Reading a Whole Paragraph

Ephesians 1:3-14 is one sentence. In the SBL Greek New Testament (SBLGNT) it runs to 202 words, as counted in the free MorphGNT tagging, with one full stop at the end of verse 14 and only commas and raised dots in between. The raised dot, ·, is the Greek mark for a pause roughly like an English semicolon or colon. The BSB, like nearly every English translation, divides the passage into seven sentences. It has to: an English reader cannot hold a 200-word sentence in his head, and an English sentence that long would be a failure of style. But something is lost in the dividing, and the aim of this lesson is to recover it.

What is lost is the shape. A long Greek sentence of this kind, which grammarians sometimes call a period, is not a list. It is a tree, with one trunk and many branches, each branch growing out of something before it. In Ephesians 1:3-14 the trunk is the opening words, Blessed be God. Everything else, from the choosing in verse 4 to the sealing in verse 13, is a branch, and every branch grows out of something God has done. Break it into seven sentences and the reader starts to hear seven separate statements, each one equal. The Greek does not present seven equal statements. It presents one act of praise and then fills it out.

The form itself had a long history before Paul. Jewish prayer was full of blessings that began Blessed are you, Lord, or Blessed be God, and then went on to name what God had done. The Hebrew form is called a berakah, a blessing. 2 Corinthians 1:3 and 1 Peter 1:3 open with exactly the same words as Ephesians 1:3: 'Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ'. So the long sentence is not a writer losing control of his grammar. It is a writer praying, in a form his first readers would have recognised.

The style of Ephesians is different from that of Romans or Galatians, and that difference is one of the arguments in the debate about who wrote the letter. Those who think a disciple of Paul wrote Ephesians point to its long, heavily loaded sentences; those who hold that Paul wrote it point to the liturgical genre of passages like this, to the possibility of a secretary, and to the long sentences found in the letters no one disputes. The New Testament Survey track handles that question. For this lesson, the point is narrower: whoever wrote it, the sentence was built on purpose, and you can learn to see how.

Every long Greek sentence has at least one main clause, and finding it is the first job. A main clause normally has a finite verb, that is, a verb with person and number, in the indicative, imperative or subjunctive mood, which is not introduced by a word that makes it dependent. Dependent clauses are introduced by subordinating words, and you have met many of them already in this module: ἵνα (so that), ὅτι (that, because), εἰ and ἐάν (if), καθώς (just as), and the relative pronoun ὅς, ἥ, ὅ (who, which). Participles and infinitives, which have no person of their own, are also almost always dependent.

So the method is simple to state. Find every verb in the sentence. Cross off every participle and every infinitive; your tool's parsing will tell you which they are, with a P for participle or N for infinitive in most code systems. Cross off every finite verb that has a subordinating word in front of it. What is left is your main clause.

Try it on Ephesians 1:3-14 and something surprising happens: nothing is left. The verbs are εὐλογήσας (1:3), a participle; ἐξελέξατο (1:4), finite but after καθώς; εἶναι (1:4), an infinitive; προορίσας (1:5), a participle; ἐχαρίτωσεν (1:6), finite but after the relative ἧς; ἠγαπημένῳ (1:6), a participle; ἔχομεν (1:7), finite but after ἐν ᾧ, in whom; and so on to the end. Every finite verb in the passage is in a dependent clause. The main clause has no verb at all.

It is Εὐλογητὸς ὁ θεὸς καὶ πατὴρ τοῦ κυρίου ἡμῶν Ἰησοῦ Χριστοῦ (eulogētos ho theos kai patēr tou kyriou hēmōn Iēsou Christou), blessed the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. Greek often leaves out the verb be when the meaning is clear, and the reader supplies it. Here the reader must decide which form to supply. If it is a wish, the sense is blessed be God, an act of praise; if it is a statement, the sense is blessed is God, a declaration that he is worthy of praise. The BSB chooses 'Blessed be', as most translations do, and the Jewish blessing form supports either. In practice the two senses are close: to declare God blessed is to bless him.

Notice what this means for the whole paragraph. The grammatical subject of the only main clause is God. Every participle that follows in the nominative singular, εὐλογήσας, προορίσας, γνωρίσας, agrees with that subject and tells you something God has done. The believer appears constantly, in us and we, but always in the object position or in a dependent clause, as the one who receives. Until verse 13, the only things humans do in this sentence are be holy, have redemption, hope and be for the praise of his glory, and the holiness and the praise are named as God's purpose for them, not their achievement. The grammar is preaching before you have said a word.

