τὴν βασιλείαν τοῦ υἱοῦ τῆς ἀγάπης αὐτοῦ, 14. ἐν ᾧ ἢ ἀπολύτρωσιν, τὴν “ἄφεσιν τῶν ἁμαρτιῶν - 15. ὅς ἐστιν εἰκὼν τοῦ
501
= x Plut.,
Pomp.,
p. 631 B;
Jos., Ant., ΧΙ 2) 3%
ἔχομεν τὴν
Philo, Qu. om. pr. lib., ἃ 171 Diod., Fragm., xxxvii., 53; in LXX only Dan. iv. 30; in N.T. ten
times.
1 So edd. (except Ln. ed. min.) with almost all authorities.
εσχοµεν: W.H. mg,
with B cop., probably a conformation to aorists of ver. 13.
tians live, so that the distinction between saints on earth and in heaven does not arise. But the immediate impression of the phrase is that the heavenly kingdom, where God dwells in light, is referred to.
Ver. 13. Paul now explains how God has qualified them for their share in the heavenly inheritance. On this passage Acts xxvi. 18 should be compared; the parallels extend to ver. 12, 14 also.— ἐρύσατο. The aorist refers to the time of conversion. The metaphor implies the miserable state of those delivered and the struggle necessary to deliver them.— ἐξουσίας: “δὶ τῇ βασιλείᾳ opponitur, est tyrannis”” (Wetstein, so also Chrys., Lightf., Kl.). This would heighten the contrast between the power of darkness and the ‘‘ kingdom of the son of His love”’. But Abbott argues forcibly against this view, especially with relation to the N.T. usage. He quotes Rev. xii. 10, 7 βασι- λεία τοῦ Θεοῦ ἡμῶν καὶ ἡ ἐξουσία Tod Χριστοῦ αὐτοῦ, where the contrast obviously cannot be maintained. Grimm takes the term as a collective expression for the demoniacal powers; and Klopper says that in Paul ἐξ. is not a mere ab- stract term, but signifies the possessors of power. Here, however, he rightly sees that the contrast to Bao. makes this meaning inappropriate, and that for it ἐρύσ. ἀπό would have been expected rather than ἐρύσ. ἐκ. Accordingly he interprets it as the dominion possessed by the (personified) darkness. — τοῦ σκότους: taken by Hofmann as a genitive of apposition, but the obvious interpreta- tion is to take it as a subjective genitive, the dominion which darkness exercises. We should have expected simply “' out of darkness” to correspond to ‘‘in light,” but Paul changes the form, partly to insist that the darkness is not a mere state but exercises an active authority, partly to secure a parallel with the king- dom of God’s Son. But we are not justi- fied (with Mey., KI.) in personifying σκό- τος, for the primary contrast is with φωτί not υἱοῦ.---μετέστησεν. Wetstein quotes Jos., Ant., ix., 11, 1 (Tiglath-Pileser’s deportation of N.E, Israel), and Lightfoot
thinks that this use of the word suggested the choice of it here, and this is made more probable by the addition of eis τ. Bac. Meyer, however, quotes a striking parallel from Plato, where no such refer- ence is present: ἔκ τε φωτὸς εἰς σκότος μεθισταμένων καὶ ἐκ σκότους εἰς φῶς (Rep., p. 518 Α).--βασιλείαν. - Meyer insists that this is the Messianic kingdom, and as the realisation of this lay in the future to Paul the clause must have a proleptic reference, citizenship in the kingdom being guaranteed by their con- version. But the argument rests on a false premiss, for in 1 Cor. iv. 20, Rom. xiv. 17, the sense is not eschatological. Nor, indeed, can it be so here, for the translation into the kingdom must have taken place at the same time as the deliverance.—viot τῆς ἀγάπης αὐτοῦ. Augustine, followed by Olshausen and Lightfoot, takes ἀγάπης as a genitive of origin, and interprets, the Son begotten of the essence of the Father, which is love. This has no parallel in the N.T., and rests, as Meyer points out, on a con- fusion of the metaphysical with the ethical essence of God. The phrase is practically equivalent to His beloved Son, but is chosen for the sake of emphasis to indi- cate His greatness and the excellence of His kingdom. There is, perhaps, the further thought that the love which rests on the Son must rest also on those who are one with Him.