have “Ephesus”
in the first verse: It is valid to put the name of your church in this place, for it was
meant for your church as well. It is a universal letter to all churches.
2. Paul should have been condemned along with his fellow Pharisees, but God has a
sense of humor, and he chose as his key Apostle to the Gentiles, one of the greatest
enemies of Christ that ever lived. He hated Jesus and all he stood for, and he
despised those who followed him, and he gladly saw them cast into prison and killed.
He held the clothes of those who stoned Stephen to death, and was proud to be a
part of it. ow he is the greatest church builder in the world, and the author of
almost half of the ew Testament. Paul means little, but he was not that at all, but
was the giant among the Apostles. About seven years before he wrote this letter,
Paul had arrived in Ephesus. We read about that in Acts 19. This was on his 3rd
missionary journey. His 3rd miss. journey had lasted about 4 years. He'd spent
more than half of that (about 2 1/2 years) in Ephesus.
3. The saints and faithful believers in Ephesus have a dual citizenship, and a dual
address, for they are both in Ephesus, and in Christ. All believers have their
physical location and their spiritual location. We are always in some place and
always in the same Person, the Lord Jesus Christ. It is not just the rich that have
two homes, but all believers do, for they have both a place home and a Person home.
In one we have our earthly family, and in the other we have our heavenly family. In
Christ we are in the family of God, where God is our Father, Jesus our Elder
Brother, and all of us brothers and sisters in Him. David Roth points out, In the
book of Ephesians, the phrases, in Christ, in Him, or the equivalent, occur 9

times just in Eph. 1:3-23, and a total of 27 times in the entire book. In fact, the
subject of union with Christ is of such importance to the apostle Paul, that it occurs
164 times throughout his letters.
4. They are in Christ, and we see faith in Christ as a quiet repose and a resting in
Him. Someone suggested it is like the folded wings of the dove that has found its
nest. In other places faith is on Jesus and this suggests the idea of a building on its
foundation, and of security. In other places it is faith toward Jesus as if it is a hand
reaching out for Him to grasp and hold you. All the pictures of faith are of trust and
of leaning on Jesus as the source of peace and security.
5. They are saints and they are faithful. Are such saints an extinct breed? o, they
are not even rare, but very common, for all believers are saints in the ew
Testament sense of the word. We have lost the meaning and so we have St Paul, St.
James, St. Peter, St John, but not saint Bill, saint Bob, saint George, etc. The word is
used 100 times in the . T. and in every chapter of Eph. It is a reference to all
believers, even those far from the ideal. The word hagioi means holy ones. It is the
common designation of members of the church 1:15,18, 2:19, 3:8,18, 4:12, 5:3,
6:18. It also refers to the moral purity Christians are called to 1:4, 5:3, 27.
Believers are called a holy temple in 2:21. In the Old Testament the idea was to be
separated unto God for His service as in Lev. 11:44, 19:2 and 20:26. See Ex. 28:2, Ps
2:6 and 24:3. To be holy, or to be a saint means to be separated unto God and his
service. Saints were expected to represent their Lord, and so they were to be
separated from the world and it impure ways. The Catholic church says a saint
must have two documented miracles to their credit, and even then they are not to be
called saints until they are dead and in the presence of Christ. There is nothing said
of such things in Scripture, for all believers were considered saints.
6. A saint was simply a person who was chosen to represent God in the world. A
saint was considered holy in the same sense that all holy things were holy. They were
separated from all things common that were used for secular purposes. They were
used instead for the worship and service of God. A holy thing was just a common
thing separated from its common use to be used specifically for God. An unknown
author put it like this: They were holy because they belonged to Him-
The temple had once been holy, not because of its magnitude, its statelincss, and
the costly materials of which it was built, but because it was the home of
God ; and the tabernacle which was erected in the wilderness, though a much
meaner structure, was just as holy as the temple of Solomon, with its marble
courts and its profusion of cedar and brass and silver and gold. The altars were
holy because they were erected for the service of God. The sacrifices were holy
because they were offered to Him. The priests were holy because they were
divinely chosen to discharge the functions of the temple service. The sabbath was
holy because God had placed His hand upon it: and separated its hour, from
common uses. The whole Jewish people were holy because they were organised
into a nation, not for the common purposes which have been the ends of the national

existence of other races, but to receive in trust for all mankind exceptional revela
tions of the character and will of God. And now, according to Paul s conception,
every Christian man was a temple, a sacrifice, a priest ; his whole life was
a sabbath ; he belonged to an elect race ; he was the subject of an invisible and
Divine kingdom ; he was a saint.
7. Donald Williams gives us some deeper insight into what saints are. He writes, In
popular thinking, a Saint is a kind of spiritual olympic athlete, a spiritual superstar
like Mother Teresa. But it is clear that the T does not use the word that way. Rom.
1:7, 1 Cor. 1:2, Phil. 1:1, Col. 1:2, Eph. 1:1--it is clear that Paul was neither
addressing only the elite within each church nor implying that these churches were
not full of believers who still had significant problems. In the T, saint is simply a
synonym for believer, for Christian. Its basic meaning is holy one, i.e. set apart,
one separated from the world unto God for service. It is one who has been marked
out by baptism as separate/different from the world, one who has the identity and
destiny of real holiness upon him--but not necessarily one who is already perfect. It
is a statement of Identity, not Attainment; of Selfhood, not of Success; of Position,
not of Performance.
To understand how it is that being a Christian makes you a saint is to understand
the central message of the whole first chapter; we will see this pattern again and
again. In Christ you are already holy in God's eyes. This identity of sainthood does
not depend on your performance or your attainments in spirituality. It does depend
on the work of God in Christ: it depends on the fact that he has chosen you for (v.
4), predestined you to (v. 5), redeemed you for (v. 7), and sealed you in Sainthood (v.
13). Because he has done these things, sainthood is already true of you positionally
and officially; and in experience, it has already begun to happen! And it will be
perfected in the day of Jesus Christ.You are not a saint because of anything you
have done, can do, or will do. You are a saint because of what GOD has done and is
doing and will do.
8. The other name they are called is faithful, and that means they are full of faith in
Jesus, and because of it they are his loyal followers who can be counted on to be
involved in the building of the church. Leon Combs wrote, Faith has three
elements: intellectual, emotional, and volitional. We know the correct facts, we are
moved by the facts (Christ’s death on the cross for us), and then we act on those
facts. Continuing in the faith means that we will persevere to the end in our faith.
We become the hands and feet of Jesus in the world. He came in the flesh and lived
a human life, but now he sits at the right hand of the Father and needs to continue
to live in the world through the flesh of his followers. He lives in and through us as
we become sensitive to the leading of his Spirit and carry out what he wants done in
the world through us. Faithful people are always asking what Paul first asked when
he was converted, Lord, what will you have me to do?

2 Grace and peace to you from God our Father
and the Lord Jesus Christ.
GRACE
1. Someone said, Grace is received and peace is achieved by being receptive of
grace. They go hand in hand. The external favor of God leads to the internal peace
with God. It is a standard greeting that came out of the Christian faith, and it
means that the two great values of being a Christian is that they have the favor of
God, and because they do, they also have the peace of God. They have the peace that
comes from being assured of eternal life in Christ. Many things can go wrong in life,
but they still have the peace of a solid hope in Him.
2. Barclay, Grace has always two main ideas in it. The Greek word is charis, which
could mean charm. There must be a certain loveliness in the Christian life. A
Christianity which is unattractive is no real Christianity. Grace always describes a
gift; and a gift which it would have been impossible for a man to procure for
himself, and which he never earned and in no way deserved. Whenever we mention
the word grace, we must think of the sheer loveliness of the Christian life and the
sheer undeserved generosity of the heart of God.
2B. Donald Williams, The Christian who is saved by Grace says, othing in my
hands I bring; / simply to thy Cross I cling. Every man-made religion wants to find
a way to say, something in my hand I bring. But that is to make salvation
impossible for sinners like us. Therefore Grace is to us the greatest and most
glorious of God's attributes. That is why Bunyan titled his autobiography Grace
Abounding to the Chief of Sinners, why ewton wrote Amazing Grace, and why
Paul, piling superlative upon superlative, speaks of the riches of the glory of his
grace. Grace alone.
3. Preceptaustin comments, This salutation is undoubtedly a form of a blessing or
prayer. otice that grace is like the bookends of this letter, Paul beginning and
ending with a prayer for grace for the saints...Grace be with all those who love our
Lord Jesus Christ with a love incorruptible (a never diminishing love, one not even
capable of corrupting!). In fact, with the exception of the epistle to Romans, every
Pauline letter begins and ends with grace, thus constantly emphasizing that the
Christian life begins with grace, is lived by grace and ends with grace, not by
reliance on self or works. The book of Ephesians is so full of the subject, that it has

