Commentary on Ephesians

Robert H. Gundry

© 2010 by Robert H. Gundry

Published by Baker Academic

a division of Baker Publishing Group

P.O. Box 6287, Grand Rapids, MI 49516-6287

www.bakeracademic.com

Ebook edition created 2011

Previously appeared in Robert H. Gundry, Commentary on the New Testament (Baker Academic, 2010).

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means—for example, electronic, photocopy, recording—without the prior written permission of the publisher. The only exception is brief quotations in printed reviews.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data for Commentary on the New Testament is on file at the Library of Congress, Washington, DC.

ISBN 978-1-4412-3767-5

Contents

Cover

Title Page

Copyright Page

Acknowledgments

Introduction

Ephesians

GREETINGS

Ephesians 1:1–2

THE PRIVILEGES OF CHRISTIANS

Ephesians 1:3–3:21

BLESSING GOD FOR BLESSINGS PLANNED BY GOD THE FATHER, ACCOMPLISHED BY HIS BELOVED SON, AND APPLIED BY THE HOLY SPIRIT

Ephesians 1:3–14

A THANKSGIVING AND PRAYER

Ephesians 1:15–23

THE SALVATION OF SINNERS BY GOD’S GRACE

Ephesians 2:1–10

THE RECONCILIATION OF GENTILES WITH GOD AND WITH JEWS

Ephesians 2:11–22

PAUL’S SENSE OF PRIVILEGE IN PROCLAIMING THE SECRET OF THE CHRIST

Ephesians 3:1–13

A PRAYER FOR STABILITY THROUGH INCREASED COMPREHENSION

Ephesians 3:14–19

A DOXOLOGY

Ephesians 3:20–21

THE RESPONSIBILITIES OF CHRISTIANS

Ephesians 4:1–6:20

MAINTENANCE OF CHRISTIAN UNITY

Ephesians 4:1–16

MORAL CONDUCT

Ephesians 4:17–5:14

WISE BEHAVIOR

Ephesians 5:15–21

A CODE FOR CHRISTIAN HOUSEHOLDS

Ephesians 5:22–6:9

EMPOWERMENT FOR BATTLE

Ephesians 6:10–20

CONCLUSION

Ephesians 6:21–24

Notes

Back Cover

Acknowledgments

My sincere thanks to Shirley Decker-Lucke, Editorial Director at Hendrickson Publishers, for accepting this exposition of the New Testament for publication; to Mark House, Phil Frank, and others for their work there on the publication; and to the Baker Academic team for their work on this reprint. My brother Stan Gundry, whose contributions to Christian publishing are deservedly well-known, encouraged me to write the exposition. Connie Gundry Tappy copyedited the manuscript. Her copyediting included not only the correction of errors and the refinement of style, but also a host of interpretive improvements and scriptural cross-references arising out of her comprehensive knowledge of the Bible. To her, my daughter as well as my copyeditor, I affectionately dedicate this volume.

Robert H. Gundry

Westmont College

Santa Barbara, California

Introduction

Dear reader,

Here you have part of a commentary on the whole New Testament, published by Baker Academic both in hardback and as an ebook. The electronic version has been broken into segments for your convenience and affordability, though if you like what you find here you may want to consider the whole at a proportionately lower cost. Whether in whole or in part, the e-version puts my comments at your fingertips on your easily portable Kindle, iPad, smartphone, or similar device.

I’ve written this commentary especially for busy people like you—lay people with jobs and families that take up a lot of time, Bible study leaders, pastors, and all who take the New Testament seriously—that is, people who time-wise and perhaps money-wise can’t afford the luxury of numerous heavyweight, technical commentaries on the individual books making up the section of the Bible we call the New Testament. So technical questions are avoided almost entirely, and the commentary concentrates on what will prove useful for understanding the scriptural text as a basis for your personal life as a Christian, for discussion with others, and for teaching and preaching.

Group discussion, teaching, and preaching all involve speaking aloud, of course, and when the New Testament was written, even private reading was done aloud. Moreover, most authors dictated their material to a writing secretary, and books were ordinarily read aloud to an audience. In this commentary, then, I’ve avoided almost all abbreviations (which don’t come through as such in oral speech) and have freely used contractions that characterize speaking (“we’ll,” “you’re,” “they’ve,” and so on). To indicate emphasis in oral speech, italics also occur fairly often.

You’ll mostly have to make your own practical and devotional applications of the scriptural text. But such applications shouldn’t disregard or violate the meanings intended by the Scripture’s divinely inspired authors and should draw on the richness of those meanings. So I’ve interpreted them in detail. Bold print indicates the text being interpreted. Translations of the original Greek are my own. Because of the interpretations’ close attention to detail, my translations usually, though not always, gravitate to the literal and sometimes produce run-on sentences and other nonstandard, convoluted, and even highly unnatural English. Square brackets enclose intervening clarifications, however, plus words in English that don’t correspond to words in the Greek text but do need supplying to make good sense. (As a language, Greek has a much greater tendency than English does to omit words meant to be supplied mentally.) Seemingly odd word-choices in a translation get justified in the following comments. It needs to be said as well that the very awkwardness of a literal translation often highlights features of the scriptural text obscured, eclipsed, or even contradicted by loose translations and paraphrases.

Literal translation also produces some politically incorrect English. Though “brothers” often includes sisters, for example, “sisters” doesn’t include brothers. Similarly, masculine pronouns may include females as well as males, but not vice versa. These pronouns, “brothers,” and other masculine expressions that on occasion are gender-inclusive correspond to the original, however, and help give a linguistic feel for the male-dominated culture in which the New Testament originated and which its language reflects. Preachers, Bible study leaders, and others should make whatever adjustments they think necessary for contemporary audiences but should not garble the text’s intended meaning.

Out of respect for your abilities so far as English is concerned, I’ve not dumbed down the vocabulary used in translations and interpretations. Like the translations, interpretations are my own. Rather than reading straight through, many of you may consult the interpretation of an individual passage now and then. So I’ve had to engage in a certain amount of repetition. To offset the repetition and keep the material in bounds, I rarely discuss others’ interpretations. But I’ve not neglected to canvass them in my research.

On the theological front, the commentary is unabashedly evangelical, so that my prayers accompany this volume in support of all you who strive for faithfulness to the New Testament as the word of God.

Robert Gundry

Ephesians

GREETINGS

Ephesians 1:1–2

1:1–2: Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus through God’s will, to the saints who are . . . and [who are] believers in Christ Jesus: 2Grace and peace to you from God, our Father, and the Lord, Jesus Christ. Paul’s self-designation matches his self-designation in 2 Corinthians 1:1; Colossians 1:1; 2 Timothy 1:1 exactly, but see the comments on 1 Corinthians 1:1 for the meanings of the terms used. As usual, “the saints” describes the addressees as consecrated by God to himself. The very earliest and best manuscripts lack the phrase “in Ephesus” after “we are”—hence the elliptical dots (“. . .”)—and this lack corresponds to Paul’s having “heard” about the addressees’ faith (1:15) and to their having “heard” about his ministry (3:2). By contrast, he’d evangelized the city of Ephesus for more than two years and therefore knew the Ephesian Christians intimately, as they also knew him (Acts 18:18–21; 19:1–20:1, 17–38). Probably, then, so-called Ephesians was a letter circulated from Ephesus to outlying churches, so that the geographical location of the saints was to be filled in by the reader in accordance with the city where they were living. Compare Colossians 4:16, where Paul refers to a letter (quote possibly our very “Ephesians”) that’s coming to Colossae from Laodicea, in which case the reader in Laodicea would have filled the blank with “to the saints who are in Laodicea,” and the reader in Colossae would have filled the blank with “to the saints who are in Colossae.” Paul balances his description of the addressees as consecrated by God with a description of them as “believers,” which refers to their exercise of faith. “In Christ Jesus” locates their faith and thus the believers themselves (compare 1:13, 15 and see the comments on Romans 8:8–11 for the meaning and rationale of believers’ location in Christ Jesus). The placement of “Christ” before “Jesus” gives “Christ” the connotation of a title: “Messiah Jesus.” For the rest of the greeting, see the comments on Romans 1:7; 1 Peter 1:2; 2 John 3.

THE PRIVILEGES OF CHRISTIANS

Ephesians 1:3–3:21

Roughly the first half of Ephesians (after the greeting) deals with the privileges of Christians as a basis for exhortations in the second half.

BLESSING GOD FOR BLESSINGS PLANNED BY GOD THE FATHER, ACCOMPLISHED BY HIS BELOVED SON, AND APPLIED BY THE HOLY SPIRIT

Ephesians 1:3–14

1:3–6: Blessed [be] the God and Father of our Lord, Jesus Christ, who [referring to God] has blessed us in every Spiritual blessing in the heavenly [realms] in Christ, 4just as he [God] selected us in him [Christ] before the founding of the world that we might be sacred and blameless in his sight in love, 5by predestining us for adoption as [his] sons through Jesus Christ for himself [that is, for God] in accordance with the good pleasure of his will, 6for the praise of the glory of his grace, with which he graced us in [his] beloved [Son] . . . . Here begins a sentence that extends all the way though 1:14. The very length of the sentence indicates how much God deserves to be blessed for the blessings he has bestowed on us, the saints, the believers, of 1:1. “Blessed [be] . . .” doesn’t mean only that God deserves to be blessed, though. It means also that God is being blessed in what Paul writes throughout 1:3–14. To bless God is to favor him with praise (see the comments on 1 Peter 1:3 concerning the whole initial phrase). For him to bless “us” (referring to the addressees, Paul, and all other Christians) is for him to shower favors on us, so that those favors constitute the very environment in which we live—hence, “in every Spiritual blessing,” the first of three successive “in”-phrases telling the location of us the saints. “Every Spiritual blessing” means every kind of favor bestowed by God through the agency of his Spirit, as specified in the rest of 1:3–14.

“In the heavenly [realms],” a fancy way of saying “in heaven,” plays up our location as saints in heaven. Since Christ is in heaven and we are in him, we too are in heaven. So just as despite our still living on earth God looks on us as crucified, buried, and resurrected with Christ by virtue of our being in Christ (see, for example, Romans 6:4–6; Galatians 2:20), so too God looks on us as exalted in Christ to the heavenly realms despite our still living on earth (compare 2:6; Colossians 3:1–3). Paul traces our Spiritual blessings back to God’s having selected us out of the mass of humanity, and having done so “before the founding of the world,” so that the selection didn’t depend on anything meritorious which we’d done (see Romans 9). “In him” indicates that even our location in Christ was planned by God before his “founding of the world.” The selection’s purpose was Godward: “that we might be sacred [that is, saints, holy, consecrated to him (1:1)] and blameless in his sight [as saints are and will in fact be at the Last Judgment (5:27), because God looks on us as in Christ, who is blameless].” If God sees nothing blameworthy, salvation is assured; and if our sacredness, our consecration, to God and blamelessness are due to his having “selected us in him [Christ],” “in love” is likely to reference God’s loving us because of our sacredness and blamelessness in Christ. The selection of us entailed predestination “for [the purpose of] adoption as [God’s] sons” (compare “our Father” in 1:2; also Romans 8:29).

“Through Jesus Christ” makes him the agent of adoption in that as believers we are in him and in that he is himself God’s Son quite apart from adoption (4:13). “For himself” makes clear that “adoption as sons” means adoption as God’s sons. “In accordance with the good pleasure of his will” personifies God’s will, makes it take pleasure in the predestining of us for adoption, and attributes the predestinating to God’s will as distinct from our will as human beings. “For the praise of the glory of his grace” adds to predestination another purpose besides that of adoption. Grace, God’s ill-deserved favor as shown in the adoption, isn’t the object of praise. “The glory of his grace” is the object, which way of putting it accents God’s grace as glorious. The addition to “his grace” of the clause, “with which he graced us,” doubles the accent on the glory of his grace. “In [his] beloved [Son]” locates us again in Christ, but calls him the one whom God loved to confirm that God loves us because of our sacredness and blamelessness in Christ (compare, for example, Mark 1:11; 9:7; 12:6; 2 Peter 1:17).

Paul’s sentence continues in 1:7–10: in whom [referring to Christ as God’s beloved Son] we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of trespasses in accordance with the wealth of his grace, 8which [grace] he lavished on us in all wisdom and discernment 9when making known to us the secret of his will in accordance with his good pleasure, which he [God] planned in him [Christ] 10for the administration of the fullness of the seasons, [that is,] to head up all things for himself in the Christ—the things in the heavens and the things on the earth . . . . “Redemption” means liberation from slavery. “Through his blood” marks Christ’s blood as the cost of this liberation, and “blood” implies a violent death (compare the connotation of violence in our expression “bloodshed”) and, given his blamelessness, a sacrificial death. As sacrificial, Christ’s death also brings “the forgiveness of trespasses,” which means their discharge, so that the trespasser doesn’t have to suffer punishment for them. Christ suffered it for us. “The forgiveness of trespasses” also suggests that the redemption consists in liberation from slavery to those trespasses (compare Romans 6:12–23). This redemption and forgiveness accord with God’s grace—no, with “the wealth of his grace,” more than enough to provide redemption and forgiveness, as further indicated by his having “lavished” that grace “on us” or, more literally, “into us,” as though filling us to overflowing with a favor that’s ill-deserved because of our trespasses. “In all wisdom and discernment” refers to all the wisdom and discernment required to understand “the secret of his [God’s] will,” a secret he has “made known to us.” Such wisdom and discernment are the mental environment within which God lavished his grace on us. Without this environment we wouldn’t have recognized and received his grace for what it is. The use of two synonyms, “wisdom” and “discernment,” underlines their accompaniment of grace.

Paul mentions “the secret of his [God’s] will” as a teaser that he’ll explain in 2:11–3:13. Meanwhile, the making known “to us” of “the secret” which consists in “his will” enhances “the wealth of his grace.” The accordance of his making the secret known with “his good pleasure” enhances further “the wealth of his grace” by putting a happy face on God in his lavishing the grace (see also the comments on 1:5 for this phrase). That God “planned” his good pleasure “in him [Christ]” dovetails with God’s having “selected us in him [Christ] before the founding of the world” (1:4) and with his having “predestin[ed] us for adoption as [his] sons through Jesus Christ for himself in accordance with the good pleasure of his will” (1:5). The purpose of God’s plan in Christ was “the administration of the fullness of the seasons,” which means the imposition of his government when the epochs of human history have reached their full extent according to God’s plan. He’ll do this “for himself” (in the sense of carrying out his plan) by putting the entirety of creation (“the things in the heavens and the things on the earth”) under the Christ’s headship. “The Christ” adds the formality of a title to his headship.

Paul’s sentence takes up again in 1:11–12: in him in whom we were also allotted [to God] by being predestined in accordance with the plan of him who is working all things in accordance with the intention of his will 12that we who’ve hoped in the Christ beforehand might be for the praise of his glory . . . . Paul correlated our being in Christ with God’s having blessed us in every Spiritual blessing (1:3), having selected us for consecration and blamelessness (1:4), having graced us (1:6), and having redeemed and forgiven us (1:7). Now Paul correlates our being in Christ with our also having been allotted to God, which means that in his Son, Jesus Christ, God has acquired Christian believers as his own possession (see 1:14). This allotment occurred in conjunction with our being predestined (“for adoption as sons through Jesus Christ” according to 1:5), and this predestination triggered the carrying out of God’s plan. To assure us that the execution of this plan hasn’t been frustrated, Paul refers to God as “him who is working all things in accordance with the intention of his will.” “All things” leaves nothing outside his plan. To stress God’s will as determinative, Paul personifies God’s “will” by ascribing to it an “intention.” There follows a definition of God’s will, namely, that “we . . . might be for the praise of his glory.” Earlier, the glory of God’s grace was to be the object of praise (1:6). Now it’s the glory of God himself that’s to be the object of praise. But why his glory rather than him himself? Because the praise of his glory has to do with the brilliance of his plan and of his working it out (compare Romans 11:33–36). Paul doesn’t say that we are to praise God’s glory. He says that God willed us to be for the praise of his glory. That is to say, our very existence as those “who’ve hoped in the Christ beforehand” is to be for the praise of God’s glory. “Hope” carries the note of confidence in relation to Christ’s return and attendant events, so that “hoped . . . beforehand” means to have put confidence in the Christ prior to his coming back as the one who will come back when “the fullness of the seasons” (1:10) has been reached.

