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Eph_2:15. Τὴν ἔχθραν ] This, still included in dependence upon λύσας , is now the μεσότοιχον broken down by Christ: (namely) the enmity. It is, after the example of Theodoret (comp. τινές in Chrysostom), understood by the majority (including Luther, Calvin, Bucer, Clarius, Grotius, Calovius, Morus, Rosenmüller, Flatt, Meier, Holzhausen, Baumgarten-Crusius, de Wette) of the Mosaic law as the cause of the enmity between Jew and Gentile, in which case the moral law is by some included, by others excluded. But, in accordance with Eph_2:14, the reader is led to nothing else than the opposite of εἰρήνη , i.e. to the abstract enmity; and in the sequel, indeed, the abolition of the law is very definitely distinguished from the destruction of the enmity (as means from end). Hence the only mode of taking it, in harmony with the word itself and with the context, is: the enmity which existed between Jews and Gentiles, comp. Eph_2:16. So Erasmus, Vatablus, Estius, Cornelius a Lapide, Bengel, and others, including Rückert and Bleek; while Hofmann turns the notion of ἔχθρα into the mere ἀπαλλοτρίωσις of Eph_2:12, and, referring it to the estrangement on the part of the Gentiles towards the theocracy hated by them, removes the distinctive mark of reciprocalness demanded by the context. Quite erroneously, Chrysostom, Theophylact, Oecumenius, and lately Harless, hold that the enmity of the Jews and Gentiles towards God is meant. In accordance with the context, Eph_2:14, the μεσότοιχον can, in fact, only be one separating the Jews and Gentiles from each other, and not something which separates both from God; and how mistaken is such a view also on account of what follows! for the Mosaic law might be conceived of as producing enmity towards God so far doubtless as the Jews are concerned (1Co_15:56; Rom_5:20; Rom_7:13; Gal_3:19), but never as respects the Gentiles, who stood aloof from all relation to the Mosaic law (Rom_2:12).
ἐν τῇ σαρκὶ αὐτοῦ ] does not belong (as Lachmann also punctuates it) to τὴν ἔχθραν , so that “the national hatred in His people” would be meant (Chrysostom, Bugenhagen, Schulthess, Engelwelt, p. 193); nor yet to λύσας (Oecumenius, Beza, Calvin, Grotius, Rückert, and others), because in that case this mention of the death of Jesus would be irrelevantly dissevered from the modal definition τὸν νόμον καταργήσας , to which, in the nature of the case, it belongs as an essential element; but it stands with an emphasis suitable to the context (comp. αὐτὸς γάρ , Eph_2:14) at the head of the specification that now follows, in what way Christ has effected what was said in Eph_2:14 by αὐτὸς γάρ ἐστιν … ἔχθραν : so that He by His flesh has done away with the law, namely, when He allowed His flesh to be crucified (Col_1:21 f.), dissolved thereby the tie with the law that brought men under curse (see on Gal_3:13), and thus opened up the justification through faith (Rom_3:21 ff.), whereby the institute of the law was emptied of its binding power (comp. Rom_10:4 ff; Rom_7:1 ff.; Col_2:14). The moral commands also of the law had thereby, while not ceasing to be valid, ceased to be held as constituent elements of the law-institute as such justifying in the way of compliance with it; and its fulfilment, and that in augmented power, now proceeds from the new vital principle of faith (Rom_8:4), on which account Christ, although He is the end of the law (Rom_10:4; comp. 2Co_3:11), could nevertheless say that He had come to fulfil the law (Mat_5:17), and Paul could assert: νόμον ἱστῶμεν , Rom_3:31. Hofmann imports into the ἐν τῇ σαρκὶ αὐτοῦ the thought: in and with the doing away of His life in the flesh, in respect of which He was an Israelite, Christ has rendered the appertaining to His community independent of the religious-legal status of an Israelite. As though the atoning death of Christ, in the usual dogmatic sense of the apostle, had not been most distinctly indicated already before by the ἐν τῷ αἵματι τοῦ Χριστοῦ , Eph_2:13, as afterwards by the ἀποκαταλλάξῃ κ . τ . λ ., Eph_2:16, and by the προσαγωγή , Eph_2:18! This meaning is not here, any more than at Col_1:21 f., to be exegetically modified or explained away.
