Ephesians 2: What the Passage Says

The Chapter in a Sentence

Paul tells the Christians in Ephesus that they were dead in their sins and lived like the rest of the world, but God, being rich in mercy, made them alive with Christ, raised them up, and seated them with him. He says this rescue comes as a gift through faith, not by anything they did, so no one can boast; still, God made them to do good works. The second half of the chapter turns to the Gentile readers: once outsiders to Israel and its covenants, they have been brought near by Christ's blood, joined with Jewish believers into one body, and built together into a temple where God lives by his Spirit.

Claim by Claim

1. 2:1
   • God made you alive.
   • You were dead in your trespasses and sins.
2. 2:2
   • You formerly walked in those trespasses and sins.
   • You walked according to the age of this world.
   • You walked according to the ruler of the authority of the air.
   • That ruler is the spirit now at work in the sons of disobedience.
3. 2:3
   • We all also formerly conducted our lives among them.
   • We lived in the cravings of our flesh.
   • We did the wants of the flesh and of the thoughts.
   • We were by nature children of wrath.
   • The rest of humanity were likewise children of wrath.
4. 2:4
   • God is rich in mercy.
   • God acted because of the great love with which he loved us.
5. 2:5
   • We were dead in trespasses.
   • God made us alive together with Christ even while we were dead.
   • You have been saved by grace.
6. 2:6
   • God raised us up together with Christ.
   • God seated us together in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus.
7. 2:7
   • God did this so that in the coming ages he might display the surpassing riches of his grace.
   • That grace is shown in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus.
8. 2:8
   • You have been saved by grace.
   • You are saved through faith.
   • This is not from yourselves.
   • It is the gift of God.
   • The text does not specify whether 'this' refers to the salvation, the grace, or the faith.
9. 2:9
   • Salvation is not from works.
   • The reason is so that no one may boast.
10. 2:10
    • We are God's workmanship.
    • We were created in Christ Jesus for good works.
    • God prepared those good works beforehand.
    • God's purpose is that we should walk in them.
11. 2:11
    • Paul tells them to remember.
    • They were formerly Gentiles in the flesh.
    • They were called Uncircumcision.
    • They were so called by those called the Circumcision.
    • That circumcision is done in the flesh by human hands.
12. 2:12
    • At that time they were apart from Christ.
    • They were alienated from the commonwealth of Israel.
    • They were strangers to the covenants of the promise.
    • They had no hope.
    • They were without God in the world.
13. 2:13
    • They once were far off.
    • Now they have been brought near.
    • They are brought near in Christ Jesus.
    • They are brought near by the blood of Christ.
14. 2:14
    • He himself is our peace.
    • He made the two groups one.
    • He broke down the middle wall of the partition.
    • That wall stood between the two groups.
15. 2:15
    • He abolished the enmity in his flesh.
    • The enmity is the law of commandments contained in ordinances.
    • His purpose was to create in himself one new man out of the two.
    • In doing this he made peace.
16. 2:16
    • His purpose was to reconcile both groups to God.
    • He reconciles them in one body.
    • He reconciles them through the cross.
    • He killed the enmity by it.
    • The text does not specify whether the enmity was killed by the cross or in himself.
17. 2:17
    • He came.
    • He preached peace to you who were far off.
    • He preached peace to those who were near.
18. 2:18
    • Through him both groups have access to the Father.
    • That access is by one Spirit.
19. 2:19
    • They are no longer strangers and foreigners.
    • They are fellow citizens with the saints.
    • They are members of God's household.
20. 2:20
    • They are built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets.
    • Jesus Christ himself is the chief cornerstone.
21. 2:21
    • In him the whole building is fitted together.
    • The building grows into a holy temple in the Lord.
22. 2:22
    • In him they also are built together.
    • They are built into a dwelling place of God.
    • This is through the Spirit.

Words Worth Explaining

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

2:1

"Quickened" is the old English word for made alive; to quicken something was to bring it to life. The King James uses it again in verse 5. "Trespasses" translates a word meaning a false step or a slip over a line, and "sins" a word meaning a missed mark, so the pair covers both crossing a boundary and falling short of one.

2:2

"Walked" is a standard biblical idiom for the whole conduct of a life, not for physical walking. "The course of this world" translates a phrase meaning the present age and the way it runs. "The prince of the power of the air" means a ruler who commands the realm of the air; in the thought of the time, the space between earth and heaven was where hostile spiritual powers operated. "The children of disobedience" is a Semitic turn of phrase: calling someone a son or child of a quality means that quality characterizes them, so this means people marked by disobedience.

