🛡️WEB · Ephesians 1:9
What does Ephesians 1:9 mean?
"making known to us the mystery of his will, according to his good pleasure which he purposed in him"
— Ephesians 1:9 (World English Bible)
Surrounding context
to the praise of the glory of his grace, by which he freely gave us favor in the Beloved,
in whom we have our redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of his grace,
which he made to abound toward us in all wisdom and prudence,
making known to us the mystery of his will, according to his good pleasure which he purposed in him
to an administration of the fullness of the times, to sum up all things in Christ, the things in the heavens, and the things on the earth, in him;
in whom also we were assigned an inheritance, having been foreordained according to the purpose of him who does all things after the counsel of his will;
to the end that we should be to the praise of his glory, we who had before hoped in Christ.
Explanation
Ephesians 1:9 sits in the middle of one long, sweeping sentence in the original Greek that runs from verse 3 through verse 14, in which Paul pours out praise to God for the spiritual blessings believers have received in Christ. This particular verse says that God has made known to us "the mystery of his will," and that he did this according to his own good pleasure, a plan he purposed within himself, centered in Christ. In plain language, Paul is saying that God has let us in on something that was previously hidden — his ultimate plan for the world — and that this plan flows purely from God's own gracious will, not from anything we did to earn or discover it.
The letter to the Ephesians was written by the apostle Paul, likely while he was imprisoned in Rome, and sent to the church at Ephesus (and probably circulated among other churches in the region of Asia Minor). Paul's purpose in this opening section is to help believers grasp the magnitude of what God has done for them in Christ — their election, redemption, and adoption — so that their hearts might overflow with praise and confidence. The word "mystery" in Paul's writings doesn't mean something puzzling or mysterious in the modern sense; rather, it refers to a truth that was hidden in past ages but has now been revealed through Christ and made known to his people. Paul often uses this term elsewhere (Colossians 1:26-27, Romans 16:25-26) to describe the previously concealed plan of God now disclosed in the gospel.
Theologically, this verse emphasizes both the graciousness and the intentionality
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