Ephesians 1:7Meaning & Commentary from the Church Fathers

Indeed, nothing is so great as the shedding of God's blood for us. That God did not spare His own Son is greater than sonship and the other gifts. The forgiveness of sins is unquestionably a great thing, but it becomes still greater when it is accomplished by the Master's blood.

That this far surpasses everything, see how strongly Paul expresses it here, saying: "according to the riches of His grace, which He made to abound toward us."

Since the first creation of man took place after the equinox, namely on the sixth day after the equinox, for man was created on Friday, and since the full moon was created after the equinox on the fourth day. And only afterward did man's fall through sin occur, God therefore brings his correction and renewal back to the date corresponding to the time of his creation. He brings together the equinox, the fourteenth day after the equinox, and the sixth day. By this convergence of times He visibly shows the single source of the resurrection of the One who suffered, the renewal of nature, and its recapitulation.

Therefore the Apostle, pointing to this recapitulation accomplished by God, said: "In whom we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of transgressions, according to the riches of His grace which He made to abound toward us in all wisdom and understanding. Having made known to us the mystery of His will, according to His good pleasure which He purposed in Him, for the dispensation of the fullness of times, to recapitulate all things in Christ, things in heaven and things on earth, in Him" (Eph 1:7-10).

Do you see how he speaks of the recapitulation of earthly things by heavenly things? After man's fall and separation from the piety of the heavenly angels, He desired to return us through the Passion to this unity. What else does He undertake, if not the completion of the good? Therefore He chooses the time of creation as the time of renewal, and He permits you to hear of the greatest mystery.

Since these times can coincide only with difficulty, as happened in the first days of creation, in one and the same week, notice that the first week, I mean the week of creation, had in itself the equinox at the beginning. Then came the full moon, which appeared on the fourth day. A little later came the sixth day, on which man was created. This cannot happen in the same week at all times.

Since it was difficult for these appointed times to converge within one week, as at the first creation, the Savior made use of their convergence for the divine economy of the Passion, to show the completion that was to come. Therefore, although the Jews often sought Him in order to kill Him, He nevertheless escaped from their hands until the concurrence of the times came about.

You yourself read in the Gospels that the Jews wished to seize Him, and He withdrew. Those who did not know the mystery saw cowardice in this. But it was not fear. It was waiting for the arrival of the appointed time.

When the Son of God brought together the signs of the times, when He found that this week corresponded to that first week of creation, and that the equinox, the full moon, and Friday had converged, the day on which He had to suffer and renewal had to be accomplished, then He gave Himself over to the Passion. Lifting His eyes to heaven, He said: "Father, the hour has come. Glorify Your Son, that Your Son also may glorify You" (Jn 17:1). He also said to the disciples: "The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified" (Jn 12:23).

Thus the Only-begotten Son of God strove to bring together all those first times in which created man fell, in order to correct him and to arrange the renewal of nature. For this, the joining of the appointed times was necessary.

Therefore, at the time of the Passion the equinox is observed, as the head of time. Before this equinox, before the day appeared, there was darkness. It was not fitting for the Passion and the correction of the fall to take place in this time of darkness, because the first man also appears not in darkness, but after the light. After the equinox the day prevails over the night.

So too it was fitting for the Passion, accomplished for correction, to appear in such a condition, when the light of piety had to increase and the darkness of impiety had to decrease.

As the equinox is observed at the time of the Passion by reason of the recapitulation, or completion, of time, so by the same reason Friday is the day of the Passion, because man was created on that day. It was necessary that on the day on which created man fell, on that same day he should also be restored.

Further, Scripture dedicates the Sabbath to rest, saying: "And He rested on the seventh day from all His works which He had made, and He sanctified it" (Gen 2:2-3).

He did this, he says, according to the riches of His grace. Notice these intensified expressions: we have been given riches, and God's riches, the riches of grace. Not simply grace, but grace "which He made to abound toward us," that is, which He poured out superabundantly.

"In all wisdom and understanding."

That is, He poured out grace upon us in order that, having made us wise and understanding, He might tell us "the mystery of His will." By saying "to tell us the mystery of His will," it is as if he said: He opened to us the mysteries of His heart.

Or it may be taken this way: "to show us the mystery in all wisdom and understanding," that is, the depth of all wisdom and understanding. For to count enemies, and contemptible ones at that, worthy of such great blessings, and this at the end of times and through the Cross, is this not the work of great wisdom?

"According to His good pleasure which He purposed in Him."

He did this as He willed, as He "purposed beforehand" and predestined in Him, that is, in Christ.

He becomes man from the Virgin in a manner known only to Him, for no word can adequately express it. He dies as the One who became man, and He redeems as the God-man.

Therefore the Apostle also says: "In whom we have redemption through His Blood, the forgiveness of trespasses" (Eph 1:7).

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."

But when sin entered the world through participation, the abuse of freedom, and the deviation of man's will from the will of God, the original union between nature and grace was broken.

The light of grace, being divine and therefore hindered by nothing, does not cease always to shine upon all things. Yet nature, defiled, darkened, coarsened, and infected by sin, became both unworthy and incapable of receiving the pure, radiant, subtle, incorrupt influences of grace.

Thus spiritual death entered the world through sin. After it came bodily and temporal death, and after that eternal death.

Therefore, if only with the help of grace did man preserve what he originally had, then certainly without the special help of grace it is impossible for him to recover what he lost.

