Now the writer turns away from a description of the sinful condition of mankind to a fresh statement of what God has done for all people. “God” in verse 4 is the subject of the main verb “made alive” in verse 5, and between the subject and the verb come two participial clauses: (1) “(God) being rich in mercy” and (2) “we being dead in our trespasses.”
The first participial clause gives the circumstance or reason why God brought us to life with Christ: it was because he is “rich in mercy” (But God’s mercy is so abundant), which mercy is based on “his great love with which he loved us” (and his love for us is so great). The adjective “rich” means here “great, abundant”: “God’s mercy was abundant.” The Greek noun translated “mercy” means “pity, compassion, feeling of sympathy.” The writer says, “God is very merciful because of his great love for us.” The noun “love” is used of the readers in 1.15; of God in 1.4. The Greek “his great love with which he loved us” is emphatic, the writer using both the noun and the verb. The pronoun “us” is here inclusive, referring to Jews and Gentiles alike.
For languages in which expressions for mercy and love must be expressed as verbs or verb phrases, it may be necessary to restructure the two statements in verse 4, for example, “but God is very, very kind and he loves us very, very much.” The result clause introduced by that at the beginning of verse 5 may then be rendered in some languages as “and so.”
In some translations the relation here between God’s mercy and his love is expressed by a cause and effect construction, for example, “God loved us so much and because of that he had great mercy on us.”
The statement while we were spiritually dead in our disobedience (verse 5) should be rendered in essentially the same way as in the corresponding expression in 2.1, for example, “while we were, as it were, dead as far as the Spirit of God was concerned, because we refused to obey him.”
The main verb (verse 5) is a compound “to make alive together with”; it is followed by two other compound verbs in verse 6, “to raise together with” and “to seat together with.” In all three verbs the Greek preposition means “together with Christ,” and the thought of the whole passage is that Christians share with Christ his experience of being raised from death, being made alive, and being seated at God’s right side. The verb “make alive with” is also used in Colossians 2.13, and “to raise with” is used in Colossians 2.12; here only is the transitive use of “to seat with” found in the New Testament (and only once is the intransitive “to sit with” used, in Luke 22.55).
The relation between the first verb, “he made us alive with Christ” (verse 5), and the two following verbs, “he raised us with Christ” and “he seated us with Christ” (verse 6), is probably intended to be progressive: “he made us alive … and he raised us … and he seated us.”
In verse 5 “he made us alive with” is followed by the simple dative “with Christ,” which parallels very closely the passage in Colossians 2.23 very closely. It should be noticed that some very good manuscripts, including Chester Beatty and Vaticanus, have en tō christō which would mean “in our union with Christ”; despite its strong manuscript support, however, it seems secondary. There are problems involved in any literal rendering of he brought us to life with Christ, for this might imply that believers came back to life in the same way that Christ was raised from the dead. The relationship is a kind of figurative analogy, and therefore it may be useful to introduce this as a simile for example, “it is just as though God brought us back to life together with Christ.” It is important that the translation not have an expression which means “he (God) made us live with Christ.”
Between the first verb and the other two verbs comes the statement “By grace you have been saved” (It is by God’s grace that you have been saved). It is as though the writer anticipates himself and must at once state the basic fact, which he will come to in verse 8 and following. For “grace” see 1.2. The verb “to save” is the one most used in the Bible to describe the central event of humanity’s experience with God, namely, God’s intervention in human history to rescue people from a situation with which they themselves are not able to deal. In biblical history it is God’s intervention on behalf of the Hebrew people in Egypt, freeing them from slavery and taking them to the Promised Land, that provides the paradigm for the verb “to save.” Its perfect, final expression comes in God’s intervention in the person of Jesus of Nazareth, who is called the Savior of mankind. Always the point is made and stressed: what human beings could not do for themselves, God, out of pure love, has done for them through Christ.
The idea of means expressed in the phrase by God’s grace must be rendered in some languages as cause, for example, “it is because God is so kind that you have been saved” or “God has saved you because he is so kind.”
It may be difficult to obtain a fully satisfactory word for “save,” since in so many instances one must select (1) a term with a very general meaning, such as “to help” or (2) terms with very specific meanings, such as “to rescue from death,” “to save from drowning,” or “to cause to escape.” The biblical term involves two important elements: (1) the removal of a person from a dangerous situation and (2) the restoring of a person to wholeness and health. If at all possible it is important to obtain some term which will mean more than mere rescuing from danger, for it is the positive aspect of restoration to health and well-being which is important in communicating the fuller range of meaning.
In verse 6 the two compound verbs are followed by the prepositional phrase “in Christ Jesus” (see Revised Standard Version). This seems to mean more than the simple dative “in Christ” in verse 5, and so is translated by Good News Translation In our union with Christ Jesus (similarly Barclay, New English Bible); Translator’s New Testament has “Because we belong to Christ Jesus.”
There are certain problems involved in a literal rendering of he raised us up with him to rule with him in the heavenly world, since this might imply that people had already died, were raised from the dead, and had already gone to heaven to rule with Christ Jesus. It may be necessary to recognize the figurative sense of this passage and therefore to translate he raised us up with him as “he raised us up, as it were, with Christ.” It may be necessary to represent he raised us up by “he raised us from spiritual death” or “he raised us to spiritual life.” The purpose to rule with him in the heavenly world may then be related to a future function, for example, “in order that we would then rule with him in the heavenly world” or simply “… in heaven.”
For in the heavenly world see 1.3. In a number of languages it is quite impossible to speak of “the heavenly world,” since heaven is one thing and the world (as the earth) is something quite different. Sometimes, however, an expression such as “heavenly realm” or “heavenly region” may be satisfactory.
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 .