A Brighter Day Begins with His Word.

Nicoll, W. Robertson (editor), 1851-1923 • SECTION 301

Προς Εφεσιους

← The Expositor's Greek Testament — Volume 3

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The gift in question is the special gift of knowledge or insight, hence the figure of the eyes. The knowledge isa spiritual knowledge; hence “ the eyes of theheart,” καρδία being the “inner man,” the seat and centre of the mental and spiritual life, with special reference at times to the faculty of intelligence (Matt. xiii. 15 ; John xii. 40; Acts xxviii. 27; Rom. i. 21; 2 Cor. iv. 6; Heb. iv. 12, εἴο.).---εἷς τὸ εἰδέναι ὑμᾶς: that ye may know. The object of the enlightenment, viz., know- ledge, a tuller knowledge of certain things now specified.—tis ἐστιν ἡ ἐλπίς τῆς κλήσεως αὐτοῦ: what is the hope of his calling. The tis is to be taken in its proper sense, not “how great” nor “οἵ what kind,” but ‘‘what”—what the hope really and essentially is. The κλῆσις αὐτοῦ is the call of which God is the author, and that is an effectual call, In the Gospels the κλητοί are contrasted with the ἐκλεκτοί, the ‘‘chosen”’ being the select few of the ‘‘called” (Matt. xxii. 14). In the Epistles the ‘called of God”’ are always those to whom the call has come with effect, who have listened to it and been made believers. The κλήσεως is best taken as the gen. of efficient cause (Mey., Ell., etc.)—the hope effected, wrought by the call. Hence the ἐλπίς is not the object hoped for (a sense which it has occasionally in the NT, é.g., Tit. ii. 13; Col. i. 5; probably also Gal. v. 5; Heb. vi. 18), but the attitude of mind, the subjective hope, the assured Christian expectation.—kat τίς 6 πλοῦτος τῆς δόξης τῆς κληρονομίας αὐτοῦ : [and] what the riches of the glory of his inheri- tance. The best critics (LTTrWHRV) omit the καί of the RV, the diplomatic evidence (ΝΒΑ ΡΙΕΗ 17, etc.) being de- cidedly against it, although it has the support of ΚΙ, as well as certain Versions and Fathers, It does not fol- low from this omission, however, that we have not three distinct things mentioned in the three clauses, or that the second and third, which refer to the inheritance and the power, are only co-ordinate with the first, specifying two things re- lating to the ἐλπίς (so Haupt). The κληρονομία is not the inheritance which God has in us (a sense which the word seems never to have in the NT), but the inheritance which God gives to us and which is the object of our hope. The αὐτοῦ is the gen. of origin. The mag- nificence of this inheritance, the perfected blessedness of the Consummation, is ex- pressed by a series of terms setting it forth in respect of the glory belonging to it and the riches pertaining to that glory,

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Public domain historical edition (1897); scan/OCR from Internet Archive.

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