Ephesians 4 [Author’s Translation]
 
1 Pleading with you therefore (according to what has preceded), I the prisoner in the Lord/LORD, ask that you also walk in a worthy manner according to the calling with which you were called, 
2 with all humility and gentleness, with patience, bearing with one another in all-encompassing love (αγάπη agape[G]), 
3 hastening to keep/guard the unity of the Spirit in the bond of the peace/wholeness/wellbeing. 
4 One body and one Spirit, just as indeed you were called in one hope of your calling; 
5 One Lord/LORD, one faith/trust, one immersion (טבילה במקווה tevilah b’mikveh[H]); 
6 One God and Father of all, who is above all, and through all, and in all.
7 But to each one of us was given according to the measure, the grace/unmerited favour of Messiah’s gift. 
8 Therefore He says (YHVH by His Spirit on King David’s tongue/pen):
“When He ascended on high,
He took captivity captive,
In order to give gifts to humans.” (Septuagint. Psalm 68:18 [19])
9 (Now what is meant by, “He ascended”— but that He also first descended into the lower parts of the earth. [Psalms 139:15] 
10 He Who came down is also the One Who ascended above all the heavens, in order that He might fill all things.)
11 And He Himself gave some as apostles (sent ones), some prophets, some evangelists (bringers of good news), and some shepherds and teachers, 
12 for the equipping of the holy ones (saints) for the work of service, for the building up of the body of Messiah, 
13 until we all come to the unity of the faith/trust and of the precise correct knowledge of the Son, the God, toward a man perfect, toward the measure of the height of the fully filled Messiah; 
14 that we should never again be young children (not yet of the age of moral understanding), tossed about and driven around with every wind of teaching, by the cunning of people (soul stealers), in the craftiness of the schemes of the error, 
15 But being truthful in all-encompassing love (αγάπη agape[G]), grow up toward Him the all, Who is the head—Messiah— 
16 from Whom the whole body, joined and knitted together through all that each joint supplies, according to the active energy in measured precision by which every element does its part, causes growth of the body for the building up of itself in all-encompassing love (αγάπη agape[G]).
17 This I say, therefore (according to what has preceded), and testify in the Lord/LORD, that you should never again walk as the rest of the Gentiles walk, in the futility of their thinking, 
18 having their understanding darkened, being alienated from the life of the God, because of the ignorance (wilful rejection of knowledge) that is in them, because of the wilful blindness of their heart (inner being); 
19 who, being intentionally numb, have given themselves over to unbridled lust, to work all impurity with greediness.
20 But you haven’t learned that, you have learned Messiah, 
21 if indeed you have heard/listened to/received Him and have been taught by Him, just as the truth is in the Yeshua: 
22 To put off, according to your former conduct, the old human which destroys according to the lust of the deceit, 
23 to be renewed, in the spirit, the mind (intellect) of you,
24 and be clothed with the new human which is created according to God, in righteousness and holiness, the truth.
25 Therefore, to put aside the lie, “each one speak truth with his neighbour,” (Zechariah 8:16) for we are members of one another. 
26 “Tremble, stand in awe, quake with rage/agitation/excitement (רִגְזוּ rigzu – shake, be agitated, rage) Be angry (Ὀργίζεσθε orgizesthe – an instance of settled opposition), and do not sin” (Psalm 4:4[5]): do not let the sun go down on your indignation, 
27 Don’t give space to the devil/slanderer/false accuser. 
28 Let the one who stole steal no longer, but rather let that one labour, working with hands to do what is good, so that person may have something to give the one who is in need. 
29 Let no corrupt word proceed out of your mouth, but what is good and needed for building up, in order that it might impart grace/unmerited favour to those who hear. 
30 And do not grieve the Holy Spirit of the God, by Whom you were sealed/marked for the day of redemption/liberation. 
31 Let all bitterness, wrath, festering anger (ὀργὴ orge - a teeming general state of constitutional opposition), belligerent shouting, and evil speaking/distractions be put away from you, along with all evil intent to injure. 
32 And be kind to one another, compassionate, giving grace/unmerited favour to one another, just as the God in Messiah gives grace/unmerited favour to you.
 
Line By Line:
 
1 Pleading with you therefore (according to what has preceded), I the prisoner in the Lord/LORD, ask that you also walk in a worthy manner according to the calling with which you were called, 
 
Based on all that Paul has written in the first three chapters he pleads with the Ephesian ecclesia (body of believers) asking that they walk out their faith according to the calling of God on their lives. Paul says this as “the prisoner in the LORD” and thus draws the attention of the Ephesian believers to the self-sacrificial nature of the calling all believers receive from God in Messiah, and the fact that God is ultimately in control of all things, including Paul’s imprisonment.
 
This exhortation to act from faith is common to Paul’s letters. Notice, that it is act from faith and not act for faith.
 
“Therefore, my beloved ones, just as you have always obeyed, not only in my presence but now much more so in my absence, with fear and trembling work out of the salvation of yourselves.”
 
-Philippians 2:12 [Author’s translation]
 
What follows in the later chapters of Ephesians is a guide to spiritual practice, the sum of which is “walk in a worthy manner according to the calling with which you were called.” (Ref. Romans 8:1; 12:1; Col. 1:10; 1 Thess. 2:12)
 
Up to this point in his letter Paul has mostly focused on Messiah’s supremacy, the Gospel inclusion of the Gentiles and praise. He now shifts his language toward inspiring his readers/listeners to act in the strength of Messiah. Faith and works in unity.
 
“You will know them by their fruit.”
 
-Yeshua (Matt. 7:20)
 
2 with all humility and gentleness, with patience, bearing with one another in all-encompassing love (αγάπη agape[G]), 
 
This chapter begins and concludes with an exhortation to bear with and forgive other believers from a place of humility in the all-encompassing love of God in Messiah. This is part of what it means to “walk in a worthy manner according to the calling.”
 
3 hastening to keep/guard the unity of the Spirit in the bond of the peace/wholeness/ wellbeing. 
 
The Greek σπουδάζοντες spoudazontes translated “hastening, endeavouring, making every effort” etc. means “diligently move forward, act with excited intentionality!”
 
The Ephesian believers are not tasked with creating unity (acting in such a way as to manufacture it by their own strength) but are asked to “keep/guard the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace.” The unity that the Ephesians are exhorted to keep is established by God’s Spirit in Peace Himself, the King Messiah Yeshua.”
 
Sadly many in the body of believers today make unity the goal and therefore become idolaters. Unity is not the goal, Messiah is the Goal (Rom. 10:4). Unity at all costs is idolatry. We do not establish unity, we guard (keep) it. Unity is a gift of the Spirit of God which is bound up in the peace defined by the Prince of Peace Who has made godly unity among believers possible through His blood atoning work on the cross.
 
God forbid that we should overlook apostacy in order to maintain a counterfeit form of unity. Instead, let us guard the unity of the Spirit in the bond of the peace!
 
In the context of the letter to the Ephesians (2:13-22) the unity spoken of concerns the inclusion of the Gentiles and the continuing obligation on both Jews and Gentiles to guard the Spirit given unity of the body of believers, Jew and Gentile, which has been purchased by the blood of Messiah.
 
At the time of Paul’s writing (60 CE) the Ephesian church had become predominantly Gentile with the Jewish believers now in the minority. Therefore, Paul is also specifically warning Gentile believers of their ongoing obligation to maintain a safe worship environment for the Jewish believers who are part of the reason that the Gentiles were able to receive the Gospel in the first place.
 
Paul’s exhortation to unity is based on Messiah’s prayer for the unity of His disciples and of all who would believe and become part of the ecclesia throughout the ages until His return (John 17).
 
4 One body and one Spirit, just as indeed you were called in one hope of your calling; 
 
One body in Messiah Who is the Head. One Spirit, the Holy Spirit poured out upon all believers, marking those appointed to eternal life (1:13-14). Both Jew and Gentile called in one hope of redemption and eternal life in right relationship with God through Messiah (1:5, 10; 2:7). Not one of these elements concerns ethnicity, sex, religious genre, financial status etc. Those who misuse verses like this to seek to dissolve ethnic uniqueness, individual calling, tribal affiliation and so on, do so at the risk of severe discipline. The Body of Messiah is a pure, diverse, godly unity. Converted souls, celebrated ethnicities, sexes, God honouring expressions of tribe. We remain free to be tribal but do not practice tribalism.
 
Jewish tradition teaches that in the world of souls all stand equal:
 
“Except for the affairs of the soul, in which the poor and the rich are equal.”
 
-Tzror HaMor on Torah, Exodus 30:15
 
5 One Lord/LORD, one faith/trust, one immersion (טבילה במקווה tevilah b’mikveh[H]); 
 
One LORD:
 
Messiah is One, therefore, One Lord. God is One, therefore, One LORD.
 
As explained in my commentary on 1:3, the Septuagint (Greek OT) uses the Greek κύριος Kurios, meaning “Lord” to translate יהוה YHVH some 7,000 times. Of the 748 uses of κύριος Kurios in the New Testament approximately 700 refer directly to Yeshua and the remainder with few (if any) exceptions qualify either an “Angel of the LORD” or “The LORD God.”
 
Ephesians 4:5 is one of over 700 times where κύριος Kurios is used of Yeshua and also denotes YHVH. There is no need for a false choice that demands we choose one or the other. While it’s true that Paul is stating the unity/oneness of the Godhead and the body of Messiah  in an ordered way: one body, one Spirit, one Lord/Master, one faith, one God, Father. He is also aluding to oneness according to its nature, which denotes a complex unity where distinctions exist rather than separations.
 
One Faith:
 
אמן – אמונה Aman/Emunah (faith) is given by Messiah Who defines faith (Rev. 3:14) and returned in Him to God, therefore, One faith.
 
One Immersion (Baptism):
 
One Immersion refers to the immersion commanded by Messiah, to be performed in the Name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit (Matthew 28:19). An immersion that includes water (Acts 8:36-38), the Holy Spirit (Matthew 3:11; Mark 1:8; 1 Cor. 12:12-13), symbolic death and resurrection (Romans 6:3-4), forgiveness of sin (Acts 2:38) and so on.
 
To limit this immersion to the immersion of the Holy Spirit alone is to contradict Messiah’s instruction and to misunderstand Paul entirely.
 
Salvation is not reliant on immersion (baptism) [Luke 23:43] but ongoing discipleship and identification with the body of believers is (Matthew 28:19).
 
6 One God and Father of all, who is above all, and through all, and in all.
 
God is One YHVH, therefore, One Father in Whom all things exist and have their being. Father denotes Creator. Yeshua is One with the Father, and the Spirit of the Father and the Son is One (John 10:30; Matthew 10:20 and Romans 8:11; Galatians 4:6, Romans 8:9).
 
“For in Him (Yeshua) all things were created: things in the heavens and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities; all things have been created through Him (Yeshua) and for Him (Yeshua).”
 
-Colossians 1:16 [Author’s translation]
 
7 But to each one of us was given according to the measure, the grace/unmerited favour of Messiah’s gift. 
 
Every believer has received the gift of unmerited favour which is of Messiah, and this in unique measure according to our place within the body of Messiah. (Ref. 1:6; 3:7-8)
 
The gift of Messiah is measured out into various gifts that build up the community of faith as explained in verses 11-22.
 
No one individual has all the gifts, that would defeat the purpose of a body made up of many parts. We are gifted individually as members of a body that finds its health and maintenance in Messiah in the employment of all the gifts. In addition, every believer is a gift to the body. Those who refuse to meet with the believing community are stealing from the community the gift that they have been created to be.
 
8 Therefore He says (YHVH by His Spirit on King David’s tongue/pen):
“When He ascended on high,
He took captivity captive,
In order to give gifts to humans.” (Septuagint. Psalm 68:18 [19])
 
“You have ascended on high taking captivity captive, receiving gifts in the man (humanity), also for rebellious ones, that Yah Elohim (Mercy the Judge) might dwell among them.”
 
-Tehillim (Psalms) 68:18[19] [Author’s translation from Hebrew text]
 
The Hebrew text of Tehillim (Psalms) 68:19 [18] reads לָקַ֣חְתָּ מַ֭תָּנוֹת בָּאָדָ֑ם “receiving gifts in the man,” meaning that Messiah received gifts in Himself to impart to rebellious humans who repent and receive His blood atoning work (Romans 5:8; Ephesians 2:1-5).
 
“4 But the God, Who is rich in mercy, by means of His great love which He loved us with, 5 even when we were dead in our deviation from the truth, He made us alive together with the Messiah. [By grace/loving kindness you have been saved/rescued/kept safe], 
 
-Ephesians 2:4-5 [Author’s translation]
 
Contrary to the attempts of anti-missionary Jewish groups, the Septuagint text of Psalms 68:18 [19] quoted by Paul does not contradict the Hebrew text of Psalms 68: 18[19]. Both the Hebrew text and the Septuagint agree that Messiah (the subject of the Psalm) ascended to the highest position in the heavens (just as Paul has already alluded to [1:20] ) having put death to death (made a captive of captivity, thus setting free the captives), and has now received gifts (from God the Father) to give to human beings, even to rebellious human beings who repent and receive His blood atoning work. These gifts include but are not limited to the gifts of the Holy Spirit and the giftings of being apostles (sent ones), prophets, evangelists (bringers of good news), shepherds and teachers. Each of the gifts are spiritual and not the product of human intellect. God gives them to us in Messiah. They are not born of our fallen humanity but of God. In one sense, hall human beings are talented (naturally gifted by nature of the Creator’s work), but only Messiah essential people are gifted from above with the transcendent giftings of the Spirit of God.
 
Therefore, the Messiah’s gift of unmerited favour purchased by His eternal blood essence, branches off into multiple gifts that build up the faith community. Thus, faith begets faith in Messiah. The Unity of the Godhead begets unity of the body of believers with Messiah as Head.
 
9 (Now what is meant by, “He ascended”— but that He also first descended into the lower parts of the earth. [Psalms 139:15] 
 
“And no man has ascended up to the heavens, except He that came down from the heavens, the Son of man which is in heaven.”
 
-John 3:13 [Author’s translation]
 
Messiah is God in the beginning, all existing (John 1), and in keeping with God’s redemptive purposes and for the sake of humanity He came down to earth as a man (John 1:1, 14; Philippians 2:5-8).
 
Yeshua descended, being born of the virgin. He also descended into Sheol (Hades: Holding place of the departed) [Acts 2:27, 31; Rom. 10:7] but not into Gehenna (Luke 16:19-31).
 
1 Peter 3:18-22 does not teach that Messiah descended to Gehenna. The text very clearly premises Peter’s preaching to the imprisoned as happening “After being made alive” (v.19). Please see Appendix for clarification.
 
The plain meaning of Ephesians 4:9 denotes Yeshua’s humanity (God with us). The phrasing “lower parts of the earth” being a direct quote from Psalms 139. Paul is using this line from the Psalm as a reference point to establish a midrash (comparative teaching) on the entirety of Psalm 139, which alludes among other things, to all that exists in God and to the Creator’s foreknowledge of the intricate creation of humanity both the first man Adam and all human beings individually and collectively. We note that Psalm 139 is a prophetic Psalm of King David the progenitor of the line of the King Messiah, David’s Greater Son, Yeshua.
 
“If I ascend up into the heavens, You are there: if I make my bed in Sheol, behold, now, pay attention, You exist… My substance was not hidden from You, when I was made in secret, intricately woven together in the lowest parts of the earth.”
 
-Tehillim (Psalms) 139:8 & 15 [Author’s translation]
 
The phrasing “My substance was not hidden from You, when I was made in secret, intricately woven together in the lowest parts of the earth,” is both a description of the creation of Adam the first man and at the same time a figurative way of describing the growth of every human being in a mother’s womb (Targum, Iben Ezra, Kinchi, Yarchi, Ben Melekh). “The lowest parts of the earth” can also denote Sheol, which is generally considered to be below (Job 33:28; Psalm 143:7; Ezekiel 26:20).
 
Yeshua is the creating Word in Whom the first Adam was made. Yeshua is also the last Adam, the perfect human and Redeemer (1 Corinthians 15:45).
 
10 He Who came down is also the One Who ascended above all the heavens, in order that He might fill all things.)
 
This continues the midrash on Psalm 139, which affirms Yeshua’s ascent to the heavens and His dominion over all things seated at the right hand of the Father (1:20-22).
 
The phrasing “in order that He might fill all things” expresses Messiah’s deity (Colossians 1:16-20).
 
The phrase “He Who came down is also the One Who ascended” first denotes death and resurrection and then “above all the heavens” to the reigning position at the right hand of the Father (Philippians 2:9-11).
 
This is also an assurance to all believers that our resurrection is established in Messiah’s resurrection life and eternal reign.
 
11 And He Himself gave some as apostles (sent ones), some prophets, some evangelists (bringers of good news), and some shepherds and teachers, 
 
He Himself the Messiah, being God the Son, came down, gave of Himself in atoning work in order to set the repentant captives free and having risen from the dead putting death to death, ascended to the right hand of God and is resurrected, trans-locational, unbound by time, space or any other thing, all things made subject to Him in the Father.
 
