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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.com | DownloadCambridge Greek Testament for Schools and Colleges - Ephesians 2:21 - 2:21
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This Chapter Verse Commentaries:
21. ἐν ᾧ. Cf. 1Pe 2:4 πρὸς ὃν προσερχόμενοι. The secret of harmonious growth is in the personal link which, however mediated, unites each part of the fabric with the chief Corner Stone.
πᾶσα οἰκοδομὴ. Not ‘all the building’ regarded as a completed whole, nor ‘every building’ as if the whole structure was, like the Temple at Jerusalem, composed of a collection of buildings each in a measure complete in itself, but ‘each course in the building,’ or even every stone in itself. Cf. Mar 13:1 f. ποταποὶ λίθοι καὶ ποταπαὶ οἰκοδομαι … βλέπεις ταύτας τὰς οἰκοδομάς; οὐ μὴ ἀφεθῇ λίθος ἐπὶ λίθον.
συναρμολογουμένη. Cf. Eph 4:16. The word fits both the body and the building; but the meaning is in the first instance drawn from building. See Robinson’s note (pp. 260 ff.).
αὔξει. Cf. Eph 4:15 f. Here the thought of the living organism comes to the surface. Cf. ‘like some tall palm the noiseless fabric sprang.’
εἰς ναὸν ἅγιον ἐν κυρίῳ. See above. The fabric constitutes a shrine, a meeting place for God and man, the visible token of the presence of God upon earth, the spiritual reality of which the Temple at Jerusalem had been the type. Cf. 2Co 6:16; Rev 21:3. ἅγιον ἐν κυρίῳ. The shrine owes its consecration not to any independent sanctity of the associated parts, but to the connexion of each and all with the Corner Stone now regarded as Lord.