Paul’s letter to the Ephesians is a letter of great importance for the Christian faith. Its rich theology places emphasis on the role of Christ in our redemption. Specifically, Paul’s focus is a believer’s union with Christ in his death, resurrection, exaltation, and enthronement (1:2–23; 2:5–6).[1] It is in Christ that a believer receives all the spiritual blessings from God. And ultimately, God’s plan in Christ is “to unite all things in him, things in heaven and things on earth” (1:10).
Verses 3 and 4 will be the focus of this essay, asking and answering some key questions generated from examining the text, with support from the Christian Tradition in understanding these passages. First, let’s read the text:
Ephesians 1:3–4
3 Blessed is the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavens in Christ.
4 For he chose us in him, before the foundation of the world, to be holy and blameless in love before him.
Before getting into these two passages, we need to set up the context.
These two passages are part of one, long sentence (1:3–14). Throughout this chapter, Paul aims to show God’s rich blessings on “the faithful saints in Christ Jesus at Ephesus,” which apply to all the saints in Christ. Paul arranges this chapter’s material designated by four uses of the phrase “in him,” denoting the blessing that has been given to the saints in Christ. Some have observed a Trinitarian distinction in these passages, whereby vv. 3–6 is the work of the Father, 7–10 is the work of the Son, and 11–14 is the work of the Spirit.[2] Below is a breakdown of the main 4 points (observe the In him markers) of this section, with sub-points that detail and support the main points.
1. In him: According to the good pleasure of his will and praise of his glorious grace, God the Father chose the saints before the foundation of the world.
a. . . . to be holy and blameless before him
b. . . . to be predestined us for adoption as sons
2. In him: We have received redemption
i. . . . through his blood
ii. . . . the forgiveness of our trespasses
iii. . . . according to the riches of his grace
1. . . . that he richly poured out on us
a. . . . with all wisdom and understanding
b. He made known to us the mystery of his will
i. . . . according to his good pleasure
1. . . . that he purposed in Christ
a. . . . as a plan for the right time
c. — to bring everything together in Christ
i. . . . both things in heaven and things on earth
d. . . . in him.
3. In him: We have received an inheritance
a. . . . because we were predestined
i. . . . according to the plan of the one who works out everything in agreement with the purpose of his will
1. . . . so that we who had already put or hope in Christ might bring praise to his glory.
4. In him: You were sealed with the promised Holy Spirit
a. . . . when you heard the word of truth
i. . . . the gospel of your salvation
ii. . . . and when you believed
b. The Holy Spirit is the down payment of our inheritance
i. . . . until the redemption of the possession
1. . . . to the praise of his glory.
The four main points we see in the passages above show us that God in Christ has chosen us to receive redemption and an inheritance, which he guarantees in sealing us with the Holy Spirit, which is through the hearing and believing the gospel, the word of truth. Let’s now examine 1:3–4.Ephesians 1:3–4
3 Blessed is the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavens in Christ.
4 For he chose us in him, before the foundation of the world, to be holy and blameless in love before him.
Paul extols God, blessing him as the source of our blessedness, following the familiar pattern we see in Israel’s Scriptures and the Jewish literature of the Second Temple Period. See Neh 9:5–7, where Nehemiah writes that the Levites all stood up in confession to God praising him, “Blessed be the LORD your God from everlasting to everlasting. . . . You, LORD, are the only God. You created the heavens and the highest heavens , . . the earth and all that is on it, the seas and all that is in them. You give life to all of them”. We see this blessing toward God in Ps 72:19, Dan 4:34; 2 Cor 1:3; 1 Pet 1:3.
Paul’s opening line, “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ,” raises the issue of Christ’s deity in that the Father is said to be his God. To fill this out, we look to other passages that speak of his deity and equality with the Father. For example, John 1:1, 14, 18; 5:17–27; 20:28, Phil 2:6, Col 1:19; 2:9; Heb 1:3, 8; 2 Pet 1:1; 1 John 5:20; 2 John 9. I emphasize these passages because they speak to Christ’s divinity, showing he performs the same divine actions attributed to God the Father, whereas his humanity is generally assumed and not debatable. John 20:17 is instructive, hearing from Jesus’ mouth his reference to God as his God. Therefore, simply put, Jesus as man should refer to God as his God. But Paul’s emphasis is on the unfolding of the divine purpose, God the Father is working out his eternal plan, within the sphere of divine blessing given and received in God the Son, the Lord Christ.[4] There is a distinction made between God the Father and the Son in this blessing, which the Christian tradition has continued to follow in its interpretation of this passage. In Paul’s blessing to “God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ,” God is the blessed God, creator of heaven and earth, who is the Father of the Son—the Word, who assumed flesh in the person of Jesus Christ. And in him all spiritual blessings are received.
