Ver. 13. Partially parallel to Eph. ii. I, 5.---καὶ ὑμᾶς : “and you", Frequently this is taken to mean “you also,” i.¢., you Gentiles. But since Paul has been using the second person before, he can hardly be introducing a contrast. We should therefore take καὶ as simply copu- lative. It means“ you as well as Christ,” as is shown also by the verbal parallel between ἐκ τ. νεκρῶν and νεκροὺς ὄντας. —vexpovs. Here Paul varies the sense of death. In the preceding verses it is death to the old life, here the old life itself is described as a condition of spiritual death. It is not of liability to eternal death (Mey.), or to physical death as the certain consequence of sin that he is speaking, but of a state of actual death, which can only be spiritual (cf. “sin revived and I died,” Rom. vii. 9). - τοῖς παραπτώµασιν: “ by your tres- passes”. The dative is probably one of cause, but it could be translated by
13: - 14.
πάντα τὰ παραπτώματα, 14. ἐξαλείψας τὸ καθ᾽ ἡμῶν ™ χειρόγραφον
527
m Only here and Tob.
τοῖς δόγμασιν, ὃ ἦν " ὑπεναντίον ἡμῖν, καὶ αὐτὸ ἦρκεν ἐκ τοῦ μέσου, ν- δι». 5 Gk
“in”, mwapamr. are individual acts of transgression, of which ἁμαρτία is the principle.—rj ἀκροβυστίᾳ της σαρκὸς ὑμῶν: ‘by the uncircumcision of your flesh”. This is often supposed to refer to literal uncircumcision, ζ.6., to the fact that they were Gentiles. But we have already seen that there is no emphasis on this fact. And the implied contrast that Jews were not, while Gentiles were, spiritually dead, is impossible in Paul. He cannot have said that they were dead by reason of uncircumcision, and, if the dative is taken otherwise, yet the coup- ling of τῇ ἀκρ. with τ. παραπτ. shows that physical uncircumcision is not re- ferred to, but an ethical state. And this would not, as Abbott thinks, be unintelligible to Gentile readers, for he had already explained the metaphor in ver. II. τ. σαρκὸς is accordingly to be taken as an epexegetical genitive, “the uncircumcision which consisted in your flesh ””.—ovveLworrotnoev: to be taken in the same sense as συνηγέρθητε, not in any of the senses wrongly attributed to that word, which ατα reintroduced here. Chrysostom (followed by Ew., Ell.) makes Christ the subject. This is defended by Ellicott on the ground of the prominence of Christ through the passage, of the difficulty of supplying Θεός from Θεοῦ, and of referring the acts in vv. 14, 15 to the Father. But this last difficulty, urged also by Lightfoot, rests on a probably wrong interpretation of ver. 15. Neither of the others is of any weight against the argument from Pauline usage, which always refers such actions to God. This view would also involve the awk- wardness of making Christ raise Himself and us with Him, whereas in ver. 12 His resurrection is referred to God. It is therefore best to regard 6 Θεός as the subject, as in the parallel Eph. ii. 4, 5.— χαρισάμενος : “forgiving”. Forgiveness is contemporary with quickening.—ypiv : the change from the second person may be due to Paul’s wish gratefully to acknowledge his own participation in this blessing. It must not (with Hofm.) be referred to Jewish Christians.
Ver. 14. Partially parallel to Eph. ii. 15. Apparently Paul now passes to the historic fact which supplied the ground for the forgiveness. χαρισ. therefore refers to the subjective appropriation of
n Only here and Heb. x. 27 in N.T.
the objective blotting out of the bond in the death of Christ.—éfadelWas: “ having blotted out,”’ t.e., having cancelled.—ré καθ᾽ ἡμῶν χειρόγραφον τοῖς δόγμασιν. The original sense of χειρόγ. is hand- writing, but it had come to mean a bond or note of hand. It is generally agreed that the reference here is to the Law (cf. Eph. ii. 15, τὸν νόμον τῶν ἐντολῶν ἐν δόγμασιν). That those under the Law did not write the Law has been pressed against this. It is true that χειρόγ. means strictly a bond given by the debtor in writing, It is not necessary, with Chrysostom and many others, to meet the objection by reference to the promise of the people in Exod. xxiv. 3. There is no need to press rigidly this detail of the metaphor. It is disputed in what sense we are to take the reference to the Law. Some (including Lightf., Ol., Sod., Abb.) think it embraces the Mosaic Law and the law written in the hearts of Gentiles. It is quite possible, however, that καθ᾽ ἡμῶν means simply against us Jews. But, apart from this, the addition of τ. Soy. points to formu- lated commandment. This is confirmed by Eph. ii. 15, where the similar ex- pression is used, not of what Jews and Gentiles had in common, but that whick created the separation between them, viz., the Jewish Law. Whether, with Calvin, Klopper and Haupt, we should still further narrow the reference to the ceremonial Law is very questionable. It is true that circumcision and laws of meat and drink and sacred seasons are the chief forms that the ‘‘ bond” takes. And it might make the interpretation of ver. 15 a little easier to regard the cere- monial as that part of the Law specially given by angels. But this distinction between the moral and ceremonial Law has no meaning in Paul. The Law is a unity and is done away as a whole. And for Paul the hostile character of the Law is peculiarly associated with the moral side of it. The law which slew him is illustrated by the tenth commandment, and the ministry of death was engraved on tablets of stone. It was the moral elements in the Law that made it the strength of sin. It is not certain how τοῖς δόγμασιν should be taken. Frequently it is interpreted “ con- sisting in decrees”. For this we ought