Chapter 2
2:1- Chapter 2 marks the end of Paul’s introduction to the letter, which consisted of both a powerful doxology (1:3-14) and prayer (1:15-23). He now turns his attention to the main thrust of his letter. This chapter teaches us some very important information about our spiritual state before being graciously saved by God. Walter Liefeld writes that in order for Paul’s recipients to understand the significance of their new spiritual life, “he must speak bluntly about their previous state of spiritual death and its causes.” The state humanity finds itself in before receiving eternal life through faith in Christ is not a neutral one. As we all were, those yet to receive life are spiritually dead and are destined for judgement (John 3:18) and God's wrath (as we will see in 2:3. Cf. Rom. 2:5). As Francis Foulkes says, “Man’s trouble is not merely that he is out of harmony with his environment and with his fellows. He is ‘alienated from the life of God’ (4:18), that is, with respect to his true spiritual nature he is dead in trespasses and sins.”
This is why Paul starts off with “And you” (that is, his Gentile audience) were dead in trespasses and sins. “Trespasses” is a word to describe veering/deviating off the right path. In this context, willful deviation from truth and righteousness. “Sins” (hamartia) comes from the root word hamartanō which in its very simplistic meaning denotes “missing the mark” as a spearman missing the target with his spear. However, the context in which these words are used in the NT carries very weighty implications. John Stott states, “Together the two words cover the positive and negative, or active and passive aspects of wrongdoing, that is to say, our sins of commission and of omission. Before God, we are both rebels and failures.”
This is no trivial matter as if humans simply “make a mistake” by missing the mark. Ultimately, falling short of the glory of God (His righteous and holy standard) is what separates us from Him (Isa. 59:2). This is anything but trivial. It condemns us to the wrath of a thrice holy God as verse 3 tells us, and ultimately, it’s these trespasses and sins that are the cause of death. One only needs to read the first few chapters in the Bible to discover how serious this situation is for humanity. As in Col. 2:13, Paul means here a spiritual death and as Constantine Campbell remarks, “They were unable to live for God, unable to please him, and unable to reverse their standing with God by their own power.”
2:2- The idiom Jews used to describe someone following rules of conduct or a pattern of ethical behavior is literally translated “walking.” For example, in Mark 7:5, the Pharisees ask Jesus, “Why do Your disciples not walk according to the tradition of the elders, but eat their bread with impure hands?” And in Acts 21:21, it was falsely said of the apostle Paul, “they have been told about you, that you are teaching all the Jews who are among the Gentiles to forsake Moses, telling them not to circumcise their children nor to walk according to the customs.”
It is used throughout the New Testament to describe living a life (conducting oneself) in honoring God (2 Cor. 5:7, Eph. 2:10; 4:1, Col. 4:5, etc). Here, however, Paul uses this word to describe living a life according to “the course of this world.” A “world” that is under the influence of the devil. This is not dissimilar to the way the Apostle John uses the term “world” in passages like John 15:18-19 and 1 John 2:15-17. Of which, Daniel Akin defines the meaning as “an evil organized earthly system controlled by the power of the evil one that has aligned itself against God and his kingdom.”
In 2 Cor. 4:4, Paul refers to the devil as “the god of this world” and in John 12:31, the same Greek word for “prince/ruler” is used to refer to Satan as here in verse 2, “the prince of the power of the air” (cf. 6:11). It is this ruler that the Ephesians (and thus all men) served before being born again by the Spirit. This, by nature, would make them “sons of disobedience.” As noted in 1:22, though these evil forces are defeated and subject to Christ, they still have influence in this present age and will be vanquished in the age to come. However, what Paul has laid out here is the reality of the evil course of this world (culture/society at war with God) in which we followed as we gratified the wicked desires of our flesh (our fallen and corrupted nature) all while being under control of the ruler of the kingdom of darkness (the devil). Thus Stott concludes, “We had rebelled, knowingly and voluntarily, against the loving authority of God and so had fallen under the dominion of Satan.”
