Ephesians 2:7Meaning & Commentary from the Church Fathers

“And that He might show in the ages to come.” What will He show? That the good things prepared by Him are both great and completely worthy of faith. Now these good things seem impossible to unbelievers, but then all will know them.

If you wish to know how He seated us, listen to what Christ Himself says to the disciples: “You also shall sit on twelve thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel” (Mt 19:28). And elsewhere: “To sit at My right hand and at My left is not Mine to give, but it is for those for whom it has been prepared by My Father” (Mt 20:23). Therefore this has already been prepared.

And the Apostle spoke well: “in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus.” To sit at the right hand is an honor higher than every honor, after which there is no other dignity. By saying this, that is, “in kindness toward us,” he shows that we too shall sit.

To sit with Christ is truly inexpressible wealth. It is truly the exceeding greatness of His power. If you had a thousand souls, would you not lay them down for this? If it were necessary to go into fire, should you not be wholly ready even for that trial?

Christ Himself says: “Those whom You have given Me, I desire that where I am, they also may be with Me” (Jn 17:24; cf. Jn 12:26). If for such an honor one had to be cut apart every day, should he not endure even this with joy?

Consider where He sits: “far above every principality and authority.” And with whom will you sit? With Him. But who are you? Dead, by nature a child of wrath. What right thing have you done? Nothing. Now it is truly fitting to cry out: “O the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God!” (Rom 11:33).

Thus the great John Chrysostom speaks in his commentary on this passage. Yet in his commentary on the Gospel according to Matthew he says that no one will sit then. Truly, the gift of the Spirit and of revelation is needed to understand the depth of these mysteries.

If the wise teacher John had not said clearly that we shall be seated, one might have said that we already sit in Christ. Likewise, one might say that in Christ we are counted worthy of veneration from the angels. For we are not personally counted worthy of veneration. Rather, because our nature, united to God the Word, receives veneration, this honor also passes to us. In this sense he now says that we too shall sit.

We shall not sit in some lowly place, but above every principality, authority, power, and dominion, and above every name named under heaven, not only in this age but also in the age to come. For if Christ, raised from the dead, sits at the right hand of God in the heavens above every principality, authority, power, dominion, and so forth, and if we sit and reign with Christ, then it is necessary to think that we also shall sit above that over which He sits.

But perhaps a diligent reader will investigate the question and say: What then? Is man higher than the angels and all the powers in heaven? Since it is dangerous to answer this affirmatively, let him refer the principalities, authorities, powers, dominions, and every name named under heaven, not only in this age but also in the age to come, to the hostile side, not to the good side. This is especially so because all things will be subjected under the feet of Christ.

Let him say that these powers are the apostate angels, the prince of this world, and Lucifer rising in the morning. Over them the saints are finally to sit with Christ. They will also bestow their benefits upon those who now wander here and there without restraint, abusing their freedom, and are cast down into the abyss of sins.

When they have such sessores, such riders, seated over them, they will begin to be governed according to their will.

Another interpreter relates the Apostle's words, "that in the ages to come He might show the exceeding riches of His grace in kindness in Jesus Christ," to the understanding that we have been saved not by our merit, but by His grace. The proof of His great goodness is that He died more for sinners than for the righteous. "For for a good man someone might even dare to die" (Rom 5:7).

He will give us what eye has not seen, nor ear heard, nor has entered into the heart of man (1 Cor 2:9). All this He has already given in part in Christ Jesus, because without Christ no one can be called good.

For this very purpose He wisely divided the ages. He appointed some for the realization of His becoming man, and others for the realization of making man god. As for the ages predetermined for the realization of His becoming man, their ends have reached us, since the divine intention received actual fulfillment in the Incarnation of God the Word.

Considering this according to God's design concerning the ages, which consists in God becoming man, and fixing his gaze on the end accomplished through the Incarnation of God the Word, the divine Apostle says that the ends of the ages have reached us. He does not mean the ages understood by us in general, but those, of course, which were appointed for the realization of the mystery of the Incarnation and have reached their own limit according to God's intention.

