Ephesians 1:4

Right after his greeting (Ephesians 1:1–2), Paul breaks into a doxology, a declaration of praise, that runs from verse 3 to verse 14 as a single sentence in the Greek. English Bibles divide it into verses, but it moves as one hymn, and each blessing flows into the next. It follows the work of the three persons of God. The Father chooses and predestines us (verses 4–6), the Son redeems us and makes God’s will known (verses 7–12), and the Holy Spirit seals us and guarantees what is to come (verses 13–14). Every blessing comes from the Father, through the Son, and is applied by the Spirit, so that in all things Christ has the preeminence (Colossians 1:18).

Two phrases carry the hymn. The first is “in Christ”, with its companions “in him”, “in whom” and “in the beloved”, which comes in almost every verse (3, 4, 6, 7, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13). Every blessing named here belongs to us because we are joined to Christ. The second is a refrain that closes each movement: “to the praise of the glory of his grace” in verse 6, and “to the praise of his glory” in verses 12 and 14. God’s purpose in all he does for us is that his glory be seen and praised.

This hymn is the ground of the whole letter. When Paul later urges the church to unity and to a life worthy of its calling, he builds on what God has done here, so everything he asks of us rests on God’s grace and purpose. The rest of Ephesians 1 keeps returning to it.

Verse 3 uses the word for blessing three times: God is “blessed”, he “hath blessed” us, and he has done it with “blessings”. The adjective eulogētós is used of God and means worthy of praise. The verb eulogéō means to speak well of, to praise, and to bless. We bless God by praising him, and he blesses us by giving us good. The same word runs both ways, and every good thing starts with him.

“The God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ” is how Paul opens his praise in 2 Corinthians 1:3 as well, and Peter does the same in 1 Peter 1:3. It names God as the Father who sent Jesus, so from its first line the letter is centred on Christ. The LORD has always been the source of blessing for his people, as in his promise to bless Abraham and through him all the families of the earth (Genesis 12:2–3). That blessing now reaches us in Christ.

“Hath blessed” is in the aorist tense in Greek, which presents the blessing as an act God has already completed. Its benefits carry on into the present and the future, and the gift itself is already ours. The blessings are “spiritual”, and the Greek word (pneumatikos) comes from the word for spirit, which points to the Holy Spirit who applies them to us. The verses that follow name them: election, adoption, redemption, forgiveness, the knowledge of God’s will, an inheritance and the sealing of the Spirit. God does provide for our bodily needs, and these are the lasting riches of our standing with him, the ones that make us “complete in him” (Colossians 2:10).

The first blessing Paul names is God’s choice. “According as” (kathōs) means “just as”: God has blessed us in Christ just as he chose us in Christ. The verb eklégomai means to select or pick out. It is a deliberate choice, and its middle voice suggests that God chose for himself, for his own purposes and glory. He chose us “in him”, so the choice was made in Christ and belongs to everyone who is in Christ.

“Before the foundation of the world” (pro katabolēs kosmou) is literally “before the laying down of the world”. God’s purpose to save was settled before he made anything, so his plan was in place before the first sin. Paul tells the Thessalonians that God chose them from the beginning to salvation (2 Thessalonians 2:13), and he writes to Titus of eternal life that God promised before the world began (Titus 1:1–2). Peter calls believers “elect according to the foreknowledge of God the Father” (1 Peter 1:1–2), and Paul sets out the whole chain in Romans: those God foreknew he predestinated, called, justified and glorified (Romans 8:28–30).

Proorízō means to limit in advance, to mark out beforehand. Verse 5 tells us what God marked us out for: to be adopted as his children. The same word comes again in verse 11, and in Romans, where God predestinated his people “to be conformed to the image of his Son” (Romans 8:29–30). Before we existed, God settled that we would belong to his family.

Huiothesía, “adoption of children”, means placing as a son. Paul alone uses the word in the New Testament, five times: here, Romans 8:15, 8:23, 9:4 (of Israel) and Galatians 4:5. In Roman law adoption was a serious legal act. It was often used to give an heir to a family that had none, and the adopted son received every right and privilege of a natural son, including the full inheritance. His old debts and obligations were cancelled, and he stood as a new person in his new family. Paul’s picture carries all of that. Once strangers to God, we now belong to his household with the full standing of heirs.

Verse 6 closes the first movement with its refrain: “to the praise of the glory of his grace”. Épainos is praise or commendation. Dóxa is glory, God’s splendour and excellence made visible. God’s grace has a glory of its own, and he chose and adopted us so that his grace would be seen and praised. Later in the letter Paul ends his prayer the same way: “Unto him be glory in the church by Christ Jesus” (Ephesians 3:21). The fruits of righteousness in our lives are likewise “unto the glory and praise of God” (Philippians 1:11).

