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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.comJamieson Fausset Brown Commentary - Ephesians 2:2 - 2:2
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This Chapter Verse Commentaries:
the course of this world - the career (literally, “the age,” compare Gal 1:4), or present system of this world (1Co 2:6, 1Co 2:12; 1Co 3:18, 1Co 3:19, as opposed to “the world to come”): alien from God, and lying in the wicked one (1Jo 5:19). “The age” (which is something more external and ethical) regulates “the world” (which is something more external).
the prince of the power of the air - the unseen God who lies underneath guiding “the course of this world” (2Co 4:4); ranging through the air around us: compare Mar 4:4, “fowls of the air” (Greek, “heaven”) that is, (Eph 2:15), “Satan” and his demons. Compare Eph 6:12; Joh 12:31. Christ’s ascension seems to have cast Satan out of heaven (Rev 12:5, Rev 12:9, Rev 12:10, Rev 12:12, Rev 12:13), where he had been heretofore the accuser of the brethren (Job 1:6-11). No longer able to accuse in heaven those justified by Christ, the ascended Savior (Rom 8:33, Rom 8:34), he assails them on earth with all trials and temptations; and “we live in an atmosphere poisonous and impregnated with deadly elements. But a mighty purification of the air will be effected by Christ’s coming” [Auberlen], for Satan shall be bound (Rev 12:12, Rev 12:13, Rev 12:15, Rev 12:17; Rev 20:2, Rev 20:3). “The power” is here used collectively for the “powers of the air”; in apposition with which “powers” stand the “spirits,” comprehended in the singular, “the spirit,” taken also collectively: the aggregate of the “seducing spirits” (1Ti 4:1) which “work now (still; not merely, as in your case, ‘in time past’) in the sons of disobedience” (a Hebraism: men who are not merely by accident disobedient, but who are essentially sons of disobedience itself: compare Mat 3:7), and of which Satan is here declared to be “the prince.” The Greek does not allow “the spirit” to refer to Satan, “the prince” himself, but to “the powers of the air” of which he is prince. The powers of the air are the embodiment of that evil “spirit” which is the ruling principle of unbelievers, especially the heathen (Act 26:18), as opposed to the spirit of the children of God (Luk 4:33). The potency of that “spirit” is shown in the “disobedience” of the former. Compare Deu 32:20, “children in whom is no faith” (Isa 30:9; Isa 57:4). They disobey the Gospel both in faith and practice (2Th 1:8; 2Co 2:12).