Ephesians 1:3–6 · WEB Classic
3 Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ, 4 even as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we would be holy and without defect before him in love, 5 having predestined us for adoption as children through Jesus Christ to himself, according to the good pleasure of his desire, 6 to the praise of the glory of his grace, by which he freely gave us favor in the Beloved.
Paul blesses the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ because God has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ. The repeated language of blessing turns attention toward God’s generosity. Our praise answers what he has done. We do not begin by presenting our accomplishments and inviting God to admire the results.
Spiritual blessings are blessings associated with the Spirit and the heavenly life believers share in Christ. “Spiritual” does not mean imaginary or less real than the things we can hold. Forgiveness, adoption, and the promised inheritance are real gifts even when our bank accounts remain unimpressed. Paul’s own imprisonment makes it difficult to turn this sentence into a guarantee of comfortable circumstances. A man can possess every spiritual blessing in Christ while someone else possesses the key to his cell.
The blessings are located “in Christ.” That relationship defines the chosen people. God chose us in him before the foundation of the world. The choice is real, its timing precedes creation, and its stated purpose is that we should be holy and without defect before God. Paul gives us the identity and destiny of the people God has chosen in his Son.
The people God determined to have
The passage describes God’s purpose for a people in Christ. Before we existed, God had determined that those who belong to his Son would stand before him as his holy people. Election is therefore centered upon Christ and the community united to him. The “us” consists of actual believers whose belonging, holiness, and future are established in the Son.
The people are not an empty category. Paul can address particular Christians and say that God chose “us” because they really participate in the chosen people’s relationship to Christ. Corporate language describes how they belong together; it does not make the individual disappear. A household consists of actual children, and a body consists of actual members. The family’s appointed inheritance becomes the inheritance of the people who belong to it.
The basis for this reading is the repeated location of the blessings in Christ. God blesses us in him, chooses us in him, adopts us through him, redeems us in him, and seals believers in him. The Son is not an instrument added after God has completed a separate account of election. He is central to the identity of the people and the reception of every benefit Paul names. Ephesians 2:11–22 makes this corporate reality concrete through formerly divided people becoming one new humanity in Christ.
Galatians 3:26–29 · WEB Classic
For you are all children of God, through faith in Christ Jesus. For as many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ. There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free man, there is neither male nor female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus. If you are Christ’s, then you are Abraham’s offspring and heirs according to promise.
Galatians 3 helps us see what belonging to Christ means for actual people. Paul first speaks of the promise to Abraham and his offspring, identifying Christ as the offspring in whom the promise reaches its fulfillment (3:16). He then tells the believers that they are children of God through faith in Christ Jesus. Their different backgrounds do not create different grades of membership. Those who belong to Christ are Abraham’s offspring and heirs according to promise (3:26–29). The promise has a definite heir, and people share the inheritance through belonging to him.
That is why “in Christ” matters so much here. God has chosen a people whose identity cannot be explained apart from his Son. Paul is addressing members of that people, with names, histories, sins needing forgiveness, and an inheritance they will actually receive. Corporate election is personal because union with Christ is personal. Nobody is comforted by being told that an empty category has a glorious future. These believers can give thanks because the future God determined for his people in Christ belongs to them.
The holiness God intends is equally concrete. “Before him” describes people welcomed into his presence, while “holy and without defect” describes the fitness he gives them for that presence. The same language returns in 5:27, where Christ presents the church holy and without defect. The goal is a people whose relationship and life correspond to their Lord. Election cannot be reduced to possessing the correct answer about who was selected while remaining indifferent to what God selected his people to become.
The strongest argument for an individual unconditional-election reading is that God chooses “us” before creation according to his own will, excluding human achievement. Those are real features of the passage and must remain part of our explanation. The question is whether they also establish that God unconditionally selected which individuals would believe. Paul states the choice of his people in Christ and the destination he appointed for them. He does not state here that God determines their membership by irresistibly producing faith in some while withholding the possibility of faith from others.
An eternal purpose and a gracious means of receiving it are compatible. The timing of God’s purpose does not by itself specify the mechanism by which each person comes to participate. Verse 13 identifies the readers as people who heard the gospel and believed. Our conclusion therefore rests upon the Christ-centered description and the letter’s account of inclusion, rather than upon pretending the plural pronoun can settle the dispute by itself.
God is not a spectator waiting to discover whether anyone will devise a salvation plan. The Father established the purpose, the Son accomplishes redemption, and sinners receive what they could never create. Faith does not invent the chosen people or determine their destiny. Believers enter a salvation whose source and provision are entirely God’s.
The purpose also prevents election from becoming a badge of superiority. God chose his people to be holy and blameless. The doctrine becomes badly distorted when it produces people more interested in congratulating themselves for being chosen than in belonging faithfully to the Lord who chose them. Paul’s response is worship.
Adoption according to his good pleasure
God predestined us for adoption through Jesus Christ to himself. Predestination identifies an appointed destination: the family standing God determined for his people through his Son. The sentence emphasizes his will, his pleasure, and the praise of his grace. Adoption did not occur because God discovered that we would make unusually profitable additions to the household.
Romans 8:15–17 puts a voice to that family standing. Believers have received the Spirit of adoption and cry out to God as Father. They are children and therefore heirs, sharing the inheritance with Christ. Paul then includes suffering with Christ in the same sentence. Adoption has not made their present troubles imaginary. It has changed who they belong to in the middle of them.
Adoption gives us a place we could not claim by natural right. We come to God through Jesus and are received as his children. The language carries belonging and inheritance, not merely permission to remain nearby. Imagine being given a room, a place at the table, and the family name, then spending every meal wondering whether someone is about to ask why you are still there. Paul directs believers toward the Father’s decision to receive them. Their confidence rests in his welcome through the Son.
The grace is freely bestowed in the Beloved. The Father’s love for the Son stands behind the welcome believers receive in him. Christian assurance therefore rests upon a relationship God has established through Christ. We do not need to search for an undisclosed decree behind Jesus to find out whether the grace offered in him is sincere. Paul directs our praise toward the Father who has graciously received us in his beloved Son.