Therefore, the list of roles/giftings that follows, while applying to the body of believers post Yeshua’s resurrection and the outpouring of the Holy Spirit in the first century CE, also predates the first century body of believers, Yeshua being both the all existing Word essence of God in the beginning and the head, originator, beginning of the ecclesia (body of believers) past, present and future. Meaning, the ecclesia “Church,” did not begin at Shavuot/Pentecost in 33 CE, rather the fulness of Messiah’s work within time and space is revealed to humanity in 33 CE and the mystery of the inclusion of the Gentiles is forthcoming. Yeshua’s atoning work being the perceived catalyst for the impartation of the gifts mentioned in Psalm 139. “The lamb slain before the foundation of the world.” (Rev. 13:8) All this in order that He (Yeshua) “might fill all things” (v.10).
 
Rav Shaul (Paul) then, in addition to explaining Messiah’s equipping of the first century body of believers both Jew and Gentile (which follows Yeshua’s ascent to the right hand of God), is also explaining the progression of the Gospel within God's Kingdom (from its inception: Bereishit [In the Head/Origin/Beginning] Genesis).
 
God (Father, Son, & spirit) sent Apostles (Shaliachim, sent ones, servant messengers), like Avraham, Moses, Joshua (All of them sent by Messiah: “The Word of the LORD came to Avraham [Gen. 15:1]). Then in the fullness of time, Yeshua, the ultimate Apostle Shaliach, and subsequently the twelve, including Paul, and so on. Through the ministry of the Apostles (Sent Ones) God seeded Prophets (Nevi'im, truth tellers), such as Jonah, Habakkuk, Ezekiel, and in the fullness of time, Yeshua (Hebrews 1:1-2), in order to keep people accountable to the message of the Apostles (Sent Ones). By learning from the Apostles (Sent Ones) and being held accountable by the Prophets, some who received the message wanted to pass it on, these became Evangelists (Proclaimers of the Good news), such as Isaiah, Jeremiah, Micah, and in the fullness of time, Yeshua, and Yaakov (James), Yochanan (John), Kefa (Peter) etc. They spread the message and thus, communities were established (Rome, Corinth, Ephesus etc.). Communities need Shepherds (Rabbis/Pastors), and Teachers (Godly scholars/Rabbis/Scribes) of sound doctrine.
 
Thus, the so called fivefold ministry is not a model for some mystical invocation of God's manifest work, rather it is the outworking of what God is already doing. We are servants and sons, not dictators and wizards. The purpose of these roles/giftings is not to establish a hierarchy but to build up and perpetuate the community of faith in Messiah. Therefore, each of these roles/giftings are the titles/functions of servants, not the honorifics of self-promoting tyrants.
 
When, in pride, a modern leader or prophet or otherwise employees one of these titles/roles/giftings as an honorific, e.g. “I am Apostle such and such,” they are by the nature of the title/gifting/role, contradicting its purpose and defiling it. In doing so they prove themselves counterfeit. Repentance is needed.
 
In one sense every believer is an Apostle (Shaliach), a sent one!
 
“1 In many parts, many ways and with many variations, turnings, revolutions of old, in former days the God spoke to our forefathers in the hand of the prophets; before, toward, in reference to these the last days, He speaks to us in the hand of His Son 2 Who He set in place, established, appointed, named as heir of all things individually and collectively, and also through Whom He formed in His hand the unbroken age, ages, world, worlds, universe, universes.”
 
-Hebrews 1:1-2 [Author’s translation]
 
Due to the ambiguity of the Greek text some enter into a needless argument over whether Shepherd and Teacher are the same role/gift. They are unique and convergent roles/giftings. In short, the answer to the question, “Are shepherding and teaching one gift or two?” is “Yes!”
 
12 for the equipping of the holy ones (saints) for the work of service, for the building up of the body of Messiah, 
 
Verses 12 to 13 explain clearly that these roles/giftings are for the building up of the community in Messiah as acts of service in which even those serving are beneficiaries of the sanctifying work imparted through these roles/giftings in Messiah, “until we all come to the unity of the faith/trust and of the precise correct knowledge of the Son, the God, toward a man perfect, toward the measure of the height of the fully filled Messiah.” Therefore no one is to boast in these roles/giftings
 
13 until we all come to the unity of the faith/trust and of the precise correct knowledge of the Son, the God, toward a man perfect, toward the measure of the height of the fully filled Messiah; 
 
This in part describes the sanctifying work that continues as believers live out faith in fear and trembling within time and space journeying in Messiah toward the fullness of all things revealed in the fullness of His Person at the end of days.
 
“For by one, first agreeable offering He has perfected, made whole forever those who are being sanctified, made holy.”
 
-Hebrews 10:14 [Author’s translation]
 
The phrase “toward the measure of the height,” or, “the measure of the stature,” שעור קומה shiur komah, is used in Jewish tradition and points to the perfection of the heavenly state of being in the enjoyment of God in Messiah (Rambam on Mishnah Sanhedrin 10:1:22,
Zohar, Bereshit 18:207).
 
“33 But this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, says YHVH: I will put My Instruction in their inward parts, and write it on their core being (hearts); and I will be to them their God (Judge, Ruler), and they shall be My people. 34 No more shall every person teach his neighbour, and every man his brother, saying, ‘Know YHVH,’ for they will all know Me, from the least of them to the greatest of them, says YHVH. For I will forgive their perversion, and their sin (missing the mark set by God’s holiness) I will remember no more.”
 
-Yirmiyahu (Jeremiah) 31:33-34 [Author’s translation]
 
Both Jeremiah and Paul agree in the Holy Spirit, that this is yet to be fully filled. In Messiah we are one and being made one. In Messiah we are perfect, and being sanctified. The Kingdom is now and not yet fully revealed to us. So we keep our eyes upon the Son!
 
We are reminded that unity is, “of the faith/trust and of the precise correct knowledge of the Son, the God!” Meaning that we cannot experience the unity of God’s Spirit unless we share faith and a correct knowledge of the Son, the God. Only those who receive the revelation of the Person of Yeshua can walk in the unity of faith. “Correct knowledge” is not intellectual assent alone but the transcendent knowledge imparted by Messiah.
 
14 that we should never again be young children (not yet of the age of moral understanding), tossed about and driven around with every wind of teaching, by the cunning of people (soul stealers), in the craftiness of the schemes of the error, 
 
The Greek νήπιοι nepioi is translated as “infant, young child” etc. Here it denotes a child that is not yet of the age of moral understanding. Being uncertain of things the young child is susceptible to all voices, deceptive and truthful alike and is therefore prone to being tossed about, going in one direction and then the other (Yaakov [James] 1:6-9).
 
The believers of Ephesus are being exhorted to remember that in Messiah they are no longer devoid of the God given gift of spiritual discernment (Romans 12:2; 1 Corinthians 12:10). They are no longer young children being drawn in every direction but are tasked with testing everything against the measure of God’s holiness in Messiah (1 Thessalonians 5:21-22). Young children are vulnerable and can be led astray by deceptive people but a discerning adult is able to refute and expel such people so as to keep himself and those over whom he has a duty of care, safe from the lies of the cunningly wicked and the destructive outcomes that result from false teaching.
 
The Greek κυβεία kubeia translated here as “cunning” is From κύβος kubos (a “cube”, that is, die for playing). This Greek word was adopted into Hebrew קוביא (Mishnah Rosh Hashanah 22a:8, Talmud Bavliy Eruvin 82a:3) and used to describe a game master/deceiver/thief קוביוסטוס, a title that is used figuratively to describe a person who steals souls, deceiving and corrupting them (Talmud Bavliy Chullin 91b:13). It makes sense then that Rav Shaul (Paul) uses the term to warn against false teachers.
 
“קוביוסטוס - גונב נפשות: kubiustus (Cunning one) – Gonev nefshot (Stealer of souls)”
 
-Rashi on Talmud Bavliy Chullin 91b:13
 
False teachers are ultimately in the service of “the error.” They are children of “the disobedience,” under the influence of “the prince of the lower air.” (2:2)
 
We know that the Ephesian believers took Paul’s warning seriously (Rev. 2:1-7).
 
15 But being truthful in all-encompassing love (αγάπη agape[G]), grow up toward Him the all, Who is the head—Messiah— 
 
At a time in history when both truth and love are being downgraded and redefined by wicked progressive secularists, Christian and Jewish Scholars, we are tasked with properly defining these two words.
 
Truth is established according to the holiness of God. God determines absolute truth as the Creator and Ruler of all things. Truth is not subjective, nor is there such a thing as “my truth” or “your truth.” There is only the Truth, as defined by God in Messiah.
 
Love is also established according to the holiness of God. God determines and expresses love. A good definition of the love of God would be: A decision established through sacrifice and maintained by commitment.
 
The love described in the Scriptures concerns relationship in God. Sex is not love, though it may play a part in a godly marriage between a man and a woman, in and of itself it is not love. Sex is to do with knowledge (יודע) [Gen. 4:1] whereas love (אהבה) [Gen. 22:2; Psa. 45:7, 47:4; Jer. 31:3] transcends knowledge.
 
The love that is of God encourages righteousness but does not enable sin. The love of God is kind but does not practice societal niceness (a counterfeit of the fruit of the Spirit of kindness and self-control).
 
Therefore, to “Be truthful in love,” or “speak the truth in love,” as some render, means just that. It means even when the truth is offensive, if we love those to whom we are conveying the truth we will act it out and speak it regardless.
 
To “Be truthful in love,” does not mean, “be nice no mater what.” Today the body of believers is under the bondage of a false gospel perpetuated in the soil of the vice of nice. We have become enablers of sin quoting John 3:16 but failing to speak John 3:18. Why? For one thing it’s easier to only speak part of the truth. Paul exhorts us, along with the believers of Ephesus to “speak the truth in all-encompassing love (αγάπη agape[G]),” that we, “may grow up toward Him Who in all things is the head—Messiah—” If we fail to do this we prove ourselves to be aliens from the body of Messiah.
 
A part truth is by definition a lie of omission. The modern church must repent and return to the full Gospel now!
 
16 from Whom the whole body, joined and knitted together through all that each joint supplies, according to the active energy in measured precision by which every element does its part, causes growth of the body for the building up of itself in all-encompassing love (αγάπη agape[G]).
 
Messiah is the One from Whom we receive the unity and diverse beauty of the body of believers. We are many unique parts in Him, all acting according to our God appointed roles and giftings in order to maintain healthy function, supplying nutrients to the whole body, strength to the limbs, oxygen to the brain, life blood from and to the heart and so on.
 
It is God’s active energy at work through Messiah that powers our community of faith and builds us up in and toward Love Himself. The body of Messiah, the community of faith is “joined and knitted together” by God. Each joint, sinew, muscle, bone and organ working together in Him. We cannot function as a whole healthy body without each other. So in Messiah we strengthen the weaker parts and understand that the removal of one is to the detriment of all.
 
“23 Let’s hold firmly, keep, possess the profession [projected testimony], in the knowledge of our faith, hope without wavering, for He who promised is faithful; 24 and let’s consider how to provoke, incite, irritate, rouse one another, brothers and sisters in all-encompassing love and good deeds, 25 not abandoning, forsaking assembling ourselves together as is the habit, manner, way, moral practice, modus operandi, custom, perpetual intention of some people, but comforting, encouraging, exhorting, desiring one another; and all the more as you see the day drawing near.”
 
-Hebrews 10:23-25 [Author’s translation]
 
17 This I say, therefore (according to what has preceded), and testify in the Lord/LORD, that you should never again walk as the rest of the Gentiles walk, in the futility of their thinking,
 
Paul is speaking specifically to Gentile believers in the Ephesian body of believers.
 
Simply put, don’t return to your former sinful way of life guided by יצר הרע the yetzer hara (evil inclination). A way of life that was pagan (Gentile) in custom and habit. A state of being that left you as children of disobedience destined for wrath under the deceptive spirit of the prince of the lower air (2:2).
 
Paul admonishes the Gentile Ephesian believers to “never again walk as the rest of the Gentiles walk, in the futility of their mind.” Futility of mind, circular logic, self-defeating arguments, stupidity and wilful ignorance are all evidence of a person who is alienated from the covenant of God in Messiah Yeshua. This futile way of living and thinking was, is and until the LORD’s return, will be the way of the Gentiles (Nations), and those Jews who follow after and adopt the wicked ways of the Gentiles.
 
18 having their understanding darkened, being alienated from the life of the God, because of the ignorance (wilful rejection of knowledge) that is in them, because of the wilful blindness of their heart (inner being); 
 
Ignorance is not lack of knowledge but the wilful refusal of knowledge. This verse makes it clear that God is just and that the darkened understanding of those alienated from the life of God is the result of their wilful blindness. Yes the prince of the lower air influences and seeks to deceive the children of disobedience, however, each human being is responsible for their own choices.
 
Blindness of heart:
 
סַמְיוּת הַלֵּב sam’yot haleiv “Blindness of heart (core being)” is a rabbinical phrase that denotes not just intellectual blindness but a blindness at the core of one’s being.
 
“The Sages taught: “For a bribe blinds the eyes of the wise” (Deuteronomy 16:19); a fortiori it will certainly blind the eyes of fools. “And perverts the words of the righteous” (Deuteronomy 16:19); a fortiori it will certainly pervert the statements of the wicked. The Gemara asks: Are fools and the wicked suitable for judgment, i.e., to be appointed as judges? Rather, this is what the tanna of the baraita said: “For a bribe blinds the eyes of the wise”; even if he were very wise but he took a bribe, he will not leave this world without suffering blindness of the heart, i.e., he will eventually turn foolish. “And perverts the words of the righteous”
 
- Talmud Bavliy Ketubot 105a:16
 
“13 No one is to say when he is tempted, “I am being tempted by God”; for God cannot be tempted by evil, that which is worthless, and He Himself does not tempt anyone. 14 But each one is tempted when he is under his own lustful desires being dragged away and entrapped. 15 Then when the lusting has conceived, it gives birth to sin, missing the mark set by God’s holiness; and sin, when it reaches its goal, brings forth the specific death.”
 
-Yaakov (James) 1:13-15 [Author’s translation]
 
19 who, being intentionally numb, have given themselves over to unbridled lust, to work all impurity with greediness.
 
Notice, “who, being intentionally numb, have given themselves over to unbridled lust.”
 
“Against You, You only, have I sinned,
And done this evil in Your sight--
That You may be found just when You speak,
And blameless when You judge.”
 
-Tehillim (psalms) 51:4 NKJV
 
20 But you haven’t learned that, you have learned Messiah, 
 
Verse 17-19 describe what the Ephesian believers are not and are therefore not to return to.
 
Verse 20 establishes that they have not learned disobedience from the teaching of the Gospel, rather they have learned Messiah.
 
21 if indeed you have heard/listened to/received Him and have been taught by Him, just as the truth is in the Yeshua: 
 
Here Paul leaves a caveat to sift out those among them who have not truly received Yeshua.
 
A personal relationship in, through and with Yeshua the King Messiah is essential to walking in step with God’s Spirit. The body of believers is a community of individuals made one in intimate, right relationship with God through Messiah. The believer doesn’t just hear, he listens, receives and acts according to what he hears from and in Messiah, and this is ongoing. Not a sinners prayer or a baptism, or a profession alone, for, “you shall know them by their fruit!” (Matt. 7:20)
 
Yeshua is the Origin (John 1) and the Goal (Romans 10:4).
 
22 To put off, according to your former conduct, the old human which destroys according to the lust of the deceit,
 
Act according to Messiah in you. Intentionally putting off the nature (yetzer hara) of the sin motivated human you once were and wilfully rejecting the ways that, born of lust lead to deceit (falsehood).
 
In Messiah we are expected to respond in right action, intentionally putting off the old sin nature (inclination toward evil) [Gen. 6:5].
 
23 to be renewed, in the spirit, the mind (intellect) of you, 
 
Not “renew your mind” as some foolish mantra focused “Christian” truth coaches misteach, but “be renewed” or “by the renewing.” Messiah renews our spirit and mind. We trust that renewal process to Him and respond in right action according to the mind of Messiah at work in us.
 
We are renewed (as whole beings) and both our spirit and our intellect are a specific and distinct part of that renewal.
 
The intellect was important to Greco-Roman thinkers and is therefore addressed specifically. To the Hebrew, the mind is part of the heart, the seat of consciousness being the core being rather than the brain. The Greeks and Romans however understood the consciousness to reside in the brain.
 
24 and be clothed with the new human which is created according to God, in righteousness and holiness, the truth.
 
New/renewed man/human איש חדש iysh chadash, is used by the rabbis of Jewish tradition to describe a man who has turn away from sin and has not returned to it.
 
“And he is איש חדש a new man. As they say to the people, ‘He was born because he was formed.’ And it is said of him, ‘Today I have begotten you.’ And so how is it fitting that he should die? For he is a different man. Therefore, the one who repents is honourable in the eyes of God…”
 
- Tzror HaMor on Torah, Deuteronomy 30:11:2
 
The new human is the Messiah essential human each of us were created to be. Messiah in us the hope of glory (Col. 1:27). Where once our every inclination was toward evil as sin affected human beings (Gen 6:5), now in Messiah, the last Adam (1 Cor. 15:45) we are being aligned with the mind/consciousness/heart nature of Messiah (1 Cor. 1:10, 2:16; 2 Cor. 10:5; Rom. 15:5-6).
 