2:3

"Conversation" in 1611 meant a person's whole way of behaving and living among others, not talk. "Flesh" here translates a word Paul uses for unaided human nature in its weakness and self-interest, which includes but is wider than the physical body; the verse itself adds "and of the mind" to show this is not only about bodily appetites. "Children of wrath" uses the same idiom as verse 2, meaning people who stood under God's anger.

2:4

Mercy means being kind to someone in trouble, especially someone who has earned punishment instead.

2:5

"Grace" translates a word meaning favor freely given to someone who has no claim on it. It is the key term of this passage and returns in verses 7 and 8. The King James puts "by grace ye are saved" in brackets because the phrase interrupts the sentence, breaking in ahead of the fuller statement in verse 8.

2:6

"Heavenly places" is plural in the Greek and means the heavenly realm in general rather than a set of locations. The same phrase runs through this letter.

2:7

"Shew" is simply the older spelling of show. "The ages to come" translates a word for long stretches of time, the successive eras of the world's future.

2:8

"Faith" here means trust, relying on someone, rather than believing a set of facts. Readers have argued for centuries over whether "that not of yourselves" points back to the faith or to the whole rescue; the Greek grammar leaves it genuinely open.

2:9

"Works" means the good things a person does. "Boast" means brag about yourself.

2:10

"Workmanship" translates the Greek word *poiema*, a thing made or fashioned; the English word poem comes from it, though here it carries no sense of poetry, only of something crafted. "Before ordained" means prepared or appointed in advance.

2:11

Gentiles means everyone who is not Jewish. Circumcision, the cutting away of the foreskin of a male infant, was the physical mark of belonging to Israel, commanded to Abraham, and so the two groups could be named simply by whether they bore it. "The Circumcision" and "the Uncircumcision" were used as group labels, and the second was a term of contempt. The King James adds that this circumcision is "in the flesh made by hands," that is, a mark cut into the body by people.

2:12

The "commonwealth of Israel" means Israel as a political body with citizenship and rights, the image the chapter returns to in verse 19. A covenant is a binding agreement with set terms and obligations, the form in which God's promises to Abraham and to Israel were framed. "Without God" translates a single Greek word, *atheoi*, literally godless or having no god, the word behind the English atheist, though here it describes a condition of being cut off rather than a set of opinions.

2:13

"Sometimes" in 1611 English meant formerly or once, not occasionally. "Nigh" means near. Far and near were customary shorthand for those outside Israel and those inside it, and the phrasing echoes Isaiah 57:19. "The blood of Christ" is sacrificial language and refers to his death.

2:14

"The middle wall of partition" would have called to mind the barrier in the Jerusalem temple that fenced off the outer court, beyond which non-Jews could not go. Inscriptions on it warned Gentiles that anyone passing further was liable to death. The Greek word behind "partition" means a fence or dividing hedge.

2:15

"Enmity" means active hostility between two parties. "Twain" is the old word for two. "The law of commandments contained in ordinances" refers to the law of Moses with its particular regulations, the food rules, festival days and purity requirements that in practice kept Jews and Gentiles apart. Readers differ over how much of the law the sentence means was set aside, and the Greek phrasing leaves that open.

2:16

"Reconcile" means to bring parties at war back into a settled friendly relation. The King James "having slain the enmity thereby" keeps a deliberate turn of the wording: the death on the cross is what puts the hostility itself to death.

2:17

"Preached" here translates a verb meaning to announce good news, the same root as the word gospel; it does not mean delivering a sermon. "Afar off" and "nigh" repeat the shorthand of verse 13 for Gentiles and Jews.

2:18

"Access" translates a word used of being brought into the presence of a king or a god, admission granted rather than entry taken.

2:19

"Strangers and foreigners" are two legal categories, not one: an outsider with no standing at all, and a resident alien, someone living permanently in a city but without its citizenship. "Saints" in the King James does not mean unusually holy individuals; it translates a word meaning those set apart as God's own, and it is Paul's ordinary term for all believers. "Household" means the whole establishment of a house, family and dependents together.

2:20

The apostles were the men Jesus commissioned and sent out; the word means ones sent. Who the "prophets" are here is disputed: the phrasing can point to the prophets of Israel whose writings the church read, or to prophets active in the early church, and the Greek allows either. The "chief corner stone" is the stone set at the corner of a building from which the walls are aligned; every other stone is laid by reference to it. The underlying Greek word may instead mean the capstone set at the summit, and both readings have long been argued.

2:21

"Fitly framed together" describes stonework jointed and fitted so that the pieces lock into one structure. The temple meant is the Jerusalem temple, the one building where God's presence was held to dwell among his people.

2:22

"Habitation" means a dwelling, the place where someone actually lives, and "builded" is the older form of built.