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Eph_3:21. αὐτῷ ] pointing back with rhetorical emphasis. See Schaef. Melet. p. 84; Kühner, II. p. 330.
ἡ δόξα ] sc. εἴη : the befitting honour. Comp. Rom_11:36; Rom_16:27; Gal_1:5; Php_4:20. Certainly God has the glory (Eph_1:17), from which fact Harless explains the article; but it is not of this that the doxologies speak, not of this fact being testified to God, but of His receiving the human praise, which to Him pertains (Rev_4:11). Compare the conception, δοῦναι δόξαν τῷ Θεῷ , Luk_17:18; Act_12:23; Joh_9:24; Rom_4:20; Rev_4:9.
ἐν τῇ ἐκκλ . ἐν Χριστῷ Ἰ .] not to be taken together (Luther, Michaelis, Koppe, Rosenmüller, Flatt, Holzhausen, Meier, Olshausen), against which we may decidedly urge, not indeed the want of the article,—since ἡ ἐκκλησία ἐν Χριστῷ , the Christian church, might be combined as one idea in contradistinction from the Jewish, or any other ἐκκλησία whatever,—but the utter superfluousness of this distinguishing designation; for that ἡ ἐκκλησία was the Christian church, the ἐκκλησία κατʼ ἐξοχήν , was self-evident. Rather is ἐν τῇ ἐκκλ . the outward domain in which God is to be praised, and ἐν Χριστῷ the spiritual sphere in which this ascription of praise is to take place; for not outside of Christ, but in Christ—as the specific element of faith, in which the pious life-activity of the Christian moves—does he praise God. Comp. Eph_3:5; Eph_3:20. Allied, but not identical (in opposition to Grotius and others), is the conception διὰ Χριστοῦ , Rom_1:8; Rom_7:25. Both conceptions: Col_3:17.
εἰς πάσας τὰς γενεὰς κ . τ . λ .] unto all generations of the world-age of world-ages.[196] This cumulation of the expressions is solemn. The αἰὼν τῶν αἰώνων denotes the eternal world-period beginning with the Parousia, the αἰὼν μέλλων , conceived of as the superlativum of all world periods (Winer, p. 220 [E. T. 309]), in so far as it, just as the last and eternal one, transcends all. other αἰῶνες since the beginning of the world. Comp. Dan_7:18; Daniel 3 Esdr. 4:38. The plural expression οἱ αἰῶνες τῶν αἰώνων (Gal_1:5; Php_4:20, al.) is not different as to the thing intended, but is so as to the conception; since in it the Messianic period, although equally thought of (comp. also on Luk_1:50) as the superlative of all the αἰῶνες , is not thought of in its unity without distinction, but as a continuous series of several periods: consequently not as a single totality, as in the case of ὁ αἰών , but according to the several constituent parts, which collectively form the whole of the Messianic eternity,—in short, not as the time of times, as in our passage, but as the times of times. By εἰς πάσας τὰς γενεὰς κ . τ . λ . the thought is expressed, that the indicated ascription of praise to God will extend to all the generations of the (nigh) Messianic world-period, i.e. that this ascription of praise in the church is to endure not only up to the Parousia, but then also ever onward from generation to generation in the Messianic aeon,—consequently to last not merely ἐς τὸ παρόν , but also ἐς τὸ ἀΐδιον . On γενεά , generation (three of which about = 100 years), comp. Act_14:16, and the passages from the LXX. and Apocrypha in Schleusner’s Thes.; from Greek writers, in Wessel, ad Diod. I. 24. The designation of the successive time-spaces of the everlasting Messianic αἰών by γενεαί , is derived from the lapse of time in the pre-Messianic world-period—in which with the changing generations one age of man ever succeeds another—by virtue of a certain anthropological mode of regarding eternity. Of the church, however, it is presupposed that she herself (and so, too, will it be with her praising of God) endures on into the everlasting αἰών , but not that she has still a very long temporal duration before the Parousia, according to which de Wette has here found a contradiction to the apostle’s expectation elsewhere of the nearness of the Parousia. The Parousia brings for the ἐκκλησία not the end, but the consummation. Hofmann, Schriftbew. II. 2, p. 127, retaining καί before ἐν Χρ . Ἰ . (see the critical remarks), would have εἰς πάσας τὰς γενεάς κ . τ . λ ., to belong only to ἐν Χρ . Ἰ ., and not to ἐν τῇ ἐκκλησίᾳ ; for only at present and upon earth does the glorification of God take place in the church, but in Christ it takes place eternally. Incorrectly, because even the temporal glorification does not take place otherwise than ἐν Χριστῷ Ἰησοῦ , consequently the καί would have had its logical position only after Χριστῷ Ἰησοῦ . If καί were genuine, it would not be equivalent to δέ , as would need to be assumed on Hofmann’s view, but it would be et quidem, idque, however superfluous and cumbrous such a stress laid on it might be. According to Baur, p. 433, there meets us again here the Gnostic idea of the αἰῶνες , in accordance with which they, “as the γενεαὶ τοῦ αἰῶνος τῶν αἰώνων , are the aeons in the sense, in which God Himself, as the extra-temporal unity of time, individualizes Himself in the aeons as the elements of self-unfolding time.” In this way one may over-urge Gnosticism.
[196] “ αἰῶνες , periodi oeconomiae divinae ab una quasi scena ad aliam decurrentes,” Bengel.