2 ἀπόδεκτον
“ ἐνώπιον “τοῦ ἢ σωτῆρος
P ἡμῶν “Θεοῦ, 4. ὃς πάντας ἀνθρώπους θέλει σωθῆναι καὶ εἰς
4 ἐπίγνωσιν 1 ἀληθείας ἐλθεῖν. 5. Εἷς γὰρ Θεός, εἷς καὶ " μεσίτης
22, 1 Cor. i, 29, 2 Cor. iv. 2, vii. 12, Gal. i. 20, 1 Tim. ν. 4, 21, vi. 13, 2 Tim. ii. 14, iv. 1, cf. Rom. iii
20, 2 Cor. viii. 21. p Seer Tim. i. 1.
iv. 3.
4 2 Tim. ii. 25, iii. 7, Tit. i. 1, Heb. x. 26, cf. 1 Tim. r Gal. iii. 19, 20, Heb. viii. 6, ix. 15, xii. 24.
lIns. yap ScDFGKLP, d, f, g, mro!, r, vg. (enim), go., sytr., arm.; om. yap
ΝΑ, 17, 67**, boh., sah.
A.V. honesty is an older English equiva- lent for seemliness. σεμνός and σεμνότης connote gravity which compels genuine respect.
ΜΕΤ 3. men.
καλόν : not to be joined with ἐνώπιον, but taken by itself, as in reff. See note oni. 18. ἀπόδεκτον ἐνώπιον τοῦ θεοῦ occurs again, v. 4. Prayer for all men approves itself to the natural conscience, and it is also in accordance with the re- vealed will of God.
θεοῦ is almost epexegetical of σωτῆρος ἡμῶν. Our Saviour, if it stood alone, might mean Christ; but it is God the Father that is the originating cause of salvation. See note oni. 1.
Ver. 4. ‘The grace of God hath ap- peared, bringing salvation to all men” (Tit. ii. 11) as was foreshadowed in the O.T.; e.g. Ps. Ixvii. 2, “Thy saving health among all nations”’. God is, so far as His inclination or will is con- cerned, ‘the Saviour of all men,” but actually, so far as we can affirm with certainty, “οἵ them that believe” (τ Tim. iv. 10). These He saved, ἔσωσεν (2 Tim. i. 9; Tit. iii. 5), 1.6., placed in a state of being saved. But here St. Paul does not say θέλει σῶσαι, but θέλει σωθῆναι; for by His own limitation of His powers, so far as they are perceived by us, the salvation of men does not depend on God alone. It depends on the exercise of the free will of each individual in the acceptance or rejection of salvation (so Wiesinger, quoted by Alf.; and, as Bengel notes on ἐλθεῖν, non coguntur), as well as on the co- operation of those who pray for all men; and, by so doing, generate a spiritual atmosphere in which the designs of God may grow.
It is also to be observed that since salvation means a_ state of being saved, there is no difficulty in the knowledge of the truth following it in the sentence, as though it were a consequence rather than a precedent
τοῦτο: i.¢., prayer for all
condition. This is indeed the order in- dicated in the Last Commission: “ bap- tising them. . . teaching them”’ (Matt. XXVili. 19, 20). So that there is no need to suppose with ΕἸ]., that καὶ eis... ἐλθεῖν was “' suggested by. . . the enun- ciation of the great truth which is con- tained in the following verse”’.
εἰς ἐπίγνωσιν ἀληθείας ἐλθεῖν : This whole phrase recurs in 2 Tim. ili. 7. For ἐπίγνωσις ἀληθείας see reff. In Heb. x. 26 both words have the article. It has been shown by Dean Armitage Robinson (Ephesians, p. 248 sqq.) that ἐπίγνωσις is not maior exactiorque cog- nitio; but, as distinguished from γνῶσις ‘which is the wider word and expresses ‘knowledge’ in the fullest sense, ἐπί- Ύνωσις is knowledge directed towards a particular object, perceiving, discerning, recognising’’. Cf.2 Macc. ix. 11, ἤρξατο . 2. εἰς ἐπίγνωσιν ἔρχεσθαι. ἀληθεία occurs fourteen times in the Pastorals; and often with a special Christian refer- ence, like 6805 and εὐσέβεια. See 6.6. in addition to this place, 1 Tim. iii. 15, iv. 3, vi. 5, 2 Tim. ii: 15, 18, iii. 8, iv. 4, Tit. i. 14. It is a term that belongs to the Johannine theology as well as to the Pauline.