Ephesians Chapter 2 verse 22 Holy Bible

Pulpit Commentary

Pulpit CommentaryVerse 22. - In whom ye also are builded together. Once more the vitalizing element - "in whom;" for this is better than "in which," inasmuch as this verse is substantially a reduplication of the preceding one, making special application of the same subject to the Ephesians. The person changes from the third to the second, to make emphatic that the Ephesians shared this great privilege. Their relations towards believing Jews and other believers in the Church were not accidental; they were "builded together," compacted into each other, and ought to work together towards God's great ends. For a habitation of God in the Spirit. Not many habitations, but one. The Church as a temple is the dwelling-place of God. Here he bestows his fullness, so that when the temple is completed it will exhibit, as fully as a created thing can, the manifold glory of God. "In the Spirit" in this verse corresponds to "in the Lord" in the previous one. The actual communication of Divine properties to finite beings is the work of the Third Person. In this verse, again, we find the three Persons of the Trinity: the temple is the habitation of the First Person; the source of its life and growth and symmetry is the Son; the actual up-building and glorifying of it is by the Spirit. This is the climax of privilege, and no contrast could be greater than that between the death in trespasses and sins with which the chapter begins, and this sublime temple, where God dwells and bestows his fullness, with which it ends.

Ellicott's Commentary

Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers(22) In whom ye also are builded together for an habitation of God through the Spirit.--This verse seems primarily intended simply to emphasise the truth already enunciated (in Ephesians 2:20), that the Ephesians themselves are now being made part of the Church of Christ, "being built up together in Christ." But it may also illustrate to us the character of the unity of the Church, as, primarily, a direct individual unity with Christ--each stone being itself a complete and living stone--and, secondarily and indirectly, an unity with others and with the whole. The Ephesians are said to be, not a part of the habitation of God, but themselves built into Christ for an habitation of God--"Christ dwelling in their hearts by faith," and they "therefore being filled with all the fulness of God" (Ephesians 3:17-19). The addition of this clause, therefore, links the teaching of this Epistle with the earlier and more individual forms of teaching, noted on Ephesians 2:20.This verse contains, again, the declaration (as in Ephesians 2:18) of the union of Christians with each Person of THE HOLY TRINITY. The soul made one with THE SON becomes a temple for the indwelling of THE FATHER in the gift of THE HOLY SPIRIT. (See John 14:23.) . . .