Ephesians 1

1. PAUL, an apostle of Jesus Christ by the will of God, to the saints which are at Ephesus, 2 and to the faithful in Christ Jesus: grace be to you, and peace, from God our Father, and 3 from the Lord Jesus Christ. Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who 4 hath blessed us with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ: according as he hath chosen us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without 5 blame before him in love: having predestinated us unto the adoption of children by Jesus 6 Christ to himself, according to the good pleasure of his will, to the praise of the glory of 7 his grace, wherein he hath made us accepted in the beloved. In whom we have redemption 8 through his blood, the forgiveness of sins, according to the riches of his grace; wherein he 9 hath abounded toward us in all wisdom and prudence; having made known unto us the mystery of his will, according to his good pleasure which he hath purposed in himself: 10 that in the dispensation of the fulness of times he might gather together in one all things 11 in Christ, both which are in heaven, and which are on earth; even in him: in whom also we have obtained an inheritance, being predestinated according to the purpose of him who 12 worketh all things after the counsel of his own will: that we should be to the praise of 13 his glory, who first trusted in Christ. In whom ye also trusted, after that ye heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation: in whom also, after that ye believed, ye were sealed 14 with that Holy Spirit of promise, which is the earnest of our inheritance until the redemp- tion of the purchased possession, unto the praise of his glory. 15 Wherefore I also, after I heard of your faith in the Lord Jesus, and love unto all the 16 saints, cease not to give thanks for you, making mention of you in my prayers; that the 17 God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give unto you the spirit of wisdom 18 and revelation in the knowledge of him: the eyes of your understanding being enlightened; that ye may know what is the hope of his calling, and what the riches of the glory of his 19 inheritance in the saints, and what is the exceeding greatness of his power to us-ward who 20 believe, according to the working of his mighty power, which he wrought in Christ, when he raised him from the dead, and set him at his own right hand in the heavenly places, 21 far above all principality, and power, and might, and dominion, and every name that is 22 named, not only in this world, but also in that which is to come: and hath put all things 23 under his feet, and gave him to be the head over all things to the church, which is his body, the fulness of him that filleth all in all.

THE recovery of man was announced on the day of his apostasy; though, by the very terms of that announcement, this recovery would involve a long conflict between the seed of the woman and the serpent. But the method of that recovery was a mystery, obscurely hinted at by prophets who knew not what the Spirit that was in them did testify, more and more pronounced through symbols and the later prophecies; at length, in the fullness of times, unveiled in the incarnation of Christ; but still a mystery of the divine love for the ever-unfolding glories of eternity. And all this wondrous plan is referred back to the purpose of God before the foundation of the world; ever the same plan in the religion which the Bible reveals; ever the same purpose in Divine Providence, unfolding and fulfilling this plan; ever the same development in history, as this great purpose of redemption moves onward through the ages toward its consummation in the final accord of the physical and the moral universe, through the triumph of God over evil, of salvation over sin. Surely we who have part in such a redemption, and whose inheritance in this glory is sealed by the Holy Spirit of promise, should be holy and without blame before him who hath blessed us with these infinite riches of his grace. J. P. T.

THIS Epistle was written during Paul’s first imprisonment at Rome in the spring of A. D. 62, at the same time with those to Philemon and to the Colossians. B.

We infer that the Epistle was veritably written as now addressed to the Ephesian Church and to no other. Ephesus was a place of great commerce and note at the mouth of the river Cayster in Lydia. It was famed for its great temple of Diana, one of the wonders of the ancient world. Paul’s first and short visit to it is recorded Acts 18: 19-21. The work begun by him was afterward carried on by Apollos and by Aquila and Priscilla. During his second visit, lasting “three years,” he founded the Ephesian Church (see Acts 19: 20). The number of convents seems to have been considerable, and the Church had been an especial object of the apostle’s personal care. On his last recorded journey to Jerusalem he did not touch at Ephesus, but summoned the elders of the Ephesian Church to meet him at Miletus, where he took an affecting farewell of them, which at the time he believed to be his last. (Read Sections 220, 221, 223.)

