Efesus 1:5

1:5 He did this by predestining ¹  us to adoption as his ²  sons ³  through Jesus Christ, according to the pleasure ⁴  of his will –

Efesus 2:8

2:8 For by grace you are saved ⁵  through faith, ⁶  and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God;

Efesus 4:17-18

Live in Holiness

4:17 So I say this, and insist ⁷  in the Lord, that you no longer live as the Gentiles do, in the futility ⁸  of their thinking. ⁹  4:18 They are darkened in their understanding, ¹⁰  being alienated from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them due to the hardness of their hearts.

[1:5]  ¹ tn Grk “by predestining.” Verse 5 begins with an aorist participle dependent on the main verb in v. 4 (“chose”).

[1:5]  sn By predestining. The aorist participle may be translated either causally (“because he predestined,” “having predestined”) or instrumentally (“by predestining”). A causal nuance would suggest that God’s predestination of certain individuals prompted his choice of them. An instrumental nuance would suggest that the means by which God’s choice was accomplished was by predestination. The instrumental view is somewhat more likely in light of normal Greek syntax (i.e., an aorist participle following an aorist main verb is more likely to be instrumental than causal).

[1:5]  ² tn Grk “to himself” after “through Jesus Christ.”

[1:5]  ³ tn The Greek term υἱοθεσία (Juioqesia) was originally a legal technical term for adoption as a son with full rights of inheritance. BDAG 1024 s.v. notes, “a legal t.t. of ‘adoption’ of children, in our lit., i.e. in Paul, only in a transferred sense of a transcendent filial relationship between God and humans (with the legal aspect, not gender specificity, as major semantic component).” Although some modern translations remove the filial sense completely and render the term merely “adoption” (cf. NAB, ESV), the retention of this component of meaning was accomplished in the present translation by the phrase “as…sons.”

[1:5]  sn Adoption as his sons is different from spiritual birth as children. All true believers have been born as children of God and will be adopted as sons of God. The adoption is both a future reality, and in some sense, already true. To be adopted as a son means to have the full rights of an heir. Thus, although in the ancient world, only boys could be adopted as sons, in God’s family all children – both male and female – are adopted.

[1:5]  ⁴ tn Or “good pleasure.”

[2:8]  ⁵ tn See note on the same expression in v. 5.

[2:8]  ⁶ tc The feminine article is found before πίστεως (pistews, “faith”) in the Byzantine text as well as in A Ψ 1881 pc. Perhaps for some scribes the article was intended to imply creedal fidelity as a necessary condition of salvation (“you are saved through the faith”), although elsewhere in the corpus Paulinum the phrase διὰ τῆς πίστεως (dia th" pistew") is used for the act of believing rather than the content of faith (cf. Rom 3:30, 31; Gal 3:14; Eph 3:17; Col 2:12). On the other side, strong representatives of the Alexandrian and Western texts (א B D* F G P 0278 6 33 1739 al bo) lack the article. Hence, both text-critically and exegetically, the meaning of the text here is most likely “saved through faith” as opposed to “saved through the faith.” Regarding the textual problem, the lack of the article is the preferred reading.

[4:17]  ⁷ tn On the translation of μαρτύρομαι (marturomai) as “insist” see BDAG 619 s.v. 2.

[4:17]  ⁸ tn On the translation of ματαιότης (mataioth") as “futility” see BDAG 621 s.v.

[4:17]  ⁹ tn Or “thoughts,” “mind.”

[4:18]  ¹⁰ tn In the Greek text this clause is actually subordinate to περιπατεῖ (peripatei) in v. 17. It was broken up in the English translation so as to avoid an unnecessarily long and cumbersome statement.