τῶν ἐντολῶν ἐν δόγμασι ] to be taken together, yet not in such a way that ἐν stands for σύν (Flatt) or καί (Koppe, Rosenmüller), but as: the law of the commandments consisting in injunctions, whereby the dictatorial character of the legal institute (as a whole, not merely partially, as Schenkel imports) is exhibited. The genitive τῶν ἐντολῶν denotes the contents of the law, and ἐν δόγμασι the essential form in which the ἐντολαί are given. The connecting link of the article ( τῶν ) before ἐν δόγμασι was not requisite, since we may correctly say: ἐντέλλεσθαί τι ἐν δόγματι or ἐντολὴν διδόναι ἐν δόγματι , and therefore ἐντολὴ ἐν δόγματι may be conjoined so as to form one conception.[151] Comp. on Eph_3:13; Rom_6:4; Gal_4:14; Gal_3:26. This view of the connection is adopted, after the precedent of many older expositors, by Rückert, Matthies, Meier, Winer, pp. 123, 197 [E. T. 169, 257], Bisping, Schenkel, Bleek.[152] Comp. also Buttmann, neut. Cr. p. 80 [E. T. 92]. If one should, with the Syriac, Arabic, Vulgate, Pelagius, Chrysostom and his successors, Theodore of Mopsuestia, Grotius, Estius, Bengel, Holzhausen, and others, including Fritzsche, Diss. in 2 Corinthians 2. p. 168 f., refer ἐν δόγμ . to ΚΑΤΑΡΓΉΣΑς , there would result—even apart from the fact that with our mode of connecting ἘΝ Τῇ ΣΑΡΚῚ ΑὐΤΟῦ , this construction is not even possible—the wholly untrue and un-Pauline thought that Christ has through injunctions abolished the law. No doubt some have imputed to ἐν δόγμασι the sense praecepta stabiliendo (Fritzsche), in doing which they had in view the evangelical doctrine of faith and the gratia universalis (see Chrysostom, Theodore of Mopsuestia, Theodoret, Theophylact, Estius, Bengel, and others). But even thus the sense remains untrue and un-Pauline, seeing that the doing away of the law has taken place not at all in a doctrinal way, but by the fact of the death of Christ (Rom_7:1 f.; Gal_3:13; Col_2:14). And what a change would be made in the meaning of the word δόγμα , which in the N.T. signifies throughout nothing else than injunction (Col_2:4; Luk_2:1; Act_17:7; Act_16:4; comp. Plat. Legg. i. p. 644 D; Xen. Anab. iii. 3. 5, vi. 6. 8; Dem. 774. 19; Herodian, i. 7. 6; 4Ma_4:23 f.)! The distinction ought not to have been overlooked between ἐντολή and ΔΌΓΜΑ , which latter puts the meaning of the former into the more definite form of the enjoining decree. A peculiar view is taken by Harless (followed by Olshausen) likewise connecting ἐν δόγμ . with ΚΑΤΑΡΓΉΣΑς , and holding that ἘΝ denotes the “side on which that efficacy of the death of Christ exerts itself;” Christ did not render the law ineffectual in any such capacity as ΣΚΙᾺΝ ΤῶΝ ΜΕΛΛΌΝΤΩΝ , or as ΠΑΙΔΑΓΩΓῸΝ ΕἸς ΧΡΙΣΤΌΝ , but on the side of the δόγματα (“in reference to the commanding form of its precepts,” Olshausen). Incorrectly, because ΔΌΓΜΑΣΙ must of necessity have had the article, and because it is nowhere taught that the law is done away only in a single respect. The Mosaic legal institute as such, and not merely from a certain side, has in Christ its end (Rom_10:4); the σκιὰ τῶν μελλόντων in the law has only a transient typical destination (see on Col_2:17), and the work of the ΠΑΙΔΑΓΩΓΌς is at an end with the attainment of maturity on the part of his pupils (Gal_3:24 f.). Incorrect also is the view of Hofmann, p. 377, who, likewise taking ἘΝ ΔΌΓΜΑΣΙ as modal definition to ΚΑΤΑΡΓΉΣΑς , and for the expression with ἘΝ comparing 1Co_2:7, finds the meaning: by the very fact that Christ has put an end to precepts generally, He has invalidated the O. T. law of commandments. The statement that Christ has put an end to δόγματα generally, i.e. to commanding precepts in general, is at variance with the whole N.T., which contains numberless definite commands, and, in particular, with the teaching of Paul, who even places Christianity as a whole under the point of view, Rom_3:27; Rom_9:31, Gal_6:2, 1Co_9:21, of a νόμος (which, without ΔΌΓΜΑΤΑ , is not at all conceivable[153]), and specially with Col_2:14. Paul would at least have made a limiting addition to ἐν δόγμασι , and have written something like ἘΝ ΔΌΓΜΑΣΙ ΔΟΥΛΕΊΑς (comp. Rom_8:15; Gal_4:24; Gal_5:1).
