Comentarios bíblicos

CHAPTER 2

Ephesians 2:1. After ἁμαρτίαις, B D E F G א, min. Syr. utr. Erp. Copt. Aeth. Arm. Vulg. It. Theodoret, Lucif. Victorin. Ambrosiast. Pel. have ὑμῶν, which Lachm. and Tisch. have rightly received into the text. On account of the redundancy of the pronoun and its absence in Ephesians 2:5, the omission of it was easier than its addition from a comparison of Colossians 2:13 (in opposition to Reiche).

Ephesians 2:3. τέκνα φύσει] Lachm. and Rück, read φύσει τέκνα, following A D E F G L, min. Vulg. It. Or. (once), and other Fathers. But considering how closely τέκνα ὀργῆς go together, the transposition φύσει τέκνα was so natural, that in opposition to these important witnesses the Recepta, attested by B K א, most min. Or. (thrice) Chrys. Dam. Theophyl. Oec., is, with Matth. Scholz, Harless, Olsh. de Wette, Tisch., to be maintained.

Ephesians 2:11. The order ποτὲ ὑμεῖς in Lachm. and Tisch. is justified by A B D* E א* codd. of It. and Fathers. More feebly attested is the order ἐγεν. ἐγγύς, Ephesians 2:13, in Lachm., which weakens the antithesis.

Ephesians 2:12. ἐν τῷ καιρῷ] ἐν is wanting in decisive witnesses. Deleted by Lachm. Tisch. and Rück. Explanatory addition.

Ephesians 2:15. ἐν ἑαυτῷ] Lachm.: ἐν αὐτῷ. The witnesses are greatly divided. But E was easily passed over after Εν.

Ephesians 2:17. καὶ τοῖς] Lachm. Tisch. Rück.: καὶ εἰρήνην τοῖς, according to decisive testimony. The emphasis of the repetition of εἰρήν. was not duly regarded, and so the apparently redundant word was neglected. For the same reason there was written in Ephesians 2:19, instead of the far preponderantly attested ἀλλʼ ἐστέ, simply ἀλλά (Elz. Scholz).

Ephesians 2:21. πᾶσα οἰκοδ.] Elz. Scholz, Rück. Reiche read πᾶσα ἡ οἰκοδ. But the article is wanting in B D E F G K L א* and many min., also in Clem. Bas. Chrys. (in the commentary) Theodoret, Oec., and was added (A C, Chrys. Theophyl.) because it seemed needed by the sense. See, however, the exegetical remarks.

CONTENTS.

You also, when ye were dead through sins,—as indeed we Jewish-Christians too were in the same condition of sin and liability to the divine wrath,

God has by virtue of His love made us alive with Christ, raised us and transferred us into heaven, in order, in the world-ages to come, to show His grace towards us in Christ (Ephesians 2:1-7). For out of grace have ye attained to salvation, not through merit of works (Ephesians 2:8-10). Remember, therefore, that ye were formerly as Gentiles unhallowed and unhappy, but now through the death of Christ ye are in quite a different position (Ephesians 2:11-13). For Christ has through His death established peace between Jews and Gentiles (Ephesians 2:14-18). Ye, consequently, are no longer aliens, but fellow-members of the theocracy, members of the household of God, built up upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, wherein the corner-stone is Christ, in whom every building is built, and ye too, unto a holy temple (Ephesians 2:19-22).

Ephesians 2:1. Connection: After Knatchbull and others (mentioned by Wolf, Cur. on i. 19) had attached καὶ ὑμᾶς to εἰς ἡμᾶς τοὺς πιστεύοντας, Ephesians 1:19, and Bengel to ἣν ἐνήργ., Ephesians 1:20 (both arbitrarily confusing, and the former also mistaken for the reason that ἡμᾶς, Ephesians 2:19, already included the readers), Lachmann and Harless have closed Ephesians 1:23 with only a comma, and annexed καὶ (συνεζωοποίησε) ὑμᾶς to καὶ αὐτὸν ἔδωκε κ.τ.λ., Ephesians 2:22.[127] So also de Wette, without, however, approving the mere comma after Ephesians 1:23. But in this way we should have to expect not ὙΜᾶς, but ἩΜᾶς (comp. Ephesians 1:19 : ΕἸς ἩΜᾶς ΤΟῪς ΠΙΣΤΕΎΟΝΤΑς), for Paul would attach to what God has done in relation to Christ that, which He has at the same time done in the case of the Christians. And, inasmuch as he has employed the pronoun of the second person, he has thereby indicated the beginning of a new portion. Moreover, Ephesians 1:23 is so majestic and solemn in import and form, that it is admirably suited for a sonorous conclusion, but hardly for a mere parenthetic insertion. No, after the apostle has previously spoken of the exceeding power of God in the case of believers, which may be recognised by virtue of what He has done in the case of Christ, whom He raised, exalted, etc., he wishes now, in application of this to the readers, to bring the latter to the consciousness that God has made also them (καὶ ὑμᾶς), when they were dead in their sins, to be alive, etc., with Christ, and thus has shown also in their case that exceeding power.

The construction is broken off, even before the subject and the verb are expressed, by the afflux of the thoughts in the relative clauses which begin Ephesians 2:2, but is resumed Ephesians 2:4 by means of δέ, so that the subject not yet named in Ephesians 2:1 is at length named and characterized in Ephesians 2:4; and in Ephesians 2:5 the verb (ΣΥΝΕΖΩΟΠΟΊΗΣΕ) comes in with repetition of the object, which, however,—in accordance with what has been said in the intervening clauses,—had already in Ephesians 2:4 passed over into the first person and thus become universal (ἩΜᾶς). As to the details, see below. The resumption accordingly begins already, in Ephesians 2:4, with Ὁ ΔῈ ΘΕΌς (as even Theophylact expressly observes); not first with Ephesians 2:5, as Wolf and others, including Griesbach, Koppe, ed. 1, Scholz, Meier, Rückert, Holzhausen, would have it, because otherwise Ephesians 2:4 in turn would be anacoluthic, and yet Ὁ ΘΕΌς is the subject of ΣΥΝΕΖΩΟΠ.

ΝΕΚΡΟῪς ΤΟῖς ΠΑΡΑΠΤ. Κ. Τ. ἉΜΑΡΤ. ὙΜῶΝ] The dative denotes the causa efficiens of the death. The expression with ἐν, Colossians 2:13, is not equivalent. Quite at variance with the context, Cajetanus (not Estius, who rejects this explanation) holds that the dative is as in Romans 6:11, in which case the force of ὄντας as a present participle is urged: since ye are dead for the sins. ὑμῶν also is against this, as well as the plural, since in the being dead for sin the latter appears as principle (Romans 6:11).

A real distinction between παραπτώματα and ἉΜΑΡΤΊΑΙ does not exist,[128] in so far as both expressions denote the same thing (the peccata actualia in thought, word, and deed) in a twofold form of conception as “missing” and “fall” (see, generally, Fritzsche, ad Rom. I. p. 324); and the abstract ἁμαρτίαις cannot mean, like Ἡ ἉΜΑΡΤΊΑ at Romans 5:20, sin in abstracto as ruling power, but in virtue of the plural can only mean the actual sins (ἁμαρτήματα); comp. on Romans 5:20.

ὌΝΤΑς] state, which was present at the time, when God made them alive.

