Ephesians 1:2

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

“Grace”: “One of the leading words of the epistle. It is used 13 times” (Vincent p. 363). “And the Lord Jesus Christ”: By placing Jesus next to the Father as. source of grace and peace, Paul demonstrates that Jesus is to be viewed as an equal with the Father. Compare 1 Peter 4:7 with Colossians 3:15. ‘Lord”: “Shortly before the coming of Jesus, the word ‘Lord' became the Greek equivalent of the Hebrew name ‘Jehovah' or ‘Yahweh' in the Septuagint version of the Scriptures. All implications of the term apply to Jesus; He is our owner and master; He is God” (Boles p. 200). God's grace and peace are only for those "in Christ Jesus". There is no peace for those outside of Christ (John 3:36).

Let God be praised for all the following

“With this profound verse (Ephesians 1:3), Paul began. doxology which runs through verse 14, composed of one long sentence. Some of the grandest words in the vocabulary of Christianity are used in it, such as adoption, redemption, foreordained, heritage and sealed” (Coffman pp. 118-119). “In the Greek the long passage from verse. to verse 14 is one sentence, gift after gift and wonder after wonder from God pass before our eyes” (Barclay pp. 76-77). “As Paul dictates, his speech pours out of his mouth in. continuous cascade. ‘We enter this epistle through. magnificent gateway'. It is ‘a golden chain' of many links, or. ‘kaleidoscope of dazzling lights and shifting colors'. William Hendriksen likens it to ‘a snowball tumbling down. hill, picking up volume as it descends'” (Stott p. 32).