only ; se
« εἰρήνη ἡμῶν, ὁ ποιήσας τὰ ἀμφότερα ἕν καὶ τὸ " μεσότοιχον τοῦ
Rom. v.1."paypod ' λύσας, 15. τὴν " ἔχθραν, ἐν τῇ σαρκὶ αὐτοῦ, τὸν " νόμον
r Here only. 2 Pet. iii. 10, 11, 12. au see Rom. iii. 27, vii. 2, viii. 2.
calls immanent instrumentality, the action of the verb being regarded as existing in the means. See Ell. on the present passage and on 1 Thess. iv. 18. There is little to be gained, however, by attempt- ing much finesse in such matters.
Ver. 14. αὐτὸς yap ἐστιν ἡ εἰρήνη ἡμῶν: for He is our Peace. As most commentators notice, the emphasis is on the atrés—‘“‘He and no other”, But there is probably more in it than that. The selection of the abstract εἰρήνη, in- stead of the simple εἰρηνοποιός, suggests that the point of the αὐτός is not only “ He alone,” but “ He in His own person”. It is not only that the peace was made by Christ and ranks as His achievement, but that it is so identified with Him that were He away it would also fail,—so de- pendent on Him that apart from Him we cannot have it. And He is thus for us “the Peace” (ἡ εἰρήνη), Peace in the absolute sense to the exclusion of all other. Peace, the peace of the Messianic age, the peace that is to come by Messiah, is a frequent note in OT prophecy (Isa. ix. 5, 6, lii. 7, lili. 5, Ivii. 19; Mic. v. 5; Hag. ii. 9; Zech. ix. το). Here, as the next sentence shows, the peace especially in view is that between Jew and Gentile. - ποιήσας τὰ ἀμφότερα ἕν: who made both one. Νοῖ “hath made,” but “made,” with reference to the definite act of His death, as suggested by the ἐν τῷ αἵματι. The ἀμφότερα is the abstract neuter—the two parties or classes. The sing. neut. ἕν (= one thing, one organism) expresses the idea of the unity, the new unity which the two long separate and antagonistic parties became; cf. the ἕν used even of the relation between Christ and God in John x. 16, and for the unity here in view, cf. Rom, x. 12; 1 Cor. xii. 13; Gal. iii. 28; Col. iii, r1.—xal τὸ μεσότοιχον τοῦ φραγμοῦ λύσας: and broke down the middle wall of the partition. The former clause began the explanation of how Christ became our Peace. That explanation is continued in this clause and in the following. The καί, there- fore, is epexegetic = to wit, or im that (cf. Win.-Moult., p. 545). The gen. φραγμοῦ is not a mere equivalent to an adject. or a partic., as if = τὸ μεσότοιχον διαφράσσον (Grot., Rosenm., etc.), nor
s Matt. xxi. 33; | Mark Luke xiv. 23, epp., here only; Num. xxii. 24. . Luke xxiii. τα; Jamesiv.4al.; Paul only; Gen. iii. 15.
t=Johnii. 19; ν το only;
is it the gen. of quality, = “the middle wall whose character it is to divide”; but either (a) the αῤβος. gen. or gen. of identity, = ‘‘the middle wall that is (or, consists in) the partition,” or (δ) the posses. gen., = “the wall pertaining to the partition”. On the latter view of the gen. the μεσότοιχον (a word found only this once in the NT and of rare occurrence elsewhere) becomes the more definite and specific term, the φραγμός the more general, the former being, in- deed, a part of the latter. That is to say, the φραγμός is the whole system of things that kept Jew and Gentile apart, and the μεσότοιχον is the thing in the system that most conspicuously divided them, and that constituted the “enmity,” vis., the Law. It is best, however, to take the terms μεσότοιχον and φραγμός in the simple, literal sense of division and ᾱ- tion, which are not explained to be the Law till the νόμος is actually introduced in the subsequent clause; and, th