When we come to inquire into the occasion of the Epistle we find nothing special in the state of the Ephesian Church which may account for it. Rather does it seem to have sprung out of the circumstances of the Apostle’s employment at the time. He was sending by Tychicus and Onesimus a weighty letter to the Colossian Church, occasioned by defects in its belief and practices. His mind was much exercised on the points which he had to treat in that Epistle. But these very matters were parts of a larger and more complete subject which the special import of that letter would not allow him to introduce. He longed to set forth the length and breadth and height of the Church of Christ as founded in the counsel of the Father’s will, wrought by the obedience and love of the Son, carried on and nourished by the indwelling influence of the Spirit. And to whom should such an Epistle be addressed but to that Church which, more than any other, he had founded and built up—the Church at Ephesus? This, then, seems to be its occasion. It is to the Epistle to the Colossians what the Epistle to the Romans is to that to the Galatians: a great offspring, greater than the parent, embracing the general subject of which the other treated a particular portion. He addresses the Ephesian Church as a type, a sample of the Church universal. He sets forth to them the ground, the course, the aim and end of the church universal. All through the letter this threefold division is found. The origin of the Church in the will of the FATHER; the course of the Church by the satisfaction of the SON; the scope and aim of the Church, life in the SPIRIT—these three things run through the whole, dividing the Epistle first into three larger portions, and then in those portions carrying out the same order in every paragraph, and almost in every sentence. The whole is a magnificent apostolic comment on the doctrine of the Holy Trinity, as the divine Presons are concerned in the work of our redemption. Those who deny that doctrine must either set aside this Epistle altogether or must tear out of it all meaning and coherence.

After the customary apostolic greeting, begins the first portion of the Epistle (1: 3; 3: 21), the doctrine of the Church of Christ. This is subdivided as follows: 1. The Ground and Origin of the Church, in the Father’s Council, and his Act in Christ, by the Spirit (1: 3-23). 2. The Course and Progress of the Church through the Son (2: 1-22). 3. The Aim and End of the Church in the Spirit (3: 1-21).

3-23. The Ground and Origin of the Church, in the Father’s Council, and his Act in Christ, by the Spirit.—In carrying out this, the apostle gives, 1. The preliminary idea of the Church, set forth in the form of an ascription of praise (3-14), and thus arranged: The Father, in his eternal love, has chosen us unto holiness (v. 4), ordained us to sonship (v. 5), bestowed grace on us in the beloved (v. 6); in the Son we have redemption through the riches of his grace (v. 7), knowledge of the mystery of his will (vs. 8, 9), inheritance under him as the one Head (vs. 10-12); through the Spirit we are sealed by hearing the word of salvation (v. 13), by receiving the earnest of our inheritance (v. 14), until the redemption of the purchased possession. 2. The idea of the Church carried forward, in the form of a prayer for the Ephesians, in which the fulfillment of the Father’s counsel through the Son, by the Spirit in his people, is set forth as consisting in the knowledge of the hope of his calling, of the riches of his promise, and the power which he exercises on his saints as first wrought by him in Christ, whom he has made Head over all the Church (vs. 15-23). A.

3. All blessings in Christ. The feeling and the cry of faith is, He gives us Christ, and in him all things. Christ can not be ours and any grace be absent; this King can not enthrone himself in our spirit and not bring with him his whole retinue of blessings. Christ is here, and He, the “Son over his own house,” will take care to rule it in wisdom; in having Him we have pardon, in having Him we have holiness, in having Him we have heaven itself—“raised up together, and made to sit together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus.” W. A. B.

4. Chosen us. 5. Predestinated us. The doctrine of predestination is in the Bible. But how is it there? Is it proclaimed in awfulness and anger, to tell that gospel blessing and gospel invitations are of little use, for God’s decree has narrowed them to a scanty number? As it stands in the Bible, how does it look, benignant or forbidding? How does it sound? harmonious or harsh? Not only what is its tenor? but its tone? Turning to one of its stronghold passages (Eph. 1: 3-12), and noticing how it is qualified and tempered by the object of it all, “that we should be holy and without blame before him in love,” I beg you to observe its tone. Observe how ecstatic and exulting the whole passage is, beginning and ending with hallelujahs, “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus,” and steeped in joy and love from end to end. When viewed from the evangelic standpoint, observe what a benignant doctrine this election is, hindering no man’s salvation who is willing to be saved, and giving glorious security for their salvation who have once found acceptance in the beloved. Hamilton.

