Ephesians 1:3.— The two first verses contain St. Paul's inscription, or introduction, to his Epistle; and thence to Ephesians 1:14 he proceeds to thank God for his grace and bounty to the Gentiles; wherein he so sets forth both God's gracious purpose of bringing the Gentiles into his kingdom under the Messiah, and his actual bestowing on them blessings of all kinds in Jesus Christ, for their complete re-instation in that his heavenly kingdom, that there could be nothing stronger suggested to make the Ephesians, and other Gentiles, converts, give up all thoughts of the Mosaic law; and that much inferior kingdom of his, established upon theMosaic institution, and adapted to a little canton of the earth, and a small tribe of men; as not necessary to be retained under this more spiritual institution, and celestial kingdom, erected under Jesus Christ;—a kingdom intended to comprehend men of all nations, and to extend itself to the utmost bounds of the earth, for the greater honour of God, or, as St. Paul speaks, to the praise of his glory.
Blessed be the God, &c.— The sentence before us runs through twelve verses; a length of period remarkable even in St. Paul's writings, which are frequently difficult to be fully understood on that account. Under the words us and we, in this period, the Apostle doubtless includes the Ephesians, to whom he wrote,—the greatest part of whom were Gentile converts,—as sharing with him and the Jewish Christians in their evangelical privileges; and by thus beginning his Epistle with ascribingthanks to God for his mercies to them, he at once declares his firm persuasion of the calling of the Gentiles, and his hearty joy for it. We have before observed, that it is frequent with this Apostle, to make use of the same words in the same sentence in a different sense from that in which they occurred before. Thus, the word bless, in the beginning of this verse, signifies to praise; and in the next clause, to do good, or, "to confer a blessing upon:"—and for this reason,—that both of them are the effects of a benevolent mind. All spiritual blessings principally refer, not to extraordinary and miraculous gifts, but to the sanctifying and saving graces of the Spirit; such as justification by grace, the adoption of children, the illumination of the Spirit, and all the graces of the Christian life: these are blessings in the heavenlies, εν τοις επουρανιοις, or, in heavenly things, as it should be rendered, rather than places; as they are things which have a manifest relation to heaven, and a tendency to fit us for it.