Notice that where verse 22 says “Put off… the old human” the present verse says “Be clothed with the new human.” God clothes us with the Messiah essential self. The new, renewed, whole human being that we become in Yeshua is “created according to God!”
 
Therefore, we respond to the redemptive, renewing work of God in Messiah Yeshua, the receipt of the new human (v.24), by putting off, in His strength, the old sin motivated human (v.22). In Messiah, having already passed from death into life everlasting, and having received Messiah and the transformation into the new human Messiah essential self, a believer sins only when he forgets who he is.
 
“Therefore, if anyone is in Messiah, that one is a new creation; the old has gone, behold, now, pay attention, the new is come.”
 
-2 Corinthians 5:17 [Author’s translation]
 
“Truly I tell you, anyone who hears my word and believes him who sent me has eternal life and will not come under judgment but has passed from death to life.”
 
-John 5:24
 
25 Therefore, to put aside the lie, “each one speak truth with his neighbour,” (Zechariah 8:16) for we are members of one another. 
 
Don’t just put aside lying but put aside the lie that establishes all lying. Paul quotes Zechariah 8 as a reminder of the fact that all believers were once under God’s wrath and are now in Messiah, tasked with acting according to His nature. Loving one’s neighbour by practicing truthful speech, presiding over disagreements without partiality (favouritism), acting justly and pursuing peace. Why, because to harm a fellow believer is to harm one’s self, given that we are all members of one another.

“14 “For thus says YHVH Who goes warring:
‘Just as I determined to punish you
When your fathers provoked Me to wrath,’
Says YHVH Who goes warring,
‘And I would not relent,
15 So again in these days
I am determined to do good
To Jerusalem and to the house of Judah.
No fear.
16 These things you shall do:
Speak each person the truth to their neighbour;
Give judgment in your gates for truth, justice, and peace;”
 
-Zechariah 8:14-16
 
26 “Tremble, stand in awe, quake with rage/agitation/excitement (רִגְזוּ rigzu – shake, be agitated, rage) Be angry (Ὀργίζεσθε orgizesthe – an instance of settled opposition), and do not sin” (Psalm 4:4[5]): do not let the sun go down on your indignation, 
 
Once again Paul quotes the TaNaKh (OT). His consistent TaNaKh quotations presume that the Ephesian believers, including the Gentiles, have access to and awareness of the Hebrew Scriptures. Given that the New Testament writers quote most often from the Greek translation of the TaNaKh (OT) in order to make the Gospel message accessible to both Jews and Gentiles, it is reasonable to presume that the Gentile believers relied heavily on the Greek text, while the Jewish believers maintained a base knowledge in the Hebrew text. Both Hebrew and Greek were kosher languages for writing Torah scrolls in the first century CE.
 
“Tremble, stand in awe, quake with rage/agitation/excitement (רִגְזוּ rigzu – shake, be agitated, rage), and do not sin”
 
-Tehillim (Psalm) 4:4[5]
 
Like all good rabbis Paul intends that the reader should consider the entirety of the Psalm and not just the line quoted for the purpose of making a d’rash (comparative teaching).
 
“1 To the head musician, a song on stringed instrument of David
 When I call, respond to me Eloheiy my righteousness!
In my distress You have enlarged mercy on me, and hear my prayer.
2 You children of men, how long will you celebrate my glory turning to shame?
How long will you love vanity and deceit? Selah (pause, consider, contemplate)
3 But know that YHVH has set apart for Himself the chasid (faithful one);
YHVH will hear when I call to Him.
4 Be angry, stand in awe, tremble and do not sin.
Meditate within your (pl.) core beings/hearts on your beds, and be still. Selah (pause, consider, contemplate)
5 Offer the sacrifices of righteousness,
And put your trust in YHVH.
6 There are many who say,
“Who will show us good?”
YHVH, lift up the light of Your countenance upon us.
7 You have put transcendent joy in my core being/heart,
More than in the season that their grain and wine increased.
8 In peace I will experience the unity of lying down and sleeping;
For You alone, YHVH, make me dwell in security.
 
-Tehillim (Psalm) 4 [Author’s translation]
 
In verse 4 David, who has been set apart to God as a faithful one, having been delivered from his hateful enemies (v.3), counsels himself and others who would be set apart to God, to be angry at those things that anger God, and to tremble before God in awe, so as to allow God to guide their anger toward righteousness so that they do not sin by acting on their anger from the evil inclination.
 
The text doesn’t say “Be angry and don’t act on your anger,” rather it says, “Be angry and don’t sin.” Those who fail to act to protect the innocent from the wicked, sin! This verse does not excuse the inaction and subsequent injustice of banal pseudo-biblical pacifism.
 
Yeshua, in anger, took time to weave together a whip, then, in premeditated anger turned over the trading tables in the Temple and whipped the vendors (Matt. 21:12-13; Mark 11:12-17; John 2:13-17). Did He sin in His anger? A curse on that foolish idea!
 
Regarding the phrase “do not let the sun go down on your indignation.” It is understood to be a Hebrew idiom that, while based on a practical guide for just action (Deut. 24:13), is also understood to mean, “Don’t stew on something indefinitely.” For example, if someone offends you in the morning, deal with it in a godly way and move on, don’t stew on it all day and let it build up so that the next morning you react out of festering human emotion rather than in godly response. 
 
27 Don’t give space to the devil/slanderer/false accuser. 
 
Space for the devil/forces of darkness to manipulate us is given when we fail to address offence in a godly way at the time of its occurrence.
 
In societies where the cultural pretence of niceness is the norm and people don’t say what they mean, simply in order to “keep the peace (a false peace),” there is ample room for the devil to provoke people to act in ungodly ways from a place of grudge holding. A grudge can’t build up if we address offence at the source in a godly way. In Messiah we respond rather than react to offences. We speak to the offender face to face and not behind his or her back. We give the offence forward to God whether the offender repents or not. We act justly, and when necessary we act in defence of others. When we address an offence that provokes us to anger at its source in a godly way, we leave no room for the devil to provoke us from a state of fallen human self-fuelled hatred.
 
28 Let the one who stole steal no longer, but rather let that one labour, working with hands to do what is good, so that person may have something to give the one who is in need. 
 
The believer, saved by grace through faith is tasked with turning away from his past sin practices, not in his own strength but in Messiah’s strength. This has practical application both for the community as observers of the transition and discipleship of the new believer, and for the believer himself. We do not tell a brother or sister who is falling back into old ways of sin that it’s okay, rather we encourage them to repent and do what’s right.
 
Where a new believer was once a thief the community looks for work to sustain him and he responds by working and not returning to stealing from others. Thus, the one who once stole from others destroying their lives, now works in order to provide for himself and give of his excess to others in order to build up their lives. Work fulfils a need that provides for the needs of others and establishes in the worker a sense of accomplishment that affirms his or her God created worth.
 
29 Let no corrupt word proceed out of your mouth, but what is good and needed for building up, in order that it might impart grace/unmerited favour to those who hear.
 
Corrupt or evil words include but are not limited to blasphemy, foul language, curses, slang that carries sexual connotations, false accusations, slander, gossip, false teaching, vain conjecture, unverifiable conspiracy theories, lies, misuse of Scripture, course joking, words that demean, and so on.
 
Words that build up in order to impart the unmerited favour of God to others include but are not limited to Scripture, encouragement, factual information, just assessments, kind observations, godly advice, discerning counsel, warnings against sin and so on.
 
We are all aware of our words and the impact they can have for good or evil. Therefore, in Messiah we seek to speak of Him and not for ourselves. May our hearts be filled with the ink of His essence and our tongues be His pen as we recite the song of a godly life before our King YHVH.
 
“My heart is stirred by a noble theme
    as I recite my verses for the king;
    my tongue is the pen of a skilful writer.”
 
-Tehillim (Psalms) 45:1 [2] NIV
 
30 And do not grieve the Holy Spirit of the God, by Whom you were sealed/marked for the day of redemption/liberation. 
 
In context Paul is warning the believer of the grief that the Holy Spirit experiences when we let corruption proceed from our mouths. This grief is deeply felt both within and without. The Holy Spirit marks each believer for liberation from death unto eternal life and indwells each believer. He is also outside each believer and manifest in creation as God’s breath. When we act backward toward the evil inclination, both our redeemed human spirit and the Holy Spirit Who indwells us, the Spirit of the Father and the Son, are grieved, hurt, saddened, uneasy.
 
The Greek λυπεῖτε lypeite, translated as “grieve,” denotes sorrow and uneasiness. Those of us who have walked with the LORD for some years are well familiar with the uneasiness that comes in the moments preceding and following a misspoken word or wilfully sinful thought process. That uneasiness which alerts us to the grief caused to the Holy Spirit and results in godly sorrow which leads us to repentant action, is in fact a gift of God’s present Person.
 
We are told not to grieve the Holy Spirit because God knows we will and need reminding of the sorrow it causes Him in relationship with us. God has the integrity of character to tell us what grieves Him so as to give us the opportunity to seek forgiveness and act in love toward Him. We should do the same in our interactions with others.
 
God doesn’t hold a grudge as a result of being grieved. Therefore, being filled with the Spirit of Messiah we are exhorted to…
 
31 Let all bitterness, wrath, festering anger (ὀργὴ orge - a teeming general state of constitutional opposition), belligerent shouting, and evil speaking/distractions be put away from you, along with all evil intent to injure.
 
Notice again that we are to “Let” all bitterness… evil speaking “be put away from” us. This is His work. He is here ready to do the work of putting these things away from us. The question is, will we “Let” Him?
 
32 And be kind to one another, compassionate, giving grace/unmerited favour to one another, just as the God in Messiah gives grace/unmerited favour to you.
 
Be kind, love your brother or sister enough to speak the truth in love both as encouragement in righteousness and discouragement from sin. Do so with compassion, speaking to each one in the way you would have them speak to you. Be ready to forgive, showing unmerited favour, undeserved grace to your brothers and sisters in Messiah. Why? Because He has shown unmerited favour to us and has loved us to overflowing. Once again this is a matter of allowing His love in us to overflow toward others. This, not of ourselves, lest anyone should boast.
 
Appendix:
 
A Correct Understanding of 1 Peter  3:17-21
 
“If you suffer for righteousness' sake, be glad: and don’t be afraid of their terror, neither be troubled; But sanctify (Kiddush) HaShem (Merciful) Elohim (Judge) in your core being (heart): and be ready always to give an answer to every human being that asks you the reason for the hope that is in you with humility and reverent awe: Having a good conscience; that, whereas they speak evil of you, as of evildoers, they may be ashamed who falsely accuse your good conduct in Messiah. For it is better if God’s will is that you suffer for doing well than for doing evil. For Messiah also at one time suffered for sins, the righteous for the unrighteous, that He might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh but made alive in the Ruach (Spirit). By Whom (The Spirit) He also went and made proclamation to the ruachim (spirits) in prison (φυλακῇ phulake: foo-lak-ay[G]). Who were formerly disobedient, when at one time the longsuffering God waited in the days of Noach (Comfort), while the ark was being prepared, in which a few, that is eight souls were saved by water (mikveh: gathering of water). This figurative likeness being a representation of the immersion (baptism) that now also saves us (not the washing of the flesh but the earnest seeking of a good conscience toward God) by the resurrection of Yeshua (Jesus) Messiah.”

 –1 Peter  3:17-21[Author’s translation]
 
In the context of Peter’s letter, the community of believers is being encouraged to share their faith with anyone who asks, and not to shy away from suffering if that is what God’s will entails.
 
Peter then offers Yeshua as an example of One Who suffered and shared His message in the Spirit of God. It is explained that Yeshua’s suffering puts to death the sinful practices of the flesh and resurrects each believer in the life giving Spirit of God. It is by this same Spirit that the resurrected Messiah (not in sheol) transcends time and space, and thus traverses time and space by the Spirit, to proclaim His saving work to those spirits of human beings who were still living in the flesh at the time of Noah prior to the flood. The text explains that during the time of Noah only eight imprisoned spirits received Yeshua’s message and were delivered through the figurative tevilah immersion (baptism) of the flood, which the author shows to be a prefigure of the same tevilah immersion (baptism) that believers in Messiah have received unto salvation.

From the p’shat (plain) meaning of the text and the subsequent, remez (hint), d’rash
(comparative teaching) and sod (mystery), we see that it does not place Yeshua in sheol in relation to His proclamation but shows that it is by the Spirit of God following His resurrection that He spoke to the imprisoned spirits of humanity past.
 
“For Messiah also at one time suffered for sins, the righteous for the unrighteous, that He might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh but made alive in the Ruach (Spirit). By Whom (The Spirit) He also went and made proclamation to the ruachim (spirits) in prison (φυλακῇ phulake: foo-lak-ay[G]).”
 
This text is not teaching anything even remotely to do with communicating with imprisoned dead people or angelic spirits. To the contrary, it simply teaches that God is just and that all humanity from Adam to the end of days has and will have an opportunity to either reject or receive the message of Messiah. This text shows how in the Spirit (of God), the resurrected Messiah transcends time and space, is trans-locational, and manifests the supernatural reality that He was both literally and figuratively slain before the foundation of the world (Revelation 13:8).
 
Copyright 2025 Yaakov (Brown) Ben Yehoshua

Ephesians 3 [Author’s Translation]
 
1 For this reason therefore, I, Paul, the prisoner of Messiah Yeshua for the sake of you Gentiles— 
2 if indeed you have heard of the management of the grace of the God which was given to me toward you, 
3 that according to revelation He made known to me the mystery (of which I have already written a small amount, 
4 which will be to your advantage, when you read it, in order to understand with the understanding I have in the mystery of Messiah), 
5 which in other generations was not made known to the sons (children) of humanity, as it has now been revealed by the Spirit to His holy (set apart) apostles and prophets: 
6 that the Gentiles should be fellow heirs, of the same body, and partakers of His promise in Messiah through the good news, 
7 of which I became a servant according to the gift of the grace of the God, given to me by the active energy of His power.
8 To me, the least of all the holy (saints: set apart ones), to give this, the grace, that among the Gentiles I should announce the good news of the unsearchable riches of the Messiah, 
9 and to illuminate, reveal to all (individually and collectively) concerning the management of the mystery, concealed from the beginning of the ages in the God Who created all things; 
10 In order to make known now the origin and the authority in the heavens, through the body of believers (ecclesia[G]), the many colours of the wisdom of God, 
11 according to the purpose of the ages which He accomplished in Messiah Yeshua our Lord, 
12 in Whom we have unreserved freedom and access in confidence through the faith which is of Him. 
13 Therefore, I ask that you not lose heart because of my affliction for you, which is your glory.
14 For this reason therefore, I bow my knees to the Father, 
15 from Whom all family lineage (Patriarchy) in heaven and on earth is named, 
16 in order to give to you, according to the riches of the judgement of His power, to be strengthened through His Spirit in the inner person, 
17 so that the Messiah may dwell through the faith, in your hearts (core being); that you, might be rooted in a foundation of all-encompassing love (agape[G]), 
18 In order that you may have the power to comprehend with all the holy (saints: set apart ones) what is the width and length and height and depth— 
19 to comprehend the all-encompassing love (agape[G]) of Messiah which transcends knowledge (intellect); in order that you may be fully filled with all the fullness of the God.
20 Now to Him who is able to do exceedingly abundantly beyond all that we ask or understand, according to the power that is active in and to us, 
21 to Him glory in the body of believers (ecclesia[G]) in Messiah Yeshua, to all generations, in the unbroken age, the worlds without end. Amen[H] (Agreed, faith, trust, firmly established, concluded).
 
Line By Line
 
1 For this reason therefore, I, Paul, the prisoner of Messiah Yeshua for the sake of you Gentiles— 
 
“For this reason,” refers to the work of God explained in the previous verses. The supremacy of Messiah, the inclusion of the Gentiles, the eternal dwelling etc.
 
“The prisoner of Messiah Yeshua.” Regarding Paul’s physical imprisonment, at that time it is likely that the letter was written while he was under house arrest (Acts 28:16, 30). However, the phrasing submits Paul’s temporary locational imprisonment to the Rule of Messiah Yeshua. Paul is not simply a prisoner of Rome but a prisoner of Messiah Yeshua. Like Yeshua Paul has sacrificed his own wellbeing in order to minister the Gospel to the nations (Gentiles).
 
Practically speaking Paul is a prisoner for the sake of the Gentiles as a result of his appeal to Caesar. Had he not appealed to Caesar he would not have ended up under house arrest and then subsequently imprisoned in Rome. It was not for the sake of his own vindication but for the sake of the Gospel (that is, in order that he might share the Gospel more widely among the Gentiles) that Paul appealed to Caesar, knowing that he would certainly have gone free had he not done so (Acts 25:9-12; 26:31-32). There is an important lesson here for believers who are constantly fixated on temporal justice. In this sin affected world there will be times when we are treated unjustly. There will also be times when we are afforded an opportunity by God to utilize our unjust circumstances as a vehicle for sharing the Gospel. May God give us the courage to look to Him in every circumstance.
 
