Ephesians 3:13Meaning & Commentary from the Church Fathers

One must not merely avoid grief, but rejoice. Yet if a prediction can console you, we foretell that we shall suffer afflictions here. Why? Because the Master has so commanded.

The Apostle said that afflictions are glory. If my afflictions are such, much more are your own. Therefore afflictions are not yet a sign that we have been abandoned by God. He who has shown us such goodness will certainly not forsake us.

If Paul needed prayer and the help of the Spirit in order to know the love of God, who after this will know the essence of Christ by reasonings alone?

Is it truly so difficult to know that God loves us? Very difficult, beloved. Some do not even know this, which is why, as they say, thousands of evils occur in the world. Others do not know the measure of this love.

Paul does not seek out this measure and does not wish to measure love. How could he do so? Rather, he says that to know the riches of love is a surpassing and great thing.

He says that he can prove this very thing by the knowledge of which we have been counted worthy. What is higher than being "strengthened" and "established," and having Christ within oneself?

We ask much of God, he says. Yet He can do for us far more than we ask, so that we may not only love Him, but love Him intensely.

Let us then strive, beloved, to know the love of God. This matters greatly for us. Nothing else brings us such benefit. Nothing so exalts us. Knowledge of this love can act upon souls more powerfully than fear of Gehenna.

From where shall we know it? From what has been said, and from what happens every day. For what purpose was all this created? For what need? None at all.

The cause of the being of both the things above and the things below is the one love of God. This love is especially seen in His doing good to men, though He first received nothing from them.

Therefore, in imitation of Him, let us also do good to our enemies. Let us not reject those who hate us and turn away from us. This makes us like God.

If, it is said, you love the one who loves you, what benefit is there? Even the Gentiles do this (Mt 5:46-47). But what is the sign of true love? Love for the one who hates.

I wish to give an example. Forgive me: not finding it among spiritual things, I borrow it from bodily life. Do you not see lovers? How many insults they endure from their mistresses, how much treachery, how much harm.

How they are tormented and wasted away by them, and nevertheless they love them more than their own souls, spending nights at their doors.

Let us learn from this example, not to love such dissolute women, of course, but to love our enemies in this way. Tell me, do not these mistresses treat those enslaved to them worse than all enemies?

Do they not squander their possessions? Do they not inflict personal insults on them? Do they not command them with greater authority than their own slaves? Yet the lovers do not leave them.

No one has such an enemy as a lover has in his mistress. She is proud over him, dishonors him, often misuses him, and treats him with greater contempt the more she is loved by him.

What is more beastlike than a soul in such a condition? Yet lovers love their mistresses. But now we shall find such love also among spiritual men, not among those of today, for now it has grown cold.

We find it among the ancient, great, and wondrous men. Blessed Moses surpassed even those who have passionate love. How, and in what way?

First, leaving the royal court with its luxury, honors, and glory, he preferred to be with the Israelites. Another man would not only have failed to do this. He would have blushed if someone exposed his kinship even with slaves.

He would have blushed still more at kinship with people regarded as criminals. But Moses was not ashamed of this kinship. He showed himself the most zealous defender of the Israelites and exposed himself to danger for them.

How? Seeing, it is said, that one man was wronging another, he defended the one wronged and killed the wrongdoer. Yet he did not do this for enemies.

This deed too was great, but not so great as what happened afterward. The next day he saw the same thing. Seeing that the one whom he had avenged yesterday was doing wrong, he urged him not to wrong another.

But this man, in his extreme ingratitude, said to him: "Who made you a ruler and a judge over us?" (Ex 2:14).

Whom would such words not have angered? If the earlier deed had been done under the influence of anger and irrational irritation, Moses would have killed this man too. The one for whom it had been done would not have reported him.

But Scripture says that he spoke in this way because they were kinsmen. On the contrary, when he himself was wronged, he said nothing like this: "Who made you a ruler and a judge over us?"

Why did you not speak so yesterday? The wrong you committed and your cruelty made me prince and judge. But notice that some now say this even to God.

They wish God to be harsh toward those who wrong them, and they accuse Him of longsuffering toward them. Yet when they themselves wrong others, they do not act in this way.

What is more insulting than such words? Nevertheless, even after this, when Moses was sent to the ungrateful and thankless, he went and did not refuse.

More than this, after the signs and wonders he had performed, they intended to stone him, and he escaped from their hands. Yet, though he remained the constant object of their murmuring, the prophet loved them with such love.

After the people had committed the well-known grave sin, he said to God: "Forgive them their sin; but if not, blot me also out of Your book which You have written" (Ex 32:32).

I would rather, he says, perish with them than be saved without them. This is truly a love that does not reason, a kind of passionate love.

What are you saying? Do you not value heaven? I do not value it, he says, because I love those who have sinned. Do you wish to be blotted out? How could it be otherwise? I love, he says.

What followed after this? Hear what Scripture says elsewhere: Moses was embittered because of them, and "Moses suffered for their sake" (Ps 105:32). How many times they offended him. How many times they abandoned both him and his brother.

How many times they wished to return to Egypt. After all this, he burned and was aflame with love, and was ready to suffer for them.

