Paul greeted his readers by wishing God"s grace and peace on them, as he did in all of his other epistles. Grace (Gr. charis) expresses God"s unmerited favor and divine enablement, which are the portion of every saint. Peace (Gr. eirene, which translates the Hebrew shalom) is our condition resulting from God"s grace to us. We have peace with God and we can experience the peace of God, the fullness of His blessing, because of His grace (cf. Numbers 6:25-26). [source][source][source]
"So if we want a concise summary of the good news which the whole letter announces, we could not find a better one than the three monosyllables "peace through grace"." [1][source]
Context Summary
Ephesians 1:1-14 - Our Riches In Christ
This has been called the "Epistle of In-ness,"because it is so full of the preposition in. Saints are flesh and blood like ourselves, and we may be saints. The word means "set apart." We are in Christ and He is in us, and any goodness we have is due to our giving room and scope to Him to realize His own ideals. To be in the heavenlies, Ephesians 1:3, means to live a spiritual life and to draw our reinforcements from the unseen and eternal world, which is focused in our Lord. We are in Him so far as justification is concerned-that is our standing; and He is in us for sanctification-that is the source of a holy and useful life. The condition of a blessed life is the conscious maintenance of this oneness.
The source of all we are, and have, and hope to be, so far as salvation is concerned, is the will of God for us; but the stream flows to us through our Lord, and the end to which all things are moving is the summing-up of all in Christ. As He was the Alpha, so He will be the Omega. The sealing of the Holy Spirit is of incalculable advantage, because it means that we are stamped with the likeness of Christ and so kept inviolate among all the vicissitudes of life. See Esther 8:8; John 6:27. [source]
Chapter Summary: Ephesians 1
1After Paul's salutation, 3and thanksgiving for the Ephesians, 4he treats of our election, 6and adoption by grace; 11which is the true and proper fountain of man's salvation 13And because the height of this mystery cannot be easily attained unto, 16he prays that they may come to the full knowledge and possession thereof in Christ
Greek Commentary for Ephesians 1:2
Grace [] One of the leading words of the epistle. It is used thirteen times. [source]
John 3:5Born of water and the Spirit [] The exposition of this much controverted passage does not fall within the scope of this work. We may observe, 1. That Jesus here lays down the preliminary conditions of entrance into His kingdom, expanding and explaining His statement in John 3:3. -DIVIDER-
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2. That this condition is here stated as complex, including two distinct factors, water and the Spirit. 3. That the former of these two factors is not to be merged in the latter; that the spiritual element is not to exclude or obliterate the external and ritual element. We are not to understand with Calvin, the Holy Spirit as the purifying water in the spiritual sense: “water which is the Spirit.”-DIVIDER-
4. That water points definitely to the rite of baptism, and that with a twofold reference - to the past and to the future. Water naturally suggested to Nicodemus the baptism of John, which was then awakening such profound and general interest; and, with this, the symbolical purifications of the Jews, and the Old Testament use of washing as the figure of purifying from sin (Psalm 2:2,Psalm 2:7; Ezekiel 36:25; Zechariah 13:1). Jesus' words opened to Nicodemus a new and more spiritual significance in both the ceremonial purifications and the baptism of John which the Pharisees had rejected (Luke 7:30). John's rite had a real and legitimate relation to the kingdom of God which Nicodemus must accept. -DIVIDER-
