This form of doxology (as well as the prayer in the greeting for grace and peace) occurs again in 2 Cor. i. 3 (as also in 1 Pet. i. 3), but with a different reference—there with regard to Paul’s own experiences, here with regard to the Christian enlargement of others.—6 εὖλο- γήσας ἡμᾶς: who blessedus. Tosuppose that the ἡμᾶς refers to Paul himself is inconsistent with the whole tenor of the paragraph and with the κἀγώ in ver. 15. If Paul speaks of God as εὐλογητός it is because of the great and generous things He had actually done for himself and for these Ephesians. These things he proceeds to set forth in respect both of their nature and their measure. He says first that “*God blessed us” (not ‘hath blessed us”). The question is how far he is looking back here. Is it to the time when God first made him and those addressed His own by grace? Or is it to the eternal counsel of that grace? There is much to be said in favour of the second of these two references. It appears to be more naturally suggested by the text than the other. We may, perhaps, plead on its behalf the analogy of the aorists in Rom. viii. 29, 30. It gives unity to the whole statement, and makes the interpretation of the following clauses, each introduced by ἐν, easier. Yet on the whole the first is to be pre- ferred, especially in view of the further definition introduced by the καθώς of
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ver. 4. The idea, therefore, is that in calling us to Christian faith God blessed us, and that the great deed of blessing which thus took effect in time had its foundation in an eternalelection. All that Christians are is thus referred back to God's free, decisive act of εὐλογεῖν ; “blessing’’ in His case meaning not words of good but deeds of grace. So, too, the εὐλογητός which comes from our lips answers to, and is the return for, the εὐλογήσας of God. In word and thought we bless God because in deed and positive effect He blessed us; cf. Is. xv. 16.—év πάσῃ εὐλογίᾳ πνευματικῇ : with every spiritual blessing. This defines the nature of the “ blessing’’ with which God so signally blessed us. The ἐν might be understood in the /ocal sense, as denoting the sphere within which the εὐλογεῖν proceeded. But in view of the following ἐν τοῖς ἐπουρανίοις, it is simplest to take it as the instrumental ἐν, “by means of”; cf. 1 Thess. iv. 18; James iii. 9; and the analogous ἐν μέτρῳ μετρεῖν, ἐν ἅλατι ἁλίζειν (Matt. vii. 2, v. 13; Mk. iv. 24, ix. 49), etc. See Winer-Moult., Grammar, p. 485; Butt- mann-Thayer, Grammar, p. 329. The πνευματικῇ is taken by some to mean inward as opposed to outward blessing, or blessing relating to the spirit of man, not to the body (Erasmus, etc.) —a sense too restricted to fit the usage of the term in the NT. Others under- stand it to mean “of the Holy Spirit,” i.e., blessing proceeding from the Holy Spirit. So Mey., Alf. (who makes it “blessing of the Spirit "’), etc.; so, too, Ell., who would refer the term directly to the Holy Spirit, on the basis of Joel iii. 1 ff.; Acts 11. 16. But this would be more naturally expressed by ἀπὸ or ἐκ τοῦ Πνεύματος, and it is the hind of blessing rather than its source that is in view here. It is best, therefore, to take πνευματικῇ to define the blessings in
uestion as spiritual in the sense that they are the blessings of grace, blessings of a Divine order, belonging to the sphere of immediate relations between God and man (cf. Rom. i. 11, xiv. 1, xv. 27; 1 Cor. ix. 11). It is true that these come from God through the Spirit. But the point in view is what they are, not how they reach us. There is little to suggest either that a contrast is drawn be- tween the blessings of the Gospel and the more temporal blessings of the OT economy, as Chrys., Grotius, etc., sup- pose. There is still less to suggest that the statement is to be limited to the extraordinary gifts of the Spirit, healing,