ΠΡΟΣ ΕΦΕΣΙΟΥΣ: a journey through Ephesians

The long overdue reflection on Ephesians 2:1-10

2009-03-22T00:06:00.000-07:00

I first read Ephesians 2:1-10 over one month ago: February 20, 2009. My study of Ephesians was temporarily halted by a family tragedy--but God is faithful, and has blessed me and helped me gradually ease back into my life. The following is what I had written down February 20th in my journal of my first impressions of this first passage of Ephesians.

"There really is beautiful symmetry and contrast in Ephesians 2:1-2 and 2:10. It moves from us living/behaving (περιπατέω, v.2) in sin (τοῖς παραπτώμασιν καὶ ταῖς ἁμαρτίαις, v.1) to God's having created us to live/behave (περιπατέω, v.10) in good works (ἔργοις ἀγαθοῖς, v.10). Because of this symmetry, I feel like the beginning of verse 10 (αὐτοῦ γάρ ἐσμεν ποίημα, κτισθέντες ἐν Χριστῳ Ἰησοῦ, "for we are his workmanship, being created in Christ Jesus") has great significance, though I am still figuring out what that significance could be...."

"The first real nominative--a noun, rather than a participle or pronoun--of the passage shows up in Ephesians 2:4 (ὁ δὲ θεός...). It creates huge emphasis on God by spending three verses about how sinful we humans are, then dramatically shifting to GOD, the first real nominative! Not only is the passage theocentric, the very first thing said about God is that he is rich in mercy."

When I read Ephesians 2:1-10 with Dr. Newman, I pointed out that I really liked to translate ποίημα ("workmanship" or "masterpiece") of verse 10 as "poem" because of the beautiful implications of it. "For we are God's poem, being created in Christ Jesus for good works which God prepared beforehand, in order that in those good works we might live." I'm not sure how faithful that translation is to Paul's original construction, but the fact that the word is so closely linked to poetry cannot be an accident, and I am sure that there are other words for "masterpiece" that Paul could have chosen if he wanted to avoid poetic connotations.

Daunting decisions of diagramming

2009-02-13T13:42:00.000-08:00

Dr. Newman mentioned that he would like me to diagram the Greek sentences as I read and study. When I sat down to tackle the first passage, I became inundated by all the subtle decisions I had to make only in the first verse (Ephesians 1:3, the first of the passage)! What I learned, very quickly, is that there is not really such a thing as a purely objective reading of the text. Every sentence teems with interpretive demands.

When simply reading ἐν τοῖς ἐπουρανίοις ("in the heavenlies") and ἐν Χριστῳ ("in Christ") of verse 3, it is easy to pass over and to ignore a very obvious issue--what do these prepositions modify? Do they modify each other? If so, how? Are the spiritual blessings (εὐλογίᾳ πνευματικῃ) in the heavens, or was it God's having blessed us (εὐλογήσας ἡμᾶς) that is in the heavens? Are the heavenlies in Christ, or are the spiritual blessings in Christ? Or is it that all the prepositions modifying God's having blessed us? I opted for the latter in this case.

These issues were always there every time I read them before, but I was not forced to recognize the decisions I had been making all along until I drew them out on paper. The only thing I fear is that I will not qualified to make such decisions in the future when they have deeper theological implications. Thank God the Holy Spirit in me is.

Brief meditations on Ephesians 1:7-11

2009-01-30T14:45:00.000-08:00

I absolutely love Paul's description of God's grace as it comes to us through Jesus Christ. Verse 8 is a subordinate clause further describing the grace (or χάρις) that Paul first introduced in verse 6 and mentioned again in verse 7. the operating word of this subordinate clause is περισσεύω, which very basically means "abounds" or "overflows." My NIV translation rephrases this something to the effect of "God lavished," and although that is a pretty warm-feely rendering of the text, I get theological goosebumps from the implications of "grace overflowing to us."

Although it isn't necessarily heresy to claim that God's giving us grace through Jesus Christ was an act of deliberation, I'm not sure that's the picture Paul was painting when he selected the verb περισσεύω. The relative pronoun--referring obviously back to the word "grace" in the preceding verse--clearly adopts "grace" as its subject. The grace, by nature, abounds. God's grace naturally overflows. This by no means makes our receiving the grace an involuntary incident on God's part. God might not have ever created humanity as part of the overall scheme of the cosmos--later to be "summarized" or "recapitulated" in Christ (ἀνακεφαλαιόω, verse 10)--without intending for them to receive his grace, which he knows to abound naturally. Yes, perhaps after all it is an act of deliberation, but more in the fact that God designed it as part of the "plan of salvation" (οἰκονομία, verse 10) embedded in the cosmos, creating us with a purpose of receiving his grace by placing us in the position to receive its abundance.

Verse 8 also uses the phrase "in all wisdom and intelligence" (my translation; σοφίᾳ translates to wisdom, while φρονήσει indicates knowledge and intelligence) to further qualify the overflowing of God's grace. It reads: [τῆς χάριτος...] ἧς ἐπερίσσεθσεν εἰς ἡμᾶς, ἐν πάσῃ σοφίᾳ καὶ φρονήσει. For some reason, when I first read and attempted to translate this verse, my thoughts got lost on the implications of the different translations of the preposition ἐν. In the NIV translation, it is translated as "with," which I always thought to convey accompaniment. ἑν could also be translated as "in" or "by" or "within," though I think the most appropriate translation is "in," however ambiguous it may be. How does this change the meaning? Being the aspiring Christian scholar I am, I cannot help but wonder what the relationship between Christian knowledge and grace was to Paul. Could this phrase not also be Paul's way of calling Jesus "all wisdom and intelligence"? I suppose there could be evidence both ways...

Ephesians 1:1-14 (my translation)

2009-01-30T14:27:00.000-08:00

(1) Paul, an apostle of Jesus Christ according to the desire of God, to the saints who are in Ephesus and who are faithful in Jesus Christ: (2) Grace to y'all and peace from our father God and from Lord Jesus Christ.

(3) Blessed, God and father of our Lord Jesus Christ, having blessed y'all in Christ in all spiritual blessing in the heavens, (4) just as he chose us in himself before the foundation of the cosmos to be holy and blameless before his face in love, (5) having predestined us into adoption into himself through Jesus Christ, according to the good pleasure of his will, (6) into the praise of the glory of his grace, [grace] which he bestowed upon us in the One being loved, (7) in whom we have redemption by means of his blood, redemption which is the forgiveness of transgressions, according to the riches of his grace, (8) [grace] which overflowed to us in all wisdom and intelligence, (9) having made known to us the mystery of his desire, according to his good pleasure which he planned in him [Jesus Christ], (10) into the plan of the completion of proper seasons, all things to be summarized in the Christ--the things in the heavens and the things on the earth in him-- (11) in whom also we were appointed, being predestined according to the purpose of operating all things according to the counsel of his will, (12) to our being in the praise of his glory, [we] the ones having hoped before in the Christ, (13) in whom also y'all, having heard the account of truth, the good news of your salvation, in whom having believed in him also y'all were sealed with the holy spirit of the covenant, (14) which is a pledge of our inheritance into redemption of the preserving--into praise of his glory.