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5. That while Jesus asserted the obligation of the outward rite, He asserted likewise, as its necessary complement, the presence and creating and informing energy of the Spirit with which John had promised that the coming one should baptize. That as John's baptism had been unto repentance, for the remission of sins, so the new life must include the real no less than the symbolic cleansing of the old, sinful life, and the infusion by the Spirit of a new and divine principle of life. Thus Jesus' words included a prophetic reference to the complete ideal of Christian baptism - “the washing of regeneration and the renewing of the Holy Ghost” (Titus 3:5; Ephesians 5:26); according to which the two factors are inseparably blended (not the one swallowed up by the other), and the new life is inaugurated both symbolically in the baptism with water, and actually in the renewing by the Holy Spirit, yet so as that the rite, through its association with the Spirit's energy, is more than a mere symbol: is a veritable vehicle of grace to the recipient, and acquires a substantial part in the inauguration of the new life. Baptism, considered merely as a rite, and apart from the operation of the Spirit, does not and cannot impart the new life. Without the Spirit it is a lie. It is a truthful sign only as the sign of an inward and spiritual grace. -DIVIDER-
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6. That the ideal of the new life presented in our Lord's words, includes the relation of the regenerated man to an organization. The object of the new birth is declared to be that a man may see and enter into the kingdom of God. But the kingdom of God is an economy. It includes and implies the organized Christian community. This is one of the facts which, with its accompanying obligation, is revealed to the new vision of the new man. He sees not only God, but the kingdom of God; God as King of an organized citizenship; God as the Father of the family of mankind; obligation to God implying obligation to the neighbor; obligation to Christ implying obligation to the church, of which He is the head, “which is His body, the fullness of Him that filleth all things with all things” (Ephesians 1:23). Through water alone, the mere external rite of baptism, a man may pass into the outward fellowship of the visible church without seeing or entering the kingdom of God. Through water and the Spirit, he passes indeed into the outward fellowship, but through that into the vision and fellowship of the kingdom of God. [source]
John 1:16Of His fulness [ἐκ τοῦ πληρώματος αὐτοῦ] These and the succeeding words are the Evangelist's, not the Baptist's. The word fullness ( πλήρωμα ) is found here only in John, but frequently occurs in the writings of Paul, whose use of it in Ephesians and Colossians illustrates the sense in John; these being Asiatic churches which fell, later, within the sphere of John's influence. The word is akin to πλήρης , full (John 1:14), and to πληροῦν , to fill or complete; and means that which is complete in itself, plenitude, entire number or quantity. Thus the crew of a ship is called πλήρωμα , its complement. Aristophanes (“Wasps,” 660), “ τούτων πλήρωμα , the sum-total of these, is nearly two thousand talents.” Herodotus (iii., 22) says that the full term of man's life among the Persians is eighty years; and Aristotle (“Polities,” iv., 4) refers to Socrates as saying that the eight classes, representing different industries in the state, constitute the pleroma of the state (see Plato, “Republic,” 371). In Ephesians 1:23, Paul says that the church is the pleroma of Christ: i.e., the plenitude of the divine graces in Christ is communicated to the Church as His body, making all the body, supplied and knit together through the joints and bands, to increase with the increase of God (Colossians 2:19; compare Ephesians 4:16). Similarly he prays (Ephesians 3:19) that the brethren may be filled unto all the pleroma of God: i.e., that they may be filled with the fullness which God imparts. More closely related to John's use of the term here are Colossians 1:19, “It pleased the Father that in Him (Christ) should all the fullness ( τὸ πλήρωμα , note the article) dwell;” and Colossians 2:9,Colossians 2:10, “In Him dwelleth all the pleroma of the Godhead bodily (i.e., corporally, becoming incarnate ), and in Him ye are fulfilled ( πεπληρωμένοι ).” This declares that the whole aggregate of the divine powers and graces appeared in the incarnate Word, and corresponds with John's statement that “the Word became flesh and tabernacled among men, full of grace and truth;” while “ye are fulfilled ” answers to John's “of His fullness we all received.” Hence John's meaning here is that Christians receive from the divine completeness whatever each requires for the perfection of his character and for the accomplishment of his work (compare John 15:15; John 17:22). [source]