Early Church Father, Jerome (c. 347 – 420 AD), writes, “. . . both God and Father are to be referred in common to our Lord. Blessed is the God of the man who has been assumed [i.e., the Word who assumed flesh] and the father of him who was the Word of God with God in the beginning!”[5] And Chrysostom (c. 347–407 AD) observes Paul is speaking of God as “[t]he God of him that was Incarnate.”[6] And later, we see a more theologically precise interpretation. Thomas Aquinas (1225–1274 AD) notes, “He who is God by the divine essence and Father because of his property of generating [the Son]. The copula and is not placed between God and Father to designate two separate persons, for there is only one Father, but to denote what he is by his essence and what he is in relation to the Son.”[7] Reformed Puritan, David Dickson (c. 1583–1663), writes, Paul “calls him the Father of Jesus Christ 1) because of the eternal generation of the Son, by which the Father from all eternity communicated to him his whole infinite essence; 2) because of the personal union of the assumed human nature, by which the Son of man is made the Son of God.”[8] The point in this blessing is not to identify two gods, otherwise Paul would be a heretic, “but to identify the one God and God’s particular relationship as Father of the Son.”[9] And the “divine saving purposes from eternity to eternity which are celebrated in Ephesians 1:3–14 are clearly set forth as the work of the triune God.”[10]
Regarding Ephesians 1:3, other passages widen our understanding of the phrase in the heavens. We see “the heavens” is a cosmic place, a realm of sorts with spiritual beings, “rulers and authorities” (Eph 3:10) “cosmic powers of darkness, evil, and spiritual forces” (Eph 6:12), which is contrasted with “flesh and blood.” And Christ was raised by God and seated “at his right hand in the heavens” (Eph 1:20), in which the saints have also been raised up and are “seated with Christ in the heavens in Christ” (Eph 2:6). Interestingly, our being raised and seated shows to be something already certain and complete.[11] And it is God’s purpose in revealing the mystery of Christ “through the church to the rulers and authorities in the heavens” (Eph 3:10). The spiritual blessings we receive, which we see expressed in vv. 3–14, are “creation, redemption, justification, forgiveness of sin, and life everlasting, of no other but of Christ and by no other means but for Christ’s sake.”[12] Calvin observes in the heavens is “intended to express the superiority of grace which we receive through Christ. The happiness which it bestows is not in this world, but in heaven and everlasting life.”[13]
As it pertains to 1:4, other passages support a consistent understanding of God’s choosing us. 2 Thessalonians 2:13–14 is like this verse, as almost a restatement. He writes, “God chose you from the beginning for salvation through sanctification by the Spirit and faith in the truth.” And from a different pen, the Apostle Peter, expresses similar notions when he writes: “who are chosen according to the foreknowledge of God the Father by being set apart by the Spirit for obedience and for sprinkling with Jesus Christ’s blood” (1 Peter 1:1–2). We see that God’s choosing was from “before the foundation of the world,” “from the beginning,” and “according to God’s foreknowledge.” Calvin comments:
The foundation and first cause, both of our calling and of all the benefits which we receive from God, is here declared to be his eternal election. If the reason is asked, why God has called us to enjoy the gospel, why he daily bestows upon us so many blessings, why he opens to us the gate of heaven,—the answer will be constantly found in this principle, that he hath chosen us before the foundation of the world. The very time when the election took place proves it to be free; for what could we have deserved, or what merit did we possess, before the world was made?[14]
And we were called “to be holy and blameless,” “for salvation through sanctification by the Spirit,” and “by being set apart by the Spirit for obedience and for sprinkling with Jesus Christ’s blood.” Other passages tell us God’s actions in Christ make us holy and blameless: he protects us from stumbling to make us “stand in the presence of his glory, without blemish” (Jude 24); he gave himself unto death “to present the church to himself in splendor, without spot or wrinkle , . . but holy and blameless” (Eph 5:27); his giving of himself “reconciled [us] . . . to present [us] holy, faultless, and blameless before him—” (Col 1:22). Later in First Peter, he says to those God chose, that “you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people of his own” (2:9). And in Matthew, Jesus speaks of a “kingdom prepared for you [the righteous] from the foundation of the world” as their inheritance (25:34).
