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Eph_2:1. Connection: After Knatchbull and others (mentioned by Wolf, Cur. on i. 19) had attached καὶ ὑμᾶς to εἰς ἡμᾶς τοὺς πιστεύοντας , Eph_1:19, and Bengel to ἣν ἐνήργ ., Eph_1:20 (both arbitrarily confusing, and the former also mistaken for the reason that ἡμᾶς , Eph_2:19, already included the readers), Lachmann and Harless have closed Eph_1:23 with only a comma, and annexed καὶ ( συνεζωοποίησε ) ὑμᾶς to καὶ αὐτὸν ἔδωκε κ . τ . λ ., Eph_2:22.[127] So also de Wette, without, however, approving the mere comma after Eph_1:23. But in this way we should have to expect not ὙΜᾶς , but ἩΜᾶς (comp. Eph_1:19 : ΕἸς ἩΜᾶς ΤΟῪς ΠΙΣΤΕΎΟΝΤΑς ), for Paul would attach to what God has done in relation to Christ that, which He has at the same time done in the case of the Christians. And, inasmuch as he has employed the pronoun of the second person, he has thereby indicated the beginning of a new portion. Moreover, Eph_1:23 is so majestic and solemn in import and form, that it is admirably suited for a sonorous conclusion, but hardly for a mere parenthetic insertion. No, after the apostle has previously spoken of the exceeding power of God in the case of believers, which may be recognised by virtue of what He has done in the case of Christ, whom He raised, exalted, etc., he wishes now, in application of this to the readers, to bring the latter to the consciousness that God has made also them ( καὶ ὑμᾶς ), when they were dead in their sins, to be alive, etc., with Christ, and thus has shown also in their case that exceeding power.
The construction is broken off, even before the subject and the verb are expressed, by the afflux of the thoughts in the relative clauses which begin Eph_2:2, but is resumed Eph_2:4 by means of δέ , so that the subject not yet named in Eph_2:1 is at length named and characterized in Eph_2:4; and in Eph_2:5 the verb ( ΣΥΝΕΖΩΟΠΟΊΗΣΕ ) comes in with repetition of the object, which, however,—in accordance with what has been said in the intervening clauses,—had already in Eph_2:4 passed over into the first person and thus become universal ( ἩΜᾶς ). As to the details, see below. The resumption accordingly begins already, in Eph_2:4, with Ὁ ΔῈ ΘΕΌς (as even Theophylact expressly observes); not first with Eph_2:5, as Wolf and others, including Griesbach, Koppe, ed. 1, Scholz, Meier, Rückert, Holzhausen, would have it, because otherwise Eph_2:4 in turn would be anacoluthic, and yet Ὁ ΘΕΌς is the subject of ΣΥΝΕΖΩΟΠ .
ΝΕΚΡΟῪς ΤΟῖς ΠΑΡΑΠΤ . Κ . Τ . ἉΜΑΡΤ . ὙΜῶΝ ] The dative denotes the causa efficiens of the death. The expression with ἐν , Col_2:13, is not equivalent. Quite at variance with the context, Cajetanus (not Estius, who rejects this explanation) holds that the dative is as in Rom_6:11, in which case the force of ὄντας as a present participle is urged: since ye are dead for the sins. ὑμῶν also is against this, as well as the plural, since in the being dead for sin the latter appears as principle (Rom_6:11).
A real distinction between παραπτώματα and ἉΜΑΡΤΊΑΙ does not exist,[128] in so far as both expressions denote the same thing (the peccata actualia in thought, word, and deed) in a twofold form of conception as “missing” and “fall” (see, generally, Fritzsche, ad Rom. I. p. 324); and the abstract ἁμαρτίαις cannot mean, like Ἡ ἉΜΑΡΤΊΑ at Rom_5:20, sin in abstracto as ruling power, but in virtue of the plural can only mean the actual sins ( ἁμαρτήματα ); comp. on Rom_5:20.
ὌΝΤΑς ] state, which was present at the time, when God made them alive.
νεκρούς ] is understood by the expositors (apart from those who, like Koppe and Rosenmüller, substitute for the literal meaning the notion of wretched, miserable) of spiritual death (comp. Eph_5:14), i.e. of the deadness of true moral life through the “alienatio animae a Deo,” Calvin; comp. Delitzsch, Psychol, p. 127. But by what, we ask, is this spiritual sense indicated? Must not νεκρ . τοῖς παραπτ . κ . ταῖς ἁμαρτ . have reminded the readers quite naturally and necessarily of the connection, well known to them, between unexpiated sins and the eternal death (the eternal condemnation),—a connection, in which they once as Gentiles shared? See on Rom_6:16; Rom_6:22 f., Rom_7:9-11; Rom_7:24; Rom_8:2; Rom_8:6. The explanation of physical death is inadmissible, because this is a consequence not of individual sins, but of the sin of Adam; see on Rom_5:12; 1Co_15:22. The expression νεκροί is proleptic: when ye were dead through your sins, i.e. when you had through your sins drawn upon you death, had become liable to eternal death, so that in this way the certo morituri are designated as νεκροί . Comp. Rom_7:10; Rom_8:10, and the well-known ΨΥΧΆΡΙΟΝ ΕἾ ΒΑΣΤΆΖΟΝ ΝΕΚΡΌΝ , Epict. Anton, iv. 41. See also on Col_2:12. Without Christ the everlasting death, which they had incurred by their sins, would not be annulled and averted from them; but, after that Christ has completed the work of atonement and they have become believers in Him, eternal life has become the portion of those who were by their sins liable to eternal death, and that by means of the fellowship of life, into which they are brought through faith with the Christ who is made alive from the dead, raised, and exalted to heaven, which is more fully expressed, Eph_2:5-6, by συνεζωοποίησε τῷ Χριστῷ κ . τ . λ . Thus the passage certainly treats of the atonement accomplished by Christ, to which believers owe eternal life (see Eph_2:7-8). The moral restoration (Hofmann) is the consequence of the atonement (Eph_2:10), the ethical product of the same through the Spirit.
The relation, we may add, of our passage to Col_2:13; Col_1:21 is not that of a slavish dependence, but that of a fresh and living remembrance with new and peculiar amplification.
[127] 1 Calovius, Cramer, Koppe, and Rosenmüller attached καὶ ὑμᾶς immediately to Eph_1:23, namely, to πληρουμένου : “qui sicut omnes alios beneficiis cumulat, sic etiam vos,” Rosenmüller. This, however, is entirely incompatible with the correct explanation of τοῦ τὰ πάντα ἐν πᾶσι πληρουμένου , Eph_1:23, and with the correlation of νεκρούς and συνεζωοπ .
[128] Augustine, ad Lev. qu. 20, makes the former denote the desertio boni, the latter the perpetratio mali, or the former to be the sin of rashness, the latter that which is deliberate, which last distinction is adopted also by Tittmann, Synon. p. 47. Jerome makes the former delicta cogitatione inchoata, the latter sins of deed; comp. Olshausen. Bengel: παραπτ . applies to the Jews, and ἁμαρτ . to the Gentiles. Meier (comp. Baumgarten-Crusius): the two words are distinguished as act and state. Matthies: the former are mental errors and obscurations, the latter moral sins and vices. Harless and de Wette: the former denotes single transgressions, the latter all kinds of sins, including sins in thought.