“Hath made us accepted” translates charitóō, to grace, to endue with special honour, to be highly favoured. The only other place the New Testament uses this verb is Luke 1:28, where the angel greets Mary as “highly favoured”. God has pardoned us, and he has also given us his favour and honour as a gift, making us the objects of his delight. Paul says it in Romans as well: we are “justified freely by his grace” (Romans 3:23–24).

“The beloved” is Christ. At his baptism and again at his transfiguration the Father said, “This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased” (Matthew 3:17, Matthew 17:5). We are accepted because we are in him. His standing with the Father becomes ours, along with his righteousness (2 Corinthians 5:21), and we share his inheritance (Romans 8:17). Since our acceptance rests on Christ, who always pleases the Father, it is secure.

With verse 7 Paul turns to the Son’s work. “In whom” points back to the beloved of verse 6, and “we have” speaks of something we already hold.

Apolýtrōsis, redemption, means a ransom paid in full, release secured by a price. In a city where slavery was everywhere, people knew the word for the payment that freed a slave or a prisoner of war. We were held in bondage to sin, to death and to the curse of the law, and Christ has bought us back and set us free for good.

The price was “his blood”. Haîma is blood, and here it means the atoning blood of Christ, his life poured out in sacrifice. Jewish believers knew from the sacrifices that “without shedding of blood is no remission” (Hebrews 9:22). Those sacrifices pointed ahead to Christ, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world (John 1:29), who entered the holy place once by his own blood and obtained eternal redemption for us (Hebrews 9:11–14).

Redemption and “the forgiveness of sins” are two sides of the one gift. The word for sins here (paráptōma) means trespasses, and God’s forgiveness takes away their guilt and their penalty. Colossians uses the same words: “In whom we have redemption through his blood, even the forgiveness of sins” (Colossians 1:14). Paul explains in Romans that we are justified “through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus: whom God hath set forth to be a propitiation through faith in his blood” (Romans 3:24–25), so that God is both “just, and the justifier of him which believeth in Jesus” (Romans 3:26).

All of this is “according to the riches of his grace”. Cháris is grace, God’s favour freely given and undeserved. “Riches” tells us the measure: God forgives out of an overflowing store, generously and in full. “God commendeth his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us” (Romans 5:8). Paul draws the conclusion in the next chapter: “by grace are ye saved through faith” (Ephesians 2:8–9).

“Wherein” refers back to the riches of his grace in verse 7. In that grace God “hath abounded toward us”. Perisseúō means to superabound, to overflow, and it can also mean to cause something to overflow. God has lavished his grace on us, far past what we need.

It overflowed “in all wisdom and prudence”. Sophía is a broad word for wisdom of every kind, higher or lower, worldly or spiritual, and here it is the wisdom of God’s eternal plan. Phrónēsis, prudence, is understanding and insight, the practical side of wisdom that sees how to carry a purpose out. The New Testament uses it only here and in Luke 1:17, “the wisdom of the just”. Together the two words describe God’s whole understanding of his plan and of how to bring it about. Scripture pairs them the same way when wisdom says, “I wisdom dwell with prudence” (Proverbs 8:12), in a chapter given to the praise of wisdom (Proverbs 8). Greeks valued wisdom as philosophical insight, and Jews tied it to God’s law and his creation. Paul speaks of a wisdom that comes from God and is revealed in Christ.

God’s wisdom shows in the plan itself, and he also shares it with us, for verse 9 says that he has made his will known to us. Christ is “the wisdom of God” (1 Corinthians 1:24), the one “in whom are hid all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge” (Colossians 2:3). God gives us his word, which makes wise the simple (Psalm 19:7) and is a lamp unto our feet (Psalm 119:105). He gives us his Spirit, who guides us into all truth (John 16:13) and teaches us all things (John 14:26). When we lack wisdom, we may ask God, who gives to all men liberally (James 1:5). Before the depth of it Paul can only cry, “O the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God!” (Romans 11:33).

Gnōrízō means to make known. God is the one who acts here: he has made known to us the mystery of his will.

Mystḗrion is a secret once hidden and now made known by God, and the word comes from a root meaning to shut the mouth. Paul uses it six times in this letter (1:9, 3:3, 3:4, 3:9, 5:32, 6:19). In his writings a mystery is a truth God kept in his own counsel and has now opened, through the gospel, to those he reveals it to. Ephesus had its mystery cults, with secret rites and knowledge kept for initiates. God’s mystery is announced openly in the gospel and given freely to all who believe, whatever their nation.