νεκρούς] is understood by the expositors (apart from those who, like Koppe and Rosenmüller, substitute for the literal meaning the notion of wretched, miserable) of spiritual death (comp. Ephesians 5:14), i.e. of the deadness of true moral life through the “alienatio animae a Deo,” Calvin; comp. Delitzsch, Psychol, p. 127. But by what, we ask, is this spiritual sense indicated? Must not νεκρ. τοῖς παραπτ. κ. ταῖς ἁμαρτ. have reminded the readers quite naturally and necessarily of the connection, well known to them, between unexpiated sins and the eternal death (the eternal condemnation),—a connection, in which they once as Gentiles shared? See on Romans 6:16; Romans 6:22 f., Romans 7:9-11; Romans 7:24; Romans 8:2; Romans 8:6. The explanation of physical death is inadmissible, because this is a consequence not of individual sins, but of the sin of Adam; see on Romans 5:12; 1 Corinthians 15:22. The expression νεκροί is proleptic: when ye were dead through your sins, i.e. when you had through your sins drawn upon you death, had become liable to eternal death, so that in this way the certo morituri are designated as νεκροί. Comp. Romans 7:10; Romans 8:10, and the well-known ΨΥΧΆΡΙΟΝ ΕἾ ΒΑΣΤΆΖΟΝ ΝΕΚΡΌΝ, Epict. Anton, iv. 41. See also on Colossians 2:12. Without Christ the everlasting death, which they had incurred by their sins, would not be annulled and averted from them; but, after that Christ has completed the work of atonement and they have become believers in Him, eternal life has become the portion of those who were by their sins liable to eternal death, and that by means of the fellowship of life, into which they are brought through faith with the Christ who is made alive from the dead, raised, and exalted to heaven, which is more fully expressed, Ephesians 2:5-6, by συνεζωοποίησε τῷ Χριστῷ κ.τ.λ. Thus the passage certainly treats of the atonement accomplished by Christ, to which believers owe eternal life (see Ephesians 2:7-8). The moral restoration (Hofmann) is the consequence of the atonement (Ephesians 2:10), the ethical product of the same through the Spirit.

The relation, we may add, of our passage to Colossians 2:13; Colossians 1:21 is not that of a slavish dependence, but that of a fresh and living remembrance with new and peculiar amplification.

[127] 1 Calovius, Cramer, Koppe, and Rosenmüller attached καὶ ὑμᾶς immediately to Ephesians 1:23, namely, to πληρουμένου: “qui sicut omnes alios beneficiis cumulat, sic etiam vos,” Rosenmüller. This, however, is entirely incompatible with the correct explanation of τοῦ τὰ πάντα ἐν πᾶσι πληρουμένου, Ephesians 1:23, and with the correlation of νεκρούς and συνεζωοπ.

[128] Augustine, ad Lev. qu. 20, makes the former denote the desertio boni, the latter the perpetratio mali, or the former to be the sin of rashness, the latter that which is deliberate, which last distinction is adopted also by Tittmann, Synon. p. 47. Jerome makes the former delicta cogitatione inchoata, the latter sins of deed; comp. Olshausen. Bengel: παραπτ. applies to the Jews, and ἁμαρτ. to the Gentiles. Meier (comp. Baumgarten-Crusius): the two words are distinguished as act and state. Matthies: the former are mental errors and obscurations, the latter moral sins and vices. Harless and de Wette: the former denotes single transgressions, the latter all kinds of sins, including sins in thought.

Ephesians 2:2. Shadows before the light which arises in Ephesians 2:4.

ἐν αἷς] domain, in which, etc. It is the pre-Christian sphere of life, and then follows (κατὰ κ.τ.λ.) the normal standard which rules in it. αἷς has shaped itself after the gender of the last substantive, but embraces both. See Matthiae, p. 991.

κατὰ τὸν αἰῶνα τοῦ κόσμου τούτου] according to the age of this world, i.e. as was in keeping with the period of time appointed for the present world (subsisting up to the Parousia). For immorality is the characteristic of this world-period (Romans 12:2; 2 Corinthians 4:4; Ephesians 6:12) in contrast to the future new world, in which δικαιοσύνη bears sway, and the nearer the Parousia, the more the αἰών is πονηρός (see on Galatians 1:4; comp. Ephesians 5:16, and on Ephesians 6:13). Others explain αἰών as life (so also Harless; comp. H. Stephanus: “secundum eam, quae in hoc mundo est, vivendi rationem,” Castalio, Beza, Grotius, et al.); for which Rückert—who, in a strangely erroneous way, explains it as equivalent to κατὰ τὸν αἰῶνα τοῦτον τοῦ κόσμου—and Matthies put: spirit of the time, and Olshausen: tendency of the time; comp. Bleek. But, however current αἰών in the signification of life may be in classical Greek, especially in Homer, Pindar, Herodotus, and the tragic poets (see Duncan, ed. Rost, p. 47; Blomf. ad Aesch. Prom. 887; Ellendt, Lex. Soph. I. p. 50), yet in the N.T., often as the habitually used word recurs, it is never so employed, but always in the signification of juncture of time, age. The shift to which Koppe has recourse (comp. Estius and Flatt), that αἰών and κόσμος are synonymous—hence Koppe makes ὁ αἰὼν τοῦ κόσμου τούτου equivalent to ὁ κόσμος οὗτος—stands on a level with the capricious inversion of Bretschneider, who makes it tantamount to ὁ κόσμος τοῦ αἰῶνος τούτου: homines pravi ut nunc sunt. No, Paul might have written briefly κατὰ τὸν αἰῶνα τοῦτον (comp. Ephesians 1:21); but, in accordance with the graphic amplification of the passage carrying such terrible emphasis, he has paraphrased this τοῦτον by τοῦ κόσμου τούτου. According to Beausobre and Michaelis (“the God of this world”), αἰὼν τοῦ κόσμου τούτου is meant to denote the devil in polemic reference to the Gnostic doctrine of aeons (see what follows). According to Baur, p. 433 f., the expression itself is a Gnostic one, equivalent to the κοσμοκράτωρ (comp. Ephesians 6:12), and denoting the devil. But this is imported, inasmuch as the explanation of αἰών in the sense usual in the N.T. yields quite a Pauline thought. The devil appears only in what follows, and would, if he was to he designated already here, and that as Lord of the pre-Messianic period, have been designated, as at 2 Corinthians 4:4, as ὁ θεὸς τοῦ αἰῶνος τούτου, or in a like concrete manner.