A thoughtful nature can not shrink from those absorbing inquiries which relate to the harmonies of divine intentions with the unquestionable facts of self-science; but the whole history of moral philosophy demonstrates that no man is safe in approaching the brink of this great ocean except as he is led by the hand of Christ; then this great and wide sea is calm, and the outlook on its length and breadth and depth is cheerful, and the soul trusts, and adores, and loves, but does not sink; for Christ, the living, loving Saviour of the soul, is the center about which all the purposes and decrees of God in regard to our race and world revolve, and, whatever else we doubt or ponder in vain, this is clear and indubitable, that God would have all men to be saved and come to the knowledge of the truth. For a practical, theologic use, what better definition can be given of God’s eternal and sovereign decrees than this—Christianity no accident, no incident, but God’s original plan? and sovereign election—so often conceived and presented as a philosophical abstraction by which many are chilled and repelled—what is it, in fact, but this blessed and most comforting assurance, that Christianity will be no failure or disappointment; that its success depends on no contingency, but is made certain by the very love from which it drew its origin? W. A.

6. Accepted in the beloved.** The sinner hands over his sins to the perfect One, and the perfect One hands over his perfection to the sinner. Thus, by reason of this blessed transference or exchange, the imperfect one becomes as the perfect One in the sight of God, and is dealt with as such in regard to all favor and blessing. Perfection covers imperfection, and the believing sinner stands “complete” in the perfect One: “accepted in the Beloved.” Crediting God’s testimony to the perfect One, and his perfect sacrifice, we stand before God on a new footing—as men who have “become the righteousness of God in Him,” and who now get life, and peace, and pardon, and blessing, simply because the perfect One has deserved it for them. We have all in Him. Bonar.

God’s hearing of our prayers doth not depend upon sanctification, but upon Christ’s intercession; not upon what we are in ourselves, but what we are in the Lord Jesus; both our persons and our prayers are acceptable in the Beloved. Brooks.—Repentance is, properly speaking, a change of mind, or a new mind about God; regeneration is a change of heart, or a new heart toward God; conversion is a change of life, or a new life for God; adoption is a change of family, or a new relationship to God; sanctification is a change of employment, or a consecration of all to God; glorification is a change of place, or a new condition with God; but justification, which is a change of state, or a new standing before God, must be presented as going before all, for being “accepted in the Beloved” is the foundation and the cause of all. An.

7. In whom we have redemption through his blood.** Never has there been, never was there, never will there be such another—but only He, the virgin-born, God and man; whose inherent worthiness is not only equivalent to the multitude of the guilty, but many times outweighs it. Being of his own free will condemned, he annulled the death deserved by his crucifers, and converted the crime of his slayers into the criminals’ own salvation. He came to save, but it behooved him also to suffer. How could both these things be? A mere man had no power to save; God, by himself, could not possibly suffer. What then took place? Emmanuel, being himself God, became man. That which he was wrought salvation, that which he became suffered. Proclus.—Holy and full of blessing is the living law of our redemption—Jesus Christ, who blesses us through the forgiveness of sins. Condemned is every righteousness and holiness of man. The way to righteousness and holiness is Jesus Christ and his atoning death. All bonds burst from hands and feet, from heart and head, from word and life, from soul and body, when Jesus Christ forgives our sins. Redemption is no dead letter; it is life, and it works life. A. C.

9-12. Believing in God, and reasoning consistently, we can not avoid the conclusion that there is a system of things upborne and guided by the agency and government of the Almighty; but it is only when we are informed in the Christian revelation what this system is—even the purpose of God, before the foundation of the world was laid, to make it the theatre of redeeming love—that God’s sovereign decrees are taken out of all association with fatalistic necessity, and made to glow with a most celestial joy. Would it comfort our rational souls to be assured that this world and its affairs were drifting along without plan or purpose; that redemption was an after-thought, an improvised expedient gotten up of necessity to remedy an unforeseen accident? Does it not comfort every rational soul, taking its position by the side of the Son of God, looking backward and upward, to be informed that the one purpose, which includes every other pertaining to our race, is that which according to his good pleasure God hath purposed in himself, that in the dispensation of the fullness of time he might gather together in one all things in Christ, that we should be to the praise of his glory who trusted and hoped in Christ? W. A.

10. All things in heaven and on earth.** From intimations such as these, it is probable that, in the great work of redemption as well as of creation, there is a vast stupendous plan of wisdom, of which we can not at present so much as conceive the whole compass and extent. And, if the redemption wrought by Christ extended to other worlds, if its virtues penetrate even into heaven itself, if it gather together all things in Christ, who will then say that the dignity of the agent was disproportioned to the magnitude of the work, and that this small globe of earth was not a scene sufficiently splendid for the Son of God himself to appear upon, and to display the riches of his love, not only to the race of man, but to many other orders of intelligent beings? P.