been called “The Epistle of Grace.” Grace and peace, are always found in that order
because grace is the foundation and peace is the result.
4. These two words, grace and peace, are important words in this letter. Grace
occurs 11 times. Peace occurs 8 times. All of God's saving acts are acts of grace.
The covenant with Abraham was a covenant of grace. The liberation from Egypt
was a mighty act of God's grace. His steadfast faithfulness to the covenant even
during the lowest points of Israel's apostasy, was grace. The giving of Christ for the
salvation of sinners -- not of righteous people; not of godly people; not of the friends
of God -- but of sinners, of God's enemies, that is grace. Every step of salvation is
grace. Election, calling, forgiveness, justification, sanctification, glorification -- all of
it is by grace alone. And through this grace God establishes peace. We are at peace
with God. Things are well. Because of Jesus Christ, things are well, peaceful
between God the Father and us.
5. 'Grace' is a special word for Christians. Our whole salvation depends upon the
grace of God. We were saved by grace in election when God chose us for no merits
of our own. We were saved by grace in the death of Christ when God out of His
perfect love gave His Son to die for us. We were saved by grace alone when the Holy
Spirit of God opened our hearts to receive the truth without which we should never
be delivered from sin. We are saved by grace daily as Christ intercedes for us in
heaven and the Spirit of God works in our hearts to preserve us in the way of
righteousness and truth. 'Grace' is the most Christian greeting there can be.
6. The most common comment you will read about grace goes like this-So what is
Grace? In the T it has the technical theological meaning of God's unmerited favor
toward Man. It has been well expressed in the acrostic G.R.A.C.E., God's Riches At
Christ's Expense. The Apostle Paul is always diametrically opposed to any idea of
salvation by works or human merit. The word emphasizes that salvation is God's
work from beginning to end, and implies the Good ews that it is therefore
something we can have by faith. It is the absolute meaning given to grace that it is
always without exception the unmerited favor of God. I understand the reason for
this demand for it to be always unmerited lest anyone think they can earn salvation
by their own efforts. However, the fact is, man can earn the favor of God. God can
be pleased with his children, and show his favor to them when they live in obedience
to his will. God would be less than a human father if he could not do so. And when
he does do so, what word to you suppose the ew Testament uses to convey this
merited favor? It is the same word charis that is used for unmerited favor
everywhere. In other words, grace can be both merited and unmerited favor. The
merited is never a basis for salvation, but it is a precious reality that we dare not
dispose of. So I have put my study of this issue of grace in Appendix B for those who
want to pursue the multiple meanings of marvelous grace.
PEACE

1. Karen ys writes, Shalom! --Peace! -is the usual way Jews greet one
another. According to the prophets, peace was one of the gifts the Messiah would
bring. After the incarnation of the Son of God, now that the prince of peace has
come among men (cf. Is 9:6), when the Apostles use this greeting they are joyfully
proclaiming the advent of messianic peace: all good things, heavenly and earthly,
are attainable because by his death and resurrection Jesus, the Messiah, has
removed, once and for all, the enmity between God and men: since we are justified
by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ (Rom 5: 1).
2. Grace Blble Church has this note, The term peace is eirene (Hebrew is shalom )
and involves more than simply the absence of trouble but the everything that
contributes to a person's good, i.e., contentment, harmony, spiritual prosperity, and
completeness. Because we have received God's great grace we enjoy His peace;
grace is the source and peace is the stream which flows from it! And this dual
blessing comes from the dual source: God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.
3. Barclay, When we think of the word peace In connection with the Christian life
we must be careful. In Greek the word is eirene, but it translates the Hebrew word
shalowm. In the Bible peace is never a purely negative word; it never describes
simply the absence of trouble. Shalowm means everything which makes for a man's
highest good. Christian peace is something quite independent of outward
circumstances. A man might live in ease and luxury and on the fat of the land, he
might have the finest of houses and the biggest of bank accounts, and yet not have
peace; on the other hand, a man might be starving in prison, or dying at the stake,
or living a life from which all comfort had fled, and be at perfect peace. The
explanation is that there is only one source of peace in all the world, and that is
doing the will of God. When we are doing something which we know we ought not to
do or are evading something that we know we ought to do, there is always a
haunting dispeace at the back of our minds; but if we are doing something very
difficult, even something we do not want to do, so long as we know that it is the right
thing there is a certain contentment in our hearts. In his will is our peace.
4. Preceptaustin, Eirene is the root word for our English serene (serenity) which
means clear and free of storms or unpleasant change, stresses an unclouded and
lofty tranquility. Peace implies health, well-being, and prosperity. Christ Jesus
through the blood of His Cross binds together that which was separated by human
sin, the sinner who puts his faith in the Lord Jesus, and God. In secular Greek
eirene referred to cessation or absence of war. In Adam all men before salvation
were enemies (Ro 5:10, 12- Ro 5:10, 5:12), alienated and hostile in mind,
engaged in evil deeds (Col 1:21) and so were ''at war'' with the Almighty'. Saints
now have been justified by faith and have peace with God through our Lord
Jesus Christ (Ro 5:1) because they have been reconciled (Ro 5:10) The war
between the believer and God is over, and the treaty was written not with pen and
ink but with Cross and precious blood, where the Lamb of God paid the price in full
(Jn 19:30) so that believers now can be at rest in Christ (cf He 4:10). Paul writes
later in this letter that the peace of God… shall guard your hearts and your minds
in Christ Jesus (Php 4:7), here referring to the peace that comes from being in

unbroken communion or fellowship with God. Peace is the harmony that exists
between God and those who receive the reconciliation (Ro 5:11).
5. Donald Williams, This involves reconciliation with God. The adoption as sons
means the restoration of SHALOM between rebellious, sinful, alienated Man and a
righteous and wrathful God. It also involves reconciliation between man and man
(2:12-13, 19). If the division between Jew and Gentile can be overcome, all divisions
can be. God intends to take greedy, selfish, warring men and bring them in the
Church into a state of SHALOM with one another through his Grace.
from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.
1. Here is the dual source of all our blessedness in grace and peace. The fatherhood
of God, and the Lordship of Jesus Christ are the foundation stones on which all
Christian theology is built. Under these two ultimate authorities we become children
and servants. We are children of God our father, and servants of our Lord Jesus
Christ. We become part of a family, and part of a kingdom. We are members of the
family of God, and we are members of the kingdom of God where Jesus is the King.
As part of the family of God Jesus is our elder brother, and as part of the kingdom
of God Jesus is our Lord, Ruler, and King. Jesus is referred to some ten times as
Savior and some seven hundred times as Lord. He is supreme in Authority. This
makes sense in that we only need to trust him once to be our Savior, but we need to
submit to his as Lord time and time again all through life, and we can assume this
will continue for all eternity.
2. Ralph Smith, By placing Christ together with the Father here as the source of all
blessing--the Greek has one preposition, 'from' that refers to both Persons--Paul is
indicating his faith in the equality of Christ and the Father. It is unthinkable that a
man with Paul's theological training would, by accident, seem to ascribe deity to
Christ. He naturally assigns Christ a place of equality with the Father because it is
the habit of his worship and praise.
What we see here, by the way, is Christian culture. Greetings are part of cultural
life. In most societies the words of greeting have had religious significance of some
sort. We no longer know--unless I am mistaken--the origin our English greeting,
'hello.' But 'good-by,' like the Spanish 'Adios,' and the French, 'Adieu,' means 'God
be with you.' Christian culture in Europe produced Christian greetings, just as
Jewish culture today preserves the Jewish greeting 'shalom,' which means 'peace.' It
is natural for us to have greetings that differ from the world around us, for our
greetings, like all of our lives, should express our faith in God and our desire to
bring His blessing and grace on one another.

