Ephesians 1:3

God is both God and Father of one and the same Christ: God as the incarnate one, and Father as God the Word. In contrast to the Jewish blessing, he called this one "spiritual." For that one was more corporeal. God "will bless," it says, …

He has thus, it is declared, blessed us; it is a gift from God, it is our holy and spiritual redemption. And this redemption is not of this earth; nor is it of the flesh, but eternal from the heavenly place of our Lord. "...

Then when he says Blessed be God... (v. 3) in giving thanks, he strengthens them in good, and he does this in three ways: First, by giving as a reason Christ, from whom they have received so many gifts (Ch. 1). Secondly, by reason of …

The design of the apostle, therefore, in asserting the riches of divine grace toward the Ephesians, was to protect them against having their faith shaken by the false apostles, as if their calling were doubtful, or salvation were to be sought in some other way.

, where he styles him the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ; for, as Mediator, the Father was his God; as God, and the second person in the blessed Trinity, God was his Father. It bespeaks the mystical union between Christ and believers, that the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ is their God and Father, and that in and through him.

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) and the Father of glory. God is infinitely glorious in himself all glory is due to him from his creatures, and he is the author of all that glory with which his saints are or shall be invested.

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Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ,....

Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ - This commences a sentence which continues to the close of Eph 1:12. The length of the periods in the writings of Paul, is one cause of the obscurity of his style, and renders an explanation often difficult. The meaning of this phrase is, that God has laid a foundation for gratitude for what he has done. The ground or reason of the praise here referred to, is that which is stated in the following verses.

Greek, "in the heavenly places." Christ's ascension is the means of introducing us into the heavenly places, which by our sin were barred against us. Compare the change made by Christ (Col 1:20; While Christ in the flesh was in the form of a servant, God's people could not realize fully their heavenly privileges as sons.

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GOD blesses us—let us bless Him! I pray that every heart here may take its own part in this service of praise— "O you, my Soul, bless God the Lord, And all that in me is! Be stirred up His holy name To magnify and bless!" Sit in your seats and keep on blessing God from the first word of the sermon to the last. And then go on blessing God till the last hour of life and enter into Heaven into the eternal Glory, still blessing God!

GOD blesses us—let us bless Him! I pray that every heart here may take its own part in this service of praise— "O you, my Soul, bless God the Lord, And all that in me is! Be stirred up His holy name To magnify and bless!" Sit in your seats and keep on blessing God from the first word of the sermon to the last. And then go on blessing God till the last hour of life and enter into Heaven into the eternal Glory, still blessing God! It should be our life to bless Him who gave us our life. It should be our delight to bless Him who gives us all our delights. So says the text and so let us say, too—"Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ." I. Our first occupation, at this time, will be that of BLESSING GOD. But how can we bless God? Without doubt the less is blessed of the Greater. Can the Greater be blessed by the less? Yes, but it must be in a modified sense. God blesses us with all spiritual blessings, but we cannot give Him any blessings. He needs nothing at our hands and if He did, we could not give it. "If I were hungry," says the Lord, "I would not tell you: for the world is Mine, and the fullness thereof." God has an all-sufficiency within Himself and can never be thought of as dependent upon His creatures, or as receiving anything from His creatures which He needs to receive. He is already infinitely blessed—we cannot add to His blessedness! When He blesses us, He gives us a blessedness that we never had be-fore—but when we bless Him—we cannot, by one iota, increase His absolutely Infinite Perfection! David said to the Lord, "My goodness extends not to You." This was as if he had said, Let me be as holy, as devout and as earnest as I may, I can still do nothing for You! You are too high, too holy, too great for me to be really able to bless You in the sense which You bless me.

Blessed be the God - See the note on 2Co 1:3, where the same form is used. With all spiritual blessings - With the pure doctrines of the Gospel, and the abundant gifts and graces of the Holy Ghost, justifying, sanctifying, and building us up on our most holy faith. In heavenly places - Εν τοις επουρανιοις· In heavenly things, such as those mentioned above; they were not yet in heavenly places, but they had abundance of heavenly things to prepare them for heavenly places. Some think the word should be understood as signifying blessings of the most exalted or excellent kind, such as are spiritual in opposition to those that are earthly, such as are eternal in opposition to those that are temporal; and all these in, through and by Christ. We have already seen, on Gal 4:26, that the heavenly Jerusalem, or Jerusalem which is from above, is used by the Jews to signify the days of the Messiah, and that state of grace and glory which should follow the Levitical worship and ceremonies; and it is possible that St. Paul may use the word επουρανια, heavenly things, in this sense: God hath blessed us with all spiritual blessings in heavenly things, or in this heavenly state, in which life and immortality are brought to light by the Gospel. This is apparently the preferable sense.