2:3- Paul now switches to the first person (as in 1:11) and includes himself as well as every other Jew in this category (cf. Rom. 2:1-9, 3:9, 3:23). All men, whether Jew or Gentile lived to serve wickedness before they became Christians. Paul says in Rom. 5:12 (NIV), “just as sin entered the world through one man, and death through sin, and in this way death came to all people, because all sinned.” The result of this is that all of mankind was by nature of their sin against God, under His just and righteous wrath. This is the pitiful state mankind is in. Because, as David says in Psalm 53:5 (NIV), “Surely I was sinful at birth, sinful from the time my mother conceived me,” we were, therefore, utterly helpless to do anything about it. Tertullian states: “On this account he says, ‘We were by nature children of wrath.’ But he says ‘by nature’ so that a heretic could not argue that it was the Lord who created evil. We create the grounds for the Creator’s wrath.”
As to God’s wrath, let us not mistake this with human violence, anger, or blind rage. “For the wrath of man does not produce the righteousness of God.” -James 1:20 (NKJV). However, God’s wrath certainly produces righteousness as His wrath is always a holy, right and necessary response to evil. “God is a righteous judge, a God who displays his wrath every day.” -Psalm 7:11 (NIV). In Rom. 2:5, Paul refers to God’s wrath as the “righteous judgment of God.” In the most basic, condensed definition, Stott describes it as “God’s personal, righteous, constant hostility to evil, his settled refusal to compromise with it, and his resolve instead to condemn it.” The Psalmist writes, “For You are not a God who takes pleasure in wickedness; No evil dwells with You.” -Psalm 5:4. Be that as it may, as we will see in the very next verses, this does not at all conflict with either His mercy or love.
2:4-5- “But God” are the two words that start the message of hope! Dead in sins, walking in obedience to the devil, living in the lusts and wicked desires of our hearts, sinning against God from the moment of birth and under God’s wrath is seemingly a hopeless state to be in, and it is hopeless… unless all of that is followed by “But God.” Simply put, the bad news is: “And you” (2:1) and the good news is, “But God” (2:4)! Being dead in our sins as we were, God had to be the one to fix the situation. God could have allowed us to remain in our fallen and sinful state and would have been justified in sending all to hell with the devil and his angels. However, God, who is so rich in mercy, instead had a plan of salvation for us! Make no mistake, it was not because we were “attractive spiritual zombies” as Campbell puts it, but rather because love and mercy are intrinsic to God’s nature. As Paul says in Rom. 5:6, Christ came and died for the “ungodly.” There was no inherent godliness within us. Only because God is rich in mercy and love did He purpose to save those fit only for His wrath. God’s attributes are made known all throughout the Old Testament. Exod. 34:6b-7a states: “The Lord, the Lord God, compassionate and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in lovingkindness and truth; who keeps lovingkindness for thousands, who forgives iniquity, transgression and sin”
Verse 5 explains that this mercy and love were displayed to us as He rescued us from our state of death by making us spiritually alive with Christ! Rom. 5:8-9 says, “But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. Much more then, having now been justified by His blood, we shall be saved from the wrath of God through Him.” As Paul says in our verse here in Ephesians, it was completely by God’s grace that we are saved! What did we do to earn salvation? The answer is, nothing! The only thing we earned was death due to our sins (Rom. 6:23)! Foulkes points out that “man’s position could be described not only in terms of spiritual death, but also as enslavement and inescapable entanglement in the coils of sin.” However, since we have been spiritually resurrected due to Christ’s bodily resurrection, the alienation from God due to our sins has been resolved! Being made “alive in Christ” involves a new creation (2:10, cf. 2 Cor. 5:17). We have become a new person that lives not to serve the devil and our wicked desires that flow from that, but to serve the living and true God (1 Thess. 1:9-10, Rom. 12:1-2)!
2:6-7- God not only made us alive, He “raised us up” with Christ and “seated us” in the heavenly places with Him all in Christ. Notice how the plan, work, and outcome of salvation flows entirely from God and the work of Christ. All of this reverses the state of the spiritually dead. What exactly does it mean to be raised up and seated with Christ in “heavenly places?” There certainly is a future, literal component to this, but here Paul is speaking of the spiritual aspect as has been the context of chapter 2 up to this point. Obviously, Paul’s audience wasn’t physically raised from death prior to reading his letter, but because of the resurrection of Christ, all who believe in Him who were formerly spiritually dead (2:1) have now been raised to a new spiritual life in Christ, desiring to please God as opposed to the devil. Albert Barnes states, “we are raised from the death of sin to the life of religion, in connection with the resurrection of Jesus, and in virtue of that. So close is the connection between him and his people, that his resurrection made theirs certain.” See also: Col. 2:12, Rom. 6:5.
