Chapter 1, 2.
IN writing to the Ephesians the apostle takes his stand on ground wholly different from the Epistle to the Galatians. There he combats return to law in every shape, ceremonial or moral, and insists on grace in Christ crucified and risen, on promise before the law and accomplished only in Christ, so that blessing should flow even to Gentiles, and the promise of the Spirit be received by faith. But to the Ephesians he shows divine and eternal counsels. The Christian is blessed with every spiritual blessing in the heavenlies in Christ (1:3), and this by the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, Who was both man and Son of His love. The same God and Father chose us in Him before the world’s foundation, far above earthly ways and beyond promise. He chose us that we should be holy and blameless before Him in love (4). If He would have us there, He could not but have us like Himself. But He was pleased to fore-ordain our relationship, even for adoption or sonship, through Jesus Christ to Himself, according to the good pleasure of His will (5), for the praise of the glory of His grace, which He freely bestowed on us in the Beloved (6). In Him (for we were evil) we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of offenses according to the riches of His grace (7), which He made to abound toward us (not like Adam for the earth) in all wisdom and intelligence (8). He also made known to us the mystery of His will according to His good pleasure which He purposed in Himself (9) for administration of the fullness of the fit times: to head up the universe in Christ, the things in the heavens, and the things on the earth; in Him in Whom we also were given inheritance, for if sons of God, we were heirs. We were thus fore-ordained according to the purpose of Him Who works all things according to the purpose of His own will, that we should be to the praise of His glory. We are the believing Jews that had pre-trusted in the Christ (12). In Him ye too (Gentile saints), having heard the word of the truth, the gospel of your salvation, in Whom, having also believed, ye were sealed with the Holy Spirit of promise, Who is earnest of our inheritance for the redemption of the possession, for praise of His glory (4). Jewish and Gentile are alike thus blessed in the highest degree, far beyond the promises to the fathers.
So delicate and precious and rich is the apostle’s preamble, that one does best to give it as it is. The glory of His grace embraces the whole sweep of the purposed blessing; the riches of His grace, what more than meets all our need now; the praise of His glory, when we enter on the inheritance. But the choice of God and fore-ordaining go back into eternity before there was universe to inherit with Christ. The summing or heading up in Him of the whole heavenly and earthly, will be administered when the various seasons run out, and the kingdom, heavenly and earthly, will be displayed; and we, of all others, share Christ’s glory over all, and have the earnest as well as seal already, in the Holy Spirit given to us.
Then we have from verse 15 and at least to the end of chapter 1. the apostle’s prayer for them, founded on the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory (17), of Whom he desires the enlightenment of the eyes of their hearts to know what is the hope of His calling, what the riches of the glory of His inheritance in the saints, and what the exceeding greatness of His power toward us that believe, according to the working of the might of His strength which He wrought in the Christ, when He raised Him out of the dead and seated Him at His right hand in the heavenlies, far above the most exalted of creatures now and ever, and subjected all under His feet, and gave Him [to be head over all things to the church which is His body, the fullness of Him that filleth all in all (23).
The prayer almost imperceptibly passes into the teaching of chapter 2. To the hope of God’s calling as in chapters 1:3-6, with its accompaniments in verses 7, 8, and the riches of the glory of His inheritance in the saints (for He takes it in them as in the Christ) in verses 9-11, with the way Jews and Gentiles come in, and the Holy Spirit’s relation to both blessings, he adds the wondrous power displayed in raising and exalting Christ. Now in chapter 2:1-10 he shows it to be the same power that wrought in the Ephesian saints, and so in all Christians, quickened with the Christ, raised up together, and made sit down together in the heavenlies in Christ Jesus, that God might display in the coming ages the exceeding riches of His grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. Thus were and are they saved by grace through faith, His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works which God before prepared that we should walk in them. All were alike dead in offenses and sins. God thus wrought to bring believers into this new estate of living association with Christ on high.
From verse 11 The apostle would have those once Gentiles remember their once far off condition, without one of Israel’s privileges. Now they were made nigh by the blood of the Christ; and in the same nearness were the believing Jews. For Christ, our peace, not only took away all obstacles, but made both one, forming the two in Himself into one new man, one body. Though, Jews had once been outwardly nigh, and Gentiles afar off, through Him we both have access by one Spirit to the Father. Strangers and foreigners the Gentile believers were, no more, but fellow-citizens with the saints and of God’s household, all alike being built on quite a new foundation—that of the apostles and prophets (of whom he speaks in chapter 4:11), Jesus Christ Himself (not Peter) being the corner-stone. In Him all the building framed together increaseth unto a holy temple in the Lord; “In whom ye also,” he says, “are builded together for God’s habitation in the Spirit.”
Thus we have the church viewed as Christ’s body, and God’s house, in which distinct respects his Epistles often regard it. The article seems necessarily wanting in verse 21, though excellent old MSS. insert it; but according to correct usage, as the building is not complete, it could not be there. Yet this does not warrant “each several,” as in the R.V. For, though as the ordinary rule, pasa without the article, requires “every,” there are known exceptions, as “all Jerusalem” (Matt. 2:33When Herod the king had heard these things, he was troubled, and all Jerusalem with him. (Matthew 2:3)), “all the house of Israel” (Acts 2:3636Therefore let all the house of Israel know assuredly, that God hath made that same Jesus, whom ye have crucified, both Lord and Christ. (Acts 2:36)), “all Israel” (Rom. 11:2626And so all Israel shall be saved: as it is written, There shall come out of Sion the Deliverer, and shall turn away ungodliness from Jacob: (Romans 11:26)). It is not a proper name that really accounts for this; a whole viewed in its parts excludes the article, yet means “all.” The mistranslation is therefore not only superficial, but directly upsets the unity of the building on which the apostle here insists as everywhere else.