Verses 21-22 are two parallel relative clauses, “in whom … in whom” (see Revised Standard Version). The first one focuses on the building as a growing organism, and the second one on the part the Gentiles have in it.
Good News Translation understands “in whom” in verse 21 to indicate the agent: Christ is the one who accomplishes what is said of the building (also Barclay). But this “in whom” could be taken to mean “in union with him” (so Translator’s New Testament).
The Greek phrase translated the whole building would normally mean “every building.” This is how Westcott and Murray understood it, calling attention to the fact that the Jerusalem Temple was a collection of several buildings; but Abbott contends that “the temple could not properly be said to consist of several edifices” and takes the Greek to mean “everything that from time to time is builded in,” “every constituent element of the building.” Beare explains the text as meaning “all that God is shaping to his purpose.” Robinson and others, pointing to the use of the same Greek noun in 4.12, 16, 29, take it to mean here “edification,” that is, not the finished product but the building in process (so Translator’s New Testament); Twentieth Century New Testament, Goodspeed, translate “every part of the building”; Phillips “each separate piece of building.”
Not withstanding the form of the Greek text, Revised Standard Version, New English Bible, Good News Translation, and many others translate the whole building (or something similar). Barth presupposes that the text contains a grammatical mistake and translates “the whole construction,” and Dodd, referring to “the looser grammar of Hellenistic Greek,” considers “the whole building” an appropriate translation.
Holds … together translates a Greek verb which occurs also in 4.16 and nowhere else in the New Testament. The verb means “fit or join together” and is formed from the preposition “together” plus a verb which is derived from a noun meaning “fitting, connection.” It must be admitted that the compound sun-harmologeō fits better the idea of “each/every building,” but its use in 4.16 with the whole body demonstrates that it can be used of a structure as a whole, and not only of its several parts.
In translating one who holds the whole building together, it is important to avoid the impression of someone putting one’s arms around a building in order to hold it together. It may therefore be better to translate he is the one who holds the whole building together as “he is the one who causes the whole building to fit together.”
The verb “grows” (Revised Standard Version) is not particularly appropriate to apply to a structure, but the writer is thinking more of the reality typified (the church, the body of Christ) than of the figure used in speaking of it; in 4.15 the same verb is used; it is used transitively also (compare 1 Cor 3.6-7; 2 Cor 9.10). Because of the difficulty involved in using a term meaning “grows” (which would be applicable to animate or vegetable life, but not to a building), it may be better to use some such expression as “makes it become ever larger” or “makes it increase until it becomes….”
Temple translates a Greek noun which usually means “sanctuary, shrine” and is sometimes distinguished from a word for “the (whole) temple,” but a strict distinction between the two is not always intended, and the word used here can be taken to mean temple and not “sanctuary.”
In a number of languages there is no special term for temple, and so the phrase sacred temple may simply be “holy house.” On the other hand, the term sacred is often rendered as “dedicated to God” or “consecrated to the Lord,” so that there may be a complete duplication in the rendering of sacred and dedicated to the Lord. Other expressions are “house of worship (of God)” or “house of God.”
The Greek phrase “in the Lord” goes with sacred temple; it seems better to represent its meaning by dedicated to the Lord (Good News Translation, Translator’s New Testament; Phillips “consecrated to the Lord”) than by “for the Lord”; Revised Standard Version, New English Bible, and others “in the Lord” does not carry much meaning in English.
In some languages the passive expression dedicated to the Lord must be expressed as “which people have set apart just for the Lord.”
Quoted with permission from Bratcher, Robert C. and Nida, Eugene A. A Handbook on Paul’s Letter to the Ephesians. (UBS Handbook Series). New York: UBS, 1982. For this and other handbooks for translators see here .