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Eph_2:10. Reason assigned for the previous οὐκ ἐξ ὑμῶν … καυχήσ . If, namely, we are God’s ποίημα , our Messianic salvation cannot be of our own acquiring, but only God’s gift; and if we are created in Christ unto good works, how could merit of works (which would need to have been already acquired in the time anterior to this our creation) be the cause of our salvation, and subject of our own boasting? The argumentative stress lies consequently (1) on αὐτοῦ , and (2) on κτισθέντες ; and then οἷς προητοίμασεν κ . τ . λ . is an elucidation significantly bearing on κτισθέντες ἐν Χ . Ἰ . ἐπὶ ἔργ . ἀγ ., which makes the impossibility of pre-Christian merit of works thoroughly palpable.
αὐτοῦ ] with emphasis: His, just His work, and no other’s, are we. Comp. Hom. Od. x. 27: αὐτῶν γὰρ ἀπωλόμεθʼ ἀφραδίησιν . Winer, p. 140 [E. T. 193].
ποίημα , thing made (comp. Rom_1:20), refers to the ethical creation (that of the new spiritual state of life), which the Christian as such has experienced ( παλιγγενεσία , Tit_3:5), not, as Tert. c. Marc. v. 17, Gregory of Nazianzus, Basil, and Photius would have it, to the physical creation (the spiritual being only introduced by κτισθέντες κ . τ . λ .), which is opposed to the context, as is also the combination of the two creations by Pelagius, Erasmus, Matthies, and Rückert: “as Christians we … are God’s work just as well, as in respect of our being men at all.” Only the form, in which the constituting of the new condition of life is expressed, is derived from the physical creation.
κτισθέντες ] by God at our conversion.
ἐν Χριστῷ Ἰησοῦ ] for εἴ τις ἐν Χριστῷ , καινὴ κτίσις , 2Co_5:17; Gal_6:15. Christ is the specific element of life, within which the ethical ποίημα Θεοῦ has come to pass, but apart from which this creative process has not taken place.
ἐπὶ ἔργοις ἀγαθοῖς ] moral aim. On the thing itself, comp. Romans 8. That, by which God prepares what is created by Him in Christ for this moral end, is the Holy Spirit, Romans 8; Gal_3:2; Joh_3:5 f. Good works (not ἔργα νόμου ) are fruits of regeneration, different from ἔργων , Eph_2:9.
οἷς προητοίμ . ὁ Θεός ] οἷς is to be taken, according to the usual attraction (see Winer, p. 147 f. [E. T. 203]), for ἅ (Syriac, Gothic, Vulgate, Castalio, Beza, Calvin, Piscator, Estius, Grotius, and others, including Harless, Matthies, Holzhausen, Olshausen, de Wette, Lamping, p. 87 f.; Bleek): which God hath before (previously to the κτισθένες ) placed in readiness, in order that we might walk in them, that they might be the element in which our life-walk should take place ( τὴν ἐπʼ αὐτοῖς ἄπαυστον σχέσιν δηλοῖ , Oecumenius). The prefixed προητ . has in the circumstances significant emphasis. Paul conceives, namely, of the morally good works in which the walk of the Christian moves, as being already, even before his conversion, placed in readiness (Plut. Mor. p. 230 E; Joseph. Antt. xvii. 5, 6; LXX. Isa_28:24; Wis_9:8) by God, namely, in His decree. And this could not but be the case, if God would create unto good works. For, if the converted man is God’s creature, then the moral activity of life, in which the specific nature of the καινὴ κτίσις is to manifest itself, and without which he would not be God’s ποίημα and κτίσις , must likewise proceed from God; consequently, when the moral creative act (the regeneration) is accomplished, must already in God’s counsel and will be in such wise prepared and held ready for communication, that it has to receive the new creature from its Creator, and in this way to work the works of God. Thus these good works following regeneration are as it were outflowings from a divine treasure beforehand placed in readiness, from which the regenerate man has received them, when he does them and walks in them.