Ambrosiaster — Commentary on Scripture

Ephesians 1:1

He writes not only to the faithful but to the saints to show that they are truly faithful insofar as they have been sanctified in Christ. For a good life is worthwhile and is called saintly if it is lived in the name of Jesus. Otherwise it is polluted, because it injures the Creator.

EPISTLE TO THE EPHESIANS 1.1

Ephesians 1:2

He calls God our Father because all things are created and restored in him. He calls Christ Lord because he redeems us, offering himself on our behalf.

EPISTLE TO THE EPHESIANS 1.2

Ephesians 1:3

He means not with an earthly but a heavenly blessing, not corruptible but eternal, because Christ’s glory is not in earth but in heaven and in Christ. For every gift of God’s grace is in Christ. If someone who despises Christ imagines that he is blessed by God, he is wrong. Yet God is blessed in one way, humans in another. There is indeed one term blessing, but it should be understood as is proper to the recipient.… God is blessed when he is extolled with due praises, but the way in which God blesses human beings is to impart to them the gift of his grace, not according to their merits but according to his mercy.

EPISTLE TO THE EPHESIANS 1.3.1-2

Ephesians 1:4

God, foreknowing all, knew who were going to believe in Christ. … Therefore those whom God is said to call will persevere in faith. These are the ones whom he elected before the world in Christ, so that they might be blameless before God through love—that is, so that the love of God might give them holy lives. For no one can show greater respect toward another than when he obeys in love.

EPISTLE TO THE EPHESIANS 1.4

Ephesians 1:9

The pleasure of God, whose counsel cannot be changed, was to show in Christ the mystery of his will. This happened at the time when he chose that he should be revealed. Now his will was this, that he should then draw close to all who were in sin, either in heaven or in earth. God gave Christ to bring believers the gift of forgiveness of their sins through faith in Christ.

EPISTLE TO THE EPHESIANS 1.9.1

Ephesians 1:12

What he means is that God first allotted the task of preaching to those believers in Christ who were from a Jewish background. Therefore no one of Gentile background was chosen to be an apostle. It was fitting that the first preachers should be chosen from those who had previously hoped for the salvation that had been promised to them in Christ.

EPISTLE TO THE EPHESIANS 1.12

Ephesians 1:14

Just as it is the glory of a doctor if he cures many, so it is to the praise of God’s glory when many are won for the faith. And so it is part of God’s glory to have called the Gentiles that they might obtain their salvation through the faith promised to the Jews. The Gentiles have as a sign of their redemption and future inheritance the Holy Spirit, given at baptism.

EPISTLE TO THE EPHESIANS 1.14

Ephesians 1:17

The hope of their faith lies in a heavenly reward. When they truly know what the fruit of believing is, they will become more eager in acts of worship.

EPISTLE TO THE EPHESIANS 1.18.1

Ephesians 1:22

He says that the Father has subjected all creation to the Son, so that he may be the head and Lord of all on account of being the one through whom he made all things. He “made all things subject to him” when he generated him before all things, that through him all that had not been might come into being.

EPISTLE TO THE EPHESIANS 1.23

Ephesians 2:2

He indicates that the prince of power, that is, the devil, has corrupted the understanding of the world to make it depart from the one God and conceive a belief in many gods. In this way the devil made them associates in his own conspiracy, seeing that they were found to exhibit the same impiety in their denial of the one God.

EPISTLE TO THE EPHESIANS 2.2.1-3

Ephesians 2:3

He is speaking of a great deception when he brings to mind the “passions of the flesh.” For the pleasure of the flesh means being delighted by the visible, so that it gives the name of gods to the elements that God appointed as his means of ordering the world. But this name [God] belongs rightly to the one and only God, from whom everything derives.… If anyone imagines that the “passions of the flesh” mean anything else, let him reflect on how the apostle led a pure life. He lived without blemish according to the righteousness of the law. But because he had persecuted the church he includes himself in the “we”—“we lived in the passions of our flesh.” For every sin, according to Paul, has something to do with the deception associated with living according to the flesh, which is the mother of all corruption.

EPISTLE TO THE EPHESIANS 2.3.1-3

Ephesians 2:4

These are the true riches of God’s mercy, that even when we did not seek it mercy was made known through his own initiative.… This is God’s love to us, that having made us he did not want us to perish. His reason for making us was that he might love what he had made, seeing that no one hates his own workmanship.

EPISTLE TO THE EPHESIANS 2.4

Ephesians 2:5

God made us in Christ. So it is through Christ once again that he has formed us anew. We are his members; he our Head.

EPISTLE TO THE EPHESIANS 2.5

Ephesians 2:9

All thanksgiving for our salvation is to be given only to God. He extends his mercy to us so as to recall us to life precisely while we are straying, without looking for the right road. And thus we are not to glory in ourselves but in God, who has regenerated us by a heavenly birth through faith in Christ.

EPISTLE TO THE EPHESIANS 2.10

Ephesians 2:13

He reminds us that we were brought close to God by the blood of Christ in order to show how great is God’s affection toward us, since he allowed his own Son to die. We too, enduring in faith, should not yield to despair in any of the agonies inflicted on us for his sake, knowing that what he deserves from us exceeds all that our enemies can bring upon us.

EPISTLE TO THE EPHESIANS 2.13

Ephesians 2:14

The passion of the Savior made peace between the circumcision and the uncircumcision. For the enmity, which was between them like a wall and divided the circumcision from the uncircumcision and the uncircumcision from the circumcision, was abolished by the Savior. His command is that the Jew should not so presume on his circumcision as to reproach the Gentile, nor should the Gentile trust in his uncircumcision, that is, his paganism, so as to abhor the Jew. Both, made new, should maintain in Christ their faith in the one God.

EPISTLE TO THE EPHESIANS 2.14.1

Ephesians 2:15

The law that he abolished was that which had been given to the Jews concerning circumcision and new moons and food and sacrifices and the sabbath. He ordered it to cease because it was a burden. In this way he made peace.

EPISTLE TO THE EPHESIANS 2.15

Ephesians 2:19

Believers become “fellow citizens” in a way analogous to all those who desired the peace of Rome. They brought gifts and were accepted as Roman citizens, as were the people of Cilician Tarsus. Paul was a Roman citizen of that city. So too anyone who has joined himself to the Christian faith becomes a fellow citizen of the saints and a member of God’s household.

EPISTLE TO THE EPHESIANS 2.19

Ephesians 2:20

This means that the household of God is built upon both the old and the new covenants. For what the apostles preached had been foretold by the prophets. In his words to the Corinthians, that “God placed in the church first apostles then prophets,” he is concerned with the order of the church. But in this case he is speaking of the foundation in the prophets of old.

EPISTLE TO THE EPHESIANS 2.20

Ephesians 3:3

He indicates that he has been shown the revelation of the mystery of God, about which he says that he has written briefly, that is, precisely, according to their capacity to comprehend the wisdom of the apostle in the mystery of Christ.

EPISTLE TO THE EPHESIANS 3.4