3
«ον
by Light., Notes; ut sup., 313), and above all that it is Paul’s usual, if not constant, habit to place ἐν ἀγάπῃ after the clause it qualifies (Eph. iv. 2, 15, 16, v. 2; Οσοι. ΑΝ 2; 1 Thess. v. 13; ef. also, though in association with other terms, Simm. 1%. Τῶν ο Tim. 1, 12). On the whole this connection is to be preferred, and the ἐν ἀγάπῃ will then define the holiness and blamelessness, which are the end and object of God’s election of us, as having their truth and perfection in the supreme Christian grace of love.
Ver.5. προορίσας ἡμᾶς: having fore- ordained us. Better, in that He fore- ordained us. Wycl. gives ‘‘hath bifore ordeyned us”; Tynd. and Cranmer, “ ordeyned us’’; and so the RV, ‘‘ fore- ordained”, But the Genevan, the Rhemish and the AV, following the praedestinavit of the Vulg., give “did predestinate us,’’ ‘hath predestinated us,” ‘having predestinated us”. While in Romans and Ephesians the AV adopts ‘“predestinated,”’ in 1 Cor. ii. 7 it has “foreordained’”’. It is best to adopt foreordain all through, as προορίζειν means to determine before. The verb seems not to occur either in the LXX or in any Greek writer before Paul. It is found in Heliodorus, Ignatius, etc. In the NT it is always used of God as determining from eternity, sometimes with the further definition πρὸ τῶν αἰώνων (1 Cor. ii. 7)—decreeing to do something (Acts iv. 28); fore- ordaining things or persons (1 Cor. ii. 7; Rom. viii. 29 ff.) ; or, as here, appointing one beforehand to something. The πρὸ in the compound verb expresses the fact that the decree is prior to the realisation of its object. The aor. part. may be taken as temporal (so the Syr.-Phil.), in which case the foreordination would be something prior (not in time, indeed, but in logical order) to the election, and the election would be defined as proceeding on the foreordination (EIl., Alf., etc.). But it may also be taken as modal, not prior to the election but coincident with it, and expressing the mode of its action or the form which it took—‘“‘ in that He fore- ordained us” (Mey., etc.). On this use of the aor. part. see Winer-Moul., Gram., p- 430. This is the more probable view, because no real distinction appears to be made between the ἐκλογή and the προορισμός beyond what may be sug- gested by the ἐκ in the one and the πρό in the other ; the idea in the ἐκλογή being understood to be that of the mass from which the selection is made, and that of the προορισμός the priority of the decree