Expositor's Bible Commentary Commentary Ephesians 1:3

"Blessed [be] the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who hath blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly [places] in Christ:" — Ephesians 1:3 (ASV)

The focus of praise in vv.3–14 is what God has done in Christ. Christian faith and life have their center in God’s Son, and the letter therefore opens with an expression of gratitude for all that is found in him. It is cast in the form of a Jewish blessing. Its structure is poetic and is ruled by parallelism, though scholars are not agreed as to how its stanzas are to be grouped.

“Praise be to” (or “blessed be”; GK 2329) is used exclusively of God (Father or Son) in the NT to indicate the One who alone is worthy of worship. “Father of our Lord Jesus Christ” is a distinctively Christian addition arising out of a unique relationship. God who is to be blessed has already blessed all his people in Christ through the saving events of his life, death, and resurrection. A blessing in the OT denotes the bestowal of good; it is often material and invariably specific. God’s blessings for us in Christ are more exclusively spiritual but nonetheless definite. These benefits are “spiritual” (GK 4461) in nature because they are communicated to us through the Holy Spirit, whose function is to transfer to believers all that God has achieved in Christ. They have already been secured “in the heavenly realms” (cf. 1:20: 2:6; 3:10; 6:12) where Christ now reigns, having triumphed over “the spiritual forces of evil” (6:12) that threatened to usurp control. Their value is measured by the price that was paid to obtain them when on the cross the Son of God fought satanic opponents and disarmed them (Colossians 2:15).