3 Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord
Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in the heavenly
realms with every spiritual blessing in Christ.
Amplified: May blessing (praise, laudation, and eulogy) be to the God and Father of
our Lord Jesus Christ (the Messiah) Who has blessed us in Christ with every
spiritual (given by the Holy Spirit) blessing in the heavenly realm! (Amplified
Bible - Lockman)
LT: How we praise God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, Who has blessed us
with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly realms because we belong to Christ.
(LT - Tyndale House)
Phillips: Praise be to God for giving us through Christ every possible spiritual
benefit as citizens of Heaven! (Phillips: Touchstone)
Who? God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.
When? Has blessed us in the past-a finished work.
Why ? Because we are blessed.
Where? In the heavenly realms.
What? Every spiritual blessing.
How? By redemption in His blood.
1. Pink gives us a sermon outline for this verse. He wrote, Were we to sermonize
the verse, our divisions would be (1) The believer’s excellent portion: blessed with
all spiritual blessings. (2) The believer’s exalted position: in the heavenlies in Christ.
(3) The believer’s exultant praise: blessed be the God and Father.
Preceptaustin gives us an outline of much of the chapter: And although a cursory
reading might suggest these verses are a kind of theological maze, they are in fact
very purposely laid out by divine inspiration which brings together the entire
Godhead -- Ephesians 1:3-6 describes the will of the Father, Ephesians 1:7-12
describes the work of the Son, and Ephesians 1:13-14 describes the witness of the
Spirit.
1B. Verses 3 to 14 is one of the longest sentences in English literature. It is divided in
our translations, but in the original Greek it is one sentence. Paul is so carried away
with awesome praise that he forgets to use punctuation. David Roth wrote, In this
sentence we have approximately 270 words, which is interesting in light of the fact
that grammarians suggest that a sentence should include no more than 30 words.
Yet, Paul use 9 times the allowable amount. Paul is describing how rich we are in
Christ, and he doesn't know where to stop. He is trying to pack as many superlatives

describing what we have in Christ that he wants to give each equal attention. In
this sentence we see that we have been chosen, elected and predestinated to become
the children of God. We have been adopted into His family. We have been
redeemed, forgiven and because of the love of God we have been sealed with the
Holy Spirit, thereby securing our inheritance in Christ. All of this and more is
packed into this inspiring literary masterpiece.
1C. Rev. David W. Hall “This epistle was written by Paul of Tarsus, about the year
62 AD from Rome while he was imprisoned. Even in that environment, he does not
begin with a complaint but an expression of praise. In my Bible verses 3-14 cover 36
lines and contain eight sentences. In the original greek manuscript however, all of
these eleven verses are one complete, involved flowing sentence. It is a lyrical song
of praise enumerating gift after gift and wonder after wonder (Barclay). Here and
in other places in this epistle, the Apostle appears to be so enraptured by the content
of this revelation that he heaps phrase upon phrase to try to communicate the near
incommunicable. Paul is taxing the syntax of his language as he tries to describe the
nearly indescribable.
1D. David Roth has the best paragraph I have ever read on this longest sentence in
the Bible. He wrote, It is important to note that the longest recorded sentence of
the Bible begins with doxology and ends in doxology. Doxology is simply giving
praise and glory to God.
(Eph 1:3 KJV) Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who
hath blessed us with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ.
(Eph 1:14 KJV) Which is the earnest of our inheritance until the redemption
of the purchased possession, unto the praise of his glory.
ot only does this sentence begin and end praising the awesomeness of God, but it
also mentions God by name some 30 times. In verses 3-6 the emphasis is on God the
Father, in verses 7-12 the emphasis is on God the Son and in verses 13-14 the
emphasis is on God the Holy Spirit. When it comes to our riches in Christ the
Father planned in eternity past, the Son accomplished it by His life in the flesh and
the Holy Spirit quickens the heart to the truth of it. And it is in contemplating these
wonders of redemption that Paul burst into doxology. When one truly sees who God
is and what He has done we cannot help but to declare praise to Him.
1E. Karen ys wrote, Hymns in praise of God, or eulogies, occur in many parts
of Sacred Scripture (cf. Ps 8; Ps 19; Dan 2:20-23; Lk 1:46-54, 68-78; etc.); they
praise the Lord for the wonders of creation or for spectacular interventions on
behalf of his people. Inspired by the Holy Spirit, St Paul here praises God the
Father for all Christ's saving work, which extends from God's original plan which

he made before he created the world, right up to the very end of time and the
recapitulation of all things in Christ. We too should always have this same attitude
of praise of the Lord. Our entire life on earth should take the form of praise of
God, for the never-ending joy of our future life consists in praising God, and no one
can become fit for that future life unless he train himself to render that praise now
(St Augustine).
1F. Maclaren, God blesses us by gifts; we bless Him by words. The aim of His act
of blessing is to evoke in our hearts the love that praises. We receive first, and then,
moved by His mercies, we give. Our highest response to His most precious gifts is
that we shall ‘take the cup of salvation, and call upon the name of the Lord,’ and in
the depth of thankful and recipient hearts shall say, ‘Blessed be, God who hath
blessed us. Our words cost us nothing, but his blessings cost him the cross. He gave
his all, and it is criminal for us to be so ungrateful that we do not praise him
continually with our words that cost nothing, but still please our Lord who needs
nothing, but loves our appreciation.
1G. We have gifts that we don't even know about, and the more we discover them
the greater will be our growth in Christ, and the greater will be our service for him.
We are in a similar boat with the man in the following story. His name was Victor,
but he felt like a loser. He didn't do very well in school a when he was 16 years old, a
teacher advised him to drop out of high school and get a job. He didn't do much
better in the working world so that, by the time he was 32, he had failed at 76
different jobs.
But applying for job number 77 was to change Victor's life. As a part of the
interview process, he was required to take an I.Q. test - a test designed to measure
his intelligence. A score of 100 was considered to be normal. Victor scored 161. He
had never before realized it, but Victor was a genius. The knowledge of that fact was
transforming in his life. Victor Serienko went on to become famous for his research
in laser surgery and to become president of MESA, an organization for geniuses -
all because a test said that he was special. We may not be geniuses, but we all have
more gifts than we realize, and we need to keep testing ourselves to discover them.
Vernon McGhee says “I have been asked if I have received the second blessing. He
says “Man, I am in the hundreds, God didn’t stop with one or two.” Peter put it like
this: According as his divine power hath given unto us all things that pertain unto
life and godliness, through the knowledge of him that hath called us to glory and
virtue. 2 Pet. 1:3. We already have all the gifts we need to live a life pleasing to God.
1H. Paul Fritz has put together 50 benefits we gain by praising God. It is too long to
include here, and so I have put it in Appendix C, for those interested in reading all
50 of these benefits.

2. This verse is packed with more to praise God for than we can imagine, for Paul
says God has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly realms and in
Christ. This is saying more than we can know and understand, for we just do not
know all of the spiritual blessing that may be ours in Christ. Paul says we have
every one, and I wish he would have listed them, for it would be wonderful to know
more clearly all that we have in Him. We know that we have life, and life abundant,
and we know we have eternal life, and that is enormous, but what other blessings
might we have? I suppose that Paul is saying they are in the heavenly realms where
we shall enjoy them all fully when we too are in the heavenly realms, and so we
cannot know them all now, for they are a part of our eternal hope. He is saying
heaven will be more than we can ever imagine, but that is all we can do for now, and
that is to imagine, for these blessings are for eternity and not for time. But we note,
they are already there, for it is past tense, who has blessed us, and so we are
already rich in blessings beyound our wildest dreams.
2B. R. W. Dale wrote, He defines the blessings with which God has blessed us in
Christ as Spiritual blessings; he does not intend simply to distinguish them from
material, physical, or intellectual blessings, he means to attribute them to the Spirit
of God. Those who are in Christ receive the illumination and inspiration of
the Holy Spirit. Whatever perfection of righteousness, whatever depth of peace,
whatever intensity of joy, whatever fulness of Divine knowledge reveal the power of
the Spirit of God in the spiritual life of man, every spiritual blessing has been
made ours in Christ.So these blessings are in the bank of heaven, but the Holy
Spirit can withdraw them and impart them to us in time so that we can enjoy some
of our wealth in Christ right now.
3. What we know for sure is that God is worthy of our praise. Pink wrote, That
those words signify an act of prayer is clear from many passages. I will bless the
LORD at all times: his praise shall continually be in my mouth (Ps. 34:1). Thus
will I bless thee while I live: I will lift up my hands in thy name (Ps. 63:4; cf. 1 Tim.
2:8). Sing unto the LORD, bless his name (Ps. 96:2). Lift up your hands in the
sanctuary, and bless the LORD (Ps. 134:2). To bless God is to adore Him, to
acknowledge His excellency, to express the highest veneration and gratitude. To
bless God is to render Him the homage of our hearts as the Giver of every good and
perfect gift. The three principal branches of prayer are humiliation, supplication,
and adoration. Included in the first is confession of sin; in the second, making
known our requests and interceding on behalf of others; in the third, thanksgiving
and praise. Paul’s action here is a summons to all believers to unite with him in
magnifying the Source of all our spiritual blessings: Adored be God the Father.
3B. Criswell, How does a man who is dust and worm and a creature, how does a
man bless God? When God blesses us, it always means He gives us some benefit.
The greater is always the one who blesses. ot the less the greater. The greater the
less. God the creature, not the creature God. When God blesses us -- I say -- He
gives us a benefit. But we could never give anything. We could never give anything

