ACC ~ Ephesians 1 v3 - 6

OVERVIEW:

Knowing God as Father and Son, we become blessed through Christ’s mercy (AMBROSIASTER). Spiritual blessings consist in the realized promises of the gospel (THEODORET). They are conferred in full on humanity (JEROME). They make heaven visible precisely through earthly shadows (HILARY OF POITIERS). Divine love is the motive of God’s predestinating will (AMBROSIASTER). The distance between sinners and God remains infinite (CHRYSOSTOM), since we are fallen beings (ORIGEN) created from nothing (JEROME). God, who demands virtue as well as faith, bestows and enables virtue (ORIGEN, CHRYSOSTOM, JEROME). God’s love predestines to make us children by adoption (FULGENTIUS), so that a determinate number are saved (CHRYSOSTOM, FULGENTIUS). God desires for our sake that we should praise him in loving acknowledgment of our unmerited forgiveness (MARIUS VICTORINUS, CHRYSOSTOM). Rightly understood, Christ is God’s only Son by nature (MARIUS VICTORINUS, JEROME). His virtues are loved even by those who do not pursue them (JEROME).

1:3a | The God and Father of Our Lord Jesus Christ

WHY GOD AND FATHER. JEROME: Now the phrase “blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ” is to be read in a double sense. It first means that God is blessed as the maker of all things, this being the main clause. To this is then added “who is also the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.” It means that both God and Father are to be referred in common to our Lord. Blessed is the God of the man who has been assumed and the father of him who was the Word of God with God in the beginning! Not that the assumed one is other than the Word who assumed him, but that he who is one and the same is spoken of now by sublime and now by humble titles, according to what circumstances demand. EPISTLE TO THE EPHESIANS 1.1.3.

1:3b | Blessed in Christ

HOW GOD IS BLESSED AND HOW GOD BLESSES US. AMBROSIASTER: He means not with an earthly but a heavenly blessing, not corruptible but eternal, because Christ’s glory is not in earth but in heaven and in Christ. For every gift of God’s grace is in Christ. If someone who despises Christ imagines that he is blessed by God, he is wrong. Yet God is blessed in one way, humans in another. There is indeed one term blessing, but it should be understood as is proper to the recipient. … God is blessed when he is extolled with due praises, but the way in which God blesses human beings is to impart to them the gift of his grace, not according to their merits but according to his mercy. EPISTLE TO THE EPHESIANS 1.3.1-2.

1:3c | Spiritual Blessing in Heavenly Places

EVERY SPIRITUAL BLESSING? JEROME: Now God has blessed us not with this or that blessing but with every blessing. It is not as though we all obtain them all at once, but singly we obtain particular ones in due time or some of the whole number. Thereby we possess their fullness through these singular blessings. He speaks not only of earthly blessings but of spiritual—there are indeed earthly blessings, as when someone has children, affluence in riches, the pleasure of honor and health. … But spiritual blessings are in the heavens because the earth is too small to circumscribe a spiritual blessing. EPISTLE TO THE EPHESIANS 1.1.3.

WHY “IN HEAVENLY PLACES”? HILARY OF POITIERS: Since God reveals himself to be blessed in spiritual and heavenly things, it is not amid these earthly and corporeal things that one should look for that perfect blessedness of the saints. TREATISE ON PSALM 127, CHAPTER 8.

SPIRITUAL BLESSING AS HEAVENLY GIFTS. THEODORET: He has conferred on us the gifts of the Holy Spirit. He has given us the hope of resurrection, the good news of immortality, the promise of the kingdom of heaven, the dignity of sonship. These he calls the spiritual blessings. And he adds “in heavenly places,” because these gifts are heavenly. EPISTLE TO THE EPHESIANS 1.3.

1:4a | Chosen Before the Foundation of the World

CALLED TO PERSEVERE. AMBROSIASTER: God, foreknowing all, knew who were going to believe in Christ. … Therefore those whom God is said to call will persevere in faith. These are the ones whom he elected before the world in Christ, so that they might be blameless before God through love—that is, so that the love of God might give them holy lives. For no one can show greater respect toward another than when he obeys in love. EPISTLE TO THE EPHESIANS 1.4.

HE CHOSE US IN HIM. CHRYSOSTOM: What he means is this: The one through whom he has blessed us is the one through whom he has elected us. … Christ chose us to have faith in him before we came into being, indeed even before the world was founded. The word foundation was well chosen, to indicate that it was laid down from some great height. For great and ineffable is the height of God, not in a particular place but rather in his remoteness from nature. So great is the distance between creature and Creator. HOMILY ON EPHESIANS 1.1.4.

OUT OF NOTHING. JEROME: Paul, wishing to show that God made all things out of nothing, ascribed to him not the “composition,” the “creation” or the “making” but the katabolē, that is, the inception of the foundation. EPISTLE TO THE EPHESIANS 1.1.4.

1:4b | Holy and Blameless Before God

WHETHER IT IS POSSIBLE TO RECEIVE THE GRACE OF PURE HOLINESS. ORIGEN: One might ask if this is not contradicted by the prophetic saying “In your sight shall no living being be justified.” … One may answer, taking refuge in the double meanings of prophecy, that … no one is in all respects and throughout his whole life justified in God’s sight, since he will of course have sinned at some time. But this would not prevent some from being at times holy and blameless before him if they have become so through correction. EPISTLE TO THE EPHESIANS.