This is how one must love enemies. When suffering their attacks and torments, and enduring losses from them, one must desire their salvation.

Tell me, did not Paul wish to be cast into Gehenna in place of them, the Israelites? But here one cannot fail to bring forward the Master Himself as an example.

How did He act when He said: "He makes His sun rise on the evil and on the good" (Mt 5:45)? He, our Savior, gives the Father as an example. We shall give Him, Christ, as ours.

He came to us, I mean His divine economy. He became a servant for our sake. He humbled Himself, emptied Himself, and took the form of a servant.

When He came to earth, though He Himself did not go into the way of the Gentiles, He commanded His disciples to do so. He not only did this, but also went about healing every disease and every infirmity.

What then? All marveled and said in perplexity: "Where did this Man get all these things?" (Mt 13:56). But those who had received benefits from Him said: "He has a demon" (Jn 10:20).

They called Him a blasphemer, a madman, and a deceiver (Mt 9:3; Mt 27:63). What then? Did He drive them away from Himself? No.

On the contrary, hearing this, He did still more good. He went to those who intended to crucify Him, as though it were especially for them that He had to minister unto salvation.

And when He was crucified, what did He say? "Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do" (Lk 23:34). Both before and after, while suffering evil, He did everything for them to His last breath.

He prayed for them. After He was crucified, what did He not do for them? Did He not send the apostles? Did He not show signs? Did He not shake even the earth for them?

This is how one must love enemies, in imitation of Christ. Paul acted in the same way. Though stoned and enduring thousands of sufferings, he did everything for them, his enemies.

Hear what he says: "My heart’s desire and prayer to God is for their salvation" (Rom 10:1). And again: "For I bear them witness that they have zeal for God" (Rom 10:2).

And again: "If you, a wild olive tree, were grafted in among them and became a partaker of the root and fatness of the olive tree" (Rom 11:17).

With what tender love he speaks these words. With what goodwill. This cannot be expressed, truly it cannot. This is how one must love enemies.

Love for enemies is love for God, who gave the commandments and laws. It is imitation of Him. Know, then, that when you do good to enemies, you do good not to them, but to yourself.

You do not love them, but obey God. Therefore, knowing this, let us be established in mutual love, so that, having fulfilled it exactly, we may receive the promised blessings in Christ Jesus our Lord.

With Him, to the Father with the Holy Spirit be glory, dominion, and honor, now and ever, and unto the ages of ages. Amen.

Through his teaching the whole world was taken from under the dominion of the prince of this world. Idol worship ceased, and temples abandoned by their worshipers were filled with abomination and uncleanness. For this reason the whole army of demons and the entire throng of hostile powers armed themselves in enmity against him.

They wished, through torments and oppressions, to make him cease preaching the Gospel and, through a certain weariness, give himself over to rest. Therefore he says: I ask not to grow faint in my sufferings for you. For everything I endure, everything I experience, and everything that compels me, happens for the sake of your salvation, since I desire to preach the Gospel. These trials of mine serve as your glory.

Then he spoke as one unskilled in speech, when he joined the singular word glory to the plural word sufferings, saying, "in my sufferings for you, which is your glory." He means. "which sufferings are your glory." Otherwise someone, by rearranging the words, might think that this expression must refer either to confidence, or to access to God, or to faith.

Such a person might say that in this we receive confidence, access to God, and faith, and that this confidence, access to God, and faith are our glory. But one must follow the understanding given above.

Yet according to what the Latin translator expressed, these words may also be interpreted in another sense: "Therefore I ask that you not grow faint at my sufferings for you, which are your glory." He asks on behalf of the Ephesians that they not become weary or faint because of the Apostle's sufferings.

Indeed, what follows better corresponds to this understanding: "For this reason I bow my knees before the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, that He would grant you, according to the riches of His glory, to be strengthened with might" (Eph 3:14,16). They truly needed strength so as not to be overcome by temptations.

Perhaps someone will say: if the Ephesians had been subjected to afflictions, the Apostle could surely pray earnestly for them that they not faint or grow weary. But in the present case, when Paul is subjected to trials, it is absurd that he asks for the Ephesians not to grow faint at their sorrows.

To resolve this small question, let them take this example: "You did not despise or reject your trial in my flesh" (Gal 4:13-14). In this saying it is shown that in Paul's flesh a trial appeared for others.

Let us turn our attention to the people of the whole world. But why should I speak generally of all? Let us reason about those who are considered believers in Christ. We shall see that they are chiefly tempted by this question: why do holy men who serve God suffer many misfortunes, while criminals, impious men, and murderers prosper, are strong, rich, and powerful?

Speaking in the person of such people, David says, "How good is the God of Israel to the upright in heart. But my feet had almost stumbled, my steps had nearly slipped, because I was envious of the unrighteous when I saw the peace of sinners" (Ps 72:2-3). To this he adds, "I said, I have justified my heart in vain and washed my hands in innocence, and I was scourged all the day" (Ps 72:13-14).

It is therefore no wonder that when Paul was oppressed in Ephesus and Asia, the Ephesians were subjected to temptation. They needed necessary help and his words of consolation, lest they yield to weakness because of his oppressions.

