What does "every spiritual blessing" mean in Ephesians 1:3?

All spiritual blessings in the heavenlies in Christ. What, in detail, are they? If I singled out from this context, Eph. 1:3-14, the answer I should say: from verse 4, the being holy and blameless before Him in love; verse 5, being in a place of sonship through Jesus Christ to Himself; verse 6, made accepted in the Beloved (or graced in Him); verse 7, redemption through His blood, and the forgiveness of sins; verse 8, His abounding to us in all wisdom and intelligence; verse 9, the knowledge of the mystery of His will; verse 10, as to the gathering, hereafter, together in one, all things which are in Christ, whether in heaven or in earth, in Him; verse 11, in whom a peculiar inheritance has been allotted to us; verse 13, sealed with the Holy Spirit of promise; verse 14, who is the earnest of our inheritance, until the redemption of the purchased possession. These are but part of the blessed inventory, but they form a part of it. Other scriptures may give out their contents, and each, I doubt not, in harmony and keeping with the more immediate subject of the contents where they are found as these are.

Further: the blessings of the Church are spiritual blessings in heavenly places — not temporal blessings, as Israel's were. It was promised that they, if obedient, should be blessed in their basket and in their store, in the fruit of their body, the fruit of their cattle, and the fruit of the ground. It was with temporal blessings that they were to be blessed. And even in millennial times, when they will enjoy spiritual blessings also, the possession of every temporal comfort is a prominent feature in their predicted condition. "And the tree of the field shall yield her fruit, and the earth shall yield her increase, and they shall be safe in their land, and shall know that I am the Lord." (Ezek. 34:27.) There are no such promises as these to the Church. Existing, as it does, by virtue of union with a risen and exalted Saviour, its blessings are spiritual. Redemption, forgiveness, acceptance, adoption, knowledge of God's mind and will, co-heirship with Christ, the earnest of the Spirit; these, and such as these, are the blessings with which the Church is blessed. And it is in heavenly places too. Many read this passage as though it spake of heavenly frames or feelings, or dispositions, or states of mind; but this would make it the same thing as spiritual blessings: instead of which it is, "Who has blessed us with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places." But if we refer to the latter part of the chapter, where the expression, "heavenly places" again occurs, the meaning of these words will become self-evident: it speaks of Christ being set at God's right hand in heavenly places. Are not places intended there? Is there not a place where the glorified body of Christ resides? It is in that place, then, or in those places that the Church is blessed with all spiritual blessings in Christ. In Christ! Ah, that is the key to the whole mystery! But we may well pause here, and meditate a little further. The Lord grant us with unshod feet, as treading on holy ground, to turn aside and see this great sight!

In this epistle, as in no other, the eternal counsel of God for Christ and for those who believe in Him is explained. The starting point of God acting in grace is not the plight of the lost sinner (as, for example, in the epistle to the Romans and Colossians), but God's own counsel and will before all eternity. It is the plan of God the Father in Christ Jesus, that all who believe in Him, even now, while still on earth, shall receive all spiritual blessings in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus. The way to this, however, is only through the redemptive work of Christ on the cross (Eph. 1:7). These blessings are: being a child of God, sonship, eternal life, and the indwelling of the Holy Spirit. All these are blessings that have nothing to do with this earth but are purely spiritual and heavenly.

Here, however, the first great thought is that "The God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ has blessed us with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ." It is not redemption, though of course based upon it. I am here upon the earth, and yet I know that I am blest there where Christ is at the right hand of God. Not only have I blessings there, but I am blessed "with all spiritual blessings." The highest blessing God can confer is that which He gives every child of His in heavenly places in Christ. In these few words we gaze at the height of God's wonderful counsel about us and love for us. He has thus blessed us according to the fulness of His value for Christ.