In what sense are we currently seated in the heavenly places as Paul seems to indicate? Clearly, our current physical location is here on earth. Campbell sees this as not a physical location, but a spiritual position. He writes, “Since the heavens also include the presence of malevolent spiritual forces under Christ (1:20-21), the ‘heavens in Christ’ specifies that believers are seated with Christ where he is in the heavens-over those who have been subjected to him.” Essentially, as Campbell concludes, this means that believers “partake in his royal rule over the competing powers (cf. 6:10).” Somewhat adjacent to this interpretation is Charles Hodge as he points out that as children of God, “He rescued us from the domain of darkness, and transferred us to the kingdom of His beloved Son,” -Col. 1:13. Hodge further points to Phil. 3:20 as proof even though we are currently in the world, our citizenship is simultaneously in heaven. Hodge states: “We, if Christians, belong not to the earth, but heaven; we are within the pale of God’s kingdom; we are under its laws; we have in Christ a title to its privileges and blessings, and possess, alas! In what humble measure, its spirit.”
Verse 7 is in keeping with Paul’s theme of God’s plan of salvation resulting in the praise of His glory (1:5, 1:11, 1:13). Why has God done all this when we could have been left to our own devices and rightly damned for all eternity? Paul says here that the result and/or purpose of raising us up and seating us in the heavenly places with Christ will be that “in the ages to come” (that is, the eschatological future), the full realization of the riches of His grace will be on full display.
The NLT translates verse 7 as follows: “So God can point to us in all future ages as examples of the incredible wealth of his grace and kindness toward us, as shown in all he has done for us who are united with Christ Jesus.” Thus, Barnes writes: “Heaven, the home of the redeemed, will exhibit the most impressive proof of the goodness of God that the universe furnishes. There will be a countless host who were once polluted and lost; who were dead in sins; who were under the power of Satan, and who have been saved by the riches of the divine grace - a host now happy and pure, and free from sin, sorrow, and death - the living and eternal monuments of the grace of God.”
2:8-9- Verses 8-9 are widely memorized and quoted, and rightly so as they sum up the result of the gospel quite succinctly. Through our faith in Christ, God graciously saves us! Salvation is purely a gift from God on the basis of His grace through our faith (Rom. 3:22, 25, Gal. 2:16). Not a single person who is saved can boast that it was due to keeping the law of God perfectly. Humanity can only take credit for severing the pure and good relationship between mankind and God by disobedience against God that involved submitting to the devil (Gen. 3:1-6).
It was God who orchestrated the plan of salvation; a way back to restored relationship with Him, while at the same time upholding justice for the treason and sin committed against Him. Since God has gone to such great lengths, to include adding humanity to His divine nature and suffering the penalty for our sin (Phil. 2:6-8, 2 Cor. 5:21, Rom. 3:26-26, Gal. 3:13, 1 Peter 2:24-25), we are called to be reconciled to God through our faith. Though verse 8 does not supply the object of our faith, the context of what Paul has said up to this point certainly implies that Christ is the object: “having heard of the faith in the Lord Jesus that exists among you.” (1:15).
Excursus: What is Faith?
How are we justified before God? Scripture teaches that it is our faith that justifies us (Rom. 3:28, 5:1, Gal. 2:16). This begs the question, what exactly does “faith in Jesus” entail? It is certainly more than a mere mental ascent that God exists or even that Jesus died and rose. Even the demons believe in God and shudder (James 2:19) and plenty will profess Christ and even claim to do things in His name, yet they will be banished from Christ in the age to come as they are “workers of lawlessness” (Matt. 7:21-23). Faith is far from a “one time decision” or acknowledgement of a theological fact as the parable of the sower teaches us (see Luke 8:13). Jesus’ command to His apostles was to “Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I commanded you” -Matt. 28:19-20a. The command, was not to “go and get professions of faith.” As Liefeld writes, “when we learn in 6:16 that faith is to be our shield against the evil one, we know that this is not merely a momentary response to an evangelistic appeal but the whole of our ongoing response to God, relationship with him and confidence in what he has taught us.”
