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Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ, (Ephesians 1:3)

Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. The Greek word (εὐλογητός eulogētos) rendered blessed pertains to being worthy of praise or commendation. The meaning here is that we owe our gratitude to God for all that he has done for us. The reason for our gratitude is given in the verses that follow. God “chose us in him before the foundation of the world.” God foreknew that Adam and Eve were going to sin, which is not a case of predestination, as predestination is unbiblical. See the answer to this under Chapter 1 Bible Difficulties below. Paul is very much concerned with carrying out his original eternal will and purpose of eternal life for man, and now the salvation of man. Because of the inspired Word of God, man is now aware of the plan that God had in place even before the foundation of the world, so all glory and exaltation belongs to God.

Who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing.

The love of God is seen in the creation of heavenly spiritual creatures and human creatures. It is God’s nature to bestow divine favor and goodness on his creation. Here these blessings are described as spiritual, and the likely meaning refers to the spiritual life of God’s human creatures. “It is also possible to interpret πνευματικός in Eph 1:3 as referring to ‘the Holy Spirit,’ that is to say, these blessings would be those which come from the Spirit of God (see 12.21).”[1] We note that “riches” is mentioned five times throughout Ephesians (1:7, 18; 2:7; 3:8, 16), which is used strictly in a spiritual sense. But we also have peace, redemption, and adoption, which are the work of the Holy Spirit mentioned in the following verses. These are undoubtedly blessings that genuine Christians appreciate.

In the heavenly places in Christ. The Greek phrase in heavenly places (ἐν τοῖς ἐπουρανίοις en tois epouraniois) found here occurs in four other places in Ephesians. (1:20; 2:6; 3:10; 6:12) The context shows that Christians who are going to be with Christ are viewed so by God because they ‘obtained an inheritance’ with his Son. Even though some of these are still on earth, it is as though they have already been “raised up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus.” (Eph 1:11, 18-20; 2:4-7, 22.) Paul tells us elsewhere, “If then you have been raised up with Christ, keep seeking the things above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God.” (Col. 3:3) And the apostle John tells us, “Beloved ones, now we are children of God, and it has not appeared as yet what we will be. We know that when he appears, we will be like him, because we will see him just as he is.” – 1 John 3:2.

[1] Johannes P. Louw and Eugene Albert Nida, Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament: Based on Semantic Domains (New York: United Bible Societies, 1996), 322–323.