Biblion Bible Commentary
Read the introduction to Ephesians · About this commentary
The Pledge of Our Inheritance
Ephesians 1:11-14
11 We were also assigned an inheritance in him, having been foreordained according to the purpose of him who does all things after the counsel of his will, · WEB
The long sentence closes with the Spirit described in two commercial images, and the readers are brought inside it at the word you.
Verses 11 and 12 finish the we of the sentence — an inheritance assigned, a purpose behind it, and the refrain again, to the praise of his glory.
Then verse 13 changes pronoun, and the change is the point: in him you also. The gentile readers are brought into a sentence that has been running for ten verses about us, and the sequence of their entry is given in order — having heard the word of truth, having believed, having been sealed.
Nothing between hearing and sealing is a rite or a qualification. The letter will state the same order flatly in the next chapter: by grace, through faith, not of works Ephesians 2:8–9.
The sealing is with the promised Holy Spirit, and a seal in that world marked ownership and guaranteed that something would not be tampered with before delivery.
Verse 14 then names the Spirit with a word from the marketplace: arrabon, a down payment — the first instalment that legally commits the buyer to the rest. What the readers presently have of God is described as a deposit against a purchase already agreed.
And what is being purchased is put the other way round from what a reader expects. Not the readers acquiring an inheritance, but the redemption of God's own possession — they are what is being bought. The chapter's third and last refrain closes the sentence where the other two closed their clauses: to the praise of his glory.
settled What this mark means