The expression "heavenly places" is in contrast with the portion of the Jews, who were blessed in earthly places. If we look at Ezekiel 36, it may bring out more distinctly the character of our blessing in contradistinction to theirs. "Then will I sprinkle clean water upon you and ye shall be clean … And ye shall dwell in the land that I gave to your fathers; and ye shall be my people, and I will be your God." Thus, there are spiritual mercies mingled with their blessings; but they will be in the land of their fathers, which God is to make good to the generation to come. It is chiefly learned but unspiritual men who make confusion about these matters. If readers were only simple about Scripture, they would not fall into such mistakes. The prophets says, "Ye shall dwell in the land that I gave to your fathers." Nothing can be plainer than this. He is to bless Israel on the earth — in their soul too, no doubt: but the sphere of this blessing is the holy land. It is His earthly people, not the Church, as we shall see lower down. "I will multiply the fruit of the tree and the increase of the field, that ye shall receive no more reproach of famine among the heathen." Evidently the blessing is in earthly places. I should not find fault with good men trying to give this a spiritual turn and to preach the gospel from it, provided they did not blot out from it the hopes of Israel by and by. Primarily the people there are Israel, and they are to be blessed in this manner. We see the land of Palestine now desolate like a wilderness; but "the desert shall rejoice and blossom as the rose" in that day. There are certain blessings that apply to the believer now, it is true. To the "water" and "Spirit," in a wonderfully enlarged and deepened scope, our Lord alludes thus in John 3. But I object to the inference that God has abandoned His people, and that this prophecy about the earthly places should be confounded with our heavenly title. The earth and earthly blessings are here dwelt upon by the Spirit of God. Why should we be jealous about the Jews or the earth either? God has shown us such overflowing and surpassing favour that we may well delight and thank Him that the earth is reserved for His ancient nation.

The first thing to point out is this, "the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ." Mark the language. It is God acting in this especial manner of relationship. He means to bless the believer as He blesses Christ. That is, not as Christ is blest as a divine person — that would be blasphemy. Here we have what is bestowed upon Him as man in heaven. "The glory which thou gavest me I have given them" is a kindred truth. Christ as the risen man is exalted on high, having glory conferred on Him as the risen man that by the grace of God had died. The risen man is also God, but we must never confound His deity with His humanity. As thus risen He said, "I ascend unto my God and your God, unto my Father and your Father." Here we have His and our God and Father, and the apostle shows that we reap infinite blessing from each of these relationships. As God of our Lord Jesus, He gives us to partake in the divine nature, holy and blameless before Him in love. He means to have men in heaven along with Jesus. To have that blessed glorified man there is not enough. He gives Jesus companions. These companions of His must have, of course, the divine nature morally. (2 Peter 1.)

He begins, then, with the praise which fills his heart as he thinks of that which is the portion of the saints. "Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ who hath blessed us with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ." It is the Father's will, the Father's love to which all is referred here; Christ the One in whom there is the accomplishment of this. "The God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ," suggests, as the Lord has taught us, our own twofold relationship to Him as that. "The God of our Lord Jesus Christ" implies the Man Christ Jesus down here in the place of weakness, to work out His will, to whom God must be God, who walks in the path of faith like no other man, only in the perfection which belongs to Him; but then His God is His Father, and, as this, our Father also, although there is a peculiar sense, of course, in which, as the "Only Begotten Son" He fills such a place. As the "Only Begotten," He is alone and must ever be alone. As the"First Born," He is in necessary connection with others who are not merely naturally but spiritually born. Thus, the Lord says in His message through Mary Magdalene, "I ascend unto my Father and your Father, unto my God and your God." It has been often noted that the Lord does not say here to our Father and to our God. He preserves, as a matter of necessity, the peculiar place which is His, and yet He brings us by virtue of what He is, into relationships which are characterized by His relationship. "My Father" and therefore "your Father;" "My God" and therefore "your God." God has One now in whom He can perfectly reveal Himself. In the Old Testament He was the God of Abraham, of Isaac and of Jacob. These three, as we have seen in the book of Exodus, are those specially chosen, as, in the place they fill, giving us to know God in a distinct way. In the God of Abraham, in fact, we see the Father, just because and as in Isaac the one yielded up to death and yet brought out of it, we see the Son. The God of Jacob gives us, on the other hand, the thought of the Spirit. Jacob transformed into Israel is the typical presentation of the Spirit's work. Thus God had in some way identified Himself with these three men, but now there are and can be none associated with Christ after this manner. He is the One in whom God is displayed and He displays Him fully and perfectly. The God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ is God perfectly revealed, and it is He who "hath blessed us with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ." Notice how we are entitled, therefore, to go back through all the Old Testament scriptures and to claim every spiritual blessing that we find there as our own. We do not take them from those to whom they belonged. Those blessings declare the character of God who is now revealed to us and who has blessed us in Christ. No character of blessing, therefore, can be wanting to us. If God says to Joshua: "I will never leave thee nor forsake thee," we may, as the apostle tells us, claim that promise fully, although there could scarcely perhaps be one which might be considered more incidental to the peculiar place which Joshua occupied. But "all spiritual blessings" then are ours, only that the sphere to which they belong, with which they connect us, is heavenly and not earthly. There is no conflict, therefore, with Israel's blessings; although, surely, their highest blessings must be spiritual also, but they are in earthly places, not in heavenly. Christ is the storehouse of these blessings for us. He is the One who by His work in our behalf justifies their bestowal. Nay, we may say, even necessitates it, for the moment we see Christ as Man here upon earth, the fullest blessing of man is certainly implied for him. "If God spared not His Son, but delivered Him up for us all, how shall He not with Him also freely give us all things?" "All spiritual blessings" then are ours. We only need faith to claim them and enjoy them. Unbelief may, alas, make us poor still, shaming the One whom we should glorify by the manifestation of the blessing that is ours. Nevertheless, the blessings abide permanently for His people, and it is, of course, impossible that for any of these there could be the final loss of that which is thus secured; but this makes the apostle look back to eternity before ever the world was, to that will of God to which we owe our all. He has chosen us in Him before the world was. This world, so large and important as it is often in our thoughts, yet is after all that which has, as it were, come in by the way, and is a step in order to His fulfilment of these eternal blessings; but the first thing that we find here is that we must, therefore, be according to His own nature, and here, too, the guard of His holiness is first named: "That we should be holy and without blame before Him" — then His full character — "in love." We must answer thus to what He is if we are to be blessed at all.

