Free Bible Commentary
“Ephesians 1:1-6”
Categories: Ephesians“Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God, to the saints who are at Ephesus and who are faithful in Christ Jesus: Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ, just as He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we would be holy and blameless before Him. In love He predestined us to adoption as sons through Jesus Christ to Himself, according to the kind intention of His will, to the praise of the glory of His grace, which He freely bestowed on us in the Beloved.”
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Verse 3 – “Every spiritual blessing” – There are lot of “spiritually minded” people in the world today who do and receive some good on this physical plane from their “religious” pursuits. But the “spiritual blessings” of the eternal variety can only be found and obtained through a covenant relationship with God “in Christ”.
Paul enumerates some of these special blessings in this chapter. They include “redemption through His blood” and the “forgiveness of our trespasses” (verse 7). Christ paid the purchase price in His blood to “buy us back” after we had been “sold into bondage to sin” (Romans 7:14). Once we are forgiven of our sins by contacting that blood through the waters of baptism (Acts 2:38), we have eternal “salvation” (verse 13) and can live our lives in the eternal “hope” (verse 12) that we will receive an eternal “inheritance” (verse 11) in heaven.
Verse 3 – “In the heavenly places” – There is an “invisible world” and spiritual activity is going on all around us that we cannot see and have no perceptual awareness of. Paul uses the term “the heavenly places” five times in his letter to the Ephesians, and most are in relation to the blessings we receive in our “positive”, spiritual relationship with God through Christ Jesus.
But there is a “dark side” to this realm as well that we must do battle with. “For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the powers, against the world forces of this darkness, against the spiritual forces of wickedness in the heavenly places” (Ephesians 6:12). These “spiritual forces” are real and they are powerful. But praise the Lord that they are no match for our All-powerful God. We will reign victoriously with Jesus and overwhelmingly conquer our spiritual foes if we remain faithful to Christ until death (Romans 8:37; Revelation 2:10).
Verse 4 – “He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world” – God “wants all people to be saved” (1 Timothy 2:4), so Ephesians does not teach us that He has “chosen” or “predetermined” the people who will be saved and lost before they were even born. Instead, Ephesians teaches us that God has “predetermined” from eternity that everyone who will be forgiven, redeemed and saved eternally, must live a life that is “holy and blameless before Him.” He “predestined” the plan, not the man (or person).
Verse 5 – “He predestined us to adoption” – This statement is further evidence of the fact that God predestined the plan of salvation and not the individual people who will be saved. All people are “born saved” because they are spiritually innocent and incapable of having committed any sin that could condemn them (Ezekiel 18:20; Matthew 18:3; 1 John 3:4). But, once a person of adequate intellectual capacity transgresses God’s will, he is then lost and in need of “adoption” into the family of God. If people were truly predestined by God to be saved, they would never be lost in the first place, and need to be adopted into God’s family.
All praise and glory be to God for “the kind intention of His will” (verses 5-6)!
Please read Ephesians 1:7-10 for tomorrow.
Have a great day!
