Ephesians 1:19

“Wherefore” ties the prayer to everything Paul has just said. The Greek is diá toûto, “for this reason”, followed by kagṓ, “I also”. God has chosen, adopted, redeemed and sealed his people (Ephesians 1:3–14), and Paul’s thanks follow from that. He has heard (akoúō, the ordinary verb for hearing) reports about the Ephesians, and what he heard shows those blessings bearing fruit.

Ephesus was a great city of the Roman province of Asia, home of the temple of Artemis, whom the KJV calls Diana, and a centre of idol worship and magic. Paul had spent more than two years teaching there (Acts 19), in the city whose crowds cried “Great is Diana of the Ephesians”. News of faith and love from such a place gave Paul great joy.

The two things he names stand at the heart of the Christian life. Faith, pístis, is persuasion and trust, and above all reliance on Christ for salvation. Here it is faith “in the Lord Jesus”, en tō Kyriō Iēsoú (Kyriō is “Lord” and Iēsoú “Jesus”), a personal trust in Jesus as Lord and Saviour. Faith is how we receive every blessing of the verses before. Love, agápē, is affection and goodwill that acts for the good of others, even those who are hard to love, and it is the evidence that faith is alive. Paul joins the two elsewhere when he speaks of faith that works by love (Galatians 5:6) and of the Thessalonians’ work of faith and labour of love (1 Thessalonians 1:3). Together they answer to the two great commandments, to love God and to love our neighbour (Matthew 22:37–39), and to Christ’s new commandment that his disciples love one another (John 13:34–35).

“The saints” are every believer in Christ. The word hágios means holy, set apart for God, and every believer is set apart by God through union with Christ. Their love reached “unto” (eis, “to” or “toward”) all the saints, pâs ho hágios, so it went out to every member of the church, whatever their background or standing. That is the unity of the Spirit which Paul later urges them to keep (Ephesians 4:1–3).

Christ is behind both. He is “the author and finisher of our faith” (Hebrews 12:2), and all of God’s promises are sure in him (2 Corinthians 1:20). The love the Ephesians showed one another reflects the love with which Christ loved the church and gave himself for it (Ephesians 5:23–27), and it is by love that the body grows up into him (Ephesians 4:15–16).

Paul addresses “the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory”. The first title names God by his relation to Jesus, through whom believers come to the Father. The second uses dóxa, glory, splendour and honour. God is the source and owner of all glory, so the one Paul asks is fully able to give what he asks for.

He asks God to “give”, dídōmi, the common word for giving, and what he asks is “the spirit of wisdom and revelation”. Wisdom (sophia) is spiritual insight and the discernment to live by what God has shown. Revelation (apokálypsis) is an unveiling, God making known what was hidden. Revelation gives us the truth, and wisdom lets us grasp it and live by it. Ephesus was full of mystery cults that offered secret knowledge, and Paul prays for knowledge that God himself gives.

The goal is “the knowledge of him”. The word is epígnōsis, a full and personal knowledge, and its object is God himself. Paul prays the same for the Colossians (Colossians 1:9–12), and his own deepest desire is to know Christ (Philippians 3:10). This knowledge comes through the Son. In Christ “are hid all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge” (Colossians 2:3), and “No man hath seen God at any time; the only begotten Son, which is in the bosom of the Father, he hath declared him” (John 1:18).

Verse 18 says how this knowledge comes. “Understanding” is diánoia, built from diá, “through”, and noús, “mind”, the faculty of thought and the bent of the mind. Some translations read “the eyes of your heart”. Paul speaks of the inner person as having eyes, and he prays that they will be “enlightened”, phōtízō, from phōs, “light”: to give light to something and make it visible. The form in Greek, pephōtisménous, speaks of eyes that God has filled with light and that stay that way.

This light is light about Christ and from Christ, who is “the light of the world” (John 8:12). It is in knowing him that our understanding is opened to the greatness of God’s plan and our place in it.

People ask whether every believer already has this sight or must pray for it. Every believer has received the Spirit, “that we might know the things that are freely given to us of God” (1 Corinthians 2:12), and yet Paul prays this for people who already believe. Seeing more of what we have in Christ is a lifelong growth, and it is right to pray for it, for ourselves and for others.

“That ye may know” opens three things for them to see. The first two are in this verse, and the third fills the next.

The third thing to know is “the exceeding greatness of his power”. “Exceeding greatness” is hyperballon megethos, a greatness that passes every measure. Paul asks “what is” this greatness to express wonder at something too large to measure. “Power” is dýnamis, ability, strength and might, often of power that works miracles. It is God’s own power, and it is aimed “to us-ward who believe”, toward believers and for their good.

Paul then piles word on word. “The working” is enérgeia, power in action, the actual exercise of strength. “His mighty power” is two nouns in Greek, krátos and ischýs, strength and might. Four words for power stand in one verse, so that we feel how great it is. Paul uses the same language when he praises God, who “is able to do exceeding abundantly above all that we ask or think, according to the power that worketh in us” (Ephesians 3:20), and when he says he labours “according to his working, which worketh in me mightily” (Colossians 1:29).

This power comes to us through the Holy Spirit, with whom believers were sealed (Ephesians 1:13–14) and who lives in them. Many in Ephesus had sought power from incantations and rituals, and Paul points them to the one God, whose power is active for his people. The rest of the chapter shows how great it is by showing what it has already done.

