Ephesians, part 11, Paul's Prayer

Paul wrote two prayers in his epistle to the Ephesians. The first is in Ephesians 1:18-21, where he prayed that they would “know what is the hope of His calling,” that is, to know what they might expect as the result of Christ’s success in fulfilling His calling. Their expectation, of course, was that Christ would subject all things under His authority from His exalted position at the right hand of the Father in heavenly places.

Paul’s second prayer is in Ephesians 3:14-21, where Paul prays that they would be strengthened in spirit to be able to comprehend the love of Christ. Because “God is love” (1 John 4:8), love is the essence of His nature. Therefore, no one can come fully into the image of God without being an expression of love. As John puts it,

⁸ The one who does not love does not know God, for God is love.

So Paul prays that the church will experience the fulness of love, so that it will comprehend the extent of God’s plan for creation itself.

The Father of One Family

Ephesians 3:14, 15 begins his prayer,

¹⁴ For this reason I bow my knees before the Father [Patera], ¹⁵ from whom every family [patria, “fatherhood, that which is derived from a father, a family”] in heaven and on earth derives its name…

God’s love is the foundation of a family relationship. In other words, God’s relationship to creation is not impersonal. God is “the Father from whom every family in heaven and on earth derives its name.” His use of the term “every family” defines what he has already told us—that His love extends to all ethnicities throughout the earth, and that His love compels Him to subject all things to Himself.

At the present time, all of these individual families are largely divided into competing factions, each fighting for its own self-interest. But God intends to make them all into a single family under one Father. An earthly family member may be named “John, son of Andrew,” while his brother may be named, “Peter, son of Andrew,” each being named according to a family name, Andrew.

The problem is that other family names are generally different, because they have different fathers. On a tribal level, there are families of Judah or Ephraim, or Benjamin, each of a different tribe whose name is derived from a past patriarch.

But Paul contemplated the day when these different families will derive their name from their heavenly Father: “John, son of God” and “Peter, son of God.” To accomplish this, of course, they will all have to be begotten by the Spirit, even as Jesus was (Luke 1:35).

The unification of these earthly families is the underlying purpose of the Abrahamic calling to be a blessing to “all the families of the earth” (Genesis 12:3). In Paul’s prayer, he seems to clarify the purpose of the Abrahamic calling. As to the families “in heaven,” it is unclear what Paul meant or how those families will be included in the family of God. It is generally assumed that Paul was referring to those family members who have died and whose spirits have returned to God. Some, however, think Paul was referring to angelic families—or even alien beings.

We can be certain that the families in heaven—whoever they are—need reconciliation, because the reconciliation of all involves “those who are in heaven and on earth and under the earth” (Philippians 2:10). This is repeated with different wording in Colossians 1:20, where all of creation is reconciled, “whether things on earth or things in heaven.”

Polycarp, the eminent disciple of the Apostle John, wrote in his Epistle to the Philippians (about 117 A.D.), “to whom are subjected The All things, celestial and terrestrial, to whom all breath may offer divine service.” While this is consistent with Paul’s statement, Polycarp seems to assume that his audience understood that he was speaking of angels (“celestial”) and men.

Clement of Alexandria (150-213 A.D.) wrote in his commentary on 1 John 2:2,

“And not only for our sins,” that is, for those of the faithful, is the Lord the Propitiator does he say, “but also for the whole world.” He, indeed, saves all; but some He saves converting them by punishments; others, however, who follow voluntarily He saves with dignity of honour; so that “every knee should bow to Him, of things in heaven, of things on earth, and things under the earth—that is, angels and men.

It is clear, then, that Clement considered “things in heaven” to refer to angels who were destined to bow their knees to Christ. Again, Didymus the Blind (308-395) wrote in his commentary on 1 Peter chapter 3,

“As Mankind, by being reclaimed from their sins, are to be subjected to Christ in the dispensation appointed for the salvation of all, so the angels will be reduced to obedience by the correction of their vices.”

Even Jerome himself, before he prostituted his teachings to the Roman pope in the year 400, once wrote in his comments on Ephesians 2:7,

“Christ will, in the eons to come, show, not to one, but to the whole number of rational creatures, His glory, and the riches of His grace, by means of us… The saints are to reign over the fallen angels, and the prince of this world…even to them bringing blessing.”

The greatly revered Gregory of Nyassa, in his commentary on Psalm 150:5 (“Praise Him with loud cymbals”), wrote in a very long sentence:

“One cymbal is the heavenly nature of the angels. The other is the rational creation of mankind; but sin separated the one from the other, which, when at last the goodness of God shall have united, then shall both, made one, chant forth that hymn, as the great Apostle says: ‘Every tongue, of things in heaven, and on earth, and under the earth, shall confess that Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father’: which done, the cymbals shall chant their song of victory… all enmity being extinguished… ceaselessly shall be rendered by every spirit alike, praise to God without end.”

The common interpretation of Paul’s statements regarding “things in heaven” in the early church was to apply it to angels—fallen angels, for the other angels needed no reconciliation. Yet because Paul himself does not explain the meaning of this phrase, I will refrain from further comment on this.