Ephesians 2:22Meaning & Commentary from the Church Fathers

"Being fitly joined together, it grows into a holy temple." The Apostle again returns to the example he used before. He unites them with the Old Testament saints, and in turn does not allow the saints themselves to be separated from Christ.

This means that the divine economy of our salvation began even before the coming of Christ. With this in view, Paul said: "As a wise master builder, I laid a foundation" (1 Cor 3:10).

Elsewhere he says: "For no one can lay another foundation than that which is laid, which is Jesus Christ."

Do you see that examples must not be understood superficially, but that one must seek out what is implied in them?

The Apostle speaks here by means of examples, as Christ also did when He presented the Father as the vinedresser and Himself as the root.

For the whole Church and for each of her members, that is, for every believer, Jesus Christ is the foundation of spiritual life, activity, and perfection according to His image (Col 3:10). Not only the whole Church, or the whole society of believers in Christ, is the Lord’s temple. Each believer is also a temple of God.

In the First Epistle to the Corinthians the Apostle writes: "Do you not know that you are the temple of God, and that the Spirit of God dwells in you? If anyone destroys the temple of God, God will destroy him. The temple of God is holy, and you are that temple" (1 Cor 3:16-17).

Every Christian must gradually be built more and more into God’s dwelling, or God’s temple. From the day of regeneration in the mystery of baptism, the Holy Spirit dwells in the one regenerated. He always calls and draws him toward higher spiritual perfection, according to the pattern of the perfections contemplated by faith in Christ the Savior and in His closest followers.

It depends on us "not to quench the Spirit" (1 Thess 5:17), but to be "filled with the Spirit," according to the Apostle’s instruction. We are to edify ourselves with psalms and spiritual songs, singing and making melody in our hearts to the Lord. We are always to give thanks for everything, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, to God the Father (Eph 5:18-19).

Brethren, let us learn for our edification from the apostolic reading set before us. "Christ is our peace." By His sufferings and death on the Cross He reconciled us with God the Father. He commanded His disciples, and all who believe in Him: "Have peace with one another" (Mk 9:50).

"This I command you, that you love one another" (Jn 15:17). Let us consider how holy this obligation is for us, to keep peace with our neighbors and to love them.

For our reconciliation with God the Father, the only-begotten Son of God, Jesus Christ, descended to earth. He assumed our weak human nature, lived on earth in poverty and sorrows, suffered and died in order to grant us eternal life.

Remembering this, with what zeal and reverence must we keep the Lord’s commandment. We must live in peace with our neighbors, love one another, and nourish love for Christ the Savior.

Through Jesus Christ we have access to the Father in one Spirit (Eph 2:18). He Himself, our Lord and God, says: "No one comes to the Father except through Me" (Jn 14:6). His Spirit is always with us, according to the Lord’s promise.

"I will pray the Father, and He will give you another Comforter, that He may be with you forever, the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive" (Jn 14:16-17). The Apostle writes: "The Spirit of God dwells in you. If anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, he is not His" (Rom 8:9).

Jesus Christ is our mediator before the Father and brings us to the Father. The Holy Spirit works together with us, helps us, comforts us, and strengthens us on this path. Without Him we cannot be disciples of Christ.

When we reflect on our drawing near to God the Father through Jesus Christ, by the action of the Holy Spirit who is always present with us, how attentive we must be to ourselves. We must watch our thoughts, desires, and deeds.

We must always walk holy and righteous before God. We must hold fast to our mediator, the Lord Jesus, and strive with all our strength, through His mediation, toward God the Father, humbly obeying the guidance of the Holy Spirit.

Since we have access to God the Father through Jesus Christ by the cooperation of the Holy Spirit, we are, as the Apostle teaches, "no longer strangers and sojourners. But fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God." We have been established upon the foundation of the Apostles and prophets, with Jesus Christ Himself as the cornerstone.

As members of Christ’s Church, we are fellow citizens of the holy Apostles and prophets, of all righteous spirits, and of all the saints who still struggle valiantly on earth on the way to the heavenly fatherland.

Jesus Christ is the head, or cornerstone, of the Church on earth and in heaven. The Holy Spirit distributes His gifts both in the earthly Church and in the heavenly Church. By His light the angelic ranks and the choirs of all the saints are enlightened.