to God. It is impossible for us to add to the blessedness or the infinite perfection of
God. God said, If I were hungry, I wouldn't tell thee, for the earth is Mine and the
fullness thereof. How can we bless God? This is the way we can bless God. We bless
God by the feeling, by the spirit of gratitude in our hearts. Bless the Lord, O my
soul, and all that is within me, bless His holy name.
4. For the Old Testament saints God was the God of Abraham, but for ew
Testament saints he is known as the God of our Lord Jesus Christ. Jesus is the
eternal God in his deity, but he took on manhood and as a man he needed a God and
heavenly Father just as all men do. God became his God, and he called God his God,
and even in heaven when he reigns with God the Father, he still calls God his God.
In Rev. 3:12 he says, Him that overcometh will I make a pillar in the temple of my
God, and he shall go no more out: and I will write upon him the name of my God,
and the name of the city of my God, which is new Jerusalem, which cometh down
out of heaven from my God: and I will write upon him my new name. He calls God
his God 4 times in this one verse, and this tells us that Jesus maintains his manhood
forever. He was restored to the glory he had with the Father before he became a
man, and so he is fully one with the Father as deity, but he will never lose his
manhood. We have one mediator between God and man, and it is the man Christ
Jesus. In other words Jesus is forever one with us as well as one with the Father. He
is a man and will ever be our elder brother, and God will ever be his God. Before he
ascended to the Father he said in John 20:17, I ascend unto my Father, and your
Father; and to my God, and your God
4B. Donald Williams, Would you understand the goodness of God? Look at the life
of Jesus Christ. Would you know the will of God? Look at the teachings of Jesus
Christ. Would you know the character of God? Look at the actions of Jesus Christ.
Would you know the love of God? Look at the Cross of Jesus Christ. Would you
know the power of God? Look at the Empty Tomb of Jesus Christ. And because we
know God better in Christ, we also experience his blessings more fully. That's why
Paul says, Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! The God who
blesses us, on whom we are totally dependent not only for life but for all that makes
it worth living, is not some unknown impersonal force, He is not some remote and
unapproachable figure, He is not some abstruse and abstract concept in the mind of
some philosopher; He is the God who is the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.
5. We are so materialistic in our thinking because of our culture that we might wish
that God would just give us cash instead of these spiritual blessings. We can't take
them to the bank. They would lock you up if you came into a bank seeking a loan
and you said you have riches galore to back up your loan, and offered them the
explanation that God has already deposited spiritual wealth beyond counting in
your heavenly bank account. That is not the way it works in a material world.
Spiritual blessing just do not pay the bills. In the Old Testament material blessings
were what was most treasured. Having good crops and wealth was to be truly

blessed, but in the ew Testament the greatest blessings are no longer just the
physical and material. It is spiritual blessings that last forever that are the most
valuable and treasured. Material blessing are bestowed on good and evil people
alike, as God send the rain on the land of the rightesous and the wicked equally. But
spiritual blessings are reserved for those who are in Christ, and for those who will
hear the invitation of Matt. 25:34, Come, ye blessed of my Father. When the roll
is called up yonder, you want to be in that number who are spiritually blessed, and
not just have material blessings that will get you nowhere in eternity. In Christ we
have all the riches that really matter. Paul wrote in Romans 8:32, He that spared
not his own Son, but delivered him up for us all, how shall he not with him also
freely give us all things?
How Thou canst think so well of us,
And be the god Thou art,
Is darkness to my intellect,
But sunshine to my heart.
My Father's rich in houses and lands,
he holds the wealth of the world in His hands,
though outcast from home, yet still I may sing,
oh glory to God, I'm a child of the King.
6. The spiritual riches we have in Christ and in the heavenlies may not be enjoyed
fully in time, but they do help us greatly in time to live in spiritual abundance. Paul
refers to our riches in Christ quite often in this letter. Because he wrote more about
the riches we have in Christ right now as well as in eternity, we will be looking quite
often at how rich we are in Christ. Paul used the word riches more in this letter than
in any other.
Ephesians 1:7 In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins,
in accordance with the riches of God's grace
Ephesians 1:18 I pray also that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened in order
that you may know the hope to which he has called you, the riches of his glorious
inheritance in the saints,
Ephesians 2:7 in order that in the coming ages he might show the incomparable
riches of his grace, expressed in his kindness to us in Christ Jesus.
Ephesians 3:8 Although I am less than the least of all God's people, this grace was
given me: to preach to the Gentiles the unsearchable riches of Christ,
Ephesians 3:16 I pray that out of his glorious riches he may strengthen you with
power through his Spirit in your inner being,

6B. We may not experience the blessings that are spiritual, but knowing of them
does have an impact on how we feel, and so they do become experiential in time.
Here is a partial list of the spiritual blessings we have in Christ.
• Election: they were called
• Predestination: it was planned from the beginning
• adoption: they became the sons and daughters of the most high
• grace: undeserved favors
• redemption: set free from sin and its penalty
• forgiveness: sins are remembered no more
• wisdom: the ability to understand God's will and word
• understanding: knowing how to apply the wisdom gained
• mystery: see the purpose of unity between Jew and gentile
sealing: receiving the Holy spirit as guarantee inheritance:
• as adopted children they have part in all promises.
6C. Oliver B. Greene give us another list.
(a) We are chosen in Christ.
(b) We are sanctified in Christ.
(c) We are foreordained in Christ.
(d) We are adopted in Christ.
(e) We are accepted in Christ.
(f) We are redeemed in Christ.
(g) We are forgiven in Christ.
(h) We are enriched in Christ.
(i) We are enlightened in Christ, the Light of the world.
(j) Our inheritance is in Christ.
(k) We are sealed until the day of redemption in Christ (Ephesians 1:13, Ephesians
4:30).
7. David Roth is concerned that Christians do not live as if they were rich in Christ.
In fact, they often live like misers and refuse to enjoy what is there's in Him. He tells
of one of the most famous misers as he writes, She had gone down in history as
America's Greatest Miser, yet when she died in 1916, Hetty Green left an estate
valued at $100 million dollars. She was so miserly that she ate cold oatmeal in order
to save the expense of heating the water. When her son had a severe leg injury, she
took so long trying to find a free clinic to treat him that his leg had to be amputated
because of advanced infection. The book of Ephesians is written to Christians who
might be prone to treat their spiritual resources much like that miserly Hetty Green
treated her financial resources. Many believers are in danger of suffering from
spiritual malnutrition, because they don't take advantage of the great storehouse of
spiritual nourishment and resources readily available to them in Christ. As
illustrated by Hetty Green there is a difference between having riches and enjoying

riches. It is through the book of Ephesians that the Holy Spirit seeks to teach you
how rich Christ is, and how rich you are in Christ. Also, that you would learn to live
in those riches. Every believer is a multi-billionaire in Christ, yet many believers live
on the brink of spiritual collapse.
8. David Roth has the most wonderful sermon on this text, and I just have to share
more of it with you, for it is such a precious message we all need to hear. His outline
alone is a gem. He writes, I have divided this passage into three parts. The source
of our blessings, the scope of our blessings, and the sphere of our blessings. The
word blessed comes from the Greek word eulogeo from which we get our English
word eulogy. A eulogy is a message of praise and commendation, the declaration of
a person's goodness. When we gather together as a public assembly our first and
foremost purpose is to worship and praise God. Praise to God is the chief purpose of
all public acts of worship. The apostle Paul wants us to understand that all we have
in Christ is given by the grace of God. It is the Triune God who is the supreme giver.
(James 1:17 KJV) Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and cometh
down from the Father of lights, with whom is no variableness, neither shadow of
turning. So, because it is God who is the source of all blessing He is worthy to be
praised. What an awesome God!
9. Roth has this marvelous paragraph on our riches in Christ. It is a transaction
that has already taken place in Christ. At this very moment you have all of Christ
that you will ever receive, and because you are joined to Him by faith you have
present ownership to every spiritual blessing. It is amazing how many Christians
ask God for what is already theirs.They pray that God would give them more love
for others when the scriptures declare, (Rom 5:5 KJV) And hope maketh not
ashamed; because the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost
which is given unto us. They pray for peace in light of the fact that in John 14:27
Jesus declares, Peace I leave with you, my peace I give unto you: not as the world
giveth, give I unto you. Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid.
They ask God to give them joy and happiness in spite of the fact that Jesus has
already given joy and happiness. (John 15:11 KJV) These things have I spoken unto
you, that my joy might remain in you, and that your joy might be full. According as
his divine power hath given unto us all things that pertain unto life and godliness,
through the knowledge of him that hath called us to glory and virtue. 2 Pet 1:3 KJV
The teaching is not what God will give you, but what He has already given us. He
hath blessed us already with every spiritual blessing. And according to (Col 2:10
KJV) ... ye are complete in him, which is the head of all principality and power. If
you don't get anything else out of this sermon get this, our resources in Christ are
not simply promised, they are possessed. God will not give us anymore than He has
already given us in Christ.
10. On the sphere of our blessings Roth writes, The heavenlies is a more literal

