The Expositor's Bible: The Epistle to the Ephesians. Findlay George Gillanders

To obtain by lot, to have (a thing) allotted to one, is the meaning regularly given to κληροῦσθαι in the classical dictionaries; and in O.T. usage the lot (κλῆρος) becomes the inheritance (the thing allotted). The verb is repeatedly used by Philo with the meaning to obtain, or receive an inheritance; whereas there seems to be no real parallel to the other rendering. It is true that κληροῦσθαι in the sense of the A.V. requires an object; but that is virtually supplied by ἐν ᾧ: “we had our inheritance allotted in Christ.” Comp. Col. i. 12, “the lot of the saints in the light,” which signifies not the locality, but the nature and content of the saints’ heritage.

40

See Gal. iii. 22 – iv. 7; and Chapters XV. – XVII. in the Expositor’s Bible (Galatians), on Sonship and Inheritance in St Paul.

41

Compare Acts xxvi. 18, which also speaks to this association of ideas in St Paul’s mind, with vers. 4, 5, 7, and 11 in this chapter.

42

Vv. 8, 9, ch. iii. 4, 5; comp. Col. ii. 2, 3; 1 Cor. ii. 6–9.

43

“The fulness of the time,” Gal. iv. 4; “in due season,” Rom. v. 6; “in its own times,” 1 Tim. ii. 6. These are all synonymous expressions for the Messianic era. Comp. Heb. i. 2, ix. 26; 1 Pet. i. 20.

44

Ch. iii. 8, 9; Col. i. 25; 1 Cor. iv. 1; 1 Tim. i. 4, i. 7; 2 Tim. i. 9–11; and especially Rom. xvi. 25, 26.

45

Comp. ch. v. 5; 1 Cor. xv. 24–28; Phil. ii. 9–12; Heb. ii. 8; Rev. i. 5, xi. 15, xvii. 14; Dan. vii. 13, 14.

46

One wonders that our Revisers, so attentive to all points of Greek idiom, did not think it worth while to discriminate between Christ and the Christ in such passages as this. In Ephesians this distinction is especially conspicuous and significant. See vv. 12, 20 iii. 17, iv. 20, v. 23; similarly in 1 Cor. xv. 22; Rom. xv. 3.

47

Exod. xix. 3–6; Deut. iv. 20, 21; 1 Kings viii. 51, 53; Ps. lxxviii. 71, etc. With the above comp. Gen. xv. 8; Numb. xviii. 20; Jos. xiii. 33; Ps. xvi. 5.

48

Ch. iv. 30. The “seal” of 2 Tim. ii. 19 has both the first and third of these meanings.

49

Rom. iv. 11; 1 Cor. ix. 2; John iii. 33, vi. 27.

50

Matt. xxvii. 66; Rev. v. 1, etc.

51

Ch. ii. 11; comp. Rom. i. 28, 29; Gal. v, 5, 6; Phil. iii. 2, 3.

52

Comp. Rom. viii. 9–11; 2 Cor. v. 1–5.

53

Acts i. 4, ii. 33, 39, xiii. 32, xxvi. 6; Rom. iv. 13–20; Gal. iii. 14–29.

54

See Rom. x. 14–18; Gal. iii. 2, 5; Col. i. 6, 23; 1 Thess. ii. 13; 2 Tim. i. 13.

55

1 Tim. ii. 1–7, iv. 10; Tit. ii. 11.

56

1 Thess. v. 9; 2 Thess. ii. 14; Heb. x. 39.

57

Comp. Chapter VIII.

58

For the former usage see, along with ver. 7 and ch. ii. 5, 8; Rom. iii, 24, x. 9; Titus iii. 5; 2 Tim. i. 9; Col. i. 14; Heb. ix. 15; for the latter, ch. iv. 30; Luke xxi. 28; Rom. v. 9, 10, viii. 23; Phil. ii. 12; 1 Thess. v. 8, 9; 2 Tim. ii. 10, iv. 18. It may be doubted whether St Paul ever uses these terms to denote present salvation or redemption without the final issue being also in his thoughts. Perhaps he would have called the redemption of ver. 7, in contrast with that of Rom. viii. 23, “the redemption of the spirit.”