ELECTED FOR HOLINESS. CHRYSOSTOM: “You have been elected,” he says, “in order to be holy and unblemished before his face.” … He himself has made us saints, but we are called to remain saints. A saint is one who lives in faith, is unblemished and leads a blameless life. HOMILY ON EPHESIANS 1.1.4.

FAITH, VIRTUE AND LOVE TOGETHER. CHRYSOSTOM: The sanctified life is not the effect of our labors or achievements but of God’s love. It is not born of love alone or of our own virtue. For if it were from love alone, all ought to be saved. Again, if it were from our virtue his earthly appearing and the whole of his work would be unnecessary. But it is not from love alone or from our virtue but from God through God. … Virtue would have saved no one had there been no love. … For to become virtuous and to believe and to advance, this too was the work of the One who called us, even though it is something we can share. HOMILY ON EPHESIANS 1.1.5.

DISTINGUISHING AN INFANT FROM A SAINT. JEROME: Between saintly and unblemished there is this difference, that one who is saintly is ipso facto understood also to be unblemished, but one who is at some point unblemished is not by that fact itself saintly. Infants, after all, are spotless because their bodies are pure and they have committed no sin; and yet they are not saintly, because sanctity is not acquired without will and effort. Moreover, he who has done no sin can be called unblemished, but the saintly person is the one who is full of virtues. EPISTLE TO THE EPHESIANS 1.1.4.

NOT CHOSEN ON ACCOUNT OF OUR BEING HOLY. JEROME: It is asked how anyone can be saintly and unblemished in God’s sight. … We must reply [that] Paul does not say he chose us before the foundation of the world on account of our being saintly and unblemished. He chose us that we might become saintly and unblemished, that is, that we who were not formerly saintly and unblemished should subsequently be so. … So understood it provides a counterargument to one who says that souls were elected before the world came to be because of their sanctity and freedom from any sinful vice. EPISTLE TO THE EPHESIANS 1.1.4.

1:5a | Destined to Be His Children

OUR SONSHIP BY ADOPTION. MARIUS VICTORINUS: God in his love has predestined us to adoption through Christ. How could God possibly have Christ for his Son by adoption? … We speak of ourselves as heirs of God the Father and heirs through Christ, being sons through adoption. Christ is his Son, through whom it is brought about that we become sons and fellow heirs in Christ. AGAINST THE ARIANS 1.2.

DISTINGUISHING DESTINEDFROM Ordained. JEROME: The former [verse] refers to those saints who did not previously exist and who before they came into being were thought of and subsequently acquired existence. This [verse] speaks of God, who was preceded by no thought or willing but always existed and never had a beginning for his existence. Therefore he rightly used the term destined for those who, having once not existed, subsequently acquired existence. But of the Son, that is, of our Lord Jesus Christ, he wrote ordained in another place also. EPISTLE TO THE EPHESIANS 1.1.5.

DESTINED US IN LOVE. JEROME: Christ, as we have often said already, is wisdom, justice, peace, joy, temperance and the rest. Note that the names of all these virtues are loved even by those who do not pursue them! No one is such a brazen criminal that he does not claim to love wisdom and justice. EPISTLE TO THE EPHESIANS 1.1.6.

DESTINED IN LOVE. FULGENTIUS: The reason for saying “he destined us in love is” that he empowered us with his gracious love in order to predestine us. ON THE TRUTH OF PREDESTINATION 3.5.

1:5b | The Purpose of God’s Will

DISTINGUISHING GOD’S ANTECEDENT WILL FROM GOD’S CONSEQUENT WILL. CHRYSOSTOM: Everywhere the purpose or good pleasure means God’s antecedent will. Yet there is another will. For God’s first [or antecedent] will is that sinners should not perish. His second or consequent will is that those who become evil should perish. Hence he does not chastise them from necessity but due to their own willing. HOMILY ON EPHESIANS 1.1.5.

GOD’S KNOWLEDGE OF THE NUMBER OF THE ELECT. FULGENTIUS: The eternal firmness and firm eternity of God’s predestinating will consist not only in the ordaining of works. God also knows in advance the number of the elect. No one of that full number may lose his eternal grace, nor may any outside that total attain the gift of eternal salvation. For God, who knows all things before they come to pass, is not confused about the number of the predestined, any more than he doubts the effectiveness of the works he has ordained. ON THE TRUTH OF PREDESTINATION 3.6.

1:6 | The Praise of God’s Glorious Grace

OUR ADOPTION IS HIS GLORY, HIS GRACE. MARIUS VICTORINUS: We, being such as we are, are surrounded and held fast by vice and libidinous sin. When we are set free by him, acquitted of sin and pardoned for our sins, we are also adopted as his sons. All this is therefore to the praise of his glory and grace—his glory because he can do so much, and his grace because he offers this to us freely. EPISTLE TO THE EPHESIANS 1.1.(4) 5-6.

WHY GOD DESIRES TO BE PRAISED. CHRYSOSTOM: So that our love for him may become more fervent, he desires nothing from us except our salvation. He does not need our service or anything else but does everything for this end. One who openly expresses praise and wonder at God’s grace will be more eager and zealous. HOMILY ON EPHESIANS 1.1.6.