Matthew Poole and continuators on Ephesians 1:3

3 Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who hath blessed us with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ .

i. e. Thanked, praised. We bless God when we praise him for, and acknowledge him in his excellencies or benefits.

Hath vouchsafed or communicated all spiritual Blessings to us. God blesseth us when he doeth good to us; and so the word Bless is taken in a different sense from what it was in the former clause.

Of all sorts or kinds.

In opposition to temporal and worldly, which the carnal Iews principally expected, and the Law mostly promised, (Deut. 28.1, 2. to v. 15.) and which were but types and shadows of those spiritual Blessings which immediately relate to the spiritual Life and Salvation of Believers.

Gr. Supercoelestial or Heavenly, understand either, 1. Things; and then it seems to be the same as spiritual Blessings, onely in other terms. Or, 2. Places, in opposition to earthly Places, particularly the Land of Canaan, in which God had formerly promised to Bless his people. These spiritual Blessings are in heavenly places, because, though they reach us here on earth, yet they are derived to us from God and Christ in Heaven, and in Heaven onely have their full perfection and consummation hereafter.

By, or through Christ. Upon the account of whose merit, and by whose efficiency these spiritual Blessings are derived from God to us. Or, in Christ as our head, the repository, and seat of all divine Blessings, from whom they flow down upon us as his Members, receiving all we have, out of his fullness. He seems to have respect to the promise made to Abraham, Gen. 22.18. That in his seed all the nations of the earth should be blessed, pointing out Christ as that Seed, and those Blessings as Spiritual. Vid. Act. 3.25, 26.

Marginal references: [illegible: 1 letter] Cor. 1.3. 1 Pet. 1.3.; Or, things. Chap. 6.12.