translation, and describes that place where Jesus abides. (Eph 1:20 KJV) Which he
wrought in Christ, when he raised him from the dead, and set him at his own right
hand in the heavenly places, and the place it describes the location where believers
are seated with Him, (Eph 2:6 KJV) And hath raised us up together, and made us
sit together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus. Warren Wiersbe described it this
way, the Christian really operates in two spheres: the human and the divine, the
visible and the invisible. Physically, he is on earth in a human body, but spiritually
he is seated with Christ in the heavenly sphere- and it is this heavenly sphere that
provides the power and direction for the earthly walk.
Dr. Warren Wiersbe relates a story of the late newspaper publisher William
Randolph Hearst, who invested a fortune collecting art treasures from around the
world. One day Mr. Hearst found a description of some valuable items that he felt
he must own, so he sent his agent abroad to find them. After months of searching,
the agent reported that he had finally found the treasures. They were in Mr.
Hearst's own private warehouse.
Mr. Hearst had been searching the globe for treasures he had already owned! If he
would have read the catalogue of his inventory he would have saved himself and
others a great deal of time and energy, not to mention money. This is not unlike
many Christians today. They are on a pursuit to find joy, peace, satisfaction,
contentment, happiness and so on! If they would take time to study God's Word,
they would discover that they have all these things and much more because they
have been joined to Jesus Christ. We need eyes to see what we have in Christ, as
well as the faith to appropriate what we see. Let me sum it up in the words of one
writer, Christ riches are our riches, His resources our resources, His righteousness
is our righteousness, and His power is our power. His position is our position: where
He is we are. His privilege is our privilege: His possession is our possession: what He
has, we have. His practice is our practice: what He does, we (are to) do.
11. Grace Bible Church writes, There is a question as to what the heavenly places
refers to. (cf. 1:20; 2:6; 3:10; 6:12) This may refer the entire supernatural realm of
God, His full domain and extent of His sovereign operations, i.e., anywhere and
everywhere in the universe, involving all events under the providence of God.
Others assume this to be a non-experiential but positional blessing, i.e., as if we
already exist in heaven in our spirit but not bodily. Yet, this metaphysical positional
view is difficult to support in Scripture. We do not experience a divided being, on
heaven and on earth. The best view perhaps is a combination of the above two ideas,
while viewing us in Christ Jesus, i.e., as the Lord Jesus Christ manifests Himself is a
special location in the heavenly places so we share in that sphere of exaltation by
reason of our union with Him. Ephesians 2:6 says that God has raised us up with
Him, and seated us with Him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus. And this
despite our never practically experiencing this rising and seating in heaven. We also
wrestle with principalities and powers in heavenly places (cf. 6:12) although in
practice this is non-experiential. Hence, by the sovereign operations of God, He
positions us even in the heavenly places because of our union with Christ! And

because of this vital union in Christ, we are blessed, among other ways, with the
Father's election, the Son's redemption and the Spirit's inheritance, all of which
were blessings received from heaven itself. (5) This non-experiential but vital union
with Christ is the principle spiritual blessing which Paul prays the Ephesian
believers to understand. cf. Eph. 1:15-23.
12. Barnes, In heavenly places in Christ - The word “places” is here understood,
and is not in the original. It may mean heavenly “places,” or heavenly “things.” The
word “places” does not express the best sense. The idea seems to be, that God has
blessed us in Christ in regard to heavenly subjects or matters. In Eph_1:20, the
word “places” seems to be inserted with more propriety. The same phrase occurs
again in Eph_2:6; Eph_3:10; and it is remarkable that it should occur in the same
elliptical form four times in this one epistle, and, I believe, in no other part of the
writings of Paul. Our translators have in each instance supplied the word “places,”
as denoting the rank or station of Christians, of the angels, and of the Saviour, to
each of whom it is applied. The phrase probably means, in things pertaining to
heaven; suited to prepare us for heaven; and tending toward heaven. It probably
refers here to every thing that was heavenly in its nature, or that had relation to
heaven, whether gifts or graces. As the apostle is speaking, however, of the mass of
Christians on whom these things had been bestowed, I rather suppose that he refers
to what are called Christian graces, than to the extraordinary endowments bestowed
on the few. The sense is, that in Christ, i. e. through Christ, or by means of him, God
had bestowed all spiritual blessings that were suited to prepare for heaven - such as
pardon, adoption, the illumination of the Spirit, etc.
13. Calvin wrote, Whether we understand the meaning to be, in heavenly Places, or
in heavenly Benefits, is of little consequence. All that was intended to be expressed is
the superiority of that grace which we receive through Christ. The happiness which
it bestows is not in this world, but in heaven and everlasting life. In the Christian
religion, indeed, as we are elsewhere taught, (1 Timothy 4:8,) is contained the
“promise of the life that now is, and of that which is to come;” but its aim is spiritual
happiness, for the kingdom of Christ is spiritual. A contrast is drawn between
Christ and all the Jewish emblems, by which the blessing under the law was
conveyed; for where Christ is, all those things are superfluous.
14. Gill, ...and so distinguishes these blessings from such as are of an earthly kind;
and points at the original of them, being such as descend from above, come down
from heaven; and also the tendency of them, which is to heaven; and being what
give a right unto, and a meetness for the kingdom of heaven: and these they are
blessed with in Christ; as he is their head and representative, and as they are
members in him, and partakers of him; through whom, and for whose sake, they are
conveyed unto them, and who himself is the sum and substance of them.

15. Jamison, in heavenly places - a phrase five times found in this Epistle, and not
elsewhere (Eph_1:20; Eph_2:6; Eph_3:10; Eph_6:12); Greek, “in the heavenly
places.” Christ’s ascension is the means of introducing us into the heavenly places,
which by our sin were barred against us. Compare the change made by Christ
(Col_1:20; Eph_1:20). While Christ in the flesh was in the form of a servant, God’s
people could not realize fully their heavenly privileges as sons. ow “our citizenship
(Greek) is in heaven” (Phi_3:20), where our High Priest is ever “blessing” us. Our
“treasures” are there (Mat_6:20, Mat_6:21); our aims and affections (Col_3:1,
Col_3:2); our hope (Col_1:5; Tit_2:13); our inheritance (1Pe_1:4). The gift of the
Spirit itself, the source of the “spiritual blessing,” is by virtue of Jesus having
ascended thither (Eph_4:8).
16. Henry, ote, Spiritual blessings are the best blessings with which God blesses
us, and for which we are to bless him. He blesses us by bestowing such things upon
us as make us really blessed. We cannot thus bless God again; but must do it by
praising, and magnifying, and speaking well of him on that account. Those whom
God blesses with some he blesses with all spiritual blessings; to whom he gives
Christ, he freely gives all these things. It is not so with temporal blessings; some are
favoured with health, and not with riches; some with riches, and not with health,
etc. But, where God blesses with spiritual blessings, he blesses with all. They are
spiritual blessings in heavenly places; that is, say some, in the church, distinguished
from the world, and called out of it. Or it may be read, in heavenly things, such as
come from heaven, and are designed to prepare men for it, and to secure their
reception into it. We should hence learn to mind spiritual and heavenly things as the
principal things, spiritual and heavenly blessings as the best blessings, with which
we cannot be miserable and without which we cannot but be so. Set not your
affections on things on the earth, but on those things which are above. These we are
blessed with in Christ; for, as all our services ascend to God through Christ, so all
our blessings are conveyed to us in the same way, he being the Mediator between
God and us.
17. Preceptaustin, This letter is about riches, not exhaustible material wealth that
can make itself wings, but the inexhaustible riches that every believer possesses in
Christ as a present reality. Paul sums our riches in this verse with the phrase
every spiritual blessing and then he proceeds to explain them and to tell us how
we can draw on them for effective Christian living. We need to remember that
man's days are like grass; as a flower of the field, so he flourishes. When the wind
has passed over it, it is no more; and its place acknowledges it no longer. (Psalm
103:15) In Isaiah God adds that The grass withers, the flower fades, but the word
of our God stands forever. And that word is that we are spiritually wealthy become
our wildest dreams. God wants us to live accordingly that the world might see it is to
the praise of His glory. May His Spirit open each of our eyes so that we experience

