Ephesians Explanatory Translation (member version)
Welcome members.
We hope you enjoy the beginnings of this Explanatory Translation of Ephesians.
Chapter 1
1 I am Paul and I write to you the words Jesus Christ has commissioned me to write according to the will of God. I write to those who God made to be His own—different from those who belong to this world—to you Ephesians who have trusted in Christ Jesus.
2 I want you to know that God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ are continually bestowing on you their great favor and they are working to give you wholeness in your soul so you will not have any anxiety in your spirit, but instead will be filled up with the goodness of God. 3 As a matter of fact, because you are in Christ, God the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ has blessed you, and is blessing you, and will always continue to bless you with every spiritual blessing that exists in the heavenly realm. There is no limit to how much blessing He is working to lavish on you. 4 Because even before the world began, God the Father decided that He would make you and me to live in His presence as holy and completely without fault in His sight. He committed Himself to do all this for us because that is who He is and what He is like: committed to our benefit at the expense of His benefit no matter what the cost.
5 & 6 He decided way back then to adopt you and me into His family as His children, and all this would be accomplished through what Jesus Christ did. It pleased Him to do all this for us because He wants us to experience the extreme joy—the extreme joy that comes when we gratefully praise Him for the glorious favor He freely lavishes on us who are in His beloved Son.
7 The price God paid for his lavish gift was the blood of Jesus Christ when He died in our place, buying us back, forgiving all the bad things we do. He did all this for us because that is just who He is and what He is like—He sacrifices Himself so we can experience the great riches of His blessings. 8 God continually pours His unimaginably great riches into our lives, but He does it carefully, using great wisdom and understanding, so it ultimately does us good and not harm (because we know that often if we get exactly what we wish for, it ends up being a really bad idea).
9 & 10 And one way God wisely blesses us is by revealing the vastness of Christ’s work for us—riches that until now have been kept in the secret places of eternity. Because the nature and purpose of God is to, now that the time is exactly right, to reunite in Christ all things on earth with all things in heaven. 11 And that includes us! According to His plan before time began, God the Father predestined you and me to be re-united with Christ and to be co-inheritors of all things with Him. 12 God has done all this so that we who trust in Christ will joyfully exult in and proclaim His awesome accomplishments. We do this because we know with certainty that the finished work of Jesus Christ guarantees all these will be ours even though many of them have not yet been received.
13 & 14 And the down-payment and guarantee of all those promises is God’s own Holy Spirit, whom you have already received, when you heard and trusted in the truth of God that you are saved by the work of Christ. God has done all this so we will see and proclaim the great magnitude of what kind of person Christ is to have done all this for us.
15, 16 & 17 As you have grabbed hold of these truths it has resulted in you having a more solid trust in the Lord Jesus. And it has spawned a deeper attitude of sacrificial love in you so that you are considering all the others that God has set apart to be His own heirs—that you consider each other to be more important than yourself. Yes, I have heard about all this, and it causes me to always remember to pray for you. And what specifically am I praying for you?
First, I am thanking God for you and for doing all of this in you! And then I am praying that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of great and immeasurable magnificence, would give you a spirit of wisdom so you will be more spiritually prosperous and skilled in navigating the challenges of life, and that He would reveal to you a better and better understanding of Who He truly is and what He is truly like. 18 For you who He has called to be His own: I am praying that He would enlighten the eyes of your heart that you would be even more convinced of the absolute certainty of what God has in store for you. Specifically, I am praying that God would make clear to you what are the enormous riches of His inheritance that He has in you!
19 I pray that God would make known to you the exceeding greatness of His overwhelming power. He exerts this power to benefit us, as we trust Him to be strong for us. 20 This is the same power and strength He used to raise Christ from the dead, and to seat Christ in the heavenly realms at His right hand in the place of authority over everything. 21 And by “everything,” I mean that Jesus Christ is above every other ruling force; and every other authority; and every other power; and every other ruler; and every other reputation; all of which are now subject to His will. And He has this supreme power and authority not only in this present age, but He will continue to have it throughout the entirety of the age to come.
22 In other words, God the Father has put all these rulers and powers and reputations under Christ’s feet, so they are forever subject to whatever Christ says. 23 And God did this because of the Church, which is the body of Christ. The Church has Christ’s entire priority and focus because He is in the process of filling it with ALL that He is. [Translator’s note: The implication here is that the Church is not only just the most important thing in history, but it means that, because He is filling us with ALL that He is, the Church is the ONLY reason for human history!]
