Thursday, April 04, 2013

Spiritual Blessing in Ephesians 1:3

Ephesians 1:3-14 is called an eulogy because it is a prayer of praise to God the Father for all the spiritual blessings He gives his saints (faithful members of the Church). The following is a snippet of the commentary from Peter T. O'Brien's commentary: The Letter to the Ephesians. I thought it laid out the spiritual blessing in Ephesians 1:3 rather well. I put the blessings in a list format to highlight them.
Here the adjective spiritual means ‘pertaining to or belonging to the Spirit’, and thus ‘spiritual blessings’ signify those which ‘properly pertain to the life of the Spirit’. The adjective does not primarily point to a contrast with what is material (e.g., Deut. 28:1-14), secular or worldly. Nor do Paul’s words suggest simply the spiritual gifts listed in 1 Corinthians 12:3-11. The nature of these gracious gifts is made plain in the following words of the eulogy (vv. 4-14), and include

  • election to holiness,
  • adoption as God’s sons and daughters,
  • redemption and forgiveness,
  • a knowledge of God’s gracious plan to sum up all things in Christ,
  • the gift of the Spirit,
  • and the hope of glory. (O’Brien, p. 97)
How can we not with Paul bless the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ in prayer for giving us this blessing.

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