Spiritually speaking Paul’s imprisonment reflects the self-sacrificial nature of the Messiah Yeshua Whose Gospel he carries to the nations. In Messiah Paul is willingly imprisoned, not because he enjoys suffering but because he considers the riches of God of greater value than temporal human comfort (Heb. 11:26).
 
After this opening verse Paul breaks off into an explanation of the “mystery” of the revelation of the Gospel, which is given to both Jews and Gentiles.
 
2 if indeed you have heard of the management of the grace of the God which was given to me toward you, 
 
As is the case with numerous other ancient works of the first century CE, Paul digresses here by way of explanation of the mystery revealed in Messiah and his role as one who has been given management of the growing household of faith. He doesn’t return again to the “reason” (v.1) until verse 14. The reason ultimately being the impartation of the knowledge of the indwelling of the Person of Messiah, made continually available to the Jew and also to the Gentile.
 
The management of the grace of God, given toward the Ephesian believers is, as the following verse says, “according to revelation… made known to” Paul (Acts 9).
 
3 that according to revelation He made known to me the mystery (of which I have already written a small amount, 
 
The mystery made known to Paul by the revelation of the Person of Yeshua is being conveyed to the Ephesian believers in order that they might receive, by revelation the Person of Yeshua in full comprehension of His power and indwelling. Part of the fullness of that mystery is the inclusion of Gentiles in the redemptive purposes of God (1:9). An inclusion that grafts Gentiles on to the native plant Israel but neither usurps Israel’s continued and unique identity, nor steals the identity of the Gentiles, instead it unites the two in Messiah (Romans 11).
 
“Of which I have already written a small amount,” references the previous two introductory chapters which are a type of overview of the mystery of the Gospel. Paul’s initial words (chapters 1 & 2) reveal aspects of the mystery of the Gospel such as the fact that God decided beforehand, and therefore chooses by election, redeems in justice, regenerates through the Messiah, saving by grace through faith.
 
Mystery, as it’s understood by the godly Biblical Hebrew consciousness, most often refers to things once hidden that are now being revealed, made known, accessible to the humble (Daniel 2:18-19, 27-30, 47).
 
We should not understand mystery as being revealed only to the initiated. This is the satanic modus operandi of the mystery religions. To the contrary, through Yeshua the Messiah God reveals His mystery of redemption to the uninitiated so as to make them more than initiates. By the work of God we are redeemed unto an inheritance as children of God adopted through Messiah. The demonic mystery religions on the other hand involve a constant searching after greater mysteries in order to elevate the self toward god status. Adherents of vain/false religion are always initiates, never heirs.
 
4 which will be to your advantage, when you read it, in order to understand with the understanding I have in the mystery of Messiah),
 
Paul expects the holy ones (saints: set apart ones) to understand with the understanding he has received from God through Yeshua because he trusts God to reveal Himself and by His Spirit illuminate the consciousness of every humble believer. Paul is not relying on his ability to articulate truth but on God’s revelatory power in Messiah (Galatians 1:12; 1 Corinthians 2:1).
 
5 which in other generations was not made known to the sons (children) of humanity, as it has now been revealed by the Spirit to His holy (set apart) apostles and prophets: 
 
Paul is not saying that the mystery was not revealed at all in the past but that it “was not made known… as it has now been revealed.” After all, the TaNaKh (OT) does make this mystery known to a certain extent.
 
It’s important to understand that Paul is pointing back in order of chronology to the prophets of Israel via the apostles of Messiah. The mystery of the inclusion of the Gentiles is “Revealed by the Spirit to His holy apostles” (Acts 15:15-21) “and prophets” (Amos 9:11-12).
 
6 that the Gentiles should be fellow heirs, of the same body, and partakers of His promise in Messiah through the good news, 
 
“Fellow heirs” and not Supersessionist (Continuationist, Replacement, Successionist) usurpers. A curse on the apostate replacement gospel of many in the modern (apostate) church (Galatians 1:8-9)!
 
7 of which I became a servant according to the gift of the grace of the God, given to me by the active energy of His power.
 
Paul, by God’s grace, he being the greatest of sinners (1 Tim. 1:15), became a servant of the Gospel of Yeshua HaMelekh through the living and active power of God (Acts 9).
 
8 To me, the least of all the holy (saints: set apart ones), to give this, the grace, that among the Gentiles I should announce the good news of the unsearchable riches of the Messiah, 
 
Paul identifies as “the least of the holy ones” because of his persecution of the community of faith prior to salvation in Messiah (1 Corinthians 15:9).
 
The phrase, “Least of the saints/pious devotee” (קְטָן חֲסִידִים) is a rabbinical descriptor used of Rabbi Yossi of Babylon to infer that he was a scoundrel or on the other hand, that he was the last of the Chassidim (devoted ones), presumably following the exile (Mishnat Eretz Yisrael on Pirkei Avot 4:20:6). The Penei Moshe on Jerusalem Talmud Bava Kama 3:7:2:3 affirms this meaning.
 
The Tosefta Kifshutah on Sotah 14:5:3 uses the title to infer that Rabbi Yossi of Babylon is least among the Chassidim (pious devotees).
 
We need not make a false choice here. Paul is both “the least” in terms of his previous acts of persecution and the “last” in terms of his unique role among the apostles as the last to whom Yeshua revealed Himself in a unique way in manifest post resurrection meta-physical form. Paul’s inclusion in the 12 apostles and their ministry of disseminating the Gospel, is predicated on this unique personal encounter with the Person of Yeshua.
 
Paul writes according to his calling, announcing the good news of the unsearchable riches of the Messiah.
 
9 and to illuminate, reveal to all (individually and collectively) concerning the
management of the mystery, concealed from the beginning of the ages in the God Who created all things;
 
Paul understands his role as being one of conveying the good news to the Gentiles, trusting the illumination of that saving mystery to God, and working in Messiah to properly manage the growing body of faith as the Apostle to the nations. All this in God the Creator, Who had concealed the full mystery of the Gentile inclusion in His redemptive purpose from the beginning of the ages.
 
Establishing the mystery of the Gospel in God as Creator points to Paul’s previous allusion to the election of believers from before the foundation of the worlds (1:4).
 
What Paul says of the Gospel here is also said of the Torah in Jewish tradition. Our rabbis say that many ages before the creation of all things the Torah was written and rested in the bosom of God awaiting its gifting to Moses, Israel and by the light of Israel in God, to the nations (Talmud Bavliy Shabbat Chapter 9: Amar Rabbi Akiva 88b):
 
“And Rabbi Yehoshua ben Levi said: When Moses ascended on High to receive the Torah, the ministering angels said before the Holy One, Blessed be He: Master of the Universe, what is one born of a woman doing here among us? The Holy One, Blessed be He, said to them: He came to receive the Torah. The angels said before Him: The Torah is a hidden treasure that was concealed by You 974 generations before the creation of the world, and You seek to give it to flesh and blood? As it is stated: “The word which He commanded to a thousand generations” (Psalms 105:8).”
 
- Talmud Bavliy Shabbat Chapter 9: Amar Rabbi Akiva 88b [Sefaria]
 
10 In order to make known now the origin and the authority in the heavens, through the body of believers (ecclesia[G]), the many colours of the wisdom of God, 
 
God, in the first century CE, made manifest within time and space His Person in the Son Yeshua the promised Messiah (Colossians 2:9), establishing the knowledge of Yeshua’s deity from the beginning (John 1) and His Kingship over all things including the body of believers through whom He now reveals Himself to the wider world in the many colours (the pure diverse unity) of His wisdom. This picture of God’s wisdom likens it to the pure white light that feeds the prism of colours, the rainbow of redemptive significance once given as a sign to Noah and to all the earth. This makes perfect sense given that the rainbow predates the Torah and its commandments, the dividing wall and its resulting animosity/hostility (2:14).
 
11 according to the purpose of the ages which He accomplished in Messiah Yeshua our Lord, 
 
God purposed and accomplished all this from before the beginning and throughout the ages of humanity in Messiah Yeshua, Who is God in the beginning and God with us, revealed at the appointed time in history unto the salvation of all who believe, past, present and future unto eternity.
 
12 in Whom we have unreserved freedom and access in confidence through the faith which is of Him. 
 
“We” means both Jews and Gentiles. Both Paul and the Ephesian ecclesia are part of the “we.” All believers have “unreserved freedom and access in confidence” to the Father “through the faith which is in” Yeshua.
 
We note that confidence in Messiah is not arrogance. We are confident because of His work and not arrogant based on our own efforts.
 
13 Therefore, I ask that you not lose heart because of my affliction for you, which is your glory.
 
Some may well have worried excessively about Paul’s incarceration. Some perhaps were becoming dejected over the apparent failure of God to rescue Paul. Therefore, he reminds them that he is a prisoner for their sake and that his affliction is for their good and a badge of honour in Messiah. Paul’s temporal suffering reflects the sacrificial love of God in Messiah.
 
14 For this reason therefore, I bow my knees to the Father, 
 
“This reason,” describes the reason of verse one, which, among other things is the revelation of the mystery of God’s including the Gentiles in His redemptive purposes.
 
Paul uses the phrase “I bow my knees” to denote a prayer posture. Jews pray in many different positions, standing, sitting, kneeling, prostrate etc. Here Paul is referencing the prayer posture of certain ancient Biblical Jews such as Melekh Shlomo (King Solomon) [1 Kings 8:54].
 
15 from Whom all family lineage (Patriarchy) in heaven and on earth is named, 
 
The name and role of a “father” in every family in all creation, stems from the Father in the heavens. God is family before creation, Father, Son, and Spirit. Therefore, all lineage, progeny, and the families of the heavens and the earth owe their very existence to Him, the angelic beings, the Jew perpetually first and also the Gentile (Romans 1:16).
 
Jewish tradition frequently alludes to the family of angels, the family above and the family below (e.g. Talmud Bavliy Berakhot 17).
 
16 in order to give to you, according to the riches of the judgement of His power, to be strengthened through His Spirit in the inner person, 
 
From the beginning God the Father purposed to give to every believer, the Holy Spirit in the inner person. In Messiah, having been born of the womb we are now born from above (often mistranslated “born again”) of the Father and filled with the Spirit of the Father and the Son (John 3:1-21; 1 Peter 1:23; Matthew 10:20; Romans 8:9-11; Galatians 4:6).
 
17 so that the Messiah may dwell through the faith, in your hearts (core being); that you, might be rooted in a foundation of all-encompassing love (agape[G]), 
 
The Spirit of God imparted to the believer is the Spirit of the Son within us, Who dwells through faith (faith that He has given and we have received and returned to Him [Rev. 3:14]). As a result of our salvation by grace through faith we are now rooted in a foundation of all encompassing love. The love of God, which is a decision established through sacrifice and maintained in commitment. As long as God endures we are secure in the Messiah. That is, we are eternally secure.
 
18 In order that you may have the power to comprehend with all the holy (saints: set apart ones) what is the width and length and height and depth— 
 
God has established all this so that we might have the power (of Him) to comprehend His all-encompassing love, its width, its length, its height, its depth. The use of these measures is idiomatic and denotes the four corners of the universe and all that is contained in creation under God’s rule. In short, there is nowhere we can go to escape Gods love.
 
“For I am convinced that neither death nor life, not angels nor principalities not powers, nor things present nor things to come, not height nor depth, not any other created thing, will be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Messiah Yeshua our Lord.”
 
-Romans 8:38-39 [Author’s Translation]
 
19 to comprehend the all-encompassing love (agape[G]) of Messiah which transcends knowledge (intellect); in order that you may be fully filled with all the fullness of the God.
 
God gives us the ability to comprehend the love of Messiah beyond the bounds of human intellect, so that we might be set free from the delusion of our minds and be fully filled with the fullness of God the Father.
 
Stupidity relates to the intellect. It is not only the uneducated who are prone to stupidity but the educated also. Stupidity is the progeny of Pride, the brother of delusion. It resides in the soil of the evil inclination and numbs us to the reality of God. Messiah has come to put stupidity to death and give us transcendant comprehension through His atoning blood and life giving Spirit, to the glory of God the Father.
 
20 Now to Him who is able to do exceedingly abundantly beyond all that we ask or understand, according to the power that is active in and to us, 
 
God is able, without limitation, to act beyond our comprehension. We are secure in Messiah.
 
21 to Him glory in the body of believers (ecclesia[G]) in Messiah Yeshua, to all generations, in the unbroken age, the worlds without end. Amen[H] (Agreed, faith, trust, firmly established, concluded).
 
All glory is God’s in Messiah our King Redeemer and Intimate Friend! Now and into worlds without end. We agree with the agreement that is in Messiah, Who is the Amein (rev. 3:14)!
 
Copyright 2025 Yaakov (Brown) Ben Yehoshua

Ephesians 2 [Author’s Translation]
 
1And you who are now to be (the body 1:22-23), were dead in your deviation from the truth and missing the mark set by God’s holiness, 
2 in which, in the past, you walked according to the age of this world, according to the ruler of the power permitted over the lower air, the spirit who is now active in the children of the disobedience/obstinate opposition/wilful rebellion, 
3 among whom we (Jews/Paul & the other Apostles & those first to believe) too once lived (overturning ourselves) in the lusts of our flesh (physical body, evil inclination), acting out the desires of the flesh and of the mind (inner thoughts), and were by nature children of wrath, just like the rest.
4 But the God, Who is rich in mercy, by means of His great love which He loved us with, 
5 even when we were dead in our deviation from the truth, He made us alive together with the Messiah. [By grace/loving kindness you have been saved/rescued/kept safe], 
6 and raised us up together, and sitting us down together in the heavens in Messiah Yeshua, 
7 In order to show in the ages that are to arrive, His surpassing riches, His grace in moral purity/integrity/kindness toward us in Messiah Yeshua. 
8 For by the grace/loving kindness you have been saved through faith/trust/belief (in conviction of the truth), and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God, 
9 not by works/deeds/actions, in order that no one should boast. 
10 For we are His workmanship, created in Messiah Yeshua unto (upon) good works, which God prepared beforehand in order that we should walk in them.
11 Therefore remember that you, formerly Gentiles in the flesh (physical body)—who are called Uncircumcision (Pagans) by those called the Circumcision (Jews) made in the flesh (body) by hands— 
12 that at that time you were without Messiah, being aliens from the commonwealth of Israel and foreigners (pagans without access) to the covenants of the promise, having no hope and without God in this world. 
13 But now in Messiah Yeshua you who once were far off have been brought near by the blood of Messiah.
14 For He Himself is our peace, Who has made both (Jews & Gentiles) one (echad [H]), and has broken down the wall/partition, the barrier/fence, 
15 in order to loose the hostility in His flesh (body, nature), the Torah, the commandment in doctrine, which is to be unemployed/idle/inactive, so as to create in Himself one new person/human being from the two, thus making peace, 
16 Indeed, that He might reconcile them both in one body to God through the cross, thereby putting to death that which caused the hostility. 
17 And He came to speak the good news of peace to you who were far off (Gentiles) and to those who were near (Jews). 
18 For through, and of Him (Messiah) we both have access by one Spirit to the Father.
19 Now, therefore (based on what has already been stated), you are no longer foreigners (pagans without access) and neighbours without citizenship, but fellow citizens with the holy ones kedoshim[H] (saints, specifically Messiah essential Jews) and members of the household of God, 
20 having been built on the foundation of השליחים (ha-sh’lichim[H]) the sent ones (Apostles: all of whom are Jews) and prophets (of the TaNaKh [OT], Jews with the possible exception of Job), Yeshua the Messiah Himself being the highest corner/pinnacle, 
21 in Him the whole building, joined together, grows into a holy temple in the Lord/LORD (Κυρίῳ  [kyrio] YHVH, Both the Father and the Son), 
22 in Whom you together are also being built toward the dwelling place of God in the Spirit.
 
Line by Line:
 
1And you who are now to be (the body 1:22-23), were dead in your deviation from the truth and missing the mark set by God’s holiness, 
 
“You who are now to be the body,” as alluded to in the previous two verses (1:22-23):
 
“22 And He put all under His foot, and gave Him headship over all the assembly (ecclesia: body of believers), 23 which is His body, the fullness of the all in all to completion.”
 
-Ephesians 1:22-23 [Author’s translation]
 
Those in the Ephesian community of faith who are truly Messiah essential people are being affirmed as having joined the body of Messiah even though at this point in time many of them are not Jews. At the same time they’re being reminded where they have come from, having once been spiritually dead in their sinful deviation, the missing of the mark set by God’s holiness.
 
Jewish tradition sees the descriptors deceiver, idolater, and a dead man, as synonymous:
 
“Perhaps my father will feel me, and I will be in his eyes as a deceiver כִּמְתַעְתֵּעַ
[kimetatei’a]” – like a dead man/corpse כְּמֵת [kemeit], an aberration וּכְתוֹעֶה [ukheto’eh], and an idolater.”
 
-Bereshit Rabbah 65:15 [Sefaria]
 
2 in which, in the past, you walked according to the age of this world, according to the ruler of the power permitted over the lower air, the spirit who is now active in the children of the disobedience/obstinate opposition/wilful rebellion, 
 
“The age of this world,” reflects the sin affected created order and the death that has resulted.
 
