Online Resource Library
Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.com | DownloadHeinrich Meyer Commentary - Ephesians 6:17 - 6:17
(Show All Books | Show All Chapters)
This Chapter Verse Commentaries:
Eph_6:17. We have to prefix not a full stop, as is done by Lachmann and Tischendorf, seeing that Eph_6:18 has reference to the whole from στῆτε onward, Eph_6:14-17 (see on Eph_6:18), but only a comma. Paul, namely, passes over from the participial construction into that of the verbum finitum, as at Eph_1:20,—a change to which he was drawn by the increasing vivacity of his figurative conception, which, moreover, induced him now to prefix the object ( περικεφαλαίαν and μάχαιραν , Eph_6:17).
In natural sequence he brings forward first the taking of the helmet, and then that of the sword; because the left hand already grasps the shield (Eph_6:16), and thus after the taking of the sword there is no hand free.
τοῦ σωτηρίου ] again genitive of apposition. The salvation, i.e. the salvation κατʼ ἐξοχήν the salvation of the Messianic kingdom, of which the Christian is partaker (before the Parousia, as an ideal possession, Rom_8:24[310]), serves, appropriated in his consciousness, to protect him against the assaults of the devil aimed at his everlasting life, like the helmet, which defends the warrior from deadly wounds on the head. As to the Roman helmets, see Lipsius, de milit. Rom. iii. 5, p. 122 ff. For the use of σωτήριον as a substantive, comp. Luk_2:20; Luk_3:6; Act_28:28; frequently met with in the classics and the LXX.; see Schleusner, Thes. sub voce. Neither Christ Himself (Theodoret, Bengel) nor the gospel (Holzhausen) is meant. It is true that the word σωτήριον is not elsewhere used by Paul; but here it is explained as a reminiscence from the LXX. Isa_59:17.
ΔΈΞΑΣΘΕ ] receive, namely, from God (Eph_6:13), who offers you this helmet.
τὴν μάχαιραν τοῦ πνεύματος ] The genitive cannot here be appositional (in opposition to Harless, Olshausen, Schenkel, and older expositors), since there follows the explanation ὅ ἐστι ῥῆμα Θεοῦ , from which it is clear that the sword of the Spirit is not the Spirit itself, but something distinct therefrom, namely, the word of God (comp. Heb_4:12). Comp. also Bleek. If Paul had wished to designate the Spirit itself as sword, the explanation ὅ ἐστι ῥῆμα Θεοῦ would have been inappropriate, inasmuch as the word of God and the Holy Spirit are different things;[311] in Romans, too, πνεῦμα means nothing else than the Holy Spirit. The ΜΆΧΑΙΡΑ ΤΟῦ ΠΝΕΎΜ . is the sword, which the Holy Spirit furnishes (comp. τὴν πανοπλίαν τοῦ Θεοῦ , Eph_6:11; Eph_6:13), and this sword is the word of God, the gospel (comp. on Eph_5:26), the contents of which the Spirit brings vividly to the consciousness of the Christian, in order that he may defend himself by the divine power of the gospel (Rom_1:16) against the assaults of the diabolic powers, and may vanquish them, as the warrior wards off and vanquishes the enemy with the sword. Limitations of the ῥῆμα Θεοῦ , either to the commandments of God (Flatt), or to the divine threatenings against the enemies of the Christians (Koppe), are as arbitrary and inappropriate as is the explaining τοῦ πνεύματος of the human spirit (Morus, Rosenmüller), or by πνευματικήν (Grotius, Michaelis, and others; comp. already Chrysostom and Erasmus), which, according to Grotius, is to serve “molliendis translationibus,” but yet would have again to be explained by τοῦ πνεύματος in the sense of the Holy Spirit.
ὅ ἐστι ] applying, according to the ordinary attraction, to ΤῊΝ ΜΆΧΑΙΡΑΝ . Olshausen, in accordance with his erroneous conception of ΤΟῦ ΠΝΕΎΜΑΤΟς , refers it to the latter. So already Basil, contr. Eunom. 11, who proves from our passage that not only the Son, but also the Spirit is the Word!
[310] Hence Paul in 1Th_5:8 says: περικεφαλαίαν ἐλπίδα σωτηρίας , which, however, does not justify in our passage the explanation hope of salvation, given to it by Cajetanus, Calvin, Zanchius, Boyd, Estius, Grotius, Calixtus, Michaelis, Rosenmüller, Meier, Winzer, and others.
[311] It is true Olshausen observes that the Word as to its inner essence is Spirit, as the efflux of God the Spirit. But that is a quid pro quo; for the word would not here be termed Spirit (as Joh_6:63), but the Spirit, i.e. the Holy Spirit Himself. A like quid pro quo is made by Schenkel, namely, that the word of God is the most adequate expression of the absolute Spirit (Joh_4:24).
REMARK ON Eph_6:14-17.
In the exposition of these several portions of the armour of the spiritual warrior, it is just as unwarrantable to press the comparisons, by pursuing the points of comparison into such particular details as it may please us to select from the various uses of the pieces of armour in question (an error which several of the older expositors committed),—whereby free room is given for the play of subjectivity, and the vivid objective delineation of the apostle’s figure is arbitrarily broken up,—as it is, on the other hand, arbitrary to disregard the differences in the figures derived from military equipment, and to say: “universa potius armorum notio tenenda est” (Winzer, l.c. p. 14; comp. Moras, Rosenmüller, and others). The essential characteristic—the specific main point—whereby the pieces named are distinguished from each other in respect of that for which they serve, must be furnished by the nature of the comparison with the respective means of spiritual conflict; so that Paul must have been conscious why he here designated, e.g., δικαιοσύνη as the breastplate, faith as the shield, etc., namely, inasmuch as he looked at the former really from the point of view of the essential destination of the breastplate, the latter from that of the essential destination of the shield, etc. Otherwise his representation would be a play of figures, of which the separate images, so different in themselves, would have no basis in the conception of what is represented. To this there is nothing opposed in the fact that here δικαιοσύνη appears as the breastplate, while at 1Th_5:8 it is faith and love which so appear; for the figurative mode of regarding the subject can by no means, with a mind so many-sided, rich, and versatile as that of St. Paul, be so stereotyped that the very same thing which he has here viewed under the figure of the protecting breastplate, must have presented itself another time under this very same figure. Thus, e.g., there appears to him, as an offering well-pleasing to God, at one time Christ (Eph_5:2), at another the gifts of love received (Php_4:18), at another time the bodies of Christians (Rom_12:1); under the figure of the seed-corn, at one time the body becoming buried (1Co_15:36 f.), at another time the moral conduct (Gal_6:7); under the figure of the leaven, once moral corruption (1Co_5:6), another time doctrinal corruption (Gal_5:9); under the figure of clothing which is put on, once the new man (Eph_4:24), another time Christ (Gal_3:27), at another time the body (2Co_5:3), and other similar instances.