ris3n's Apologetics Codex

Passage

Ephesians 5.2

Book: Ephesians · ASV / WEB / KJV / YLT

Immediate context (±2 verses)

There are ads on our codex that pay for hosting and keep the codex free. If you can, please consider whitelisting ris3n.com or allowing scripts to support the work.

Sponsored

Brands, events, influencers advertise here

ASV
  1. Be ye therefore imitators of God, as beloved children;

2. and walk in love, even as Christ also loved you, and gave himself up for us, an offering and a sacrifice to God for an odor of a sweet smell.

  1. But fornication, and all uncleanness, or covetousness, let it not even be named among you, as becometh saints; 4. nor filthiness, nor foolish talking, or jesting, which are not befitting: but rather giving of thanks. (Ephesians 5:1-4, ASV)
WEB
  1. Be therefore imitators of God, as beloved children.

2. Walk in love, even as Christ also loved you, and gave himself up for us, an offering and a sacrifice to God for a sweet-smelling fragrance.

  1. But sexual immorality, and all uncleanness, or covetousness, let it not even be mentioned among you, as becomes saints; 4. nor filthiness, nor foolish talking, nor jesting, which are not appropriate; but rather giving of thanks. (Ephesians 5:1-4, WEB)
KJV
  1. Be ye therefore followers of God, as dear children;

2. And walk in love, as Christ also hath loved us, and hath given himself for us an offering and a sacrifice to God for a sweetsmelling savour.

  1. But fornication, and all uncleanness, or covetousness, let it not be once named among you, as becometh saints; 4. Neither filthiness, nor foolish talking, nor jesting, which are not convenient: but rather giving of thanks. (Ephesians 5:1-4, KJV)
YLT
  1. Become, then, followers of God, as children beloved,

2. and walk in love, as also the Christ did love us, and did give himself for us, an offering and a sacrifice to God for an odour of a sweet smell,

  1. and whoredom, and all uncleanness, or covetousness, let it not even be named among you, as becometh saints; 4. also filthiness, and foolish talking, or jesting,, the things not fit, but rather thanksgiving; (Ephesians 5:1-4, YLT)

See this page's graph and discover linked topics

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

Kai peripateite en agapē, kathōs kai ho Christos ēgapēsen hēmas kai paredōken heauton hyper hēmōn prosphoran kai thysian tō theō eis osmēn euōdias.

The command and its measure. "Walk in love" would be an empty instruction without the kathōs clause that follows, which supplies both the model and the definition. The love commanded is measured by a self-giving to death, which rules out reading agapē as a disposition or a sentiment. Compare 5:25, where the same standard is applied specifically to husbands.

Paredōken heauton. The verb paradidōmi, to hand over or deliver up, is the standard term for the betrayal and delivering of Jesus in the passion narratives. Here the subject is Christ Himself and the object is Himself, which makes the handing over an act of His own agency rather than something done to Him. John 10:18 makes the same point in different words.

Sacrificial vocabulary. Prosphoran kai thysian pairs offering and sacrifice, the standard Septuagint terms, and eis osmēn euōdias, "for a fragrant aroma," renders the recurring formula of Leviticus (for instance Lev 1:9, 2:2, 3:5) for an offering accepted by God. The phrase reaches back further to Genesis 8:21. Paul is not decorating the sentence; he is placing the cross inside the sacrificial system as its accepted term, which is why the verse is a standing text in discussions of atonement.

The one who receives it. Tō theō specifies that the offering is made to God. The verse therefore describes an offering by the Son, to the Father, on behalf of us, which is the structural shape the classical doctrine of the atonement articulates and which any account of the cross has to accommodate.

The link to the ethic. The chain of the sentence is worth keeping intact when the verse is cited. It begins as a command about how believers walk and ends in the language of the altar. The Christian ethic is not derived from the atonement by analogy; it is presented as continuous with it.

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:

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.