Our blessings are spiritual as to their character, heavenly as to the sphere of them, and “in Christ,” i.e. ours solely by reason of our identification with our great and glorious Representative and Head. They are in keeping with the fact that in an eternity which is past we were designated to a place of infinite blessedness in an eternity to come, “holy and without blame before Him in love.” In so saying we do not for one moment deny the present application of these words, but we believe that in their full thought they look on, as stated, to an eternity to come.

We do not need to wait until we reach heaven with our bodies of glory, our heavenly house, before being blessed of God, for even now believers are “blessed with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ” (Eph. 1:3). God has already blessed us, not with material blessings, but with spiritual blessings; not on earth, but in heavenly places; not with temporal blessings, but with eternal blessings; and every blessing is in Christ who is glorified in heaven, His place being ours, for we share all that is His in association with Him.

But we must examine these things more closely. We have seen the establishment of the two relationships between man and God — relationships in which Christ Himself stands. He ascended to His God and our God, to His Father and our Father. We share all the blessings that flow from these two relationships. He has blessed us with all spiritual blessings; not one is lacking. And they are of the highest order; they are not temporal, as was the case with the Jews. It is in the most exalted capacity of the renewed man that we enjoy these blessings: and they are adapted to that capacity, they are spiritual. They are also in the highest sphere: it is not in Canaan or Emmanuel's land. These blessings are granted us in the heavenly places; they are granted us in the most excellent way — one which leaves room for no comparison — it is in Christ. The God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ has blessed us with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ. But this flows from the heart of God Himself, from a thought outside the circumstances in which He finds us in time. Before the world was, this was our place in His heart. He purposed to give us a place in Christ. He chose us in Him.

As usual the apostle salutes the saints with the best wishes for their blessing. "Grace be to you, and peace, from God our Father, and from the Lord Jesus Christ." Then, without delay, the next verses introduce a general view of the glorious topic that occupied him. "Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ." It is God in His proper nature, and in His relationship to Jesus. He is the God of Jesus; He is the Father of Jesus. But the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ "hath blessed us with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ." It is not carnal blessing such as was in measure given under the law to Israel, and will be under the new covenant by and by; it is spiritual blessing. The earth is their sphere; it is there that Israel looks to be blessed, and the Gentiles somewhat farther off, but all in the ordered blessing of the Most High God. Altogether differently here "the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ" has blessed us where Christ is on high. There is no place good enough for Christ the Son but heaven. There it is God Himself displays most His own glory; there He displays Christ Himself to all the heavenly hosts, delighting to put honour on that Man whom He raised from the dead and set at His own right hand. It is there not merely that He means to bless us, but that He has blessed us already. Such is the character of our blessing, and such its seat. The character is spiritual, the seat heavenly; and as the whole is given by the God and Father of our Lord Jesus, so it is secured in Christ.