The Ephesian believers once walked according to the evil inclination, a practice that was seeded by the “Ruler of the power permitted over the lower air.” This refers to Satan as having been cast down into the earth’s atmosphere and permitted to have temporal power within the earth’s atmosphere (Rev. 12:9). Its (his) spirit is at work influencing those who rebel against God. Satan is not omnipresent but has a host of fallen angelic beings with it (him) in service of its (his) self-deifying rebellion.
 
Ruler/Prince of the Air
 
בַּעַל־זְבוּב (Baal-zevuv/Beelzebub), meaning Master/Husband/Lord of the Flies (Matt. 12:24), is, based on the airborne ability of the fly, another title reflecting the Prince of the Air, Satan. The flies it (he) is lord over are of course the fallen angels/demons who are aligned with it (him).
 
Babylonians/Chaldeans, Greeks (Pythagoras, and Plato), and Jews all believed that demonic forces were in the air באויר (bavir).
 
Jewish tradition calls the Prince of the Air רַבְּהוֹן דְּרוּחָיָא (Rabehon Deruchaya), Prince of the spirits:
 
“He went to kindle the lamp and a demon, the prince of the spirits, accosted him.”
 
-Vayikra Rabbah 5:1 [Sefaria]
 
Children of the disobedience
 
Children of disobedience are those who by their own wilful and continued rejection of God, continue to walk in unrepentant pride (self-deification), in line with the modus operandi of the Prince of the Air, Satan.
 
Children of disobedience is synonymous with בְּנ֣וֹת הָֽאָדָ֔ם (benot haadam) [Gen. 6:2], daughters of man (Adam). In other words, daughters (those who give birth to progeny) of the evil inclination of humanity. Both Children of disobedience, and בְּנ֣וֹת הָֽאָדָ֔ם (benot haadam) are the opposite of בְנֵי־הָֽאֱלֹהִים֙ (b’nai HaElohim), children of the God (Judge), also known in the latter Jewish tradition as בְּנִי מְהֵימְנוּתָא (beniy meheiymenuta), children from faithfulness (Zohar Bereshit 83:230)
 
3 among whom we (Jews/Paul & the other Apostles & those first to believe) too once lived (overturning ourselves) in the lusts of our flesh (physical body, evil inclination), acting out the desires of the flesh and of the mind (inner thoughts), and were by nature children of wrath, just like the rest.
 
Paul acknowledges that the Jewish believers were also once given over to sinful rebellion against God, acting out the same lusts of the fallen nature that the Gentiles perform. We note that both the sinful lusts of the physical body and the sinful lusts of the mind are addressed. We’re reminded that the Torah speaks against physical acts of sin (You shall not murder [Ex. 20:13]) and against thought sin (You shall not covet your neighbour’s wife [Ex. 20:17]). Yeshua reaffirms this when He says, “If a man lusts after a woman in his heart (core being) he has committed adultery with her.” (Matt. 5:28)
 
Paul goes on to affirm that the Jewish people were also once children of wrath just as the Gentiles are.
 
“Children of wrath,” is synonymous with “Children of disobedience,” (v.2) and refers to those who are under God’s righteous judgement condemned to just punishment except for the remission of sin purchased through blood atonement.
 
“2 YHVH (Mercy) the LORD looks down from the heavens
    on all humanity
to see if there are any who understand,
    any who seek God.
3 All have turned away, all have become corrupt;
    there is no one who does good,
    not even one.”
 
-Tehillim (Psalms) 14:2-3 [Author’s translation]
 
“for all have missed the mark set by God’s holiness (sinned) and fall short (have failed to meet the standard) of the glory of God”
 
-Romans 3:23 [Author’s translation]
 
“how can you say that you have not sinned? and behold your first father has sinned, and he is the first man, for man מוטבע בחטא (mutba bechatei) [imprinted in sin], ‘is naturally in sin’;”
 
-Rav David Kimchi RaDaK [Sefaria]
 
“And seeing, יהוה  HaShem, what  רַבָּה רָעַתrabah ra’at great evil humanity perpetuated in the earth, and that all the inclination and the thoughts of their core being לִבּוֹ libo were only evil all the day.”
 
-Bereishsit (Genesis) 6:5 [Author’s translation]
 
“The believer in, on, toward, for Him is not separated, condemned, put asunder: but the disbeliever, one who has chosen disbelief, is separated, condemned, put asunder already, because he has not believed, trusted in, become convinced of the Name (identity, character, nature) of the One only begotten (Singular in kind) the Son of the God.”
 
-John 3:18 [Author’s translation]
 
4 But the God, Who is rich in mercy, by means of His great love which He loved us with, 5 even when we were dead in our deviation from the truth, He made us alive together with the Messiah. [By grace/loving kindness you have been saved/rescued/kept safe], 6 and raised us up together, and seated us down together in the heavens in Messiah Yeshua,
 
The good news that Paul is reiterating to the Ephesian community of faith is that God has had mercy on the Jewish people and so can be trusted to have mercy on all people who come to Him in Messiah by grace through faith.
 
God’s great love is eternally present. This is why the text says, “by means of His great love which He loved us with.”
 
So great is God’s love that even when we were in a state of wilful rebellion, hating Him and His holiness, reaping death, He came to make us alive in Messiah the sacrificial Lamb, God with us. Paul interjects, “By grace/loving kindness you have been saved/rescued/kept safe,” and concludes, “and raised us up together, and seated us down together in the heavens in Messiah Yeshua,”
 
“Seated us down together in the heavens in Messiah Yeshua.” Some misuse this part of the text to claim that we go to heaven when we die. Scripture teaches that when we die, we who are in Messiah go to Sheol and into Paradise where we await the resurrection and the Judgement, and following the Judgement that we who are in Messiah enter the World to Come (New Earth) where we dwell in and with God forever (Luke 16:19-31; John 3:13; Hebrews 9:27). It does not teach that we go to heaven when we die.
 
The present text is not saying we literally go up to heaven and sit beside Yeshua. How can it mean that, given that Paul uses the past tense making our position in Messiah a completed reality, and yet Paul is still alive on earth when writing the text and the recipients are still alive reading, and hearing the text.
 
Therefore, Paul is emphasizing the fact that through Messiah’s death and resurrection we are delivered from death into life and our eternity is established with Him in His reign and authority at the right hand of the Father. A reign and authority that will be made fully manifest at His return when He will descend to reign over the New Earth, bringing our established life in Him, with Him. We are at present together with Messiah in spirit in the same way meant when Paul says elsewhere “I am with you in spirit” (1 Corinthians 5:3-4; Colossians 2:5).
 
7 In order to show in the ages that are to arrive, His surpassing riches, His grace in moral purity/integrity/kindness toward us in Messiah Yeshua. 
 
Our salvation, resurrection and life everlasting are established now in Messiah in order to show what is to come. That is, “His surpassing riches, His grace in moral purity/integrity/kindness toward us in Messiah Yeshua” in the עולם הבא )Olam Haba(, World to Come.
 
We note that the Greek text reads ages/worlds plural, denoting worlds/ages everlasting. Perhaps meaning that, at the return of the Messiah, distinct ages unfold within the day/season of the Judgement and the transition to the World to Come. We are reminded that in a transcendant view of time a day is as a thousand years to HaShem. Meaning time is relative in eternity. In eternity where there is no beginning or end, how would one establish a measure for time? If one were to count time passing where would one begin? If there were a beginning (there is neither beginning or end in eternity), what end is one counting toward in a world without end?
 
8 For by the grace/loving kindness you have been saved through faith/trust/belief (in conviction of the truth), and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God, 9 not by works/deeds/actions, in order that no one should boast. 
 
We see that neither grace nor faith are of ourselves but are a unity and converge as the gift of God, grace being the impartation of unmerited favour through the faith given by God.
 
All are saved by God’s grace through the faith אמן (aman) given to us by God in Messiah, Who is the faith agreement, the “Amen” (Rev. 3:14) of every believer. Our salvation is eternally established in Salvation (Yeshua) Himself and cannot be established or disestablished by our actions. Once received (freewill), because our salvation is not our work but His (decided beforehand), it cannot be lost! It is the gift of God. And, in order to receive the benefit of a gift one must open it (freewill). Therefore, salvation is pre-established (decided beforehand) because God knows the end from the beginning, and it is received by a choice of will (freewill) by those who acknowledge their need and open the gift. Thus, predestination and freewill are distinct parts of a whole and not, as some foolishly continue to insist upon, a debate over “this or that!”
 
In order to be absolutely clear Paul states explicitly “and that not of yourselves!” And again, “not by works/deeds/actions, in order that no one should boast.” In short, don’t say “I have changed my standing before God by doing what’s right” because the very ability to do what’s right and the clean slate afforded you prior to your turning from evil toward God, are all the work of God. Therefore, He alone is worthy of the credit, and in Messiah the faith He has given you, which you have received, is accredited to you as righteousness. Messiah is your righteousness (1 Cor. 1:30; 2 Cor. 5:21).
 
10 For we are His workmanship, created in Messiah Yeshua unto (upon) good works, which God prepared beforehand in order that we should walk in them.
 
We are His workmanship, and not our workmanship. This reinforces the fact that we are saved by grace through faith.
 
We are not “created for good works” as some mistranslate, rather we are “created in Messiah Yeshua unto (upon) good works.” The good works are the fruit of Messiah in us the hope of glory (Col. 1:27). In Messiah we do not do for God but in and from Him. We are created in Messiah upon His good deeds and unto good deeds that originate with Him. Therefore, being in Him we walk in His good works.
 
We are not created for good works, worship or any other thing, rather we are created in relationship unto right relationship, worship and good deeds being the acts of returning to God that which He has given us.
 
The good works are prepared beforehand so that we might walk in them, and not so that we might invent or create them. Therefore, the good works we do in Messiah are received, an opportunity to walk in God’s established will. We don’t manufacture deeds, rather we look for what God is doing and we agree with it and join in it, in Messiah. None of this is done in our own strength but in His strength. Thus in Him we become Messiah essential versions of ourselves, redeemed, rescued from the perversion of self that we once engaged in.
 
It's worth noting that human beings receive the wages of sin because we have worked for those wages by sinning. Whereas, we receive the gift of Salvation, not by our work, but according to the works of God. Wages are earned, the gift is received.
 
Put concisely, God created us in Messiah. We are created upon Messiah’s good works. Our right actions result from Messiah in us. All of which is established before the foundation of the world (Eph. 1:4) in order that the fullness of God’s love might be revealed to us in eternity.
 
11 Therefore remember that you, formerly Gentiles in the flesh (physical body)—who are called Uncircumcision (Pagans) by those called the Circumcision (Jews) made in the flesh (body) by hands— 12 that at that time you were without Messiah, being aliens from the commonwealth of Israel and foreigners (pagans without access) to the covenants of the promise, having no hope and without God in this world. 
 
Like the prior warning Paul had given the Gentiles in the Roman community of faith (57 CE), the present warning reminds the Gentile believers in Ephesus that without the Jewish Messiah Yeshua they cannot access the covenant promises of God (Rom. 11:13-36). Likewise, Paul alludes to his former rebuke of the arrogance of certain Jewish believers in the Roman community of faith (Rom. 2:17-29)
 
Paul adds to this an explanation of spiritual conversion beyond physical circumcision. He is alluding to the circumcision of the heart, which God had demanded of Israel from her earliest days of disobedience (Deut. 10:16; 30:6; Jer. 4:4). By inference Paul now reminds the Gentile believers of Ephesus that in Messiah they have received circumcision of the heart.
 
Prior to the revelation of Messiah, the Gentile believers were aliens, pagans who worshipped false gods or had no god and were therefore in either case not part of the commonwealth of Israel. They were foreigners, idol worshippers who had no access to the covenants and therefore were devoid of hope for eternal life and without the comfort of God in the present age.
 
We note that “commonwealth” here is like the commonwealth of Great Britain. Paul is referring to both ethnic religious Israelites and those Gentile foreigners who submitted to the God of Israel and the Jewish people and thus lived among the commonwealth of Israel, even as early as the Exodus from Egypt. Paul is not inferring that Gentiles who receive Messiah become “Spiritual Jews” (an oxymoron that mixes an ethnic noun with a spiritual paradigm). In order to understand this in simple terms one need only know that Israel is an ethnic noun referring uniquely to blood descendants of Jacob and his twelve sons. Post Babylonian exile when all the tribes returned to Judea, the locational use of the noun Judah became a synonym for Israel and is now the ethnic noun that describes all Israel’s tribes. Therefore, Jews and Israel are synonymous today, both being ethnic nouns describing the 12 tribes of Israel, the blood descendants of Jacob the historical human being.
 
Therefore, a converted Gentile is invited to join the commonwealth of Israel but does not lose their ethnic uniqueness in order to do so. The converted Gentile is a converted soul and not a converted ethnicity. Likewise, the converted Jew remains a Jew because it is his soul that is turned from sin toward God (conversion), while his ethnicity, sex, skin colour etc do not change.
 
13 But now in Messiah Yeshua you who once were far off have been brought near by the blood of Messiah.
 
In Messiah Gentiles are welcomed into the commonwealth of Israel and afforded access to the covenants of God that are not ethnically specific.  
 
14 For He Himself is our peace, Who has made both (Jews & Gentiles) one (echad [H]), and has broken down the wall/partition, the barrier/fence, 15 in order to loose the hostility in His flesh (body, nature), the Torah, the commandment in doctrine, which is to be unemployed/idle/inactive, so as to create in Himself one new person/human being from the two, thus making peace,  
 
Messiah Yeshua is our peace, wholeness and wellbeing, and has made both Jews and Gentiles who receive Him, one people, diverse and unified.
 
“Even the name of the Messiah is called שלום, "peace"; as it is said, (Isa. 9:6) ‘the everlasting Father, the Prince of peace’;”
 
-Rabbi Yosef the Galilean (Contemporary of Rabbi Akivah) [Sefaria]
 
“Who has made both (Jews & Gentiles) one (echad [H]), and has broken down the wall/barrier, the partition/fence, 15 in order to loose the hostility in His flesh (body, nature),”
 
The Greek text does not say “dividing wall” but “wall/partition.” While it’s true that walls divide, the text does not say that specifically but infers it.
 
The Hebrew equivalent to the Greek text is מחיצה (m’chitzah), “the middle wall of the boundary fence.”
 
This is without doubt the wall חיצה (chitzah) surrounding the first century Temple, on which there was a sign “which forbade any foreigner to go on pain of death.” Josephus Antiquities of the Jews 15:11:5; War of the Jews 5:5:2, 6:2:4.
 
In a similar way to the tearing of the veil at the entry to the Holy of Holies, which opened access to intimacy with God to all who would receive Yeshua’s atoning work, so too the wall separating Gentiles from Jews has been torn down by Messiah.
 
We note that just as there was a dividing wall that kept Gentiles from entering into the court of Israel, there was also a wall of separation preventing women from entering beyond the court of women.
 
In modern orthodox synagogues there is a מחיצה (m’chitzah) separating the women from the men. This reflects the first century Temple. No such wall existed in the synagogues of the first century, where men and women worshipped together, an ancient Jewish equivalent to a community centre, with the added component of Scripture readings and worship rites.
 
Paul’s teaching to the Galatians seems to allude to a diaspora synagogue practice of separating women from men. Concerning salvation through faith in Messiah Paul writes, “There is neither Jew nor Gentile… male nor female” (Galatians 3:28)
 
Therefore, Messiah has torn the veil, broken down the wall separating the Gentiles and the wall separating the women, and the wall separating the Israelite from the priests, and has opened clear access to all who receive Him, right through to the Holy of holies and intimacy with the Father God.
 
Note that where the wall in the synagogue which separates men and women is taken down in the reformed or progressive synagogue of today, and men and women sit together as in the first century synagogues of the land of Israel, that they sit together but do not lose their unique physiology. Their sex doesn’t change based on their location. So too, when the wall separating out Gentiles is removed the Gentiles come in toward the Holy of holies and join in worship with their Jewish brothers and sisters but do not change their ethnicity. In Messiah Jews remain Jews and Gentiles remain Gentiles. We are one in the Spirit of Messiah, a diverse unity. A commonwealth. Paul is not teaching Gentiles to appropriate Jewish life but to be the Messiah essential persons that God has created them to be.
 
As a Messiah follower and a Jew I ask you not to appropriate our culture, or God forbid, claim to be a Jew when you are not, but instead according to Scripture, I welcome you in Messiah to Join with us, and honour Messiah by being your Messiah essential self.
 
Put concisely, through His blood atoning substitutionary sacrifice and resurrection Messiah has made it possible for Jews and Gentiles to come together without the hostility of the sinful inclination that took advantage of the indictment of Torah, getting in the way.
 
The wall was viewed as divisive, causing hostility between Jews and Gentiles in the sense that the Jews were seen as having special access to YHVH that Gentiles didn’t have. However, the hostility or enmity is not concerning the wall alone but also “the Torah, the commandment in doctrine, which is to be unemployed.”
 