John 1:16For [οτι] Correct text (Aleph B C D L) and not και kai (and) of the Textus Receptus. Explanatory reason for John 1:14. Of his fulness The only instance of πληρωμα plērōma in John‘s writings, though five times of Christ in Paul‘s Epistles (Colossians 1:19; Colossians 2:9; Ephesians 1:23; Ephesians 3:19; Ephesians 4:13). See Colossians 1:19 for discussion of these terms of the Gnostics that Paul employs for all the attributes of God summed up in Christ (Colossians 2:9) and so used here by John of the Incarnate Logos. We all John is facing the same Gnostic depreciation of Christ of which Paul writes in Colossians. So here John appeals to all his own contemporaries as participants with him in the fulness of the Logos. Received Second aorist active indicative of λαμβανω lambanō a wider experience than beholding The point is in αντι anti a preposition disappearing in the Koiné and here only in John. It is in the locative case of αντα anta (end), “at the end,” and was used of exchange in sale. See Luke 11:11, αντι ιχτυος οπιν anti ichthuos ophin “a serpent for a fish,” Hebrews 12:2 where “joy” and “cross” are balanced against each other. Here the picture is “grace” taking the place of “grace” like the manna fresh each morning, new grace for the new day and the new service. [source]
Acts 7:55Standing [] Rising from the throne to protect and receive his servant. Usually Jesus is represented in the New Testament as seated at the Father's right hand. See Ephesians 1:20; Colossians 3:1; Hebrews 1:3. [source]
Acts 7:55And Jesus standing [και Ιησουν εστωτα] Full of the Holy Spirit, gazing steadfastly into heaven, he saw God‘s glory and Jesus “standing” as if he had risen to cheer the brave Stephen. Elsewhere (save Acts 7:56 also) he is pictured as sitting at the right hand of God (the Session of Christ) as in Matthew 26:64; Mark 16:19; Acts 2:34; Ephesians 1:20; Colossians 3:1; Hebrews 1:3. [source]
Romans 7:5In the flesh [ἐν τῇ σαρκί] Σάρξ fleshoccurs in the classics in the physical sense only. Homer commonly uses it in the plural as denoting all the flesh or muscles of the body. Later the singular occurs in the same sense. Paul's use of this and other psychological terms must be determined largely by the Old-Testament usage as it appears in the Septuagint. 1. In the physical sense. The literal flesh. In the Septuagint τὰ κρέα flesh(plural) is used where the reference is to the parts of animals slain, and αἱ σάρκες , flesh (plural) where the reference is to flesh as the covering of the living body. Hence Paul uses κρέα in Romans 14:21; 1 Corinthians 8:13, of the flesh of sacrificed animals. Compare also the adjective σάρκιμος fleshy 2 Corinthians 3:3; and Ezekiel 11:19; Ezekiel 36:26, Sept. -DIVIDER-
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2. Kindred. Denoting natural or physical relationship, Romans 1:3; Romans 9:3-8; Romans 11:14; Galatians 4:23,Galatians 4:29; 1 Corinthians 10:18; Philemon 1:16. This usage forms a transition to the following sense: the whole human body. Flesh is the medium in and through which the natural relationship of man manifests itself. Kindred is conceived as based on community of bodily substance. Therefore:-DIVIDER-
3. The body itself. The whole being designated by the part, as being its main substance and characteristic, 1 Corinthians 6:16; 1 Corinthians 7:28; 2 Corinthians 4:11; 2 Corinthians 7:5; 2 Corinthians 10:3; 2 Corinthians 12:7. Romans 2:28; Galatians 6:13, etc. Paul follows the Septuagint in sometimes using σῶμα bodyand sometimes σάρξ fleshin this sense, so that the terms occasionally seem to be practically synonymous. Thus 1 Corinthians 6:16,1 Corinthians 6:17, where the phrase one body is illustrated and confirmed by one flesh. See Genesis 2:24; Ephesians 5:28,Ephesians 5:31, where the two are apparently interchanged. Compare 2 Corinthians 4:10,2 Corinthians 4:11; 1 Corinthians 5:3, and Colossians 2:5. Σάρξ , however, differs from σῶμα in that it can only signify the organism of an earthly, living being consisting of flesh and bones, and cannot denote “either an earthly organism that is not living, or a living organism that is not earthly” (Wendt, in Dickson). Σῶμα not thus limited. Thus it may denote the organism of the plant (1 Corinthians 15:37,1 Corinthians 15:38) or the celestial bodies (1 Corinthians 15:40). Hence the two conceptions are related as general and special: σῶμα bodybeing the material organism apart from any definite matter (not from any sort of matter), σάρξ , flesh, the definite, earthly, animal organism. The two are synonymons when σῶμα is used, from the context, of an earthly, animal body. Compare Philemon 1:22; 2 Corinthians 5:1-8. -DIVIDER-