1:13–14: in whom [referring to “the Christ”] also you, when hearing the word of truth, [that is,] the gospel of your salvation, in whom also [you], when believing [the gospel], were sealed with the Spirit of promise, the Holy [Spirit], 14who is the downpayment on our inheritance till the redemption of the acquisition, [which redemption will be] for the praise of his glory. Here we have in Christ a sealing of Christians with the Holy Spirit—quite naturally, since the Spirit is Christ’s Spirit (Romans 8:9). This sealing occurred when they heard “the word of truth” and believed it (in confirmation of the translation “believers” rather than “faithful” in 1:1). Paul identifies this word as the gospel and describes the word as a message containing truth. Then he describes the gospel, which means “good news,” as “of salvation,” which means “of deliverance.” But deliverance from what? Paul reserves the answer to this question till 2:1–10, where salvation turns out to be deliverance from God’s wrath, the just desert of our sins, trespasses, and fleshly lusts. “Your salvation” limits this deliverance to those who’ve heard and believed the gospel. “Also . . . also” doesn’t mean “you as well as us”—rather, hearing and believing as well as hoping (1:12). The temporary shift from “we,” “our,” and “us” to “you” and “your” highlights for the addressees what happened to them at their conversion.

“Were sealed with the Spirit” means being stamped with the Spirit, so to speak, as a sign of being owned by God. “Of promise” is usually interpreted to be describing the Spirit as promised (as, for example, in Galatians 3:14; Luke 24:49; Acts 2:33; Ezekiel 36:26–27; 37:14). In view of the immediately following description of the Spirit as “the downpayment on our inheritance,” however, it’s better to interpret “the Spirit of promise” as the Spirit who, because he’s the downpayment, is himself the promise of our inheritance that’s yet to come in the form of resurrection to eternal life (compare 2 Corinthians 1:22; 5:5). Paul supplements “of promise” with “the Holy” to make the sealing of believers with the Spirit the basis of calling them “saints,” which means “holy ones, consecrated ones” (1:1, 4). “Till the redemption” supplements a past liberation from enslavement to trespasses (1:7) with a future liberation. Paul probably has in mind our liberation from mortality at the resurrection (Romans 8:23), but he avoids defining the liberation in terms of what it will mean for us and thus centers attention on what it will mean for God. It will mean his getting “the praise of his glory” (about which see the comments on 1:6, 12) from “the acquisition,” that is, from the redeemed people he has acquired at the cost of Christ’s blood (1:7; see also the comments on 1:11). This magnificent sentence that blesses God for his blessings has come to an end; but a final note should be taken of God the Father’s prominence in 1:4–6, of Christ’s prominence in 1:7–12, and of the Holy Spirit’s prominence in 1:13–14.

A THANKSGIVING AND PRAYER

Ephesians 1:15–23

1:15–19: Because of this [your having heard the word of truth and believed in Christ (1:13)], I too [in addition to God’s having sealed you with his Holy Spirit (1:14)], having heard about your belief in the Lord, Jesus, and about [your] love for all the saints, 16don’t stop giving thanks for you when mentioning [you] on [the occasion of] my prayers 17that the God of our Lord, Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give you the Spirit of wisdom and of revelation in the knowledge of him—18the eyes of [your] heart having been enlightened—so that you may know what is the hope of his calling, what [is] the wealth of the glory of his inheritance in the saints, 19and what [is] the surpassing greatness of his power—for us who believe—in accordance with the working of the might of his strength . . . . As in 1:12–13, Paul locates the addressees’ faith in Christ, its object; only now he switches from “the Christ” to “the Lord,” whom he identifies as “Jesus,” to renew emphasis on Jesus’ deity over against the “many lords” in paganism (1 Corinthians 8:5–6). This emphasis prepares for the detailing of Jesus’ lordship later in the prayer. Paul has heard about his addressees’ love as well as about their belief. “Love” includes loving deeds as well as loving sentiments. “For all the saints” makes fellow Christians, without exception, the beneficiaries of those deeds and sentiments. Hearing about his addressees’ belief and love has spurred Paul to be giving thanks for the addressees. “When mentioning [you] on [the occasion of] my prayers” implies a giving of thanks to God. “I . . . don’t stop giving thanks” doesn’t mean that Paul is giving thanks continuously—rather, that when he prays for these Christians he always thanks God for them. The mention of his regular thanksgiving compliments them on their belief and love so as to win from them a favorable hearing of this letter when it’s read to them in church meetings. The details of Paul’s multiple prayers for them should likewise win a favorable hearing.

As to those details, “the God of our Lord, Jesus Christ” recalls “the God and Father of our Lord, Jesus Christ” in 1:3. But now “Father” is reserved for a followup in “the Father of glory.” “The God of our Lord” doesn’t imply worship of God by Jesus Christ, for that would contradict Jesus Christ’s lordship. It implies, rather, that as “our Lord,” Jesus Christ represents God to us. “The Father” refers to God, of course, not to Jesus Christ; and “of glory” describes the Father as both glorious and deserving of glorification through our praising “the glory of his grace” (1:6; see also 1:12, 14). Paul prays that this God may give to the letter’s recipients “the Spirit of wisdom and of revelation in the knowledge of him [that is, of God].” According to 1:13–14 they’ve been sealed with the Holy Spirit. So they already have the Spirit as such. So what Paul prays for here is a giving in respect to the Spirit’s function of providing wisdom and revelation in addition to the function of sealing (compare 3:3–5; Colossians 1:9–10; 1 Corinthians 2:6–16). God is the object of the knowledge gained through the Spirit of wisdom and of revelation. As in the often-used euphemism of a man’s “knowing” a woman sexually (see Genesis 4:1 for the first biblical instance), the knowledge of God connotes an intimate relation with him (though not a sexual one, of course, for that sort of relation with a god characterizes pagan religion). Nevertheless, Paul’s mention of wisdom, revelation, enlightenment, and (several times) “what” is to be known accents the informational component of knowledge. Without this component, knowledge as full intimacy turns into knowledge as mere flirtation.

The heart was considered an organ of knowing as well as of feeling. So that Paul portrays the heart as having eyes to see and by seeing to gain knowledge. “Having been enlightened” rests on the observation that you can’t see in the dark and implies that the addressees used to live in mental darkness but that at conversion they were transferred into the realm of mental light, so that now they can see what the Spirit reveals to them (4:17–18; 5:8; Colossians 1:13). What then are they to know? First, “the hope of his calling.” But what is that hope? Elsewhere Paul uses “hope” for confidence in Jesus’ return and the eternal salvation it brings (see with comments Romans 5:2; 12:12; 15:4, 13; 1 Thessalonians 1:3; 5:8; 2 Thessalonians 2:16). This confidence comes as a result of God’s having effectively called to himself those he selected for salvation (4:1, 4; Romans 8:29–30; 9:11; 1 Corinthians 1:26–29; 2 Timothy 1:9). But they need to have the Spirit inform them of the second coming as the ground of their confidence. Second, “what [is] the wealth of the glory of his [God’s] inheritance in the saints.” God’s inheritance consists in the saints, those he has acquired (1:11, 14) and consecrated to himself (1:1). Usually a father gives or leaves an inheritance. This Father has gained an inheritance, one that is wealthy with glory. The glorious Father has a glorious inheritance. For Christians to know that they constitute the wealth of the glory of God’s inheritance should fortify their hope, their confidence. Perhaps the wealth of the glory of God’s inheritance in the saints reflects the growing mass of converts, especially among Gentiles (2:11–3:13; Romans 9–11). Third, “what [is] the surpassing greatness of his [God’s] power.” Paul will tell what it is in 1:20–21. Meanwhile, to fortify his addressees’ confidence even more, he interposes a description of God’s power as “for us who believe” and heightens the power by talking about its “greatness” and describing its greatness as “surpassing.” This greatness tallies with “the working” done by God’s “might,” which derives from “his strength.” Paul has pretty well exhausted his thesaurus of synonyms for power. But where is this confidence-reinforcing work of power evident?

1:20–21: which as such [referring to God’s working as mighty and strong] he [God] worked in the Christ when he raised him from among the dead and seated [him] at his right [hand] in the heavenly [realms] 21above every rulership and authority and power and lordship and every name being named not only in this age but also in the [age] that’s going to come. “Which [working] . . . he worked” emphasizes the activity of God’s power. “As such” intensifies the emphasis by recalling attention to his working as mighty and strong. The evidence thereof consists in God’s having raised the Christ from among the dead and seated him at God’s right hand (compare Psalm 110:1). The seated position represents sovereignty, as when a ruler sits on a throne; and a position at the right hand of God represents his favor. Since believers are “in Christ,” his sitting at God’s right hand “in the heavenly [realms]” provides the basis for Paul’s having located them “in the heavenly [realms]” (see the comments on 1:3), where in Christ they too enjoy God’s favor and share Christ’s sovereignty over hostile angelic powers (see 6:10–20). Likewise, the mention of God’s having raised the Christ from among the dead provides the basis for believers’ future redemption as one of liberation from mortality by way of resurrection (1:14). “Every rulership and authority and power and lordship” refers to hostile angelic powers (2:2; 3:10; 6:12). “Every name being named” picks up on the multiplicity of their preceding designations and widens the purview to include whatever other designations may apply to them at present and in the eternal future. In other words, the Christ outranks them all, and will forever outrank them. So take confidence, you who are in him (see 6:10–20 again for the circumstance that calls for confidence).

1:22–23: And he [God] “has subjected all things under his [the Christ’s] feet [Psalm 8:6]” and given him to the church as head over all things, 23which [church] as such [= as headed by the Christ] is his body, the fullness of him who is being filled all in all [= altogether, entirely]. God’s subjection of all things under the Christ’s feet complements God’s having seated him above every hostile angelic power (1:20–21 [compare 1 Corinthians 15:24–28]). “And given him to the church as head over all things” recalls the heading up of all things in the Christ when “the fullness of the seasons” has arrived (see the comments on 1:10). So far as the church is concerned, though, he’s already the head over all things. He’s in charge. “Given him to the church [which here is the church universal, not just a local church]” anticipates the comparison in 5:22–33 of Christ’s relationship to the church with the relationship of a husband to his wife. In 1 Corinthians 12:12–31a, especially 12:21, Paul called the church Christ’s body but didn’t make him the body’s head, which could there represent a church member but certainly not Christ himself. Here, though, Paul attributes headship to Christ for an emphasis on Christ’s sovereignty (compare 4:15–16; Colossians 1:18 as well as Ephesians 5:22–33). “The fullness” refers to the church as Christ’s body in that he fills it (see 3:17 and especially 4:7–16 for what he fills the church with). “Of him who is being filled” refers to Christ as the one filled with deity (Colossians 1:19; 2:9). He’s not just a human being. “Is being filled” makes God’s filling the human Christ with deity ongoing, and “all in all” makes the filling entire. No part of the human Christ is lacking deity or ever will be lacking it.

THE SALVATION OF SINNERS BY GOD’S GRACE

Ephesians 2:1–10

2:1–3: And you, being dead in respect to your trespasses and sins, 2in which once upon a time you walked around [= behaved] in accordance with the age of this world, [that is,] in accordance with the ruler of the authority of the air, the spirit who is now working in the sons of disobedience, 3among whom also we all comported ourselves once upon a time in the lusts of our flesh, doing [time after time] the wishes of the flesh and of the reasonings [prompted by the flesh], and were by nature children of wrath as also the rest [are]—. Here Paul begins turning attention from what God has done for Christ (1:20–23) to what he has done for the addressees, who’ve believed in Christ. “Once upon a time” puts “being dead” in the past—specifically, prior to Christian conversion. “You walked around” refers to behavior and thus shows that being dead didn’t mean the addressees used to be physically dead. “In respect to your trespasses and sins” defines their former state of death as one of moral death, such as Paul vividly describes in Romans 7:7–25, especially 7:9–13, 24, and 8:6 (see Romans 6:21–23 for this moral death as ending, apart from faith in Christ, in eternal death). Stressing the moral death is Paul’s use of both “trespasses” and “sins.” “In which . . . you walked around” makes them the very environment of behavior (so too “in the lusts of our flesh” with “comported ourselves” later on).

The occurrence of “in this age” in 1:21 might lead us to have expected here “in accordance with this age” or perhaps, in view of Galatians 1:4, “in accordance with this present evil age.” But though “the age” refers to the present age, Paul delays “this” so as to attach it to “world” in the phrase, “of this world.” As in 1 Corinthians 3:19; 5:10, “this world” refers to human society, in particular to the society of non-Christians, and anticipates the later-mentioned “sons of disobedience.” So “the age of this world” means the current epoch as characterized by non-Christian society. This society set the standard for the addressees’ pre-Christian behavior. So too did “the ruler,” whom Paul will identify as “the Devil” in 4:27; 6:11 and as “the evil one” in 6:16. In parallel with “rulership” Paul has recently used “authority” to designate an angelic being hostile to God (1:21). So “the authority” here in 2:2 likely refers to the same sort of being, and “the ruler of the authority” means the ruler as himself the authority rather than the ruler over another authority. This use of synonymous designations underscores the Devil’s dominance over “this world” of non-Christians (compare 2 Corinthians 4:4). To show this dominance as active and to confirm “the age” as present, Paul designates “the authority” who is the Devil as “the spirit who is now working in the sons of disobedience.” Like father, like sons. So “the sons of disobedience” emphasizes the disobedience to God that characterizes “this world.” The Devil’s working “in” them, as he can because he’s a “spirit,” prompts their disobedience, whereas “of the air” portrays him as flying around to pursue his dirty work.

“Among whom also we all comported ourselves once upon a time” recalls “in which [‘trespasses and sins’] once upon a time you walked around” but includes along with the addressees Paul and all other Christians in the pre-Christian behavior now termed as “the lusts of our flesh.” Because flesh is physically weak (it decomposes at death and leaves only the bones to which it was attached), flesh came to stand for weakness, here for the moral weakness of susceptibility to sins of all kinds, not just to sins engaging the body (yet those are prominent). Though morally weak, the flesh as a moral category has strong desires just as bodily flesh has strong desires (for food and drink and sleep and sexual gratification, to take some obvious examples). Thus “the lusts of our flesh” refers to desires strong enough to prompt transgressions of moral boundaries. “Doing the wishes of the flesh” highlights the actuality of our repeated transgressions of those boundaries. Lusts as wishes turned into lusts as deeds. “And of the reasonings” adds that the flesh as moral weakness premeditates and rationalizes its transgressive desires. “We were children of wrath” describes us in our preconversion state as so helplessly destined to suffer God’s wrath for our disobedience that it was as though the wrath of God had begotten us for the very purpose of such suffering. “By nature” points to such begetting and makes the destiny inherent to a state prior to conversion. “As also the rest” refers to those who haven’t become Christians. Apart from conversion, they’re destined for wrath.

Having left the preceding sentence incomplete, Paul starts a new one in 2:4–7: But God, being wealthy in mercy because of his much love with which he loved us 5even when we were dead in respect to [our] trespasses, made [us] alive together with the Christ—by grace you’ve been saved!—6and raised [us] together with [him] and seated [us] together with [him] in the heavenly [realms] in Christ Jesus 7in order that he [God] might exhibit in the ages that are coming upon [us] the surpassing wealth of his grace in magnanimity toward us in Christ Jesus. As a contrast to “And you” in 2:1, “But God” shifts attention from our plight as sinners to God as him who has intervened in our behalf. “Being wealthy in mercy” means that he had a lot of pity for us (compare Romans 10:12–13; Titus 3:5–6). After all, we were destined for his wrath (2:3). Paul attributes God’s “being wealthy in mercy to “much love”; and to underline how much God loved us Paul adds, “with which [love] he loved us even when we were dead in respect to [our] trespasses” (compare Romans 5:6–8). As in 2:1, this deadness was moral. By contrast, then, “God . . . made us alive” refers to a resurrection to morality, not to bodily resurrection, which obviously has yet to take place in the case of Paul and his addressees. But “together with the Christ [= ‘the Anointed One’]” follows from our being “in Christ” and from his past resurrection. God looks on us as having been made alive with Christ when he made Christ live again. And since Christ died for our sins, his renewed life had no more to do with sin. So far as God is concerned, then, Christians were made alive in Christ at their conversions so as to have no more relations with sin (see further Romans 6:8–14; 8:10–13; Colossians 3:1–11).

