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Eph_4:13. Goal, up to the contemplated attainment of which Christ has bestowed the different teachers, Eph_4:11, for the purpose specified in Eph_4:12. μέχρι is put without ἄν (comp. Mar_13:30) because the thought of conditioning circumstances is remote from the apostle’s mind. See Lobeck, ad Phryn p. 14 ff.; Hartung, Partikellehre, II. p. 291 ff.
καταντήσωμεν ] shall have attained to unity, i.e. shall have reached it as the goal. Comp. Act_26:7; Php_3:11; 2Ma_6:14; Polyb. iv. 34; Diod. Sic. i. 79, al. Some have found therein the coming together from different places (Vatablus, Cornelius a Lapide, and others), or from different paths of error (Michaelis); but this is purely imported.
οἱ πάντες ] the whole, in our totality, i.e. the collective body of Christians, not all men (Jerome, Moras, and others), Jews and Gentiles (Hammond), which is at variance with the use of the first person and with the preceding context ( πρὸς τὸν καταρτισμὸν τῶν ἁγίων ).
εἰς τὴν ἑνότητα τῆς πίστ . καὶ τῆς ἐπιγν . τοῦ υἱοῦ τοῦ Θεοῦ ] does not stand for ἐν τῇ ἑνότητι κ . τ . λ . (Grotius), but is that which is to be attained with the καταντ . The article is put with ἑνότ ., because not any kind of unity is meant, but the definite unity, the future realization of which was the task of the teachers’ activity, the definite ideal which was to be realized by it.
τοῦ υἱοῦ τοῦ Θεοῦ is the object—accordant with their specific confession[219]—not only of the ἐπίγνωσις , but also of the πίστις (see on Rom_3:22; Gal_2:16). The goal then in question, to which the whole body of believers are to attain, is, that the πίστις in the Son of God and the full knowledge (more than γνῶσις ; see Valckenaer in Luc. p. 14 f., and comp. on Eph_1:17) of the Son of God may be in all one and the same; no longer—as before the attainment of this goal—varying in the individuals in proportion to the influences of different teaching (Eph_4:14). καὶ τῆς ἐπιγν ., however, is not to be taken as epexegesis of τῆς πίστ . (Calvin, Calovius, and others), which is precluded not by καί (see on Gal_6:16), but by the circumstance that there is no ground at all for the epexegetic view, and that πίστις and ἐπίγνωσις are different notions, although the two are mutually related, the former as the necessary condition of the latter (Php_3:9-10; 1Jn_4:16). Peculiar, but erroneous, is the view of Olshausen (whom Bisping has followed), that the unity between faith and knowledge is to be understood, and that the development, of which Paul speaks, consists in faith and knowledge becoming one, i.e. in the faith, with which the Christian life begins, becoming truly raised to knowledge. At variance with the context, since the connection speaks of the unity which is to combine the different individuals (Eph_4:3 ff.); and also opposed to the whole tenor of the apostle’s teaching elsewhere, inasmuch as faith itself after the Parousia is not to cease as such (he merged in knowledge), but is to abide (1Co_13:13).
εἰς ἄνδρα τέλειον ] concrete figurative apposition to what precedes: unto a full-grown man, sc. shall have attained, i.e. shall have at length grown up, become ultimately developed into such an one.[220] The state of the unity of the faith, etc., is thought of as the full maturity of manhood; to which the more imperfect state, wherein the ἑνότης is not yet attained (Eph_4:14), is opposed as a yet immature age of childhood. Comp. 1Co_13:11. Paul does not say εἰς ἄνδρας τελείους , because he looks upon the πάντες as one ethical person; comp. Eph_2:15 f. On τέλειος , of the maturity of manhood, comp. 1Co_2:6; 1Co_14:20; Heb_5:14 (and Bleek thereon); Plato, Legg. xi. p. 929 C, i. p. 643 D; Xen. Cyr. i. 2. 4; Polyb. iv. 8. 1, v. 29. 2. Comp. also, for the figurative sense, Philo, de agric. I. p. 301, Leg. ad Caium, init.