κατὰ τὸν ἄρχοντα τῆς ἐξουσίας τοῦ ἀέρος] climactic parallel to the preceding. “Sic res fit expressior,” Bengel. The opposite is κατὰ Θεόν, Ephesians 4:24; 2 Corinthians 7:9. Comp. 1 John 5:14 : κατὰ τὸ θέλημα τοῦ Θεοῦ. The devil Paul here represents as the ruler over the might of the air, in which ἐξοσία is collective, denoting the totality of the mighty ones (the demons, Matthew 12:24) concerned. Comp. Lobeck, ad Phryn. p. 469; Bernhardy, p. 47. This ἐξουσία has its seat in the air, which exists between heaven and earth (τοῦ ἀέρος); the atmosphere, pertaining, in contrast to the higher pure αἰθήρ (see Duncan, Lex. Hom., ed. Rost, p. 36), still to the physical realm of earthly things (γῆς ἰσόμοιρος ἀήρ, Soph. El. 87), is the seat, the territory of the might of the demons. This and nothing else Paul expresses in distinct words, the ἐναέριος διατριβή (Oecumenius, comp. Theophylact), the ὑπουράνιος τόπος (Chrysostom) of the demons; and neither ought τοῦ ἀέρος to have been taken (Clericus, Heinsius, Michaelis, Storr, Flatt, Matthies, and others) as equivalent to τοῦ σκότους (Ephesians 6:12; Colossians 1:13), because, though it may, as it often does in Homer, denote misty gloom, clouds, etc., in contradistinction to the pure αἰθήρ, it never takes the place of the absolute σκότος (comp. Buttmann, Lexilog. I. p. 115), and in the N.T. always means simply air; nor ought it to have been explained by a metonymy as mundus (Thomas, Bullinger, and others). According to Hahn, Theol. d. N.T. I. p. 328 f., τοῦ ἀέρος is designed to express the aeriform nature of the demons; they are not really spiritual, but only spirit-like; aeriformness is their physical constitution. This is already in itself incorrect, since the demons must of necessity have the same physical constitution as the angels (including also their supra-terrestrial corporeity, comp. on Matthew 22:30), and hence, although they have become ἀκάθαρτα, they have yet remained πνεύματα, see in this very Epistle, Ephesians 6:12 (τὰ πνευματικὰ τῆς πονηρίας). Olshausen would remove the demons from the atmosphere by taking ἀήρ as equivalent to οὐρανός,[129] appealing to 1 Thessalonians 4:17 (where, however, ἀήρ is nothing else than air), and even giving out this passage as the only one in the N.T. where the word ἀήρ elsewhere occurs (but see Acts 22:23; 1 Corinthians 9:26; 1 Corinthians 14:9; Revelation 9:2; Revelation 16:17). As an equally exemplary companion-piece of rationalizing artifice may be quoted the interpretation of Stolz, Erläut. p. 175: “We have here to think of the rational beings acting and walking upon the earth, of men, who as sensuous creatures breathe in the air, in the atmosphere surrounding the earth.” Hofmann, who elsewhere took ἀήρ erroneously as equivalent to ΠΝΕῦΜΑ, would now (Schriftb. I. p. 457) not less erroneously make τοῦ πνεύματος dependent upon ΤΟῦ ἈΈΡΟς, and by the latter understand the atmosphere formed by the breathing of that πνεῦμα. “So long as they [the disobedient] allow this spirit to be their spirit, they live in the atmosphere thereof, and as it were inhale it—an atmosphere, which is the sphere of dominion [the ἘΞΟΥΣΊΑ] of Satan.” But apart from the clumsy and obscure accumulation of three genitives (at 2 Corinthians 4:4; 2 Corinthians 4:7, they flow easily and clearly one out of the other), there may be urged against this view generally the strange awkwardness of the thought (“the air of the spirit which worketh in the disobedient is the atmosphere formed by the breathing of the same spirit”), and more specially the considerations, first, that ἘΞΟΥΣΊΑ does not mean sphere of dominion;[130] secondly, that there is nothing to indicate that the ἀήρ originated through the breathing (or blowing) of the spirit (we should at least expect the essential πνέοντος instead of ἘΝΕΡΓΟῦΝΤΟς); thirdly, that, if ἘΞΟΥΣΊΑ is to denote the sphere of dominion, τῆς ἐξουσίας would be only an ambiguous pleonasm, and we cannot see why Paul should not have written merely ΤῸΝ ἌΡΧΟΝΤΑ ΤΟῦ ἈΈΡΟς Κ.Τ.Λ.

As regards the historic basis of the conception of the apostle, that the demons have their abode in the air, he has carried it over from his pre-Christian, Jewish-Rabbinic circle of ideas into the contents of his Christian belief. It is true that there are found among the Rabbins very diverse, confused, and at times very monstrous assertions concerning the dwelling-place of the demons (see, especially, Eisenmenger, Entdeckt. Judenth. II. p. 437 ff.), but Harless (followed by Olshausen) far too hastily thence concludes: “in such sloughs as these one seeks in vain for the explanation of the apostle’s expression.” For while there are found diverse opinions in the Rabbins, and among them also that which assigns to the demons the air as a territory, the expression of the apostle shows us which of the different Rabbinic conceptions he has not followed, and which is accepted by him. Thus doubtless, e.g., the doctrine which R. Bechai, in Pentat. f. 90, 1, presents as a well-known one, that only those demons which produce dreams dwell in the air, but those which seduce man to sin in the man himself, and yet others in the depths of the sea, is not the view of the apostle. But the belief, which Paul here announces as his own and presupposes in his readers, namely, that the demoniac kingdom in general, and not merely a single division of it, is in the air, is to be found very definitely preserved among the Rabbins also. For (1) the very Rabbinical tenet of the winged nature of the demons (Talmud, Chagig. 2; R. Eliezer in Bartolocc. I. p. 320 ff., al.) manifestly points to the region of the air as their abode, since they are shut out from the communion of God. (2) In particular passages this is expressly stated. Comment. in libr. Aboth. f. 83, Ephesians 2 : “Sciendum, a terra usque ad expansum omnia plena esse turmis et praefectis, et infra (that is precisely in the ἀήρ) plurimas esse creaturas laedentes et accusantes, et omnes stare ac volitare in aëre,” etc. Further, it is said in Tuf haarez, f. 9, 2, that under the sphere of the moon, which is the last under all, is a firmament (רקיע) … and there are the souls of the devils, etc. See Eisenmenger, II. p. 411. Further, R. Bechai says, in Pentat. f. 139, 4, where he is explaining how it comes about that the demons know what is future: “because they dwell in the air (באויר), … they learn future things from the princes of the planets.” The same R. Bechai, in Pentat. f. 18, 1, relates, as a Rabbinical tradition, that Noah had in his ark, according to Genesis 6:19, preserved devils also, and says in confirmation of this exposition: for it would have been impossible for them to remain in their own place, which is the air (במקוטם שההוא חאויר). Comp. Nishmath chasim, f. 115, 2. The assertion, too, of R. Menasseh, in Eisenmenger, II. p. 456 f., that the rising smoke of the incense which was offered to the devils was their food, points to the air as their dwelling-place; as, indeed, according to the Cabbala (Cabb. denud. I. p. 417), the demons dwell “below the upper sanctuary.”[131] Thus much, consequently, is clear and transparent enough in the “muddy sloughs” of Rabbinical tradition, that the kingdom of the demons was located in the air; and with this we find the apostle in agreement. Hence we have no right to deny that he has retained this conception from the sphere of his Rabbinical training, but at the same time it would be quite unwarrantable to attribute to him the singularities associated with this tenet by the Rabbins, since, in fact, he asserts nothing more than that the devilish powers are in the air. This is a simple historical statement, in which, we may add, it is quite arbitrary to discern a “profound hint,” namely, of their dismal and spectral nature (in opposition to Schenkel). The right explanation is given also by Schmid, Bibl. Theol. § 86, and Bleek. Among the Pythagoreans, too, we meet with an analogous view (Diog. Laert. viii. 32: κατὰ τὸν μὲν Πυθάγοραν εἶναί τε πάντα τὸν ἀέρα ψυχῶν ἔμπλεον, καὶ τούτους δαίμονάς τε καὶ ἥρωας νομίζεσθαι, and compare the other passages in Wetstein, and Elsner, p. 206; Dougt. Anal. p. 127); but quite unfounded is the assertion of Wetstein: “P. ita loquitur ex principiis philosophiae Pythagoreae, quibus illi, ad quos scribit, imbuti erant.” Paul presupposes in his readers an acquaintance with his expression as the expression of his doctrine, and speaks so emphatically and solemnly that any sort of accommodation is not to be thought of.

τοῦ πνεύματος] is still dependent on τὸν ἄρχοντα, so that the power over which the devil rules, after being designated as regards its outward existence by the phrase ἐξουσίας τοῦ ἀέρος, is now designated as regards its active operation in men’s hearts, namely, as the spirit which is at work in the disobedient. This πνεῦμα, of which Satan is the ruler, is not, however, to be thought of as being the human mind, since, thus understood, it would not suit as apposition to the τῆς ἐξουσίας τοῦ ἀέρος which is different from the human individuality, as, indeed, τοῦ ἐνεργ. κ.τ.λ. points to an agent different from the human individual; but rather as the principle proceeding from its ἄρχων, the devil, and passing over into men to become operative in their hearts—the antithesis of the Holy Spirit which proceeds from God. Comp. on 1 Corinthians 2:12. This πνεῦμα is, in contrast to τὸ πνεῦμα τῆς ἀληθείας, the πνεῦμα τῆς πλάνης, 1 John 4:6. It is not, however, “odd” (de Wette), nor is it “unnatural” (Bleek), to speak of a “ruler of this spirit;” but this is quite analogous to the conception, according to which Christ is spoken of as “Lord of the Holy Spirit” (2 Corinthians 3:18). We have further not to understand τοῦ πνεύματος collectively (Vatablus, Grotius, Estius, Wolf, Michaelis, Holzhausen); for the ἐξουσία τοῦ ἀέρος is, indeed, the sum total of the plurality of the demons, but the spirit, which is brought by its ruler, the devil, into the hearts of men and operates within them, is in all υἱοὶ τῆς ἀπειθ. one and the self-same spirit, just as the Holy Spirit is in all individuals who believe one and the same. Others regard τοῦ πνεύματος as apposition to τὸν ἄρχ. τ. ἐξουσ. τ. ἀέρ., in that they either assume the use of an abnormal case occasioned by a deviation from the construction (genitive for accusative), as Piscator, Calovius, Semler, Koppe, Rosenmüller, Rückert, de Wette, Bleek, or look upon the genitive as one of apposition to τὸν ἄρχοντα, as Flatt. But how purely arbitrary is the former! and how impossible the latter, since τὸν ἄρχοντα in accordance with its significance demands a defining genitive, and already has it in τῆς ἐξουσ. τ. ἀέρ., and consequently τοῦ πνεύματος cannot be taken in any other relation!