12. Trusted in Christ.** Talk what we will of faith, if we do not trust and rely on him, we do not believe in him. Believe in him and not trust in him! You might as well say the Jews did love him when they nailed him to the cross. Farindon.—The faith that brings salvation is the act of a being toward a being, sinner to Saviour, man to God. “He that believeth in me,” says Christ, not he that believeth some things, or many things, about me. The simple first point of it is Christ, a Saviour, manifested in such love and divinity that, taken for salvation as a being, he can be trusted. And, when he is thus trusted, that is saving faith. H. B.

13. Sealed with the Holy Spirit.** Sealing implies the direct contact of the seal with the thing sealed, and involves the idea that the consequence of that sealing is the impression on the thing sealed of the device that is carved on the seal. The purpose of that sealing is security and safety. The thought, then, is just this, that God’s Holy Spirit comes into real contact with the Christian man’s soul, and there stamps and impresses the character and copy of its own likeness; and that these God-like desires, feelings, emotions, thoughts, the whole reflected character of the divine majesty and holiness, as mirrored and molded in a believer’s heart, are the pledge of the security of that man, and of the certainty that he will be kept in the way in which he goes. If you take that for your doctrine of final perseverance, there is no fear of its ever being turned to anything but the noblest purposes, or being found to contain anything but the mightiest inducements to walking in the Divine life, and to seeking to possess that mirrored image of the Divine Word. A. M.

14. The earnest of our inheritance means the experience of it, in some measure beforehand, ministered with faith by the Holy promised Spirit, until the time when, by redemption completed, it shall come to be held in actual everlasting possession. God gives us not mere testimony, though it be his own, but experience also, and the evidence of experience in the Christian life. But experience is not the first thing. First comes belief in the things revealed of God, because God testifies of them, because God declares them. Then comes knowledge, the knowledge of experience growing out of faith. G. B. C.

17-23. The first chapter ends with a sublime prayer of intercession in behalf of the Ephesian saints. Paul desires their spiritual illumination. They have the spirit of life; he asks for them the spirit of wisdom. They have a holy calling; he asks that the eyes of their hearts may be opened, so that they may know “the hope of his calling.” They have forgiveness through the death of Christ; he asks that they may know in themselves the power which God put forth in the resurrection of Christ from the dead. The prayer ends with mention of the exaltation of the Saviour, and his headship over all, to the Church, which is his body. Then these thoughts run through all the remainder of the Epistle. It recognizes the heavenly places, and sees the Church in elevation with Christ, regarding it as his mystical body, his holy temple, and his ransomed bride. D. F.

17. The spirit of revelation.** The Spirit of God is represented by various types: by ointment that clarifies the eye to see things aright; by cleansing, refreshing water; by purifying, refining fire, correspondent to his sacred operations in the soul. As the Spirit of truth, he illuminates the understanding to see the reason and excellency of supernatural and heavenly things, of the great mysteries of godliness, of eternal glory; so that a Christian, in his most deliberate, solemn, and composed thoughts, in his exactest valuation, infinitely prefers them before the vanities of this transient world. When the eyes of the mind are truly enlightened, present things appear, or rather disappear, as shadows. Bates.

19,20. Jesus has universal dominion, and uses that dominion, as mediator of the new covenant, to bring about the everlasting counsels of his love in our deliverance from sin and death and hell. Here is the security of the covenant. Corruption is mighty, enemies are mighty; but he who loveth us, he who reigns for us, is mightier. He gives strength and power unto his people in their present conflicts, and will bring glory to himself and them in making them at last “more than conquerors” over all. Goode.

21. Principality and power.** The creative power of God is adequate to the peopling of the universe with beings as various as the infinite variety of material objects. Only the divine wisdom limits the divine power. That wisdom is its own judge of what is fit and best for this power to accomplish. The reason of man has no foothold in this superior sphere. On this subject the word of God is singularly clear and decisive. It declares to us the existence of such a class of intelligences. It describes them in their personality, distinguishing them broadly from man and the powers of nature. It attributes to them all the attributes of personality and intelligence, will, affections, powers. It gives some of their names, expressive of their characters—Michael, who is as God, a prince; Satan, the adversary. It tells of the love and joyful obedience of one class; of their delight in God and holiness; of their interest in the progress of the Redeemer’s kingdom, and their outburst of praise at his birth; and of their joy over the conversion of sinners, their worship of God and the Lamb, and their agency in the final destruction of this world. It describes to us the malignity of another class, their

opposition to man, their evil influence, their fall, their condemnation; it tells us of those who kept not their first estate, who through the indulgence of pride fell, who ever since the creation of man have been engaged in constituting the kingdom of the world in opposition to the kingdom of heaven. S. W. F.