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Eph_2:5. The καί is not to be taken as in Eph_2:1 (“also us collectively,” Meier, Baumgarten-Crusius, and earlier expositors), which, apart from the universal reference of the ἡμᾶς , the order of the words forbids ( καὶ ἡμᾶς must have been written), according to which, also, the καί of Eph_2:1 can by no, means be here resumed (Rückert, Matthies, Holzhausen, and most of the older expositors); further, καί is not, with Koppe, to be taken as although, seeing that, in fact, a making alive cannot take place otherwise than from a state of death, and consequently καί cannot convey any climactic stress, on which account Harless explains incorrectly from a logical point of view: “even in the state of death, in which we were” (comp. Calvin and de Wette). Erasmus paraphrases as though καί stood before συνεζωοπ ., and even the shift to which Morus has recourse, that καί corresponds to the καί of Eph_2:6 (non modo … verum etiam), would demand this position. Others give other explanations, and many are silent with regard to it. If καί were also, it would have to be referred to ὄντας ,[141] and would express the reality of the relation asserted in Eph_2:1 (Hartung, I. p. 132 f.). But there would be nothing to call for the assurance of this reality. It is rather the simple copula: and, annexing to the διὰ τ . πολλ . ἀγ . ἣν ἠγ . ἡμ . a further element.[142] The two elements, side by side, place in the full light what God has done. God has, on account of His much love, and when we were dead in the sins, made us alive with Christ. The καί might also be omitted; but the keeping of the points thus apart strengthens the representation.
τοῖς παραπτ .] The article denotes the sins, which we had committed, with a retrospective glance at Eph_2:1.
συνεζωοποίησε τῷ Χρ .] is by most expositors (including Flatt, Rückert, Meier, Matthies, Harless, Olshausen, de Wette, Baumgarten-Crusius, Schenkel, Hofmann, Bleek) understood of new spiritual quickening (“justificationem et regenerationem nostram complectitur,” Boyd; Rückert would have us think mainly of the justification). But how is this to be justified from the context? If the reader was reminded by νεκροὺς τοῖς παραπτ . of the eternal death, to which he had been subjected by his pre-Christian life of sin (see on Eph_2:1), he would now have to think of the eternal life, which begins with the resurrection, and he could the less think of anything else than of this real resurrection-life, since afterwards there is further expressed the translation together into heaven, and then, in Eph_2:7, the intention of God is referred to the times after the Parousia. And had not already Eph_1:18 f. pointed definitely to the future κληρονομία ? How, in this connection, could a reader light upon the merely ethical, spiritual quickening (Rom_6:4 f.; 2Co_5:15; Gal_2:19 f.)? No, God has made believers alive with Christ; i.e. in Christ’s revivification, which God has wrought, theirs also is included. By virtue of the dynamic connection in which Christ stands with His believers, as the head with its body (Eph_1:23), their revivification is objectively comprehended in His,—a relation, in fact, of which the Christian is conscious in faith; “quum autem fides suscipitur, ea omnia a Deo applicantur homini, et ab homine rata habentur,” Bengel. So the matter stands in the view of the apostle as accomplished, because the making alive of Christ is accomplished; the future actual making alive, or, as the case may be, change at the Parousia (1Co_15:23), is then the subjective individual participation of that which is already objectively given on the part of God in the resurrection of Christ. Certainly Paul might, in accordance with another mode of looking at it, have expressed himself by the future, as at 1Co_15:22; cf. Rom_8:17; but who does not feel that by means of the aorist (“ponitur autem aoristus de re, quae, quamvis futura sit, tamen pro peracta recte censeatur, cum … alia re jam facta contineatur,” Fritzsche, ad Rom. II. p. 206) the matter stands forth more forcibly and triumphantly out of the believing conviction of the apostle? οὓς ἐδικαίωσε τούτους καὶ ἐδόξασε , Rom_8:30.
The ΣΎΝ in ΣΥΝΕΖΩΟΠ . is by Beza, erroneously referred to the coagmentatio gentium et Judaeorum, a reference which is forbidden by the τῷ Χριστῷ ; and by Grotius, Koppe, Rosenmüller, and others, it is explained ad exemplum (comp. Anselm: sicut), by which the Pauline idea of fellowship with Christ, which also lay at the bottom of Eph_1:19, is quite arbitrarily explained away.
Comp. on Col_2:13; Rom_8:17; 2Ti_2:12.
χάριτί ἐστε σεσωσμ .] by grace (not by merit) are ye partakers of the Messianic salvation! an impassioned (hence expressed in the second person), parenthetic reminding the readers of the divine basis of the salvation which had accrued to them, designated by συνεζωοποίησε ; a reminding, which was very natural for the apostle in general (for its tenor was the sum of his doctrine and the constant echo of his own experience, 1Co_15:10), and more especially here, where he represents the quickening of believers as accomplished with the making alive of Christ, which could not but repel even the most distant thought of personal merit. In connection with ΣΥΝΕΖΩΟΠ . Τ . ΧΡ . the possession of the Messianic bliss is designated as an already accomplished fact, although it was before the Parousia (Col_3:3 f.) merely a possession in hope (Rom_8:24), and the final realization was yet future (Rom_5:10). That the ΧΆΡΙΤΙ emphatically placed at the beginning (for “gratiam esse docet proram et puppim,” Bengel) means the grace of God, not of Christ (Beza; comp. the inserted οὗ in D* E F G, Vulg. It. Victorin. Aug. Ambrosiaster), is manifest from the context, in which God is constantly the subject.
[141] For, as to the fact that καί , also, always lays the stress upon that word, before which it stands, see Haupt, Obss. Crit. p. 55 ff. Klotz, ad Devar. p. 638.
[142] Bleek describes this view of mine as probably the correct one, and follows it.