Ephesians Chapter 1

Greetings to the Christians in the Lycus Valley.

As stated in the introduction to this Epistle this letter was not written just to the people of Ephesus, but more than likely to Christians in the Lycus Valley.

Read Ephesians 1: 1-3

  • Vs.1 – Paul states in the opening sentence an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God. 2 things to notice here one the name “Christ Jesus” and the second thing is Paul is an apostle by the will of God, not by his choice.
    • Christ is Christos in the Greek which means “anointed one”.  The Septuagint uses the word Christos for the Hebrew word for Messiah. The name Jesus was NOT Christ earthly name. His name was Yeshua what we today translate as Joshua. The letter J did not come into common use until the 17th century. In Hebrew Yeshua (Joshua) means “God saves”.
    • Predestination is the belief that God chose who will be saved and who would not. Free will has nothing to do with it. This is what Paul is stating here and will make it crystal clear in Eph 1:4-6.
  • Vs.2-3 – In verse 3 we see Blessed, blessed and blessing and they all do not mean the same thing. They are built on the root word eulogy. We think of eulogy as something we give at a funeral. We use it to speak well of the people that have died. The first “Blessed” Paul uses here in the Greek is “eulogetos” which is only used of God ascribes praise to Him. The second “blessed” is “eulogeo” it means to act gracious to someone. The third “blessed” is “eulogia” and has the idea of a gift. Read verse 3 again with this understanding.
    • “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Yeshua the Christ”–Paul is ascribing praise to Yahweh. A typical Hebrew blessing would be “Baruch attah Adonai Eloheinu”, Blessed are you our LORD our God. – David Curtis’ Commentary on Ephesians

Read Ephesians 1:4-5

  • Vs. 4 – This here is denoting the divine act of election as taking place in eternity. “Time belongs to the created order: believers present experience of the blessings bestowed by God is the fulfilment on the temporal plane of His purpose of grace towards them conceived in eternity” The Epistles to the Colossians, to Philemon, and to the Ephesians (The New International Commentary on the New Testament)  pg. 254
    • God chose us to be a part of His family even before He created the world we know. He knows who He wanted and who He did not. Just as we see from Paul in Romans 9:10-13. “Jacob, I loved, and Esau I hated”. It is God’s sovereign will that we are in Christ and saved and nothing of our own volition had anything to do with it.
  • Vs. 5 – Not sure why verse 4 ends with “In Love”, but In love God predestined us for adoption into His family through Christ Jesus we became part of the wonderful Kingdom of God. But, not because of our will or because we believed in Christ. No. It was according to the purpose of His will.

Read Ephesians 1:6-10

  • Vs. 6 – God through His grace blessed us with all that comes with being in the family of God. We were chosen and blessed in the Beloved. The Beloved here is Christ and because we are in Christ, we are part of God’s family. Matt 3:17, 17:5.
  • Vs. 7-8 – We have been redeemed because of the sacrifice on the cross and our trespasses have been forgiven. Paul says God lavished His grace upon us in the form of wisdom and insight, but wisdom and insight into what?
  • Vs. 9-10 – Wisdom and insight is given by the Holy Spirit to understand and be wise to what God has done to bring us into His family. Understanding and insight into the redemption of the Christ. Corinthians 1:18-20.
    • The plan was to unite all those He has chosen in heaven and earth to Himself. That was the plan going back before God created the earth and the Spirit has given us the understanding. Read again vs. 4 above.

Read Ephesians 1:11-23

  • Vs. 11 – In Christ we have obtained an inheritance. This is how the ESV translates it as well as Youngs Literal Translation. I think the NIV does a better job of translating with “In him we were chosen having been predestined. The idea is we were appointed, chosen by God, assigned in otherwards. This idea of being God’s chosen comes from OT in the Song of Moses Deut 32:8-9 where the nations of the world were assigned to other gods, but Yahweh retained Israel as his personal possession. And now we are the Israel of God because of Christ. See my study on Galatians to understand why we are the new Israel.
    • According to the purpose of Him who works all things according to His will. Not our will as stated earlier, but His will.
      • See some great passages on God’s will in Proverbs 16:9, Psalms 115:3, Romans 9:19.
  • Vs. 12 – The “we “in this statement is Paul talking about the Jews. Those that originally were looking for the messiah. David Curtis in his commentary says this, “”It is here that we see more clearly the Jewish/Gentile difference. Paul was separating two groups: He, the other apostles, and the first believers who trusted that Yeshua was the Christ, their Messiah; and the Gentiles who would later trust in Christ. These Jews who first trusted in Christ play a special role in the salvation-historical story; in that they were the beginning of the fulfillment of the promises that Yahweh made to Israel in the Tanakh. All the covenants and promises were ultimately fulfilled in Christ. On the Day of Pentecost, for example, when the church had its inception, that group that were bound together in one body through the baptism of the Holy Spirit were Jewish. It’s only when Yahweh drove the Christians out of Jerusalem, some ten years later, that the Gospel went out to the Gentiles.”
  • Vs. 13-14 – Then Paul makes a contrast from talking about his Jewish origins of belief to you also when you heard became believers and was given the seal of the Holy Spirit. God’s seal that these early Christians were His. This Spirit is the mark that they were chosen by God and not like the rest of the world. Even today we have the Spirit as mark that we are in the Family of God.   
  • Vs. 15-17 – Paul is telling the Christians in the region of the Lycus Valley I hear the love you have for your brother’s and sister’s and because of this he gives thanks to God. And asks that the Holy Spirt gives them wisdom and revelation to Him that they might understand the living God.
  • Vs. 18-20 – Paul giving God all the glory for what He has done in the Christians in the Lycus Valley. Then tells them God has seated Christ at the right hand of God. The right hand means all the power and authority God was given to Christ.
  • Vs 21 – Rule and authority and power and dominion. This is talking about the rules of the air. The spiritual beings that existed including Satan. Paul is not talking about the Spirit realm and not the earthly realm. See my study in Colossians chapter 2
  • Vs22-23 – All things are under the rule and control of Christ, and He is the head of the Church which we are. We are the body of Christ the fullness of Him. He is a Spirit, and we are His body and we reflect Him.