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Σῶμα bodyand not σάρξ fleshis used when the reference is to a metaphorical organism, as the church, Romans 12:4sqq.; 1 Corinthians 10:16; 12:12-27; Ephesians 1:23; Ephesians 2:16; Colossians 1:18, etc. -DIVIDER-
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The σάρξ is described as mortal (2 Corinthians 4:11); subject to infirmity (Galatians 4:13; 2 Corinthians 12:7); locally limited (Colossians 2:15); an object of fostering care (Ephesians 5:29). -DIVIDER-
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4. Living beings generally, including their mental nature, and with a correlated notion of weakness and perishableness. Thus the phrase πᾶσα σάρξ allflesh (Genesis 6:12; Isaiah 49:26; Isaiah 49:23). This accessory notion of weakness stands in contrast with God. In Paul the phrase all flesh is cited from the Old Testament (Romans 3:20; Galatians 2:16) and is used independently (1 Corinthians 1:29). In all these instances before God is added. So in Galatians 1:16, flesh and blood implies a contrast of human with divine wisdom. Compare 1 Corinthians 15:50; Ephesians 6:12. This leads up to-DIVIDER-
5. Man “either as a creature in his natural state apart from Christ, or the creaturely side or aspect of the man in Christ.” Hence it is correlated with ἄνθρωπος man 1 Corinthians 3:3; Romans 6:19; 2 Corinthians 5:17. Compare Romans 6:6; Ephesians 4:22; Colossians 3:9; Galatians 5:24. Thus the flesh would seem to be interchangeable with the old man. -DIVIDER-
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It has affections and lusts (Galatians 5:24); willings (Ephesians 2:3; Romans 8:6,Romans 8:7); a mind (Colossians 2:18); a body (Colossians 2:11). -DIVIDER-
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It is in sharp contrast with πνεῦμα spirit(Galatians 3:3,Galatians 3:19; Galatians 5:16,Galatians 5:17,Galatians 5:19-24; Galatians 6:8; Romans 8:4). The flesh and the spirit are thus antagonistic. Σάρξ fleshbefore or in contrast with his reception of the divine element whereby he becomes a new creature in Christ: the whole being of man as it exists and acts apart from the influence of the Spirit. It properly characterizes, therefore, not merely the lower forms of sensual gratification, but all - the highest developments of the life estranged from God, whether physical, intellectual, or aesthetic. -DIVIDER-
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It must be carefully noted:-DIVIDER-
1. That Paul does not identify flesh and sin. Compare, flesh of sin, Romans 8:3. See Romans 7:17,Romans 7:18; 2 Corinthians 7:1; Galatians 2:20. -DIVIDER-
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2. That Paul does not identify σάρξ withthe material body nor associate sin exclusively and predominantly with the body. The flesh is the flesh of the living man animated by the soul ( ψυχή ) as its principle of life, and is distinctly used as coordinate with ἄνθρωπος manAs in the Old Testament, “it embraces in an emphatic manner the nature of man, mental and corporeal, with its internal distinctions.” The spirit as well as the flesh is capable of defilement (2 Corinthians 7:1; compare 1 Corinthians 7:34). Christian life is to be transformed by the renewing of the mind (Romans 12:2; compare Ephesians 4:23). -DIVIDER-
