Ephesians 1:5Meaning & Commentary from the Church Fathers

Tell me, how much benefit would Paul have received, and how much would he have accomplished, if he had not been called from above and if the One who loved him had not drawn him to Himself?

In other words, the gift of such great blessings is the fruit of God's love for us, and not of our virtue alone. To be virtuous, to believe, and to draw near to God is indeed the work of the One who calls, but nevertheless it is also ours.

But to count those who have drawn near worthy of such honors, so as to transfer them from a state of enmity to adoption, this is truly the work of overflowing love.

"In love," he says, "having predestined us to adoption to Himself through Jesus Christ." Do you see how nothing is without Christ, and nothing is without the Father? The Father foreordains; the Son brings.

He affirms this to exalt what has taken place, just as elsewhere he says: "And not only this, but we also boast in God through our Lord Jesus Christ" (Rom 3:11).

Great blessings have indeed been granted, but they become far more precious because they have been granted through Christ. For to us, who were servants, God sent not one of the servants, but His Only-begotten.

"According to the good pleasure of His will," κατά την εϋδοκίαν τού θελήματος αυτοΰ. That is, because He had a strong desire, or, if you wish, because this was His chief inclination.

Εύδοχία, good pleasure, everywhere means the principal desire, the foundation of the other desires. There are also other desires. The first, for example, is that sinners not perish. The second is that those who have become sinners should perish, for they will suffer not by necessity but according to God's will.

This may also be seen in Paul, for example, when he says: "I wish that all men were as I myself am" (1 Cor 7:7). Elsewhere he says: "I desire that the younger women marry and bear children" (1 Tim 5:14).

Thus by εύδοχία he means the first desire, the strong desire, the desire with longing, the firm bent. I will not refuse even to use a common expression, if only to make this clear to simple people.

So we, when indicating an irresistible desire, say κατά τό πείσμα ημών, according to our firm bent. Thus the phrase "according to the good pleasure of His will" means that He strongly desires and strongly wills our salvation.

Therefore he added: "having predestined us to adoption." What is this adoption? It is that which brings our race to Him and makes us His own. This too is through Jesus Christ. For although the Father predestined, Christ brought us. Since all good things come through the Son and not through some servant, the honor is more glorious.

But God's election is founded on foreknowledge of who will be worthy of election and who will follow the calling. Therefore the Apostle in the Epistle to the Romans speaks of divine predestination in this way: "whom He foreknew, He also predestined; and whom He predestined, these He also called; and whom He called, these He also justified; and whom He justified, these He also glorified" (8:29-30).

St. John Chrysostom, explaining these words of the Apostle, says: "Do you see how nothing is without the Father? The Father predestines; the Son brings. Great blessings have indeed been granted, but they become far more precious because they have been granted through Christ. For to us, who were servants, God sent not someone chosen from among servants, but His Only-begotten Son."

"According to the good pleasure of His will," that is, because He had a strong desire, an irresistible will. Why does He love us so, and where is the source of His grace? The source is solely His goodness. Therefore He also appointed us for adoption, to manifest the glory of His grace.

Summarizing the spiritual blessings in Christ indicated by the Apostle, Bishop Theophan says: "The summit of all is adoption. The condition for it is holiness and blamelessness. The agent is Christ the Lord by the grace of the Holy Spirit. The true beginning of all is the good pleasure of God's will. The motive is love. The goal is the glory of grace. How many mysteries of God are indicated in a few words! But this is not yet all."

"We have forgiveness of trespasses by the same Blood of Christ, as also redemption. Both are according to the riches of grace."

"For a sinner there is no good more palpable than the awareness that all his sins have been forgiven him."

"See how much God loves you, and you yourself love Him who has so loved you. Glorify Him by manifesting in yourself the action of His grace."

In choosing us from eternity, God at the same time resolved to make us His sons through Jesus Christ. He was moved solely by His good pleasure toward mankind. He also had in view that men would praise and glorify Him, or love Him more deeply, for the great grace He had granted.

That men must certainly glorify God is clear from the character of grace itself. By it God made us beautiful and pleasing, έχαριτωσεν, having removed from us all our sinful uncleanness.

