Biblion Bible Commentary
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He Ascended on High
Ephesians 4:7-10
7 But to each one of us, the grace was given according to the measure of the gift of Christ. · WEB
A psalm about receiving tribute is quoted as giving gifts, and the argument Paul builds from it turns on a descent.
Verse 7 moves from the sevenfold one to the individual: to each one of us the grace was given. Unity is stated first and distribution second, which is the order the whole section keeps.
The quotation in verse 8 is from a psalm of triumphal procession — a conqueror going up, captives in train Psalms 68:18. The psalm as it stands speaks of receiving gifts from the defeated; the citation here has him giving them. The letter does not remark on the difference, and the point it draws is not about the direction of tribute but about what a victor does with the spoils: he distributes them.
Then verses 9 and 10 make an argument from a single word in the quotation. Now this, he ascended — what is it but that he also first descended? The logic is that ascent implies a prior descent, and the letter presses it.
Where he descended is stated as the lower parts of the earth, and the phrase is genuinely open. It can mean the earth as the low region, in contrast to the heavens — the incarnation itself — or something further down. The letter does not specify, and nothing in its argument requires the choice to be made, since what the passage needs is only that the same person occupied both extremes.
Verse 10 states that plainly: he who descended is the one who also ascended far above all the heavens. And the purpose is given as filling — that he might fill all things, which is the letter's phrase from chapter 1 for the fullness that fills all in all Ephesians 1:23.
held with reason What this mark means