Verse 10 gives the heart of the mystery: God’s plan to gather all things together in Christ. Later Paul shows that it includes the Gentiles, who are now “fellowheirs, and of the same body, and partakers of his promise in Christ by the gospel” (Ephesians 3:3–6). Christ has broken down the middle wall of partition between Jew and Gentile (Ephesians 2:14) and made of the two one new man (Ephesians 2:14–16). Paul calls it the mystery “which was kept secret since the world began, but now is made manifest” (Romans 16:25–27), hidden for ages and now shown to the saints: “Christ in you, the hope of glory” (Colossians 1:26–27). Moses had already said that the secret things belong to the LORD our God, while the things revealed belong to us and to our children (Deuteronomy 29:29).

God made this known “according to his good pleasure” (eudokía again), “which he hath purposed in himself”. Protíthemai, in the middle voice, means to place before oneself, to propose, to determine beforehand. God set this plan before himself in eternity. It came from within his own being and his own goodness, it depends on him alone, and so it is as fixed as his character. It is the plan in which Christ is “the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world” (Revelation 13:8).

Verse 10 tells us what the mystery is and where history is going.

Oikonomia, “dispensation”, means the administration of a household or estate, a stewardship. God manages his plan for creation and redemption in an ordered way, age by age, as the master of the house. Plērōma, “fulness”, means completion, what fills something up. “The fulness of times” is the time God appointed, when his purposes reach their full completion in Christ. Paul uses the same picture when he says that “when the fulness of the time was come, God sent forth his Son” (Galatians 4:4) to redeem those under the law (Galatians 4:4–5). Christ’s coming opened this last stage, and it will be complete when he returns and God makes a new heaven and a new earth (Revelation 21:1–5).

“Gather together in one” translates anakephalaiomai, to sum up, often read as to head up or to bring to a climax. Its only other use in the New Testament is Romans 13:9, where every commandment “is briefly comprehended in this saying, namely, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself”. As the whole law is summed up in one saying, God will sum up all things in Christ, gathering everything to him as its head and bringing it to the perfection he intended. The verse has long been read as the recapitulation of all things, with Christ as the new head of a restored creation, undoing the ruin that came through the first head, Adam.

“Both which are in heaven, and which are on earth” takes in the spiritual realm and the material world together, the whole created order. Christ is the image of the invisible God, by whom all things were created (Colossians 1:15–20), and he has the preeminence over things visible and invisible (Colossians 1:16–18). It pleased the Father that in him all fulness should dwell, and by him to reconcile all things to himself (Colossians 1:19–20). The creation itself waits for that day, when it “shall be delivered from the bondage of corruption” (Romans 8:19–21), and it groans with us as we wait (Romans 8:19–23). In a city divided among many gods and philosophies, Paul gives one Lord over all.

Klēróō comes from a root meaning to allot, and it means to receive a portion, as by lot. The New Testament uses it only here. The KJV reads “we have obtained an inheritance”, and the passive form can also be read “we were made an inheritance”, God’s chosen portion. Both are true of us. We receive the inheritance God gives, and we are ourselves his cherished possession.

The inheritance is everything God has promised in Christ, given now and still to come. For Israel, inheritance meant the land promised to Abraham and his children. For Gentile readers it called to mind Roman law, in which an adopted son had full rights to his new father’s estate. Peter describes it as “an inheritance incorruptible, and undefiled, and that fadeth not away, reserved in heaven” for those kept by the power of God (1 Peter 1:3–5). Christ is the heir of all things, and we are joint-heirs with him (Romans 8:17).

We obtained it “being predestinated” (proorízō again), “according to the purpose of him who worketh all things after the counsel of his own will”. “Worketh” (energéō) speaks of active, effective power. Boulḗ, counsel, comes from a verb meaning to will or to advise, and it means a deliberate, considered plan. God acts by wise and settled decision: “There are many devices in a man’s heart; nevertheless the counsel of the LORD, that shall stand” (Proverbs 19:21). The ancient world feared capricious gods and blind fate, and Paul shows it a God whose will is wise, deliberate and dependable. Because he works all things, “all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose” (Romans 8:28). His purpose centres on Christ, by whom “all things consist” (Colossians 1:17), whom God made head over all things to the church (Ephesians 1:20–23), and to whose image he means to conform us (Romans 8:29).

Verse 12 gives the purpose again: “That we should be to the praise of his glory”. The preposition eis here marks purpose, and épainos and dóxa return from verse 6. God saved us so that our lives would bring honour to his glory. He says of his people, “I have created him for my glory” (Isaiah 43:7), and “This people have I formed for myself; they shall shew forth my praise” (Isaiah 43:21). Peter calls the church a chosen generation, “that ye should shew forth the praises of him who hath called you out of darkness into his marvellous light” (1 Peter 2:9).