59

Hosea xiii. 14; Isa. xxv. 8.

60

The same incoherence occurs in Gal. iv. 5–7: “that we might receive the adoption of sons. And because ye are sons, God sent forth the Spirit of His Son into our hearts.”

61

See Westcott and Hort’s New Testament in Greek, vol. ii., pp. 124, 125.

62

Dr. Beet abides by the critical text. He solves the difficulty by giving πίστις a double sense: “the faith among you in the Lord Jesus, and the faithfulness towards all the saints.” See his Commentary on Ephesians, etc., pp. 284–6.

63

In 1 Thess. i. 7–9; 2 Thess. i. 4, the same thought enters into Paul’s thanksgiving; comp. 2 Cor. ix. 2.

64

This is the emphatic ἐπιγνῶσις, so frequent in the later epistles. See Lightfoot’s note on Col. i. 9; or Cremer’s Lexicon to N.T. Greek.

65

See ch. iii. 3–5, iv. 11; and comp. 1 Cor. xiv. 26–40, etc.

66

Adolphe Monod: Explication de l’épître de S. Paul aux Éphésiens. A deeply spiritual and suggestive Commentary.

67

In this amplitude of expression there is no idle heaping up of words. The four synonyms for power have each a distinct force in the sentence. Δύναμις is power in general, as that which is able to effect some purpose; ἐνέργεια is energy, power in effective action and operation; κράτος is might, mastery, sovereign power, – in the New Testament used chiefly of the power of God; ἰσχύς is force, strength, power resident in some person and belonging to him. This is the order in which the words follow each other. Compare vi. 10 in the Greek.

68

See the note upon this definite article on p. 47.

69

Πρωτότοκος ἐκ τῶν νεκρῶν, Col. i. 18: comp. Rom. vi. 13, x. 7, for the force of the preposition. Hence the peculiar ἐξανάστασιν τὴν ἐκ νεκρῶν of Phil. iii. 10, 11, – the out-and-out resurrection, which will utterly remove us from the sphere of death.

70

Ver. 3, ch. ii. 6, iii. 10, vi. 12; nowhere else in the New Testament. Comp., however, 1 Cor. xv. 40, 48; Phil. ii. 10; Heb. viii. 5, ix. 23, xi. 16, xii. 22, where the adjective has the same kind of use.

71

Note on Col. i. 16.

72

Matt. xxii. 41–46, also in Mark and Luke; Acts ii. 34, 35; Rom. viii. 34; Col. iii. 1; Heb. i. 13; 1 Peter iii. 22, etc.

73

The reader of the Old Testament, unless otherwise advertized, must inevitably have referred the words who filleth all things in all to the Supreme God. See Jer. xxiii. 24; Isai. vi. 1, 3; Hag. ii. 7; Ps. xxxiii. 5, etc.; Exod. xxxi. 3. “That filleth all in all” is an attribute belonging to “the same God, that worketh all in all” (1 Cor. xii. 6). Comp. iv. 6.

74

For the antithesis of “you” and “we,” comp. vv. 11–18, ch. i, 12, 13; also Rom. iii. 19, 23 (For there is no distinction), Gal. ii. 15.

75

Ποιοῦντες τὰ θελήματα τῆς σαρκὸς καὶ τῶν διανοιῶν (ver. 3).

76

Perhaps this double rendering may bring out the force of κατὰ τὸν αἰῶνα τοῦ κόσμου τούτου.

77

In the posthumous Erklärung des Briefes Pauli an die Epheser– a valuable exposition, marked by Beck’s theological acumen and lucidity.

78

The φύσει of verse 3 thus corresponds to the ἐξουσία τοῦ ἀέρος of verse 2. “Sin entered into the world