the reality of every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ to the praise
of the glory of His grace. Amen.
18. Preceptaustin, We are rich in Christ, but like all gifts they have to be received,
and thus these blessings must be appropriated. We must live in the light of these
blessings. We must live like they are true because they are even though they are
largely unseen. We have to come to the point where by faith we lay hold of these
blessings and possess our possessions. We need to be like Joshua in the Old
Testament to whom God declared...Every place on which the sole of your foot
treads, I have given it to you, just as I spoke to Moses. (Joshua 1:3) Like Joshua,
God has given us the land so to speak, but like Joshua, our responsibility is to
put one foot in front of the other and walk out in faith, not by sight, laying claim
to our our spiritual territory in the heavenly places in Christ. Maclaren said,
We may have as much of God as we will. Christ puts the key of the treasure-chamber
into our hand, and bids us take all that we want. If a man is admitted into
the bullion vault of a bank and told to help himself, and comes out with one cent,
whose fault is it that he is poor?
19. The Ephesians, and all believers, are in Christ, and they are in some other
earthly place. ow Paul says they also have another home in the heavenlies, and so
we have three addresses, or three homes. We could tell people that where we live
now is not our best home, for we have another one where our wealth is stored, and
where we will be rich beyond our wildest dreams when we move there. We will be
like royalty when we arrive, for we will then possess every spiritual blessing that
persons can have. Royalty on earth are mere paupers in comparison to what awaits
us in our heavenly home. ot only will we have every spiritual blessing, we will also
have the most extreme makeover of our being imaginable. Paul wrote, our
citizenship is in heaven, from which also we eagerly wait for a Savior, the Lord
Jesus Christ; Who will transform the body of our humble state into conformity with
the body of His glory, by the exertion of the power that He has even to subject all
things to Himself. (Philippians 3:20; 3:21) The company is also incredible: In the
heavenly places is the place where believers receive “every spiritual blessing”
because it is where the ascended, exalted Christ is (God raised Him from the dead,
and seated Him at His right hand in the heavenly places - Ep 1:20), and where
believers also are, since they are incorporated “in Him” (God raised us up with
Him, and seated us with Him in the heavenly places, in Christ Jesus - Ep 2:6). In
other words, it is the best of everything we could imagine, and what everyone
dreams of having in this life, but which is not possible in this fallen world. God's
best calls for a whole new world, and new creation.
20. Ray Stedman makes a powerful point that all of our blessings in the heavenlies
are in Christ. He wrote, The third element of this great verse is that the apostle

points out that all this blessing is in Christ. All this comes to us in Christ, in the
Person and the work of the Lord Jesus himself. This fact is going to be stressed
again and again in this letter. o two words appear in it more frequently than in
Christ, or in him. Over and over it is emphasized that everything comes to us
through him. We must learn not to listen to those who claim to have God's blessing
in their lives, and yet to whose thinking Christ is not central. They are deceived, and
they are deceiving us if we accept what they say. The only spiritual blessing that can
ever come to you from God must always come in Christ. There is no other way that
it can come. So if you are involved with some group which sets aside the Lord Jesus
Christ and tries to go directly to God, and thus claim some of the great spiritual
promises of the ew Testament, you are involved in a group which is leading you
into fakery and fraud. It is completely spurious! For God accomplishes spiritual
blessing only in Christ. Physical blessings are available to the just and the unjust
alike, but the inner spirit of man can be healed and cured only in Christ, and there
is no other way.
21. Stedman also has an interesting comment on just where these spiritual blessings
in the heavenlies are located. He wrote, There are many who take the phrase, the
heavenly places, which appears several times in this letter, as a reference to heaven
after we die, but if you do this, you will miss the whole import of Paul's letter. While
it does talk about going to heaven some day, it is talking primarily about the life you
live right now. The heavenly places are not off in some distant reach of space or on
some planet or star; they are simply the realm of invisible reality in which the
Christian lives now, in contact with God, and in the conflict with the devil in which
we are all daily engaged.
The heavenly places are the seat of Christ's power and glory. In chapter two, verse
six we are told,
[God] raised us up with him, and made us sit with him in the heavenly places
in Christ Jesus.
But in chapter three we learn that here also are the headquarters of the
principalities and powers of evil:
...that through the church the manifold wisdom of God might now be made
known to the principalities and powers in the heavenly places.
The conflict that occurs is set forth in chapter six:
For we are not contending against flesh and blood, but against principalities,
against the powers, against the world rulers of this present darkness, against
the spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places.
So you can see that this is not a reference to heaven at all, but to earth. It is to the
invisible realm of earth---not to that which you can see, hear, taste, or feel---but to
that spiritual kingdom which surrounds us on all sides and which constantly
influences and affects us, whether for good or evil, depending upon our willful
choice and our relationship to these invisible powers. Those are the heavenly places.

In this realm, in which everyone of us lives, the apostle declares that God has
already blessed us with every spiritual blessing. That is, he has given us all that it
takes to live in our present circumstances and relationships.
22. Barclay adds, that when Paul spoke of the Christian being in Christ, he meant
that the Christian lives in Christ as a bird in the air, a fish in the water, the roots of
a tree in the soil. What makes the Christian different is that he is always and
everywhere conscious of the encircling presence of Jesus Christ.
23. Oliver B. Greene, The statement in Christ Jesus (or the same statement
expressed in other words) appears fourteen times in the first chapter of Ephesians.
In Christ Jesus is the key that unlocks this storehouse of spiritual blessings. In
Christ Jesus is the key that opens the door and permits us to look into the
storehouse of this Epistle. Every believer, every born again child of God is in
Christ Jesus because he has been baptized by the HOLY SPIRIT into the Body of
CHRIST (I Corinthians 12:12-13). Because we are in CHRIST JESUS we share all
Heaven's spiritual blessings with CHRIST JESUS. Paul makes the same statement
in other words in Philippians 4:19: But my God shall supply all your need
according to his riches in glory in Christ Jesus.
24. I recently ran across a statistic compiled by a German scholar whose name I
can’t pronounce. He determined that in Paul’s 13 epistles, some very short
(Philemon is little more than a page long), he uses the term “In Christ” or some
form of it ~ “in Him”, “in the Lord” ~ no less than 164 times! How he loved to talk
about Jesus!
25. Dr. Walter L. Wilson points out: OTICE HOW OFTE THE PAST TESE
IS USED I THESE VERSES. He hath blessed us (verse 3); He hath chosen us
(verse 4); having predestinated us (verse 5); He hath made us accepted (verse
6); we have redemption (verse 7); He hath abounded toward us (verse 8);
having made known unto us the mystery of his will (verse 9); we have obtained
an inheritance (verse 11); we were sealed with that HOLY SPIRIT of promise
(verse 13); and we were given the earnest (down payment) of our inheritance.
(verse 14). All of these things HAVE ALREADY BEE ACCOMPLISHED FOR
US. When? Before the foundation of the world.
Some would say that GOD not only knew from the foundation of the world who
would be saved - but that He also picked who would go to Heaven and who would
go to hell. O! WROG ASWER. You were right when you said knew, but you
lost it when you said picked. GOD in His perfect foreknowledge knew who would
accept salvation through His SO. He has extended a call for salvation to all - but
only a few said YES! I have to agree with Dr. Wilson that God did not pick

people to go to hell, but I have to disagree with his idea that only a few would say
yes, for Scripture reveals that multitudes our of all tribes, languages and nations
will be in heaven.
4 For he chose us in him before the creation of the
world to be holy and blameless in his sight. In love
Amplified: Even as [in His love] He chose us [actually picked us out for Himself as
His own] in Christ before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy
(consecrated and set apart for Him) and blameless in His sight, even above
reproach, before Him in love.
Phillips: For consider what He has done - before the foundation of the world He
chose us to become, in Christ, his holy and blameless children living within his
constant care.
Wuest: even as He selected us out for himself in Him before the foundations of the
universe were laid, to be holy ones and without blemish before His searching,
penetrating gaze; in love
1. David Roth points out an interesting fact when he says that this verse actually
precedes Gen. 1:1, for it deals with what God did before he created the world. In
other words, before God decided to create this world we know, he gave some
thought to all the possibilities that he would bring forth in creating free willed
beings who could disobey him and bring much evil and diaster into this perfect
world he was going to make. So he decided that he would make sure that no matter
what they did, and how bad they would make life in this world, he would have a
plan where love would win, and he would end up with a glorious product of people
who become his eternal children, and who would be holy and blamless in his sight.
He knew that there would be many who would be unholy and full of blame in his
sight, and that he would have to judge the world, but he made sure that no matter
how strong evil became, he would have his goal met with a family of redeemed
people who loved him as much as he loved them.
2. If you asked people to open their Bibles to the first verse in the Bible, they would
not ever dream of going to Eph. 1:4, but in reality this is where the Bible story
begins. It was not in the beginning, but before the beginning. We cannot imagine
what reality was before the beginning, but verses like this tell us that it was a time of
thinking and planning on the part of God. He did not enter into this experiment
with free will beings in a haphazard whim of the moment. He gave much thought in
preparing for what he knew would come from his choice to create. He had a purpose

