Ephesians 1King James Version
Paul's blessing on the church. Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who hath blessed us with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ. He hath chosen us in him before the foundation of the world. The eyes of your understanding being enlightened.
Paul opens with a sweeping doxology over every spiritual blessing God has lavished on believers in Christ. Before the world began, God chose them, predestined them to adoption, redeemed them through Christ's blood, and sealed them with the Holy Spirit as a guarantee of the full inheritance still coming. A prayer closes the chapter asking that they see the magnitude of that inheritance.
Every spiritual blessing is already yours in Christ, secured before creation and sealed by the Spirit as a down payment on glory.
1:4: "According as he hath chosen us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before him in love": election precedes creation, grounding identity not in performance but in God's own prior choice.
Paul dictates from a Roman rental house, chained to a guard, voice rising as he lists blessings. Outside, the city runs its commerce. Inside, a letter takes shape that will be copied and carried to churches across Asia Minor, each congregation hearing that before the first stone of creation was laid, they were already named.
Paul, writing as a prisoner yet overflowing with praise. The saints at Ephesus and surrounding churches, recipients of a letter meant to expand their vision of what they already possess in Christ.
Ephesians 1 is the theological headwaters of the letter. Every practical command in chapters 4 through 6 flows from this foundation. Paul stacks blessing on blessing to show that the Christian life is not striving toward acceptance but living out of an acceptance already given. The doxology and prayer together form a double vision of divine grace.
There is a breathlessness to this chapter, a man who cannot stop cataloguing what God has done. It reads like someone trying to count stars and refusing to quit.
1Paul, an apostle of Jesus Christ by the will of God, to the saints which are at Ephesus, and to the faithful in Christ Jesus:
2Grace be to you, and peace, from God our Father, and from the Lord Jesus Christ.
3Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who hath blessed us with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ:
4According as he hath chosen us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before him in love:
5Having predestinated us unto the adoption of children by Jesus Christ to himself, according to the good pleasure of his will,
6To the praise of the glory of his grace, wherein he hath made us accepted in the beloved.
7In whom we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins, according to the riches of his grace;
8Wherein he hath abounded toward us in all wisdom and prudence;
9Having made known unto us the mystery of his will, according to his good pleasure which he hath purposed in himself:
10That in the dispensation of the fulness of times he might gather together in one all things in Christ, both which are in heaven, and which are on earth; even in him:
11In whom also we have obtained an inheritance, being predestinated according to the purpose of him who worketh all things after the counsel of his own will:
12That we should be to the praise of his glory, who first trusted in Christ.
13In whom ye also trusted, after that ye heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation: in whom also after that ye believed, ye were sealed with that holy Spirit of promise,
14Which is the earnest of our inheritance until the redemption of the purchased possession, unto the praise of his glory.
15Wherefore I also, after I heard of your faith in the Lord Jesus, and love unto all the saints,
16Cease not to give thanks for you, making mention of you in my prayers;
17That the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give unto you the spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of him:
18The eyes of your understanding being enlightened; that ye may know what is the hope of his calling, and what the riches of the glory of his inheritance in the saints,
19And what is the exceeding greatness of his power to us-ward who believe, according to the working of his mighty power,
20Which he wrought in Christ, when he raised him from the dead, and set him at his own right hand in the heavenly places,
21Far above all principality, and power, and might, and dominion, and every name that is named, not only in this world, but also in that which is to come:
22And hath put all things under his feet, and gave him to be the head over all things to the church,
23Which is his body, the fulness of him that filleth all in all.