Chapter 2
1-3 You used to live your life clueless and uncaring, continually wandering into all sorts of error and sin. You just did whatever the lusts of your body and mind wanted. You blindly followed the dictates and leading of the evil spirits who willfully appealed to whatever fleshly impulses you felt at the moment. In the same way, we all refused to be persuaded by God about truth, and were therefore subject to His wrath in all that we did, just like everyone else around us who were also clueless about God.
4 But God, who cares so much more about your welfare than He does about His own, committed Himself to have mercy on you and to bless you no matter what it cost Him.
5-6 For we were dead and helpless as we constantly, blindly, stumbled into error. But God decided He would pay the whole price necessary to save us and raise us from this death and make us alive in Christ Jesus. And not just alive in Christ, but He exalted us to the extreme position of being seated with Christ on His throne, sharing with us His authority over all the heavenly realms.
7 And why did He do this? He did all this in order to spectacularly show us the extravagant riches of Christ, which are now all ours, because He freely lavishes all of them on us who are in Christ Jesus; and not only now, but also in all the ages to come.
8-9 God made a decision: to show you extreme favor and save you by pulling you up out of sin and healing the damage sin has caused in your life. What does he ask of you in return? Only this: that you trust Him to do all of it for you, because you can't bring a thing to the table. You can't contribute a thing, and you don't deserve a bit of it. But He does it all as a free gift anyway, no strings attached.
But I'll say it again--none of this was your doing. You don't bring a shred you can hold onto and feel good about that might obligate God to help you. That's why it's 100% God's doing, His gift to you.
10 And what was God’s purpose in doing this for you? Remember His plan is to bless you, and from the beginning He has planned and worked to create you and then save you by the sacrificial work of Christ Jesus, so you could experience His goodness. He displays His goodness in the healing activities He has planned for you to participate in and enjoy.
11-13 Thinking about this great salvation we have in Christ Jesus, let’s take a moment to put it all into historical perspective. You gentiles used to be regarded as foreigners to the promises and heritage of God.
You were regarded as foreigners by the Jews because they were included from ancient times into the covenants of God (as given through Abraham and Moses). They lived out their inclusion into these covenants by conforming to the fleshly ordinance of circumcision that God gave to Abraham and his descendants. And for generations they also subjected themselves to the ordinances of the Law given by God through Moses.
In contrast, you gentiles, because you were not circumcised or subject to the Law of Moses, you were separated from God and from the promised hope of salvation that would come to the descendants of Abraham. You used to be on the outside, alienated from the covenants of God. But now, because of Christ Jesus, you are on the inside by the power of the blood of Christ being sacrificed for you. And you are now completely exalted as equal heirs with the Jews to receive all the same promises of God.
14-17 Christ has abolished in His flesh the need for these ancient commandments and decrees. For Jesus Christ Himself is our completeness before God. Because Christ Himself has made up all the deficits in our righteousness, which He did through the sacrifice of His life on the cross. God now sees nothing lacking in our righteousness as we now stand in the blood of Christ before Him. This applies equally to those who have spent their whole life being diligent about doing what God requires in His Law and also to those who are just now hearing the truth about God for the first time.
There used to be a wall of hostile pride between those who devoted their lives to obeying God and those who didn’t know or care anything about God. But the sacrifice of Jesus Christ on the cross is so powerful that it completely demolishes all arguments that would elevate the righteousness of those who would claim some merit before God because of their obedience. Both sides now know that the ONLY justification they can have before God is the blood of Christ. Jesus Christ has annulled any claim of those who think they could earn some merit before God through their obedience to His Law.
The blood sacrifice of Christ on the cross is so powerful that it alone has become the ONLY reason for God declaring us righteous. It alone unifies all of us in Christ. This is true both for those who have been carefully diligent to devote their lives to obeying God’s Law, and also for those who used to ignore God as they pursued their own selfish agenda.
18 And what is the proof that we all have equal standing before God? The fact that God’s Holy Spirit indwells each of us and therefore provides everyone one of us (who is in Christ) with unhindered full access to God the Father.
19 So then, even those who are new to this relationship with God are not treated as strangers or outsiders or less important, but we all are now equal members in God’s household, fully equal in all aspects of merit and right standing before God.
