Ver. 17. ἵνα ὁ Θεὸς τοῦ Κυρίου ἡμῶν Ἰησοῦ nh : that the God of our Lord Fesus Christ. In the parallel passage in . Col. i. g the ἵνα is preceded immediately by αἰτούμενοι, and has the reduced or sub-telic force which it has after verbs of asking, expressing the content of the prayer, but that in the light of purport. Here the ἵνα relates to the general idea of the sentence, instead of being immedi- ately dependent on any verb for asking. It has more of the idea of purpose, there- fore, init. It is to be admitted, however, — that in NT Greek the proper {είς sense of ἵνα is seen in the process of weakening and passing over into the force of ἵνα as the sign of the inf. in modern Greek. Yet, even when expressing simple result or event, it has behind it the Hebrew idea of events as the results of Divine purpose;
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cf. Blass, Gram. of N.T. Greek, pp. 224, 225; Buttm., Gram. of N.T. Greek, pp. 236-241; Ell. on Phil. i. g. It is most usual for Paul to speak of God as the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ or as His God and Father. Here he speaks simply of “the God of our Lord Jesus Christ”’. The designation, though misunderstood and misapplied by the Arians and their successors in modern times, is entirely consistent with Christ’s own words (Matt. xxvil. 46; John xx. 17) and with the high- est view of His Person. In the Eternal Godhead the Son has His life from the Father, the One Fount of Deity, and is subordinate in the sense in which son is subordinate to father, while He has the same Divine being. In the ministry of redemption our Lord, while the Son of the Eternal Father, is the Christ of God, God being revealed in Him, sending Him (Gal. iv. 4), exalting Him (Phil. ii. 9), receiving back the kingdom from Him (1 Cor. χν. 24). Inrespect of His mission, His mediation, His official work and re- lations, He has God as His God, whose commission He bears and whose τε- deeming purpose He is to fulfil.—é πατὴρ τῆς δόξης: the Father of glory. This is not to be taken in the reduced sense of “(πε glorious Father”. On the other hand it is not to be dealt with as if the δόξα referred to Christ’s divinity, as in the exigencies of the con- troversy with Arian views some were driven to interpret it, arguing that the one phrase, “the God of our Lord Jesus Christ,” applied to His human nature and the other, ‘‘the Father of the glory,” to His divine nature (Athan., Greg. Naz.). Nor yet, again, is δόξα to be regarded as referring to Christ’s glorified humanity (Stier), Taking the δόξης in its proper sense and with the full force of the gen. case, some give the πατήρ the sense of author or maker, understanding God to be designated as the Source of glory (Erasm., Grot., Olsh., etc.). For this some appeal to such instances as Job xxxvii. 28; Jas. i. 17. But that is at the best a rare sense of πατήρ and one otherwise unknown to Paul. More is to be said in favour of the idea that the gen. designates God as the Father who gives glory, the glory be- stowed on Christ Himself (cf. Acts iti. 13) no less than tat reserved for Christians, It is best, however, to take it as the gen. of characteristic quality—the Father to whom glory belongs (Mey., ΕἸ]., etc.) ; cf. the same designation in Ps. xxix. 3; Acts vii. 2; also ‘‘the King of glory,” Ps, xxiv. 7; ‘“‘the Lord of glory,” 1 Cor.
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