Commentators from the Tradition rightly emphasize God as the sole and primary cause of our salvation. Of election, Aquinas writes, “it is free; as he chose us in him; it is eternal, before the foundation of the world; it is fruitful, that we should be holy; and it is gratuitous, in love.”[15] And in doing so, Christians can be comforted in trials and battles with sin, knowing that the grace bestowed upon them is irrevocable. They “can rest assured and even boast in the face of Satan because they have been chosen [by God] from eternity. The Lord cared about you before the world was made, before you ever existed, so how much more will he care about you now that the world has been created and you have appeared in it?”[16]
God’s choosing us in him, Calvin writes,
is the second proof that the election is free; for if we are chosen in Christ, it is not of ourselves. It is not from a perception of anything that we deserve, but because our heavenly Father has introduced us, through the privilege of adoption, into the body of Christ. In short, the name of Christ excludes all merit, and everything which men have of their own; for when he says that we are chosen in Christ, it follows that in ourselves we are unworthy.[17]
While some may think the doctrine of election is an article of the faith that shouldn’t be talked about, Paul’s approach to the topic puts those assumptions to bed. How is that? Paul speaks of it in a celebratory expression of praise, in which he says our Creator is blessed for such a spiritual blessing. Paul blesses God because God has blessed believers (v.3), predestined them for sonship (v.5), and has made known to them the mystery of his will (v.9).[18] Election is the means to which God in Christ guarantees our salvation. Apart from being united in Christ, through the working of God who made us alive with Christ (Eph 2:5; col 2:13), our faith would determine to fail. Paul can only say, “I am sure of this, that he who started a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus” (Phil 1:6), because of God’s elective purposes in choosing a people to be holy and blameless. Israel serves as a reminder about God’s purposes in electing them out of all the peoples of the earth (Deut 7:6), to be a holy people for his own possession. Scripture says, “The LORD set his heart on [them] and chose them . . . because he loved [them] and kept the oath [he] swore to [their] ancestors” (Deut 7:7–8). It had nothing to do with a foreseen faith, holiness, and blameless conduct of their own that determined their being chosen; rather, it was because of God’s gracious will and faithfulness to his promise.
~ Romans 11:36 ~
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[1] Benjamin J. Merkle, “Ephesians” in Iain M. Duguid, James M. Hamilton, and Jay Sklar, ESV Expository Commentary: Ephesians-Philemon (Crossway, 2018), 21.
[2] James Montgomery Boice, Ephesians, 9.
[3] Walter Bauer, A Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament and Other Early Christian Literature, ed. Frederick William Danker, 3rd edition (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2001).
[4] Peter T. O’Brien, The Letter to the Ephesians (Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1999), 91.
[5] Jerome, Epistle to the Ephesians, 1.1.3.
[6] John Chrysostom, “Comm. and Homilies on the Epistle of St. Paul to the Ephesians,” in NPNF 1.13, 50.
[7] Thomas Aquinas, Commentary on Ephesians, 27.
[8] Gerald L. Bray, Galatians, Ephesians, Reformation Commentary on Scripture. Logos Edition (InterVarsity Press, 2011), 239–40.
[9] Stephen E. Fowl, Ephesians: A Commentary, ed. C. Clifton Black, M. Eugene Boring, and John T. Carroll, First Edition, The New Testament Library (Westminster John Knox Press, 2012), 37.
[10] O’Brien, The Letter to the Ephesians, 91.
[11] Daniel B. Wallace, Greek Grammar Beyond the Basics, Enlarged edition (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 1997), 563–4. The Greek form of the verb is called a proleptic (futuristic) aorist, denoting the certainty of the action, though future, that has happened to us.
[12] Lancelot Ridley, “Commentary on Ephesians,” in Bray, Galatians, Ephesians, 238.
[13] John Calvin, Comm. Ephesians, 197.
[14] John Calvin, Comm. Ephesians, 197–8.
[15] Aquinas, Ephesians, 27.
[16] Johannes Brenz, “Commentary on Ephesians,” in Bray, Galatians, Ephesians, 240.
[17] John Calvin, Comm. Ephesians, 198.
[18] Frank Thielman, Ephesians, Baker Exegetical Commentary on the New Testament (Grand Rapids, Mich: Baker Academic, 2010), 41.
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