Ephesians 5:1Meaning & Commentary from the Church Fathers

Sins must be forgiven more readily than monetary debts. If you forgive money, you will not thereby imitate God. But if you forgive sins, you will imitate God. In any case, how can you say, “I am poor and cannot forgive,” when you do not forgive even what you can?

If even the forgiveness of sins you regard as a loss to yourself, what will happen when the matter touches your wealth, property, and possessions?

“Therefore be imitators of God.” Here is another most beautiful exhortation: “as,” he says, “beloved children.” You have another necessity to imitate Him, not only because you have been benefited by Him, but because you have become children.

“As beloved children.” Since not all sons imitate their fathers, but only the beloved, he says, “as beloved children, and walk in love.” See also the explanation on verse 2.

“Therefore be imitators of God, as beloved children.” Whoever understands how it is said, “Be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect” (Mt 5:48), will know how it is now said, “Be imitators of God.”

In the Epistle to the Corinthians he also says, “Imitate me, as I also imitate Christ” (1 Cor 11:1). Indeed, they could not be imitators of Christ immediately.

It was already much for them if they could be imitators of His imitator. But to the Ephesians, as though to those whom he had taught so many mysteries, he no longer says, “Be imitators of me.”

Nor does he say, “Be imitators of Christ,” but, “Be imitators of God.” This does not mean that being an imitator of Christ is less than being an imitator of God, for Christ is God.

Rather, it is one thing to be an imitator according to man, and another according to God. For although we once knew Christ according to the flesh, now we no longer know Him according to the flesh.

The Savior Himself also says, showing His abasement in the divine economy: “What the Son sees the Father doing, He Himself does likewise” (Jn 5:19).

This does not mean that the Father made one heaven and one earth, and that by Christ another heaven, another earth, and other elements were created in their likeness.

It means that the Son does the same thing the Father does. He testified above about the way in which we can be equal to God, saying, “Forgiving yourselves, as God forgave you in Christ.”

For I do not think that in the rest of what God does, man can imitate God. But as God is merciful and sends rain on the evil and the good, and so forth, we too must pour out our goodness upon all men.

When we do this, we shall be beloved children either of Paul himself, or, as seems better to me, of God.

2. The holy Apostle Peter writes: “As obedient children, do not be conformed to the former lusts of your ignorance. But as He who called you is holy, you also be holy in all your conduct. For it is written: Be holy, for I am holy” (1 Pet. 1:14-16). This commandment means that a man must preserve chastity and purity of body and soul, not only with respect to the passion of fornication, but also with respect to the other passions. Envy, hatred, and remembrance of wrongs also constitute uncleanness of soul.

3. It is said in the Gospel according to Matthew: “Be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect” (Mt. 5:48). According to the word of St. Isaac the Syrian, Christian perfection consists in the depth of humility. The Pharisee, as he himself testified, was subject to no vice. Yet because he exalted himself, judged, and despised the publican, he not only lost everything, but was rejected by God.

For this reason the Lord says: “When you have done all that is commanded you, say, We are unprofitable servants, because we have done what we were obliged to do” (Lk. 17:10). However firm and exact any Christian may be in fulfilling his Christian duties, this fulfillment and spiritual labor, according to the holy Fathers, can be compared only to a small font, or to the tiniest lake.

The commandments of God are like the great sea, as the holy prophet David says: “Thy commandment is exceedingly broad” (Ps. 118:96). Before this breadth even the great saints were involuntarily humbled. They called themselves earth and ashes, and counted themselves worse than every creature.

Or, as the wisest of the Apostles, St. Paul, expressed it: “Forgetting what lies behind and stretching forward to what lies ahead, I press toward the goal, for the prize of the upward calling of God in Christ Jesus. Therefore let as many of us as are perfect think this way” (Phil. 3:13-15).

“And here is the foundation of everything: walk in love. If there is love, there will be neither fury, nor anger, nor shouting, nor abuse, but all this will be destroyed. Therefore he places the chief thing at the end.”

“Be attached to love, because through it you were saved in Christ and became a son of God” (Chrysostom).

In true Christianity, actions performed by the cold demand of reason are not tolerated. Rather, everything must come from the heart, and the heart must be full of love.

God Himself said, “Be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect” (Mt 5:48). From the connection of the discourse where this is said, one sees what perfection in imitation of God is required here.

It is love and mercy. Saint Luke directly gives the same in a similar discourse of the Lord: “Be merciful, as your Father also is merciful” (Lk 6:36).

