Ephesians 1: What the Passage Says

The Chapter in a Sentence

Paul opens his letter to the believers in Ephesus with a greeting, then a long burst of praise to God for what he has done in Christ: choosing them before the world was made, adopting them as his children, forgiving their sins through Christ's blood, making his plan known, and marking them with the promised Holy Spirit as a down payment on what is still to come. Paul then tells them he keeps thanking God for their faith and love, and prays that they would be given wisdom and insight to know God, the hope he called them to, the riches of his inheritance, and the greatness of his power. He describes that power as the same power that raised Christ from the dead and seated him above every ruler and every name, with everything under his feet and Christ as head over everything for the church, which is his body.

Claim by Claim

1. 1:1
   • A man named Paul is the author.
   • Paul is an apostle of Jesus Christ.
   • Paul's apostleship came through the will of God.
   • The letter is addressed to the saints who are at Ephesus.
   • The letter is addressed to the faithful in Christ Jesus.
2. 1:2
   • Paul wishes grace to the recipients.
   • Paul wishes peace to the recipients.
   • The grace and peace come from God the Father.
   • God is called our Father.
   • The grace and peace come from the Lord Jesus Christ.
3. 1:3
   • God is to be blessed.
   • God is the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.
   • God has blessed us with every spiritual blessing.
   • The blessing is located in the heavenly places.
   • The blessing is in Christ.
4. 1:4
   • God chose us in Christ.
   • God chose us before the foundation of the world.
   • The purpose of the choosing is that we should be holy before him.
   • The purpose of the choosing is that we should be without blame before him.
   • This is in love.
5. 1:5
   • God predestined us to adoption as sons.
   • The adoption is through Jesus Christ.
   • The adoption is to God himself.
   • The predestining was according to the good pleasure of God's will.
6. 1:6
   • The purpose is the praise of the glory of God's grace.
   • God bestowed that grace on us freely.
   • God bestowed that grace on us in the Beloved.
7. 1:7
   • In Christ we have redemption.
   • The redemption is through Christ's blood.
   • The redemption is the forgiveness of trespasses.
   • This is according to the riches of God's grace.
8. 1:8
   • God made his grace abound toward us.
   • This was in all wisdom and prudence.
9. 1:9
   • God made known to us the mystery of his will.
   • This was according to his good pleasure.
   • God purposed that good pleasure in himself.
10. 1:10
    • There is a dispensation of the fullness of the times.
    • In it God will gather together all things into one in Christ.
    • The things gathered include the things in heaven.
    • The things gathered include the things on earth.
    • The gathering is in Christ.
11. 1:11
    • In Christ we have obtained an inheritance.
    • We were predestined.
    • The predestining was according to the purpose of God.
    • God works all things according to the counsel of his own will.
12. 1:12
    • The purpose is that we should be to the praise of God's glory.
    • We are those who first trusted in Christ.
13. 1:13
    • The recipients also trusted in Christ.
    • They heard the word of truth.
    • The word of truth is the gospel of their salvation.
    • They believed in Christ.
    • After believing, they were sealed with the Holy Spirit of promise.
14. 1:14
    • The Holy Spirit is the earnest of our inheritance.
    • The earnest lasts until the redemption of the purchased possession.
    • This is unto the praise of God's glory.
15. 1:15
    • Paul heard of the recipients' faith in the Lord Jesus.
    • Paul heard of their love toward all the saints.
    • What follows is on account of this.
16. 1:16
    • Paul does not cease to give thanks for them.
    • Paul makes mention of them in his prayers.
17. 1:17
    • Paul prays that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ may give them a spirit of wisdom and revelation.
    • God is called the Father of glory.
    • The wisdom and revelation are in the knowledge of God.
18. 1:18
    • Paul prays that the eyes of their understanding be enlightened.
    • The purpose is that they may know what the hope of God's calling is.
    • The purpose is that they may know the riches of the glory of God's inheritance in the saints.
19. 1:19
    • Paul prays that they may know the exceeding greatness of God's power toward those who believe.
    • That power is according to the working of God's mighty power.
20. 1:20
    • God wrought that power in Christ.
    • God raised Christ from the dead.
    • God set Christ at his own right hand.
    • The right hand is in the heavenly places.
21. 1:21
    • Christ is seated far above all principality.
    • Christ is far above all power.
    • Christ is far above all might.
    • Christ is far above all dominion.
    • Christ is far above every name that is named.
    • This is not only in this age.
    • This is also in the age to come.
22. 1:22
    • God put all things under Christ's feet.
    • God gave Christ to be head over all things to the church.
23. 1:23
    • The church is Christ's body.
    • The church is the fullness of him who fills all in all.

Words Worth Explaining

Every language note in this chapter, gathered. These explain what a word meant, never what it means for the reader.

1:1

"Apostle" is the Greek apostolos, a person sent out with authority to act for the sender, something like an envoy or commissioned representative. "Saints" translates hagioi, "holy ones," meaning people set apart for God; it describes every member of the congregation, not a special class of exceptionally good people. Ephesus was a major port city on the west coast of what is now Turkey, capital of the Roman province of Asia and famous for its temple of Artemis. The words "at Ephesus" are missing from several of the oldest surviving copies of this letter, which has led many to think it was written as a circular for a group of churches.