Jewish commentators describe the Torah figuratively as a “Wall”:
 
“When Reish Lakish came before Rabbi Yoḥanan and reported the exchange to him, Rabbi Yoḥanan said to him: What is the reason that you did not quote this verse to him: “I am a wall and my breasts are like...towers”, which may be explained as follows: “I am a wall”; this is referring to the Torah.”
 
-Bava Batra 7b:16 [Sefaria]
 
“The Gemara interprets another verse: “I am a wall and my breasts are like towers” . Rabbi Yoḥanan said: “I am a wall”; this is a reference to the Torah....“And my breasts are like towers”; these are the Torah scholars, who, by disseminating their Torah and influencing the masses protect them like watchtowers....And Rava said: “I am a wall”; this is the Congregation of Israel....“And my breasts are like towers”; these are the synagogues and study halls in which the Congregation of Israel is nurtured by the Torah, from which it draws its spiritual strength.”
 
-Pesachim 87a:8 [Sefaria]
 
The Torah itself is not hostility/enmity, nor is it the cause of the hostility/enmity (Rom. 7:5-14), rather, as an indictment against sin the Torah’s existence means sin has an opportunity by misusing Torah as a trigger for the idea of acting on the sin which is commanded against (Rom. 5:12-21).
 
For the Messiah essential person Torah becomes unemployed in the sense that our nature is being transformed and sanctified to reflect the Person of Messiah. There is no need for a law that says “You shall not steal” if by nature a person doesn’t steal. Therefore, the law exists only as an indictment against the one who steals. The law is a warning that points to Messiah. Once Messiah is met, and as long as the believer’s eyes are set on Him, there is no need of Torah. Torah remains until the fullness of all things as a measure against sin (Matt. 5:18).
 
Therefore, in Messiah, having been made new creations, the old sin nature gone, the new Messiah nature come, we sin when we forget who we are. Thus the Torah points us back to Messiah and the knowledge of who we are in Him. The result of right relationship in Messiah is right action without Torah. After all, in the Olam Haba where there is no sin there is no need of commandments against sin. Thus, Messiah is not Torah but the Author of Torah. Messiah is the דבר Davar Word essence and not Torah the Instruction. The perfect Instructor is not subject to the instruction but is the Author of it.
 
In Messiah Jews and Gentiles are made one new human being. Again, this is not literal. We do not become a transgender multi-ethnic blob of humanity. To the contrary, we are one in spirit in Messiah and remain unique parts of the body of Messiah. Not all are hands, not all are feet, not all are heart or brain, but all are one body.
 
It is more than foolish, it is satanic to say as some do, “See, being Jewish or Navajo, or Britain, or Celt, or Maori doesn’t matter anymore because we are all one new man.” What utter nonsense! To steal the uniqueness of ethnic identity and assimilate it into a collective soup is to oppose Scripture:
 
“9 After this I looked, and there before me was a great multitude that no one could count, from every nation, tribe, people and language, standing before the throne and before the Lamb. They were wearing white robes and were holding palm branches in their hands. 10 And they cried out in a loud voice:
“Salvation (Yeshua) belongs to our God,
who sits on the throne,
and to the Lamb.”
 
-Revelation 7:9-10 [Author’s translation]
 
The Kingdom of God is a unique and diverse unity and not an assimilating empire.
 
The peace that is in Messiah comes through His blood and establishes a celebration of all that is godly in every ethnicity and culture. Peace is not the denying of uniqueness but the celebrating of it.
 
16 Indeed, that He might reconcile them both in one body to God through the cross, thereby putting to death that which caused the hostility. 
 
Messiah comes to reconcile us through His sacrifice, first to God and also to one another. His saving work puts to death the cause of the hostility between us. Messiah’s sacrificial death has put to death idolatrous rebellion, which is the root of all sin.
 
In Messiah we are no longer seeking our own elevation, rather, because Messiah is elevated above all, and we are submitted to God in Him, we elevate one another in Him. The one who has received the fullness of God’s love in Messiah is tasked with allowing that love to overflow toward others in perfect unity. Being your unique Messiah essential self is a gift to the body of faith. Don’t steal that gift by pretending to be something or someone you are not. Be tribal, but don’t practice tribalism.
 
17 And He came to speak the good news of peace to you who were far off (Gentiles) and to those who were near (Jews). 
 
The good news of Messiah is for all, perpetually first to the Jew and also perpetually to the nations (Romans 1:16).
 
18 For through, and of Him (Messiah) we both have access by one Spirit to the Father.
 
Messiah alone gives as access to the father, Jew and Gentile.
 
19 Now, therefore (based on what has already been stated), you are no longer foreigners (pagans without access) and neighbours without citizenship, but fellow citizens with the holy ones kedoshim[H] (saints, specifically Messiah essential Jews) and members of the household of God, 
 
Now, in Messiah, the Gentile believers of Ephesus, and by extension all Gentile followers of Yeshua, are no longer pagans and foreigners estranged from God’s people but are now grafted into the commonwealth of Israel by grace through faith and have become fellow citizens with the Jewish believers and members of God’s household/family. Heirs in His House/Temple (heavenly).
 
20 having been built on the foundation of השליחים (ha-sh’lichim[H]) the sent ones (Apostles: all of whom are Jews) and prophets (of the TaNaKh [OT], Jews with the possible exception of Job), Yeshua the Messiah Himself being the highest corner/ pinnacle, 21 in Him the whole building, joined together, grows into a holy temple in the Lord/LORD (Κυρίῳ  [kyrio] YHVH, Both the Father and the Son), 
 
Paul reminds the Gentile believers again that all this has been made possible through Messiah and built on the foundational work of God established through the Jewish Apostles and their predecessors the Prophets of Israel (Jews). All these being established in Messiah Who is the highest Corner, the top point of the House/Temple of God (alternatively, the foundational cornerstone of the Temple of God).
 
In Messiah both Jew and Gentile grow together into an everlasting metaphysical Temple. Not a Temple made of stone but a living Temple made up of unique people who are one in Messiah to the glory of God (1 Peter 2:4-9; 1 Cor. 3:16-17; 6:19). Thus, the New Jerusalem will have no Temple, because God Himself and the Lamb are its Temple (Rev. 21:22).
 
“Yeshua the Messiah Himself being the highest corner,” refers to Psalms 118:22, which reads:
 
“The stone which the builders rejected has become the head of the corner”
 
-Tehillim (Psalms) 118:22 [Author’s translation]
 
We note that while many versions translate “cornerstone,” neither the Greek nor the Hebrew text explicitly say this. While it’s possible the corner foundation stone of certain ancient buildings might be meant (Isa. 28:16; Matt. 21:42; 1 Peter 2:6-8), it seems more likely that in the context of Paul’s letter to the Ephesian community, in keeping with Paul’s description of Yeshua as being above all things, that he is in fact referring to the highest panicle of the Temple and Yeshua’s headship over the body of believers, who are being referred to here as the living stones of the Temple which is Messiah’s body.
 
There is at very least a remez (hint) here at a connection between Messiah’s headship over the living temple of the body of believers and the attempt by Satan to get Yeshua to throw Himself down from the pinnacle of the Temple in Jerusalem. The symbolism is clear. The Enemy is tempting Yeshua to put God to the test and to throw down His headship and authority over the ecclesia (coming body of believers) [Matt. 4:5].
 
That being said, there is a mystical Jewish tradition that speaks of the world being founded through the foundation stone האבן (Ha-even) in the Holy of Holies, which is also said to be the stone on which Jacob lay his head on the night he received the vision of the stairway to the heavens, the same stone being said to be the place where Abraham was to sacrifice Isaac and the stone through which man was created (M. Yoma 5:2; T. Yoma 2:14; B. Yoma 54b; Lev. Rabah 20:4 etc.). While this is a mystical tradition and not Scripture, it’s nonetheless consistent with the creating Word, God with us, Yeshua the King Messiah, through Whom all things are created (John 1:3; Colossians 1:16).
 
22 in Whom you together are also being built toward the dwelling place of God in the Spirit.
 
And where will the manifest dwelling place of God be in the future fullness of the World to come? It will be on the New Earth in the New Jerusalem, the city being the sum of its inhabitants (Rev. 21).
 
Therefore, this last verse of chapter 2 is ultimately pointing to eternal life in God for all who receive and are bound together in Messiah.
 
Copyright 2025 Yaakov (Brown) Ben Yehoshua

Introduction:
 
Writer: Paul (Shaul) the ἀπόστολος (apostolos) Apostle, שָׁלִיחַ (shaliach) Emissary (Sent one) [1:1; 3:1, 7, 13; 4:1; 6:19-20].
Date:
 
Probably written around 60 C.E. while Paul was imprisoned in Rome.
 
Recipients:
 
“The holy ones [קדושים (kedoshim) saints: body of true Messiah followers], faithful to Messiah, who are in Ephesus (60 CE).”
 
This letter doesn’t include Paul’s usual personal greetings, and some early manuscripts are devoid of the phrase “Who are in Ephesus.” Therefore, some believe it to have been intended for circulation among all of the faith communities in the Asia Minor region.
 
However, there is not sufficient evidence to conclusively disprove the traditional view that the letter was specifically written to the Ephesian community of faith and was possibly also shared among other communities in the region. In fact, this is the most reliable view given that we entrust the transmission of Scripture in its original languages to God, and are not reliant on the flawed revisionist scholarship of the post enlightenment academic collective of hubris.
 
Style:
 
The text is written in first century Greek and the style of writing is reminiscent of a rabbinical דרש d’rash (comparative teaching/discourse).
 
This makes sense given that Shaul (Paul) is a first century Jewish rabbi, a פָּרוּשׁ Parush (Pharisee: Phil. 3:4-6) of the highest caliber and is tasked by Yeshua to be an emissary to the nations (Gal. 2:8).
 
Part of what Paul offers Greek/Gentile believers is an insight into the Hebrew foundation for their new found faith in the Jewish Messiah, and Savior of all who receive Him in faith.
 
Historical Context:
 
At the time of Paul’s writing this letter Ephesus was considered one of the most important cities in Asia Minor (modern day Turkey). It had a harbor that connected to the Aegean Sea via the now silted up Cayster River. It was at the center of several major trade routes and therefore became a major commercial concern of the Roman Empire, sharing prominence alongside other great cities like Corinth, Antioch and Alexandria.
 
The city’s largest temple was dedicated to the goddess Ἀρτέμιδος Artemis (Roman: Diana), and considered one of the ancient world’s seven wonders. The original temple was built in the 7th century BCE, and was destroyed by a flood. It was reconstructed approximately 550 BCE, and was modified to a grander size, measuring approximately 115 meters long by 46 meters wide with pillars standing 13 meters high. In 356 BCE, the second iteration of the temple burned down. After the death of Alexander the Ephesians paid for the repair and rebuilding of the temple. Work started in 323 BCE and continued for many years. The third temple was larger than the second; boasting a length of 137 meters by 69 meters wide and 18 meters high, with more than 127 columns.
 
Therefore, the temple of Artemis was in its largest iteration at the time of Paul’s writing to the Ephesian community of faith in 60 CE.
 
Ephesus was filled with orators and philosophers, and was famously superstitious in culture and practice. In addition to the cult of Artemis there are indications that Ephesians also engaged in various mystery religions and occult practices (Acts 19:18-20). 
 
Paul had previously preached publicly to large crowds of people in Ephesus, ultimately provoking the disdain of the silversmiths who earned their livelihood in the production of idols. As a result, Paul narrowly escaped a great mob in the theatre (capacity 25,000) at Ephesus which was located on the side of Mt Pion at the end of the famous Arcadian Way*.
 
*The Arcadian Way was named in honor of the Roman Emperor Flavius Arcadius Augustus# (383-408 CE) and was therefore not known by that name in 60 CE. At the time of Paul’s writing to the Ephesians the Arcadian Way was probably known as the beginning of the Sacred Way and converged at a T junction with the main part of the Sacred Way which led up to the temple of Artemis.
 
#Flavius Arcadius Augustus was supposedly a Nicene Christian (Nicene Christianity refers to Christians who adhere to the teaching of the Nicene Creed [we note that Biblical Judaism is not a credal religion]. The Nicene Creed was codified at the First Council of Nicaea in 325 CE and amended at the First Council of Constantinople in 381 CE).
 
It’s worth noting the origin of the noun Arcadian. An Arcadian was someone from Arcadia, a region named after the mythological Greek figure Arcas. Arcas was said to be the son of Zeus and Callisto/Megisto. Callisto was a nymph who accompanied Artemis, thus the connection to Ephesus and the temple of Artemis. Arcas was a hunter and is said to have taught the people of the region of Arcadia the art of agriculture and bread making. The Romanized Arkadia referred to a type of pastoral utopia. Therefore, the Arcadian Way was essentially considered representative of the ideal utopian way, a type of pagan antithesis to הדרך )Ha-Derekh( the Way (Acts 19:9, 23, 24:14, 22; 2 Peter 2:2). 
 
The Cult of Artemis/Diana:
 
For obvious reasons Ephesus was a center of worship of Artemis/Diana, the Greek Pantheon goddess of fertility, childbirth and nature. Worship of Artemis included athletic and musical competitions, plays, and a regular procession along the Sacred Way where her statue was carried by women up to the temple at night and “bathed in light.” One of the primary festival celebrations of Artemis called Artemisia sometimes coincided with the season of the Jewish Biblical festival of Pesach (Passover) [March April].
 
As a result of the influence of the pagan religious worship of Artemis Ephesus had become a matriarchal society that stood in opposition to the traditional Biblical Hebraic family unit.

It’s known that the most prominent teachers of Greco-Roman spirituality in the city were women. Thus, women teaching satanic doctrines. One such doctrine taught contrary to Scripture that woman was created first. 
 
Ritual sacrifice was common in worship of Artemis, and included animal sacrifices of sheep and goats, and votive offerings such as figurines, jewelry, and miniature vases.
 
When the Ephesian Ecclesia (Church) Began:
 
The Ephesian faith community began like many others in the diaspora (outside the land of Judea [Israel]) with the Apostolic work of Paul. As was his custom he first visited the Jewish community, teaching in the Ephesian synagogue of the Jews (Acts 18:19-21). This work was added to by the Jew Apollos and Paul’s Jewish friends and fellow believers Priscilla and Aquila while Paul was in Jerusalem, Antioch, Galatia and Phrygia (Acts 18:22-28).
 
Paul then returned to Ephesus while Apollos was in Corinth. He taught the now growing number of Jewish and Greek believers (who had received the baptism of repentance taught by John the Baptist) the full immersion of Messiah and the importance of receiving the Holy Spirit.
 
As a result of Shaul’s (Paul’s) teachings some in the Ephesian synagogue sought to poison their fellow Jewish brothers and sisters against Shaul, so he took the Jewish followers of the Way and the Greek God fearers who had joined them with him, and used the school of Tyrannus as a base for teaching the growing number of Jewish and Greek followers of Yeshua and enriching their understanding of the faith. This continued for two years, and thus established the Ephesian believing community in sound doctrine (Acts 19:1-12).
 
As the Ephesian believing community continued to grow God wrought miracles in their midst. On one occasion a group of Jewish exorcists attempted to cast out a demon by invoking the names of Paul and Yeshua. The demon, recognizing that they were not believers in Messiah, attacked them, beating them to within an inch of their lives. As a result of this, awe of the power of Yeshua the Messiah struck the people of Ephesus. Some of the earlier believers, who had made professions of faith but had continued to syncretize other occult practices now came and admitted their evil deeds, publicly burning their occult scrolls in repentance (Acts 19:13-20).
 
While Paul was still in the region a silversmith of Ephesus named Demetrius, who made his living by making idols, incited other tradespeople against the Jewish sect the Way, and against Paul, who had brought the message of the Gospel to Asia. He publicly criticized Paul and incited the Ephesians to riot in defense of their great goddess Artemis (Diana). The enraged Ephesian crowd seized Gaius and Aristarchus, Macedonians, Paul’s traveling companions, and Paul wanted to go into the midst of the tumult to speak, but his disciples would not let him. Once the situation had died down Paul encouraged the disciples of Ephesus and then left for Macedonia (Acts 19:13-20:1).
 
All these things took place between 50 and 55 C.E. approximately 5 to 10 years prior to Paul’s writing his letter to the Ephesian believing community. In that short space of time the Greek believers grew to outnumber the Jewish believers and a sound understanding of the Jewish roots of the Messianic faith was beginning to wane in what had become a predominantly Gentile Ephesian faith community.
 
It's worth noting that 1 Corinthians was written while Paul was in Ephesus (1 Cor. 15:32; 16:8 approx. 50-55 CE). Additionally, after writing his letter to the Ephesians in 60 CE Paul wrote to encourage Timothy to remain in Ephesus in order to admonish certain people not to teach doctrines other than those which Paul had brought to them (1 Tim. 1:3 approx. 63-66 CE). This gives insight as to the dynamics at play within the Ephesian faith community even from its inception.
 
Following Paul’s letter to the Ephesian believers in 60 CE John was given the Revelation of Yeshua in 70 CE, in the record of which Ephesus is the first church to be both praised and rebuked by Yeshua.
 