Since the ages predetermined according to God's intention for the realization of God's becoming man have reached their end in us, when God truly realized and fulfilled His perfect becoming man, we must now await other ages. These are coming for the realization of the mystical and ineffable deification of men.

In these ages God will manifest to us the exceeding riches of His goodness, realizing deification perfectly in the worthy. For if He Himself reached the end in the mystical realization of His becoming man, becoming like us in every way except sin alone, and descended "into the lower parts of the earth" (Eph 4:9), where the tyranny of sin had thrust man, then He will surely also reach the end in the mystical realization of man's deification.

He will do this when He makes man like Himself in every way, except, of course, identity with Himself according to essence. He will raise man above all the heavens, where the greatness of grace, abiding there by nature, calls fallen man through its boundless goodness.

Mystically teaching this, the great Apostle says that "in the ages to come" there will be manifested "the exceeding riches" in us "of God's goodness" (Eph 2:7).

Therefore let us also divide the ages in thought. Let us define some as belonging to the mystery of the divine Incarnation, and others as belonging to the grace of human deification. Then we shall find that the former are already at their end, while the latter have not yet come.

In brief, some of the ages belong to God's condescension toward men, and others to the ascent of men toward God. Thinking in this way, we shall not stumble over the obscurity of the divine sayings, as though the divine Apostle had made a casual error in one and the same matter.

Or better: since the beginning, middle, and end of all ages, past, present, and future, is our Lord Jesus Christ, then through faith the end of the ages has reached us potentially. In reality, it will come to each person individually by grace in the deification of the worthy.

Or again: since the inner principle of activity differs from the inner principle of a passive state, the divine Apostle mystically and wisely distributed them between past and future ages. The ages of the flesh, in which we now live, have activity as their property. Scripture also knows temporal ages: "And he labored forever, and shall live unto the end" (Ps 48:9-10).

The ages of the spirit, which will come after the present life, belong to our passive transformation. Therefore, being active here, we shall reach the end of the ages when our power and activity reach the limit of their capacity to produce.

In the ages to come, however, undergoing by grace transformation toward deification, we do not act. We are in a passive state, and we do not cease being subjected to deification. For then the passive state that exceeds nature has no limiting boundary for the divine action directed toward those who experience it.

We act as long as we possess by nature a rational and active power that produces virtues. This power can receive every knowledge, and it can pass irresistibly through every intelligible nature of beings and knowable things, leaving the ages behind it.

We undergo the passive state when, having completely passed through the logoi of what is from non-being, we reach in an unknowable manner the Cause of beings. Together with what has been traversed by nature, we also bring our powers to rest.

We then become what can in no way be the work of natural power, because nature has not acquired a power able to contain what is above nature. Nothing created by its own nature produces deification, since it is unable to contain God.

It belongs by nature to divine grace alone to bestow deification according to the receptivity of beings. Grace illumines nature with a light above nature and, through an abundance of glory, makes it exceed its own limits.

Thus the ends of the ages have reached us, since we have almost already received through grace in Christ the gift of blessings beyond the ages and above nature. Their impressions and preliminary outlines are the forms in which virtues are realized, and the logoi of what is knowable according to nature.

Through these, God always graciously wills to become man in worthy men. Blessed is he who wisely has made God man in himself and has realized such a mystery within himself. He passively becomes god by grace, because he will never reach the limit of always becoming such.

For He who works this grace for the worthy, being in essence boundless, possesses a boundless power, surpassing every boundlessness, which accomplishes this benefaction. This power never reaches an end together with what proceeds from it, as happens with us.

On the contrary, it increases its might together with what receives being from it and cannot exist without it. Therefore the Apostle spoke of the riches of goodness, because the divine and all-radiant disposition of goodness toward us never ceases as we are transformed toward deification.

Let us also look at it this way. In those ages whose ends have come upon us, the mystery predetermined before the ages for the universal salvation of the human race was accomplished and fulfilled. This is the union of God with men and His coming. In the ages to come, there will be the ascent of men to God, a higher conjunction with Him, and our transformation into gods by grace, no longer admitting change toward what is worse.

