This verse gives the purpose of God’s saving activity. To demonstrate translates a Greek verb meaning “to show, manifest, give evidence of” (see its use in Rom 9.22; Heb 6.10, 11). It may be necessary to indicate to whom God has demonstrated the greatness of his grace. This may be best expressed in some languages as a statement of cause with a verb of knowing, for example, “he did this in order to cause all people to know.”

For all time to come translates “in the ages that are coming”; for “age” see 1.21. This is a way of speaking in a general way about future time. The Greek preposition en is here translated “in” by Twentieth Century New Testament, Revised Standard Version, and others; the meaning is that God has done this now so that in the future he might show his abundant grace. It seems better, however, to take the prepositional phrase to mean “for all ages to come” (so Good News Translation, Jerusalem Bible, Phillips) or “throughout” (Moffatt, Goodspeed, Barth); what God has done now will for all time to come be a demonstration of his great grace. The meaning may sometimes be expressed by “for generation after generation” or “for days that never end” or “for years that no one has ever yet thought of.”

The extraordinary greatness of his grace: again the author uses superlatives; for the participle of “to go beyond” see 1.19; for “riches” see 1.18. The phrase may sometimes be rendered as “so great is his kindness that no one can imagine it” or “his kindness which is so great that no one can describe it.”

In the love he showed us: the Greek noun means goodness, kindness, generosity (see its use in Rom 2.4; 11.22); he showed us translates the prepositional phrase “to us” or “for us”; and in Christ Jesus expresses the means through which God’s grace was manifested. The whole expression may be rendered as “by the way in which he loved us through Christ Jesus” or “showed his love for us by the way in which Christ Jesus loved us.”

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 .