The Savior considers that love true which is held toward enemies. For He says, “Love your enemies, bless those who curse you, do good to those who hate you.”

“Pray for those who mistreat you and persecute you, that you may be sons of your Father Who is in heaven.”

“He makes His sun rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous.”

“For if you love those who love you, what reward have you? Do not even the tax collectors do the same? And if you greet only your friends, what more are you doing?

“Do not even the Gentiles do the same?” (Mt 5:44-47). Here is the test of love. Only such love should be considered imitative of God.

Saint Chrysostom sees in this imitation of God the incomparable privilege of Christians. “What can be sweeter than these words, ‘Be imitators of God’?

“If you name the kingdom, or anything else, none of it can be compared with them. You imitate God, you become like God, when you forgive together with Him.

“Sins must be forgiven more readily than monetary debts. If you forgive money, by this you do not imitate God. But if you forgive sins, you imitate God.”

Blessed Jerome discerned a certain special shade of meaning in the Apostle’s words. “Whoever understands the sense in which it is said, ‘Be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect’ (Mt 5:48), knows how it is said here.

“Be imitators of God. Writing to the Corinthians, the Apostle says, ‘Be imitators of me, as I am of Christ’ (1 Cor 11:1; 1 Cor 4:16).

“They could not immediately become imitators of Christ. It was great for them if they could become imitators of an imitator.

“But to the Ephesians, as to those whom he had already taught such mysteries, he does not say, ‘Be imitators of me,’ or ‘Be imitators of Christ.’ He says, ‘Be imitators of God.’

“This is not because it is less to be an imitator of Christ than of God, for Christ is God. Rather, it is one thing to imitate according to man, and another according to God.

“Even Christ we no longer understand according to the flesh, as some understood Him at the beginning. The Savior Himself also says, showing His humility according to the divine economy of salvation:

“‘The Son can do nothing of Himself, except what He sees the Father doing. For whatever He does, the Son likewise does’ (Jn 5:19).

“This does not mean that the Father created one heaven and one earth, and that afterward another heaven and another earth were created by Christ in their likeness.

“It means that the Son does the very same thing the Father does, that is, indivisibly. He testified above about the precise way in which we can become like God.

“He said, ‘forgiving one another, as God also forgave you in Christ.’ I do not think that in the rest of what God does, man can imitate God.

“But this is possible: as God is merciful and sends rain on the good and the evil, so we also show our goodness to all men.

“When we fulfill this, we shall be beloved children either of Paul himself or, as I think better, of God.”

In the words “as beloved children,” one sees an indication of the moral necessity of the proposed disposition, a necessity exclusively Christian.

Theodoret writes: “You have been counted worthy of adoption. You call God Father. Therefore be zealous for this kinship.”

“Beloved children” may mean either insofar as God loves them, or insofar as they love God, that is, as children who love God.

The latter thought appears in Saint Chrysostom: “Here is yet another most beautiful exhortation: ‘as beloved children,’ he says.

“You have another necessity to imitate Him, not only because you have been benefited by Him, but also because you have become children.

“Since not all sons imitate their fathers, but only beloved sons, he therefore says, ‘as beloved children.’”

One may carry the inference from these words further, namely to the conclusion that whoever is not such is not a Christian.

Those who are born of God receive the authority to be children of God. They are born thus by the Holy Spirit. When the Holy Spirit comes, He pours the love of God, or divine love, into our hearts (Rom 5:5).

According to the Lord’s word, the proof of such love is love for enemies, not only forgiveness, but love. Going backward, we obtain this conclusion.

Whoever does not have such love does not have the Spirit. Whoever does not have the Spirit has not been born of Him. Whoever has not been born from above is not a son of God.

Whoever is not a son of God by grace is not a Christian. Hence, in the words “as beloved children,” this thought is hidden: otherwise, you are not children.

If not children, then what follows is known. Yet this gives no right to the person who does not feel such love to say: what can I do, since it is not being poured out?

Nor may he sit with folded hands and wait until God Himself does everything in him for him.

It is true that all good moral dispositions exist in us in their proper form only by the action of the grace of the Holy Spirit.

Yet no one is released from the works that belong to the sphere of those dispositions and serve as their expression. If you lack the disposition, compel yourself to the works that come from it.

Then the disposition will come. The grace of the Spirit will also come and will raise to final perfection everything to which you could not give perfection by your own efforts.