The Greek word we translate as “faith” is pistis and has a wider range of meanings than simply “belief of something.” Kenneth Wuest says of the noun usage, “When we come to the noun, we have the meaning of ‘faith and confidence, fidelity and faithfulness’.”
Campbell (citing BDAG, s.v. “πίστις” 818-20), includes the meaning of “allegiance” within the Greek word for faith and asserts that this is the more likely meaning of “faith” in Eph. 2:8. Campbell states: "Allegiance differs from mere mental assent in that it conveys a level of commitment—a person with allegiance to Christ offers his or her devotion and obedience, while also trusting him. In this sense, faith in the Lord Jesus (cf. Eph. 1:15) is not genuine faith if the “believer” has not switched allegiances from self and the forces of evil (2:2-3) to Christ. Since Jesus is presented as the “Lord,” genuine faith in him can involve nothing less than genuine devotion and allegiance.” It entails repentance of sins. That is, an acknowledgement that one has sinned against a thrice holy God and a turning away from serving sin and “the prince of the power of the air” and turning to serving Jesus as Lord (1 Thess. 1:9-10, Acts 17:30-31, Acts 26:20, Rom. 10:9).
This is certainly the narrative we see in Scripture. In 1 Thess. 1:9-10, Paul speaks of how the pagan Gentiles turned from serving idols to serve the true and living God. As Christ says in Matt. 6:24, we cannot serve two masters, and in Matt. 11:29-30 Jesus says: “Take My yoke upon you and learn from Me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For My yoke is easy and My burden is light.” To quote Wayne Grudem, “To come to him includes taking his yoke upon us, being subject to his direction and guidance, learning from him and being obedient to him. If we are unwilling to make such a commitment, then we have not truly placed our trust in him.” As referenced before, compare those who hear the gospel and believe (for a while) in Luke 8:13 to those who hear the gospel and bear fruit with perseverance in Luke 8:15.
8:13, “Those on the rocky soil are those who, when they hear, receive the word with joy; and these have no firm root; they believe for a while, and in time of temptation fall away.”
8:15, “But the seed in the good soil, these are the ones who have heard the word in an honest and good heart, and hold it fast, and bear fruit with perseverance.”
Someone who puts their faith in Christ will bear fruit, or as the parallel passage in Matthew 13 puts it, “bears fruit and brings forth, some a hundredfold, some sixty, and some thirty.” Meaning, those with saving faith will produce a harvest of righteousness! As Paul says in 2 Cor. 5:17, “Therefore if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creature; the old things passed away; behold, new things have come.” It is impossible to have faith in Christ and not be a changed creature; born again! These are the results of faith in Christ and why “faith in Christ” is not some mere acknowledgement of a theological fact, but a total surrender of one’s life to Christ as Savior and Lord (Rom. 10:9). This is why Kyle Snodgrass states, “The term ‘faith’ (pistis) cannot be limited to mental assent or to believing certain ideas. Faith is relational, describing reliance on a reliable God. Faith is a covenant word, expressing the commitment and trust that bind two parties together. People who believe do not merely assent to certain ideas but are bound to God and live in response to him.”
This is what James means when he wrote that “faith without works is dead” in James 2:26. Abraham’s “faith” in God would not have been real faith had he not also obeyed God. His was a covenant faithfulness. Faith and obedience are two sides of the same coin. Hebrews 11 is an amazing commentary on what is meant by this. Through faith Noah obeyed God by building an ark (v.7), by faith Abraham obeyed by going where God told him to go (v.8), by faith Abraham offered up Isaac, knowing God would be faithful to His promise (v.17-19), by faith the Israelites kept the passover, passed through the Red Sea and obeyed when given instructions on how to conquer Jericho (v.28-30). Note how all of this was not by works of the Law (Gal. 2:16), but works through faith in the true and living God. Our faith, like these examples, is not blind, however. Rather, our faith is a response to God’s command. It’s a response to a God who has proven to be faithful and true (like Abraham). Finally, consider Jesus’ words in Luke 14:25-33 and do as Paul commands in 2 Cor. 13:5, “Test yourselves to see if you are in the faith; examine yourselves!”