νῦν] is emphatic,—not, however, as Meier supposes (comp. Zanchius): “even now, when it is so powerfully counteracted by the gospel,” which must have been expressed by καὶ νῦν (as Ignat. ad Smyrn. interp. 7); but νῦν stands opposed to the preceding ποτέ, when the diabolic πνεῦμα was active in all, even in the readers. Comp. Ephesians 2:3. Rückert (comp. Bengel and Holzhausen) thinks of the extraordinary, especially dangerous power which the Satanic kingdom developed just at the time of the redemption (2 Thessalonians 2:2 ff.); so also de Wette. But that could not be understood from the simple ἐνεργ., and would have required the addition of a περισσοτέρως, ὑπερβαλλόντως, or the like. According to Olshausen, νῦν is to be held as opposed to the future age, and to make the diabolic activity appear as limited, in contrast to the everlasting, divine activity of the Holy Spirit. But a contrast to the αἰὼν μέλλων is not at all implied in the context; indeed, it was entirely self-evident that the Satanic activity extends only to the time before the Parousia; how then could it occur to a reader to find in the νῦν a negation of the αἰὼν μέλλων?

ἐν τοῖς υἱοῖς τῆς ἀπειθ.] in their souls. The expression υἱοὶ τ. ἀπείθ. is Hebraizing (for among Greek writers are found only such expressions as υἷες Ἀχαιῶν, παῖδες ζωγράφων, and the like, but not with abstract nouns; see Blomfield, Gloss. Pers. 408, p. 138; Stallb. ad Plat. Phil. p. 107), and denotes the dependence which has its basis in the relation of the person or thing concerned to the genitive-noun, here the genesis of the spiritual condition, so that τοῖς ἐξ ἀπειθείας (comp. Romans 2:8) would signify the same thing. Comp. Winer, p. 213 [E. T. 298]. The opposite is τέκνα ὑπακοῆς, 1 Peter 1:14. By ἀπείθεια, however, is not meant unbelief (Luther, Bengel, Koppe, Harless, and others); for this could only be logically included under the notion of disobedience as refusal of belief, consequently as opposite to the ὑπακοὴ πίστεως (Romans 1:5; Hebrews 4:6; Hebrews 4:11; and see Fritzsche on Romans 11:30). And with that sense in the present case the following ἐν αἷς καὶ ἡμεῖς πάντες would be at variance, since not all Jewish-Christians had, like Paul, resisted the faith. Now, as Paul is speaking only of the immorality of the unbelievers (Ephesians 2:1; Ephesians 2:3), ἀπείθεια is here the want of compliance towards God (Romans 11:30), i.e. towards His revealed and natural law respectively (Romans 2:8 ff.), displaying itself through their immoral conduct.

[129] He holds that Paul has perhaps employed the expression for the purpose of characterizing the demons as not indeed earthly, but yet also as not heavenly. He has employed the expression, just because he conceived of the demons as making their abode in the atmosphere. And he does not choose a higher expression (as in Ephesians 6:12) for this sphere, because he wishes here to make the reader feel the lower domain of the power as opposed to the heavenly domain, and thus also the ignominious character of the same; hence the expression is neither accidental nor strange (in opposition to Hofmann).

[130] Not even in Luke 23:7, where it expresses the idea of governing authority, of jurisdiction. So often in Plutarch, Diodorus, etc.

[131] With this Rabbinical view agrees also Test. XII. Patr. p. 729: ὑπὸ τοῦ ἀερίου πνεύματος τοῦ Βελιάρ, where ἀέριον means to be found in the air. See Plat. Epin. p. 948 D: δαίμονας, ἀέριον δὲ γένος. Comp. Test. XII. Patr. p. 547. If we take ἀέριος in such passages as aeriform (Hahn), we confound it with ἀέρινος (Arist. de Anim. iii. 13; Metaph. ix. 7). Comp. rather, Ascens. lsa. 10: “descendit in firmamentum, ubi princeps hujus mundi habitabat.”

Ephesians 2:3. After the apostle has just depicted the pre-Christian corruption of the readers, who were Gentile-Christians, the sinful corruptness of all—this basis for his enthusiastic certainty of the universality of the redemption (Romans 1:18 … Romans 2:24, Romans 3:19; Romans 3:23, Romans 11:32; Galatians 2:15-16; Galatians 3:22, al.)—presents itself at the same time with such vividness before his mind, that he now also includes with the others the whole body of the Jewish-Christians (καὶ ἡμεῖς πάντες) in the same state of corruption, and accordingly, on the resumption of the argument at Ephesians 2:4, he cannot again employ the second person introduced in Ephesians 2:1, but must change this into ἡμᾶς. Inasmuch as καὶ ἡμεῖς, we also, must necessarily denote the class falling to be added to ὑμᾶς, Ephesians 2:1, we cannot understand by it the Christians generally (Estius, Koppe, and others); but, since the ὑμεῖς are Gentile-Christians, we must take it to mean the Jewish-Christians. The general moral description which follows is not opposed to this view (as de Wette objects), since it was the very object of the apostle to delineate the essential equality in the moral condition of both.[132] Comp. Romans 1:2-3. De Wette explains it quite arbitrarily: “we also, who have been already a considerable time Christians.”

ἐν οἷς] is not to be referred to τοῖς παραπτώματι, Ephesians 2:1 (Peshito, Jerome, Grotius, Estius, Bengel, Baumgarten, Koppe, Rosenmüller), for that reference is not to be supported by Colossians 3:7, but, on the contrary, is impossible with the reading ὑμῶν after ἁμαρτ., Ephesians 2:1, and is, moreover, to be rejected, because Paul has not again written ἐν αἷς, and because the reference to the nearest subject is altogether suitable; for the Jewish-Christians also all walked once among the disobedient, as belonging to the ethical category of the same, inasmuch as they likewise before their conversion were through their immoral walk disobedient towards God (Romans 2:17 ff.; Romans 2:2; Romans 3:9 ff.).

ἐν ταῖς ἐπιθυμ. τῆς σαρκὸς ἡμ.] more precise definition to what has just been said ἐν οἷς … ἀνεστράφημεν ποτέ, denoting the immoral domain of the pre-Christian state (2 Corinthians 1:12; 2 Peter 2:18; comp. Xen. Ages. ix. 4; Plat. Legg. ix. p. 865 E; Polyb. ix. 21. 5), in which this walk took place, namely, in the desires of our corporeo-psychical human nature, whose impulses, adverse to God, had not yet experienced the overcoming influence of the Holy Spirit (Romans 7:14 ff; Romans 8:7; Galatians 5:17; Romans 8:2, al.), and hence rendered ineffectual the moral volition directed towards the divine law (Romans 7:17-20). The opposite is: πνεύματι περιπατεῖν καὶ ἐπιθυμίαν σαρκὸς μὴ τελεῖν, Galatians 5:16; comp. Romans 8:13.

