Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God,

To the saints who are in Ephesus, and are faithful in Christ Jesus:

 Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.

Paul identifies only the earthly location of these saints as being at Ephesus; their spiritual status he will not bind to this place.  With clever parallelism in the original Greek the apostle speaks of the people of God as “the saints in Ephesus” – giving their physical locale; and as “ the faithful in Christ Jesus” – giving their spiritual status. Surrounded by paganism they are nonetheless secure in Christ, not on the basis of their consecration, but on the basis of faith that unites them to Christ.  Here once again, as is so often the case in the epistles of Paul, is the wonderful affirmation of the beauty and benefits of our union with Christ.  Though troubles assail us and temptations attack us, yet they do not overcome us.  We remain the holy ones of God because of our union with him.  Again the apostle has taken us away from ourselves as the answer to the challenges that are greater than we. When sin is pervasive, we prevail not by our might but by the virtue of the consecrating power of God that is ours by faith alone.

Bryan Chapell

But whether we understand it or not, union with Christ is in one sense the very essence of salvation.  John Murray, an able expositor of this theme , wrote, “Union with Christ has its source in the election of God the Father before the foundation of the world and it has its fruition in the glorification of the sons of God.  The perspective of God’s people is not narrow; it has the expanse of eternity.  Its orbit has two foci, one the electing love of God the Father in the counsels of eternity, the other glorification with Christ in the manifestation of his glory. The former has no beginning, the latter has no end.”

Apart from Christ our condition is absolutely hopeless. In him our condition is glorious to the extreme.

James Montgomery Boice

The knowledge of a God who acts in behalf of his people without any merit of their own is the grace self-evident in Paul’s life.  He proclaims this grace to the Ephesians not simply as their hope but as their peace, because such grace means that God is not holding their sin against them.  God has overcome the obstacles of the human heart and the powers of human evil.  Because Paul knows this grace, he knows peace – and he shares both, knowing that when grace is understood as the compassionate and prevailing power of God in behalf of his people, then comes peace.

Bryan Chapell