behind it all, and Bill Versteeg spells it out for us when he writes, ...we have to
notice in this passage that there is an object of every sentence. We are the object! We
are the ones blessed, we are the ones chosen, we are the ones predestined, we are the
ones adopted, we are the ones freely given too, we are the ones who have redemption
lavished on us, we are the ones included in Christ, we are the ones who received the
Spirit!
This is very profound. If we accept that God is the source of all existence, if we
accept that existence was made and designed by God with purpose in mind, then
this passage along with all the rest of scripture tells us that we are at the very heart
of that purpose. Contrary again to themes in our culture which make us simply
another byproduct of evolution in its relentless march, equal at best to any other
evolved species, this teaches us that when God made it all, when God acted
throughout history, when Christ died on the cross, when history comes to a
conclusion, God has done and will do it all with us in mind. Wow!
2B. Barclay, In this section Paul is thinking of the Christians as the chosen people
of God, and his mind runs along three lines.
(i) He thinks of the fact of God's choice. Paul never thought of himself as having
chosen to do God's work. He always thought of God as having chosen him. Jesus
said to his disciples: You did not choose me, but I chose you (Jn.15:16). Here
precisely lies the wonder. It would not be so wonderful that man should choose God;
the wonder is that God should choose man.
(ii) Paul thinks of the bounty of God's choice. God chose us to bless us with the
blessings which are to be found only in heaven. There are certain things which a
man can discover for himself; but there are others which are beyond his obtaining.
A man by himself can acquire a certain skill, can achieve a certain position, can
amass a certain amount of this world's goods; but by himself he can never attain to
goodness or to peace of mind. God chose us to give us those things which he alone
can give.
(iii) Paul thinks of the purpose of God's choice. God chose us that we should be holy
and blameless. Here are two great words. Holy is the Greek word hagios, which
always has in it the idea of difference and of separation. A temple is holy because it
is different from other buildings; a priest is holy because he is different from
ordinary men; a victim is holy because it is different from other animals; God is
supremely holy because he is different from men; the Sabbath is holy because it is
different from other days. So, then, God chose the Christian that he should be
different from other men.
2C. Clarke has a different perspective on verses 4 and 5, and if he is correct in his
interpretation, it eliminates much of the controversy over the doctrine of election,
for it is not an issue of individual persons being chosen, but of the Gentiles as a

people. He wrote, As he has decreed from the beginning of the world, and has kept
in view from the commencement of the religious system of the Jews, to bring us
Gentiles to the knowledge of this glorious state of salvation by Christ Jesus. The
Jews considered themselves an elect or chosen people, and wished to monopolize the
whole of the Divine love and beneficence. The apostle here shows that God had the
Gentiles as much in the contemplation of his mercy and goodness as he had the
Jews; and the blessings of the Gospel, now so freely dispensed to them, were the
proof that God had thus chosen them, and that his end in giving them the Gospel
was the same which he had in view by giving the law to the Jews, viz. that they
might be holy and without blame before him. And as his object was the same in
respect to them both, they should consider that, as he loved them, so they should
love one another: God having provided for each the same blessings, they should
therefore be ἁγιους, holy - fully separated from earth and sin, and consecrated to
God and αμωμους, without blame - having no spot nor imperfection, their inward
holiness agreeing with their outward consecration.
2D. Clarke goes on with the next verse that I keep here because it all hangs together.
He wrote concerning the word predestinated, Here the word is used to point out
God’s fixed purpose or predetermination to bestow on the Gentiles the blessing of
the adoption of sons by Jesus Christ, which adoption had been before granted to the
Jewish people; and without circumcision, or any other Mosaic rite, to admit the
Gentiles to all the privileges of his Church and people. And the apostle marks that
all this was fore-determined by God, as he had fore-determined the bounds and
precincts of the land which he gave them according to the promise made to their
fathers; that the Jews had no reason to complain, for God had formed this purpose
before he had given the law, or called them out of Egypt; (for it was before the
foundation of the world, Eph_1:4); and that, therefore, the conduct of God in calling
the Gentiles now - bringing them into his Church, and conferring on them the gifts
and graces of the Holy Spirit, was in pursuance of his original design; and, if he did
not do so, his eternal purposes could not be fulfilled; and that, as the Jews were
taken to be his peculiar people, not because they had any goodness or merit in
themselves; so the Gentiles were called, not for any merit they had, but according to
the good pleasure of his will; that is, according to his eternal benevolence, showing
mercy and conferring privileges in this new creation, as he had done in the original
creation; for as, in creating man, he drew every consideration from his own innate
eternal benevolence, so now, in redeeming man, and sending the glad tidings of
salvation both to the Jews and the Gentiles, be acted on the same principles,
deriving all the reasons of his conduct from his own infinite goodness.
2E. Clarke's interpretation makes a great deal of common sense, and fits the
message that Paul stressed elsewhere. Predestination then is not an issue for the
individual, for both Jews and Gentiles are foreordained to be a part of the family of
God in Jesus Christ, and because of his sacrifice for the sins of the world. It is not as
if God chose some to go to heaven, and chose others to go to hell. This is an accepted
doctrine by many Christians, but it is an adding of a totally unsubstantiated picture
of God that is contrary to his nature of love, mercy and justice. If God deliberately
made it impossible for some people to respond to his loving gift of life in Christ, then

he did not love them as John 3:16 says, and the whosoever is a lie. This kind of
theology is a mystery even to those who believe it, and they are stumped for a reason
for why God would chose to damn people without any basis for such severe
judgment. It is all mere theological nonsense if we see Paul writing about the
Gentiles being chosen, and not individual members of the church of Ephesus.
evertheless, we have to deal with the issue this text has generated among
theologians on predestination because their are tons of books and articles on the
issue that divide believers, and it is important to understand the different
perspectives.
2F. For example, Barnes in his commentary disagrees with Clarke completely as he
writes, Many have supposed (see Whitby, Dr. A. Clarke, Bloomfield, and others)
that the apostle here refers to the “Gentiles,” and that his object is to show that they
were now admitted to the same privileges as the ancient Jews, and that the whole
doctrine of predestination here referred to, has relation to that fact. But, I would
ask, were there no Jews in the church at Ephesus? See Act_18:20, Act_18:24;
Act_19:1-8. The matter of fact seems to have been, that Paul was uncommonly
successful there among his own countrymen, and that his chief difficulty there
arose, not from the Jews, but from the influence of the heathen; Act_19:24. Besides
what evidence is there that the apostle speaks in this chapter especially of the
Gentiles, or that he was writing to that portion of the church at Ephesus which was
of Gentile origin? And if he was, why did he name himself among them as one on
whom this blessing had been bestowed? The fact is, that this is a mere supposition,
resorted to without evidence, and in the face of every fair principle of interpretation,
to avoid an unpleasant doctrine. othing can be clearer than that Paul meant to
write to “Christians as such;” to speak of privileges which they enjoyed as special to
themselves; and that he had no particular reference to “nations,” and did not design
merely to refer to external privileges. He admits that predestination is an
unpleasant doctrine, for if it is true as he expounds it, then God is the one who has
chosen to send masses to hell even before he decided to create man. Unpleasant is an
understatement if there ever was one.
2G. Dr. Walter Wilson, Predestination is a very misunderstood subject. The word
means to predesign. Predestination does not mean foreordination. It does not
mean that GOD has your life etched in stone for you and you have no say so about
it. GOD is very concerned about your free will - and He has not taken that away
from you. The truth is that your will is the foundation for predestination. Romans
8:29 says for whom he did foreknow, he also did predestinate . . . GOD sees each
and every one of us dead in trespasses and sins and way back in unmeasured
eternity past and planned the crucifixion and the price of redemption. He also saw
the point in time when you would be confronted with the choice between Heaven
and hell. He saw your vote. Since He knew it would be a yes vote - he planned
your life accordingly. To those that voted no - GOD made no plans to order that
life. GOD's actions was entirely dependent upon the exercise of your free will to
choose between life and death.