Here most of all is revealed both the extreme need and the wondrously satisfying, in the Apostle's expression, abundance of grace (Rom 5:17).

For man, torn away and fallen from grace, it was already natural to fall even to Hades. Yet God, who foresaw this from eternity and is eternally merciful, stretched out a restraining and raising hand amid the fall.

He wondrously united in the one hypostasis of Christ the Lord both that which gives grace and that which receives it: the Godhead and pure humanity.

In His word and life, in His Body and Blood, and in His Baptism by water and the Spirit, He opened new and overflowing streams of grace. These streams extend even to our nature, which had been estranged from grace, yet was not alien to the One who became man.

Thus what was defiled by sin might be cleansed. What was darkened might be enlightened. What was fleshly might be spiritualized. What had decayed might be healed. What had fallen might be raised. What was condemned might be justified. What was deadened might be made alive. What was lost might be saved.

This is not my speculation, but the teaching of the Gospel. "The God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ," says the Apostle, "made us accepted in the Beloved, in whom we have redemption through His Blood, the forgiveness of trespasses, according to the riches of His grace" (Eph 1:6-7).

Deliverance, ατολυτρωσις, is properly the redemption of captives for a known price. Christ the Lord redeemed us from captivity to the prince of this world. In that captivity we were held because of the ancestral sin. The price He gave for our ransom is His blood.

To whom was the price of blood paid for our redemption? Christ the Lord paid it to the eternal righteousness of God. That righteousness could not free us from guilt and punishment for sin until satisfaction had been given to it. After satisfaction was made to God's righteousness and peace with God returned, Satan's power over us fell. Grace came and destroyed Satan's stronghold, sin.

His power was attached only to this sin and existed because of it. It was not natural, but accidental, a plundering seizure.

We have forgiveness of transgressions by the same blood as redemption. Both the one and the other are according to the riches of grace. We have been redeemed from hereditary sinfulness, guilt, and exposure to wrath. We have received forgiveness for the sins which we ourselves committed.

Or it may be put this way: redemption is the universal divine action, and the forgiveness of sins is the application of this redemption to each believer. Each man becomes redeemed through the remission of his sins, by faith in the Only-begotten Son of God, crucified for the sins of the whole world. His blood cleanses us from every sin, and by this accomplishes redemption in us.

This is how the eternal blessing is realized in us. This is what calls forth the glory of grace. The Apostle says: we have in Him redemption and the forgiveness of sins. Christ the Lord is the living spring of redemption and forgiveness of sins, ceaselessly flowing. The work once accomplished on the Cross remains eternally active in His person. For this reason we have in Him an everlasting Intercessor, and He intercedes for us, being ever alive, or as One who has obtained eternal redemption.

On earth the continuation of the work of Jesus Christ proceeds through the Church. She is the dispenser of the gifts of redemption, forgiveness of sins, and regeneration. In all this lies the wealth of grace, an inexhaustible treasury of every mercy from God, acquired by the blood of the Lord.

"This alone is not what is wondrous here," says Saint Chrysostom, "that He gave His Son, but also that the Beloved Son was slain. Great is the excess of love. He gave the Beloved for those who hated Him. See how He values us! If, when we were still enemies, He sacrificed the Beloved for us, what will He not give us when, by grace, we are made worthy of reconciliation with Him? Nothing is so great as the shedding of divine blood for us. That God did not spare His own Son is greater than sonship and the other gifts. The forgiveness of sins is unquestionably a great thing, but it becomes still greater when it is accomplished by the Lord's blood. See how far this surpasses everything by the force with which Paul speaks here, saying: 'according to the riches of His grace.'"

"According to the riches of grace." Our redemption and salvation could have been ordered in some other way. That it was ordered by the blood of the Son of God is according to the riches of grace, and also for the sake of the riches of grace. The more deeply the Apostle enters the contemplation of what has been given us in Christ Jesus the Lord, the more irresistibly his tongue describes and glorifies the abundance of God's mercies manifested in Him.

For sinners there is no blessing more perceptible than the awareness that all their sins have been forgiven. This assurance alone, that he has been pardoned and received back into the love of God the Father, is for him the continual wealth of grace. Sins are forgiven the repentant believer because the blood of the Son of God washes them away and whitens the sinful soul like snow.

The sins of the repentant believer are not merely not imputed to him. They are blotted out in him. For at the foundation of his moral order is laid a resolve as firm as death: henceforth to walk according to the will of God, holy and pure.

The one who approaches the Lord in the mystery of baptism or repentance, if he fulfills all conditions as he should, becomes wholly holy and pure. The remnants of sinful corruption in him are no longer his, though they are in him. They are not approved, but rejected and driven out. They are branches sentenced to wither on the tree of man's newly revived life in Christ, because the sap that could feed them is not allowed to reach them.

We have all been redeemed and forgiven by the blood of the Son of God. Praise be to the grace of God, for what is more worthy of praise than this? Attend to this and enter deeply into these mysteries. See how much God loves you, and yourself love Him who has loved you so much. Glorify Him not with words, but with deeds, showing in yourself the action of His glorious grace.

We were bought with a great price. Since you have been bought so dearly, do not sell yourself for nothing. Do not give yourself again into captivity. Do not demean the grace that saves you. Do not offend it by conduct unworthy toward it and with it, you who are obliged to glorify it in all things.