For further study, see: Wayne Grudem- Systematic Theology: An Introduction to Biblical Doctrine, 1994 (ch. 35) and Constantine Campbell- The Letter to the Ephesians, PNTC (p.102-106)
2:10- Paul now states the result of being saved by grace through our faith; the result of being raised to life in Christ and becoming a new creation through Him! That is, we are His glorious creation made for “good works” that He has prepared beforehand (indicating before the foundation of the world—i.e. 1:4). Meaning, this has always been part of His plan of salvation, to redeem those who were slaves of sin to be slaves of righteousness (Rom. 6:18). Of this Liefeld writes, “In this context the point is not that every event is predetermined, good and bad (however that may be understood from other texts), but that God has prepared the good works believers are to do. This can be understood either as ethical ways to be followed or as specific instances of obedience.” Interestingly enough, as Paul pointed out at the beginning of the chapter, before being saved, we “walked” according to the devil’s ways (see 2:2). We were “walking” in sin and trespasses against God. Now that we are in Christ, we are able to “walk” according to God’s ways and produce good works. Hodge sums up, “Union with him is a source of new life, and a life unto holiness; and therefore it is said created unto good works. Holiness is the end of redemption, for Christ gave himself for us that he might redeem us from all iniquity, and purify unto himself a peculiar people zealous of good works. Titus 2:14. Those therefore who live in sin are not the subjects of this redemption.”
Christianity is not a set of beliefs someone can simply “affirm” while continuing to live for their own desires and in a life of sin. If we have been made alive in Christ from our former state of being dead in sin, we will have a transformed life. Our desire will be to please our Lord, to walk in the good works our God has prepared for us; good works that “flow from what God does in us, rather than God’s work in us flowing from our works” as Craig Keener writes.
2:11-12- These two verses sum up the most bleak outlook for anyone not in Christ, but more specifically the state of a people group who were not in covenant with the true and living God. That is, as Paul points out, his Gentile audience was without God and consequently without hope! I can think of no worse state of despair to be in than to be separated from God and without hope. Yet, this was the reality for the Gentiles. Paul calls on his readers to “remember” their former state and makes the distinction in verse 11 by contrasting the “circumcised” (that is, the Jewish people in covenant with God) from the “uncircumcised” (the Gentiles who were not in covenant with God). Though, he is quick to point out before he moves on that the physical sign of the covenant with the Jewish people was “performed in the flesh by human hands.” Meaning, despite the physical, outward sign the Jews had, it was merely done by human hands and did not reflect the inward spiritual state (Col. 2:11, Phil. 3:3, Gal. 5:6).
Returning to his main point in verse 12, Paul points out, as Foulkes describes it, that “They did not belong to, and found themselves cut off from, the fellowship and privileges (such as Rom. 3:1 and 9:4 describe) of those who truly called themselves the people of God.” I think an apt picture of this can be seen in Matt. 15:21-28 with the Gentile woman beseeching Jesus. We see in that account both the dichotomy of the hopelessness of Gentiles in being alienated from God's chosen people and outside of the covenant promises and blessings, but also the grace that was to be extended to Gentiles by way of their faith through Christ. The emphasis here, though, is on the alienation from God and the resulting hopelessness of both life and the afterlife to come. Of this, A.R. Fausset states, “The CONJECTURES of pagan philosophers as to a future life were at best vague, and utterly unsatisfactory. They had no divine "promise," therefore no sure ground of "hope." Epicurus and Aristotle did not believe in it at all. The Platonists believed the soul passed through perpetual changes-now happy, then again miserable; the Stoics, that it existed no longer than until the general burning up of all things.” The point being, outside of God, His truth and His promises, there can be no real hope. Everything is speculation and grounded in sand, rather than on rock. Pagan Gentiles may have had a pantheon of false gods, but tragically were separated from the true and living God.
