Ephesians 2:4

ὁ δὲ Θεὸς, πλούσιος ὢν ἐν ἐλέει : but God (or, God, however), being rich in mercy. A return is now made to the statement which was interrupted at Ephesians 2:2. The resumption might have been made by οὖν. The adversative δέ, however, is the more appropriate, as the other side of our case is now to be set forth the Divine grace which meets the sinful, condemned condition, and which stands over the dark background of our death by sin and our subjection by nature to the Divine wrath. God who is wroth with sin, is a God of grace. His disposition towards those who are dead by trespasses and sins is one of mercy, and this no stinted mercy, but a mercy that is rich, exhaustless (for πλούσιος, πλουτίζειν, etc., cf. 1 Corinthians 1:5; 2 Corinthians 9:11; 1 Timothy 6:17-18; James 2:5). διὰ τὴν πολλὴν ἀγάπην ἣν ἠγάπησεν ἡμᾶς : by reason of His great love wherewith He loved us. The use of the cogn. acc. ἣν adds to the force of the idea; cf. the use of the same phrase by our Lord Himself with reference to His Father's love, John 17:26. If mercy is God's attitude to sinful men, love is His motive in all that He does with them; and as the mercy is “rich” so the love is “great”. With this great love God loved us when He chose us, and it is on account of that love (not “through” it, as Luther puts it) that He acts with us as He does. The ἡμᾶς has the widest sense here all of us, whether Jew or Gentile.