He is here alluding to the blessings of the Jews173; for that was blessing also, but it was not spiritual blessing. For how did it run? “The Lord bless thee, He will bless the fruit of thy body;” (Deut. vii. 13.) and “He will bless thy going out and thy coming in.” (Deut. xxviii. 4.) But here it is not thus, but how? “With every spiritual blessing.” And what lackest thou yet? Thou art made immortal, thou art made free, thou art made a son, thou art made righteous, thou art made a brother, thou art made a fellow-heir, thou reignest with Christ, thou art glorified with Christ; all things are freely given thee. “How,” saith he, “shall He not also with Him freely give us all things?” (Rom. viii. 32.) Thy First-fruits is adored by Angels, by the Cherubim, by the Seraphim! What lackest thou yet? “With every spiritual blessing.” There is nothing carnal here. Accordingly He excluded all those former blessings, when He said, “In the world ye have tribulation,” (John xvi. 33.) to lead us on to these. For as they who possessed carnal things were unable to hear of spiritual things, so they who aim at spiritual things cannot attain to them unless they first stand aloof from carnal things. What again is “spiritual blessing in the heavenly places?” It is not upon earth, he means, as was the case with the Jews. “Ye shall eat the good of the land.” (Isa. i. 19.) “Unto a land flowing with milk and honey.” (Ex. iii. 8.) “The Lord shall bless thy land.” (Deut. vii. 13.) Here we have nothing of this sort, but what have we? “If a man love Me, he will keep My word, and I and My Father will come unto him, and make our abode with him.” (John xiv. 23.) “Every one therefore which heareth these words of Mine, and doeth them, shall be likened unto a wise man which built his house upon the rock, and the floods came, and the 51 winds blew, and beat upon that house, and it fell not, for it was founded upon the rock.” (Mat. vii. 24, 25.) And what is that rock but those heavenly things which are above the reach of every change? “Every one therefore who,” saith Christ, “shall confess Me before men, him will I also confess before My Father which is in Heaven: But whosoever shall deny Me, him will I also deny.” (Mat. x. 32, 33.) Again, “Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.” (Mat. v. 8.) And again, “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of Heaven.” (Mat. v. 3.) And again, “Blessed are ye which are persecuted for righteousness sake, for great is your reward in Heaven.” (Mat. v. 11, 12.) Observe, how every where He speaketh of Heaven, no where of earth, or of the things on the earth.174 And again, “Our citizenship is in Heaven, from whence also we wait for a Saviour the Lord Jesus Christ.” 173 [“A contrast to the earthly benefits promised to the Jews in the Old Testament is foreign to the con- text.”—Meyer.—G.A.] 174 [“Such a specification of the ‘sphere’ and thence of the ‘spiritual character’ of the action would seem su- perfluous after the definite words preceding. In four other passages in this Epistle the expression, ‘in the heav- enlies,’ seems ‘local’ (i. 20; ii. 6; iii. 10; vi. 12.). So the expression here must be referred as a ‘local’ predication to εὐλογί& 139· πνευμαηκῇ defining the ‘region’ whence the blessings of the Spirit come. Cf. Heb. vi. 4.”—Elli- cott.—G.A.] 98 Ephesians 1:1--2