20-22 Each of us has a critically important role to play in the home God is building for Himself, in which He dwells in each of us by His Holy Spirit. This home has a foundation that was laid by the apostles and prophets as directed by Jesus Christ Himself. And because God Himself dwells in you, each of you fill an indispensable place in the superstructure.
[Translator’s note: As you read and study and pray about this chapter, please don’t miss this: No one of us has followed the law of God satisfactorily. We all are found guilty and condemned before God if we are judged on the basis of the way we have lived and what we have done. But Jesus Christ Himself has already substituted his complete righteousness for our unrighteousness (because when we are at our best, on our own we all fall short, way short, of God’s glory), so we each of us who are in Christ already stands perfectly righteous before God. It is for this reason that God finds no grounds for condemnation in any of us—because we each stand before God already clothed in the complete righteousness of Jesus Christ Himself.]
Chapter 3
1-5 I have a secret! This is a secret that, up until now, God has kept hidden from all previous generations, (9-10) and even from the angels. But now, God has revealed it to His apostles and has told me to share it with those of you who have accepted that I am an apostle, compelled by Christ to share such things with you. For God has commissioned me to share this mystery that has been hidden from the ages but now has been revealed to me by God’s Holy Spirit so I could write it, and you could read it and absorb the mind-blowing truth of the way God’s grace works in the Church.
So, if you are ready to hear this secret and know and accept the power of the blood of Christ, here it is: (6-8) The cost of your righteous standing before God is infinite, but Jesus Christ has completely paid this infinite price. As I have said, the power of the shed blood of Christ is yours whether you are a Jew who has devoted his whole life to serving God, or whether you are a gentile who has recently forsaken a life of rebellion against God, and you now plead only the shed blood of Jesus Christ as your only merit before God. Both of you have equal standing before God because He only sees Christ when He looks at you, and nothing you have done, good or bad, enters into His assessment of your righteousness, which is really good for you because the cost is infinite and that is way beyond our ability to achieve. [translator’s note: the implication here is that our sin is an infinite error because it is the violation of the infinite holiness of God, and therefore requires infinite payment.]
Both the Jew and the gentile will receive exactly the same reward and standing before God because the blood of Christ is that powerful.
6-7 This is the Gospel: the message of the undeterred intention of God to rescue us from our sin and exalt us all as equal heirs in Christ. And God is showing His great free and unhindered favor to us by using His great power to make me to be an enthusiastic and effective messenger of this Gospel to you.
8 To do this, God has given me the lowest status of anyone in society because He has made me to be the servant to all; no one is my servant, and I am delighted to be the servant to everyone else as I carry out this calling to preach and teach you about this mystery of the infinite riches of Christ that God is bestowing on you!
9-11 God has been right to keep this mystery hidden—a right that is His alone because, after all, He is the creator of all things. He has kept it hidden from all previous generations until now because now it has finally been fulfilled by the life and sacrifice and resurrection of Jesus Christ.
This has been His eternal plan all along, … but He kept it hidden not only from all previous generations on earth, but also from all the angelic rulers and authorities in the heavenly realms. Just think about how magnificent is the wisdom of God that He should reveal this, His greatest truth, to the angelic hosts by what they now see is at work in the Church!
12 And what do these angelic watchers see? Well, among other things, one surprising thing they see is that, for we humans who are persuaded by God to accept Christ’s sacrifice for us, we are now given free and unfettered access directly to the throne of God (something they do not have); we can each of us now come freely before Him boldly making our petitions and being confident He will hear and answer us according to our needs.
12-13 Don’t you see how exciting all this is? How thrilling it is that we have access directly to God almighty that not even the angels have? Don’t you see how extremely important this makes you in the sight of all the heavenly hosts!!! In light of this, please, please, please do not lose heart when you see the tribulation I have to endure to bring this good news to you. Instead of being discouraged by my suffering, you should be rejoicing at the great favor God is showing you—I know I am!
14-16 So, what am I doing about all this? I am on my knees praying to our Heavenly Father who is the one who gives everyone their unique family status in the real social hierarchy of all beings. I am praying that His Holy Spirit would powerfully encourage and strengthen each of you in your inner person. How powerful? With the full power that comes from experiencing the infinite riches of His glory that are yours in Christ Jesus!
17 And how do we experience the infinite riches of Christ’s glory? Well, you have to realize that your faith comes from being firmly persuaded that Christ lives in your hearts, which in turn comes from each of you considering the others among you as more important than yourself.