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3. That Paul does not identify the material side of man with evil. The flesh is not the native seat and source of sin. It is only its organ, and the seat of sin's manifestation. Matter is not essentially evil. The logical consequence of this would be that no service of God is possible while the material organism remains. See Romans 12:1. The flesh is not necessarily sinful in itself; but as it has existed from the time of the introduction of sin through Adam, it is recognized by Paul as tainted with sin. Jesus appeared in the flesh, and yet was sinless (2 Corinthians 5:21).The motions of sins ( τὰ παθήματα τῶν ἁμαρτιῶν )Motions used in earlier English for emotions or impulses. Thus Bacon: “He that standeth at a stay where others rise, can hardly avoid motions of envy” (“Essay” xiv.). The word is nearly synonymous with πάθος passion(Romans 1:26, note). From πάθειν tosuffer; a feeling which the mind undergoes, a passion, desire. Rev., sinful passions: which led to sins.Did work ( ἐνηργεῖτο )Rev., wrought. See 2 Corinthians 1:6; 2 Corinthians 4:12; Ephesians 3:20; Galatians 5:6; Philemon 2:13; Colossians 1:29. Compare Mark 6:14, and see on power, John 1:12. [source]
Romans 6:6The body of sin [τὸ σῶμα τῆς ἁμαρτίας] Σῶμα in earlier classical usage signifies a corpse. So always in Homer and often in later Greek. So in the New Testament, Matthew 6:25; Mark 5:29; Mark 14:8; Mark 15:43. It is used of men as slaves, Revelation 18:13. Also in classical Greek of the sum-total. So Plato: τὸ τοῦ κόσμου σῶμα thesum-total of the world (“Timaeus,” 31). The meaning is tinged in some cases by the fact of the vital union of the body with the immaterial nature, as being animated by the ψυξή soulthe principle of individual life. Thus Matthew 6:25, where the two are conceived as forming one organism, so that the material ministries which are predicated of the one are predicated of the other, and the meanings of the two merge into one another. -DIVIDER-
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In Paul it can scarcely be said to be used of a dead body, except in a figurative sense, as Romans 8:10, or by inference, 2 Corinthians 5:8. Commonly of a living body. It occurs with ψυχή soulonly 1 Thessalonians 5:23, and there its distinction from ψυχή rather than its union with it is implied. So in Matthew 10:28, though even there the distinction includes the two as one personality. It is used by Paul:-DIVIDER-
1. Of the living human body, Romans 4:19; 1 Corinthians 6:13; 1 Corinthians 9:27; 1 Corinthians 12:12-26. -DIVIDER-
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2. Of the Church as the body of Christ, Romans 12:5; 1 Corinthians 12:27; Ephesians 1:23; Colossians 1:18, etc. Σάρξ fleshnever in this sense. -DIVIDER-
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3. Of plants and heavenly bodies, 1 Corinthians 15:37,1 Corinthians 15:40. -DIVIDER-
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4. Of the glorified body of Christ, Philemon 3:21. -DIVIDER-
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5. Of the spiritual body of risen believers, 1 Corinthians 15:44. -DIVIDER-
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It is distinguished from σάρξ fleshas not being limited to the organism of an earthly, living body, 1 Corinthians 15:37,1 Corinthians 15:38. It is the material organism apart from any definite matter. It is however sometimes used as practically synonymous with σάρξ , 1 Corinthians 7:16,1 Corinthians 7:17; Ephesians 5:28,Ephesians 5:31; 2 Corinthians 4:10,2 Corinthians 4:11. Compare 1 Corinthians 5:3with 2 Corinthians 4:10-122. An ethical conception attaches to it. It is alternated with μέλη membersand the two are associated with sin (Romans 1:24; Romans 6:6; Romans 7:5,Romans 7:24; Romans 8:13; Colossians 3:5), and with sanctification (Romans 12:1; 1 Corinthians 6:19sq.; compare 1 Thessalonians 4:4; 1 Thessalonians 5:23). It is represented as mortal, Romans 8:11; 2 Corinthians 10:10; and as capable of life, 1 Corinthians 13:3; 2 Corinthians 4:10. -DIVIDER-
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In common with μέλη membersit is the instrument of feeling and willing rather than σάρξ , because the object in such cases is to designate the body not definitely as earthly, but generally as organic, Romans 6:12,Romans 6:13,Romans 6:19; 2 Corinthians 5:10. Hence, wherever it is viewed with reference to sin or sanctification, it is the outward organ for the execution of the good or bad resolves of the will. -DIVIDER-
