What Does Ephesians 2:18 Mean?

(18) **For through him we both have access by one Spirit unto the Father.**—In this verse the two meanings again unite. In the original the order is emphatic: “Through Him we have the access, both of us in one Spirit, to the Father.” The greater idea of access to God is still prominent; but the lesser idea of union with each other in that access is still traceable as an undertone. “Access” is properly “the introduction” (used also in Ephesians 3:12; Romans 5:2), a technical word of presentation to a royal presence. So says Chrysostom, “We came not of ourselves, but He brought us in.” The corresponding verb is found in 1Peter 3:18, “Christ also suffered for sins—the just for the unjust—that He might *bring us to God.”* It will be noted that we have here one of the implicit declarations of the doctrine of the Holy Trinity, so frequent in this Epistle. The unity of the whole Church, as united “to the Father,” “through the Son,” and “in the Spirit,” is here summed up in one sentence, but with as much perfection and clearness as even when it is unfolded in the great passage below (Ephesians 4:4-6). The ultimate source of all doctrine on the subject is necessarily in the words of the Lord Himself. (See John 14-17, especially John 14:6; John 14:16-18; John 14:23-25; John 15:26; John 16:13-15; John 17:20-21.) For these are the “heavenly things”; and “no man hath ascended into heaven but He that came down from heaven, even the Son of Man who is in heaven” (John 3:12-13).