Hath highly exalted (i7eptwoev). Lit., exalted above. Compare Matt. xxiii. 12.
Hath given (éyapicato). Sreely bestowed, even as Jesus freely offered Himself to humiliation.
Aname. Rev., correctly, the name. This expression is differently explained: either the particular name given to Christ, as Jesus or Lord ; or name is taken in the sense of dg- nity or glory, which is a common Old-Testament usage, and occurs in Eph. i. 21; Heb. i. 4. Under the former explanation a variety of names are proposed, as Son of God, Lord, God,
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Ohrist Jesus. The sense of the personal name J/esws seems to meet all the conditions, and the personal sense is the simpler, since Jesus occurs immediately after with the word name, and again Jesus Chrest in ver. 11. The name Jesus was bestowed on Christ at the beginning of His humiliation, but prophetically as the One who should save His people from their sins, Matt. i. 91. It was the personal name of others besides ; but if that is an objection here, it is equally an objection in ver. 10>” The dignity is expressed by above every name. He bears the name in His glory. See Acts ix. 5. See on Matt. i. 21.
10. Atthe name of Jesus (év T@ ovouatt). Rev., better, in the name. The name means here the personal name; but as including all that is involved in the name. See on Matt. xxviii. 19. Hence the salutation is not a¢ the name of Jesus, as by bowing when the name is uttered, but, as Ellicott rightly says: “the spiritual sphere, the holy element as it were, in which every prayer is to be offered and every knee to bow.” Compare Eph. v. 20.
Things in heaven, etc. Compare Apoc. v. 13; Eph. i. 20, 92. The words may apply either to all intelligent beings or to all things. The latter is in accord with Paul’s treatment of the creation collectively in Rom. viii. 19-22, and with the Old-Testament passages, in which all nature is represented as praising God, as Ps. exlviii.; Ixv. 13.
11. Confess (éEouoroynoeras). See on Matt. iii. 6; thank, Matt. xi. 25; Rom. xiv. 11. The verb may also be rendered thank, as Matt. xi. 25; Luke x. 21, that meaning growing out of the sense of open, joyful acknowledgment. The sense here is that of frank, open confession.*
* There is no objection to adding the idea with thanksgiving, as Lightfoot ; but his statement that the word has this secondary sense in Isa. xly. 238, which Paul here adapts, and which is quoted Rom. xiv. 10, 11, needs qualifying, as the Septuagint texts vary, and the word is found only in the Alexandrian, ‘¢ which is open to the suspicion of having been conformed to the New Testa- ment” (Toy). The Hebrew is swear. In the Vatican Septuagint, swear by God.
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To the glory, etc. Connect with confess.
12. Not as in my presence only. Connect with work out, not with obeyed. Do not work out your salvation as though impelled to action by my presence merely.
Much more. Than if I were present; for in my absence even greater zeal and care are necessary.
Work out your own salvation (7)v éavtav cwrnplav Katep- yafeo3e). Carry out “to the goal” (Bengel). Complete. See on Rom. vii. 8. Your own salvation. There is a saving work which God only can do for you; but there is also a work which you must do for yourselves. The work of your sal- vation is not completed in God’s work in you. God’s work must be carried out by yourselves. “ Whatever rest is provided by Christianity for the children of God, it is certainly never contemplated that it should supersede personal effort. And any rest which ministers to indifference is immoral and unreal —it makes parasites and not men. Just because God worketh in him, as the evidence and triumph of it, the true child of God works out his own salvation—works it out having really received it—not as a light thing, a superfluous labor, but with fear and trembling as a reasonable and indispensable service ” (Drummond, “ Natural Law in the Spiritual World,” p. 335). Human agency is included in God’s completed work. In the saving work of grace God imparts a new moral power to work. Compare Rom. vi. 8-13; 2 Cor. vi. 1. Believe as if you had no power. Work as if you had no God.