Again, in those ages whose ends we have reached, the doing of the commandments and the passing through trials are required of us. In the ages to come we receive according to our works and are counted worthy of rewards. Then the riches of the Master’s goodness and generosity will overflow upon us beyond utterance and beyond comprehensible thoughts.

If you wish, we may say this also: in the ages that are ending, we conduct our life in a corruptible body. In the ages to come, having exchanged corruption for incorruption, we shall abide in unending eternity.

Again, in the present time we are subject to sin, which rises against us and troubles us. In the age to come we shall find that it no longer wages war and no longer acts. Indeed, it will not exist at all, nor will it be able to exist.

One could add innumerable other things through which it is easy to understand the distinction between the ages hastening toward their end and those that abide without limit. Thus the proposed sayings neither contradict nor oppose one another in any way.

In the future age, however, when “the righteous will shine like the sun” (Mt 13:43) and will reign with Jesus Christ, then the exceeding riches of God’s grace will be visible not only to believers, but also to unbelievers. Then both believers and unbelievers, seeing the glory of the righteous, will clearly know the greatness of the gift given by God to those who have believed in Christ.

This, then, is what the God-inspired Apostle says: God made us alive together, raised us together, and seated us together in the heavenly places, so that according to His natural goodness He may show in the future age the immeasurable riches of His grace toward us who have believed in Christ.

He declared the same thing at the beginning of this epistle, saying: “He predestined us for adoption through Jesus Christ to Himself, according to the good pleasure of His will, to the praise of the glory of His grace, by which He made us accepted in the Beloved” (Eph 1:5-6).

In this brief but powerful depiction of the spiritual and moral transformation accomplished in Christians by Jesus Christ, the commentators especially note divine goodness. Thus St. John of Damascus writes: “You Gentiles, says the Apostle, were held in death because of sin, in which you lived under the evil devil, who ruled over you by evil thoughts. God deemed you worthy of mercy and grace, and changed your deadness in sin into life through communion with Christ.”

“What a dark end belongs to the condition of sin! The sinner is spiritually dead, under the tyranny of the devil, possessed by the spirit of the world, and dragged without restraint by the movements of the flesh. He is enslaved to passions of soul and tossed by sinful thoughts. For all this he is a son of sin and therefore liable to eternal punishment.

How can those delivered from such misery fail to glorify the sovereign might of the Deliverer? By His grace He raises the sinner from the death of sin and leads him into the bright life of pleasing God and holiness” (Bishop Theophan).

“All our deeds were worthy not of love, but of wrath and severe punishment. Therefore, if God loved us, it was solely according to His great mercy. Do you see the exceeding greatness of His power in us who believe? Do you see the hope of the calling: He raised us together with Him and seated us together? Do you see the glory of His inheritance?

Yes, you will say, it is clear that He raised us together. But by what does the Apostle prove that He seated us together in the heavens in Christ Jesus? By the same thing by which he proves that He raised us together. No one would ever have risen unless the Head had risen. And when our Head rose, we too were raised.

In exactly the same way He seated us together. When the Head sits, the body sits with Him. “If we endure with Him, we shall also reign with Him” (2 Tim 2:12). If we have died with Him for sin, we shall also live with Him. Truly, the gift of the Spirit and of revelation is needed to understand the depth of these mysteries.

“If we also wish to know how He seated us together, listen to what Christ Himself says to the disciples: ‘You shall sit on twelve thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel’ (Mt 19:28). To sit at the right hand is an honor higher than every honor, after which there is no further dignity.

To sit with Christ is truly ineffable wealth. It is truly the exceeding greatness of His glory. Consider with whom you will sit. But who are you? Dead, a child of wrath by nature. What right thing have you done? Nothing. Now it is truly fitting to cry out: ‘O the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God!’ (Rom 11:33)” (Chrysostom).

