In three out of the five occurrences the term has the local sense (i. 20, ii. 6, 111. 10), and in a fourth (vi. 12) that sense is also possible, though not certain. The expression in all probability has the same application in the present instance. To take it, with Chrys., Thdt., Beng., and more recently Beck, as a further descrip- tion of the blessing in respect of its nature as spiritual or heavenly has not only usage against it, but also the considera- tion that the second of the two descriptive clauses would then add little or nothing to what is expressed bythe first. Deciding for the local sense, however, we have still to ask how the phrase is to be con- nected and what is its particular point. Some connect it (e.g., Beza) immediately with ὁ Θεός, making the sense ‘‘God who is in heaven blessed us”. But this puts the qualifying clause at an awkward distance from its subject. The clause may be connected with the εὐλογήσας as describing the deed of blessing in respect of its sphere; which would be most suitable to the case if the εὐλογήσας were understood of the Divine decree of grace. Some, adopting the same connec- tion, make it refer ideally or proleptically to the blessings laid up for our future enjoyment in the heavenly life (e.¢., Th. Aquin.); but the context has in view blessings which are ours in reality now. Others take it to refer to the Church as the Kingdom of God on earth, the present depository of the Divine blessings (Stier); but the Church is not identified in this way with the Kingdom of God in the Pauline writings. It is best, therefore, to connect ἐν τοῖς ἐπουρανίοις immediately with the previous ἐν πάσῃ εὐλογίᾳ πνευματικῇ, and to understand it as describing the region in which this ‘‘spiritual blessing’’ is found. Not a few interpreters, indeed, pointing to the analogy of ii. 6, Phil. iii. 20 (where, however, it is our citizenship that is said to be in heaven, not we ourselves), etc., introduce a mystical sense here, and take “the Πεανεπ]ες to be, not ‘literal locality but . . . the heavenly region in which our citizenship is’? (Abbott), the heaven that is created within us here and now by grace. ‘The heaven of which the Apostle here speaks,” says Lightfoot, “15. not some remote locality, some future abode; it is the heaven which lies within and about the true Christian.” So substantially also Alf., Ell. (the latter connecting it, however, with εὐλογήσας), Cand., etc. But what the writer has specially in view here is the eternal counsel of God and the effect
given to it on earth, and there is nothing to suggest that at this point he is thinking of believers as being themselves in a certain sense in heaven even now. It is best, therefore, to retain the simple local meaning (as the Syriac and Ethiopic Versions render it, “in heaven,” “in the heavens”), and take it to describe the blessings which are stated to be in their nature spiritual further as being found in heaven. To that they belong, and from thence it is that they come to us to be our present possession on earth. (So Subst., Mey., Haupt, etc.) The choice of the unusual form here may be due to the largeness of the idea. It is not merely that the blessings with which God blessed us are blessings having their origin in heaven (which might have been expressed by am’ οὐρανοῦ or some similar phrase), but that they are blessings which have their seat where God Himself is and where Christ reigns. —év Χριστῷ: in Christ. Not merely “through Christ”. The phrase expresses the supreme idea that pervades the Epistle. Here it qualifies the whole statement of the blessing, in its bestowal, its nature, and its seat. The Divine εὐλογεῖν has its ground and reason in Christ, so that apart from Him it could have no relation to us. It is ours by reason of our being in Him as our Representative and Head; ‘“ by virtue of our incorporation in, our union with, Christ” (Light.), ‘In Him lay the cause that God blessed us with every spiritual blessing, since His act of re- demption is the causa meritoria of this Divine bestowal of blessing” (Mey.). Ver. 4. καθώς: even as. Not “be- cause,” but ‘according as,” “in con- formity with the fact that”. Cf. καθότι, which is used in the NT only by Luke and means both “according as” and “because”; and the Attic καθά, καθό, for which, indeed, καθώς is occasionally used in classical Greek, at least from Aristotle’s time. Here καθώς designates the ground of the “ blessing” and so is also the note ofits grandeur. The “bless- ing” proceeded on a Divine election, and took effect in accordance with that. It has its foundation, therefore, in eternity, and is neither an incidental thing nor an afterthought of God. So in x Pet. i. 2, the ἐκλογή has its ground and norm in the πρόγνωσις, the foreknowledge of God the Father, and that “ foreknow- ledge” is not a theoretical but an efficient Κπονν]εάρα.---ἐξελέξατο ἡμᾶς: He chose us (not “hath chosen us’’), or elected us. The verb, which occurs in the NT