Now trace the branches, using the parsing in your tool. ὁ εὐλογήσας ἡμᾶς (ho eulogēsas hēmas), 'who has blessed us', is an aorist active participle, nominative masculine singular, with the article ὁ in front of it. An article with a participle usually makes it work like an adjective or a noun: the one who blessed. So this participle describes God. Then καθὼς ἐξελέξατο ἡμᾶς ἐν αὐτῷ (kathōs exelexato hēmas en autō), just as he chose us in him: ἐξελέξατο is aorist middle indicative, third person singular, of ἐκλέγομαι, and καθώς ties the choosing to the blessing as its ground and pattern. Then εἶναι ἡμᾶς ἁγίους καὶ ἀμώμους, an infinitive of purpose: to be holy and blameless.

προορίσας ἡμᾶς (proorisas hēmas) in 1:5 is another aorist active participle, nominative masculine singular, agreeing with God, but this one has no article. A participle without an article that agrees with the subject usually works like an adverb, telling you something about the main action: how, why or when. Here it tells you something about the choosing, and readers differ on exactly what: having predestined us, which would put the predestining before the choosing; by predestining us, which would make it the means; or in predestining us, at the same time. You met these options in the lesson on participles in Module 5. The grammar allows all three, and translators usually leave the relationship open in English.

The relative clauses keep the tree growing. ἧς ἐχαρίτωσεν ἡμᾶς ἐν τῷ ἠγαπημένῳ (1:6), the grace with which he graced us in the Beloved, hangs on χάριτος, grace, just before it. ἐν ᾧ ἔχομεν τὴν ἀπολύτρωσιν (1:7), in whom we have redemption, hangs on the Beloved. ἧς ἐπερίσσευσεν εἰς ἡμᾶς (1:8), which he lavished on us, hangs on grace again. Each relative pronoun points back to a noun and grows a new clause out of it. To trace them, ask of each ὅς, ἥ or ὅ: what earlier noun does it agree with in gender and number? The answer tells you where the branch joins.

Then the infinitive of 1:10, ἀνακεφαλαιώσασθαι τὰ πάντα ἐν τῷ Χριστῷ (anakephalaiōsasthai ta panta en tō Christō), an aorist middle infinitive: to bring all things together under one head in Christ. This is the content of the mystery God made known, the goal of his plan for the fullness of time. And then the turn of 1:11-14: ἐν ᾧ καὶ ἐκληρώθημεν (1:11), in whom also we were chosen as God's own, where ἐκληρώθημεν is aorist passive indicative, first person plural, of κληρόω. The BSB's 'we were also chosen as God's own' takes the passive to mean we were made God's portion; the King James Version's 'we have obtained an inheritance' takes it to mean we were given a portion. The verb, a rare one, allows both, and good translations divide.

Then there are the prepositional phrases, and in this sentence they are everywhere. The little word ἐν (en, in) appears fifteen times in 202 words: in every spiritual blessing, in the heavenly realms, in Christ, in him, in love, in the Beloved, in whom. εἰς (eis, into, for) carries the goals: for adoption, for the praise of his glory, for a plan. κατά (kata, according to) carries the standards: according to the good pleasure of his will, according to the riches of his grace, according to the plan of him who works out everything. A good exercise is to colour each kind of phrase differently in your notebook. You will see that the in phrases tie everything to Christ, the for phrases point everything at God's glory, and the according to phrases root everything in his will.

A long sentence with little punctuation forces editors and translators to decide what attaches to what, and Ephesians 1:3-14 has three famous places where good readers disagree. The first is ἐν ἀγάπῃ (en agapē), in love, at the end of 1:4. The King James Version ends verse 4 'holy and without blame before him in love', and the SBLGNT's comma after ἀγάπῃ leans the same way: love is the quality of the holy life God chose us for. The BSB ends verse 4 with a full stop after 'in His presence' and begins a new sentence with 'In love', carried over into verse 5, 'He predestined us', so that love is the motive of God's predestining.

Each reading has real arguments. For linking love to holiness: elsewhere in Ephesians ἐν ἀγάπῃ usually comes after the word it goes with, as in 4:2, 'bearing with one another in love', and 4:16; and holiness and love are joined as the goal of the Christian life throughout the second half of the letter. For linking love to predestining: the following participle needs some description of how God acted, and love as the root of election fits the whole tone of the blessing, which is about God's generosity. Notice that Ephesians 3:17 raises the same question, and there the BSB carries ἐν ἀγάπῃ forward into what follows, 'you, being rooted and grounded in love', while the SBLGNT puts a raised dot after ἀγάπῃ and ties it to what comes before. The phrase is ambiguous in more than one place in the letter. Both readings are orthodox and both are attractive; this is a place to show your people the choice rather than hide it.