Then, however, this ineffable wealth will be openly revealed before the eyes of all, in all its greatness and splendor. "It does not yet appear what we shall be" (1 Jn 3:2). We cannot grasp the whole breadth of God's goodness toward us in Christ Jesus.

All see it only in part, even the Apostles, not only other believers. The riches of grace signify the treasury of divine gifts to us. By goodness toward us in Christ Jesus, the Apostle indicates the way in which this treasury is opened for us.

Concerning Christ Jesus, the heavenly Father said: This is My beloved Son, in whom all My good pleasure rests. Through the Lord Jesus, this good pleasure extends to all who believe in Him. He who rests with good pleasure upon Christ Jesus rests with that same good pleasure upon those who cleave to Him.

This good pleasure is the goodness toward us in Christ Jesus, because of which the whole wealth of grace is poured out upon us. It is the key to God's treasury.

Is what is already received even now a small thing? The remission of sins, the grace of the Holy Spirit, victory over the passions, progress in the virtues, sanctification, adoption, and the shining forth of extraordinary gifts. Is this a small thing?

Yet all this is now manifested in earthen vessels, in parts, and under the cover of outward disorders around us. Then all this will appear in full glory, and not this alone. Much else will appear, which we cannot even imagine, and it will appear in the whole assembly of believers.

In this age a building of astonishing beauty is being invisibly constructed, yet it is hidden by protective coverings. When everything that prevents the sight of the building's beauty is removed in the age to come, its beauty will astonish human and angelic minds. They will then behold all the riches of grace spent on the ordering of such a building.

Blessed Theodoret writes: "The greatness of the hoped-for blessings is now wholly unknown to unbelievers. Even the faithful see 'as in a mirror, dimly' (1 Cor 13:12), because they walk by faith and not by sight (2 Cor 5:7). Then they will see face to face.

"Then both believers and unbelievers will see the worshipful nature, taken from us for the sake of all creation, and the saints reigning with Him. For 'if we died with Him,' says the Apostle, 'we shall also live with Him. If we endure, we shall also reign with Him' (2 Tim 2:11-12)."

Saint Chrysostom sees this manifestation of the riches of grace in the seating of believers with Christ, as the flow of the discourse also requires. He says: "Since earlier he had spoken of Christ, and in all that was said there was nothing directly referring to us, someone might ask, What is it to us that Christ rose?

"Therefore, after first showing that this must refer to us, because the Savior is united with us, he now speaks of what properly concerns us. 'When we were dead in trespasses, He raised us and seated us together.'

"Therefore believe that He seated us with Himself. Be persuaded of this truth by what was said before, that is, by what was said about the Head. Be persuaded also by the fact that He wills to manifest His goodness toward us.

"How, indeed, will He manifest it if this is not so, that is, if He has not seated us with Himself? He will manifest it 'in the ages to come.' What will He manifest? That the good things prepared by Him are great and altogether worthy of faith.

"Now these blessings seem impossible to unbelievers, but then all will know them. If you wish to know how He seated us, listen to what Christ Himself says to the disciples: 'You will sit on twelve thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel' (Mt 19:28).

"And in another place: 'To sit at My right hand and at My left is not Mine to give, but it is for those for whom it has been prepared by My Father' (Mt 20:23). Therefore this has already been prepared.

"The Apostle said well: by His goodness toward us in Christ Jesus. To sit at the right hand is an honor higher than every honor. After it there is no other dignity. In saying this, namely by His goodness toward us, the Apostle shows that we too shall sit.

"To sit with Christ is truly ineffable wealth. It is truly the exceeding greatness of His power. If you had a thousand souls, would you not lay them down merely to be counted worthy of such honor?

"If it were required to go into fire, should one not be wholly ready even for that trial? Christ Himself says: 'I will that where I am, they also may be with Me' (Jn 17:24). For such an honor, if one had to be cut apart every day, one ought to endure even this with joy.

"Consider where He sits: above every principality and authority. Consider with whom you will sit: with Him. But who are you? Dead, by nature a child of wrath. What righteous thing have you done? Nothing. Now it is truly timely to cry out: 'O the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God!' (Rom 11:33)."