Efesus 1:9

1:9 He did this when he revealed ¹  to us the secret ²  of his will, according to his good pleasure that he set forth ³  in Christ, ⁴ 

Efesus 3:3-6

3:3 that ⁵  by revelation the divine secret ⁶  was made known to me, as I wrote before briefly. ⁷  3:4 When reading this, ⁸  you will be able to ⁹  understand my insight into this secret ¹⁰  of Christ. 3:5 Now this secret ¹¹  was not disclosed to people ¹²  in former ¹³  generations as it has now been revealed to his holy apostles and prophets by ¹⁴  the Spirit, 3:6 namely, that through the gospel ¹⁵  the Gentiles are fellow heirs, fellow members ¹⁶  of the body, and fellow partakers of the promise in Christ Jesus.

Efesus 3:9

3:9 and to enlighten ¹⁷  everyone about God’s secret plan ¹⁸  – a secret that has been hidden for ages ¹⁹  in God ²⁰  who has created all things.

[1:9]  ¹ tn Or “He did this by revealing”; Grk “making known, revealing.” Verse 9 begins with a participle dependent on “lavished” in v. 8; the adverbial participle could be understood as temporal (“when he revealed”), which would be contemporaneous to the action of the finite verb “lavished,” or as means (“by revealing”). The participle has been translated here with the temporal nuance to allow for means to also be a possible interpretation. If the translation focused instead upon means, the temporal nuance would be lost as the time frame for the action of the participle would become indistinct.

[1:9]  ² tn Or “mystery.” In the NT μυστήριον (musthrion) refers to a divine secret previously undisclosed.

[1:9]  ³ tn Or “purposed,” “publicly displayed.” Cf. Rom 3:25.

[1:9]  ⁴ tn Grk “in him”; the referent (Christ) has been specified in the translation for the sake of clarity.

[1:9]  sn In Christ. KJV has “in himself” as though the antecedent were God the Father. Although possible, the notion of the verb set forth (Greek προτίθημι, protiqhmi) implies a plan that is carried out in history (cf. Rom 1:13; 3:25) and thus more likely refers to Christ.

[3:3]  ⁵ tn Or “namely, that is.”

[3:3]  ⁶ tn Or “mystery.”

[3:3]  ⁷ tn Or “as I wrote above briefly.”

[3:3]  sn As I wrote briefly may refer to the author’s brief discussion of the divine secret in 1:9.

[3:4]  ⁸ tn Grk “which, when reading.”

[3:4]  ⁹ tn Grk “you are able to.”

[3:4]  ¹⁰ tn Or “mystery.”

[3:5]  ¹¹ tn Grk “which.” Verse 5 is technically a relative clause, subordinate to the thought of v. 4.

[3:5]  ¹² tn Grk “the sons of men” (a Semitic idiom referring to human beings, hence, “people”).

[3:5]  ¹³ tn Grk “other.”

[3:5]  ¹⁴ tn Or “in.”

[3:6]  ¹⁵ sn The phrase through the gospel is placed last in the sentence in Greek for emphasis. It has been moved forward for clarity.

[3:6]  ¹⁶ tn Grk “and fellow members.”

[3:9]  ¹⁷ tn There is a possible causative nuance in the Greek verb, but this is difficult to convey in the translation.

[3:9]  ¹⁸ tn Grk “what is the plan of the divine secret.” Earlier the author had used οἰκονομία (oikonomia; here “plan”) to refer to his own “stewardship” (v. 2). But now he is speaking about the content of this secret, not his own activity in relation to it.

[3:9]  ¹⁹ tn Or “for eternity,” or perhaps “from the Aeons.” Cf. 2:2, 7.

[3:9]  ²⁰ tn Or “by God.” It is possible that ἐν (en) plus the dative here indicates agency, that is, that God has performed the action of hiding the secret. However, this usage of the preposition ἐν is quite rare in the NT, and even though here it does follow a perfect passive verb as in the Classical idiom, it is more likely that a different nuance is intended.