From Yeshua’s words to the Ephesian community (70 CE), we can glean that they took the guarding of sound doctrine seriously in obedience to the teaching of both Paul and Timothy, but that they had grown cold regarding intimacy with Yeshua, in the joy of first receiving Him, and thus had neglected their first love in Messiah (Rev. 2:1-7).
 
Ephesians 1 [Author’s Translation]
 
1 Paul (Shaul[H]), a sent one of Yeshua the Messiah (Christou[G]: Anointed One) by the determined will of God, to the holy ones (kedoshim[H]-saints) who are in Ephesus, and faithful in Messiah Yeshua:
2 Grace to you and peace, wholeness, wellbeing, prosperity from God our Father and the Lord Yeshua the Messiah.
3 Blessed/Praised be the God and Father of our Lord Yeshua the Messiah, Who has blessed us with all spiritual blessing in the heavens in Messiah, 
4 just as He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world, to be holy and blameless before the face of Him in complete love, 
5 having decided beforehand to adopt us as sons and daughters through Yeshua the Messiah toward Himself, according to the good desire of His will, 
6 to the praise of the judgement of His grace, by which He encompassed us with favour in the Beloved.
7 In Him (the Beloved) we have been released through the ransom of His blood, the forgiveness of sins, according to the wealth of His grace 
8 which He made to abound toward us in all wisdom and understanding, 
9 to make known to us the mystery of His will, according to His good desire which He revealed in Himself, 
10 that in managing the fullness of the times He might sum up into one, all things in Messiah, the things in heaven and the things that are on earth—in Him. 
11 In Him also we (Jews) have obtained an inheritance, decided beforehand according to the purpose of Him who works all things according to the counsel of His will, 
12 toward us (Jews) who to the praise of His judgement first hoped beforehand in Messiah.
13 In Him you (Greeks/Gentiles) also heard the word, the truth, the Gospel of your salvation; in Him also, having trusted, you were marked with the seal of the promised Holy Spirit, 
14 Who is the guarantee (promissory note) of our inheritance until the release through ransom of the purchased possession, to the praise of His judgement.
15 Therefore I also, after I heard of your faith in the Lord Yeshua and your love for all the holy ones (kedoshim[H]-saints), 
16 don’t stop giving thanks for you, making mention of you in my prayers: 
17 in order that the God, of our Lord Yeshua the Messiah, the Father of judgement, may give to you the spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of Him, 
18 the illumination of the eyes of your heart (core being); that you may know what is the hope of His calling, what are the riches of the judgement of His inheritance in the holy ones (kedoshim[H]-saints), 
19 and what is the surpassing greatness of His strength toward us who trust, according to the working of the force of His power 
20 which He worked in Messiah when He raised Him from the dead and seated Him at His right hand in the heavens, 
21 far above all origins and power and strength and lordship, and every name that is named, not only in this age but also in that which is to come (Olam Haba[H]).
22 And He put all under His foot, and gave Him headship over all the assembly (body of believers), 
23 which is His body, the fullness of the all in all to completion.
 
Line by Line:
 
1 Paul (Shaul[H]), a sent one of Yeshua the Messiah (Christou[G]: Anointed One) by the determined will of God, to the holy ones (kedoshim[H]-saints) who are in Ephesus, and faithful in Messiah Yeshua:
 
The opening phrasing is nearly identical to several other letters of Paul (Rom. 1:1; 1 Cor. 1:1; 2 Cor. 1:1; Gal. 1:1 etc.)
 
Paul, a.k.a Rabbi Shaul, from Tarsus (Acts 13:9) is sent by Yeshua Whom he had encountered on the road to Damascus (Acts 9), and is thus employed according to the determined will of God, YHVH.
 
An ἀπόστολος Apostolos[G] or שליח Shaliach[H], sent one, is an emissary sent out to convey a message. A Shaliach is not “equal” to the sender as some foolishly suggest, but is “like” the sender (Matthew 10:24-25).
 
He is writing specifically to the holy ones (believers) in the city of Ephesus in the first century (approx. 60 CE), who have remained faithful in Messiah Yeshua.
 
Alternatively, given that the earliest Greek manuscripts exclude “Ephesus,” it’s possible that this letter was intended for all of the communities of faith in the region and was left with a blank space for writing in the respective community.
 
Regardless, Paul is writing not to “holy ones (saints),” but to “holy ones, faithful in Messiah Yeshua.” Therefore, this letter is not written to those who claim to be “Christians/holy ones/saints,” but to those Christians/holy ones/saints who in Messiah remain faithful. For some of us repentance is required in order for us to be able to receive what the Spirit is teaching through this letter.
 
By the time of Paul’s writing this letter, the Ephesian church was likely predominantly Greek/Gentile with a small remnant of Jewish believers among them (Timothy the Jew would become a teacher and shepherd among the Ephesian ecclesia). This was also true of many other fellowships in Asia at that time, with the exception perhaps of the Roman ecclesia who probably had an equitable ratio of Jews and Gentiles following the return of Jews to Rome after the death of Claudius in 54 CE. The Letter to the Romans was written approximately 57 CE (AD).
 
2 Grace to you and peace, wholeness, wellbeing, prosperity from God our Father and the Lord Yeshua the Messiah.
 
The grace and peace Paul extends to the faith community is “from God our Father and the Lord Yeshua the Messiah.”
 
Grace is used 12 times in this letter and peace 7 times. These two primary faith nouns are emphasized because the fruit of right action cannot exist without the peace that comes from grace through faith.
 
Concerning God as Father, I was once told by a Christian Bible Teacher that “We Christians know God as Father because Jesus revealed God as Father and taught us to pray ‘Our Father,’ whereas you Jews did not know God as Father prior to Jesus teaching you this concept.” This is of course utter nonsense.
 
700 years before the birth of Messiah through the womb of the virgin, Isaiah the prophet writes:
 
“For You are our Father; for Abraham doesn’t (personally) know us (because he has passed away), and Israel/Jacob can’t acknowledge us (because like Abraham, Jacob has passed away); You, YHVH, are our Father, our Redeemer from everlasting is Your Name.
 
-Y’shayahu (Isaiah) 63:16 [Author’s translation]
 
Ref. Isa. 64:8; Jeremiah 3:4, 19; Psalm 68:5, 89:26, 103:13
 
The Greek/Gentile Ephesian believers know God as Father due to the Gospel of Yeshua brought to them by Jews who have known God as Father from ancient times.
 
3 Blessed/Praised be the God and Father of our Lord Yeshua the Messiah, Who has blessed us with all spiritual blessing in the heavens in Messiah, 
 
This opening blessing is reminiscent of the first line of the Amidah תפילת העמידה (the standing prayer), a prayer that is central to the worship tradition of rabbinical Judaism and begins:
 
“Praised be You Adonay our God, and the God of our fathers, God of Abraham, God of Isaac, and God of Jacob, the great, mighty and revered God, the most high God, Master of the heavens and the earth.”
 
The Amidah is prayed at each of the three daily prayer services of Orthodox Rabbinic Judaism.
 
Shaul (Paul) uses Jewish ברכות brakhot (blessings/benedictions) in his letters, as does Kefa (Peter) in his (2 Cor. 1:3-7; 1 Pet. 1:3-4).
 
Here Shaul’s (Paul’s) opening בְּרָכָה brakhah denotes the teaching of Yochanan (John 1:1; 20:17), and reveals that God has established all blessing in Messiah Yeshua, Who is עמנו אל Imanu – El, God with us.
 
The Greek Θεὸς Theos is used here to reflect the Hebrew יהוה YHVH, the Holy proper noun (unpronounceable) for the God of Israel. The Septuagint (Greek OT) translates יהוה YHVH as Θεὸς  Theos over 250 times. However, in addition to this the Septuagint (Greek OT) uses the Greek κύριος Kurios, meaning “Lord” to translate יהוה YHVH some 7,000 times. Of the 748 uses of κύριος Kurios in the New Testament approximately 700 refer directly to Yeshua and the remainder with few (if any) exceptions qualify either an “Angel of the LORD” or “The LORD God.”
 
Ephesians 1:3 is one of over 700 times where κύριος Kurios is used specifically of Yeshua.
 
There are some in the so called Messianic movement, who, to their shame, avoid adding the facts concerning the Greek κύριος Kurios and cite only the Septuagint’s use of Θεὸς Theos. This seems to be an intentional act that seeks to avoid addressing the deity of Yeshua, which is irrefutably taught by the Scriptures (both TaNaKh [OT] and Habrit Hachadashah [NT]).
 
Yeshua is God! He is God with us the Son! This may be offensive to some of our Jewish brothers and sisters, sobeit, it is the teaching of Scripture, testified to by the Holy Spirit, established in God the Father. God is One!
 
The phrase “spiritual blessing” is used to distinguish between temporal blessing experienced in the sin affected and therefore time trapped world which is fading away, and the everlasting blessing of God which are established in eternity, past, present and future in Messiah. Paul’s use of the phrase “spiritual blessing” is yet another proof of his desire to teach Gentile believers the rhythm of the Biblical Jewish faith perspective in Messiah. We Jews make the distinction between temporary blessing and eternal blessing: טובות זמניות (tovot zemaniyot) “temporary good things (blessings) and טובות רוחניות (tovot rochaniyot) “Everlasting good things (blessings) ref. Tzror HaMor 79:2 (Commentary on the Torah written by Rabbi Avraham Saba).
 
The phrase “In the heavens” or “In the heavenly realms” is used five times in Paul’s letter to the Ephesians. First we note that this is plural “realms,” and denotes the three distinct heavens as a unity. The first heaven being the earth’s atmosphere, the second being the universe/universes (all creation) and the third being outside the universe/universes/worlds (all creation), all of which exist in God, outside of Whom nothing exists.
 
Second, Paul establishes the use of this phrase “in Messiah.” In short, the heavens exist in Messiah while He is also seated at the right hand of God in the highest heaven (Colossians 1:16; 1 Peter 3:22). For the time trapped this language seems contradictory. It is not. The distinct heavens are in the Creator and therefore subject to Him, and the Creator is in them but not subject to them. This concerns a perceived positional separation but does not discount the fact that in God nothing is truly separate, only distinct.
 
“And they shall put My Name upon the children of Israel and I will bless them in My Word…”
 
- Targum Yonatan on Bamidbar (Num.) 6:27
 
Third, Paul is making the foundational point that Messiah has been positioned by the Father to be above and over all creation. Therefore, all spiritual blessing in the heavens (all three) is the domain of Messiah in Whom those blessings reside and from Whom they are poured out of the Father. Any temporal authority afforded Satan as Prince of the lower air (earth’s atmosphere ref. Eph. 2:2) is thus ultimately made subject to Yeshua, Who is in authority over all creation.
 
Finally, Paul will later allude to the spiritual battle that is not against flesh and blood but against spiritual forces in heaven (the lower heaven ref. Eph. 6:12). However, we should not be enticed by the delusion of many Gentile scholars who see some kind of equitable fight between God and the Devil. The fight is neither equitable nor fair. God is like an ocean of universes and the Devil, like a microscopic speck of dust beneath God’s toe nail. The illusion of equity in the spiritual battle is incinerated by the All existing Light of the King Messiah.
 
It's worth noting that Revelation (Rev. 12:7-12) makes it clear that Satan and its (his) angels have been cast out of the third heaven and are now confined to the first heaven (earth’s atmosphere) until their temporal imprisonment and final judgement unto condemnation [Rev. 20].
 
4 just as He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world, to be holy and blameless before the face of Him in complete love, 
 
Paul uses the phrases “In Him” and “In Messiah” collectively twenty times in his letter to the Ephesians. The foundational truth of our identity in Messiah establishes our eternal security in Him, and not in our deeds or lack thereof.
 
Paul, like John and Peter, understands that the redemptive work of Messiah is established before creation. Therefore, the solution precedes the problem of sin, the instigator of sin being a created being (Satan), which therefore, did not exist before the foundation of the worlds/universe/created order.
 
Our being chosen in Messiah is established in the blood of the Lamb slain before the foundation of the worlds/universe/created order (Revelation 13:8). We are established to be holy and blameless through the redemptive work of Yeshua, Who is God in the beginning (John 1).
 
Ref. John 17:24; Colossians 1:15-22; 1 Peter 1:19-20; Revelation 13:8
 
We are made holy and blameless through Messiah toward intimate face to face relationship with and in God, Who completes love for us who have formerly lived with incomplete love in the sin affected world.
 
Many a fool has enlisted the present text to attempt to prove that freewill doesn’t exist. The present text establishes God’s foreknowledge, it does not disestablish our lack of knowledge and the choices we must make as time trapped human beings.
 
The false choice demanded by Christian theologians who say, “Does the Bible teach predestination or freewill?” is a satanic misdirection. The answer is that the Bible teaches both and that those who debate the mater and choose one over the other prove that they are incapable of receiving the mystery of God (Deut. 29:29).
 
5 having decided beforehand to adopt us as sons and daughters through Yeshua the Messiah toward Himself, according to the good desire of His will, 
 
Translating this verse to read “He predestined us” is to burden the modern English reader with baggage that makes properly understanding the text almost impossible. The word predestined is often misunderstood to mean predetermined and thus impugns God’s character by making Him unjust. After all, there is no justice in condemning a robot for acting according to its predetermined programming. A curse on the abhorrent idea that God is unjust!
 
The Greek προορίσας (proorisas) meaning “decided beforehand” does not allow the reader to presume fatalistic injustice because the all-knowing God is described as deciding based on His seeing the end from the beginning and not by being a tyrannical Greco-Roman deity that predetermines selected human beings as demonic robots devoid of the ability to choose between right and wrong.
 
The omniscient nature of God is testified to by the whole of Scripture. Only those who wilfully grieve the Holy Spirit, or are devoid of the Holy Spirit, speak of God as being limited in anyway except of course if in our time trapped delusion we speak of His inability to compromise His own character/nature.
 
The language of adoption speaks to both the Jewish and Gentile members of the now predominantly Gentile Ephesian ecclesia. While the ethnic religious people Israel remain chosen as a unique people, all human beings regardless of ethnicity must be adopted through the blood of Messiah with regard to spiritual condition. For example, a Jew who receives the Jewish Messiah Yeshua becomes a converted soul and remains a Jew. Likewise a Navajo who receives the Saviour Yeshua becomes a converted soul and remains a Navajo. Adoption concerns our spiritual conversion and the redemption of our sin affected being, which God decided beforehand based on seeing the end from the beginning. In Messiah both Jew and Gentile are secure! (Ref. Romans 8:23; Galatians 4:5)
 
6 to the praise of the judgement of His grace, by which He encompassed us with favour in the Beloved.
 
We note that “the Beloved” refers to the Beloved Son of God Yeshua the King Messiah.
 
All blessing comes from God and is returned to Him in praise of His glorious judgement in which grace is offered and in His present countenance, is manifest around us to whom He has shown unmerited favour in the beloved King Messiah.
 
Those who misapply Isaiah 60:21, 61:3 and Jeremiah 13:11 to the present text must be reprimanded for their failure to emphasise that these texts concern God’s glory being manifest in the reconciliation of Israel, His chosen, ethnic, religious, empirical people and do not apply to Gentile believers. Yes, His glory is manifest in the redemption of Gentiles, but this is not what the aforementioned texts teach. Therefore, they should not be used to qualify the present text except as forerunners to the inclusion of all who believe, Jew and Gentile.
 
7 In Him (the Beloved) we have been released through the ransom of His blood, the forgiveness of sins, according to the wealth of His grace 
 
“In Him” refers to “the Beloved [Messiah].” Therefore, in Yeshua we have been released [from the just penalty for sin] through the ransom [price paid] of His blood [essence, eternal], and have received the forgiveness of sins, which exhibits the extent of the riches of His grace, loving kindness, practiced love, charity.
 
“without shedding of blood there is no remission of sin.”
 
-Hebrews 9:22
 
“For the life of the flesh is in the blood, and I have given it to you upon the altar to make atonement for your souls; for it is the blood that makes atonement for the soul.”
 
-Vayikra (Leviticus) 17:11 NKJV
 
“Giving thanks to the Father, Who has made us to be partakers of the inheritance of the holy ones (kedoshim[H]) in light: Who has delivered us from the power of darkness, and has transferred us into the kingdom of his dear Son: In Him we have redemption through His blood, even the forgiveness of sins:”
 
-Colossians 1:12-14 [Author’s translation]
 
8 which He made to abound toward us in all wisdom and understanding, 
 
Our redemption is His work, He has made it abound in the wisdom and understanding that emanates from His Person. Our atonement is not of ourselves.
 
9 to make known to us the mystery of His will, according to His good desire which He revealed in Himself, 
 
The mystery of His will which He revealed in Himself does not remain a mystery to those who have received Him. Unlike the mystery religions and their pseudo-Christian companions, the mystery of God’s will is now made known, accessible to all who receive the Messiah rather than being offered only to initiates of higher knowledge. Redemption is offered to all but only the repentant receive it.
 
This is particularly important to the context of this letter because mystery religions were prevalent in Ephesus and throughout the Roman Empire.
 
10 that in managing the fullness of the times He might sum up into one, all things in Messiah, the things in heaven and the things that are on earth—in Him. 
 