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The phrase body of sin denotes the body belonging to, or ruled by, the power of sin, in which the members are instruments of unrighteousness (Romans 6:13). Not the body as containing the principle of evil in our humanity, since Paul does not regard sin as inherent in, and inseparable from, the body (see Romans 6:13; 1714178012_14; 2 Corinthians 7:1. Compare Matthew 15:19), nor as precisely identical with the old man, an organism or system of evil dispositions, which does not harmonize with Romans 6:12,Romans 6:13, where Paul uses body in the strict sense. “Sin is conceived as the master, to whom the body as slave belongs and is obedient to execute its will. As the slave must perform his definite functions, not because he in himself can perform no others, but because of His actually subsistent relationship of service he may perform no others, while of himself he might belong as well to another master and render other services; so the earthly σῶμα bodybelongs not of itself to the ἁμαρτία sinbut may just as well belong to the Lord (1 Corinthians 6:13), and doubtless it is de facto enslaved to sin, so long as a redemption from this state has not set in by virtue of the divine Spirit” (Romans 7:24: Dickson).DestroyedSee on Romans 3:3.He that is dead ( ὁ ἀποθανὼν )Rev., literally, he that hath died. In a physical sense. Death and its consequences are used as the general illustration of the spiritual truth. It is a habit of Paul to throw in such general illustrations. See Romans 7:2. [source]
Romans 11:11By their fall [τωι αυτων παραπτωματι] Instrumental case. For the word, a falling aside or a false step from παραπιπτω parapiptō see note on Romans 5:15-20. Is come. No verb in the Greek, but γινεται ginetai or γεγονεν gegonen is understood. For to provoke them to jealousy Purpose expressed by εις eis and the articular infinitive, first aorist active, of παραζηλοω parazēloō for which verb see note on 1 Corinthians 10:22. As an historical fact Paul turned to the Gentiles when the Jews rejected his message (Acts 13:45.; Acts 28:28, etc.). The riches of the world (πλουτος κοσμου ploutos kosmou). See note on Romans 10:12. Their loss So perhaps in 1 Corinthians 6:7, but in Isaiah 31:8 defeat is the idea. Perhaps so here. Fulness (πληρωμα plērōma). Perhaps “completion,” though the word from πληροω plēroō to fill, has a variety of senses, that with which anything is filled (1 Corinthians 10:26,1 Corinthians 10:28), that which is filled (Ephesians 1:23). How much more? Argument a fortiori as in Romans 11:24. Romans 11:25 illustrates the point. [source]
Romans 11:11For to provoke them to jealousy [εις το παραζηλωσαι] Purpose expressed by εις eis and the articular infinitive, first aorist active, of παραζηλοω parazēloō for which verb see note on 1 Corinthians 10:22. As an historical fact Paul turned to the Gentiles when the Jews rejected his message (Acts 13:45.; Acts 28:28, etc.). The riches of the world (πλουτος κοσμου ploutos kosmou). See note on Romans 10:12. Their loss So perhaps in 1 Corinthians 6:7, but in Isaiah 31:8 defeat is the idea. Perhaps so here. Fulness (πληρωμα plērōma). Perhaps “completion,” though the word from πληροω plēroō to fill, has a variety of senses, that with which anything is filled (1 Corinthians 10:26,1 Corinthians 10:28), that which is filled (Ephesians 1:23). How much more? Argument a fortiori as in Romans 11:24. Romans 11:25 illustrates the point. [source]
Ephesians 4:9Now that He ascended [] Ephesians 4:9and Ephesians 4:10are parenthetical, showing what the ascension of Christ presupposes. By descending into the depths and ascending above all, He entered upon His function of filling the whole universe, in virtue of which function He distributes gifts to men. See Ephesians 1:23. Rev., properly, inserts this, thus giving the force of the article which calls attention to the fact of ascension alluded to in the quotation. “Now the or this 'He ascended.”' [source]
Ephesians 3:10By the Church [διά] Better, through, as Rev. By means of the Church. This agrees with what was said of the Church as the fullness of God, Ephesians 1:23. [source]
Ephesians 2:6Made us sit together [συνεκάθισεν] Compare set Him, Ephesians 1:20. Together is ambiguous. Render with Him, as Rev. “Even now we sit there in Him, and shall sit with Him in the end” (Andrews, cited by Ellicott). Compare Romans 8:30; Revelation 3:21. Meyer renders hath given us joint seat. [source]
