Ephesians

1:3 - Blessed be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in the heavenly realms with every spiritual blessing in Christ.

Blessed be

The Greek word eulogetos is a compound formed from the adverb eu (denoting what is good) and the root log ("word"), and in normal usage means to "speak well of," and hence, to "praise." Paul's usage of the term, however, should almost certainly be traced back to the Jewish habit of blessing God—what is called a berakah—which typically begins with baruk YHWH ’elohey . . , "Blessed be Yahweh, the God . . ."3. In the NT eulogetos is used 7x, and exclusively of God (Father or Son) to indicate the One who alone is worthy of worship.4 As often with Paul, he takes the custom of praising God to new heights in the way he uses the word. Observes Gordon Fee,

Paul plays on the term "blessing" in the same way that in the berakah of 2 Cor 1:3-7 he plays on the term "comfort." The God whom we "bless" is none other than the God who has already "blessed" us with every kind of Spirit "blessing" in Christ . . . our vocal "blessing" of God is in response to his prior redemptive blessing of us through Christ, now experienced in an ongoing way through the Spirit.5

with every spiritual blessing

Notice that the noun is singular; in Jesus God has poured out a continuous stream of blessing.6 While we may be differently gifted for different callings, in the community of the called, we are all similarly blessed. ". . . every blessing of the Holy Spirit," says John Stott, " has been given us by the Father if we are in the Son. No blessing has been withheld from us. Of course we still have to grow into maturity in Christ, and be transformed into his image, and explore the riches of our inheritance in him. Of course, too, God may grant us many deeper and richer experience of himself on the way, Nevertheless already, if we are in Christ, every spiritual blessing is ours."7

But what does it mean for this blessing to be pneumatikos "spiritual?" The course taken by most readers would be to contrast spiritual with earthly, e.g., with material, 'worldly,' or 'secular.' It is hardly likely that this is what Paul has in mind for two reasons. First, nowhere in this sentence of thirtheen verses there any hint that Paul suggests such a contrast. Second, if some such 'materialist' intent was meant, it would have been natural to speak of "all spiritual blessings," instead of the singular.

The true answer, I believe, is already hinted at in the first clause of the quotation from Stott above; it is "every blessing of the Holy Spirit." Gordan Fee puts it like this: ". . . this is Paul's way of expressing in a condensed form what he spells out further in this letter and everywhere else—that the Spirit is the present means whereby God appropriates to the believing community the 'blessings' that flow from the redemptive work of Christ."8

in the heavenly places

The expression "in the heavenly places/realms," or "in the heavenlies," is unique both to Paul and to the letter to the Ephesians (1:3, 20; 2:6; 3:10; 6:12); it is found nowhere else in the New Testament. What does Paul have in mind by this expression? Whatever Paul has in mind here, we may dispense with the notion of some kind of future conception of it, as when someone says, "I know I will go to heaven when I die because Jesus has died for me." A future destiny in heaven is a biblical truth firmly asserted in Scriptures, but Paul seldom dwells on it in his letters. Certainly, it is assumed in Ephesians rather than a subject of concern. It is the present that Paul has in view here. "These gracious gifts," Peter O'Brien reminds us, "are not simply future benefits but are a present reality for us, since they have already been won for us by God's saving action in Christ.9

F. F. Bruce suggests that the "'heavenly realm' is the realm in which Christ has been raised (v.20) and to which his people, united to him by faith, have been raised with him (Eph. 2:6). Even if they live on earth in mortal bodies, they can enter into the good of their heavenly inheritance here and now through the ministry of the Spirit (vv.13-14) . . . This is the setting in which God grants his people every spiritual blessing—from eternal election to eternal glory.10 While Bruce is correct in as much as what he said, he may not have said enough. More so than in any of his other letters, Paul's thoughts are focused on concerns that involve the Holy Spirit.11 This is also evident in three concerns that Gordon Fee perceives as dominating this letter: it is worth while listening to him entire here:

The first is the passion of Paul's life—the Gentile mission, especially in terms of God's reconciling both Jews and Gentile to himself and thereby making of the two a new ἄνθρωπος (humanity) as the ultimate expression of his redeeming work in Christ. This theme first emerges at the end of the opening "blessing of God" (1:11-14); it is developed in a thoroughgoing way in 2:11-22, and is picked up again in 3:1-13, with the Spirit playing a leading role in each case. It is also this "unity of the Spirit" (between Jew and Gentile) that chs. 4-6 are all about by way of exhortation. Thus the whole letter is held together by this theme, admittedly more predominantly so in chs.1-3 than in 4-6.

The second concern, which emerges in a variety of ways throughout the letter, has to do with Christ's victory over the powers for the sake of the Church, with the Spirit playing a key role in his readers' participation in that victory. Crucial to this letter is the way Paul brings these first two concerns together, especially in ch. 3, where the reality of Jews and Gentile together as one people of God is on display before the "powers" so that they become aware of their present—and ultimate—defeat in Christ. This in turn lies behind the third concern, which finds expression in the second major part of the letter (chs.4-6): that they maintain "the unity of the Spirit" (4:1-6) by the way they "walk," that is, by the way they live out the life of Christ in their corporate relationships, including their worship (4:1-5:20), and in their Christian households (5:21-6:9). All of this is brought into final focus in 6:10-20, where through the weapons and armor provided by Christ and the Spirit they are urged to stand as one people in their ongoing conflict with the powers.12

The "final focus in 6:10-20" noted by Fee is particularly important for nowhere else does Paul deal with the struggles faced by Christian believers of "not flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms" (6:12) as it is in this letter. Paul, Clinton Arnorld avers, "wants to assure his readers that they are not in a weak and vulnerable position with respect to the 'powers.' On the contrary, they have been co-raised and co-seated with Christ Jesus 'in the heavenly places' (2:6). The author categorically declares that this position at the right hand of God 'in the heavenly places' is infinitely greater than the power and authority of all the cosmic 'powers' (1:20-21; cf. 4:10)."13

in Christ

This expression, and its equivalent "in him," is typically Pauline and is used 21x alone in this letter (out of a total of 162 in the NT). Click here to open the glossary on this expression.

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