Cambridge Greek Testament for Schools and Colleges - Ephesians 1:5 - 1:5

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Cambridge Greek Testament for Schools and Colleges - Ephesians 1:5 - 1:5


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This Chapter Verse Commentaries:

5. προορίσας. Cf. Rom 8:29; 1Co 2:7; Act 4:28; ‘designating’ or ‘appointing’ beforehand, a further definition of Election. The word is not found in LXX., but see Enoch xxxix. 9.

εἰς υἱοθεσίαν διὰ Ἰησοῦ Χρ. εἰς αὐτόν, ‘to attain the relation of sonship towards Himself through Jesus Christ.’

υἱοθεσία in the Greek Bible peculiar to P. ‘Adoption,’ as inscriptions show, was frequent in all parts of the Roman Empire. (See Deissmann, B.S. p. 239.) And St Paul seems to have laid hold of the figure to suggest the truth that the special Christian relation of sonship to God (cf. Eph 5:1) is as the relation of Israel to Jehovah had been (Rom 9:4, cf. Exo 4:22 f.) not a ‘physical’ thing, but due to the Will of the Father. It is never used of the Only-Begotten Son. At the same time the image, as derived from the region of legal fictions, is necessarily an imperfect one, and must not be pressed into all its logical implications. St Paul himself, it should be noticed, speaks of heirs, whose only disqualification is their age, as receiving ‘the adoption’ (Gal 4:5), and even Christians who are already ‘children of God’ (Rom 8:16) as still awaiting ‘adoption’ (Rom 8:23). We must be careful therefore not to interpret the phrase in such a way as to make it contradict Luk 3:38.

διὰ Ἰησοῦ Χριστοῦ. Cf. Hort on 1Pe 2:5. In St Peter however it is ‘through Jesus Christ’ that we offer acceptable sacrifices to God. Here it is ‘through Jesus Christ’ that God conveys to us the gift of sonship. Our election ‘in Christ’ preceded creation. Our ‘adoption’ could not take effect before the appearance of Jesus Christ in flesh; cf. Gal 4:4. In 1Co 8:6 the whole creation, and in a special sense the members of the Christian Church, derive their being through the one Lord Jesus Christ.

εἰς αὐτόν, to be connected closely with υἱοθεσίαν. The relation of Sonship ‘to Himself.’ God is our goal and source (1Co 8:6), as well as the goal and source of Creation (Rom 11:36). εἰς = ‘unto’ rather than ‘into’ (cf. Eph 4:32; Col 1:20).

κατὰ τὴν εὐδοκίαν τοῦ θελήματος αὐτοῦ. Cf. Eph 1:9; Eph 1:11. ‘According to the gracious purpose of His desire.’ The originating and controlling force at the back of God’s election is to be found in God Himself, not indeed in any arbitrary decree, but in His love. Cf. Deu 7:8; esp. Isa 42:1 = Mat 12:18, ὃν εὐδόκησεν ἡ ψυχή μου; and Enoch xxxvii. 4, xxxix. 4, xlix. 4. On εὐδοκία see Eph 1:9.