Paul, the apostle to the gentiles, spent three years in Ephesus (Acts 19; and 20: 17-38), and there he established a congregation of the Lord’s church. Ten years later, f
rom his prison in Rome, Paul wrote this Epistle and sent it by Tychicus to the Christians there.
And in verse #3 we find these words…Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ, (EPH 1:3)
This verse begins with a verbal adjective eulogetos. This is used only of deity in the N.T. (LUK 1:68). The word ”is eulogetos. Taken from the participle eulogeo = good or well; lego = to speak which means to praise. As an adjective eulogetos means “worthy of praise and glorification.” It is a technical word, one of the high words of praise used only for God. This word is going to occur several times in this passage.
REV 4:10-11, the twenty-four elders will fall down before Him who sits on the throne, and will worship Him who lives forever and ever, and will cast their crowns before the throne, saying, “Worthy art Thou, our Lord and our God, to receive glory and honor and power; for Thou didst create all things, and because of Thy will they existed, and were created.”
The worship of the twenty-four elders has a particular note concerning our word eulogetos. They not only worship and recognize these attributes of God but support their worship by recognition of the fact that God is the sovereign Creator of the universe and, as such, is sovereign over all of it. This is in fact the meaning of the word eulogetos, worthy of praise and glorification. Its meaning is out all over the airwaves and it’s up to us to either recognize its validity or reject it. Here the creature honors His Maker and accepts the dictum that man necessarily must be subject to his Creator. The world today does not give such honor to the Lord God. Though men benefit from His goodness and live in a universe of His creation, they tend to neglect the worship of God. One of the important aims of the book of Revelation is to trace the divine movement of history toward the goal of universal recognition of God. This purpose of God, especially as related to the Son of God, is also spelled out in Philippians 2:9-11:
Therefore also God highly exalted Him, and bestowed on Him the name which is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of those who are in heaven, and on earth, and under the earth, and that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father. (Philippians 2:9-11“>PHI 2:9-11)
As if anticipating the ultimate consummation where all will recognize the exalted name of Jesus whether in heaven or hell, Revelation 4 reveals this intimate glimpse of heaven where all created beings join in a symphony of praise and give their honor and worship to the Almighty God. Why are a certain few given the privilege of leading the entire body of Christ in this worship? It is because they recognized this very fact before they were allowed to see Christ face to face. The word eulogetos was their battle cry in time because they saw Christ face to face through His word! The worthiness of God to receive such praise is related to His sovereign right to rule as the One who sits upon the throne. The twenty-four elders bear witness to His majesty and glory, His holiness and power, and the eternity of the One “which was, and is, and is to come.”
All creatures owe their very existence to Him as their Creator, “for thou hast created all things, and for thy pleasure they are and were created.” Wise is the soul who finds in the Scriptures the revelation of such a God and who bows now in this day of grace in faith and worship before the God whom he will serve in eternity. The first word in this long sentence that summarizes the plan of God for the church in EPH 1:3-14 is in fact a description of the thinking of the most mature believer who completes the plan of God. At the end of his life Paul understood this more than anyone and he instructed his young apprentice Timothy to have the same attitude. If Timothy taught doctrine without full understanding that it was God who should be glorified and not any creature including Timothy, then Timothy, like all of us in our walk, would get absorbed with the details and the problems. Of course the glorification of God is the ultimate objective.
Now in 1 Tim. 4:1-7 he uses himself as an e
xample to Timothy and to all of us, no matter what spiritual gift you possess.]
I have fought the good fight, I have finished the course, I have kept the faith; (2TI 4:1-7)
No believer is going to do that if he doesn’t recognize God’s authority and His worthiness for praise and glorification.
in the future there is laid up for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous Judge, will award to me on that day; and not only to me, but also to all who have loved His appearing. (2TI 4:8)
The call is to have this attitude in time through your execution of your very own plan. This is the implication of eulogetos to every faithful child of God in time. Eulogetos is the first word in the summary and it is the last word of the faithful in time who about to be called home.
Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ, (EPH 1:3)
“The God” — ho theos. This time we have the definite article to indicate the identity of the noun, “God.” “and Father” — we have kai pater again, mentioned this time to indicate once again the first person of the Trinity who is invisible and unknowable apart from the Word of God, and the key to knowing Him is the Lord Jesus Christ. God and Father is the same person. We have no definite article with pater to call attention to the quality He is; the Father is the absolute authority. The first person of the Trinity is the author of the divine plan, the ultimate source of grace, the One with absolute authority, and the only One that can assure freedom in the heart of an individual to function within his own plan.
“of our Lord Jesus Christ” — tou kuriou hemon Iesou Christou. This phrase presents the focal point of the Father’s plan and at the same time emphasizes that the only celebrity of the Christian life is Jesus Christ. The definite article tou indicates the relationship of every one of these words. Every one of these words is a genitive of relationship. Tou is the genitive of the definite article, it gives us the key. Tou kuriou – the Lord (deity) – is genitive of relationship and it is a relationship between the Son and the Father. The Son has the same essence as the Father. “Lord” is deity. Then we have Iesou in the genitive, the humanity of Christ.
At this point, when we get to the word “Jesus,” we now see something of the uniqueness of Christ. “Jesus” – He is coequal with God the Father but He is different from the Father because He is true humanity. The Christou– Anointed or Appointed One – indicates that His humanity was sent through the sovereign decision and plan of the Father to be the Messiah. The humanity of Christ was sent to the world. He was sent to the world to save mankind from the second death and to provide for mankind what he lost at the fall – a relationship with God.
So man comes into contact with Jesus Christ, and when he does he learns about the Father; first of all by receiving as his savior the living Word — phase one, Christ on the cross; then phase two, the written Word — the Bible, the canon of scripture, doctrine — and then he learns about both Christ and the Father and the whole plan.
God the Father is the author of the plan — operation grace. He is the object of all worship, praise, glorification, homage, adoration, and thanksgiving. Jesus Christ is both the revelation of the Godhead and the first phase of the plan of God. As the Father of Jesus Christ the first person of the Trinity sent the Son as the grace entrance into the Father’s plan. Christ said, “I am the door.”
The work of the Son on the Cross not only excludes but it precludes all human works for salvation and subsequent blessing. Since Christ is the only savior the Lord is the entrance into the Father’s plan, there is no other way.
Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ, (EPH 1:3)
“who” is not found in the original manuscript. Instead there is a pre-positive definite article ho, usually translated “the one.” It always refers to the person in context about whom everything is being said: “the one” — God the Father. “has blessed” — ho eulogesas – literally, “the one [God the Father] having blessed.” This is the aorist active participle from eulogeo. God the Father is the subject of the participle. This is a gnomic aorist tense, which means it is the norm or standard of the universe. A gnomic aorist is one in which a doctrine is regarded as an absolute. It is to be taught as an absolute thing. This verb really means to provide benefits.
Gnomic aorist – It is an absolute in this universe of relatives that the God and Father provides mankind with benefits. This means any blessing that comes from sin does not come from God and therefore it means that that is not blessing in the absolute sense, in the grace sense. So it is important to understand the gnomic aorist. This is an absolute. The active voice: God the Father produces the action, He provides the benefits, does all the work, there is no place for human ability, human talent, human personality, human ingenuity.