In His light our own eyes are lifted up to the Father of lights (Jas 1:17). Brethren, let us consider how exalted our calling is in Christ Jesus. We are fellow dwellers and fellow citizens of the saints, God’s own. Jesus Christ is our head. The Holy Spirit is our helper, comforter, and sanctifier.

How highly we must value our calling, that we are Christians. What are all earthly advantages before it? What is every human glory and honor before it?

Let us therefore remember our calling in Christ Jesus. Let us not attach our souls to the goods of earthly life, but always strive in thought and desire toward the goods of heavenly life. With the cooperation of the Holy Spirit, let us build ourselves into a dwelling place of God, to the glory of His all-holy name, of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. Amen.

In the words of the Apostle Paul under discussion, a clear distinction is made. On the one hand, there is the growth of the holy temple, the Church, fitly joined together (v. 21).

On the other hand, there is the building of God's dwelling in individual believers, the readers of the present epistle: "and you also are being built into a dwelling place of God" (v. 22).

Indeed, there is one cornerstone, Christ. On Him it is proper that not many separate temples or houses of God should be built, but one house of God, which is the Church.

Only afterward, by likeness to this house and according to their belonging to it, do its individual members become dwellings of the Godhead (cf. Jn 14:23).

Where is the unity of the Church revealed, if not in common prayers and sacred rites? And where is this unity celebrated, if not in the sacred places of Christian assemblies?

Thus temples made by hands are both signs and means of the union of individual believers with the Church. Only through this union can they be built into God's dwelling.

That is, you are saved by the same apostolic and prophetic faith. You have the same founder and ruler, Jesus Christ, from whom all believers receive power and sanctification, all the mysteries and gifts of the Holy Spirit, and grow into a temple and dwelling place of God.

It is fitting to note here that if Christ is the cornerstone on which the Church is built, it would be a great error to proclaim any other persons to be such a stone. This is what Roman Catholics do, for example, with regard to the person of the holy Apostle Peter.

He speaks of this more directly in another epistle: "Do you not know that you are the temple of God, and that the Spirit of God dwells in you?" (1 Cor 3:16-17). The gathering of all Christians into the one spiritual temple of God’s glory shows their kinship with one another. It also shows their nearness to God, beyond which nothing greater can be imagined.

Together with the greatness of this spiritual image, its practical application is also very important. It stands over against the majestic Ephesian temple of the goddess Artemis, which did not elevate the spirit of its worshipers, but lowered it. They were full of enmity and every evil feeling.

According to the explanation of blessed Theophylact, the Apostle uses three comparisons to define the nearness of Christians to God. They are near as fellow citizens, as members of one family, and as parts of a building in relation to one another.

"We have become fellow citizens not simply of the Jews, but of men great in holiness, such as Abraham, Moses, and Elijah. See into what city we have been enrolled. See where we shall one day appear," says Saint John Chrysostom.

Elsewhere the Apostle says that the builder and maker of this city is God (Heb 11:10). "Believers have one Master, and wherever they live, all are fellow citizens" (Ambrosiaster).

"The thought of household members led to the thought of a house. In both the Old and the New Testament, the Church of God is presented under the image of a building, a house, or a temple. The Church is the temple of faith.

The Apostles are nearer to us and saw the truth tangibly. The prophets are farther away and saw the truth from afar, in images. Therefore the Apostles are placed first. The Apostles with the prophets, by the hand of preaching, take souls and peoples.

They place them into the building of the Church and join them to it. Thus stone is laid upon stone, and the building rises. The Apostles and prophets are laid as the foundation, and you complete the rest of the building" (Bishop Theophan).

"The Apostle added, ‘being the cornerstone,’ to show that Christ holds all things together. The cornerstone is what supports both the walls and the foundation, and on it the whole building is established. He bears all things upon Himself and holds all things together."

Whatever you point to, whether the roof, the walls, or anything else, He holds all things together and bears all things in Himself. "This temple, in which God dwells as in a body, is each one of you and all of you together."

Blessed Jerome writes: "If every building, fitly joined together, grows into a holy Church in the Lord, then we must spare no labor. We must strive to become living stones, hewn, cleansed, and polished on every side. Then we shall be built into a temple and shall be a dwelling for God."

In Bishop Theophan’s view, "everything that we believe about the Church is said here. She is one, being established on the one cornerstone. She is holy, being built by the Holy Spirit. She is catholic, embracing all times and peoples (14). She is apostolic, being built upon the foundation of the Apostles (20)."