Simply put, the revelation of the mystery of God’s redemptive will established in Messiah before the foundation of the worlds, has been managed/ordered in the fullness of all time, past, present and future, in Messiah through His blood atoning work on the cross. Therefore, Messiah, seated at the right hand of God in authority over all creation, orders all things to completion in Himself.
 
11 In Him also we (Jews) have obtained an inheritance, decided beforehand according to the purpose of Him who works all things according to the counsel of His will, 
 
Having established that Messiah has dominion over all things, Shaul (Paul) now makes a unifying distinction between the Jews who first believed, having a long history of looking forward to Messiah, and in verse 13, to the Gentiles, in particular Ephesian believers, who have also trusted in Messiah as a result of hearing the Word (Gospel) from the likes of Shaul/Paul (a Jew) and others (Apollos, Pricilla, Aquilla [also Jews]).
 
In Messiah [slain before the creation of the world] we Jews [Shaul speaking of himself and his people] have received right relationship in God as our inheritance. And, because God sees the end from the beginning, He decided in Himself [Father, Son and Spirit] that we would be established through His sacrificial love. The love of God being a decision, established through sacrifice and maintained by commitment.
 
The full redemption of the entire remnant of the Jewish people (Israel: descendants of Jacob) alluded to in Zechariah 12:10; John 19:37; Romans 11:25-27 was “decided beforehand,” that is, “before the foundation of the worlds.”
 
12 toward us (Jews) who to the praise of His judgement first hoped beforehand in Messiah.
 
Toward us Jews [Shaul/Paul speaking of himself and his people], who due to God’s praise and judgement, first hoped in Messiah.
 
“24 By faith Moses, when he became of age, refused to be called the son of Pharaoh’s daughter, 25 choosing rather to suffer affliction with the people of God (Israel, ethnic, chosen, empirical, religious) than to enjoy the temporary pleasures of sin, 26 esteeming the scolding Messiah suffered, greater riches than the treasures in Egypt; for he looked to the reward.”
 
-Hebrews 11:24-26 [Author’s translation]
 
13 In Him you (Greeks/Gentiles) also heard the word, the truth, the Gospel of your salvation; in Him also, having trusted, you were marked with the seal of the promised Holy Spirit, 
 
In the same Messiah you Gentiles also heard the Gospel and in Him, having trusted, you too have been sealed with the mark of the Holy Spirit, just as we Jews have.
 
Note that by the simple act of trusting in Messiah the believer is marked with the Holy Spirit.
 
“The word of the truth” is similar phrasing to that of the Jewish tradition concerning a sublime heavenly doctrine. The Hebrew is מלה דקשוט (melah dakshut) “a word of sublime/lavish decoration” [Zohar on Numb. 76:3].
 
14 Who is the guarantee (promissory note) of our inheritance until the release through ransom of the purchased possession, to the praise of His judgement.
 
The one who receives Yeshua is marked with the Holy Spirit, Who Himself is the guarantee of our (Jew and Gentile) inheritance (God Himself), until the sin affected world reaches its goal and the entire collective of redeemed souls are united in the fullness of God’s now and not yet fully realised Kingdom. All this unto the praise of His judgement. Praise being the response to His just decision.
 
Ref. 1 Corinthians 1:22; 5:5; Romans 11
 
15 Therefore I also, after I heard of your faith in the Lord Yeshua and your love for all the holy ones (kedoshim[H]-saints), 
 
Paul indicates here that he is writing to those who are indirectly associated with His initial ministry in Ephesus. He has heard of their faith, therefore, they are those who have come to faith in his absence. What’s more, he has heard of their love for the holy ones (kedoshim-saints) such as Apollos, Priscilla, Aquila and others of the Jewish community who had come to faith as a result of his missionary journeys, along with many Gentiles also.
 
16 don’t stop giving thanks for you, making mention of you in my prayers: 
 
Paul thanks God from his home detention/prison cell for the good news that Messiah is being taught and received and the community of faith is growing without Paul’s help. Therefore, He petitions God for their good in Messiah constantly.
 
17 in order that the God, of our Lord Yeshua the Messiah, the Father of judgement, may give to you the spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of Him, 
 
Paul desires the Ephesian believers to receive revelation and godly wisdom in the knowledge of God in Messiah. Paul knows from personal experience that knowledge of texts and traditions, even impeccable Torah observance is no substitute for divine revelation. In fact devoid of divine revelation no one can correctly understand Scripture or walk in the redemptive atonement of the King Messiah Yeshua.
 
In this verse Paul makes a distinction between the Father and the Son Yeshua but does not make a separation. This verse is to be understood in relationship to Paul’s teaching in Colossians 2:9 (62 CE):
 
“For in Him (Yeshua the Messiah) dwells all the fullness of the Godhead in bodily form;”
 
The description “Father of judgement” can also be read “Father of glory,” and corresponds to the Hebrew מֶלֶךְ הַכָּבוֹד Melekh Hakavod “King of glory.”
 
“7 Lift up your heads, O you gates!
And be lifted up, you everlasting doors!
And the King of glory shall come in.
8 Who is this King of glory?
YHVH The Lord strong and mighty,
YHVH The Lord mighty in battle.
9 Lift up your heads, O you gates!
Lift up, you everlasting doors!
And the King of glory shall come in.
10 Who is this King of glory?
The Lord of hosts,
He is the King of glory. Selah, contemplate, receive, consider and apply”
 
-Tehillim (Psalms) 24:7-10 [Author’s translation]

“Spirit of wisdom and revelation” recalls the promised Messianic Davidic Ruler who is prophesied by Isaiah:
 
“1 V’yatza And then will come out khoter a shoot (seed, stem) migeiza from the stump (stock) of Yishay (Jesse: I exist, I possess, I have substance), v’neitzer and a green branch (from natzar: guard) misharashayhu from his root yiphreh will bear fruit.
2 V’nakhah And resting upon Him, the Ruach Spirit (breath, wind) of HaShem (YHVH: Mercy), Ruach Spirit (breath, wind) of chokhmah wisdom uvinah and understanding (insight, skill), Ruach Spirit (breath, wind) of eitzah counsel u’gevurah and might (strength, greatness), Ruach Spirit (breath, wind) of da’at knowledge (perception) v’yir’at and of the fear (awe, reverence) of HaShem (YHVH: Mercy).”
 
-Yeshayahu (Isaiah) 11:1-2 [Author’s translation]
 
Joshua son of Nun is also said to have been filled with “the spirit of wisdom” (Deut. 34:9). He shares his name with the King Messiah.
 
In addition, it’s worth noting that Bezalel the son of Uri is said to have been given “the Spirit of God, in wisdom, in understanding, in knowledge, and in all manner of workmanship,” in order to craft the sacred elements of the Tent of Meeting (Exodus 31:1-11). This is poignant in the present context because it provides a d’rash (comparative teaching) that says believers in Messiah are gifted with “the spirit of wisdom and revelation” in order to act in accordance with Messiah’s redemptive calling in the application of living worship (Romans 12:1).
 
18 the illumination of the eyes of your heart (core being); that you may know what is the hope of His calling, what are the riches of the judgement of His inheritance in the holy ones (kedoshim-saints), 
 
The Biblical Hebrew לב leiv (heart) is the core being where all elements of person converge. The eyes of the heart (core being) are illuminated by God in Messiah. The Biblical Hebrew עַיִן ayin, eye, also means “spring” and connects sight and undefiled water as a source of life. A spring being an eye in the earth from which מים חיים Mayim Chayiym, living water flows.
 
Another way to translate this might be, “the eye of your understanding be illuminated.” The phrase עין השכל (ayin haskeil) “the eye of understanding” is Rabbinical and is found in numerous Jewish sources [Zohar in Deut. fol. 119. 3. Yetzirah, p. 22. 78. Ed. Rittangel. R. Levi ben Gersom in Gen. fol. 14. 3. & Philo de opificio Dei, p. 15.]
 
The Hebrew עיני הלבבות (ayin halevevot) eyes of the hearts is also used by ancient Jewish writers [Bechinat Olam, p. 260.]
 
This illumination is not an illumination of the seat of emotion (the compartmentalised heart), but of the core being, from which human action proceeds.
 
The illumination of God in Messiah is purposed to reveal the knowledge of the hope of the resurrection and everlasting living already established for the believer in the receipt of being called to His ministry of sacrificial love. [Ref. Rom. 8:25; Php 3:14; Heb. 3:1]
 
The riches of His judgement/Glory is the receipt of right relationship in God by the redeemed saints, holy ones, we who have received His gift of loving redemption through Yeshua’s blood. God Himself is our inheritance! Yeshua is enough! [Ref. Col. 1:12]
 
“The statutes of YHVH the Lord are right, rejoicing the core being (heart);
The commandment of YHVH the Lord is pure, illuminating the eyes (springs);”
 
-Tehillim (Psalms) 19:8
 
“Open my eyes, that I may see
Wondrous things from Your Torah.”
 
-Tehillim (Psalms) 119:18
 
Note that we can’t see “wondrous things from” His Torah unless He opens our eyes.
 
19 and what is the surpassing greatness of His strength toward us who trust, according to the working of the force of His power 
 
The strength of God in Messiah is “toward us who trust/have faith” a gift that is eternally present in the manifestation of His power, a fruit of His present Spirit, the Comforter. Power and the Holy Spirit are intrinsically connected. Yeshua says to some of our ancient religious leaders, “You are in error because you do not comprehend, know, have revelation of the Scriptures or the Power of God!” (Matthew 22:29). Yeshua is revealing Himself as He Who  offers the unity of Word and Power. The Holy Spirit is the Spirit of the Father and the Son [Matthew 10:20 and Romans 8:10-11; Romans 8:9 and Galatians 4:6] poured out and present as both the guarantee and strength of every true believer in Messiah.
 
“Greatness, strength, force and power” are synonyms used in a quadruplet rhythm reflecting Jewish poetry, which uses repetition for emphasis rather than rhyming.
 
“Both riches and honour are from You,
And You reign over all.
In Your hand, power and might;
In Your hand is the power to make great
And to give strength to all.”
 
-1 Chronicles 29:12 [Author’s translation]
 
“Lift up on high your eyes, and behold. Who has created these things? He Who brings out their host by number: He calls them all by name by the meirov multiplication of oniym His generative power, for He is strong in vigour; iysh a man lo not nedar failing.”
 
-Yeshayahu (Isaiah) 40:26 [Author’s translation]
 
20 which He worked in Messiah when He raised Him from the dead and seated Him at His right hand in the heavens, 
 
The resurrection of Messiah establishes the resurrection of all at the last day.
 
With regard to the chronology of events within time the believer’s access to the power of God appears to have a specific place in history. Added to this is the fact that the Lamb is slain before the foundation of the worlds (Rev. 13:8) and that the resurrected Messiah transcends time and space unbound and unlimited, trans-locational.
 
The Father has seated the Son at His right hand in the heavens in a position of dominion over all creation. The right hand is the position of strength and authority in Biblical Hebrew thought. Paul writes using both symbolic language and literal location, but not limited location. Messiah is seated at the right hand of the Father and at the same time is in the midst of two or three believers gathered together (Matt. 18:20). This cannot be understood from a sin affected time trapped paradigm. Part of the transformation of the believer by the renewing of the mind is the transition from time trapped thinking to eternal thinking.
 
“A melody of David;
YHVH The Lord said to Adoniy my Lord,
“Sit at My right hand,
Until I make Your enemies Your stool under Your feet.”


-Tehillim (Psalms) 110:1 [Author’s translation] (Ref. Matt. 22:44; Heb. 1:13)
 
21 far above all origins and power and strength and lordship, and every name that is named, not only in this age but also in that which is to come.
 
Scripture teaches that angelic beings are given authority by God to administer rule over certain elements and entities within creation (Daniel 10:13, 20). The present verse makes clear that Yeshua is given authority in the Father over these angelic rulers.
 
Messiah has authority over all creation. Though He made Himself of no reputation, coming in the likeness of humanity, He is nonetheless Superior to all created things, being God in the beginning (Php 2:6-7; John 1).
 
Yeshua is Ruler, “not only over this present age (sin affected world, time trapped) but also over the age to come (eternity).”
 
This further establishes the fact that in spite of the temporary power that God has allowed Satan to have as “Prince of the air” (Eph. 2:2) in the fallen creation, Yeshua is nonetheless Ruler over Satan and the limited power permitted it (Satan) for a time. Thus, Yeshua rules over all creation now and forever. Therefore, to attribute power to Satan greater than that which it (Satan) has, is to impugn the character and authority of Messiah. The paper thin veil of darkness is soon to be consumed in a furnace of all existing Light.
 
“13 I was watching in the night visions,
And behold, One like the Son of Man,
Coming with the clouds of heaven!
He came to the Ancient of Days,
And they brought Him near before Him.
14 Then to Him was given dominion and glory and a kingdom,
That all peoples, nations, and languages should serve Him.
His dominion is an everlasting dominion,
Which shall not pass away,
And His kingdom the one
Which shall not be destroyed.”
 
-Daniel 7:13-14 NKJV
 
22 And He put all under His foot, and gave Him headship over all the assembly (ecclesia: body of believers), 
 
“A melody of David;
YHVH The Lord said to Adoniy my Lord,
“Sit at My right hand,
Until I make Your enemies Your stool under Your feet.”


-Tehillim (Psalms) 110:1 [Author’s translation] (Ref. Matt. 22:44; Heb. 1:13)
 
“24 Then comes the end, when He delivers the kingdom to God the Father, when He puts an end to all rule and all authority and power. 25 For He must reign till He has put all enemies under His feet.”
 
- 1 Corinthians 15:24-25 NKJV
 
“8 You have put everything, individually and collectively in subjection under his feet.” [ Psalm 8:4-6] For in subjecting all things, individually and collectively to Him, He left nothing that is not subject to Him. But now we do not yet see all things individually and collectively subjected to him. 9 But now we do see Him Who was made for a little while lower than the angels /messengers, Yeshua, through His suffering death crowned with glory and honour, splendour, so that by the grace, unmerited favour, practical love of God He might eat death for everyone, individually and collectively.”
 
-Hebrews 2:8-9 [Author’s translation] (Ref. Heb. 10:13)
 
Because all is under Yeshua’s authority, He is specially the Head over the body of believers, the ecclesia.
 
“3 But I want you to know that the head of every man/husband is Messiah, the head of woman/wife is man/a husband, and the head of Messiah is God/The Father. “
 
- 1 Corinthians 11:3 [Author’s translation]
 
“1:24 I now rejoice in my sufferings for you, and fill up in my flesh what is lacking in the afflictions of Christ, for the sake of His body, which is the church,… 2:19 and not holding fast to the Head, from whom all the body, nourished and knit together by joints and ligaments, grows with the increase that is from God.”
 
-Colossians 1:24; 2:19 NKJV
 
In his letter to the Ephesians Paul goes on to compare the body of believers, the ecclesia to a building (2:20-22; 1 Cor. 3:16-17), and a wife (5:25-33; Rev. 19:7-9).
 
23 which is His body, the fullness of the all in all to completion.
 
The ecclesia is one in Yeshua and is therefore part of His body made perfect through His atoning work and the completion of all things existing in all creation, in God.
 
The Greek πλήρωμα pleroma translated “fullness” was used by the Gnostics (ancient equivalent to the modern “new agers”, or esoteric mystery religions) to refer to the sum of the angels or “aeons” that they supposed mediated between God and humanity.
 
Gnosticism was essentially a self-deification philosophy. Gnostics saw secret knowledge as a vehicle for perfecting themselves to a higher plain of existence. Gnosticism minimized the issue of sin as simply a collection of mistakes made to learn from on the path to divinity, teaching that created matter is evil and the spiritual is divine.
 
Paul uses the word πλήρωμα pleroma which they had hijacked, to instead reflect its true application under the authority of Him Who is the Creator of all things. The misuse of something does not define it.
 
Paul goes on to use the Greek πλήρωμα pleroma to express his prayer that the Ephesian body of believers would “know (comprehend and receive) the love of Messiah which surpasses knowledge (intellect)” and that they “may be filled with all the fullness (pleroma) of God.” [Eph. 3:19]
 
It’s interesting to note that some of our Jewish sages interpret Psalms 24:1 to refer to the souls of the righteous, and of the united tribes of Israel. [Zohar in Gen. fol. 50. 2. & in Exod. fol. 21. 2.]
 
“A melody of David. The land is Adonay’s and all that fills it—the world, and those dwelling on it.”
 
-Tehillim (Psalms) 24:1
 
Unlike the Gnostics, Paul teaches that access to the fullness of God is only possible through the blood atoning redemptive work of Yeshua the Messiah, without Whom there is no salvation or perfection.
 
Appendix:
 
Approximate Dating of Associated Texts
 
1 Corinthians  -           53-55 CE (AD)
Romans           -           57 CE (AD)
Ephesians       -           60 CE (AD)
Colossians       -           62 CE (AD)
1 Timothy       -           63-66 CE (AD)
Revelation       -           70 CE (AD)
 
Copyright 2025 Yaakov (Brown) Ben Yehoshua