Section 1:3–14

God has done good things for us by means of Christ

Paul praised God for all the blessings that come to his people through Christ. Before God created the world, he chose us and then he redeemed us through Christ. God also revealed his plan to us. His plan is to unite everything in the world in the future with Christ as the Head. To show that we are his people, God gave us the Holy Spirit. The Spirit is the guarantee that God will give us all the good things he has promised us.

In Greek, 1:3–14 is all one long sentence. Most translations break this sentence into several shorter sentences. In your translation, you can use a few long sentences or many shorter sentences, whichever sounds best.

Here are some other examples for a heading for this section:

Spiritual blessings in Christ
-or-
God blesses us because we are joined to Christ

Paragraph 1:3–6

Paul praised God for all the blessings that come to us believers through Christ. Long ago before God created the world, he chose us to be his people, because he wanted to adopt us as his children. He did all this because he loved us, because he wanted to show us favor (help us), in order that we might become holy people.

1:3a

Blessed be: The Greek word that the Berean Standard Bible translates as Blessed be is literally “blessed.” It was common for the Jews to use a phrase like this as a formal way to “bless” God. In such contexts, the word “bless” means “praise.” It indicates that people should praise God by telling others how wonderful and excellent he is.

In the Greek text there is no verb (be) after the word “blessed.” See the note on “blessed” in 1:3b below for more information. Most English versions have added a verb to make the phrase more natural.

Here are some other ways to translate this word:

• as an exhortation for the Ephesians to praise God. For example:

Praise (Contemporary English Version)
-or-
Let us praise/thank

• as a statement about God. For example:

God is worthy of our praise/blessing

• As a blessing to God. For example:

May God be praised/blessed

See bless, Meaning 1 in the Glossary.

the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ: Paul was saying that God is both:

(a) the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, and

(b) the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.

In order to make this meaning clear you may need to say something like:

⌊Let us⌋ praise God. He is the God of our Lord Jesus Christ. He is also Christ’s Father.
-or-
He is both the God and the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ

1:3b

who has blessed us: The word who refers to God. When Paul said God has blessed us, it means “God has done good things for us” or “God has given good things to us.” See bless, Meaning 2 in the Glossary for more information.

in Christ: There are two ways to interpret this phrase:

(1) It tells us the means/way by which God gave us these blessings: he blessed us “by uniting us with Christ.” For example:

Through Christ, God has blessed us with every spiritual blessing… (God’s Word)

(Good News Translation, God’s Word, Phillips’ New Testament in Modern English, Contemporary English Version)

(2) It tells us the reason he gave us these blessings. For example:

…who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing…because we are united with Christ. (New Living Translation (2004))

While many English versions leave the phrase in Christ ambiguous, it is recommended that you follow interpretation (1). Also, see how you translated “in Christ Jesus” in 1:1d.

with every spiritual blessing: There are two ways to interpret the phrase spiritual blessing :

(1) It may mean that the blessings are spiritual, not physical or material. In other words, Paul was not talking about things like food or money. Rather he was talking about things like eternal life and forgiveness, which he discussed in the next verses.

(2) It may mean blessings from the Holy Spirit.

It is recommended that you follow interpretation (1).

Here are some ways to translate this phrase:

• Translate it literally like most English versions.

• Translate it as:

with blessings that help our spirit
-or-
with blessings from heaven
-or-
God-given help

blessing: Here blessing refers to the good things that God does for his people. See bless, Meaning 3 in the Glossary.

in the heavenly realms: The phrase in the heavenly realms means “in the spiritual world.” It is a general term, which includes all that exists in the invisible world. This includes heaven where God reigns, but it also includes the realms where all types of spirits live.

This expression occurs only five times in the New Testament, and all of them are in Ephesians (see also 1:20b, 2:6b, 3:10a–b, 6:12c).

In many languages, it will be best to follow the order of the Greek and put the phrase in the heavenly realms after the phrase “every spiritual blessing.” For example:

…he has blessed us by giving us every spiritual blessing in the heavenly world. (Good News Translation)

© 1999, 2019 by SIL International®
Made available under the terms of a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License (CC BY-SA) creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0.
All Scripture quotations in this publication, unless otherwise indicated, are from The Holy Bible, Berean Standard Bible.
BSB is produced in cooperation with Bible Hub, Discovery Bible, OpenBible.com, and the Berean Bible Translation Committee.