Consequently, all who are saved had to become sons to God. But to be sons to God, one must be holy, as the Son of God is holy. Therefore, having resolved to adopt us, God also chose us for holiness. Without holiness it is impossible to be sons to God. As soon as the latter was determined, the former was required as an unavoidable condition. In reality, however, the two are inseparable. At the same time that the beginning of holiness and blamelessness is laid in the resolve to work for God according to faith, the hidden sign of sonship to God is also placed upon the brow of the spirit. Unto adoption through Jesus Christ, that is, through Jesus Christ. Adoption is mediated by Jesus Christ. Believers become one spirit with the Lord. Since He is Son, they too are sons. Only He is Son by nature, while they are received into sonship for the sake of the Only-begotten Son. “As many as received Him, to them He gave authority to become children of God, to those who believe in His name” (Jn 1:12). This adoption is not merely the naming of men as sons, but also birth from God (Jn 1:13). As a result of this birth, they are led by the Spirit of God, in Whom they cry: “Abba, Father!” (Rom 8:14-15). In Him they have also received the obligation to be conformed to the image of the Son of God (Rom 8:29). “Do you see,” says Saint Chrysostom, “how there is nothing without Christ and nothing without the Father? The Father predestined, the Son carries out. Saint Paul affirms this in order to magnify what has taken place, as he says elsewhere: ‘Not only so, but we also rejoice in God through our Lord Jesus Christ’ (Rom 5:11). Great benefits have certainly been given, but they become far more precious because they were given through Christ. To us, His servants, God did not send one of His servants, but His Only-begotten Son.” Blessed Jerome writes: “Of the Son of God, that is, of our Lord Jesus Christ, it is not said that He was predestined. This is because He always is with the Father, and the Father’s will did not precede His being in the least. The Father always is, and the Son always is. Having one nature, They are co-eternal. But concerning us, before we began to exist, thought was given to how we should be. Then we received being itself, that we might become what we were predestined to be. From this it follows of itself that, although God already predestined us to adoption through Jesus Christ, we cannot be sons to God before receiving faith and the knowledge of His Son, Jesus Christ. He is Son by nature, and we are sons by adoption. He was never not the Son. But we, before becoming sons, were predestined to this, and only then received the Spirit of adoption when we believed in the Son of God.” He predestined us to sonship according to the good pleasure of His will. Here is the final foundation of our predestination to salvation. God predestined us to be sons because His holy will was so well pleased. There was no determining necessity for this either in man or in anything created besides man. It is the fruit of the direct and unconditional counsel of God’s will. “Yes, Father, for so it was well pleasing before Thee,” confessed our Lord and Savior (Mt 11:26). Good pleasure means the willing, joyful, and loving decision of the will toward something (Jerome). “According to the good pleasure of His will means because He had a strong desire, or, one might say, because this was His chief inclination. Eudokia, good pleasure, everywhere means the chief desire, the foundation of other desires. By it the Apostle means the first willing, a strong willing, a willing with longing, an irresistible willing. Therefore God strongly desires and strongly wills our salvation. Why does He so love us, and where is the source of such grace? The source is solely His grace, because grace comes from goodness. Therefore He predestined us to adoption, desiring and strongly desiring this, in order to manifest the glory of His grace” (Saint Chrysostom). Election to holiness and adoption are contemplated here by the Apostle as God’s pre-temporal actions of love toward us. God resolved to save us through His incarnate Only-begotten Son. Consequently, it was necessary to receive those being saved into sonship, to make them holy, and to furnish them with everything necessary for this. The essence of predestination to salvation is the adoption of those being saved to God the Father through Jesus Christ, after their sanctification by the grace of the Spirit. But since Saint Paul wrote to Christians already chosen and sanctified, he also points to what was in them, explaining this temporal reality from the pre-temporal one. How much consolation and spiritual joy should the consciousness of such good pleasure of God pour into the soul! God chose us for holiness and predestined us to fellowship with Himself, to sonship to Himself. One is inseparably bound to the other in the present ordering of salvation. Yet they are bound by God’s good pleasure, not by any necessity. God could have chosen us for holiness, yet not have willed to adopt us. The latter is the work of God’s good pleasure, spoken together with the decree that our salvation should be accomplished through the Only-begotten Son of God. In this is the wealth of grace. Whether to save us or leave us perishing was in God’s will. Once He determined to save us, whether to save us in this or that manner was likewise in God’s will. Everything God does for this purpose He does according to the good pleasure of His will. But when God determined to save us by the death of His incarnate Son, then the whole order of salvation, its whole economy, had to be legislated according to the demand of this initial decree. All this constitutes the plan of the divine economy of our salvation, sketched out before time, fulfilled in time, and destined to appear in all its greatness in eternity. The pre-temporal decree of God’s counsel concerning salvation was the fruit of God’s wholly free good pleasure, flowing from love. Yet through this free decision of God’s will, the pre-temporal plan of the economy of salvation became the foundation for the course in time of the being and events of the material and immaterial world. Nevertheless, or for that very reason, the blessings poured out upon mankind together with the fulfillment of that plan can be appropriated by each person only through free faith. And hymns of praise must also burst from the breast freely, through awareness of the greatness of the salvation being appropriated. In reality, adoption is accomplished through communion with the Son of God by the grace of the Holy Spirit, Who realizes the work of salvation in men. How is this accomplished? Through the word of the Gospel concerning Christ, which is followed by faith, grace, communion with Christ, and sonship in Him. The word of the Gospel, having descended to earth, walks upon the earth. It is heard by the whole mass of mankind. But some are taken, and others are left. Those who heed the word and follow it by faith are taken. How this inward heeding and inclination takes place is the mystery of spiritual and grace-filled life. No one comes to Christ unless the Father draws him. Yet the Father draws the one who offers Him his hand. For God could create us without us, but He cannot save us without us. In the ordering of salvation, freedom and grace are wondrously joined. And we were predestined to this. Immediately after birth, this good pleasure of God’s goodness concerning us meets us. God hopes that we will show ourselves fully worthy of such mercy and be zealous to be holy, so as to correspond to our predestination to sonship to God. As glorious as it is to sustain such an appointment, so shameful and bitter is it not to answer it. Now both are not manifest to all. But both are manifest to God, the Angels, and the saints. They will be manifest to the whole world on that day when God judges all and reveals the counsels of each heart. How great a good we have in our hands, and how bitter it is to suffer its loss!