2G2. Wilson goes on, Even after salvation we are given freedom to choose whether
our life will be one that brings glory to GOD, or one that brings shame to His name.
It is all about promises. To reward a believer on the basis of mere salvation would
be meaningless - so GOD gives us opportunity to earn wages payable in Heaven.
Our faith is not an exercise in materialism whereby we live for GOD so that we can
get gold and crowns, rather it is living a life of faith and trust knowing that there
will be a payday someday. To some that payday will be a happy, wonderful time - to
others it will be a time of loss and weeping.
to be holy and blameless in his sight. In love
1. To be holy and blameless in God's sight is the same thing as saying the goal of
God in our lives is that we be perfect, and, in fact, just as perfect as His Son who
was perfect enough to lay down his life as a spotless sacrifice for our sins, and the
sins of the whole world. He did not die for them so that we could go on living in sin,
but that we would press on to the goal of being delivered, not just from the penalty
of sin, but from the power of sin, and ultimately from the very presence of sin. God's
goal is nothing short of perfection for his people, both Jews and Gentiles. This whole
process of getting to this goal is called sanctification, and it is the second stage of
salvation following the first stage, which is justification, and it in turn will be
concludes with the third stage of salvation, which is glorification. The first and third
stages are totally the work of Christ, but in this middle stage God makes us partners
in striving for the goal. In this stage we are called to work out our own salvation
with fear and trembling. We are to make every effort to become holy and blameless
in God's sight. This middle stage of salvation can also be divided into three
stages.Someone came up with this three point outline of sanctification that sums it
all up nicely. Sanctification involves three phases.
A. There is positional sanctification.
This is where we are moved from death to life; from being lost to being
saved; from being a member of the devil's crowd to a part of God's
family. By the blood of Jesus, our sins are forgiven and we are born
again. We are placed into the family of God.
B. There is progressive sanctification.
This is when we grow in the Lord. We do not remain babes in Christ, but
grow in our grace and faith. We delight in serving the Lord, in reading
His Word, in spending time in prayer, in attending worship and in obeying
the Lord in all areas of our life. It is not a chore, but a joy, to
bring a tithe to the storehouse. We find that every day with Jesus is
sweeter than the day before. Every day with Jesus I love Him more and
more.

C. There is perfection sanctification.
One day we're going to leave this old sin-sick world filled with remorse
and decay; sin and decadence; and we're going to step onto the golden
streets of heaven. Our salvation will be complete and we will be without
sin of any kind. What a day, glorious day that will be.
2. Paul wrote much the same thing in Phil. 2:15, That ye may be blameless and
harmless, the sons of God, without rebuke, in the midst of a crooked and perverse
nation, among whom ye shine as lights in the world; Peter says much the same
thing in I Pet. 1:15-16, But as he which hath called you is holy, so be ye holy in all
manner of conversation; {16} Because it is written, Be ye holy; for I am holy.
2B. The Greek words for holy and sanctified and saint are all taken from
the same root word. The word is hagios. Usually we think of the word holy as
being synonymous with sinlessness. It sometimes carries that idea, but there is more
to holiness than mere sinlessness. Holiness describes one who has been set apart for
a special purpose. That which is holy is separate and distinct and different and
special. The utensils in the temple were considered to be holy. They were set apart in
a special way and for a special usage. They were no longer to be used for ordinary
things. They were now to be extraordinary.
3. Calvin, The inference, too, which the Catharists, Celestines, and Donatists drew
from these words, that we may attain perfection in this life, is without foundation.
This is the goal to which the whole course of our life must be directed, and we shall
not reach it till we have finished our course. Where are the men who dread and
avoid the doctrine of predestination as an inextricable labyrinth, who believe it to be
useless and almost dangerous? o doctrine is more useful, provided it be handled in
the proper and cautious manner, of which Paul gives us an example, when he
presents it as an illustration of the infinite goodness of God, and employs it as an
excitement to gratitude. This is the true fountain from which we must draw our
knowledge of the divine mercy. If men should evade every other argument, election
shuts their mouth, so that they dare not and cannot claim anything for themselves.
But let us remember the purpose for which Paul reasons about predestination, lest,
by reasoning with any other view, we fall into dangerous errors.
Before him in love. Holiness before God is that of a pure conscience; for God is not
deceived, as men are, by outward pretense, but looks to faith, or, which means the
same thing, the truth of the heart. If we view the word love as applied to God, the
meaning will be, that the only reason why he chose us, was his love to men. But I
prefer connecting it with the latter part of the verse, as denoting that the perfection
of believers consists in love; not that God requires love alone, but that it is an
evidence of the fear of God, and of obedience to the whole law.

4. Barnes, The general sense of the passage is, that these blessings pertaining to
heaven were bestowed upon Christians in accordance with an eternal purpose. They
were not conferred by chance or hap-hazard. They were the result of intention and
design on the part of God. Their value was greatly enhanced from the fact that God
had designed from all eternity to bestow them, and that they come to us as the result
of his everlasting plan. It was not a recent plan; it was not an afterthought; it was
not by mere chance; it was not by caprice; it was the fruit of an eternal counsel.
Those blessings had all the value, and all the assurance of “permanency,” which
must result from that fact.
That we should be holy - Paul proceeds to state the “object” for which God had
chosen his people. It is not merely that they should enter into heaven. It is not that
they may live in sin. It is not that they may flatter themselves that they are safe, and
then live as they please. The tendency among people has always been to abuse the
doctrine of predestination and election; to lead people to say that if all things are
fixed there is no need of effort; that if God has an eternal plan, no matter how
people live, they will be saved if he has elected them, and that at all events they
cannot change that plan, and they may as well enjoy life by indulgence in sin. The
apostle Paul held no such view of the doctrine of predestination. In his apprehension
it is a doctrine suited to excite the gratitude of Christians, and the whole tendency
and design of the doctrine, according to him, is to make people holy, and without
blame before God in love.
5. Henry, And without blame before him - that their holiness might not be merely
external and in outward appearance, so as to prevent blame from men, but internal
and real, and what God himself, who looketh at the heart, will account such, such
holiness as proceeds from love to God and to our fellow-creatures, this charity being
the principle of all true holiness. The original word signifies such an innocence as no
man can carp at; and therefore some understand it of that perfect holiness which
the saints shall attain in the life to come, which will be eminently before God, they
being in his immediate presence for ever. Here is also the rule and the fontal cause
of God's election: it is according to the good pleasure of his will (Eph_1:5), not for the
sake of any thing in them foreseen, but because it was his sovereign will, and a thing
highly pleasing to him. It is according to the purpose, the fixed and unalterable will,
of him who worketh all things after the counsel of his own will (Eph_1:11), who
powerfully accomplishes whatever concerns his elect, as he has wisely and freely
fore-ordained and decreed, the last and great end and design of all which is his own
glory: To the praise of the glory of his grace (Eph_1:6), that we should be to the praise
of his glory (Eph_1:12), that is, that we should live and behave ourselves in such a
manner that his rich grace might be magnified, and appear glorious, and worthy of
the highest praise. All is of God, and from him, and through him, and therefore all
must be to him, and centre in his praise. ote, The glory of God is his own end, and
it should be ours in all that we do. This passage has been understood by some in a
very different sense, and with a special reference to the conversion of these
Ephesians to Christianity. Those who have a mind to see what is said to this purpose
may consult Mr. Locke, and other well-known writers, on the place.

6. David Roth points out that there is Scripture to suggest that this blameless life is
not just for what we will have in eternity, but it is what God aims for us to have in
this fallen world. He quotes, Phil 2:15 KJV That ye may be blameless and
harmless, the sons of God, without rebuke, in the midst of a crooked and perverse
nation, among whom ye shine as lights in the world; He adds, ot only does the
word holy refer to what is true positionally in Christ or in relationship to our new
standing before God, it refers to our present standing in the life of the flesh. In other
words, our standing in the flesh before the world is to reflect what is true spiritually
in Christ.
(1 Pet 1:15-16 KJV) But as he which hath called you is holy, so be ye holy in
all manner of conversation; {16} Because it is written, Be ye holy; for I am
holy.
(Heb 12:10 KJV) For they verily for a few days chastened us after their own
pleasure; but he for our profit, that we might be partakers of his holiness.
(Heb 12:14 KJV) Follow peace with all men, and holiness, without which no
man shall see the Lord:
5 he predestined us to be adopted as his sons
through Jesus Christ, in accordance with his
pleasure and will-
Amplified: For He foreordained us (destined us, planned in love for us) to be
adopted (revealed) as His own children through Jesus Christ, in accordance with the
purpose of His will [because it pleased Him and was His kind intent]
LT: His unchanging plan has always been to adopt us into his own family by
bringing us to himself through Jesus Christ. And this gave Him great pleasure.
Phillips: He planned, in his purpose of love, that we should be adopted as his own
children through Jesus Christ
Wuest: having previously marked us out to be placed as adult sons through the
intermediate agency of Jesus Christ for Himself according to that which seemed
good in His heart’s desire.

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