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Eph_5:27. Aim of the ἁγιάσῃ ἐν ῥήματι , and so final aim of the ἑαυτὸν παρέδωκεν ὑπὲρ αὐτῆς , to be realized at the Parousia. Comp. on 2Co_11:2. παραστήσῃ is already rightly referred to the time of the consummatio saeculi by Augustine, Jerome, Primasius, Thomas, Beza, Estius, Calovius, and others, including Flatt, Rückert, de Wette, Schenkel, Bleek; while the Greek Fathers, Lyra, Cajetanus, Bucer, Wolf, Bengel, and others, including Harless and Hofmann, p. 136, think of an act of Christ in the αἰὼν οὗτος , and many others do not at all declare their views with regard to the time. But if ἵνα παραστ . κ . τ . λ . is not to apply to the time of the Parousia, it must either be taken as the design of the καθαρίσας (Bengel), or as a parallel to ἵνα αὐτὴν ἁγιάσῃ (Harless). The former is not admissible, because ἐν ῥήματι , which itself belongs to ἁγιάσῃ (see on Eph_5:26), stands between; nor yet is the latter, because ἁγιάσῃ does not denote the same thing with καθαρίσας (see on Eph_5:26), but the making holy through the word; and this making holy cannot from its nature be parallel to the momentary act of presenting of the church as a glorious and spotless one, but can only be antecedent, so that this presentation must be the final result of the sanctifying which has already taken place through the word.
παραστήσῃ ] might set forth, present, coram sisteret, namely, as His bride. Comp. 2Co_11:2. The view of Harless, that the church is conceived of not as bride, but as spotless offering (on παραστ . comp. Rom_12:1), is opposed to the context, and incorrect also on account of ἑαυτῷ , by which, in fact, there would result the conception that Christ presents the offering to Himself. No, the union of Christ with His church at the Parousia, in order to confer upon it Messianic blessedness, is conceived of by Paul (as also by Christ Himself, Mat_25:1 ff., comp. Rev_19:7 ff.; see also Joh_3:29) under the figure of the bringing home of a bride, wherein Christ appears as the bridegroom and sets forth the bride, i.e. His church, as a spotless virgin (the bodily purity is a representa of the ethical) before Himself, after He has already in the αἰὼν οὗτος cleansed it by the bath of baptism (i.e. blotted out the pre-Christian guilt of the church) and sanctified it through His word. To deny the reference of καθαρίσας κ . τ . λ . and of Eph_5:27 to the circumstances of a wedding, and particularly the allusion to the bath to be taken by the bride before the wedding-day (Harless, Baumgarten-Crusius, Hofmann, and others), is an over-refinement of taste at variance with the context.[279]
The presentation in our passage was referred by Kahnis (Abendm. p. 144) to the Lord’s Supper, an application which is warranted neither by the context nor by the analogy of 2Co_11:2 and Matthew 25
αὐτὸς ἑαυτῷ ] so that what takes place is not therefore as in the case of the bringing home of actual brides by others, but Christ Himself, as He gave Himself to sanctify it, etc., presents the church as bride to Himself at His Parousia, and indeed as ἔνδοξον , in glorious beauty (Luk_7:25; Isa_22:18, al.), which is with emphasis placed before τὴν ἐκκλησίαν , and subsequently receives by means of ΜῊ ἜΧΟΥΣΑΝ Κ . Τ . Λ . a detached, more precise negative definition specially to be brought into prominence. With regard to ΑὐΤῸς ἙΑΥΤῷ , comp. 2Co_1:9; Xen. Mem. iii. 5. 11; Thucyd. vi. 40. 3; Krüger, § 51. 2. 12.
σπῖλον ] maculam, comp. 2Pe_2:13, a word of the later age of Greek, instead of the Attic κηλίς . See Lobeck, ad Phryn. p. 28. In the figure is meant a corporeal blemish, but in the reality a moral defilement. The same is the case with ῥυτίδα , rugam, which occurs only here in the N.T., but often in the classical writers, not in the LXX. or Apocrypha. Special distinctions as to what is intended by the two figures are arbitrary. So e.g. Estius (after Augustine): σπῖλ . signifies deformitas operis, and ῥυτ . duplicitas intentionis; Grotius: the former applies to the carere vitiis, the latter to the vegetos semper esse for good (because wrinkles are characteristic of age).
ἤ τι τῶν τοιούτων which belongs to the category of such things, of that which disfigures, like spots and wrinkles.
ἈΛΛʼ ἽΝΑ ᾞ Κ . Τ . Λ .] change of the construction, instead of ἈΛΛʼ ΟὖΣΑΝ Κ . Τ . Λ ., as if ἽΝΑ ΜῊ ἜΧῌ Κ . Τ . Λ . had been said before. Versatility of the Greek mode of thought and expression. See, in general, Matthiae, p. 1527 f.; Winer, p. 509 [E. T. 722]; Buttmann, neutest. Gr. p. 208 [E. T. 241].
ἁγία ] the thing signified in place of the figure, which would be more congruously expressed by ἉΓΝΉ (2Co_11:2).
ἌΜΩΜΟς ] Eph_1:4. Comp. Son_4:7. Grotius, at variance with the context, holds that Paul had in the case of both expressions thought of: “quales victimae esse debebant in V. T.”
[279] It is certainly obvious that this bathing in the case of an actual bride was not the business of the bridegroom (as Hofmann objects); but in the case of the church conceived as the bride the cleansing by the bath of baptism is the act of the bridegroom (who in fact does not cause the bride, cleansed and sanctified by him, to be presented by others, but presents her to himself), and thus Paul has drawn the figure itself in accordance with the state of matters in the reality delineated, as indeed frequently figures are modified in accordance with the thing to be represented (comp. on Mat_25:1; Gal_4:19). If we press the figures beyond the tertium comparationis, no one is any longer appropriate.—On the λουτρὸν νυμφικόν (at which καθαρ . τῷ λουτρῷ τοῦ ὕδατος here glances), comp. specially Bos, Exercitt. p. 185 f.; Hermann, Privatalterth. § 31, 6; Becker, Charicles, ii. p. 460 ff., as also Buxtorf, Synag. p. 626.