18-19 Now here is the really big deal about all this: God’s plan is to completely fill you with all the infinite fullness of who He is! This, of course, is way beyond the ability of any of us to comprehend with our finite minds. But you will come to experientially know the full measure of all aspects of the way Christ considers YOUR benefit MORE important than HIS own, which will be revealed as you all work together to treat each other as more important than yourselves.
20-21 For you see, God’s full glory becomes apparent to everyone, both now and throughout all the ages to come, by what is revealed in the person of Jesus Christ and in His body, the Church. Our part in this happens when we ask God for His provision and then He answers by His Holy Spirit powerfully working in us to deliver His provisions in a way that WAY more than exceeds anything we could have possibly imagined. In this way the Glory of God becomes apparent to all!!!
Chapter 4
1-2. You certainly would not want to subvert your own stature and dignity, would you? Of course not! In light of this, Christ is compelling me to challenge you with this question: what exactly would it look like for you to respond in a way worthy of this high calling (remembering the enormously high price Christ has paid for you)?
Well, to begin with, you should live not with a sense of exalted pride in your new position before God, because based on what you have done, you are not worthy of these honors. But instead, you should live the way Jesus did, in lowliness of mind, realizing that you need to depend on God for everything, including even the thoughts you think and the desires you feel. Please realize that you are incapable within yourself to be what God is calling you to be. This realization should lead you to enthusiastically submit to the sovereignty and generosity of your heavenly Father. Then you will be freed up to treat others as more important than yourselves. And even though you are a co-ruler with Christ over all of creation, you must be gentle and non-threatening in all your dealings with others, and especially with each other. Be very patient with everyone—especially those who grate on your nerves and even treat you badly. Remember, Jesus has been extremely considerate of you, bearing with all your idiosyncrasies and rebellious attitudes, and He wants you to likewise bear with each other in all things (just as He has done with you).
3. And this also means you must remain diligent to protect the spiritual unity you all share. This unity comes from the profound spiritual connection you all have as you jointly partake of the Holy Spirit of God who lives in you. For the Holy Spirit works powerfully to bind us together so we will be lacking nothing as each of us makes up for what is lacking in the other. It will be helpful if you keep in mind that we all sink or swim together—whenever one of us stumbles, we all suffer from it.
4-5. And in what ways are we united? How should we view our spiritual unity? What is the basis for this unity we have in Christ? Well, let’s think about this for a moment. Christ has only one body and we are it. We are all the same body of Jesus Christ. (We are not just a well-functioning organization, we are not just a team, we are not just a club of like-minded individuals, we are not just an elite fighting force all sworn to protect and die for each other on the battlefield if necessary. No, we are so closely knit together that we are ONE body, and furthermore, that one body is actually the only body of the Lord Jesus Christ! Christ has only one body and we are it! We are the ultimate unity!) We are all the same body of Jesus Christ.
And God has only one spirit, the Holy Spirit, and we all have that same Spirit of God indwelling each of us. And God calls us all to expect the same great promises from Him.
We serve the same Lord who NEVER wants us to work against each other because He never has conflicting agendas within Himself.
And we all have shared the same baptism by which we have all made the same appeal to God for the same resurrection of Jesus Christ to cause the same transformation of our consciences to align with the same goodness of God.
So you see my brothers and sisters in Christ, we mustn’t allow there to be any times where we work against each other if we all are carrying out the true desires of the same Lord (if we are all following the leading of the same Holy Spirit).
6. Just keep in mind: There is only one God who has created and nurtures each of us and never changes His mind and is never duplicitous about what He wants us to be and do. He is the unchanging source who directs each of us so we function as a unified whole. He continues to work through each of us to be together a unified body in Christ. His Holy Spirit has become an inseparable part of each of us so we will all be motivated and supernaturally equipped to carry out His singular desire. So, we have no basis for division among us—only unity in Christ.
7-10. And to help with this, each and every one of us has been given an enormously generous gift. Each of these gifts is not a small gift, but a gift so generous that it cannot be measured by our finite minds. Your individual gift is measured out to you with all the magnificence and extreme generosity of the infinite nature of the person of Christ. (So, don’t squander it by succumbing to petty divisions.)
Higher than the heavens are above the earth, so great is the gift Christ has given to each of us. He has also removed Satan’s ability to interfere with you using that gift to minister to other believers. He has done all this so we might more fully see His great glory in everything (which is itself a great blessing to us)!
11-12. What specifically are these gifts He has given to us? Specifically, He has given some of us to be apostles, and some of us to be prophets, and some of us to be evangelists, and some of us to be shepherds and teachers.
