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meant to suggest the idea of obligation on the believer’s side, as Light. thinks, who takes it to intimate that “the Spirit has, as it were, a lien upon us’’.—eis ἀπολύτρωσιν: unto the redemption. The “unto” of the RV is to be preferred to the “until” of the AV. The clause is to be connected not with the ὅς ἐστιν ἀρραβών, κ.τ.λ., but with the main statement, viz., the ἐσφραγίσθητε, and the eis expresses not the idea of time but that of purpose. It is the first of two purposes which God is here de- clared to have had in sealing them. In that operation of His grace God had it in view to make them certain of the complete redemption which was to come at the consummation of the Kingdom of God. The ἀπολύτρωσις here, as the tenor of the passage plainly indicates, is the final, perfected redemption, as in iv. 30, Rom, viii. 23, and probably r Cor. i. 30.—T 7s περιποιήσεως: of the posses- sion. The “purchased possession”’ of the AV is less apt, as the verb περι- ποιεῖσθαι expresses the general idea of preserving, acquiring, gaining for oneself, without specific reference toa price. But what is the import of the phrase here ? The form of the noun περιποίησις and its use point to the active sense, pre- serving, acquiring. In 2 Chron. xiv. 13 it is said of the Ethiopians that they fell ὥστε μὴ εἶναι ἐν αὐτοῖς περιποίησιν, so ‘*that they could not recover themselves” (RV text), or, ‘‘so that none remained alive” (RV marg.). The word occurs in the NT five times in all (Eph. i. 14; it Thess. v. 9; 2 Thess. ii. 14; Heb. ΧΕ 39); 1 Pet. t.9). In three of these instances it certainly has the active sense (1 Thess. v. 9, περιπ. σωτηρίας; 2 Thess. ii. 14, περιπ. δόξης; Heb. x. 39, περιπ. ψυχῆς), and it would be most natural to take it in that sense here. But it is diffi- cult to adjust that to the genitive case dependent on the ἀπολύτρωσιν. The most plausible rendering on that view is that proposed by Abbott, viz., “a complete redemption which will give possession”. The noun may be taken, however, in the passive sense, and a more natural meaning results. Some then understand it of the inheritance we are to possess. So Aug. and Calv. make it = haereditas acquisita; Matthies, ‘“ the promised glorious possession”; Bleek, “the redemption which is to become our possession”. So, too, Macpherson takes the ‘‘possession” to be the “in- heritance of the saints”? here, as he takes the previous ἐκληρώθημεν to mean ‘made possessors of our lot”. But all
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ο constr., Matt. xi. 2; Acts. Xxiii. 16 ; Gal. i. 13; Col. i. 4; Philem. ver. 5. iii. 26; i =ay év, 1 John iv. 16.
r=ver. i. reff.
15. Διὰ τοῦτο κἀγὼ, “ἀκούσας τὴν "καθ᾽ ὑμᾶς " πίστιν ἐν τῷ κυρίῳ