The remention of our trespasses, the first mention of which triggered a reference to God’s retributive wrath (2:1–3), makes Paul interrupt his sentence with the exclamation, “by grace you’ve been saved!” By grace indeed, for our trespasses made our salvation ill-deserved. And saved from the richly deserved wrath of God! “You’ve been saved” implies a saved condition at present as well as an event of salvation in the past. “And raised [us] together with [Christ]” reprises the earlier statement, “God . . . made [us] alive together with the Christ,” but with wording that welds the resurrection to exaltation for our being “seated together with [him] in the heavenly realms” (compare 1:20), where as a result God has “blessed us in every Spiritual blessing” (1:3). Our location “in Christ Jesus” provides the basis of our being raised and seated “together with [him].” But our benefit doesn’t constitute the ultimate goal of what God has done for us in Christ Jesus. Its ultimate goal consists in the eternal exhibition of the grace he has shown us. To jack up God’s grace to the highest imaginable level Paul describes it as a “wealth” of grace, describes this wealth as even “surpassing” what was needed for our salvation, and attaches to it the phrase “in magnanimity” (compare 1:19). A repetition of the phrase “in Christ Jesus” locates us yet again in him, for it’s in him where God exercises his grace. “In the ages that are coming upon [us]” portrays the eternal future as a succession of ages, one after another. The surpassing wealth of God’s grace requires for its exhibition an endless succession of ages. For eternal life depends on eternal grace.

2:8–10: For by grace you’ve been saved through faith, and this [condition of having been saved] [has]n’t [originated] out of you. [It’s] God’s gift. 9[It has]n’t [originated] out of [your good] works, lest anyone should boast. 10For we are his workmanship, having been created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand in order that we might walk around in them [= make them the sum and substance of our behavior]. See the comments on 2:5 for “by grace you’ve been saved.” Here Paul repeats the statement to make it an explanation, introduced by “For,” of the just-mentioned “surpassing wealth of his [God’s] grace” (2:7). The addition, “through faith,” indicates the means by which human beings appropriate salvation. Apart from believing the gospel concerning salvation in Christ, no saving occurs (compare Romans 10:13–17). In English translation “this” which “[has]n’t [originated] out of you” but is “God’s gift” and “[has]n’t [originated] out of [your good] works”—this “this” might appear to refer back to “faith.” Not so, however, because in Paul’s Greek grammar a pronoun such as “this” needs to agree with its antecedent in gender and number. But the Greek for “faith” (and for “grace,” incidentally) is feminine, whereas the Greek for “this” is neuter. The disagreement rules out “faith.” So the neuter pronoun “this” refers in a regular grammatical fashion to the action in the verb, “have been saved.” It’s your “hav[ing] been saved” which hasn’t originated out of you but is God’s gift to you who’ve exercised faith and which hasn’t originated out of your works, that is, any good deeds that you’ve done. “Lest anyone should boast” shows faith to be receptive, not meritorious, and makes the eternal exhibition of the wealth of God’s grace (2:7) exclusive of any exhibition of your good works (among other passages, see Romans 3:27; 4:1–8; 11:6; 2 Timothy 1:9; Titus 3:5).

“For we are his [God’s] workmanship” explains why salvation doesn’t originate out of human works. (The mention of our trespasses and sins [see 2:1–3] has already explained why God’s workmanship was necessary.) “Having been created in Christ Jesus for good works” makes our having been “made alive together with the Christ” (2:5) a work of new creation that’s to replace those earlier trespasses and sins with good deeds (compare the contrast in 2:1–5 between moral death and moral resurrection, and see 4:24; 2 Corinthians 5:17; Galatians 6:14–16). Just as prior to their coming into existence those selected for salvation were prepared in the mind of God to receive his mercy (Romans 9:23), so the good works that had yet to be done were prepared in his mind for those saved by grace through faith to do (compare 1:4). So let’s do them! Paul implies. And he’ll detail them in chapters 4–6 (see his use of “walk around” as a figure of speech for behavior also in 4:1, 17; 5:2, 8, 15).

THE RECONCILIATION OF GENTILES WITH GOD AND WITH JEWS

Ephesians 2:11–22

2:11–13: Therefore be remembering that once upon a time you, the Gentiles in flesh, the ones called “uncircumcision” by what’s called “circumcision,” handmade in flesh [as it is]—12that you were at that time apart from Christ, alienated from the citizenship of Israel and strangers to the covenants of promise, having no hope and absent God in the world. 13But now in Christ Jesus you, who once upon a time were far away, have become near in the blood of the Christ. “Therefore” bases the following on the previously outlined salvation by grace through faith so as to produce a new creation in Christ (2:10). The command that the Gentiles be remembering their condition prior to Christian conversion has the purpose of making them in particular appreciate the surpassing wealth of grace that God has shown them (2:7). “In flesh” prepares for the Jews’ derogatorily calling them “uncircumcision” because Gentile males didn’t have their foreskins cut off, as the Mosaic law required be done to all Jewish males (Genesis 17:9–14). But Paul engages in a little dissing of his own by referring to the Jews, though he himself is one of them, as “what’s called ‘circumcision’ ” and then by describing the circumcision as “handmade in flesh,” which means humanly performed on the penis as opposed to divinely performed in the heart (contrast also “his [God’s] workmanship” in 2:10). This dissing has the purpose of making physical circumcision inconsequential so far as the new creation in Christ is concerned (compare with comments Romans 2:27–28).

“That you were at that time” reprises “Therefore be remembering that once upon a time you, the Gentiles” after the sidetrack into their uncircumcision. Paul then lists five preconversion disadvantages that they had as compared with the Jews: (1) being “apart from Christ,” which means not having any expectation of a messianic savior; (2) being “alienated from the citizenship of Israel,” which means not having membership in God’s chosen nation; (3) being “strangers to the covenants of promise,” which means exclusion from the covenants containing God’s promises to Abraham, David, and Israel (see, for example, Genesis 12:1–3; 2 Samuel 7:1–17; Jeremiah 31:31–34); (4) “having no hope,” which in view of 1 Corinthians 15:19 probably means devoid of confidence in a coming resurrection; and (5) being “absent God in the world,” which means not that he was absent but that they were, because their enmeshment in polytheism made them ignorant of him as the one true God (contrast the Jews’ advantages listed in Romans 9:4–5). “But now in Christ Jesus” contrasts with the Gentile believers’ once being “apart from Christ” and “absent God in the world,” which former conditions Paul escalates by describing them in terms of being a long distance from God (“far away”). Now they “have become near.” How near? As near as “in Christ Jesus”! And because of being in him. How so? “In the blood of the Christ,” which refers to his messianic role of loving self-sacrifice on a cross (compare Galatians 2:20). Most translations have “by the blood of the Christ,” which is legitimate enough. But “in the blood of the Christ,” an equally legitimate translation, suits better both the overarching theme of being “in Christ,” only with a particular reference to reaping the benefits of his self-sacrifice, and also the upcoming parallels with “in his flesh” and “in it [referring to ‘the cross’].”

2:14–16: For he [the Christ] is himself our peace, he who has made the both [to be] one and broken down the middle wall of partition, 15the hostility, by having annulled in his flesh the Law [consisting] of commandments [couched] in decrees, in order that he might create in himself one new human being by making peace 16and [in order that] he might reconcile the both in one body to God through the cross by having killed in it the hostility. This sentence explains what it meant to “have become near in the blood of the Christ” (2:13). “He himself” emphatically picks up “Christ Jesus” as “the Christ” (2:13 again). “Is . . . our peace” means that he embodies it, which turns out to be peace between Jews and Gentiles in the church and peace between them and God. Paul calls the former “hostility” between those Jews and Gentiles “the middle wall of partition” and traces the hostility to “the Law”—that is, the Mosaic law—“[consisting] of commandments [couched] in decrees.” This law set up barriers, such as circumcision and dietary taboos for the Jews, which occasioned the hostility. But Christ “has made the both [that is, the formerly divided Jews and Gentiles who have now believed in him] [to be] one.” He accomplished this unification by breaking down the middle wall of partition, which breaking down Paul explains as Christ’s “having annulled . . . the Law.” Though elsewhere Paul reiterates some of the Law, in particular its moral commandments, as binding on Christians (see, for example, Romans 13:8–10; but note there the omission of the ritual commandment to observe the Sabbath), he declares the Mosaic law as such to have been annulled. “In his [Christ’s] flesh” complements “in the blood of the Christ” (2:13), thereby implies the violent separation of his flesh and blood (as represented in the Eucharist [see the comments on 1 Corinthians 11:23–26]), and indicates that his sacrificial death under the penalty which the Law exacted for our trespasses and sins rendered the Law henceforth inoperative. Paul’s describing the Law as “[consisting] of commandments [couched] in decrees” exacerbates its former hold on us and thus heightens the good news of its annulment.

The purpose that Christ “might create in himself one new human being” brings back into view (as often) believers’ being “in Christ,” uses “one . . . human being” as a figure of speech for the oneness of Jewish and Gentile believers in him, and describes this corporate human being as “new” to emphasize elimination of the old hostility. “By making peace” accents this emphasis and justifies the opening statement that the Christ “is himself our peace.” Paul finishes his sentence by identifying another purpose behind Christ’s “having annulled in his flesh the Law.” It’s that Christ “might reconcile the both [believing Jews and believing Gentiles] in one body [the church as Christ’s body, of which he’s the head (1:23; 4:4, 12, 16; 5:23, 30)] to God [as well as to one another] through the cross [on which Christ’s flesh and blood were sacrificially sundered from each other].” “By having killed the hostility in it” personifies the hostility to God that characterized the Jews and Gentiles before their conversion (see Romans 5:10; 8:7; Colossians 1:21) and indicates that “in it [the cross]” this hostility was killed, just as Gentile believers have become near “in the blood of the Christ” and just as he has broken down the hostility between believing Jews and Gentiles “in his flesh” (2:13).

2:17–18: And on coming, he [the Christ] proclaimed peace as good news for you, the ones far away [= you Gentiles according to 2:11–13], and peace for the ones near [= Jews, by contrast], 18in that through him we both have access in one Spirit to the Father. The coming of Christ most naturally refers to his first advent, as in 1Timothy 1:15: “Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners.” In general, “peace” refers to all the benefits of salvation (compare Luke 4:16–21). But Christ didn’t proclaim such peace as good news to the Gentiles, for he limited his proclamation to Jews. So some interpreters say he proclaimed peace to the Gentiles through the agency of Paul and others (compare 3:1–10). But that interpretation doesn’t sit well with Christ’s “coming” to proclaim peace. It’s better, then, to change the usual translation, “to you, the ones far away,” into “for you, the ones far away,” and understand Paul to be saying that Christ’s proclamation of peace to Jews applies also to Gentiles—just as Peter said to a house full of Gentiles: “The word that he [God] sent to the sons of Israel by proclaiming as good news peace through Jesus Christ—this one is Lord of all. . . . To this [Jesus] all the prophets bear witness that everyone who believes in him receives forgiveness of sins through his name” (Acts 10:36, 43 [compare Acts 10:47; 11:18]). The particular benefit of salvific peace that Paul is expounding consists in the peace with God that allows those who by faith are in Christ, and therefore have been “adopt[ed]” by God as his “sons” (1:5)—this peace allows them access to him as their Father through Christ. “We both have access” brings peace between Gentile and Jewish believers alongside the peace that together they have with God. Access to the Father erases the distance of Gentiles from him, if they believe in Christ; but even Jews, near to God though they are because of their status as his chosen people (compare Romans 9:4–5), have had to get access to him through Christ, as in the case of a Jewish remnant (Romans 9:27; 11:5). “In one Spirit” parallels “in one body” (2:15–16) and supplements “through him [Christ]” in a way that stresses unity: “in one Spirit” (compare 4:4; Philippians 1:27; 1 Corinthians 12:9, 11–12, and especially 13–14; and see Romans 8:9 for the location of believers “in the Spirit”).

2:19–22: Therefore then, you’re no longer strangers and resident aliens; rather, you’re citizens together with the saints and [you’re] members of God’s household, 20having been built on the foundation [consisting] of the apostles and prophets [compare 4:11; 1 Corinthians 12:28], Christ Jesus himself being the cornerstone, 21in whom all the building, being fitted together, is growing into a sacred temple in the Lord, 22in whom you too are being built together with [Jewish believers] into God’s dwelling place in the Spirit. The combination of “Therefore” and “then” refers emphatically back to Gentile as well as Jewish believers’ having “access in one Spirit to the Father” (2:18). As from 2:11 onward, “you” means “you Gentile believers.” “No longer strangers” means “no longer foreigners just passing through,” and “citizens together with the saints” reverses that former status, described in other terms back in 2:11–12. Paul doesn’t identify “the saints”; but since he’s addressing Gentile Christians, “the saints” probably has primary and perhaps exclusive reference to Jewish Christians. “No longer resident aliens” means “no longer foreigners who’ve settled among people not of your own ilk,” and “members of God’s household” reverses that former status. The thought of a “household” leads Paul to shift from the figures of citizens and family members to that of a building (compare the ancient practice of adding rooms onto a house to accommodate the growing family as sons married and had children of their own). Paul then distinguishes between the building’s foundation, cornerstone, and superstructure, and classifies the building as a temple rather than an ordinary house (though a temple is the house of a god).

In view of 1 Corinthians 15:5–9 (to take one example), “the apostles” covers not only the original Twelve, but also others—such as Paul—to whom Jesus appeared after his resurrection and whom he commissioned. “The . . . prophets” refers not to Old Testament prophets but to Christian prophets as those who passed on direct revelations from God, as was needed in the new epoch of the church. Together the apostles and prophets form the building’s foundation in that, chronologically and doctrinally speaking, the superstructure rests on what they said and did as spokespersons of Jesus and God, respectively. But “Christ Jesus himself” underscores that he’s “the cornerstone,” which was the first stone laid and therefore the one from which the foundation stones were lined out (compare 1 Peter 2:6). So what he said and did established the standard for what the apostles and prophets said and did. As “citizens together with the saints” and “members of God’s household” stress the unity of Gentile believers with Jewish believers, so too do “all the building, being fitted together” and “you [Gentiles] too are being build together with [Jewish believers].” Ancient temples were built largely of stones without the use of mortar, so that “being fitted together” implies careful stonecutting, grinding, and smoothing so as to make the fits exact. The unity of Gentiles and Jews in Christ is to be no less exact. “In whom all the building . . . is growing” puts the building in Christ Jesus the cornerstone! Since being in him entails being members of his body (1:22–23; 2:16; 4:4, 12; 15–16; 5:23, 30) and since a body grows, Paul speaks of the building that’s in Christ as “growing.” Paul will explain the nature of this growth in 4:11–16. Meanwhile, “growing” and “being built” indicate progress toward a maturity and completion not yet attained.

“Into God’s dwelling place” defines “into a . . . temple” as for God, not for one of the pagan gods whose temples dotted cityscapes in the Roman Empire. The addition of “sacred” to “temple” alludes to the saints as making up the temple, for the very word “saints” means “sacred people, consecrated people.” Furthermore, it goes without saying that a temple is sacred, consecrated to the god who dwells in it. So Paul needn’t have added “sacred” unless he wanted to highlight that saints make up the temple. That they do make it up leads him to describe it further as “in the Lord,” for the saints are what they are—that is, sacred to God—because they’re in Christ; and in Paul’s vocabulary “the Lord” normally refers to Christ. Paul calls him “the Lord” to emphasize his deity, which suits the imagery of a temple. But so strong is Paul’s doctrine of the saints’ location in Christ that not only is all the building growing and being built up in Christ Jesus, but also the temple is “in the Lord” rather than the Lord’s being in the temple! “God’s dwelling place” corrects this architecturally ineffable oddity—but only momentarily, for “in the Spirit” parallels “in the Lord” and therefore puts the saints as God’s dwelling place in the Spirit rather than the Spirit in God’s dwelling place. See Romans 8:1, 9 for another passage according to which believers are both in Christ and in the Spirit. The use of “Spirit” has the purpose of avoiding the connotation of a temple as housing the graven image of a pagan god.