ποιοῦντες κ.τ.λ.] so that we, etc., now specifies the way and manner of this walk, wherein the prefixed ποιοῦντες has the emphasis, in that it predicates what they did, as afterwards ἦμεν, what they were. The θελήματα (comp. on the plural, Acts 13:22; Jeremiah 23:26; 2Ma 1:3) are here in reality not different from the ἐπιθυμίαι, which, however, are conceived of as activities of the will, that take place on the part of the σάρξ and the διάνοιαι (both conceived of under a personified aspect as the power ruling the ego of the unconverted man). As regards τῶν διανοιῶν, which stands related to τῆς σαρκός as the special to the general, the bad connotation is not implied in the plural, as Harless conjectures (who finds therein “fluctuating, changing opinions”), but in the context, which makes us think of the unholy thoughts,[133] whose volitions were directed to evil, in the state of disobedience. Comp. Numbers 15:39 : μνησθήσεσθε πασῶν τῶν ἐντολῶν κυρίου καὶ ποιήσετε αὐτάς· καὶ οὐ διαστραφήσεσθε ὀπίσω τῶν διανοιῶν ὑμῶν; also Jeremiah 23:26; Isaiah 55:9 (τὰ διανοήματα), where likewise the prejudicial connotation lies not in the plural, but in the connection.

καὶ ἦμεν τέκνα φύσει ὀργῆς] Instead of continuing the construction in uniformity with ποιοῦντες by καὶ ὄντες, the apostle passes over, as at Ephesians 1:20 (see on that passage), emphatically into the oratio finita, depicting, after the immoral mode of action, the unhappy condition in which withal we found ourselves. The fact that on this account ἦμεν is prefixed has been left unnoticed, and hence καὶ ἦμεν has been either tacitly (so usually) or expressly (as by Fritzsche, Conject. p. 45, who takes ἐν ταῖς ἐπιθυμ. τῆς σαρκὸς ἡμῶν ποιοῦντες κ.τ.λ. together as one clause) connected with ἐν οἷς … ἀνεστρ. Harless regards the words as only a supplemental and more exact definition and modification of the thought expressed immediately before; but in that case an isolation of the words is needlessly assumed, and likewise the correlation of the prefixed verbs ποιοῦντες and ἦμεν is overlooked.

τέκνα ὀργῆς are children of wrath (comp. on Ephesians 2:2), that is, however, not merely those worthy of wrath (Chrysostom, Theodoret, Oecumenius, Theophylact, Castalio, Calvin, Grotius, and others), which relation of dependence is not in keeping with the context, but, as νεκροὺς τοῖς παραπτ. shows, Ephesians 2:1, subject to wrath, irae dbnoxii, standing under wrath (comp. Ephesians 5:8; Matthew 23:15; John 17:12). So most expositors rightly take it. To whose wrath they were subject, Paul does not indicate (for he does not write τῆς ὀργῆς, comp. Romans 12:19), but (comp. Romans 4:15) he leaves it to the reader to say for himself that it is God’s wrath he has to think of (see Ephesians 2:4). As to the wrath of God,—which here, too, is not to be understood merely of that of the future judgment (Ritschl, de ira Dei, p. 17),—the holy emotion of absolute displeasure at evil, which is necessarily posited by absolute love to the good, and is thus the necessary principle of temporal and eternal punishment on the part of God (not the punishment itself), comp. on Romans 1:18.