The second is the timing of the participles in 1:13. ἐν ᾧ καὶ πιστεύσαντες ἐσφραγίσθητε (en hō kai pisteusantes esphragisthēte), in whom also having believed you were sealed. πιστεύσαντες is an aorist active participle, nominative masculine plural; ἐσφραγίσθητε is aorist passive indicative, second person plural, of σφραγίζω. An aorist participle beside an aorist main verb can describe an action before the main one or one that happens at the same moment. The King James Version's 'after that ye believed, ye were sealed' takes the first option; the BSB's 'having heard and believed... you were sealed' leaves it open, and many modern translations take the second, when you believed.

This small decision has been drawn into a large debate. Classical Pentecostal and some Holiness teachers have read the King James wording, together with Acts 19:2, 'Have ye received the Holy Ghost since ye believed?', as support for a distinct experience of the Spirit after conversion, and have pointed to the narratives of Acts 8 and 19, where believers received the Spirit some time after believing. Others reply that an aorist participle with an aorist main verb very often describes the same moment, so that Acts 19:2 asks whether they received the Spirit when they believed, as the BSB has it, and that Paul elsewhere ties having the Spirit to belonging to Christ at all, as in Romans 8:9. The grammar of 1:13 allows both readings and settles neither. Many Pentecostal scholars today rest their case on the narratives of Acts rather than on the participles of Ephesians, and the debate belongs to the Systematic Theology track.

The third is the change of pronoun. In 1:11-12 Paul says we were chosen, we who first hoped in Christ, using προηλπικότας, a perfect active participle, accusative masculine plural, meaning those who had hoped beforehand. In 1:13 he says ἐν ᾧ καὶ ὑμεῖς, in whom you also. You met this added ὑμεῖς in the lesson on word order: it marks a contrast. But between whom? Many readers take we to be Jewish believers, who hoped in the Messiah first, and you to be the Gentile readers, which fits the great theme of chapter 2, Jew and Gentile made one. Others take we to be Paul and the first generation of apostles and evangelists, and you to be those who heard through them. Still others read the we as all believers and the you as a pastoral turn to the readers in particular. Each reading can appeal to something in the letter, and the grammar only tells you that a contrast is being drawn.

Step back from the details and look at the whole tree. The refrain εἰς ἔπαινον, to the praise, comes three times: εἰς ἔπαινον δόξης τῆς χάριτος αὐτοῦ in 1:6, to the praise of his glorious grace; εἰς ἔπαινον δόξης αὐτοῦ in 1:12; and εἰς ἔπαινον τῆς δόξης αὐτοῦ in 1:14. Those three phrases divide the sentence into three movements. Many commentators have noticed that the first movement, 1:3-6, centres on the Father's choosing; the second, 1:7-12, on redemption and the plan summed up in Christ; and the third, 1:13-14, on the Spirit as seal and pledge. The pattern is not perfectly neat, since Christ is named throughout and the Father is the subject of almost every verb, but it is there, and it means the paragraph is shaped by the Trinity before it says a word about it.

Notice too what the grammar does with the doctrine of election, because preachers often go to this passage for it. The sentence makes God the one who chooses and predestines, and it places that choosing ἐν αὐτῷ, in him, in Christ. What the grammar does not settle is the question the church argues about: whether God chose particular persons to be in Christ, as the Reformed tradition reads it, or chose Christ and, in him, the people who would come to be united with him by faith, as many Arminian and corporate readings hold. Both traditions read the same participles and the same in him with care. The Systematic Theology track sets the arguments out in full; in a Greek class, the honest thing is to say what the sentence does make clear, that the initiative and the glory are God's, and to stop there.

For preaching, the lesson is to keep the trunk in view. It is possible to preach Ephesians 1:3-14 as twelve separate blessings, one per verse, and to say true things about each. But a congregation will leave with a list, and the Greek gave them a doxology. The main sentence of a sermon on this passage should probably have God as its subject and praise as its verb, because that is the main clause. Every branch, from election to the seal of the Spirit, is then a reason to say the main clause with more understanding. That is what the passage itself does: it opens with Blessed be God, and it ends with to the praise of his glory.

The same skill works on every long sentence in the New Testament, and Paul writes many: Colossians 1:9-14, 2 Thessalonians 1:3-10 and Romans 1:1-7 are good places to practise. Hebrews and Luke's prologue (Luke 1:1-4) are others. In each, the question is the same. Where is the main clause? What hangs on it, and on what does each branch hang?

Your step this week: in your capstone passage, find every main clause and every dependent one. On a notebook page headed Main and Branches, write the main clause or clauses in full at the top, using the BSB but checking the Greek verb in your tool. Underneath, list every dependent element in order: its verse, its marker (participle, infinitive, relative pronoun, subordinating word such as ἵνα, ὅτι or καθώς, or preposition), and the word it hangs on. Where you are not sure what something attaches to, write both options and see how two translations decided. In the next lesson you will turn this page, with your Connectives, Order and Conditions pages, into a full phrasing of the passage by hand.