PAUL’S SENSE OF PRIVILEGE IN PROCLAIMING THE SECRET OF THE CHRIST

Ephesians 3:1–13

3:1–4: On account of this I, Paul, a prisoner of the Christ, Jesus, in behalf of you, the Gentiles—2if indeed you’ve heard about the administration of God’s grace, which [grace] was given to me for you [Gentiles] 3in that by way of a revelation the secret was made known to me, just as I wrote earlier in brief, 4with reference to which [secret] you can, by reading [this letter], understand my insight into the secret about the Christ . . . . In Paul’s Greek, “On account of” (charin) is a form of “grace” (charis). The resultant wordplay, which will be repeated in 3:14, highlights the theme of God’s grace that runs throughout this letter (1:2, 6–7; 2:5, 7–8; 3:2, 7–8; 4:7, 29; 6:24). Here, “On account of this” refers to Gentile believers’ being fitted and built together by the grace of God with Jewish believers (2:19–21). The addition of “Paul” to “I” highlights Paul’s describing himself as “the prisoner of the Christ, Jesus.” “Of the Christ” highlights Jesus’ messianic office, which so overshadows the imperium of Caesar that Paul doesn’t even mention his own awaiting a trial before the emperor (compare the prophet Elijah’s saying to King Ahab, “As the Lord, the God of Israel, lives, before whom I stand,” even though he was standing before the king [1 Kings 17:1]). Paul calls himself the Christ’s prisoner because it’s his proclamation of Jesus as the Christ that has led to the imprisonment (see Acts 21–28 for the full story). “In behalf of you, the Gentiles” aims for a favorable reception of this letter and specifies that Paul’s proclamation carried out Christ’s having sent him to evangelize Gentiles (Acts 9:15; 22:21; 26:17–18; Romans 1:5; Galatians 1:15–17; 2:9; 1 Timothy 2:7; 2 Timothy 4:17). The sending itself should also elicit a favorable reception of the letter on the part of Gentiles who’d believed in Christ.

As we can tell from 3:14–19, Paul has just now started to introduce a prayer for his addressees, but his sense of privilege in evangelizing the Gentiles overwhelms him to such an extent that he interrupts himself to verbalize this sense. The dash in the translation right after “you, the Gentiles” represents the interruption. Paul will reintroduce his prayer and lay it out in 3:14–19. Doubtless the addressees have heard about Paul’s evangelization of Gentiles. It’s likely, in fact, that though he himself hadn’t evangelized them, their evangelization had taken place as an indirect result of his having evangelized the nearby city of Ephesus (see the comments on 1:1). But “if indeed you’ve heard about the administration of God’s grace, which [grace] was given to me for you [Gentiles]” is Paul’s way of expressing his sense of privilege self-effacingly. “The administration of God’s grace” refers to the proclamation of God’s grace as the way of salvation (2:5, 8). “Which [grace] was given to me for you” means that Paul’s own salvation by the grace of God had the larger purpose of salvation for Gentiles through Paul’s proclamation to them of that grace (compare 2:17). “Was given to me” expresses again Paul’s sense of privilege, and “for you” aims again for a favorable reception of this letter. “By way of a revelation” tells how he came to know “the secret” that God’s grace was to be administered to Gentiles (see especially Galatians 1:15–17 for the revelation). “Just as I wrote earlier in brief” alludes back to 1:9–14; 2:1–22. “By reading [this letter]” means “by having it read to you in your church meetings” (as would have been the practice in Paul’s day). “You can . . . understand my insight” provides a justification for Paul’s writing a letter to churches he hasn’t founded. He sends it as an instrument for the understanding that will give them strength of confidence in their struggle against hostile angelic powers (6:10–20). “Into the secret about the Christ” defines Paul’s insight in terms of what used to be hidden but is now revealed, namely, that “the Christ” incorporates in himself Gentile as well as Jewish believers without distinction.

3:5–7: which [secret] in other generations wasn’t made known to the sons of men as it has now been revealed to his holy apostles and prophets in the Spirit, 6[the secret] that through the gospel Gentiles are coheirs and comembers of the body and copartakers of the promise in Christ Jesus [compare 2:11–22], 7of which [gospel] I’ve become a server in accordance with the gift of God’s grace that was given to me, in accordance with the working of his power . . . . The contrast between “now” and “other generations” shows that “other generations” means past generations. “To his holy apostles and prophets” distinguishes them in particular from “the sons of men,” which refers to human beings in general. In 2:20 Paul portrayed “the apostles and [Christian] prophets” as the foundation of the church, God’s “holy temple.” Here Paul shifts “holy” from the temple to the apostles and prophets, who make up its foundation (see the comments on 2:20 for the meanings of “apostles” and “prophets”). This shift reinforces the apostles’ and prophets’ importance as the foundation. Likewise reinforcing their importance are (1) the attachment to them of “his” (referring to God, in view of 1 Corinthians 12:28; Colossians 1:26–27); (2) the revelation to them as a group, not just to Paul as an individual (so 3:3); and (3) the shift of “in the Spirit” from “God’s dwelling place” (so 2:22) to the apostles and prophets (which way of taking “in the Spirit” is supported also by the parallel with the location “in Christ Jesus” of the “copartakers of the promise” [see Romans 8:1, 9 for being in the Spirit as well as in Christ]).

With a revelation so broad-based, the secret “that through the gospel Gentiles [who believe it] are coheirs and comembers [with Jewish believers] of the body [of Christ] and copartakers [with them] of the promise [the Holy Spirit as the downpayment promising an inheritance of eternal salvation (see 1:13–14 with comments)] in Christ Jesus [where God views believers as located (about which location see the comments on Romans 8:8–11)]”—this now-revealed secret should give believers courageous strength in their struggle against hostile angelic powers (see 6:10–20 again). Paul has become a server of this gospel, this good news, in the sense that he serves it to people, especially to Gentiles, as a waiter at table would serve good food to diners. “In accordance with the gift of God’s grace that was given to me” reprises a similar phrase in 3:2 (“the administration of God’s grace, which [grace] was given to me for you [Gentiles]),” but here Paul replaces “for you” with “in accordance with the working of his [God’s] power” to give God the glory for the evangelistic success of Paul’s serving the gospel to Gentiles (compare the self-effacement in 3:2, plus the power of gospel-preaching in Romans 1:16; 1 Corinthians 1:18, 23–24; 2:4–5 and especially 2 Corinthians 4:7). In view of 1 Corinthians 12:10 (“workings of miracles”) and Galatians 3:5 (“who . . . works miracles”), “the working of his power” may also allude to the miracles that accompanied Paul’s proclamation of the gospel; for in its plural form “power” means “miracles” (compare Romans 15:18–19; 2 Corinthians 12:12).

3:8–9: to me, the one less than the least of all the saints, this grace was given so that to the Gentiles I might proclaim as good news the incalculable wealth of the Christ 9and enlighten all as to what [is] the administration of the secret that for ages was hidden in God, who created all things . . . . “To me” picks up “to me” in the middle of 3:7. Paul doesn’t call himself merely the least of the saints. He calls himself “less than the least of all the saints” to magnify the grace of God that was given him so that he might proclaim it as good news to the Gentiles. “The incalculable wealth of the Christ” describes this grace. In 1:7; 2:7 Paul referred to the wealth of God’s grace. Here he ascribes wealth of grace to “the Christ,” for it’s in Christ as God’s “anointed one” where those who believe him to be the Christ are saved by grace. In 2:7 Paul also described God’s grace as “surpassing.” Here he describes the Christ’s grace as “incalculable” with special reference to the inclusion of Gentile believers together with Jewish believers. This is “the secret that for ages was hidden in God.” “The administration of the secret” consists in proclaiming it to the Gentiles. The “enlighten[ing] of all” parallels the proclamation to Gentiles and compares this proclamation to the enlightenment of the heart’s eyes about which 1:18 spoke (see the comments there). The “what” of the secret’s administration is that “all,” including Gentiles, are to see that the Christ wants his grace administered to them. “The secret that for ages was hidden in God” means that he kept this secret to himself until its recent revelation to the apostles and prophets (3:2–6). The description of God as him “who created all things” prepares for the mention in 3:10 of hostile angelic powers. They are his creatures, not themselves gods. So fight them rather than fearing them (6:10–20).

3:10–12: in order that through the church God’s multifaceted wisdom might now be made known to the rulerships and the authorities in the heavenly [realms] 11in accordance with the eternal purpose that he carried out in the Christ, Jesus our Lord, 12in whom we have boldness and access with confidence through faith in him. Paul describes God’s wisdom as “multifaceted” in that it has to do with the union of both Gentile and Jewish believers in the church, the body of Christ. Behind Paul’s evangelizing and enlightening of Gentiles lies the purpose of God that this wisdom be made known “now,” as opposed to the past ages of the secret’s being hidden in him, and made known “to the rulerships and the authorities in the heavenly [realms]” as an indication that they’ve lost their dominance over those Gentiles who used to behave “in accordance with the ruler of the authority of the air” (2:2) but are now engaged in a struggle against that ruler and his minions (6:12: “against rulerships, against authorities, against the world rulers of this darkness, against the spiritual [forces] of evil in the heavenly [realms]”). Though these hostile angelic powers occupy “the heavenly [realms],” Christ is seated above them, which position indicates superiority and dominance (1:20–21); and since Christians are “seated together with [him] in the heavenly [realms] in Christ Jesus” (2:6), they too are seated above the hostile angelic powers and thus share his superiority and dominance over them. But it’s “through the church” as visible on earth in its Jewish-Gentile diversity that God’s multifaceted wisdom is now made known to them. The eternality of God’s purpose that his wisdom be made known to them links up with his having “selected us . . . before the founding of the world” and “predestin[ed] us for adoption as [his] sons” (1:4–5 [see also 1:11]) and gives confidence to embattled Christians that God isn’t improvising as he goes along. The carrying out of his purpose “in the Christ, Jesus our Lord” sets Christ over against the rulerships and the authorities. In him “we have boldness and access” to God as our Father (1:2) because Christ is his beloved Son, seated at his right hand, the side of favor (1:20). “Boldness” has to do with speech, and “access” with approach. “With confidence” heightens the boldness and eases access. “Through faith in him [Christ]” tells the means of our having attained such boldness and access in Christ (see the comments on Galatians 2:15–16 against the translation “through his [Christ’s] faithfulness”).

3:13: Therefore I’m asking [you] not to give up over my afflictions in your behalf, which as such are your glory. “My afflictions” refers especially to the present imprisonment of Paul (3:1). “In your behalf” attributes the afflictions to his evangelization of Gentiles, such as the addressees even though he hadn’t evangelized them directly (see the comments on 3:1–4). “Which as such” stresses his afflictions as “in your behalf.” “Are your glory” describes those afflictions as resulting in what he called “the wealth of the glory of his [God’s] inheritance in the saints” (1:18). As God’s inheritance they are wealthy with “the glory of his grace” (1:6). Consequently, they shouldn’t give up when contemplating Paul’s afflictions. They should understand those afflictions as for their benefit.

A PRAYER FOR STABILITY THROUGH INCREASED COMPREHENSION

Ephesians 3:14–19

3:14–19: On account of this I bow my knees before the Father, 15by whom[1] every family in heaven and on earth is being named, 16that in accordance with the wealth of his glory he may give you to be made mighty with power through his Spirit in the inner human being, 17so that the Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith, that you, having been rooted and founded in love, 18may be strong enough to comprehend with all the saints what [is] the breadth and length and height and depth—19and to know the Christ’s love that surpasses knowledge, in order that you may be filled with all the fullness of God. Here we have the prayer that Paul started to introduce in 3:1 but that 3:2–13 interrupted. So see the comments on 3:1 for “On account of this.” Since Jews such as Paul usually prayed standing (see Mark 11:25; Matthew 6:5; Luke 18:11, 13; 22:46), “I bow my knees” indicates that he prays for his addressees very earnestly. The earnestness with which he prays for them should make for their favorable reception of his letter. Because he hadn’t evangelized them or ever visited them, he repeatedly writes in ways designed to ensure such a reception. Since fathers normally named their children as an acknowledgment of having fathered them, “before the Father” prepares for the clause, “by whom every family in heaven and on earth is being named” (compare 1:16–17).

Since God is the Father of believers in Jesus (1:2) and since Paul’s Greek plays on the related words “Father” (patera) and “family” (patria), “by whom every family in heaven and on earth is being named” most likely has in view every company of deceased believers, now in heaven, and every company of believers living presently on earth. “Family” isn’t to be understood in the sense of a modern nuclear family, then, or even in the sense of an extended biological family—rather, as a family of faith. “Every family” relates all such families to each other through God’s fatherhood despite their separate locations both on earth and between heaven and earth (compare the comments on 4:6). “Is being named” uses naming as a figure of speech for God’s acknowledgment of these families as his own (compare their “adoption as [his] sons” in 1:5). “Is being named” has to do with God’s acknowledging as his own each new company of believers that is coming into being through evangelism.

Paul prays first that God “may give you to be made mighty.” By what standard? “In accordance with the wealth of his glory.” In other words, the giving of might will never cease, because the wealth of God’s might will never be depleted and because the glory of the wealth of God’s grace (1:6–7; 2:7) will keep him giving on and on. Made mighty by what means and through whose agency? “With power through his [God’s] Spirit” (see Isaiah 31:3; Zechariah 4:6 for the association of spirit with power). Made mighty where? “In the inner human being,” and therefore not having to do with physical strength. The result of being made mighty? The Christ’s “dwell[ing] in your hearts through faith,” which indwelling will keep the addressees from losing faith as they struggle against hostile angelic forces (6:10–20). Made mighty for what purpose? “That you . . . may be strong enough to comprehend . . . and to know Christ’s love,” for it’s this comprehension and knowledge that keeps believers from losing faith.

“With all the saints” favors that “having been rooted [an agricultural metaphor] and founded [an architectural metaphor] in love” refers to the love of believers for one another. The metaphors portray such love as a basis for comprehending Christ’s love. Christians see the love of Christ reflected in their fellow believers’ love for them. “To be able to stand against the schemes of the Devil” (6:11), believers need to be “strong enough” to comprehend. “What [is] the breadth and length and height and depth” provides the immediate object of this comprehension and points to the magnitude of Christ’s love, which for emphasis on comprehension Paul reintroduces with “and to know.” “That surpasses knowledge” describes Christ’s love as of such magnitude that even those “strong enough” to comprehend its dimensions aren’t capable of tracing out those dimensions to their full extent. His love is too broad, long, high, and deep (compare Romans 8:39). The purpose of comprehending it, so far as that is possible, is that the addressees “may be filled with all the fullness of God,” which means being filled with Christ himself in that God fills him with deity (see the comments on 1:23 and Colossians 1:19; 2:9). “Filled with all the fullness of God” points to entire absorption with Christ as the purpose and result of knowing his love.

A DOXOLOGY

Ephesians 3:20–21

3:20–21: And to him [God the Father] who in accordance with the power that’s working in us has the power to do extravagantly above all the things we ask or think, 21to him [belongs] the glory in the church and in Christ Jesus for all the generations of the age of the ages. Amen! “The power that’s working in us” echoes being “made mighty with power through his Spirit in the inner human being” (3:16), but there’s a more distant echo of 1:19–21 too. This power sets the standard for God’s having “the power to do extravagantly above all the things we ask or think,” which way of describing it mirrors the description of Christ’s love as “surpass[ing] knowledge” (3:19). “To him [belongs] the glory in the church and in Christ Jesus” states that the glory of God, which here is the magnificence of his power, is rightfully seen in the church and in Christ Jesus—and will be seen in them “for all the generations of the age of the ages,” which for emphasis is an expanded way of saying “forever and ever,” as though eternity consists in an age which, personified, has the offspring of multiple ages. “All the generations” leaves God’s glory out of none of them. “Amen!” caps the doxology with an enthusiastic “Let it be so!”

THE RESPONSIBILITIES OF CHRISTIANS

Ephesians 4:1–6:20

Now that Paul has detailed the privileges of Christians (1:3–3:21), he details the responsibilities that come along with those privileges.

MAINTENANCE OF CHRISTIAN UNITY

Ephesians 4:1–16

4:1–3: Therefore I, a prisoner in the Lord, exhort you to walk around [= behave] worthily of the calling with which you were called, 2[that is,] with all humility and meekness, with patience, putting up with one another in love, 3being diligent to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace. “Therefore” means “in view of the privileges that you, especially you Gentiles, have in Christ.” The addition of “the prisoner” to “I” recalls 3:1. But there “of the Christ, Jesus” was added to “a prisoner” to tell whose prisoner Paul really was (not Caesar’s). Here Paul adds “in the Lord” to tell the real whereabouts of his imprisonment (not Rome). Though “the Lord” refers to Christ, this designation calls attention to his authority, so that the following exhortations carry the force of his lordship over against Caesar’s. Paul is speaking the exhortations from within the Lord! Paul’s Greek contains a wordplay between three words that share the same root: “I . . . exhort [parakalō] . . . calling [klēseōs] . . . you were called [eklēthēte].” This wordplay underlines the exhortation. “The calling with which you were called” harks back to 1:18 (“that you may know what is the hope of his [God’s] calling” and refers to the invitation with which God effected the addressees’ salvation. Paul then explains “worthily” as meaning a behavior characterized by “all humility” (= an entirely lowly attitude in relations with fellow Christians), “all . . . meekness” (= no retaliation whatever when wronged), “patience” (= being long- rather than short-tempered), “putting up with one another in love” (= forbearance seasoned with love), and “being diligent to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace” (= eager effort to preserve in practice the unity in principle of Christians, whether Jewish or Gentile, which unity they have because the Holy Spirit has baptized them all into the body of Christ [1 Corinthians 12:13], so that peaceful relations bind them together). Such behavior was countercultural in that pagans thought that to preserve and heighten your honor and avoid shame you should not be humble, meek, patient, forbearing, or noncombative. Paul sees, though, that pride, retaliation, impatience, forbearance, and competition for honor will destroy the behavioral unity that should mirror the Spiritual unity of Christians (compare 2:14–16). Another wordplay between Paul’s self-description as “the prisoner” (literally, “the bound one” [ho desmios]) and “the bond [tō syndesmō] of peace” accents the exhortation to peaceful relations.