φύσει] dative of the more precise mode (= κατὰ φύσιν), may either attach itself merely to τέκνα (not to ἦμεν), so that the idea expressed is: nature-children, τέκνα φυσικὰ ὀργῆς (see on such datives joined on to nouns, Lobeck, ad Phryn p. 688; Heind. ad Cratyl. p. 131); or it may more precisely define the whole notion τέκνα ὀργῆς, thus: wrath-children by nature, τέκνα ὀργῆς φυσικά; so that the τέκνα ὀργ., like υἱοὶ τ. ἀπειθείας, Ephesians 2:2, forms a single idea. The latter is the correct view, because τέκνα is used figuratively and receives the real contents of the conception only by means of ὀργῆς, for which reason it is not to be thought of as separated therefrom.[134] The notion of φύσει must obtain its more precise definition solely from the context, as to whether, namely, it betokens an innate relation (as in Galatians 2:15; Xen. Mem. i. 4. 14; Dem. 1411 ult.; Soph. Aj. 1280; O. C. 1297; Isoc. Evag. 16: τῷ μὲν γὰρ ἦν φύσει πατρίς, τὸν δὲ … νόμῳ πολίτην ἐπεποίηντο; specially instructive are Plat. Prot. p. 323 C D, Dem. 774, 7),—whether it is consequently equivalent to γενέσει, and the sonship of wrath is ἔμφυτος, a qualitas innata (Wis 12:10, comp. Wis 13:1, and thereon Grimm, Handb. p. 233),—or, on the other hand, a relation brought about by development of a nativa indoles, one that has been produced by virtue of natural endowment (as Romans 2:14; 1 Corinthians 11:14; Xen. Mem. i. 2. 14, iv. 1. 3; Plat. Legg. vi. p. 777 D; Ael. V. H. ii. 13. 3, xxii. 9. 1; see also Wetstein in loc., and Loesner, p. 340 f.). In the latter sense David is said by Josephus, Antt. vii. 7. 1, to have been φύσει δίκαιος καὶ θεοσεβής; comp. xiii. 10. 6. Philo, de conf. lingu. p. 327 E: ἀντιλογικοὶ φύσει, Xen. Oec. xx. 25: φύσει φιλογεωργότατος, Plut. Artax. Ephesians 6 : φύσει βαρύθυμος οὖσα, Arist. Polit. i. 1. 9: ἄνθρωπος φύσει πολιτικὸν ζῶον, and many others. According to this view, ἦμεν τέκνα φύσει ὀργῆς would have to be paraphrased by: ἦμεν, τῇ φύσει χρησάμενοι, τέκνα ὀργῆς. From early times (see, already, Augustine, Retract, i. 10. 15; de verb. Revelation 14) the word in our passage has been employed in defence of original sin as an inborn condition of culpability (inborn peccatum vere damnans), as indeed even Rückert, Harless, Olshausen, Usteri,[135] Julius Müller, Lechler, Philippi, Thomasius, and others have understood an inborn childship of wrath. “Paulus nos cum peccato gigni testatur, quemadmodum serpentes suum venenum ex utero afferunt,” Calvin. “Hoc uno verbo, quasi fulmine, totus homo, quantus quantus est, prosternitur; neque enim naturam dicit laesam, sed mortuam per peccatum ideoque irae obnoxiam,” Beza. Comp. Form. Conc. p. 639 f. But (1) the context points, in Ephesians 2:1-3, as again also in Ephesians 2:5, to an actually produced, not to an inborn state of guilt.[136] Further, (2) if Paul had wished, after touching on the sinful action, to bring into prominence the inborn state of culpability, and so had taken the course ab effectu ad causam, φύσει would have an emphasis, which would make its critically assured position, as it stands in the Recepta, appear simply inappropriate; in fact, not even the position in Lachmann (ἦμεν φύσει τέκνα ὀργῆς) would be sufficiently in keeping, but we should be obliged logically to expect: καὶ φύσει ἦμεν τέκνα ὀργῆς, “and (already) by birth were we children of wrath,” in which would lie the source of sinful action. But (3) the ecclesiastical dogma, that man is a born subject of wrath, from birth an object of the divine condemnation, is not at all a doctrine of the apostle, according to whom man by his actual sin falls under the wrath of God (Romans 1:18; Romans 2:8-9; Romans 7:7 f., al.), inasmuch, namely, as he becomes subject to and follows the inborn principle of sin (Romans 7:14 ff.), in opposition to his moral will, which he likewise by nature bears in himself; in connection with which, we may add, bodily death has its causal basis not in the individual sin of the particular persons, but in the connection of the whole race with the fall and death-penalty of its first progenitor (see on Romans 5:12). And (4) how could Paul, speaking of the Jews, predicate of them an inborn childship of wrath, when he regarded them as κλάδους ἁγίους τῆς ῥίζης ἁγίας (Romans 11:16)! They were in fact οἱ κατὰ φύσιν κλάδοι of the sacred olive-tree of the theocracy (Romans 11:21); how could they be at the same time the opposite (observe the κατὰ φύσιν), born τέκνα ὀργῆς? See also Galatians 2:15, where the φύσει Ἰουδαῖοι are opposed to the ἐξ ἐθνῶν ἁμαρτωλοί,[137] as well as Romans 9:4, where of them is predicated the possession of the υἱοθεσία, consequently the type of the Christian childship of God, whereof the inborn childship of wrath would be the direct opposite. See, generally, on the sanctity of the people of God, Ewald, Alterth. p. 262 ff. Several have found in φύσει the sense: “apart from the special relation in which they as Israelites stood to God” (Thomasius, I. p. 289); but this is just a mere saving clause obtruded on the text, in connection with which there is nevertheless retained the un-Pauline conception of born liability to wrath, consequently of condemnation from the very first, without any personal participation and contracting of guilt, before one yet knows sin (Romans 7:7). This remark also holds in opposition to the essentially similar interpretation in Hofmann, p. 565, comp. Schmid, bibl. Theol. II. p. 274, and Julius Müller, v. d. Sünde, p. 377 f. Further, (5) if Paul had thought of an inborn liability to wrath, he could not have regarded even the children of Christians as holy and pure (1 Corinthians 7:14); and infant baptism must have been already ordained in the N.T., and that, indeed, with the absolute necessity, which had to be subsequently assigned to it in consistency with the elaboration of the dogma of original sin bringing eternal condemnation on every one born by ordinary generation. The explanation of an inborn state of wrath (which also does not tally with the fact that Jesus promises the kingdom of heaven to those who should be like children, Matthew 18:2 f., Matthew 19:14 f.) is accordingly to be rejected as opposed to the context and un-Pauline; and φύσει defines the childship of wrath to the effect, that it has arisen in virtue of natural constitution (observe the just-mentioned ἐπιθυμίαι τῆς σαρκός, comp. the νόμος ἐν τοῖς μέλεσι, which overcomes the moral law in man, Romans 7:23-24). Certainly man is born with this natural, sinful quality, i.e. with the principle of sin, by the awakening and development of which the moral will is vanquished (Romans 7; comp. also John 3:6); it is not, however, the mere fact of this inborn presence having its basis in his σάρξ, that in and of itself[138] makes him the child of wrath (comp. Beyschlag, Christol. d. N.T. p. 207), but he only becomes so, when that constitution of his moral nature, that mingling of two opposite principles in his natural disposition, has—which, however, is the case with every one (Romans 3:9; Romans 11:32; Galatians 3:22)—brought about the victory of the sin-principle, and therewith the σαρκικόν and πεπραμένον ὑπὸ τὴν ἁμαρτίαν εἶναι (Romans 7:14).[139] Others, such as Erasmus, Balduin, Bengel, Morus, Koppe, Stolz, Flatt, Matthies, de Wette, Bleek (comp. also Weber, vom Zorn Gottes, p. 88), have explained it of the so-called natural state of man, i.e. of the state of the pre-Christian life, which was as yet aloof from the influence of χάρις (Ephesians 2:5 ff.) and of the Holy Spirit; but in this way, properly speaking, nothing is explained; for while the whole description, and not merely φύσει, delineates “the natural state in which the redemptive activity of God found the nations” (de Wette), in connection with φύσει there always remains the special question, whether the “by nature” denotes an inborn relation to wrath or not. Holzhausen would even combine φύσει ὀργῆς (“wrath which comes from the ungodly nature-life”),—a view from which, even if φύσις meant nature-life, the very absence of any article ought in itself to have precluded him; τῆς τῇ φύσει ὀργῆς, or τῆς ἐκ τῆς φύσ. ὀργῆς, or the like, must have been used. Moreover, Cyril, Oecumenius, Theophylact, Grotius, erroneously hold φύσει as equivalent to ἀληθῶς (comp. others in Jerome, who take it as prorsus), which it never is, not even in Galatians 4:8, to which Grotius appeals. Lastly, in a quite peculiar way Ernesti, Urspr. d. Sünde, II. p. 174 ff., obtains the exact opposite of a born liability to wrath by conducting his interpretation so as to enclose τέκνα φύσει within two commas, and to connect ὀργῆς with ἦμεν: “We were in consequence of our actual sinfulness, although children [of God in the Israelitish sense, Romans 9:4] by nature, liable to wrath even as the Gentiles;” according to which, therefore, ἦμεν ὀργῆς is explained from the well-known usage of εἶναί τινος in the sense of “belonging to.” But it may be decisively urged against this view, first, that the supplying the thought of Θεοῦ after τέκνα (as Isaiah 63:8; Romans 8:17; Galatians 4:6) is not in any way suggested by the context, but is purely arbitrary, and the more so, inasmuch as there is already in the text a genitive which offers itself to complete the notion of τέκνα; and secondly, that there is nothing to indicate the contrast assumed by Ernesti (although, etc.), for in order to write in some measure intelligibly, Paul must at least have said: καὶ ἦμεν τέκνα μὲν φύσει, ὀργῆς δέ, although this, too, on account of the absence of a definition to τέκνα, would have been enigmatic enough. Equally to be rejected is the quite similar interpretation of Nickel (in Reuter’s Repert. 1860, Oct., p. 16), who explains as though the words ran: καὶ ἦμεν Θεοῦ μὲν τέκνα φύσει, ὀργῆς δὲ τέκνα.

ὡς καὶ οἱ λοιποί] sc. ἦσαν. The λοιποί are the Gentiles (Romans 3:9; 1 Thessalonians 4:13), and καί is not adhuc (Grotius), but the also of comparison.

[132] In doing which Paul could, least of all, venture to except himself, although, according to Php 3:6, the justitia externa had not been wanting to him.

[133] That these were selfish, is in itself correct, but is not implied in the word itself, and is not expressed by Paul (in opposition to Hofmann, Schriftbew, I. p. 563).

[134] According to this view, there is here in the position of the words a severance (Kühner, II. p. 627) whereby the genitive is separated from its governing word (Buttm. neut. Gr. p. 332 [E. T. 387]). This hyperbaton has for its object the reserving of the whole emphasis for the closing word ὀργῆς, and letting it fall thereon. Comp. Philem. fragm. p. 354, ed. Cleric.: πολλῶν φύσει τοῖς πᾶσιν αἰτία κακῶν.

[135] Usteri, Lehrbegr. p. 30, we may add, suspects the genuineness of φύσει, partly on account of its alleged singular position, partly on account of the various readings. But as regards the position, see above. And of various readings there are none at all, since different translations are not various readings. Φύσει is omitted only in 109, Aeth. No doubt Clem. Alex. ad Gent. (Opp. ed. Pott, p. 23) is also adduced, where the passage is cited without φύσει. But in Clem. l.c. (comp. p. 560) we have no citation, but merely a free use of the passage, from which the existence of variations cannot be made good. Clement, we may add, singularly explains τέκνα ὀργῆς by τρεφόμενα ὀργῇ, ὀργῆς θρέμματα.

[136] Quite mistakenly Grotius argues from the context against the ecclesiastical exposition in this way: “Non agi hic de labe originaria, satis ostendunt praecedentia, ubi describuntur vitia, a quibus multi veterum fuere immunes.” See, on the other hand, Romans 1-3, Romans 11:32; Galatians 3:22, al.

[137] Which Hofmann, Schriftbew. I. p. 564 (comp. his Heil. Schr. N.T. II. 1, p. 24), denies on invalid linguistic grounds; see on Gal. l.c.