ἽΝΑ ΤΟῪς ΔΎΟ … ΕἸΡΉΝΗΝ ] a statement of the object aimed at in the just expressed abrogation of the law, which statement of aim corresponds to what has been said concerning Christ in Eph_2:14, more precisely defining and confirming the same. Harless arbitrarily passes over what immediately precedes, and holds that ἽΝΑ … ΕἸΡΉΝΗΝ expresses the design of Ὁ ΠΟΙΉΣΑς ΤᾺ ἈΜΦΌΤΕΡΑ ἝΝ , in which case too, we may add, there would result a tautological relation of the thought.
ΤΟῪς ΔΎΟ ] The Jews and Gentiles, who before were designated in accordance with the general category under a neuter form, are here conceived of concretely as the two men under discussion, of whom the one is the totality of the Jews, and the other that of the Gentiles, out of which two men Christ has made a single new man. This is the collective subject of the καινὴ κτίσις , Gal_6:15 (the whole body of Christians).
ἘΝ ἙΑΥΤῷ ] is neither, with Grotius, to be taken as: per doctrinam suam, nor, with Chrysostom, Oecumenius, and others, as equivalent to διʼ ἑαυτοῦ (Oecumenius: Οὐ ΔΙʼ ἈΓΓΈΛΩΝ Ἢ ἌΛΛΩΝ ΤΙΝῶΝ ΔΥΝΆΜΕΩΝ ), but it affirms that the unity to be brought about out of the two by the new creation was to be founded in Christ Himself, that is, was to have the basis of its existence and continuance in Him, and not in any other unifying principle whateEphesians Ephesians 2 :In the case, namely, of all individuals, from among the Jews and Gentiles, who form the one new man, the death of Christ is that, wherein this new unity has its causal basis; without the death of the cross it would not exist, but, on the contrary, the two would still be just in the old duality and separation as the Jew and the Greek. Calvin well remarks that in se ipso is added, “ne alibi quam in Christo unitatem quaerant.” Comp. Gal_3:28. This union, negatively conditioned by the abolition of the law, and having its basis in the self-sacrifice of Christ, is positively accomplished as regards the subjects through the Spirit, 1Co_12:13. Comp. subsequently Eph_2:18. But objectively accomplished—namely, as a fact before God and apart from the subjective appropriation by means of the Spirit—it is already by virtue of the death, which Christ has undergone for the reconciliation of both parties, Jews and Gentiles, with God; see Eph_2:16.
καινόν ] For this one is now neither Jew nor Greek, which the two, out of which the one has been made, previously were; but both portions have laid aside their former religious and moral attitude, and without further distinction have obtained the quite new nature conditioned by Christian faith. If καινόν had not been added, the ΕἿς ἌΝΘΡΩΠΟς might be incorrectly conceived of as an amalgam of Jew and Gentile. To exclude, we may add, from ΚΑΙΝΌΝ the moral element (Meier, comp. Rückert) is not merely arbitrary, but, according to the apostolic way of looking at matters, even impossible, 2Co_5:17; Gal_4:27; Gal_6:14 f., Eph_5:6.
ποιῶν εἰρήνην ] Present participle, because the establishment of peace as what was duly to set in with the designed new creation, was implied in the very scope thereof; it was that which was to be brought about in and with it. Observe that ποιῶν εἰρήνην is spoken from the standpoint of the design expressed in ἵνα τοὺς δύο κ . τ . λ ., and is included as belonging to what is designed; consequently: so that He (by this new creation) makes peace (not made peace). εἰρήνη is, in accordance with the context, the opposite of ἜΧΘΡΑ , Eph_2:15, consequently peace of the two portions with each other, not: with God (Harless), nor: πρὸς τὸν Θεὸν καὶ πρὸς ἀλλήλους (Chrysostom, Oecumenius).
[151] There is consequently no need whatever for the evasive view of Theile (in Winer’s Exeget. Stud. I. p. 188 ff.), which is arbitrary and makes the meaning of the expression simply ambiguous, that Paul has not added the article, because ἐν δόγμ . is to he conceived of in the like relation to τὸν νόμον as to τῶν ἐντολῶν .
[152] Several of the older expositors, nevertheless, explained: legem mandatorum in decretis sitam (Erasmus, comp. Castalio, Beza, Calvin, and others), so that they connected ἐν δόγμ . with τὸν νόμον . But in that case τόν must of necessity have stood before ἐν δόγμ . And to excuse the absence of the article “ob congeriem articulorum” (Erasmus) is arbitrary. How often have classical writers accumulated articles! Plato, Phileb. p. 33 A; Dem. Ol. iii. 11, and many others. They avoid only the coming together of the same article, e.g. τὸ τό (Stallbaum, ad Plat. Rep. pp. 332 C, 598 B).
[153] The δόγματα of Christianity are the true ἀεὶ παρόντα δόγματα , Plato, Theaet, p. 158 D.