vi. 20. As regards the rest of the inscription, holiness is put before faith, ver. 4, 11, 12, where also the word xX^ou<r0a/ is before hope ;* moreover, at 2 Thess. ii. 13 ; 1 Pet. i. 2. It belongs to God to sanctify [set apart as holy to Himself] and claim us to Himself; to us, according to the gift of God, to believe.
3. EuXo/Tjrig — evXoyfufag — 211X07/0, Blessed — who has blessed — with blessing} An Antanaclasis.2 God has blessed us in one sense, we bless Him in another. The doxologies at the beginning of the apostolic epistles are quite in consonance with the sense of the grace which characterizes the New Testament. It is almost in this way that the first Epistle of Peter commences, which was also sent into Asia, and therefore to Ephesus. Paul writes with an affection that had been greatly elevated [sublimed] by ad versity ; and this epistle furnishes a remarkable specimen of the evangelical mode of discussion on the thesis [proposition, i.e. the broad general truth of the Gospel] ; and, from the third to the fourteenth ver. of this ch., it presents an abridgment of the Gospel [respecting the grace of God. — V. g.] ; [and that, too, in such a way, that the blessed work of Christ, ver. 7, and of the Holy Spirit, ver. 13, is inserted each in its proper order. — V. g.] Hence he refutes no error, and rebukes no fault in particular, but proceeds in a general way. And how great soever may be the light which may be obtained from ecclesiastical history, with respect to the Epistle to the Colossians, in other respects parallel, it is less needed in this epistle. He writes with great propriety to the Ephesians, too, regarding the recent union of the Jews and Gentiles ; for the temple at Ephesus had been the strong hold of Paganism, as on the contrary the temple at Jerusalem had been the stronghold of Judaism.
Here follows a summary of the Epistle : —
I. THE INSCKIPTION, i. 1, 2.