[144] The sense of the word προετοιμάξειν is changed, if it is explained only as to predestine (Augustine and others, including Harless, Lamping), which would be expressed by προορίξειν (see Fritzsche, ad Rom. II. p. 339); and it is rationalized away, when Olshausen says that the circumstances and relations, under which it is possible to men to perform good works, are ordained by God. It is not of the circumstances which render the works possible, but of the works themselves, that Paul affirms that God has before placed them in readiness; as accordingly, when they are accomplished, it is God who works the willing and working (Php_2:13). According to Hofmann, Sehriftbew. II. 1, p. 365, II. 2, p. 294, the good works are once for all present in Christ, so that they need not to be brought forth first by us the individuals, but are produced beforehand, in order that our fellowship with Christ may be also a fellowship of His conduct—that our walk in Him may be a walk in them. But in this way Paul would have left the very point of the thought in προητοίμ . (namely, in Christ) unexpressed. Others take οἷς as dative of the destination: wnto which God hath prepared us (Luther, Clericus, Semler, Michaelis, Zachariae, Morus, Flatt, Meier, Schenkel, and others). In this case, ἵνα ἐν αὐτοῖς περιπ . would by no means be a redundant and feeble tautology, as Harless supposes, but an emphatic epexegesis of οἷς . But against this view it may be urged that Paul must necessarily, because the verb would be quite objectless, have added ἡμᾶς ,[145] the omission of which, considering the frequency of the attraction of οἷς for Ἅ , could only have led the reader astray; moreover, ΠΡΟ would receive no emphasis accordant with the prefixing of ΠΡΟΗΤΟΊΜ ., inasmuch as the time of the ΠΡΟΕΤΟΙΜΆΖΕΙΝ would coincide with that of the ΚΤΊΖΕΙΝ . Valla and Erasmus take ΟἿς as masculine: for whom He hath before appointed, that we, etc., to which also Rückert, although hesitating between this and the preceding explanation, is inclined. But how arbitrarily in this way is οἷς referred to what is more remote and different from ΑὐΤΟῖς ! and how changed is the literal sense of ΠΡΟΕΤΟΙΜΆΖΕΙΝ ! Quite arbitrary and erroneous, finally, is the view of Bengel, Koppe, and Rosenmüller, as also of Baumgarten-Crusius, that it is to be explained per Hebraismum (see, on the other hand, Fritzsche, ad Matth. p. 139) for ἐν οἷς ἵνα περιπατήσωμεν προητ . ὁ Θεός , in which case Koppe and Rosenmüller make ΠΡΟΕΤΟΙΜΆΖΕΙΝ equivalent to velle, jubere!
According to Schwegler, in Zeller’s Jahrb. 1844, p. 391; Baur, Paulus, p. 453, and de Wette, there is to be discovered in our passage the post-apostolic tendency to combine the doctrine of Paul ( οὐκ ἐξ ἔργων ) with the Jewish-Christian view (that of James) concerning good works. As though the works were not in our passage too, as in all Pauline Epistles, based upon faith (observe, withal, ἘΝ Χ . Ἰ .)!
The Pauline faith has always moral practice as its necessary vital activity, and this is consequently always the aim (not: ultimate aim) of the new creation wrought through faith by means of the Spirit. We may add that the good works, even at our passage,—where, moreover, they are traced back wholly to God as the author,—are so far from being the condition of justification, that, on the contrary, the dogmatic canon here receives full confirmation: “Bona opera non praecedunt justificandum, sed sequuntur justificatum.” Comp. Calovius. Aptly does Bengel remark on περιπατ .: “ambularemus, non salvaremur aut viveremus.” The assertion, that here (and in Colossians) much greater importance is ascribed to good works than in the other letters of the apostle (Baur, neut. Theol. p. 270), is, looking even to Eph_2:7-9, incorrect.
[144] Explanations like that of Grotius; “praeparavit turn praeseribendo formam operum tum dando Spiritum,” etc., fail of doing justice to the case by making προ in πρεητ . synchronous with κτισθέντες .
[145] This also in opposition to Calovius, who takes οἷς in the ablative sense: “quibus, sc. hactenus dictis … per justificationem et renovationem, praeparavit vel disposuit (nos), ut in operibus bonis ambulemus.”