[138] The objection of Lechler, p. 107 (comp. Philippi, Dogm. III. p. 205 f.)—that my explanation, inasmuch as the sinful disposition is inborn, thereby after all concedes the traditional Church-view—overlooks the essential distinction, that it is only according to the latter that man is born as object of the divine wrath; whereas, according to my view, the natural disposition to sin does not yet in and by itself make him such an object of wrath, but he becomes so only through the setting in of actual sin, which, it is true, does not fail to emerge in any one who lives long enough to be able to sin. According to the traditional view, even the newly-born unconscious child is already guilty and liable to the Divine wrath; so that in this way the imputation attaches itself not merely to the perpetration of sin, but even to the occasion to sin, which every one has by nature. This is, so far as I can see, exegetically incompatible with the anthropological teachings of the apostle elsewhere, especially with his exposition in Romans 7:7 f. Only with the actual sin, according to Paul, is the guilt connected, and consequently the wrath of God. An inborn guilt is not taught by the apostle; as is rightly brought out by Ernesti, but is only hesitatingly hinted at by Bleek.

[139] Through Christian regeneration the moral will attains, by virtue of the Spirit (Romans 8:2), the ascendancy in man, and he becomes therewithal qualitatively θείας κοινωνὸς φύσεως, 2 Peter 1:4, and μεταλαμβάνων τῆς ἁγιότητος τοῦ Θεοῦ, Hebrews 12:10. Comp. 1 John 5:18.

Ephesians 2:4. Now begins, after the intervening clauses, Ephesians 2:2-3, the resumption, and that with the subject, which Paul already had in mind at Ephesians 2:1. See on Ephesians 2:1. It is not, however, by οὖν, but by δέ, that the thought is taken up again, because that which is now to be spoken of (the abundant compassion of God) stands in an adversative relation to what has been said in the relative clauses. See Klotz, ad Devar. p. 377.

πλούσιος ὢν ἐν ἐλέει κ.τ.λ.] The connection is: God, however, since He is rich in mercy, has for His much love’s sake made … us … alive in Christ. As to the distinction between ἔλεος and οἰκτιρμός, see on Romans 9:15. On ἐν ἐλέει, comp. 1 Corinthians 1:5; Jam 2:5; 2 Corinthians 9:11; 1 Timothy 6:18.

διὰ τὴν πολλ. ἀγάπην αὐτοῦ] namely, in order to satisfy it.[140] Luther erroneously renders: through His great love. The Vulgate, rightly: propter, etc. Comp. Philemon 1:8. We may add that not αὑτοῦ is to be written, but αὐτοῦ, as at Ephesians 1:6.

ἣν ἠγάπ. ἡμ.] as in John 17:26. Comp. the classical ἔρωτα ἐρᾶν, Lobeck, Paral. p. 516. The manifestation of the divine love thereby meant is the atoning death of Christ, in which, in pursuance of the abundance of the divine compassion, the great love of God communicated itself to us. Romans 5:18; John 3:16; Ephesians 5:2; Ephesians 5:25.

ἡμᾶς] After the glance has extended from the readers (Ephesians 2:1-2) also to the Jewish Christians (Ephesians 2:3), the resumption of the object with ἡμᾶς now embraces both, the Jewish and Gentile Christians.

[140] The great love of God, who is rich in mercy towards the wretched, was the motive for not leaving them to their misery, but, etc. The ἔλεος is thus related to the ἀγάπη as the species to the genus.

Ephesians 2:5. The καί is not to be taken as in Ephesians 2:1 (“also us collectively,” Meier, Baumgarten-Crusius, and earlier expositors), which, apart from the universal reference of the ἡμᾶς, the order of the words forbids (καὶ ἡμᾶς must have been written), according to which, also, the καί of Ephesians 2:1 can by no, means be here resumed (Rückert, Matthies, Holzhausen, and most of the older expositors); further, καί is not, with Koppe, to be taken as although, seeing that, in fact, a making alive cannot take place otherwise than from a state of death, and consequently καί cannot convey any climactic stress, on which account Harless explains incorrectly from a logical point of view: “even in the state of death, in which we were” (comp. Calvin and de Wette). Erasmus paraphrases as though καί stood before συνεζωοπ., and even the shift to which Morus has recourse, that καί corresponds to the καί of Ephesians 2:6 (non modo … verum etiam), would demand this position. Others give other explanations, and many are silent with regard to it. If καί were also, it would have to be referred to ὄντας,[141] and would express the reality of the relation asserted in Ephesians 2:1 (Hartung, I. p. 132 f.). But there would be nothing to call for the assurance of this reality. It is rather the simple copula: and, annexing to the διὰ τ. πολλ. ἀγ. ἣν ἠγ. ἡμ. a further element.[142] The two elements, side by side, place in the full light what God has done. God has, on account of His much love, and when we were dead in the sins, made us alive with Christ. The καί might also be omitted; but the keeping of the points thus apart strengthens the representation.

τοῖς παραπτ.] The article denotes the sins, which we had committed, with a retrospective glance at Ephesians 2:1.

συνεζωοποίησε τῷ Χρ.] is by most expositors (including Flatt, Rückert, Meier, Matthies, Harless, Olshausen, de Wette, Baumgarten-Crusius, Schenkel, Hofmann, Bleek) understood of new spiritual quickening (“justificationem et regenerationem nostram complectitur,” Boyd; Rückert would have us think mainly of the justification). But how is this to be justified from the context? If the reader was reminded by νεκροὺς τοῖς παραπτ. of the eternal death, to which he had been subjected by his pre-Christian life of sin (see on Ephesians 2:1), he would now have to think of the eternal life, which begins with the resurrection, and he could the less think of anything else than of this real resurrection-life, since afterwards there is further expressed the translation together into heaven, and then, in Ephesians 2:7, the intention of God is referred to the times after the Parousia. And had not already Ephesians 1:18 f. pointed definitely to the future κληρονομία? How, in this connection, could a reader light upon the merely ethical, spiritual quickening (Romans 6:4 f.; 2 Corinthians 5:15; Galatians 2:19 f.)? No, God has made believers alive with Christ; i.e. in Christ’s revivification, which God has wrought, theirs also is included. By virtue of the dynamic connection in which Christ stands with His believers, as the head with its body (Ephesians 1:23), their revivification is objectively comprehended in His,—a relation, in fact, of which the Christian is conscious in faith; “quum autem fides suscipitur, ea omnia a Deo applicantur homini, et ab homine rata habentur,” Bengel. So the matter stands in the view of the apostle as accomplished, because the making alive of Christ is accomplished; the future actual making alive, or, as the case may be, change at the Parousia (1 Corinthians 15:23), is then the subjective individual participation of that which is already objectively given on the part of God in the resurrection of Christ. Certainly Paul might, in accordance with another mode of looking at it, have expressed himself by the future, as at 1 Corinthians 15:22; cf. Romans 8:17; but who does not feel that by means of the aorist (“ponitur autem aoristus de re, quae, quamvis futura sit, tamen pro peracta recte censeatur, cum … alia re jam facta contineatur,” Fritzsche, ad Rom. II. p. 206) the matter stands forth more forcibly and triumphantly out of the believing conviction of the apostle? οὓς ἐδικαίωσε τούτους καὶ ἐδόξασε, Romans 8:30.

The ΣΎΝ in ΣΥΝΕΖΩΟΠ. is by Beza, erroneously referred to the coagmentatio gentium et Judaeorum, a reference which is forbidden by the τῷ Χριστῷ; and by Grotius, Koppe, Rosenmüller, and others, it is explained ad exemplum (comp. Anselm: sicut), by which the Pauline idea of fellowship with Christ, which also lay at the bottom of Ephesians 1:19, is quite arbitrarily explained away.

Comp. on Colossians 2:13; Romans 8:17; 2 Timothy 2:12.