Our salvation shows who God is: his grace in choosing us, his love in sending Christ, his power in setting us free from sin, his wisdom in the plan, and his holiness in making a way for us to come to him. Lives changed by him carry that display further. Jesus glorified the Father on the earth and finished the work he was given to do (John 17:4), and he is “the image of the invisible God” (Colossians 1:15). We carry this treasure “in earthen vessels, that the excellency of the power may be of God, and not of us” (2 Corinthians 4:7).

Verse 13 traces how the Ephesians came into these blessings. They heard, they believed, and they were sealed.

In “In whom ye also trusted”, the KJV prints “trusted” in italics because the Greek has no verb in this clause, and the translators supplied one. What they heard was “the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation”, the second phrase explaining the first. Akoúō is the ordinary word for hearing, and here it is the hearing that takes the message in and answers it with faith. Euangélion means a good message, the good news of God’s saving work in Jesus Christ. Faith rests on that message, the truth God has spoken.

“After that ye believed, ye were sealed.” Sphragízō means to stamp with a signet or private mark for security or preservation, and so to attest. In that day a seal marked ownership, authenticated a document, guaranteed what was inside and secured property. Of a decree sealed with the king’s ring, the book of Esther says that “the writing which is written in the king’s name, and sealed with the king’s ring, may no man reverse” (Esther 8:8). God’s seal on believers marks them as his own, shows them genuine and keeps them safe. “Were sealed” is in the aorist tense, a completed act joined to their believing, and the seal is permanent. Paul says the same elsewhere: God “hath also sealed us, and given the earnest of the Spirit in our hearts” (2 Corinthians 1:21–22). The Father sealed the Son of man (John 6:27), and the Spirit bears witness with our spirit that we are the children of God (Romans 8:16).

The seal is the Holy Spirit himself, “that holy Spirit of promise”. He is the gift God promised long before. God said he would pour out his Spirit upon all flesh (Joel 2:28–29), put his Spirit within his people (Ezekiel 36:27), and pour his Spirit upon their seed (Isaiah 44:3). Jesus promised another Comforter, the Spirit of truth, to abide with us for ever (John 14:16–17), and once he was exalted he poured the Spirit out at Pentecost (Acts 2:33). The Spirit lives in every believer as God’s own presence, uniting us to Christ and giving us power to live out our salvation.

The Spirit who seals us is also “the earnest of our inheritance”. Arrhabṓn means a pledge, a first instalment, a down payment given in advance as security for the rest. In the commerce of a city like Ephesus it bound the payer to complete what he had begun. The word is of Hebrew origin, and it is the “pledge” Judah gave Tamar (Genesis 38:17). The New Testament uses it three times, each time of the Spirit: here, 2 Corinthians 1:22 and 2 Corinthians 5:5. The Spirit is a real first share of what is coming and God’s binding guarantee that he will finish the work of salvation and give us the whole inheritance. The Spirit he gives is the Spirit of Christ (Romans 8:9).

He is the earnest “until the redemption of the purchased possession”. Redemption, apolýtrōsis, appeared in verse 7 as something we have now. Here it is the full and final release still to come, which includes our bodies, as we wait for “the adoption, to wit, the redemption of our body” (Romans 8:23). Peripoíēsis means an acquisition, either the act of acquiring or the thing acquired, and it can also mean preservation. The purchased possession is God’s people, the church, whom he has bought through the sacrifice of his Son. “Ye are bought with a price” (1 Corinthians 6:20), and Peter uses the same word when he calls believers “a peculiar people” (1 Peter 2:9). Christ was “raised again for our justification” (Romans 4:25), and when he comes from heaven he “shall change our vile body, that it may be fashioned like unto his glorious body” (Philippians 3:20–21).

Then the hymn ends on its refrain, “unto the praise of his glory”. Of him, through him and to him are all things, “to whom be glory for ever” (Romans 11:36), and that glory shines “in the face of Jesus Christ” (2 Corinthians 4:6).

The right answer to this passage is the one Paul gives at its start: “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.” Every blessing named here is already ours in Christ, so we can meet each day from his abundance, with thanks.

Because God chose us before the world began and sealed us with his Spirit, our standing with him rests on his eternal purpose and his faithfulness. That truth quiets our fears about whether we belong to him. Anyone who has felt like an outsider can know that God has adopted them as his child and heir, and that he did it gladly. Since he has accepted us in his beloved Son, we can lay down shame and the endless chase for other people’s approval.

The same grace shapes how we live. God chose us to be holy and without blame, and his Spirit lives in us to make that real, so we pursue holiness with his help. Those he has forgiven so richly can forgive others. When life is confusing, we can trust the God who works all things after the counsel of his own will. And since his plan is to gather all things together in Christ, with Jew and Gentile in one body, we seek that unity with every believer now and gladly pass on the word of truth that brought us life. All of it is to the praise of his glory.