(Apostles are those specifically commissioned by Christ to authoritatively teach the entire Church about the full measure of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Prophets are those among us who are supernaturally gifted at expositing divine truth—meaning: gifted by God to communicate God’s will and message to others. Evangelists are specifically gifted and called to spread the message of salvation in Christ. Shepherds are the ones among us who tend, lead, and care for the needs of other Christians. Teachers are those who are supernaturally enabled to teach the truths of God’s word to other Christians.)
He has given these special supernatural gifts to us so we could use them to build up the entire body of Christ (we who are called by Christ to be His bride, the Church). We are to use these gifts to bring all of us to perfect working harmony. So let us be intent on ministering to each other, building each other up to be all that Jesus wants us to be.
13. He is bringing us to be unified into a single unit where we will all have the same trust and reliance on Him, and we will share the same experiential revelation of who Jesus, the Son of God, truly is. This will result in us all together becoming completely conformed to the full measure of all that Christ is.
14. The goal here is to get you to a point where you are no longer being deceived and led astray by errant spirits with their insistent voices that lure you into evil deeds through cunning trickery, chocked full of deceit. 15. For this reason, as we live out the revealed truth from God, which is inseparable from the commitment to spend our lives in service to others, we are to mature into Christ in everything that we are and do, keeping in mind that He is the ultimate reason that everything exists and He is the ultimate authority over all things.
16. It is a work of Christ that all of His body (us) is working together being connected and coordinated in a manner that glorifies God. He is choreographing a beautiful dance where each of us is performing the specific role He has equipped us to fulfill. His purpose is that we will increasingly be focused on meeting the needs of each other as we all grow to be more like Him.
17. DON’T walk any longer as the world walks—in the futility of their thinking (in the futility of their worldview)! 18. For the continual and ongoing poisoning and petrification of their hearts causes them to be clueless about reality. This makes them to be strangers to, and alienated from, the life of God. The realities of God are obscured and hidden from them.
19. For they have purposely numbed themselves to any conviction they might otherwise feel. Instead, they have wholeheartedly pursued sensuality, developing a voracious and unquenchable appetite for all kinds of impurity.
20. But you my brothers and sisters, have not come to know Christ like that. The pursuit of sensuality and impurity will not lead you to develop a genuine relationship with Jesus Christ.
21. So ask yourself this question: Have you really heard what Jesus has taught? Have you actually been taught the truth that is in Him?
22. Have you truly renounced the old you? Have you laid aside your former way of life? Have you come to grips with the fact that the old you was constantly being corrupted by the lies you told yourself to justify your own lusts?
23. Have you made up your mind to accept the fact that you are supposed to be renewed in your spirit?
24. Have you committed to putting on the new you (like you would put on a new set of clothes)—the new you that God has created to stand fully approved before him—the new you that He has made to be His alone and full of the truth of Christ?
25. So now that you have identified and discarded this notion of holding onto falsehood, each of you must speak the truth to your neighbor because, after all, we are members of one another.
26-27. When anger rises up in you, don’t let it develop into something sinful. Settle this in your heart and mind quickly. Don’t let it linger into something that will be bad; otherwise you will be creating an opportunity for the devil (to accuse you and mislead you as he tries to steal away the peace and joy you experience from knowing you are always righteous in God’s sight).
28. (Remembering that the agape love of God is all about giving, not taking,) those among you who have been stealing from your neighbor, you need to quit doing that! (And remembering that God is committed to enriching you, and it is at great expense to Him to do so; likewise) you need to work diligently to accumulate at least enough to share with someone who is truly needy. 29. This principle of giving to those in genuine need applies not only to what you do, but also to what you say. Don’t let any words come out of your mouth that would corrupt others. But instead, use your words to edify others—building them up in those places where their hearts and minds need to be more dependent on God. In this way you will bring blessings and joy to them as God uses your words to strengthen them.
30. And DO NOT cause the Holy Spirit of God to be stressed and sorrowful, but keep in mind that He is God’s irreversible guarantee of your redemption. 31. You must let the Holy Spirit remove from you all maliciousness which shows up as bitterness, and rage, and anger, and clamorous shouting, and slander. 32. But instead, let Him develop in you the practice of being constructively charitable to one another. This will show up as being tender hearted and graciously kind to each other, which is exactly the way God has treated you through all He has given you in Christ.