χάριτί ἐστε σεσωσμ.] by grace (not by merit) are ye partakers of the Messianic salvation! an impassioned (hence expressed in the second person), parenthetic reminding the readers of the divine basis of the salvation which had accrued to them, designated by συνεζωοποίησε; a reminding, which was very natural for the apostle in general (for its tenor was the sum of his doctrine and the constant echo of his own experience, 1 Corinthians 15:10), and more especially here, where he represents the quickening of believers as accomplished with the making alive of Christ, which could not but repel even the most distant thought of personal merit. In connection with ΣΥΝΕΖΩΟΠ. Τ. ΧΡ. the possession of the Messianic bliss is designated as an already accomplished fact, although it was before the Parousia (Colossians 3:3 f.) merely a possession in hope (Romans 8:24), and the final realization was yet future (Romans 5:10). That the ΧΆΡΙΤΙ emphatically placed at the beginning (for “gratiam esse docet proram et puppim,” Bengel) means the grace of God, not of Christ (Beza; comp. the inserted οὗ in D* E F G, Vulg. It. Victorin. Aug. Ambrosiaster), is manifest from the context, in which God is constantly the subject.

[141] For, as to the fact that καί, also, always lays the stress upon that word, before which it stands, see Haupt, Obss. Crit. p. 55 ff. Klotz, ad Devar. p. 638.

[142] Bleek describes this view of mine as probably the correct one, and follows it.

Ephesians 2:6. After the making alive of Christ in the grave followed His resurrection, with which Paul regards that of believers as likewise accomplished. Hence: καὶ συνήγειρε, which in like manner is not to be taken in the spiritual sense (“to make them enter upon the new life of grace,” Rückert); but see on Ephesians 2:5. With strange inconsistency several expositors, such as Menochius, Zanchius, Boyd, Estius, Grotius, although taking συνεζωοπ. metaphorically, nevertheless have taken this συνήγειρε (as well as the element that follows) in a literal sense, and mentally supplied nempe spe, or the like.

καὶ συνεκάθισεν ἐν τοῖς ἐπουρ.] and has given to us joint-seat in the heavenly regions (comp. Ephesians 1:20), so that we have part (see on 1 Corinthians 6:2) in the dominion of the Exalted One (2 Timothy 2:12); which Paul likewise sees as already accomplished[143] with the installing of Christ at the right hand of God; hence, there was no need at all for supplying the thought jure et virtute spirituali (Bengel), or for a transference of the matter to the praescientia Dei (Jerome), and other such expedients.

ἐν Χριστῷ Ἰησοῦ] belongs to ΣΥΝΉΓΕΙΡΕ and ΣΥΝΕΚΆΘΙΣΕΝ ἘΝ ΤΟῖς ἘΠΟΥΡΑΝ., so that what was expressed in the case of ΣΥΝΕΖΩΟΠ. by (ΣΥΝ) Τῷ ΧΡΙΣΤῷ, is here expressed, in yet more exact conception of the relation, by (ΣΥΝ) ἘΝ ΧΡΙΣΤῷ (jointly in Christ). Inasmuch, namely, as God raised and exalted Christ (ἐν Χριστῷ), He has raised and exalted us with Him. ἘΝ ΧΡΙΣΤῷ accordingly is by no means intended to denote the ΣΥΓΚΑΘΊΖΕΙΝ as figurative (Olshausen).

On ἘΝ ΤΟῖς ἘΠΟΥΡΑΝ. (see on Ephesians 1:3) Bengel, we may add (comp. already Estius), aptly remarks: “non dicit in dextra; Christo sua manet excellentia.” The transitive συγκαθίζειν is not elsewhere preserved.

[143] Explanations in the spiritual sense. Calixtus: “Ea nobis dedit dona, quae civibus coelorum propria sunt.” Rosenmüller: “Summa felicitate nos ornavit, quasi jam in coelo essemus recepti.” Rückert and Bleek remind us of the πολίτευμα of Christians, which is in heaven (Php 3:20; comp. Colossians 3:1 ff.). Meier: “Exaltation into a celestially enlightened, pure and holy, state of life.” Matthies: “The spiritual kingdom of heaven or of God.” Olshausen: “The awakening of the heavenly consciousness.” Koppe remarks superficially and with hesitation: “Nobis quidem in omnibus his ζωοποιεῖσθαι, ἐγείρεσθαι, καθίζειν ἐν ἐπουρ. nihil inesse videtur nisi summae et universae felicitatis, qua Christiani vel jam fruuntur, vel olim magis etiam fruituri sunt, descriptio.” According to Baumgarten-Crusius, there is expressed “exaltation into a purely spiritual heaven-like state.” De Wette takes συνεζωοπ. of the deliverance out of the misery of sin, συνήγειρε of regeneration and, at the same time, of the resurrection of the body guaranteed in the spiritual life, and συνεκάθισεν κ.τ.λ. of the hope of the eternal δόξα. Schenkel interprets it of the presentiment of the future glory.

Ephesians 2:7. Aim of God in connection with what is said, Ephesians 2:5-6.

ἵνα ἐνδείξηται] prefixed with emphasis: in order—not to leave concealed and unknown, but—to exhibit and make manifest, etc. Comp. Romans 9:23.

ἐν τοῖς αἰῶσι τοῖς ἐπερχ.] in the ages coming on, i.e. in the times after the Parousia, as being already on the approach (comp. LXX. Isaiah 44:7; Isaiah 45:11; Jdt 9:5; 3Ma 5:2; Luke 21:26; Jam 5:1; Hom. Od. xxiv. 142; Thuc. i. 126; Plat. Soph. p. 234 D; Aesch. Prom. 98: τὸ παρὸν τό τʼ ἐπερχόμενον, Pind. Ol. x. 11: ἕκαθεν γὰρ ἐπελθὼν ὁ μέλλων χρόνος). In the times from the Parousia (conceived as near at hand) onward, the manifestation designed by God of His grace towards believers was to take place, because not before, but only after the Parousia, would the making alive of the believers, etc., implicitly contained in the making alive of Christ, be actually accomplished in the subjects. Incorrect, seeing that the apostle was previously speaking, not of the spiritual, but of the real resurrection, etc., is the rendering of Morus: “per omne vestrum tempus reliquum quum in hac vita tum in futura quoque,” as well as that of Wolf (comp. Calvin, Piscator, Boyd, Estius, Calixtus, Michaelis, Zachariae, Meier, Matthies, Baumgarten-Crusius, Bleek): “tempora inde ab apostolicis illis ad finem mundi secutura.” Koppe brings out, “ut aeternum duraturum argumentum extaret,” which is quite mistaken, since, while it is true that the αἰῶνες οἱ ἐπερχόμενοι are eternal times, the words do not signify tempora aeternum futura. Respecting the plural τοῖς αἰῶσι, comp. on Ephesians 3:21. To infer from this that the setting in of the Messianic period will not be accomplished suddenly, but by way of successive development (Schenkel), is at variance with the whole N.T. The future αἰών sets in through the Parousia very suddenly and in an instant, Matthew 24:27; 1 Corinthians 15:52, al. Hence we have not mentally to supply with ἐνδείξ. anything like: “ever more completely” (Flatt), or “ever more effectively” (Schenkel), which is sheer caprice.

The form τὸ πλοῦτος is here also decisively attested. See on Ephesians 1:7.

ἐν χρηστότητι ἐφʼ ἡμᾶς ἐν Χριστῷ Ἰησοῦ] is to be taken together, and the instrumental ἐν indicates by what God will manifest the exceeding great riches of His grace in the ages to come, by kindness towards us in Christ Jesus, i.e. by means of the fact that He shows Himself gracious towards us, of which the ground lies in Christ (not in us, see Ephesians 2:8). The article was not at all requisite before ἐφʼ ἡμᾶς, since χρηστότητι is anarthrous, and besides χρηστότης ἐφʼ ἡμᾶς, like χρηστὸν εἶναι ἐφʼ ἡμᾶς (Luke 6:35), can be closely joined together in thought. Comp. on Ephesians 1:15.

The χάρις is the source of the χρηστότης, which latter displays itself in forgiving (comp. Prayer of Manass. 11; Titus 3:4; Romans 2:4) and in benefiting, and therefore is the evidence of the former, the opposite of ἀποτομία, Romans 11:22. Comp. Tittmann, Synon. p. 195; van Hengel, ad Rom. II. p. 682.