of the best expositors, as Rickert, Meyer, and Winer. The position of the words, however, is so decidedly in favour of the first mentioned explanation, that it has commanded the assent of the great body of inter- preters.
V. 27. The ultimate end for which Christ gave himself for the church, and for which he sanctifies it, is to present it to himself, i. 6. to gain it for himself as his peculiar possession. There are two questions raised by commentators as to this verse. The first concerns the nature of the metaphor here employed ; and the second, the time contemplated in which Christ is thus to present the church to himself. Some, al- though very few, argue from the character of the epithets, without spot and blameless, here applied to the church, that the figure is derived from law of sacrifices. Christ is to present the church to himself as an offering without defect. But 1. This is entirely out of keeping with the whole context, which has refer- ence to the conjugal relation, and is intended to illus- trate the union between Christ and the church, by a reference to that between the bridegroom and the bride. 2. The comparison of the church to an offering is not only out of keeping with the context, but with the whole current of scriptural representation. Whereas the comparison of it to a bride is appropriate and familiar. 3. The epithets in question, though often used in reference to sacrifices, are not only appropriate, but are actually employed to express personal or corporeal beauty, which is here the symbol of inward purity.