4:4–6: [There is] one body and one Spirit, just as also you were called in one hope of your calling. 5[There is] one Lord, one faith, one baptism. 6[There is] one God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all. The foregoing reference to “the unity of the Spirit” leads directly to the statement, “[There is] one body [representing the church as a unity] and one Spirit [whose oneness ensures the oneness of the church in that all Christians are ‘in the Spirit’ according to Romans 8:9].” “Just as also you were called” harks back to 4:1–3: “the calling with which you were called.” But “in one hope of your calling” harks farther back to 1:18, “the hope of his [God the Father’s] calling [you],” so that “just as also you were called” matches the one Spirit’s having made one body out of Christians, on the one hand, with God the Father’s having called them in one hope, on the other hand. The calling of them gave them hope, which means confidence of eternal salvation at Jesus’ return, so that “in one hope” makes this confidence the element in which the call took place (compare the comments on 1:18). “In one hope” implies that since Christians have a common destiny, they should live in unity now just as they will eternally. The repeated use of “one” in 4:4–6 (seven occurrences in all) lays enormous stress on unity.

The “one Lord” is Jesus Christ. The “one faith” is belief in him. The “one baptism” is baptism “in one Spirit into one body,” which is “the [corporate] Christ” (1 Corinthians 12:12–13), as represented by water baptism in Jesus’ name (compare Acts 2:38; 8:12, 16; 10:48; 19:5; 22:16). The “one God” is “Father” to all believers in his Son, Jesus Christ (compare 1:2, 5 and [with comments] 3:14–15). God the Father is “over” them all in his sovereignty, “through” them all because of Jesus Christ’s agency, and “in” them all by his Spirit’s indwelling them. As does the sevenfold use of “one,” the threefold use of “all” underscores unity. With the oneness of the Spirit, of the Lord, and of God, and with the persons of the Trinity in this order, compare 1 Corinthians 12:4–13 (see 8:6 too).

4:7–10: But to each one of us grace was given in accordance with the measure of the Christ’s gift. 8Therefore [because of this gift of grace] it [Scripture] says, “When ascending into the height [of heaven] he captured a host of captives; he gave gifts to human beings [Psalm 68:18].” 9And as to “he ascended,” what does it mean except that he also descended into the lower parts of the earth? 10He who descended is himself also the one who “ascended” above all the heavens in order that he might fill all things. It will turn out in 4:11–13 that apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors and teachers constitute the grace given by the Christ “to each one of us.” Through no merit of their own, in other words, the Christ has favored Christians with these people among them; and there’s no Christian who doesn’t benefit from their apostolic, prophetic, evangelistic, pastoral and didactic ministries. “In accordance with the measure of the Christ’s gift” indicates differences in the giftedness of the apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors and teachers. Paul makes this gift of grace the reason why Psalm 68:18 says what it says. In other words, what was to come determined what was said in the Old Testament. But what has now come to pass also leads Paul to update his Old Testament text by changing its reference from the Lord God to the Lord Christ (for Christ as Lord has acted on God’s behalf) and by changing the Lord God’s receiving of gifts from rebellious but defeated human beings (as in the Hebrew version of the psalm) to the Lord Christ’s giving of gifts to submissive and favored human beings (that is, Christians). Therefore Christ’s capturing a host of captives when he ascended into the height of heaven corresponds to God’s having “raised him from among the dead and seated [him] at his right [hand] in the heavenly [realms] above every rulership and authority and power and lordship and every name being named not only in this age but also in the [age] that’s going to come. And he [God] ‘has subjected all things under his feet’ ” (1:20–22a). Though in relation to Christians those hostile angelic powers are still engaged in a struggle (6:10–20), in relation to Christ the powers are already his captives, his prisoners of war, so that Christians are assured of their own victory at his second coming.

The spoils of Christ’s victory consist now in the gifts of grace given to Christians, seated as the Christians are (from God’s standpoint) in the heavenly realms in Christ Jesus (2:6). Since Christ is the “one Lord” (4:5), Paul infers that Christ’s ascent implies a descent. Otherwise, an ascent needn’t imply a descent. (Take the case of Elijah, for example [2 Kings 2:1–14].) In referring back to Psalm 68:18 Paul changes “When ascending” to “he ascended” for a match with “he also descended.” In Psalm 63:9 “go[ing] into the lower parts of the earth” has to do with burial, so that here in Ephesians “he also descended into the lower parts of the earth” means that Christ was buried after his crucifixion as well as that he ascended after his resurrection (already mentioned in connection with his heavenly exaltation [1:20–21]). The descent in burial makes a fine contrast with ascension “above all the heavens” despite their multiplicity (compare 2 Corinthians 12:2). “Is himself the one who ‘ascended’ ” underscores the identity of the ascender with the descender to reinforce the descender’s consequent supremacy. “In order that he might fill all things” supplements this supremacy with an infusion of the whole universe with his presence and power (compare 1:10).

4:11–13: And he himself gave some [to be] apostles, and some [to be] prophets, and some [to be] evangelists, and some [to be] pastors and teachers [compare 1 Corinthians 12:28] 12with a view to the equipping of the saints for the work [consisting] of service for the building up of the body of the Christ 13till we all attain to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of God’s Son, to a mature male, to the measure of the stature of the Christ’s fullness . . . . “And he himself gave” underscores the identity of the giver with the ascender (compare the final comments on 4:7–10). The gifts with which the ascended Christ has graced the human beings who make up the church—these gifts are themselves human beings: (1) apostles and prophets (about whom see the comments on 2:20); (2) evangelists (Greek: euangelistas), those who travel around proclaiming the gospel (Greek: euangelion) with the aim of converting people though they (the evangelists) may not have the qualifications of an apostle or the gift of prophecy; and (3) pastors and teachers, that is, leaders in local churches who shepherd others, in part by teaching them, and teachers who don’t otherwise lead. Since the apostles and prophets are foundational (2:20) and the evangelists missional, it may well be that “the equipping of the saints” spells out only, but importantly, the purpose for which the Christ has given pastors and teachers to local churches. “The saints” are the rest of the believers who make up local churches and whose equipping has the purpose of their doing “the work [consisting] of service [that is, of serving one another in accordance with their respective Spiritual gifts, for which see Romans 12:6–8 and 1 Corinthians 12:8–10 as well as 12:28].” This service has, in turn, the purpose of “the building up of the body of the Christ” (compare the earlier mixing of structural and physical metaphors in 2:21–22).

As implied by “till we all,” “the body of the Christ” means the church as a whole, of which local churches are microcosms. “The unity of the faith” means the unity that’s produced by a shared belief in Jesus. “The unity . . . of the knowledge of God’s Son” means the unity that’s produced by a shared knowledge of Jesus as God’s Son, through whom believers have gained adoptive sonship to God (1:5). To know God’s Son is to know about him and grow into a right and intimate relation with him (compare 2:21; Philippians 3:10). “Attain[ing] . . . to a mature male” builds on “attain[ing] to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of God’s Son.” In Greek culture “a mature male” represented the acme of growth (and of beauty as well). Since the word translated “male” ordinarily refers to an adult male, Paul’s addition of “mature” puts extra emphasis on maturity. “To the measure of the stature of the Christ’s fullness” then builds on the phrase, “to a mature male.” Since the Christ’s fullness consists in his being filled with deity (see the final comments on 1:22–23), Paul sets out a tall measure indeed! He doesn’t mean that Christians are to become, or will become, divine by nature. But he does mean that they are to become, and will become, divine in their character and conduct. When will such attainment be realized? In view of Colossians 1:28 (“in order that we may present every human being mature in Christ”) and 1 Corinthians 13:10 (“But when the complete [= ‘the mature’] comes, the piecemeal [= ‘the partial, incomplete, immature’] will be discontinued,” and this followed up immediately by a contrast between an infant and an adult male)—in view of these cross-references, the attainment of which Paul speaks will happen at the end, at Christ’s second advent. Meanwhile the church is to grow toward such full maturity so as to minimize whatever further growth will occur on that occasion.

4:14–16: in order that we might no longer be infants, being wave-tossed and carried about by every wind of doctrine in the wiliness of human beings in trickery resulting in an artifice of error, 15but [in order that] by speaking the truth in love we might in all respects grow up to him who is the head, [namely] Christ, 16by whom all the body, being fitted together and compacted together through every supportive connection in accordance with the working in measure of each individual [body] part, causes the body’s growth for the building up of itself in love. Most likely, this passage expands the purpose of Christ’s giving some to be apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors and teachers, which purpose is to keep other Christians from heretical doctrines. Paul compares such doctrines to the waves and wind of a stormy sea. “Every wind of doctrine” indicates a multiplicity of heresies over against “the unity of the faith” (4:13). “Tossed and carried about” stands for being swayed by the heresies in belief and behavior. “Infants” is the polar opposite of “a mature male” (4:13) and a figure of speech for someone theologically powerless to row against the winds and waves of false doctrines. “In order that we might no longer be infants” implies that such powerlessness would have characterized us prior to conversion, but no longer should, and that being swayed by false doctrines would keep us from “attain[ing] to the faith and of the knowledge of God’s Son, to a mature male, to the measure of the stature of the Christ’s fullness” (4:13).

“The wiliness of human beings” sets the false teachers over against deity in the Spirit, the Lord, and God the Father (4:4–6), and the false teachers’ wiliness over against “the word of truth” (1:13) and “truth . . . in Jesus” (4:21). For emphasis on the danger of heresy, Paul describes the wiliness as encased “in trickery,” which results “in an artifice [something cleverly designed]” characterized by “error.” If we’re not swayed by false doctrines we’ll not take them on our lips to further the deception by repeating them. Instead, we’ll be “speaking the truth [= the gospel uncorrupted by error].” “In love” describes speaking it as designed to benefit rather than deceive others. Such speaking will contribute to the positive purpose of Christ’s gifting the church, which is that “we might in all respects grow up to him who is the head, [namely] Christ.” This is another way of talking about “attain[ment] . . . to the measure of the stature of the Christ’s fullness” (see the comments on 4:13). “In all respects” covers the whole of Christian conduct.

“The head, [namely] Christ” recalls 1:22 (“And he [God] has given him [the Christ] to the church as head over all things”) and thereby calls attention to the supremacy of Christ, as shown here by his fitting and compacting the body together (see the comments on 3:15 for the translation “by whom” instead of “from whom”). Against the fractiousness of heresies, Paul stresses again (as he did in 4:4–6) Christian unity: “all the body, being fitted together and compacted together through every supportive connection in accordance with the working of each individual [body] part.” “Through every supportive connection” has to do with Christians’ sticking together for the purpose of mutual support. “In accordance with the working . . . of each individual [body] part” puts every Christian to work in a mutually supportive role. “In measure” suits the work of each one to his or her Spiritual gift. Thus “all the body . . . causes the body’s growth for the building up of itself.” But the body can do so only by virtue of being fitted together and compacted together by Christ. The building up of itself “in love” recalls speaking the truth “in love” and indicates not only that love for one another should imbue “the working in measure of each individual [body] part” but also that love consists in such work.

MORAL CONDUCT

Ephesians 4:17–5:14

4:17–19: In the Lord, therefore, I’m saying and testifying this, that you no longer be walking around [= behaving] just as also the Gentiles [= pagans] are walking around in the inanity of their mind, 18being in a state of darkness as to [their] reasoning, alienated from the life of God because of the ignorance that’s in them because of the callousing of their heart, 19who as such [referring to the Gentiles] being in a state of numbness have given themselves over to licentiousness for the working of every [kind of] impurity in prurience.[2] “Therefore” picks up “Therefore” in 4:1 and like it bases the following exhortation on the privileges of Christians, particularly those of Gentile origin, as spelled out in chapters 1–3. The addition of “testifying” to “saying” infuses the exhortation with solemnity; and echoing 4:1 again, “in the Lord” infuses Paul’s speaking and testifying with the authority of the Lord himself. “Walking around” echoes 4:1 yet again, but “that you no longer be walking around as also the Gentiles are walking around” implies that at least to some extent Paul’s addressees may still be behaving as unconverted Gentiles do. He identifies the behavior as licentiousness and spares no pains in tracing such behavior to moral stupidity, which in contrast to “the knowledge of God’s Son” (4:13) he describes in terms of (1) mental inanity; (2) reasoning in the dark (compare 1:18); (3) alienation from the life of God; (4) inner ignorance; (5) a calloused heart (the heart being considered an organ of thinking as well as of feeling); and (6) numbness because of the callousing.

Paul doesn’t say the unconverted Gentiles are alienated from God (though they are). He says they’re alienated from God’s life, which alienation fits “being dead in respect to . . . trespasses and sins” (2:1, 5). “Who as such” stresses “the callousing of their hearts” as the cause of “being in a state of numbness.” “Licentiousness” means lack of moral restraint. “For the working of every [kind of] impurity” states the purpose—deliberate though stupid—of the unconverted Gentiles’ having given themselves over to licentiousness. For the variety of impurity see especially Romans 1:24–27, though there it is God who gives them over, because they didn’t glorify him as God or give thanks to him (Romans 1:21–23, where their stupidity is featured, as here). (Just as divine selection to salvation and salvation by human exercise of faith run along parallel tracks, so divine and human givings over to licentiousness run along parallel tracks.) “In prurience” describes “the working of every kind of impurity” as an effort to get more and more sexual satisfaction. But such working doesn’t work; for satisfaction is found within moral boundaries, not outside them. Hence the “trickery” of false doctrines leading to licentious behavior.

4:20–24: But you—you did not learn the Christ in this way, 21if indeed you heard about him and were taught in him, just as truth is in Jesus, 22that in regard to [your] former conduct you have put off the old human being, who was being corrupted in accordance with deceitful lusts 23and [you] are being renewed in the spirit of your mind 24and have put on the new human being, who has been created in accordance with God in the righteousness and piety of the truth. “But you” draws an emphatic contrast with the unconverted Gentiles of 4:17. The addressees learned Christ in the sense that at conversion they not only learned about him. They also learned him himself as their model of behavior. “Not . . . in this way” draws another contrast, this time between learning Christ as a model of behavior and the moral stupidity outlined in 4:17–19. “If indeed you heard about him” is a gentle way of reminding the addressees that they have indeed heard about him, and refers to reports of him as a model of behavior. “You . . . were taught in him” makes him the locale of the learning. Only through being in him by faith can you learn him as your model of behavior (compare 1:15; 3:12, 17; 4:5). “Just as truth is in Jesus” contrasts with “deceitful lusts” in the present passage and with “the wiliness of human beings in trickery resulting in an artifice of error” back in 4:14.

“The old human being” is what you were, so far as your conduct was concerned, prior to conversion. By converting, you put it off the way you take off dirty clothes. And why not? It was being corrupted in accordance with deceitful lusts anyway! To the degree they were being engaged in they were causing decay (the meaning of “corruption”); and the decay wasn’t only moral, though it was that (see 1 Corinthians 15:33). It was also deadly, propelling you toward eternal death (compare 1 Corinthians 15:42, 50, 53–54 with Romans 6:21–23), not to mention corporeal death (Genesis 2:17; 3:3, 19; 5:5, 8, 11 and so on). Putting off the old human being required, and resulted in, your “being renewed in the spirit of your mind.” “Of your mind” rules out the Holy Spirit as the spirit in view, so that the whole expression means “the disposition that governs your thinking” (compare the parallelism of “mind” and “heart” in 4:17–19 and contrast the inanity and callousing of the mind and heart in that passage with the renewal here). “The new human being” is what you are, so far as your conduct is concerned, as a Christian. You put it on at conversion the way you put on clean clothes. But keeping these behavioral clothes clean requires an ongoing renewal in the spirit of your mind (compare Romans 12:2). “In the righteousness and piety of the truth” defines what it means for the new human being to have been “created in accordance with God” (compare 2 Corinthians 5:17). Here, “righteousness” means doing the right thing. “Piety” connotes religious devotion that is scrupulous in practice. “Of the truth,” which truth is “in Jesus,” equates with “the gospel of your salvation” according to 1:13. This equation makes righteous and pious conduct part and parcel of the gospel, not by way of basing salvation on good deeds but by way of God’s creating believers anew in sheer grace.

