Online Resource Library
Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.com | DownloadHeinrich Meyer Commentary - Philippians 2:13 - 2:13
(Show All Books | Show All Chapters)
This Chapter Verse Commentaries:
Php_2:13. Ground of encouragement to the fulfilment of this precept, in which it is not their own, but God’s power, which works in them, etc. Here Θεός is placed first as the subject, not as the predicate (Hofmann): God is the agent. It is, however, unnecessary and arbitrary to assume before γάρ (with Chrysostom, Oecumenius, Theophylact, Erasmus, and others) an unexpressed thought (“be not terrified at my having said: with fear and trembling”). Bengel gratuitously supplies with Θεός the thought: “praesens vobis etiam absente me” (comp. also van Hengel), while others, as Calvin, Beza, Hoelemann, Rilliet, Wiesinger, who found in μετὰ φόβ . κ . τρ . the antithesis of pride (see on Php_2:12), see in Php_2:13 the motive to humility; and de Wette is of opinion that what was expressed in Php_2:12 under the aspect of fear is here expressed under the aspect of confidence. In accordance with the unity of the sense we ought rather to say: that the great moral demand μετὰ φόβ . κ . τρ . τὴν ἑαυτῶν σωτ . κατεργάζεσθαι , containing as it did the utmost incentive to personal activity, needed for the readers the support of a confidence which should be founded not on their own, but on the divine working. According to Ewald, the μετὰ φόβου κ . τρόμου is to be made good by pointing to the fact that they work before God, who is even already producing in them the right tendency of will. But the idea of the ἐνώπιον τοῦ Θεοῦ was so familiar to the apostle, that he would doubtless have here also directly expressed it. Kähler (comp. Weiss) imports a hint of the divine punishment, of which, however, nothing is contained in the text. So also Hofmann: with fear in presence of Him who is a devouring fire (Heb_12:28 f.), who will not leave unpunished him who does not subordinate his own will and working to the divine. As if Paul had hinted at such thoughts, and had not, on the contrary, himself excluded them by the ὑπὲρ τῆς εὐδοκίας which is added! The thought is rather “dulcissima sententia omnibus piis mentibus,” Form. Conc. p. 659.
Calvin (comp. Calovius) rightly observes on the subject-matter: “intelligo gratiam supernaturalem, quae provenit ex spiritu regenerationis; nam quatenus sumus homines, jam in Deo sumus et vivimus et movemur, verum hic de alio motu disputat Paulus, quam illo universali.” Augustine has justly (in opposition to the Pelagian rationalizing interpretation of a mediate working: “velle operatur suadendo et praemia promittendo”), in conformity with the words, urged the efficaciter operari, which Origen, de Princ. iii. 1, had obliterated, and the Greeks who followed qualified with synergistic reservations.
ἐν ὑμῖν ] not intra coetum vestrum (Hoelemann), but in animis vestris (1Co_12:6; 2Co_4:12; Eph_2:2; Col_1:29; 1Th_2:13), in which He produces the self-determination directed to the κατεργάζεσθαι of their own σωτηρία , and the activity in carrying out this Christian-moral volition.[125] This activity, the ἐνεργεῖν , is the inner moral one, which has the κατεργάζεσθαι as its consequence, and therefore is not to be taken as equivalent to the latter (Vulgate, Luther, and others, including Matthies and Hoelemann). Note, on the contrary, the climactic selection of the two cognate verbs. The regenerate man brings about his own salvation ( κατεργάζεται ) when he does not resist the divine working ( ἘΝΕΡΓῶΝ ) of the willing and the working ( ἘΝΕΡΓΕῖΝ ) in his soul, but yields steady obedience to it in continual conflict with the opposing powers (Eph_6:10 ff.; Gal_5:16; 1Th_5:8, al.); so that he περιπατεῖ , not ΚΑΤᾺ ΣΆΡΚΑ , but ΚΑΤᾺ ΠΝΕῦΜΑ (Rom_8:4), is consequently the child of God, and as child becomes heir (Rom_8:14; Rom_8:17; Rom_8:23). According, therefore, as the matter is viewed from the standpoint of the human activity, which yields obedience to the divine working of the θέλειν and ἘΝΕΡΓΕῖΝ , or from that of the divine activity, which works the θέλειν and ἘΝΕΡΓΕῖΝ , we may say with equal justice, either that God accomplishes the good which He has begun in man, up to the day of Christ; or, that man brings about his own salvation. “Nos ergo volumus, sed Deus in nobis operatur et velle; nos ergo operamur, sed Deus in nobis operatur et operari,” Augustine. How wholly is it otherwise with the unregenerate in Romans 7!
The repetition by Paul of the same word, ἐνεργῶν … τὸ ἐνεργεῖν , has its ground in the encouraging design which he has of making God’s agency felt distinctly and emphatically; hence, also, he specifies the two elements of all morality, not merely the ἐνεργεῖν , but also its premiss, the ΘΈΛΕΙΝ , and keeps them apart by using ΚΑΊ twice: God is the worker in you, as of the willing, so of the working. From His working comes man’s working, just as already his willing.[126]
ὑπὲρ τῆς εὐδοκίας ] for the sake of goodwill, in order to satisfy His own benignant disposition. On the causal ὑπέρ , which is not secundum, comp. Rom_15:8; Kühner, II. 1, p. 421; Winer, p. 359 [E. T. p. 480]; and on εὐδοκία , which is not, with Ewald, to be taken in a deterministic sense, comp. Php_1:15; Rom_10:1. Theodoret aptly says: ΕὐΔΟΚΊΑΝ ΔῈ ΤῸ ἈΓΑΘῸΝ ΤΟῦ ΘΕΟῦ ΠΡΟΣΗΓΌΡΕΥΣΕ ΘΈΛΗΜΑ · ΘΈΛΕΙ ΔῈ ΠΆΝΤΑς ἈΝΘΡΏΠΟΥς ΣΩΘῆΝΑΙ Κ . Τ . Λ . The explanation: “for the sake of the good pleasure, which He has in such willing and working” (Weiss), would amount to something self-evident. Hofmann erroneously makes ὑπὲρ τ . εὐδοκ . belong to ΠΆΝΤΑ ΠΟΙΕῖΤΕ , and convey the sense, that they are to do everything for the sake of the divine good pleasure, about which they must necessarily be concerned, etc. In opposition to this view, which is connected with the misunderstanding of the previous words, the fact is decisive, that τῆς εὐδοκίας only obtains its reference to God through its belonging to ὁ ἐνεργῶν κ . τ . λ .; but if it be joined with what follows, this reference must have been marked,[127] and that, on account of the emphasized position which ὑπ . τ . εὐδοκ . would have, with emphasis (as possibly by ὙΠῈΡ Τῆς ΑὐΤΟῦ ΕὐΔΟΚΊΑς ).
[125] “Velle quidem, quatenus est actus voluntatis, nostrum est ex creatione: bene velle etiam nostrum est, sed quatenus volentes facti per conversionem bene volumus,” Calovius.
[126] This is God’s creative moral action in salvation, Eph_2:10. Comp. Thomasius, Chr. Pers. u. Werk, I. p. 287. Incorrectly, however, the Reformed theologians add: “quae prohiberi non potest.”
[127] Hofmann groundlessly compares Luk_2:14 (but see on that passage) and even Sir_15:15, where Fritzsche, Handb. p. 74 f., gives the right view.