Ephesians 3:15

“from whom every family in heaven and on earth is named”.

“From whom”: From the Father. “After whom” (Vincent p. 382). Denoting source and origin. “Every family”: Side reference NASV, “the whole family”. This letter has already informed us that God has only one family, composed of both Jewish and Gentile believers (Ephesians 2:19). “Since the dominant theme of these Chapter s is that through Christ the ‘one God and Father of us all' (Ephesians 4:6) has only one family or household to which Jewish and Gentile believers equally belong. It seems better, therefore, to translate His whole family or ‘the whole family of believers' (NIV)” (Stott p. 133). Occasionally you will run into someone that tries to argue that we are all God's children and that one does not need to become. Christian to be. child of God. Sadly, this is exactly what the devil desires that people would believe. Compare with John 1:12; Galatians 3:26; Ephesians 1:5; Ephesians 2:18; John 8:44. “In heaven and on earth”: Those "in heaven" would be Christians who have passed from this life (Hebrews 12:22), and the Old Testament faithful who also have been reconciled through the blood of Christ (Colossians 1:20; Hebrews 9:15). Hence all the faithful of both testaments, and all the faithful dead and those alive presently compose one great family. It is into "this family" that Christians, even from. Gentile past, have been added. This is one grand reason to be thankful (Colossians 3:15). “Is named”: “Derives its name” (NASV). “Implies that we have derived identification, meaning, character, and position from God” (Caldwell p. 134). Since God is the Father of one common family of believers, therefore we all share the same designation, that is, “children of God”. We are all "fellow-heirs" (Ephesians 3:6).

Stott makes an interesting comment when he says, “It may be, then, that Paul is saying not only that the whole Christian family is named from the Father, but that the very notion of fatherhood is derived from the Fatherhood of God. In this case, the true relation between human fatherhood and the divine fatherhood is neither one of analogy (‘God is. father like human fathers'), nor one of projection (Freud's theory that we have invented God because we needed. heavenly father figure), but rather one of derivation (God's fatherhood being the archetypal reality, ‘ the source of all conceivable fatherhood'” (Stott p. 134).