2:13- “But now,” Paul says, the solution to this alienation has been presented in Christ Jesus. In the Old Testament, the Gentiles are presented as being “far off” (1 Kings 8:41; Isa. 5:26, Jer. 5:15) while Israel is “near” to God (Ps. 148:14). But, no longer are Gentiles who are “in Christ” far from God, but have been brought near! No longer strangers, but adopted children! How is this accomplished? “The blood of Christ.” Christ’s atoning death for the sins of the world is the means by which God upheld justice for sins and yet could justify those who placed their faith in Christ (Rom. 3:25-26). What we see in the Old Testament is that the shedding of blood is required for the forgiveness of sins (Exod. 30:10, Lev. 17:11, 2 Chr. 29:24; cf. Heb. 9:22). However, with Christ’s shed blood on the cross, there is now a new covenant (Matt. 26:28) by which not only are sins forgiven and Gentiles are able to be brought near to God, but as verse 14 shows us, the Gentiles who were once alienated from the Jews are now one people in Christ!
2:14- Isa. 9:6 says of the Messiah, “For a child will be born to us, a son will be given to us; And the government will rest on His shoulders; And His name will be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Eternal Father, Prince of Peace.” Christ not only brings about peace vertically (between humanity and God), but horizontally (between men-Jew and Gentile). Paul says in verse 14 that Christ has made both groups into one unified body and broke down the “dividing wall.” While there is a reference to the law of Moses in the next verse, some commentators (Foulkes, Liefeld, Keener, Campbell) see this as also referencing the dividing wall in the temple that separated Gentiles from the inner courts. The punishment for a Gentile to go beyond the wall (or barrier) was death and there was a sign in the temple stating as much. Paul was all too familiar with this. As he wrote this letter, he was sitting in prison and had been there for a few years. The official false charge against Paul that kicked off a four year long imprisonment was that he took Gentiles into the inner court of the temple (Acts 21:28-29). Campbell writes, “The dividing wall of the temple is, therefore, a central symbol of the separation between Jew and gentile and it represents the worshiping privilege of the Jews over against gentiles. That Christ has torn it down in his flesh is immensely significant for relations between the two parties.”
Others, like Ben Witherington III, see no such specific allusion to the temple as his readers in Ephesus would have been completely removed and ignorant from such prohibitions, being Gentiles and located nowhere near Jerusalem (save for a rare exception like Trophimus–Acts 21:29). Witherington writes, “Paul is not discussing a particular sign or wall, but that which separated Jew and Gentile, and that is surely the Mosaic Law.”
While this is ultimately true (Paul does go on in verse 15 to mention the law) I think scholars are justified in thinking that Paul is also alluding to and drawing a parallel to the temple wall given his personal experience with a Gentile from Ephesus. As Max Turner points out, “A literal barrier in the temple itself which prohibited Gentiles, on pain of death, from entering the inner courts where Israel worshiped, was merely the outward expression of the Mosaic requirements.” Meaning, it was ultimately the law of Moses that separated the two groups (the cause) and one of the “effects” of that can be seen in the dividing wall in the temple, of which Paul was very familiar and was relevant to the enmity between Jews and Gentiles. Furthermore, as Paul goes on to point out in the rest of the chapter (especially the last two verses), we (the church) are being built up as a holy temple unto the Lord, the dwelling place of God’s Spirit. For Paul to have in mind the temple in Jerusalem in verse 14 makes even more sense considering the context.
2:15-16- As mentioned in the comments on the previous verse, what ultimately separated Jew from Gentile was the Mosaic Law which was the result of the old covenant. Jew and Gentile now exist as “one new man.” That is to say, as Foulkes puts it, “Gentiles do not simply rise to the status of Jews, but both become something new and greater.” It’s an entity that previously did not exist. How is this possible? The answer is that Christ made a way to come and be reconciled to God not by works and ceremonies of the law, but by repentance and faith in Him.
This means that whether Jew or Gentile, justification before God is through Christ and as such, are a unified new body or creation with Christ. Paul emphasizes again in verse 16 that by way of the cross of Christ, this new covenant that reconciles man to God now reconciles mankind to each other. There is now no Jew, nor Greek, nor slave, nor free for those who are in this new covenant with Christ, but we are all one entity. One body with Christ as the head (Gal. 3:28, Col. 1:18).