4:25–27: Therefore having put off falsehood [= lying], “be speaking truth, each of you, with his neighbor [Zechariah 8:16],” because we’re one another’s [body] parts. 26“Be getting angry and don’t be sinning [Psalm 4:4].” The sun isn’t to be setting on the provocation of your anger, 27and don’t be giving a place for the Devil. The addressees “put off falsehood” when they “put off [their] old human being” (4:22). They are now to be “speaking truth” as an outgrowth of their having “put on the new human being, who has been created . . . in righteousness and piety of the truth” (4:24). “Each of you” stresses individual responsibility. “Because we’re one another’s [body] parts” alludes to membership in the church as the body of Christ and therefore interprets “with his neighbor” as a reference to fellow Christians. Lying to one another would destroy “the unity of the Spirit” that Paul exhorted his addressees “to keep . . . in the bond of peace” (4:3). Not that Christians are free to lie in their relations with non-Christians, of course; but those relations aren’t Paul’s present concern. In 4:31 he’ll say, “All bitterness and anger . . . is to be removed from you.” Although “Be getting angry” is a command, then, it needs to be understood as conditional, almost as satirical, so that the emphasis falls on “don’t be sinning.” How is anger to be removed from you so that you aren’t sinning? By immediately making peace with the person who provoked you to anger. Then you won’t be giving the Devil a divisive place in the church. By implication, where anger-caused division exists in the church, there the Devil is.

4:28–29: The person who’s stealing is no longer to be stealing, but rather to be laboring, producing the good with his own hands in order that he may have [something] to be sharing with the person who has a need. There was no governmental welfare program and many, probably most, Christians were poor. So it’s not hard to imagine that some of them may have practiced stealing just to survive. On the other hand, Paul’s command to be laboring and his distinguishing between a needy person and the one who should be laboring suggest that some Christians were stealing out of an avoidance of labor. What labor produces is “good” because it can be used, and should be used, for “sharing with the person who has a need.” Sharing will contribute to unity (see 4:1–3 again). “With his own hands” specifies manual labor, which higher classes despised (compare the exhortation to “all humility” in 4:2; see also 1 Thessalonians 4:11 and Paul’s own example of manual labor according to Acts 20:34; 1 Corinthians 4:12). Were some Christians stealing to avoid the supposed shame of manual labor? In any case, Paul commands a shift from indolence and thievery to industry and charity. 29No unwholesome word [statement] is to be coming out of your mouth; rather, if [there’s] any good [word] having the effect of a needed building up, [that word is to be coming out of your mouth] in order that it may give grace to those hearing [it]. The contrast with a word that’s good because it has the effect of building people up makes an “unwholesome word” mean a word that has the effect of tearing people down. As indicated by the vocabulary of “building up,” Paul is dealing with conversation between Christians. They need to build each other up in their conversation, and the building up has to do broadly with encouragement to live christianly, not only and narrowly with psychological encouragement. You’re doing your fellow Christians a favor (the meaning of “grace”) when speaking such a word in their hearing.

4:30–32: And don’t be grieving God’s Holy Spirit [compare Isaiah 63:10], in whom you were sealed till the day of redemption. 31All bitterness and anger and wrath and clamor and slander, along with all malice, is to be removed from you. 32And keep being magnanimous to one another, compassionate, graciously forgiving each other just as also God in Christ has forgiven you graciously. Paul designates the Holy Spirit as “God’s” to make clear a distinction from “the spirit of your mind” in 4:23. Disobedience to the preceding exhortation would grieve the Spirit, and grieving him implies his personhood over against an impersonal influence. “In whom you were sealed” recalls “you . . . were sealed with the Spirit” in 1:13, but “with the Spirit” is replaced by “in whom” to stress the closeness to the Spirit that makes Christians’ disobedience grieve him (see also Romans 8:9 for the location of Christians “in the Spirit”). Concerning “till the day of redemption” see the comments on 1:14. For removal Paul mentions “bitterness” first. It arises out of the aforementioned provocation to anger (4:26) and therefore leads naturally to “anger,” to which Paul adds “wrath” for emphasis. “Clamor” refers to shouting matches. “Slander” means false accusations, which would contradict “speaking truth” (4:25). “All” eliminates from proper Christian attitude and behavior the entirety of these feelings and their outworkings. The addition, “with all malice,” makes malice the accompaniment of bitterness, anger, wrath, clamor, and slander. Magnanimity “to one another” is to replace all those vices. Compassion and mutual forgiveness define the magnanimity. Graciousness describes the forgiveness as un- and even ill-deserved, and God’s having forgiven ill-deserving believers in Christ sets the standard for gracious forgiveness (compare 2 Corinthians 2:7, 10; 12:13; Colossians 2:13; 3:13).

5:1–2: Therefore [because in Christ God has graciously forgiven you] keep becoming imitators of God as [his] beloved children, 2and be walking around in love just as also the Christ loved us and gave himself over [to death] as an offering and sacrifice to God in our behalf with the result of a fragrant aroma [pleasing to God]. Since children imitate their fathers, behaving lovingly toward one another, for which “walking around in love” is a figure of speech, should come naturally to Christians as God’s children, loved by him. Imitating him in this respect has to be ongoing (“keep becoming imitators of God”), because new and changing circumstances call for repeated episodes of imitation. Christ’s loving us literally to death sets the highest possible standard for Christians’ loving one another and specifies self-sacrificial deeds for one another’s benefit as the outcome of this love (compare Galatians 2:20). “As an offering and sacrifice to God in our behalf” describes the Christ’s love in a twofold way: (1) as an offering to God and (2) as a sacrifice in our behalf. “With the result of a fragrant aroma” echoes Old Testament descriptions of burning animal sacrifices as giving off “a pleasing aroma to the Lord” (Leviticus 1:9, 13, 17 and so on) and implies that self-sacrificial love for one another on the part Christians will likewise please God.

5:3–5: But fornication and every [kind of] impurity, or prurience, aren’t even to be being named among you, just as it’s proper for saints [that these things not be named among them]; 4and shame and foolish talk, or coarse jesting, which in their nature aren’t appropriate [for the saints], [mustn’t be named among you]. But rather thanksgiving [should be named among you]. 5For be cognizant by knowing this, that no fornicator or impure or prurient person, which sort of person is an idolater, has an inheritance in the kingdom of the Christ and of God. Paul sets sexual immorality over against loving one another in imitation of God and in comparison with the Christ’s loving us self-sacrificially. For sexual immorality has the purpose of self-gratification. “Fornication” refers to sexually immoral behavior in general; but because the term refers most prominently to having sex with a prostitute, Paul adds “every [kind of] impurity,” which describes all illicit sex as morally dirty. “Or prurience” refers to the lust for more and more illicit sex as distinguished from the illicit acts themselves (see the comments on 4:19). Since fathers normally named their children as an acknowledgment of having fathered them, the command that sexual immorality isn’t even “to be being named among you” means that making it a topic of conversation implies acknowledgment of its legitimacy, an acknowledgment improper for those who are consecrated to God (“saints” [compare the comments on 3:15]).

Paul goes on to identify the “nam[ing]” of sexual immorality with “shame and foolish talk,” distinguishes “coarse jesting” about sexual immorality from ordinary conversation about it, describes both such conversation and such jesting as inappropriate, prohibits them, and commands that thanksgiving replace them. It goes without saying that the thanksgiving is to be directed to God, but the context may also imply that he should be thanked for the sexual satisfaction he provided in the institution of marriage, which in the Bible is only between a man and a woman (1 Corinthians 7:1–5). “But rather” makes for a strong contrast between thanksgiving and decadent talk. “For be cognizant by knowing this” emphasizes a contrast with “foolish talk” and introduces a reason for not taking sexual immorality so lightly as to make it a topic of acceptable or jocular conversation. For “no fornicator or impure or prurient person” see the foregoing comments. “Which sort of person is an idolater” equates the lust for more and more illicit sex (“prurience”) with idolatry in that such lust replaces the worship of God with the worship of self through the pursuit of sexual gratification outside the divinely drawn boundary of marriage (compare Colossians 3:5). The inheritance refused to sexually immoral persons consists in the enjoyment of eternal life in the kingdom of the Christ and of God. Such enjoyment will outmatch the fleeting pleasures of illicit sex, and the pursuit of these pleasures marks a person as non-Christian (compare 1 Corinthians 6:9–10; Galatians 5:19–21). Since the Christ who “loved us and gave himself over . . . in our behalf” (5:2) has been “seated at his [God’s] right hand” (1:20), Paul ascribes “the kingdom” to Christ as well as to God. The two of them share rulership. As often in Ephesians, “the Christ” calls attention to his messianic office.

5:6–12: Nobody is to be deceiving you with empty words. For [contrary to such words] God’s wrath is coming on the sons of disobedience because of these [sexual misbehaviors]. 7Therefore don’t be becoming partakers [of such misbehaviors] along with them [the sons of disobedience]. 8For once upon a time you were darkness, but now [you are] light in the Lord. Be walking around as children of light 9(for the fruit of the light [consists] in all goodness and righteousness and truth), 10proving out [in your sexually moral behavior] what is pleasing to the Lord; 11and don’t be participating in the unfruitful deeds of the darkness, but instead be even censuring [them]. 12For it’s shameful even to talk about the [deeds] being brought to pass by them [the sons of disobedience] in secret. Paul might have issued the direct command, “Don’t be deceived.” But his indirect command, “Nobody is to be deceiving you,” only implies that the addressees shouldn’t allow anybody to deceive them, and thus carries an implicit compliment that Paul doesn’t expect them to be deceived. The compliment encourages their compliance, for people tend to rise to what’s expected of them. “With empty words” refers to words empty of truth, here to the truth that “God’s wrath is coming on the sons of disobedience.” The word translated “disobedience” connotes that the disobedience arises out of a lack of persuasion concerning the coming of this wrath. In accordance with the adage “Like father, like son,” “the sons of disobedience” personifies disobedience as a father, attributes offspring to him, and describes his offspring as taking after him. The coming of God’s wrath on these offspring gives reason not to be deceived into emulating their sexual misbehaviors (compare 2:1–3). This wrath will arrive at the end (see Romans 2:5–8; 5:9; 9:22; 1 Thessalonians 1:10; 5:9), but the present tense of “is coming” makes it so sure to arrive then that it might as well be arriving already, as supported also by the present revelation of God’s wrath in his giving the sons of disobedience over to their lusts (Romans 1:18, 24–32).

The coming of wrath supports not only the command, “Nobody is to be deceiving you with empty words,” but also the command not to become partners with the sons of disobedience in their sexual adventures. Paul adds further support for this latter command. It’s that “once upon a time [that is, before your conversion] you were darkness, but now [that is, since your conversion] [you are] light in the Lord.” Illicit sex is portrayed as darkness because illicit sex usually occurs at night, in the dark, when others can’t see what’s happening (compare “in secret” at the end of this passage and Shakespeare, The Rape of Lucrece 674: “For light and lust are deadly enemies”). The equation of unconverted people with darkness implies that they are what they do. Their deeds define them. By the same token, “but now [you are] light” means that sexually moral behavior, represented by the light, defines Christians. “In the Lord” refers to Jesus, whose lordship governs the behavior of those genuinely in him by faith. “Be walking around as children of light” opposes becoming participants in sexual misbehaviors along with “the sons of disobedience,” and “children” may connote a more intimate relation to light than “sons” did in relation to disobedience. So Christians are offspring of light in addition to being light personified.

The personification of light as Christians’ parent shades then into an explanatory comparison of them to a tree that bears “fruit,” a figure of speech for “all goodness and righteousness and truth,” that is, conduct that’s entirely good and right and true to the gospel. “Proving out what is pleasing to the Lord [in whom you are]” keeps goodness, righteousness, and truth from abstraction and translates them into the actualities of behavior (compare 2:10; Romans 12:1–2; Galatians 5:22; 2 Chronicles 31:20). The deeds of the darkness were unfruitful in that they lacked the aforementioned fruit of goodness, righteousness, and truth; and since Paul’s addressees used to be darkness, those unfruitful deeds were theirs. The command not to be participating in such deeds provides a counterpoint to the command to be behaving as children of light and leads to the further command to substitute censure of those deeds in place of participation in them. The contrast between participation and censure shows the censure to be verbal. How then to explain Paul’s earlier command that sexual immorality not even be named among Christians (5:3–5)? Well, naming had to do with accepting such immorality as a legitimate topic of conversation rather than as “shame and foolish talk, or coarse jesting,” into which categories verbal censure doesn’t fall. “For it’s shameful even to talk about the [unfruitful deeds of darkness]” brings back the shame of such conversation as a reason to censure them instead. “Even to talk about [them]” implies that participation in them will follow from conversation about them. “Being brought to pass by them in secret” ascribes the darkness of the deeds to the shame of the unconverted, who are the darkness. They don’t want their deeds exposed to censure in the light of day.

5:13–14: But all the [deeds of darkness], being censured by the light, are being disclosed; for every [such deed] that’s being disclosed is light. 14Therefore [because of this disclosure] it says, “Get up, you who are sleeping; and rise from among the dead; and the Christ will shine on you.” Since Christians are the light according to 5:8, they are the ones censuring all the deeds of darkness if they (the Christians) obey the preceding command to be censuring them. This censuring discloses the dark and therefore shameful nature of the deeds. “All the [deeds of darkness]” and “every [such deed]” leave none of those deeds undisclosed by Christians’ censuring them (again, if the Christians obey the preceding command). Paul then explains that by being disclosed, every deed of darkness is light, which is a strong way of saying that the censuring of such deeds exposes them to the light of day, so that they’re no longer secret. So light now stands for verbal exposure, whereas it stood earlier for the Christians who are to do such exposing. Since in 4:8 “it says” clearly introduced a quotation of Scripture, the same introduction probably does so here as well, even though the following quotation corresponds in its wording to no single scriptural passage. Apparently Paul combines passages such as Isaiah 26:19; 51:17; 52:1; 60:1. (We find composite quotations of the Old Testament elsewhere in the New Testament, too—for example in Mark 1:2–3 and Matthew 27:9–10.) “Rise from among the dead” implies that “Get up, you who are sleeping” commands awaking and arising from the sleep of death, which harks back to “being dead” because of “your trespasses and sins” (2:1, 5) and therefore identifies the command as what Christians are to say to non-Christians by way of censuring the non-Christians’ deeds of darkness. “And the Christ will shine on you” promises the light of messianic salvation if the censure is accepted, so that those who used to be darkness itself, and whose deeds because of censure became light itself, become themselves light because now they’re Christians (as in 5:6–12).

WISE BEHAVIOR

Ephesians 5:15–21

5:15–17: Therefore [because of God’s coming wrath] be watching carefully how you’re walking around [= behaving]—[that is, take care] not [to be walking around] as unwise people [do]; rather, as wise people [do]— 16redeeming the time, because the days are evil. 17On account of this [the evil of these days] don’t be getting nitwitted; rather, be understanding what the Lord’s will [is]. If you don’t watch carefully how you’re walking around you’ll stumble into the sin of apostasy and fall under God’s coming wrath. Because of this wrath, “as unwise people [do]” describes non-Christians as unwise in their immoral behavior. “Rather, as wise people [do]” describes Christians, at least true ones, as contrastively wise in their moral behavior, given the coming of God’s wrath. “Redeeming” means buying and liberating (as in the buying and liberating of slaves). “The days” that make up “the time” are “evil.” So to redeem the time means to buy and liberate it from the evil that dominates its days. This redemption is to occur in the behavior of Christians. But the evil of these days, particularly the evil of the sexual immorality against which Paul has inveighed at length in 5:3–14, is seductive. So he warns against “getting nitwitted” by the seduction (compare Proverbs 5:1–23; 6:20–7:27; 9:13–18) and commands an understanding of the Lord’s will. Since this command echoes the command in 5:5 to “be cognizant by knowing” that sexually immoral people don’t have an inheritance in the kingdom of the Christ and of God, the theme of sexual morals has spilled over into the first part of this new section. The Lord has willed sexual morality.

