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Eph_3:8. The apostle now explains himself more fully on what had been said in Eph_3:7, and that entirely from the standpoint of the humility, with which, in the deep feeling of his personal unworthiness, he looked forth upon the greatness and glory of his vocation. Comp. 1Co_15:9.
After Eph_3:7 a full stop is to be placed, and τοῖς ἔθνεσιν εὐαγγ . is the explanation of the χάρις αὕτη . Harless regards ἐμοὶ … αὕτη as a parenthetic exclamation, like Eph_2:6, and τοῖς ἔθν . εὐαγγ . as a more precise definition of what is meant by δωρεά . He finds it contrary to nature to meet in the long intercalation (Eph_3:2-13) a halting-point, and yet not a return to the main subject. But in opposition to the whole view of such an intercalation, see on Eph_3:1. And hardly could it occur to a reader not to connect εὐαγγελίσασθαι with the immediately preceding ἡ χάρις αὕτη , specially when τῷ ἐλαχιστοτέρῳ κ . τ . λ . points to the contrast of the greatness of the vocation, which very greatness is depicted, and in how truly grand a style! from τοῖς ἔθνεσιν forward.
On the forms of degree constructed from the superlative (or even the comparative, as 3Jn_1:4), see Sturz, ad Maitt. p. 44; Lobeck, ad Phryn. p. 135 f.; Winer, p. 65 [E. T. 81]. In the analysis the comparative sense is to be maintained (the least, lesser than all).
The expression of humility πάντων ἁγίων ,[175] i.e. than all Christians, is even far stronger than 1Co_15:9. Οὐκ εἶπε τῶν ἀποστόλων , Chrysostom. What was the ground of this self-abasement (which, indeed, Baur, p. 447, enumerates among the “heightening imitations”) the reader knew, without the necessity for Paul writing it to him,—namely, not the consciousness of sin in general (Harless), in which respect Paul knew that he stood on the same level with any other (Rom_3:22; Rom_11:32; Gal_3:22), as with every believer upon an equal footing of redemption by the death of Christ (Gal_3:13-14; Rom_7:25; Rom_8:2), but the deeply humbling consciousness of having persecuted Christ, which, inextinguishable in him, so often accompanied his recalling of the grace of the apostolic office vouchsafed to him (1Co_15:9; Php_3:6; comp. 1Ti_1:13).
τοῖς ἔθνεσιν ] Paul was apostle of the Gentiles.
τὸ ἀνεξιχν . πλοῦτος τοῦ Χριστοῦ ] By this is meant the whole divine fulness of salvation, of which Christ is the possessor and bestower, and which is of such a nature that the human intellect cannot explore it so as to form an adequate conception of it. This does not hinder the proclamation, which, on the contrary, is rendered possible by revelation, but imposes on the cognition (1Co_13:9-12) as on the proclamation their limits. As to ἀνεξιχν ., see on Rom_11:33.
[175] The readings ἀνθρώπων in 4 and Chrys., ἀποστόλων in Archel., and ἁγίων ἀποστόλων in 46, are attempts at interpretation, of which ἀνθρώπων was meant to guard against understanding the ἅγιοι of the angels; ἁγίων is wanting only in Marcion and 72*, and Semler ought not to have looked upon it as spurious.