2:17-19- In continuation of the “near” and “far” motif in 2:13, Paul references Isaiah in verse 17. It is quite possible Paul has had some of the broader contexts of the latter half of Isaiah in mind throughout this chapter. Frank Thielman notes that Paul skillfully combines Isa. 52:7 and 57:19 to speak to the fact that Christ has come with a message of peace; a message that was preached to those near (the Jews) and those who were far (the Gentiles). While scholars note the immediate context of those two passages in Isaiah refer to the Jews both who were in captivity (far off) and those still in geographical Israel (near), Theilman, pointing to passages like Isa. 55:5 and 56:6-7, states: “The broader context of the passage indicates that a reference to the Gentiles probably at least stands in the background and may be the primary meaning of the text.”
Theilman concludes then, that “Christ’s death brought in the period of peace that Isaiah said would characterize the time of Israel’s restoration, a period when the nations would come from afar and join Israel in the worship of the one “who created the heavens… who fashioned the earth and made it.” (Isa. 45:18).”
The result of all this is summed up rather beautifully and simply in verse 18. Note the presence of the Trinity in this verse. “Through Him” (that is, Jesus), both people groups have access in “one Spirit” (that is, the Holy Spirit), to “the Father” (God the Father). Campbell thus rightly concludes, “Relationship with God is facilitated by means of his triune nature, with Father, Son, and Spirit, and with each playing their role in enabling human worship.” The only way to worship God in spirit and in truth (John 4:24) is through the Word made flesh (John 1:1-18) and by being born of His Holy Spirit (John 1:33, 3:6).
The result of this is as Paul states in verse 19, Gentiles who are in Christ are no longer separated from God or believing Jews, but are fellow citizens in the kingdom of God and adopted into His household. This stands in stark contrast to the problem in verse 12. Unlike the Gentile “alien” who could live among the people of Israel, but without the full benefits and privileges of being God’s covenant people (Exod. 12:43, Deut. 23:20, for example), Gentiles now are fellow citizens in God’s kingdom and household with all the privileges and benefits (justification before God, access to the presence of God living in them, the hope of eternal life, etc).
2:20- God’s household is built upon the foundation that the apostles and prophets laid with Christ being the cornerstone. Without Christ commissioning His apostles, there would be no foundation on which to build this house! This speaks of the unique role the apostles and prophets had in establishing the church; laying a foundation that was only to be laid once so that the church can be built upon it (1 Cor. 3:10-11). God used the apostles and prophets as His mouthpiece to deliver the oracles of God, not dissimilar to the prophets of the Old Testament (see 3:5, cf. John 17:8, 17:20; Acts 2:42). When we, in the 21st century come to faith in Christ, it is because we are believing in God’s word delivered to us through His chosen messengers and thus devote ourselves to their teaching. As Paul told the Thessalonians, “For this reason we also constantly thank God that when you received the word of God which you heard from us, you accepted it not as the word of men, but for what it really is, the word of God, which also performs its work in you who believe.” -1 Thess. 2:13.
This is what Jude meant when he wrote that we have “the faith which was once for all handed down to the saints.” -Jude 3. That is to say, as Campbell rightly concludes, “The teaching and ministry of the apostles and prophets provides a secure foundation upon which God’s household is built, ensuring that it grows in accordance with their authentic witness to the truth. To deviate from apostolic and prophetic witness would be to build falsely without authorization from the master builder.” This concept is crucial to understand for the believer. When Muhammad, Joseph Smith, or any self proclaimed “prophet” comes along hundreds of years later to declare a “new revelation” or visitation from an angel adding to, modifying, or subtracting from “The Faith” once for all handed down, we can confidently reject such nonsense (see also: Gal. 1:8-9, 2 Thess. 2:15, Heb. 1:2). As John Stott proclaims, “The church stands or falls by its loyal dependance on the foundation truths which God revealed to his apostles and prophets, and which are now preserved in the New Testament Scriptures.”