εἰς μέτρον κ . τ . λ .] second apposition, for the more precise definition of the former. The measure of the age of the fulness of Christ is the measure, which one has attained with the entrance upon that age to which the reception of the fulness of Christ is attached (see the further explanation below), or, without a figure: the degree of the progressive Christian development which conditions the reception of that fulness. The ἡλικία in question, namely, is conceived of as the section of a dimension in space, beginning at a definite place, so that the ἡλικία is attained only after one has traversed the measured extent, whose terminal point is the entrance into the ἡλικία . Comp. Hom. Il. xi. 225: ἐπὶ ῥʼ ἥβης ἐρικυδέος ἵκετο μέτρον , Od. xi. 317: εἰ ἥβης μέτρον ἵκοιτο , 18:21. ἡλικία , however, is not statura (Luk_19:3), as is supposed by Erasmus, Beza, Homberg, Grotius, Calixtus, Erasmus Schmid, Wolf, Bengel, Zachariae, Rückert, and others, which would be suitable only if the ἀνὴρ τέλειος always had a definite measure of bodily size; but it is equivalent to aetas (Mat_6:27), and that not, as it might in itself imply (Dem. 17. 11; 1352. 11; Xen. Mem. iv. 2. 3), specially aetas virilis (so Morus, Koppe, Storr, Flatt, Matthies, Holzhausen, Harless, and others), since, on the contrary, the more precise definition of the aetas in itself indefinite is only given by τοῦ πληρ . τ . Χρ ., which belongs to it (Winer, p. 172 [E. T. 238]); so that ἡλικία τοῦ πληρ . τ . Χρ . taken together characterizes the adult age of the Christians.
τοῦ πληρώματος τ . Χρ .] defines the age which is meant, as that to which the fulness of Christ is peculiar, i.e. in which one receives the fulness of Christ. Before the attainment thereof, i.e. before one has attained to this degree of Christian perfection, one has received, indeed, individual and partial charismatic endowment from Christ, but not yet the fulness, the whole largas capias of gifts of grace, which Christ communicates. πλήρωμα is here, just as at Eph_3:19, not the church of Christ (Storr, Koppe, Stolz, Flatt, Baumgarten-Crusius), which in Eph_1:23 is doubtless so characterized, but not so named. This also in opposition to Baur, p. 438, according to whom τὸ πλήρ . τ . Χρ . means: “Christ’s being filled, or the contents with which Christ fills Himself, thus the church.” All explanations, moreover, which resolve πλήρωμα into an adjectival notion ( πληρωθείς ) are arbitrary changes of the meaning of the word and of its expressive representation, whether this adjectival notion be connected with ἡλικίας [221] or with τοῦ Χριστοῦ .[222] Grotius, doubtless, leaves πλήρ . as a substantive; but, at variance with linguistic usage, makes of it the being full, and of τ . Χρ (so already Oecumenius), the knowledge of Christ (“ad eum staturae modum, qui est plenus Christi, i. e. cognitionis de Christo”). Rückert takes πλήρωμα as perfection, and τοῦ Χριστοῦ as genitive of the possessor. The meaning of the word he takes to be: “We are to become just as perfect a man as Christ is.” Christ stands before us as the ideal of manly greatness and beauty, the church not yet grown to maturity, but destined to be like Him, as perfect as He is,—which is a figure of spiritual perfection and completion. But πλήρωμα nowhere signifies perfection ( τελειότης ), and nowhere is Christ set forth, even in a merely figurative way, as an ideal of manly greatness and beauty. He stands there as Head of His body (Eph_4:12; Eph_4:15-16). As little, finally, as at Eph_3:19, does πλήρωμα τοῦ Χρ . here signify the full gracious presence of Christ (Harless; comp. Holzhausen). So also Matthies: “the fulness of the Divinity manifest in Christ and through Him also embodied in the church.” Where the πλήρωμα τοῦ Χρ . is communicated, there the full gracious presence of Christ is in man’s heart (Rom_8:10; Gal_3:20), but τὸ πλήρ . τοῦ Χρ . does not mean this.
[219] The sum of the confession, in which all are to become one in faith and knowledge,—not merely, as Bleek turns it, are to feel themselves one in the communion of faith and of the knowledge of Christ.
[220] The most involved way, in which the whole following passage can be taken, is to be found in Hofmann, Schriftbew. II. 2, p. 129 ff. He begins, in spite of the absence of a particle ( οὖν or δέ ), with εἰς ἄνδρα τέλειον a new sentence, of which the verb is αὐξήσωμεν , ver. 15; the latter is a self-encouragement to growth; but ἵνα μηκέτι κ . τ . λ . is dependent on αὐξήσωμεν . In this way, in place of the simple evolution of the discourse, such as is so specially characteristic of this Epistle, there is forced upon it an artificially-involved period, and there is introduced an exhortation as yet entirely foreign to the connection (only with ver. 17 does Paul return to the hortatory address).
[221] So Luther: “of the perfect age of Christ.” Comp. Castalio, Calvin (“plena aetas”), Estius, Michaelis, and others; in which case τοῦ Χριστοῦ has by some been taken sensu mystico of the church, by others (see Morus and Rosenmüller) ad quam Chr. nos ducit, or the like, has been inserted.
