ris3n's Apologetics Codex

Passage

Ephesians 1.5

Book: Ephesians · ASV / WEB / KJV / YLT

Immediate context (±2 verses)

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ASV

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: 4. even as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blemish before him in love:

5. having foreordained us unto adoption as sons through Jesus Christ unto himself, according to the good pleasure of his will,

  1. to the praise of the glory of his grace, which he freely bestowed on us in the Beloved: 7. in whom we have our redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of his grace, (Ephesians 1:3-7, ASV)
WEB

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,

  1. to the praise of the glory of his grace, by which he freely gave us favor in the Beloved, 7. in whom we have our redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of his grace, (Ephesians 1:3-7, WEB)
KJV

3. Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who hath blessed us with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ: places: or, things 4. According as he hath chosen us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before him in love:

5. Having predestinated us unto the adoption of children by Jesus Christ to himself, according to the good pleasure of his will,

  1. To the praise of the glory of his grace, wherein he hath made us accepted in the beloved. 7. In whom we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins, according to the riches of his grace; (Ephesians 1:3-7, KJV)
YLT

3. Blessed [is] the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who did bless us in every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ, 4. according as He did choose us in him before the foundation of the world, for our being holy and unblemished before Him, in love,

5. having foreordained us to the adoption of sons through Jesus Christ to Himself, according to the good pleasure of His will,

  1. to the praise of the glory of His grace, in which He did make us accepted in the beloved, 7. in whom we have the redemption through his blood, the remission of the trespasses, according to the riches of His grace, (Ephesians 1:3-7, YLT)

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Setting

  • Speaker: Paul the Apostle.
  • Audience: Believers at Ephesus. Several of the earliest witnesses, including P46 and the original hands of Codex Sinaiticus and Codex Vaticanus, lack the words "in Ephesus" at 1:1, which has long suggested the letter circulated among the churches of the Roman province of Asia rather than addressing one congregation alone.
  • Location: Written from imprisonment. Paul calls himself "the prisoner of Christ Jesus" (Eph 3:1, 4:1) and "an ambassador in chains" (Eph 6:20); the traditional identification is the Roman custody of Acts 28.
  • Time period: c. AD 60-62 on the traditional Roman-imprisonment dating.

Theological reading

Proorisas hēmas eis huiothesian dia Iēsou Christou eis auton, kata tēn eudokian tou thelēmatos autou.

Proorisas. From pro, before, and horizō, to mark out or set a boundary; the verb behind the English horizon. It occurs six times in the New Testament (Acts 4:28; Rom 8:29, 8:30; 1 Cor 2:7; Eph 1:5, 1:11). The word means a prior determining of an end or outcome. What divides the Christian traditions is not whether Scripture teaches predestination, which this vocabulary settles, but what is predestined and on what basis.

Huiothesia, adoption. A term drawn from Greco-Roman legal practice, where an adopted son acquired the full standing, name and inheritance rights of a natural son, and where adoption was frequently of an adult rather than a child. In Roman law the adopted son's previous debts were cancelled and his new status was irrevocable. Paul uses the word five times, all in Romans, Galatians and here. The choice of a legal rather than a biological term is deliberate: sonship is conferred by an act, not by nature, which distinguishes the believer's sonship from the Son's own.

The stated basis. Kata tēn eudokian tou thelēmatos autou, "according to the good pleasure of His will." Eudokia denotes benevolent intention rather than arbitrary preference, so the phrase locates the ground of the predestining in God's own gracious purpose rather than in anything in the object. This is the clause Reformed readers press hardest, and it is the clause Arminian readers must accommodate rather than avoid.

How the traditions read it. Reformed exegesis takes the predestining as God's unconditional choice of particular persons. Arminian and Wesleyan exegesis takes it as the predestining of an end, adoption, for all who are in Christ, with union to Christ conditioned on faith. Molinism locates the choice in God's actualisation of a world, known by middle knowledge, in which the persons in question freely believe. Each reading has to give an account of en autō at verse 4, "in Him," which specifies that the choosing is made in Christ and not in a vacuum.

What all readings share. The direction of the sentence. The verbs from verse 3 through verse 14 have God as their subject and believers as their object, and the destination named three times is the praise of His glory.

Key words

Theologically-loaded Greek or Hebrew words in this verse may have entries in the lexicon. Curated to roughly 100 contested terms across the corpus, not every word; see Lexicon Roadmap.

Quoted in

Arguments and defeaters:

Concepts:

People:

Lexicon:

Why these four translations

ris3n chose ASV, WEB, KJV, and YLT for two reasons together. They are the most literal English translations available (formal-equivalence: word-for-word renderings that preserve the Hebrew and Greek grammar rather than smoothing it into modern dynamic-equivalence idiom). And they are in the public domain in the United States, which means fair-use quotation at any length requires no publisher license. Modern licensed translations (NASB95, ESV, NIV) restrict volume of quotation under their copyright terms, so they are not used at stub-level coverage here. NASB95 appears only on hand-curated rich passage hubs under Lockman Foundation's fair-use allowance.

The four:

  • ASV (American Standard Version, 1901). The basis of the modern critical-text English tradition.
  • WEB (World English Bible, contemporary). Public-domain revision in the ASV line, in current English.
  • KJV (King James Version, 1611). Reformation-era, Textus Receptus base.
  • YLT (Young's Literal Translation, Robert Young, 1862). Hyper-literal preservation of Hebrew and Greek grammar; useful for word-study work even where English reads stiff.

See Bibles for the full per-translation history, translators, textual basis, strengths, and weaknesses.