5:18–21: And don’t be getting drunk with wine, in which there’s dissipation. Rather, be getting filled in the Spirit 19by speaking to each other in psalms and hymns and Spiritual songs, singing and psalming with your heart to the Lord, 20always giving thanks to God—that is, the Father—for all things in the name of our Lord, Jesus Christ, 21subordinating yourselves to one another in the fear of Christ. The prohibition of getting nitwitted (5:17) makes Paul think of getting drunk with wine, which puts the drunk out of his wits and which Paul therefore prohibits. “In which there’s dissipation” sounds like our describing a drunk as “in his cups” and identifies drunkenness as an excess that leads to ruin (compare Proverbs 20:1; 23:29–35). The usual translation, “be getting filled with the Spirit,” is grammatically wrong. The correct translation, “. . . in the Spirit,” parallels “in which [getting drunk with wine] there’s dissipation” and corresponds to Romans 8:9, “rather, [you’re] in the Spirit,” and to 1 Corinthians 12:13, “we’ve all been baptized in one Spirit” (see also Ephesians 2:18, 22; 3:5; 6:18). Instead of telling what to get filled with, then, Paul tells where to get filled (“in the Spirit”) and how to get filled (“by speaking to each other in psalms and hymns and Spiritual songs, singing and psalming . . . , always giving thanks to God . . . , subordinating yourselves to one another . . . .” “Speaking to each other” links up with the exhortation to mutual edification that dominates 4:1–5:2. So far as they can be distinguished, “psalms” come from the book of Psalms in the Old Testament, “hymns” refers to standard Christian songs, and “Spiritual songs” means Christian songs improvised on the spot under the Holy Spirit’s influence. But we can’t be sure of these distinctions. “Singing and psalming” (the latter of which may include instrumental accompaniment) defines “speaking” as melodious. “With your heart” requires the singing and psalming to be ardent as well as melodious. “To the Lord” directs the melodious and ardent speaking to Jesus Christ as well as “to each other.”

“Always giving thanks to God” tells the content of the psalms, hymns, and Spiritual songs. “That is, the Father” distinguishes “God” from “the Lord,” who is then identified as “our Lord, Jesus Christ,” so that as often throughout Ephesians all three persons of what came to be called the Trinity make an appearance in conjunction with each other. “In the name of our Lord, Jesus Christ” requires that thanks to God the Father be channeled through Jesus Christ, whose name “Lord” indicates his right to relay the thanksgiving of those who confess his lordship on to God the Father. “Always . . . for all things” requires the thanksgiving to be constant and comprehensive. “Subordinating yourselves to one another” follows naturally from thanksgiving to God in the name of Jesus Christ as “our Lord,” for his lordship rules out Christians’ lording it over each other (compare 4:5: “one Lord”) and should engender “the fear of Christ”—that is, of him as an object of fear (compare “the fear of the Lord” in Proverbs 9:10 and elsewhere). For he’ll not take kindly to anyone’s usurping his lordship. Moreover, “subordinating yourselves to one another” (1) makes for unity in a church (see again 4:1–5:2 and compare Romans 12:10; Philippians 2:3); (2) parallels “speaking to each other,” “singing and psalming,” and “giving thanks”; and (3) therefore along with them deals with interactions in meetings of a local church, not in the private homes of families. Paul will deal with home life next.

A CODE FOR CHRISTIAN HOUSEHOLDS

Ephesians 5:22–6:9

5:22–24: Wives, [be subordinating yourselves] to your own husbands as [you subordinate yourselves] to the Lord, 23because a husband is the head of [his] wife as also the Christ, [is] the church’s head. He himself [is] the Savior of the body [the church]. 24Nevertheless [= despite his saviorhood, which could make members of the church think too highly of themselves as the objects of salvation], as the church is subordinating herself to the Christ, in this way also you wives, [be subordinating yourselves] to [your] husbands in everything. The commanded subordination to one another in meetings of a local church (5:21) carries over for a command that Christian wives subordinate themselves to their husbands. “To your own husbands” exempts the wives from subordinating themselves to men not their husbands. “As to the Lord” makes the women’s subordination as wives to their own husbands comparable to subordination as Christians to Jesus Christ, the Lord, so that insubordination to their own husbands compares with insubordination to the Lord.

Paul cites the headship of the husband in relation to his wife as the reason she should subordinate herself to him. The further comparison to the headship of Christ in relation to the church interprets headship as a figure of speech for supervisory authority. For “as the church is subordinating herself to the Christ” furthers the comparison in terms of subordination to a higher authority; and 1:20–23 has already associated his headship with his exaltation “above every rulership and authority and power and lordship and every name,” has indicated the subjection of “all things under his feet,” and has described him as “head over all things” in relation “to the church.” As a title, “the Christ,” which occurs twice in this passage, joins “the Lord” to underscore headship as authority. “He himself [is] the Savior of the body [the church]” switches the focus abruptly and emphatically, however, from authority to beneficence in preparation for the command that husbands love their wives “just as also the Christ loved the church and gave himself over [to death] in her behalf” (5:25), and also in preparation for the statement that “husbands too ought to be loving their own wives as [they love] their own bodies” (5:28). “In everything” makes the wife’s subordination comprehensive, though Paul’s commanding husbands next probably shows that he has in mind a Christian household in which the husband wouldn’t try getting his wife to do anything antithetical to their shared faith (compare Colossians 3:18; also 1 Peter 3:1–6, where however the case of a Christian wife with a non-Christian husband is also addressed).

5:25–27: Husbands, be loving [your] wives just as also the Christ loved the church and gave himself over [to death] in her behalf [compare 5:2] 26in order that he might consecrate her [the church] by cleansing [her] by the washing with water in the word [compare 1 Corinthians 6:11; Titus 2:14; 3:5; Ezekiel 16:8–14] 27in order that he himself might present to himself the church as glorious, not having a blemish or a wrinkle or anything of these sorts—rather, in order that [the church] might be sacred and blameless [compare 1:4; Colossians 1:22; 3:19]. That Paul presumed to command wives how they should behave toward their husbands violated the husbands’ prerogative to do so. But he was an apostle. So now he violates the prerogative of husbands to decide for themselves how they should behave toward their wives. “Just as also the Christ loved the church” sets a standard for the command that husbands love their wives. For “just as also” elevates “as also” from a comparison relevant to wives (so in reference to Christ’s headship [5:23]) to a standard. “And gave himself over [to death] in her [the church’s] behalf” defines the commanded love as self-sacrificial and beneficial to its object and also defines its extent as ultimate. “In her behalf” is then defined in terms of Christ’s purpose to consecrate the church, which consecration has the purpose of cleansing her. This pair of purposes is then summarized in the purpose “that [the church] might be sacred and blameless.” “In order that he himself might present [the church] to himself” makes the purpose of the consecration a segregating of the church to become, in distinction from the rest of humanity, Christ’s own (compare 2 Corinthians 11:2). “He himself . . . to himself” accents this purpose and implies that the self-giving, self-sacrificial love of a husband for his wife will redound to his advantage. As is the church in relation to Christ, she will be her husband’s alone (“sacred”) and faithful to him (“blameless”), that is, “glorious” in her consecration to him and having no blemish or wrinkle of infidelity or any other moral failing in her marital relation. At least these are the probable results of a husband’s Christ-like love. They are the certain results of Christ’s love for the church.

Though for a special reason Paul will later refer to husbands’ “own wives,” here he leaves out “your own” before “wives.” This omission contrasts with “your own husbands” in 5:22. But here in 5:25, loving means self-sacrificial service within marriage. So it goes without saying that husbands should love only their own wives, whereas it didn’t go without saying that wives had no need to subordinate themselves to men other than their husbands. Christ’s “cleansing” the church “by the washing with water” may allude to the practice of a prenuptial bath. But the allusion shouldn’t be pressed, because Paul is presently portraying the church more as Christ’s body than as Christ’s bride and wife. “In the word” identifies the cleansing water as the proclaimed gospel, belief in which washes away the filth of our trespasses and sins. So the cleansing occurs at conversion, but the presentation will occur once the church is complete, at the second coming. Then the church will have no moral blemish (similar to a blemish on the skin) and no moral wrinkle (similar to a wrinkle in the skin).

5:28–30: In this way [= as the Christ loved the church and gave himself over to death in her behalf] husbands too ought to be loving their own wives as [they love] their own bodies. He who is loving his own wife is loving himself. 29For no one has ever hated his own flesh; rather, he nourishes and bosoms it just as also the Christ [nourishes and bosoms] the church 30because we’re parts of his body. The statement, “Husbands too ought to be loving their own wives,” makes Christ-like love of wives a moral debt owed to them. Though omitting “their own” in 5:25, Paul now incorporates it for a parallel with “their own bodies.” “As [they love] their own bodies” draws a comparison, but the standard for a husband’s love of his wife remains Christ’s having loved the church and given himself over to death in her behalf. The comparison to husbands’ loving their own bodies evolves into a husband’s “loving himself.” His body is himself, at least in part. But why the equation of “loving his own wife” with “loving himself”? “For no one has ever hated his own flesh” supplies the answer. But does it? “His own flesh” doesn’t equate with “his own wife,” does it? Wait and see. For the moment, though, Paul dwells on a husband’s nourishing and bosoming his own flesh, which means making sure it gets enough food and warmth (as when a nursing mother hugs her suckling to her bosom [1 Thessalonians 2:7]), and states that such nourishing and bosoming rises to the standard of Christ’s nourishing and bosoming the church. “Because we’re parts of his body” identifies “the church” with “we [Christians]” and intimates that as parts of Christ’s body we are, figuratively speaking, his flesh. Since “no one has ever hated his own flesh,” no wonder Christ nourishes and bosoms us, the church. By implication, husbands are to nourish and bosom their wives, make sure they get enough food and warmth (which in large parts of the contemporary world is still as hard to do as it was in the first-century Roman Empire). Paul is now ready to explain how it is that a husband’s loving his wife equates with loving himself, with loving his own flesh.

5:31–33: “Because of this a man shall leave [his] father and mother and shall cleave to his wife, and the two shall be one flesh [Genesis 2:24].” 32This secret is great, but I’m speaking in reference to Christ and in reference to the church. 33Nevertheless, each one of you is also to be loving his own wife in this way, [that is,] as [he loves] himself; and the wife [is to see] that she fears [her] husband. In Genesis 2:24, which Paul quotes, “Because of this” means “Because the woman (Eve) was taken out of the man (Adam).” Here in Ephesians, “Because of this” means “because of the parallel between the obligation of a husband to love his wife and the actuality of Christ’s having loved the church.” Grammatically, “shall leave,” “shall cleave,” and “shall be,” which use the future tense for commands (as in “You shall have no other gods before me” [Exodus 20:3; Deuteronomy 5:7]), could be shifted to predictions: “will leave,” “will cleave,” and “will be.” But the hortatory tenor of 5:25–33 favors commands. A man’s leaving his parents and cleaving to his wife leads to their becoming one flesh in coitus, which explains how it is that a husband’s loving his wife by serving her self-sacrificially, as he’s commanded to do, equates with loving himself, with loving his own flesh. “But I’m speaking in reference to Christ and in reference to the church” defines “this secret” as the heretofore hidden parallel between a husband’s loving his wife and Christ’s having loved the church. The secret is “great”—that is, “large”—in that the love of Christ for the church, a large body, dwarfs the love of a husband for his wife. “Nevertheless” means that despite this difference in size, it’s still incumbent on the individual husband (“each one of you”) to be loving his own wife in the way he loves himself. “Also” draws a parallel between him and Christ. And since “the fear of Christ” is to characterize Christians (5:21) and since a husband as the head of his wife parallels Christ as the head of the church (5:23), the wife is to see “that she fears [her] husband,” which means fearing to displease him by insubordination to him just as Christians should fear displeasing Christ by insubordination to him.

6:1–3: Children, be obeying your parents in the Lord, for this is right. 2“Be honoring your father and mother (which is in fact the first commandment with a promise) 3in order that it may go well for you and [in order that] you may be long-lived on the earth [Exodus 20:12; Deuteronomy 5:16 (compare Colossians 3:20)].” The children whom Paul addresses must be old enough to understand his exhortation. “Your parents” includes your mother as well as your father. Though she’s to subordinate herself to him (5:22–24), she outranks you children. “In the Lord” doesn’t restrict the obedience to Christian parents. It describes obedience to parents as the right thing for Christian children to do: “for this [obedience to parents] is right.” Since Christian children are in the Lord by having believed in him, obedience to their parents takes place in him. He’s the setting that determines behavior (see Colossians 2:6 with comments). As usual, “the Lord” refers to Jesus Christ. By quoting the Old Testament commandment to honor your father and mother, Paul reinforces his own command to obey them and equates obeying them with honoring them. His interruption of the quotation (“which is in fact the first commandment with a promise”) interprets in advance the rest of the quotation. Interpreting the rest as a promise provides a motive for obedience. “In fact” highlights the promise of living well and long on the earth, given obedience to your parents. Naturally, this promise is a generalization that has exceptions. The Mosaic law prescribed death as a penalty for striking, cursing, or persistently disobeying parents (Exodus 21:15, 17; Deuteronomy 21:18–21), so that doing well and living long in the land of Canaan originally dealt with avoiding that penalty. For Paul, obedience to parents brings the Lord’s blessings regardless of earthly locale. In view of 6:4, Paul may have in mind that in God’s economy, parental commands are imbued with the wisdom of age (compare Proverbs 1:8–9 and similar passages scattered throughout Proverbs). The second of the Ten Commandments talks about God as showing kindness to those who love him and keep his commandments (Exodus 20:6; Deuteronomy 5:10). But there we have not so much a promise as a self-description. Strictly speaking, then, obedience to parents in this fifth of the Ten Commandments has a good purpose and a good result that together count validly as a promise, the first one.

6:4: And, fathers, don’t be provoking your children to anger; rather, be nourishing them in the discipline and admonition of the Lord [compare Colossians 3:21]. The preceding command that children obey both their parents might lead us to expect mothers to be included here alongside fathers. So the present omission of mothers implies that their commands to children should echo the fathers’ commands. Fathers had absolute authority over their children—even to the points of beating them, imprisoning them, selling them into slavery, and having them killed. So Paul’s commands circumscribe Christian fatherhood. “Don’t be provoking your children to anger” prohibits carping at them and placing on them unreasonable demands, both of which are sure to elicit anger. “In the discipline and admonition of the Lord” interprets the commanded nourishing of children (which contrasts sharply with provoking them to anger) not as making sure they have enough food for their physical growth—rather, as training them how to live in a way that pleases the Lord and as advising them that it’s intelligent to live that way. “Of the Lord” makes Jesus the ultimate source of such discipline and admonition.

6:5–8: Slaves, be obeying [your] fleshly lords [= masters/owners] with fear and trembling in the integrity of your heart, as [you obey] the Christ, 6not in accordance with eye-slavery, as pleasers of human beings [do]—rather, as Christ’s slaves, doing God’s will from [your] soul, 7slaving with agreeability as [slaving] for the Lord and not for human beings, 8knowing that each person, whether slave or free, whatever good [deed] he does—he will be requited this [good deed] by the Lord [compare Colossians 3:22–25]. Slavery was widespread in the first-century Roman Empire. It wasn’t color-based. Because the Romans hadn’t conquered sub-Saharan Africa, in fact, fair-skinned slaves must have outnumbered dark-skinned ones. Prisoners of war were enslaved, but by the first century most slaves were probably so by birth. Households, especially those of the well-to-do, often included slaves who performed household duties. Other slaves were put to work in the fields, in mines, and elsewhere. Some attained positions of management, tutoring, and the like. Free persons occasionally sold themselves into slavery for the benefits of care and accommodation. But the conditions of slavery and the treatment of slaves varied widely. Slaves might buy their freedom with savings from their allowances; or their masters might free them, especially when the slaves became too old to work hard. The addressing of slaves here and elsewhere indicates that a number of slaves became Christians and—as in the case of wives and children in relation to their husbands and parents, respectively—treats the slaves as equal in Christ to their social superiors (compare Galatians 3:28; 1 Peter 2:18–25).