The catholic Church is being built, and they are being built together with her. They are united with her deeply and essentially, so that they cannot be built separately and in isolation. Local Churches live by the common life of the whole Church.

So in the body each function seems to act by itself, such as breathing, circulation, or nourishment. In fact, it acts because it is connected with the whole body. Once separated from it, it immediately ceases, just as every outer member dies when cut from the body, or every branch when cut from the tree.

In other places the Apostle says that each believer is also a temple of God and a dwelling of God. Here he does not say this directly, but one may arrive at it by inference while reading this passage. Saint Chrysostom does so when he says: "This temple, in which God dwells as in a body, is each one of you and all of you together."

Each member of the body contains everything that is in the body. In it are blood, muscle, nerve, and other fluids. It is a condensed form of the whole body. In a tree this is still clearer. Each branch is the same as the whole tree, with root, trunk, and leaves. Each leaf is the same as the whole branch.

So each believer has everything that is in the Church: the truth of the word, the grace of the mysteries, and communion with God in Christ Jesus. He is a condensed Church. Yet he is such because he is united with the whole Church.

The powers and life of the Church enter into him, and he lives by the life of the Church. Separateness is entirely contrary to the spirit of Christianity. This building into a temple and dwelling for God, whether of each believer, of local Churches, or of the whole Church, is accomplished by the Holy Spirit.

Both every person and whole peoples are unfit in themselves to be God’s dwelling. The grace of the Spirit enters the soul through faith and through the mysteries. It transforms the soul, spiritualizes it, and makes it fit for God to dwell in it.

If God is in each believer by grace, then by that same grace He is also in the souls of the whole community of believers. Thus He is in all believers, that is, in the whole Church. He says that you are a dwelling for God in the Lord Jesus Christ, by the Spirit.

All the persons of the Most Holy Trinity are in you, the undivided Godhead Himself. To what nearness the Apostle has brought them. From afar, through citizenship and kinship, he has led them here. God is in them, and they in turn are in God, for He embraces all things.

There is nowhere further to go in order to indicate greater nearness. It was fitting for the Apostle at the beginning to cry out: remember, Ephesians, how far away you were and how near you have become.

Let us also take several lessons for ourselves from this. Everything is said here about the Church of God that the Symbol of Faith teaches us to believe. She is one, being established upon the one cornerstone (verses 14, 16, 17, 20).

She is holy, because she is built by the Holy Spirit into a holy temple (verses 21, 22). She is catholic, because she embraces all times and peoples (verses 14, 20). She is apostolic, being built upon the foundation of the Apostles (verse 20).

The holy Church is the city of God, the house of God, a living temple, and the living dwelling of the living God. The image most understandable to us is that of temple and dwelling. The cornerstone of the building is the Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God.

The Church stands firm, and the gates of Hades shall not prevail against her. Upon the cornerstone, the Apostles and prophets are laid first, and upon them the whole building is then raised. From them comes the word of truth.

From them also comes the grace of the Spirit, given through the mysteries established by them and kindled through all the other ranks and orders of the Church. Nothing here may be touched with the intention of changing or abolishing it. Otherwise you will destroy the Church.

Both apostolic teaching and apostolic institutions are inviolable. The body of the building is made up of all believers, of every sex, age, and condition. They are worked like stones and made fit for laying into the building by the Holy Spirit.

Love poured forth from Him joins them all together like cement and, as it were, fuses them into one. "For what purpose is such a building raised? So that God Himself may dwell in it as in a temple" (Saint Chrysostom).

This temple is holy, majestic, and worthy of reverence. If such is the temple, what ought every believer to be who forms part of it?

Blessed Jerome writes: "If every building, fitly joined together, grows into a holy church in the Lord, then we must spare no labor. We must strive to become those stones of which it is said: ‘Holy stones lie scattered,’ that is, are found in abundance, ‘on His land’ (Zech 9:16).

When we become living stones, hewn, cleansed, and polished on every side, then we shall be built into a temple and shall be a dwelling for God. The ark of the covenant will be established in us, the guardian of God’s law.

There will also be the Cherubim, the abundance of knowledge. The inward part of our breast will pass into a new word, for what is in the heart will be expressed by a new word. We shall be called dabir, which means oracle, or answer, or, more exactly, a place of speaking.

Thus we shall be able to say with the Apostle: ‘Do you seek proof of Christ speaking in me?’ (2 Cor 13:3)."