Online Resource Library
Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.com | DownloadCambridge Greek Testament for Schools and Colleges - Ephesians 2:22 - 2:22
(Show All Books | Show All Chapters)
This Chapter Verse Commentaries:
22. ἐν ᾧ καὶ ὑμεῖς. Cf. Eph 1:13. St Paul comes back from the description of the Universal Fabric to the Gentile share in it.
συνοικοδομεῖσθε, ‘are builded into one structure with’ the Jew.
εἰς κατοικητήριον τοῦ θεοῦ ἐν πνεύματι. St Paul singles out that function of the Temple which is at once the most primitive and has the most constraining power of consecration. Temples were not built in the first instance for the convenience of the worshippers, but as a Home for their God. The Temple at Jerusalem was built in accordance with this idea, though as St Stephen pointed out (Act 7:48) the prophets were full of warnings against the natural tendency to confuse the symbol with the reality. But even so the Psalmists delight to speak of God as dwelling in Sion (Psa 9:11, Psa 74:2, Psa 76:2), and a whole Psalm (132) is devoted to meditation on this theme in the conviction that an abiding truth was foreshadowed in it. That which the material Temple could only symbolize the Church provides in spirit and reality (cf. Joh 4:24). ἐν πνεύματι. To be taken with the whole phrase συν. εἰς κατ. Cf. 1Jn 3:24; 1Jn 4:13; Eph 3:16 f.