Where most translations have “masters” or “owners,” the foregoing translation has “lords” to bring out the parallel between Jesus Christ as the Lord and the slavemasters/slaveowners as lords. (Paul uses the same Greek word for both.) “Fleshly lords” portrays the slaveowners as lords only in respect to their and their slaves’ physical relationship to each other. As shown by the parallel in Colossians 3:22 (“fearing the Lord”), “be obeying . . . with fear” doesn’t mean to fear your fleshly lords. It means to fear disobeying the Lord by disobeying your fleshly lords (compare the comments on 1 Peter 2:18). “And trembling” heightens this fear of the Lord to the point of bodily quivering (compare Philippians 2:12–13). “In the integrity of your heart” prohibits the inner duplicity of obeying halfheartedly. “As [you obey] the Christ” draws a comparison between obeying your fleshly lords and obeying your divine Lord, whom as Christians you obey wholeheartedly (for otherwise you’re non-Christians). “Not in accordance with eye-slavery” means not with an eye to obey only when your fleshly lords are watching, which kind of obedience would betray a duplicitous heart. “As pleasers of human beings [do]” points up that your fleshly lords aren’t your divine Lord (they’re only human) and implies that though eye-slavery stands a chance of pleasing your unknowing, merely human lords, it certainly displeases your divine Lord. “Rather [in contrast to eye-slavery], as Christ’s slaves [which you are], [be] doing God’s will [that you obey your fleshly lords in the prescribed manner] from [your] soul [that is, ‘in the integrity of your heart’], slaving with agreeability [as opposed to resistance and back talk] as [slaving] for the Lord [when you’re obeying your fleshly lords from your soul] and not for human beings [so that from the Lord’s standpoint obeying your fleshly lords doesn’t even count as slaving for them—rather, as slaving only for him].” “Knowing that each person . . . will be requited this [good deed]” provides a reason for Christian slaves to follow Paul’s command. The requital will come at the Last Judgment. “Each person” gives assurance of individual and exceptionless requital. “Whether slave or free” puts the slave on the same level as the free person “before the judgment platform of the Christ” (2 Corinthians 5:10), so that the slave will suffer no disadvantage. “Whatever good [deed] he does” shows that the requital in view is one of reward and ensures that no good deed, such as an act of wholehearted obedience to a fleshly lord, will go unrewarded. At the judgment the Lord will do good for the doer of good, including the slave as well as the free (compare 2:10; 4:28–29; 6:9). “By the Lord” implies that all Christians, including socially free ones, are the Lord’s slaves.

6:9: And, lords [= masters], be doing the same things to them [your slaves], forgoing the bullying [of them], knowing that both their Lord [= Owner/Master] and yours is in heaven; and there’s no favoritism with him [compare Colossians 4:1]. “The same things” are the “good” of 6:8; which in the case of masters means treating their slaves well and not bullying them with threats of beating, sexual harassment, the splitting of families through sale, and such like—much less the actual imposition of such mistreatment. Recognition that you as well as your slaves are a slave of the Lord should lead you to obey this command. His location “in heaven” puts him high above you in rank; and the fact that “there’s no favoritism with him” gives you, so far as he’s concerned, no advantage over your slaves.

EMPOWERMENT FOR BATTLE

Ephesians 6:10–20

6:10–13: As for the remainder [of my exhortation], be getting empowered in the Lord and in the might of his strength [compare 1:19]. 11Put on the full armor of God so that you may have power to stand against the Devil’s artifices [= strategies of battle], 12because we don’t have [on our hands] a struggle against blood and flesh—rather, against the rulerships, against the authorities, against the cosmic mights of this darkness, against the spiritual [beings] of evil in the heavenly [realms]. 13Because of this [our struggle against the spiritual beings of evil in the heavenly realms rather than against the blood and flesh of human beings], take up the full armor of God in order that you may have power to withstand in the evil day and, on having implemented all things [that is, having put on the full armor of God], to stand. “In the Lord [Jesus]” is the place to get empowered to do battle with the Devil and his minions of evil spirits. It’s the might consisting in the Lord’s strength that empowers you. Paul portrays this might in terms of God’s full armor—that is, the armor that he supplies—full armor for full protection. Maybe being chained to a Roman soldier prompted Paul to use this portrayal (compare 3:1; 4:1; 6:20 with Acts 28:16, 20). “So that you may have power to stand” puts forward a sharp contrast with “being wave-tossed and carried about by every wind of doctrine” (4:14); hence, standing represents resistance. “Against the Devil’s artifices” portrays the Devil as on the attack, and his mode of attack as a bag of tricks consisting in false doctrines peddled by false teachers and leading to bad behavior (see 4:14 again: “in trickery resulting in an artifice of error”). Armor will protect against such tricks; but it takes God’s armor to do so, because we Christians aren’t fighting against mere human beings, called “blood and flesh” against the background of physical warfare in which blood and flesh are sundered from each other through slaying with a sword, blood being put first in the pair to stress bloodshed. In view of his own imprisonment for proclaiming the gospel, Paul uses “we” to include himself in the struggle.

After mentioning the Devil, Paul broadens his purview to include the Devil’s minions of evil spirits. For emphasis on the danger they pose to Christians, Paul lists them with four designations, uses designations that connote power, and prefixes each designation with “against.” “Cosmic mights” means forces that control the world consisting of non-Christian society, over against “the might of [the Lord’s] strength.” In accordance with 5:8, 11, “of this darkness” refers to the moral darkness brought on by the influence of these cosmic mights on human beings. “Spiritual [beings] of evil” means evil spirits; and their location “in the heavenly [realms]” means that Christians, also located there (1:3; 2:6), aren’t out of the evil spirits’ reach so far as the doctrinal-behavioral influence of those spirits is concerned. “Take up the full armor of God in order that you may have power to withstand” recalls “Put on the full armor of God so that you may have power to stand,” but “in the evil day” replaces “against the Devil’s artifices” for correspondence with “the spiritual [beings] of evil” (compare 5:16: “the days are evil”). “The evil day” refers to any day when “the spiritual beings of evil” attack. “To stand against . . . . to withstand . . . to stand” puts a triple emphasis on not succumbing to the Devil’s artifices.

6:14–17: Therefore [because of our struggle against evil spirits in the heavenly realms] stand, having girded your waist with truth and having put on the breastplate [consisting] of righteousness 15and having shod [your] feet with the preparation of the gospel of peace, 16with all [these pieces of armor] taking up the shield of faith, with which you’ll have power to extinguish all the flaming arrows of the evil one. 17And grab the helmet of salvation and the sword of the Spirit, which is God’s word . . . [compare Isaiah 11:4–5; 59:17]. We read yet another “stand,” but this time in a command predicated on having been empowered by the donning of God’s full armor, which Paul now details piece by piece. Back of “having girded your waist” lies Roman soldiers’ wearing a leather apron to protect the hips, groin, and thighs. Paul makes this apron stand for the truth of the gospel that protects against every wind of deceitful doctrine (4:14). The metal breastplate worn by Roman soldiers stands for righteousness, which here means behavior consistent with the gospel’s truth and contrary to the bad behavior fostered by false doctrines. Roman soldiers wore thick-soled sandals whose hobnails, like modern cleats, enabled them to dig into the ground for withstanding an enemy’s onslaught. Paul makes these sandals symbolize the gospel of peace, which prepares us to stand against the Devil’s doctrinal-behavioral onslaught by standing in that gospel. Since the Christ “is himself our peace” by virtue of “making peace” and “proclaim[ing] peace as good news” (2:14–17), he has prepared us to stand firmly in the only gospel that brings peace with God and peace with one another. Notably and ironically, this already-secured peace prepares us to prevail in an ongoing war.

The kind of shield to which Paul refers was large enough to protect the whole torso of a Roman soldier. The shield’s thick wood was covered with canvas and, over the canvas, with calfskin, and was tipped with metal and studded with metal in its center. Just before a battle the shields were immersed in water, so that the water-soaked calfskin, canvas, and wood extinguished any flaming arrows that lodged in the shields. For Paul, the Christian’s shield consists in faith—that is, faith in the just-mentioned “gospel of peace.” This faith will extinguish “all the flaming arrows” shot by the Devil, called “the evil one” to link him with “the spiritual [beings] of evil” and “the evil day” of his onslaught (6:12–13). Like the waves and wind of 4:14, the arrows represent false doctrines, which lead to bad behavior. “Flaming” describes them as specially dangerous. Professing Christians who succumb to them will lose out on salvation (compare Galatians 5:2–4). “The helmet of salvation” follows “the shield of faith,” because we’ve “been saved” by grace “through faith” (2:8). The Roman soldier’s metal helmet was designed to save him from a fatal blow to the head. He’d grab the helmet and his short, double-edged sword just before engaging in hand-to-hand combat. “Of the Spirit” describes the Christian’s sword in a way that counters “the spiritual [beings] of evil in the heavenly [realms]” (6:12) and ascribes power to “God’s word,” which the sword represents. For “spirit” connotes power (Isaiah 31:3) and in the case of God’s Spirit, as here, overwhelming power (Zechariah 4:6). “God’s word” doesn’t mean the Old Testament, let alone the whole Bible. It means the recently mentioned and widely proclaimed “gospel of peace” (see also 5:26; Romans 10:8–10, 16–18), whose truth not only girds the Christian’s waist but also fends off every “artifice of error” (4:14).

6:18–20: through every prayer and supplication praying in the Spirit in every season, and to this [end of prayer and supplication] staying awake with all persistence and supplication for all the saints, 19and in my behalf in order that a word [= an utterance] may be given me in the opening of my mouth so as to make known in boldness [of speech] the secret of the gospel, 20for which [secret] I’m acting as an ambassador in a chain, in order that in it [the chain] I may speak boldly [about the secret], as it’s necessary that I speak [compare Colossians 4:3–4]. “Through every prayer” presents prayer as the means of grabbing the helmet of salvation and the sword of the Spirit and, by extension, as the means of putting on God’s full armor. The addition of “supplication” defines the prayer as petitionary, so that we’re to ask God for the helmet, sword, and pieces of armor. “Through every prayer . . . in every season” prescribes praying for every occasion of onslaught and prescribes supplication as the mode of every prayer. Since according to 2:18 “we have access in one Spirit to the Father,” Paul locates our praying “in the Spirit,” in whom from God’s standpoint we are, just as we’re in Christ (see also 2:21–22; 3:5; 5:18; Romans 8:1, 9; Jude 20). This location gives our prayers power and potency. But to pray “in every season” of onslaught, “staying awake” is required. In other words, lose sleep in order to pray more (compare Mark 14:38). “With all persistence” calls for being engrossed in prayer. “And supplication for all the saints” means praying that all Christians put on God’s armor for protection against doctrinal-behavioral heresies.

Since “we” in 6:12 included Paul in all the saints’ struggle against evil spiritual forces, he now asks that supplication be made for him in particular. Despite being “in a chain” he wants to make known the secret of the gospel “in boldness [of speech],” which suits an ambassador, who as such has diplomatic immunity (compare 2 Corinthians 5:20). He may be “in a chain” so far as the Roman government is concerned. But so far as he himself is concerned, he’s a prisoner “in the Lord” (4:1) and “a prisoner of the Christ, Jesus” (3:1), not of the Caesar, and therefore is as free as an ambassador to speak boldly especially to the Caesar but also to the imperial guard (Philippians 1:12–13). “The secret of the gospel” is that Gentiles who believe the gospel will be saved without distinction alongside believing Jews (see 2:11–3:13). Naturally, this secret would have special relevance to the Caesar and his guard. Paul wants a chance to utter the secret boldly. Apparently he got it (see Philippians 1:12–13 again; also Acts 28:28, 30–31). Prayers answered! The necessity that he utter the secret boldly arises out of Christ’s having commissioned him to proclaim it as good news “to the Gentiles” (3:8).

CONCLUSION

Ephesians 6:21–24

6:21–22: But in order that you also may know my circumstances, [that is,] how I’m doing, Tychicus—my beloved brother and faithful servant in the Lord, 22whom I’ve sent to you for this very purpose—will make known to you all [my circumstances] in order that you may know the circumstances concerning us and [in order that] he may encourage your hearts [compare Colossians 4:7–8]. “But in order that you also may know my circumstances” and “to you all” probably allude to Tychicus’s carrying this letter to various churches (see the comments on 1:1–2), so that “you also” means “you in this local church as well as all others in local churches elsewhere.” The absence of a public postal service required someone such as Tychicus to carry the letter. But Tychicus will spell out Paul’s circumstances (“how I’m doing”) in addition to delivering the letter. “In order that . . . he may encourage your hearts” implies that Paul is doing well despite his imprisonment and that the addressees, though not having known him face to face (1:15; 3:2), are concerned about him. To assure them that Tychicus will report Paul’s circumstances accurately and fully (“all [my circumstances]”), Paul describes him affectionately (“my beloved brother”), commendably (“my . . . faithful servant”), and christianly (“in the Lord [= Christ]”). Tychicus is serving Paul faithfully by carrying the letter and making known Paul’s circumstances (but in addition to Colossians 4:7–8, see Acts 20:4; 2 Timothy 4:12; Titus 3:12). The shift from “my circumstances” to “the [circumstances] concerning us” implies that others are with Paul. He lists their names in Colossians 4:10–14, and they include two fellow prisoners (see also Colossians 1:1; Philemon 23).

6:23–24: Peace [be] to the brothers, and love with faith [be to them] from God the Father and the Lord, Jesus Christ. 24Grace [be] with all those who love our Lord, Jesus Christ, in imperishability. The “peace” and “grace” of the greeting (1:2) appear now in reverse order for the farewell. See the comments on Romans 1:7; 1 Peter 1:2; 2 John 3 for the meaning of these terms, though 2:11–18 adds the element of peace between Gentiles and Jews who believe in “the gospel of peace” (6:15). This element and the preceding context of warfare with the Devil and his minions may have induced Paul to mention peace first. He also adds to peace “love from God the Father and the Lord, Jesus Christ,” because their love accompanies their peace. “With faith” is added to “love,” because love from God and Jesus Christ has to be appropriated by faith. But since the addressees have already been saved by grace “through faith” (2:8), the faith that Paul wishes to come from God and Jesus Christ must be faith that perseveres in the face of the Devil’s doctrinal-behavioral onslaughts (6:10–20), just as “those who love our Lord, Jesus Christ, in imperishability” means those whose love of the Lord perseveres rather than perishing in the face of those onslaughts. Notably, love for the Lord balances love from God and the Lord. But love from them comes first, because love for the Lord comes by way of response (compare 1 John 4:19). The generality of “to the [Christian] brothers” and “with all those who love our Lord” suits the circularity of this letter and, even more broadly, the letter’s emphasis on the oneness of the universal church (2:19–22; 4:4–6, 13, 16).

Notes

[1]Most standard translations have “from whom.” But with a passive verb, as here in “is being named,” “from” can mean “by,” as for example in 2 Corinthians 2:2: “being made sorrowful from [= by] me.”

[2]The usual translation “greed” doesn’t take account of the contextual discussion of sexual immorality—hence, “prurience.”

Table of Contents

Cover

Title Page

Copyright Page

Acknowledgments

Introduction

Ephesians

GREETINGS Ephesians 1:1–2

THE PRIVILEGES OF CHRISTIANS Ephesians 1:3–3:21

BLESSING GOD FOR BLESSINGS PLANNED BY GOD THE FATHER, ACCOMPLISHED BY HIS BELOVED SON, AND APPLIED BY THE HOLY SPIRIT Ephesians 1:3–14

A THANKSGIVING AND PRAYER Ephesians 1:15–23

THE SALVATION OF SINNERS BY GOD’S GRACE Ephesians 2:1–10

THE RECONCILIATION OF GENTILES WITH GOD AND WITH JEWS Ephesians 2:11–22

PAUL’S SENSE OF PRIVILEGE IN PROCLAIMING THE SECRET OF THE CHRIST Ephesians 3:1–13

A PRAYER FOR STABILITY THROUGH INCREASED COMPREHENSION Ephesians 3:14–19

A DOXOLOGY Ephesians 3:20–21

THE RESPONSIBILITIES OF CHRISTIANS Ephesians 4:1–6:20

MAINTENANCE OF CHRISTIAN UNITY Ephesians 4:1–16

MORAL CONDUCT Ephesians 4:17–5:14

WISE BEHAVIOR Ephesians 5:15–21

A CODE FOR CHRISTIAN HOUSEHOLDS Ephesians 5:22–6:9

EMPOWERMENT FOR BATTLE Ephesians 6:10–20

CONCLUSION Ephesians 6:21–24

Notes

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