“Which he wrought in Christ” uses energéō, to be at work and to bring something about, the verb that goes with the “working” of verse 19. God worked this power in Christ in two acts.

First, “he raised him from the dead”. The verb egeírō means to wake or rouse, from sleep, from sitting, from sickness or from death, and here God raises his Son from the grave. The resurrection is God’s victory over death and his seal on who Jesus is, as the psalm foretold that God would not suffer his Holy One to see corruption (Psalm 16:10).

Second, he “set him at his own right hand in the heavenly places”. To be seated there is to be enthroned. God has highly exalted him and given him the name above every name (Philippians 2:9–11). Having purged our sins, he sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high (Hebrews 1:3), and he reigns until every enemy, death last of all, is put under him (1 Corinthians 15:20–28). Because he is seated above, believers set their hearts on the things above, where Christ sits (Colossians 3:1).

The same power is at work for those who believe. Paul goes on to say that God “hath raised us up together, and made us sit together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus” (Ephesians 2:5–6). What God did for Christ, he has begun in everyone joined to Christ.

Christ is seated “far above”, hyperánō, from hyper, “above”, and anō, “upward”, higher in place and in rank than everything named after it. Paul lists four: principality (archē), power (exousía), might (dýnamis) and dominion (kyriótēs). Exousía covers authority and also plain power, the right and the ability to act. “Might” here is dýnamis, the word behind “power” in verse 19, so the English words shift between the two verses while the Greek repeats. Paul uses these terms for the ranks of angelic and demonic beings, and they may include human rulers too. Their exact differences are unknown to us, and together they cover every kind of rule there is, seen or unseen, good or evil. Each item is joined by “and”, which gives every one its own weight.

This spoke straight to the Ephesians. Many had practised magic and feared unseen powers, and when they believed they burned their books of magic in public (Acts 19:19). Paul tells them that Christ is far above every one of those powers. He is the head of all principality and power (Colossians 2:10), and at the cross he spoiled principalities and powers and triumphed over them (Colossians 2:15). Spiritual warfare is a struggle in which the victory is already won.

“Every name that is named” widens the list to every title, rank and reputation. For the Hebrews a name often stood for a person’s character and authority, and no name, human, angelic or demonic, stands beside the name of Jesus. Every knee shall bow to it and every tongue confess that he is Lord (Philippians 2:9–11).

“Not only in this world, but also in that which is to come” uses aiṓn, “age”. Christ reigns in the present age and in the age to come, when God’s kingdom is complete. His rule has no end.

“And hath put all things under his feet” uses hypotássō, to put in subjection. It is an active verb in a past tense with God as its subject, so God has done it and the matter is settled. The picture is of a conqueror. When Joshua defeated the five kings, the captains of Israel put their feet on their necks (Joshua 10:24). The words come from the psalm about man’s place in creation: “thou hast put all things under his feet” (Psalm 8:6). Paul applies the same words to Christ (1 Corinthians 15:27), who fulfils what was promised to man. All things means every created thing and every power, death included.

“And gave him to be the head over all things to the church.” The verb is dídōmi again, the same verb as “give” in verse 17. God gave Christ to the church as its head, the one who already rules over all things. “Head”, kephalḗ, speaks of authority and leadership, and in the picture of a body it is also the source of the body’s life, direction and unity. Christ is “the head of the body, the church” (Colossians 1:18), and the whole body grows up into him and draws its growth from him (Ephesians 4:15–16). He has the preeminence in all things, for all things were made by him and hold together in him (Colossians 1:15–17).

“Church” is ekklēsía, an assembly or congregation, the gathered people of God. People ask how Christ’s rule over all things relates to his headship of the church. He rules the whole world as Lord, and to the church he is joined as head to body, giving it life and direction. The church he leads is the church he bought with his own blood (Acts 20:28), and the one over all things is given to it for its good.

“Which is his body” names the church of verse 22 (hóstis, “which”). The church is called Christ’s body outright. A body, sōma, is a living whole whose members share one life under one head. Each believer is joined to Christ and to every other believer: “we, being many, are one body in Christ” (Romans 12:4–5), and “ye are the body of Christ, and members in particular” (1 Corinthians 12:27). Through his body Christ carries out his will in the world, as a body carries out the will of its head.

“The fulness of him” uses plḗrōma, a word for what fills something and also for what is filled. Christ fills his church with his life, his gifts and his presence, and the church in turn shows his fulness to the world. “Him that filleth all in all” describes Christ with plēróō, to fill, to supply, to complete. Pâs, “all”, comes twice, joined by en, “in”: he fills everything, in every way. By him all things consist (Colossians 1:17), and the passage looks toward the day when God will be “all in all” (1 Corinthians 15:28) and when Christ, who is our life, appears in glory (Colossians 3:4).

Paul’s prayer shows us what God wants his people to have. He thanks God for faith and love because they are God’s own work in believers, and he prays for them by name because prayer for one another is part of loving all the saints. What he asks for is knowledge of God, given by God: eyes filled with light to see the hope of our calling, the riches God has stored up in his people, and the power he has turned toward us.

That power has a history we can point to. It raised Jesus from the dead and seated him above every power and every name, in this age and the next. So the hope of his calling rests on something already done, and the power that is “to us-ward who believe” has already proved itself stronger than death. The Christ who reigns over all things is the head of his church. He gives the church its life, fills it with his fulness, and through it makes himself known.