That “prophets” here refers to New Testament/apostolic era prophets is made evident by 3:5 and 4:11, though Paul would certainly include the Old Testament in this as he frequently points to the prophetic witness of Scripture in his writings (to include this very chapter–2:17). Jesus Christ is the cornerstone of this foundation, the foundation upon which the entire church is built (Matt. 21:42). This resembles 1 Peter 2:4-7 in which the apostle quotes Isa. 28:16 and Psa. 118:22. One cannot be a part of the building; this temple of God, without the proper foundation and the cornerstone upon which it rests. That is, the truth of who Christ is and the work He accomplished as taught by His apostles and prophets. As Kevin DeYoung notes, “The church is built not upon impressions and ecstatic revelation but upon the words of the apostles and prophets.”
Regarding the pairing of “apostles and prophets” as laying this foundation, Stott offers great insight when he writes: “Since apostles and prophets were both groups with a teaching role, it seems clear that what constitutes the church’s foundation is neither the person nor their office but their instruction. Moreover, we are to think of them as inspired teachers, organs of divine revelation, bearers of divine authority. The word ‘apostles’ here cannot therefore be a generic term for missionaries or church planters or bishops or other church leaders; instead it must denote that small and special group whom Jesus chose, called and authorized to teach in his name, and who were eyewitnesses of his resurrection, consisting of the Twelve plus Paul and James and perhaps one or two others.”
In other words, “apostles and prophets” can be thought of as one authoritative category as their role in church history was to lay the very foundation of the church by new revelation from the Spirit (see 3:4-6). Prophets, though subordinate to the authority of the apostles (1 Cor. 14:37), were higher in authority than teachers (1 Cor. 12:28) and are grouped with the apostles multiple times through the NT (as here and in 3:5, cf. 4:11). Just as there is no instruction to the church on appointing “new” apostles, the same can be said of prophets. In the context of church structure, the only official “offices” are elder (bishop/pastor) and deacon, the qualifications for such being laid out in 1 Timothy 3 and Titus 1. Albert Barnes remarks of the apostles and prophets in ch. 3:5 (but is appropriate here): “They were persons endowed in this manner for the purpose of imparting to the newly formed churches the doctrines of the Christian system. There is no evidence that this was designed to be a permanent order of people in the church. They were necessary for settling the church on a permanent basis, in the absence of a full written revelation, and when the apostles were away. When the volume of revelation was finished, and the doctrines of the gospel were fully understood, the functions of the office ceased.”
2:21-22- In 1 Corinthians, Paul teaches that believers are God’s temple. No longer does His Spirit and presence dwell in a physical temple, but in all those who place their faith in Christ.
“Do you not know that you are a temple of God and that the Spirit of God dwells in you?” -1 Cor. 3:16
“Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have from God, and that you are not your own?” -1 Cor. 6:19
Paul echoes his earlier teaching to the Corinthians in these verses, but probably has in mind the unified body of Jews and Gentiles as one building being built on one foundation. Whereas there was a literal barrier to Gentiles in the physical temple (2:12-14), now believing Jews and Gentiles are the temple with the presence of God dwelling in them and are united as one building (constantly being added to; “growing”). What these verses should also remind us, however, is that as we are dwelling places for the Spirit of God, we believers are to be set apart for God. That is, as Paul speaks to in 1 Corinthians, we ought not defile ourselves with the wickedness of the world and the desires of the flesh. We ought to be consecrated unto God as a dwelling place for His presence and seek to live holy lives (Gal. 5:16, 1 Peter 1:16).
Bibliography (works cited):
Akin, Daniel L.- 1, 2, 3 John, NAC, p. 108
Barnes, Albert- Barnes' Notes on the Whole Bible, Ephesians
Campbell, Constantine- The Letter to the Ephesians, PNTC, 2023
DeYoung, Kevin- Daily Doctrine: A One-Year Guide to Systematic Theology, 2024, p. 28
Fausset, A. R.- Jamieson, Fausset & Brown Bible Commentary, Ephesians
Foulkes, Francis- The Epistle of Paul to the Ephesians, TNTC, 1981
Grudem, Wayne- Systematic Theology: An Introduction to Biblical Doctrine, 1994 (p. 715)
Hodge, Charles- A Commentary on the Epistle to the Ephesians, 1856
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Liefeld, Walter L.- Ephesians, IVPNTC, 1997
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Wuest, Kenneth- Word Studies in the Greek New Testament, Vol. 3, “The Greek Word for Faith,” p.38