That the Apostle endured many things in Ephesus and Asia is also recorded in Acts. Yet we learn still more about this from Paul's own Epistles. In them he says, "If, according to man, I fought with beasts at Ephesus, what profit is it to me if the dead do not rise?" (1 Cor 15:32).

And in the Second Epistle to the Corinthians: "I do not want you to be ignorant, brethren, of our affliction which befell us in Asia. We were burdened beyond measure, above strength, so that we despaired even of life. But we had the sentence of death in ourselves, so that we should not trust in ourselves, but in God who raises the dead. He delivered us from so many deaths and does deliver us. We hope that He will still deliver us" (2 Cor 1:8-10).

How greatly did the weight of calamities oppress him, when he says, "He delivered us from so many and such great dangers"? Therefore he rightly asks that the faith of the Ephesians not fail because of his oppressions and afflictions, which he endured because he had preached the Gospel to them.

To unbelievers these oppressions appear to be punishments. To believers they are glory and victory, because to conquer means not to yield to adversaries amid difficult circumstances.

One may ask where Saint Paul is leading this whole discourse, and why he speaks at length about the hiddenness of the mystery of the calling of the Gentiles, now only revealed. He does this to dispose the Ephesians more strongly to keep firm remembrance of this mystery, so precious for them. For this reason he said at the beginning of his discourse on it: "remember" (Eph 2:11). With the same aim, he also sets forth this special point: the preaching of this mystery has been entrusted chiefly to him, Paul, and for its sake he suffers and endures bonds (Eph 3:1). What followed from this? The Lord suffered in order to break down the dividing wall and bring you near. The one who called you to participation in this is in bonds. Will you remain inattentive to this, and will you not remember it? Such is the content and meaning of the first thirteen verses of chapter three (Bishop Theophan).

Then he exclaims: "If the angels did not know this and things like it, what is surprising if they did not know the wealth of Christ's love as it was revealed through the gospel?" To this Bishop Theophan adds: "The angels too are now brought into the restored union. It is the most exalted and sweetest object of contemplation for them, since they have for the first time shared in it and beheld it. In this lies the end of the redemptive actions of the God-man. In it the mystery of God's governance of the world is resolved, and the purpose of the creation of the world is attained." "See how great is what has been done for you, O Gentiles. Heaven and earth have been set in motion. Angelic minds are enlightened, delighted, and amazed by the contemplation of it. Therefore remember." Saint Chrysostom asks: "Why are Paul's tribulations the glory of the Ephesians?" He answers: "Because God so loved them that He gave His Only-begotten Son, and delivered the Apostles over to suffering. So great is God's love for them."

Therefore he adds one word, in case anyone should be troubled by his sufferings: see how many blessings have been given to you, and this through my preaching to you. Let me suffer for this, but do not be troubled. Look rather at what is being brought to you through these sufferings.

Looking at this, you should not be troubled, but should rejoice. For you see what glory comes to you from it. Were there among the Ephesians some who were troubled for this reason? Blessed Jerome finds this very likely.

Everyone is troubled, he says, by the fact that sinners are for the most part prosperous, while the righteous suffer. Even holy David says of himself that his feet had almost slipped when he saw the peace of sinners (Ps 72:3).

And how much did the Apostle Paul suffer? This is evident from Acts, and even more from the Epistles to the Corinthians, one of which was written in Ephesus and the other immediately after his departure from it. "I fought with beasts," he says (1 Cor 15:32). "We were exceedingly burdened beyond our strength, so that we despaired even of life" (2 Cor 1:8).

The Ephesians could have been troubled by all this. The Apostle did well to say this consoling word, so that their faith would not fail when they saw such afflictions of the Apostle. This is taken in abbreviated form from Jerome.

Chrysostom also thinks that some were certainly troubled. "How did they trouble themselves when another was sorrowing? This means that they fell into fear and were troubled. He writes of this also to the Thessalonians, saying, 'that no one should be shaken by these afflictions' (1 Thess 3:3). For one must not only not grieve, but even rejoice. We endure afflictions here because God has so commanded."

Why are the Apostle's afflictions the glory of the Ephesians? One may answer thus: because they are the glory of the Apostle, and their reflection falls also upon those who believed through him. It is fitting for disciples to boast of their teacher, saying, see what our teacher is like.

That the afflictions were the Apostle's glory follows from the fact that he remained unconquered amid them. It is not a diminishment of honor when one suffers assaults and misfortunes for the good he does. The dishonor is when he falls under their weight. Standing firm against misfortunes is victory over them, and this victory is the glory of the one who stands firm (Jerome).

Thus the Apostle's afflictions, gloriously endured, are his glory, and through him also the glory of the Ephesians. Yet more directly, these afflictions are the glory of the Ephesians by reason of the glory they receive through the gospel. For this gospel St. Paul suffered and came into bonds.

Thus Chrysostom says: "Why do his afflictions constitute their glory? Because God so loved them that He gave His Only-begotten Son for them and delivered His servants, the Apostles, over to suffering. Indeed, Paul too was in bonds so that they might receive such great blessings. So great is God's love for them!"