Ephesians 1

     1:1-2.  Many early manuscripts read as does the RSV, “To the saints who are also faithful in Christ Jesus:” with no mention of Ephesus.  The epistle does seem to be too general and impersonal to be aimed only at a specific church.  Many good authorities date Ephesians to the time of Paul’s imprisonment in Rome, perhaps about A.D.60-61 (or 61-63?).  Tychicus was charged with delivering both Colossians and Ephesians (and Philemon written at the same time) (cf. 6:21-22; Col.4:7-9).

     Predestination: Eph.1:3-2:10.  Cf. John 3:1-10; Acts 13:48; Ro.8:28-9:23, 11:5-7;       1 Cor.1:22-31; 2Tim.1:9 (see especially notes on Ro.9).

     1:3-6.  Praise to God the Father who through the Son has blessed us with the blessings belonging to Christ (3).  Before Adam’s fall, even before the material universe was called into being in Gen.1:2, i.e., from all eternity, the Father chose us in his Son.  Only in the Son can we be holy and blameless (4).  The Father’s sovereign predestined choice of us in Christ, by which we were taken out of the accursed family into which we were born and adopted into God’s family, was according to the mere good pleasure (margin) of the Father’s will (5), to the praise of the glory of his grace alone, freely bestowed on us in the Beloved Son (6).

     1:7-10.  In Christ alone do the objects of the Father’s lavish grace receive redemption and forgiveness.  Only through the blood of the Father’s beloved Son can the debt be paid and the trespasses against the infinite holiness and justice of God be forgiven (7-8).  The Father has now revealed the wisdom of his eternal plan which by his good pleasure he purposed in his Son, and has made this mystery known to us through him (8-9).  He did this in order to establish a new administration (dispensation) of things both in heaven and on earth.  These are now the fullness of times, the last days.  All things are now being summed up in Christ (10).  Cf. Mark 1:15; Gal.4:4; Col.1:19-20; Heb.1:2-3.

     1:11-14.  We who were bereft of anything have now in Christ obtained everything.  This was not left to chance.  The Father, who works all things after the council of his will, predestined it all according to his purpose (11; cf. Ps.115:3; 135:6).  This was to the end that both the Jews, who were first to hope in Christ (12), and also the Gentiles who heard and believed (13), should be to the praise of his glory.  All who believed were sealed in Christ by the power of the promised Holy Spirit, who is the pledge (earnest payment) of our inheritance and possession of God’s gracious gift, and all is to the praise of his glory (14).

     1:15-18.  Paul’s prayer for those who have heard with faith and who love the saints (15) is that God the Father would continue to give them spiritual enlightenment about the hope and glory they are to receive in Christ, the riches of his inheritance which the saints share (17-18).

     1:19-21.  God’s power toward believers is the same power by which Christ was raised from the dead, and by which he was seated at the Father’s right hand, there to rule over all other powers and every name, not only in these last days, but in the everlasting age of glory to follow.

     1:22-23.  The Father subjected all things under Christ, and gave him, this exalted head over all things, to the church (22).  The church is Christ’s body, the fullness of him who fills all in all (23; cf. Jer.23:23-24).  “The Head partakes of the suffering of the members on earth, by sympathy; the members partake of the power of the heavenly Head by faith.” J.G.Vos.