1:2

"Grace and peace" fuses two greetings. Greek letters normally opened with chairein, "greetings"; Paul swaps in the similar-sounding charis, "grace," meaning undeserved generosity. "Peace" is the Hebrew shalom, which means not just absence of conflict but whole and settled well-being.

1:3

In Greek, verses 3 to 14 are a single unbroken sentence, a long burst of praise of a kind used in Jewish blessing prayers that begin "Blessed be God, who..." The two senses of "blessed" here are one word-root doing two jobs: we speak well of God, and God does good to us. "Heavenly places" renders a phrase found only in this letter, meaning the unseen realm where God, Christ and also hostile spiritual powers (see verse 21) are located.

1:4

"Without blame" is a word used of sacrificial animals that had no defect and so were fit to be offered. "The foundation of the world" means the laying down or founding of the world, that is, before creation. The phrase "in love" at the end of the verse can attach either to what precedes (we are to be holy and blameless in love) or to what follows in verse 5 (in love he decided in advance); the Greek leaves it open.

1:5

"Predestinated" translates a verb meaning to mark out the boundaries of something beforehand, to decide its shape in advance. "Adoption of children" uses a term drawn from Roman law, where an adopted son was legally a new person with the adopter's name, full standing in the family and full rights of inheritance, and the arrangement could not be undone. The point is legal status, not sentiment.

1:6

"Made us accepted" can mislead a modern reader: the verb is built on the same root as "grace," so it means roughly "graced us" or "poured out favor on us," not "found us acceptable." "The beloved" is a title for Christ, echoing the words spoken over Jesus at his baptism.

1:7

"Redemption" was an everyday commercial word for buying a person out of slavery or ransoming a prisoner of war by paying a price. "Through his blood" is standard ancient shorthand for a violent sacrificial death, not for blood as a substance.

1:8

"Prudence" in 1611 meant practical intelligence and good judgment in handling real situations, not caution or primness. The Greek allows the phrase to go either way: God acted toward us with all wisdom and insight, or he gave us all wisdom and insight.

1:9

"Mystery" does not mean a puzzle nobody can solve. In Jewish and early Christian usage it means a secret that God kept hidden and has now deliberately disclosed. The emphasis falls on its being revealed.

1:10

"Dispensation" translates oikonomia, the running of a household or estate; hence an administration, a management plan. "The fulness of times" means the point when the allotted stretch of time has run its full course. "Gather together in one" renders a verb meaning to sum up under a single head, as an accountant adds a column of figures and writes the total at the top.

1:11

"We have obtained an inheritance" translates a verb related to casting lots and allotting shares. It can mean we were given our allotted share, or that we ourselves were claimed as God's allotted portion; translators have gone both ways. "Counsel of his own will" means a deliberate decision reached by God alone, not advice taken from anyone else.

1:12

"Who first trusted in Christ" more exactly means "who beforehand had hoped in Christ." The shift from "we" here to "ye also" in verse 13 is often read as Paul distinguishing Jewish believers, who had hoped in a coming Messiah, from the non-Jewish readers who came in later, though he does not say so outright.

1:13

A seal was an impression pressed into wax or soft clay by a signet ring. Stamped on cargo, a document or a jar, it showed who owned the thing and guaranteed it had not been tampered with. To be "sealed" is to be marked as belonging to God and certified as genuine.

1:14

"Earnest" here has nothing to do with being sincere. The Greek arrabon was a legal and commercial term for a down payment: money handed over as the first installment of a larger sum, which both guaranteed the rest would follow and was itself part of it. "The purchased possession" continues the slave-market image of verse 7: a people God has bought and will take full delivery of later.

1:17

"Revelation" translates apokalypsis, an uncovering or pulling back of a veil from something previously hidden. The Greek word for "spirit" here can be read either as the Holy Spirit or as a disposition God gives, and translators divide over which is meant.

1:18

Greek reads "the eyes of your heart." In biblical usage the heart is the seat of thinking, deciding and willing, the inner person as a whole, not just the emotions. "His inheritance in the saints" is genuinely ambiguous: it may be the inheritance God gives to his people, or the inheritance God himself receives, namely the people.

1:19

"To us-ward" is old English for "toward us." The second half of the verse piles up four different Greek words for power, force, might and strength in a single phrase, a deliberate heaping-up for effect that no English wording can reproduce neatly.

1:20

The seat at a king's right hand was the place of highest honor in an ancient court, occupied by the person who exercised the king's own authority. The wording deliberately echoes Psalm 110:1, "Sit thou at my right hand."

1:21

"Principality, and power, and might, and dominion" are four terms for ranks of invisible powers, angelic or hostile, in the way Jewish writers of the period spoke of the spirit world. Ephesus was known across the empire for magic and for dealings with such powers. "Every name that is named" means every title of rank that exists. "This world" translates aion, meaning an age, a stretch of time, rather than a place: the present age as against the age still to come.

1:22

"Put all things under his feet" quotes Psalm 8:6. The picture behind it is a victorious king setting his foot on a defeated enemy, a standard image of total subjection in the ancient Near East.

1:23

"Fulness" translates pleroma, that which fills something or the full measure of it. The relationship is left open in the Greek: the church may be what fills Christ out, or what is filled by him. "Filleth all in all" is equally open, meaning something like fills everything completely, or fills all things in every way.