[222] So most expositors, who take ἡλικία as stature. It is explained: stature of the full-grown Christ, as to which Beza says, “Dicitur … Christus non in sese, sed in nobis adolescere;” Wolf, on the other hand: “Christus … in exemplum proponitur corpori suo mystico, … ut, quemadmodum ipse qua homo se ostendit sapientia crescentem, prout annis et statura auctus fuit, ita fideles quoque sensim incrementa capiant in fide et cognitione, tandemque junctim perfectum virum Christo … similem sistunt.” Comp. Erasmus, Paraphr.
REMARK 1.
The question whether the goal to be attained, indicated by Paul in Eph_4:13, is thought of by him as occurring in the temporal life, or only in the αἰὼν μέλλων , is answered in the former sense by Chrysostom, Theophylact, Oecumenius, Jerome, Ambrosiaster, Thomas, Luther, Cameron, Estius, Calovius, Michaelis, Morcs, and others, including Flatt (who thinks of the last times of the church on earth), Rückert, Meier, de Wette, Schenkel; in the latter sense,[223] by Theodoret ( τῆς δὲ τελειότητος ἐν τῷ μέλλοντι βίῳ τευξόμεθα ), Calvin, Zanchius, Koppe, and others, including Holzhausen; while Harless judges that Paul sets forth the goal as the goal of the life of Christian fellowship here upon earth, but says nothing on the question as to “whether it is to be attained here or in the life to come; as also Olshausen is of opinion that Paul had not even thought of the contrast between here below and there. But Eph_4:14-15 show most distinctly that Paul thought of the goal in Eph_4:13 as setting in even before the Parousia; and to this points also the comparison of Eph_3:19, where, in substance, the same thing as is said at our passage by εἰς μέτρον ἡλικίας κ . τ . λ ., is expressed by ἵνα πληρωθῆτε εἰς πᾶν τὸ πλήρωμα τοῦ Θεοῦ . The development of the whole Christian community to the goal here described Paul has thus thought of as near at hand, beyond doubt setting in (Eph_4:14) after the working of the antichristian principle preceding the Parousia (see on Eph_6:11; Usteri, Lehrbegr. p. 348 f.), as a consequence of this purifying process, and then the Parousia itself. We have consequently here a pointing to the state of unity of faith and knowledge,[224] which sets in after the last storms τοῦ ἐνεστῶτος αἰῶνος πονηροῦ (Gal_1:4), and then is at once followed by the consummation of the kingdom of Christ by the Parousia.[225] With this view 1Co_13:11 is not at variance, where the time after is compared with the age of manhood; the same figure is rather employed by Paul to describe different future conditions, according as the course of the discussion demanded. Comp. 1Co_14:20; 1Co_3:1. On the other hand, the reason adduced for the reference to an earthly goal (Calovius and Estius), namely, that after the Parousia there is not faith, but sight, is invalid; for see on 1Co_13:13.
[223] In fact, Fathers of the church (Augustine, de Civ. ii. 15; and see also Jerome, Epit. P. 12) and scholastic writers (Anselm, Thomas) have referred our passage to the resurrection of the dead, of whom it is held to be here said, that they would all be raised in full manly age like Christ. Several (already Origen, as is asserted by Jerome, ad Pammach. Ep. 61, and afterwards Scotus) have even inferred that all women (with the exception of Mary) would arise of the male sex!
[224] This ἐπίγνωσις is consequently not yet the perfect one, which occurs after the Parousia, as it is described 1Co_13:12.
[225] According to Schwegler, l.c. p. 381, our passage betrays the later author, who, taking a retrospective view from the Montanistic standpoint, could conceive the thought of such a division into epochs. As though Paul himself, looking forward from his view, as he expresses it, e.g., 1Co_12:4 ff., could not also have hoped for a speedy development unto unity of the faith, etc.! The hypothesis of a “certain time-interest” (Baur) was not needed for this purpose.
REMARK 2.
Μέχρι καταντήσωμεν κ . τ . λ . is not to be interpreted to the effect, that with the setting in of the unity, etc., the functions thought of in Eph_4:11 would cease,—which rather will be the case only at the Parousia (1Co_13:8-10; 1Co_3:13 ff.),—but the time of the unity, etc., is itself included in the (last) period of the duration of those churchly ministrations, so that only the Parousia is their terminus. The distinction made by Titmann, Synon. p. 33 f., between ἄχρι and μέχρι —which in fact receive merely from the connection the determination of the point, whether the “until” is to be taken inclusively or exclusively—is invented. See Fritzsche, ad Rom. I. p. 308 f. The distinction of the two words lies not in the signification, but in the original sensuous mode of conception which was associated with the until: “quum altera particula spatium illud, quoad aliquid pertinere diceretur, metiretur ex altitudine, altera vero ex longitudine,” Klotz, ad Devar. p. 225.