The Pulpit Commentary — Galatians — Section 44

evil world (1/,ru,r l!b,11-ra, -1,µar ;" -roii a//;;vor 88 one of immortality, in which processes -rou lv,tr-r@-ro1 1rov11poii. Buch is the reading of reproduction are found no more. But in of L. T, Tr. Rev, ; while the Textus Re- Lnke xvi. 8 " the children of this awn " are oeptus h11s l/1r,..r l!b,.,,..,., /iµu, lit -roii lv,tr-riim~ thos? who l~ve after the world-loving, sinfol aliiwor ,rov11po<i) ; £hat he might deli11er m out faehton which characterizes· mankind in of tlle present world, evil that it iB. The verb general in contrast with "the children of ~{atploµa,, origina,lly "take out," renders the light," who have been enlightened to recog- Hebrew hitztzil in 1 Sam: 'iv. 8 e.nd Jer. i. 8 in nize their relation to a spiritoal world. In the sense of "deliver; " it points to "the St. Paul, "the present aiwv" denotes the present state" as one of helpless misery or entire moral and spiritual state of mankind danger. Compo.re the use of the verb, Acts viewed in the aspect in which he contem- vii. 10, 34; xii. 11; it is equivalent to plated it-a state wrapped in spiritual f,6eu9a,, ns found in Col. i. 13 and Luke i. 74. "darkness," pervaded by un~odliness and The participle " present" or "subsisting," genere.l immorality, and dominated by Satan; lv,u-r.:is, is found in -explicit contrast with as Bengel puts it, "tot.a mconomia peccati the patti<iiple "-to come," µ,M"'"• Rom. viii. sub polestate Batame" (Eph. ii. 2; iv. 18; 38, "Nor things present nor things to come;" 2 Cor. iv. 4); a state from which Christians and 1 Cor. iii. 22. We are, therefore, natur- ought to study to get wholly weaned in all ally led to suppose that the apostle means to their moral and spiritual habits (Rom. xii. 2; contrast the "world" here referred to with Eph. iv. 22-24). In St. John, the phrases, a "world to come;" which latter is men- "the world (/rosmos)," or "this world" are tioned in· Heh. vi. 5, and seems synonymous frequently employed to express the same with the" world [literally, 'inhabited earth'] idea; wi e.g. John xii. 31; xvi. 11; 1 John to come," ol1tovµ<ll7/ µeMovua., of Heh. ii. 5. ii. 15, 16; v. 19. Out of this " power, em- Compare our Lord's words in Matt. xii. 32, pfre, of darkne.<!s," in which by nature ape.rt "Neither in this world nor in that whioh is from Christ's grace all men are hopelessly to come," and his contrast of" this world" enthralled; out of the grasp, inextricable by with " that world " in Luke xx. 34, 35. The any efforts of their own, with which Satan Greek word here employed, ai.in, like komws, holds them,-the apostle recognizes Christ is used with varying shades of meaning. as alone o.ble to "rescue" us ; o.nd even him The two nouns, used interchangeably in 1 only able to "rescue" us by virtue of his Cor. iii. 18, 19 are, however, not altogether atoning sacrifice of himself. Thus, in an equivalent. The former originally denotes eminently just application of the verb, he is o. mode of time ; the lo.tter, a mode of space. said to "redeem" (-'-v-rpouu9a,) them from In pe.rticular, ai8n is never used in the Greek all iniquity, which expression includes, not Testa.ment to denote "mankind," as kosmos only the idea of his paying down a ransom not unfrequently is by all. its writers. In for their emancipation, but also the thought the Syria.o Version, 'olmo represents both ai8n that, by the power of his grace, he mo.kes the and kosmos in all their senses, with a slight ransom effectual for the actual moral and variation in its- form to represen~ aion in spiritual deliverance, one by one, of those Eph. ii. 2, "The course (aion) of this world who believe in him: "He purines them o. (kosmos)," as if it were'\ The worldliness of people of his very own, devoted to good this world." Probably the-same word 'olmo, works" (Titus ii. 14). The position in the in the Chaldean-Hebrew language current Greek of the epithet "evil," standing in a. amongst the Palestinian Jews, was the term peculiar manner without the article after employed by them in all those connections "this present world" (-roii alwvos -rov eve- in which either aion or /cosmos would ha.ve u-rw-ros ,rov71pov), is discussed both by Bishop been used by them if speaking in Hellenistic Ellicott and by Bishop Lightfoot i11 their Greek; for it is to the Hellenistic dialect of respective Commentaries on the Epistle ; the the Greek langu1ige that both words as eo latte1· of whom takes it as equivalent to employed belong. We never find aion at all "with e.ll its evils." It seems to tne present in any of St. John's writings, except in the writer that the syntuJ: of the clause groups ph:rn.sea, els T0v alWva. or fis Tobs alWvas, de- it with Eph. ii. 11, "That which is C(llled noting " for ever." In other significo.tions, oircumoision, in the flesh, made [or,' done'] when other writers of the New 'l'eatament with hands (-r;js ,\.-yoµ,v71s ,rep,-roi,;js •v uap1d might hove used ai8n, St. John e.lwe.ys puts XEIP07r0l7JTOV)," where El' uaplCl x••po,ro,71- kosmos. The word aion, denoting o. cycle of 'TOU h11s no article, because it is a logical ad- time, is used also to signify o moteri11l world, junct: the circumcision "which is mmlo 11a Heh. i. 2; and, in p11rticular, the state of in the flesh with h11uds," is of course no ret\l things found existing in th11t cycle of time ; circumcision (cf. Rom. ii. fin.), und there- o.ncl this as viewed in ve.rious aspects. In fore is only one so "culled." So in tho Luke x:x. 34, 35 11 this aiiln" contre.sts the present passage the epithet "evil " is a present at11te, 11s one of morta.lity 11nd succes- ]ogice.l adjunct: the state of the world being sive reproduction, with "that aion," viewed 11n "evil state," ore.vod Christ's re<lcrnption~  8 THE EPISTLE TO THE GALATIANS. [OH, I, 1-24,