Ephesians 1:3In the heavenly places [ἐν τοῖς ἐπουρανίοις] Another keyword; one of the dominant thoughts of the epistle being the work of the ascended Christ. Places is supplied, the Greek meaning in the heavenlies. Some prefer to supply things, as more definitely characterizing spiritual blessing. But in the four other passages where the phrase occurs, Ephesians 1:20; Ephesians 2:6; Ephesians 3:10; Ephesians 6:12, the sense is local, and ἐπουράνιος heavenlyis local throughout Paul's epistles. The meaning is that the spiritual blessings of God are found in heaven and are brought thence to us. Compare Philemon 3:20. [source]
Ephesians 1:20In the heavenly places [] See on Ephesians 1:2. Local. Not merely of a spiritual state, which does not suit the local expressions made to sit and right hand. [source]
Ephesians 1:19Exceeding [ὑπερβάλλον] Compounds with ὑπέρ overbeyond, are characteristic of Paul's intensity of style, and mark the struggle of language with the immensity of the divine mysteries, and the opulence of the divine grace. See Ephesians 1:21; Ephesians 3:20; 2 Corinthians 4:17, etc. [source]
Ephesians 2:16Them both [τους αμποτερους] “The both,” “the two” The “one new man” of Ephesians 2:15 of which Christ is Head (Ephesians 1:23), the spiritual church. Paul piles up metaphors to express his idea of the Kingdom of God with Christ as King (the church, the body, the commonwealth of Israel, oneness, one new man in Christ, fellow-citizens, the family of God, the temple of God). Thereby On the Cross where he slew the enmity (repeated here) between Jew and Gentile. [source]
Ephesians 1:3The God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ [ο τεος και πατηρ του Κυριου ημων Ιησου Χριστου] Και Kai is genuine here, though not in Colossians 1:3. The one article First aorist active participle of ευλογεω eulogeō the same word, antecedent action to the doxology (ευλογητος eulogētos). With So-called instrumental use of εν en though in is clear. Every spiritual blessing (πασηι ευλογιαι πνευματικηι pasēi eulogiāi pneumatikēi). Third use of the root ευλογ eulog (verbal, verb, substantive). Paul lovingly plays with the idea. The believer is a citizen of heaven and the spiritual blessings count for most to him. In the heavenly places in Christ In four other places in Ephesians (Ephesians 1:20; Ephesians 2:6; Ephesians 3:10; Ephesians 6:12). This precise phrase (with εν en) occurs nowhere else in the N.T. and has a clearly local meaning in Ephesians 1:20; Ephesians 2:6; Ephesians 3:10, doubtful in Ephesians 6:12, but probably so here. In Ephesians 2:6 the believer is conceived as already seated with Christ. Heaven is the real abode of the citizen of Christ‘s kingdom (Philemon 3:20) who is a stranger on earth (Philemon 1:27; Ephesians 2:19). The word επουρανιος epouranios (heavenly) occurs in various passages in the N.T. in contrast with τα επιγεια ta epigeia (the earthly) as in John 3:12; 1 Corinthians 15:40,1 Corinthians 15:48,1 Corinthians 15:49; Philemon 2:10, with πατρις patris (country) in Hebrews 11:16, with κλησις klēsis (calling) in Hebrews 3:1, with δωρεα dōrea (gift) in Hebrews 6:4, with βασιλεια basileia (kingdom) in 2 Timothy 4:18. [source]
Ephesians 2:16In one body [εν ενι σωματι] The “one new man” of Ephesians 2:15 of which Christ is Head (Ephesians 1:23), the spiritual church. Paul piles up metaphors to express his idea of the Kingdom of God with Christ as King (the church, the body, the commonwealth of Israel, oneness, one new man in Christ, fellow-citizens, the family of God, the temple of God). [source]
Ephesians 4:10Far above [υπερανω] See note on Ephesians 1:21. All the heavens (παντων των ουρανων pantōn tōn ouranōn). Ablative case after υπερανω huperanō For the plural used of Christ‘s ascent see note on Hebrews 4:14 and note on Hebrews 7:27. Whether Paul has in mind the Jewish notion of a graded heaven like the third heaven in 2 Corinthians 12:2 or the seven heavens idea one does not know. That he might fill all things This purpose we can understand, the supremacy of Christ (Colossians 2:9.). [source]
Ephesians 1:3With [εν] So-called instrumental use of εν en though in is clear. Every spiritual blessing (πασηι ευλογιαι πνευματικηι pasēi eulogiāi pneumatikēi). Third use of the root ευλογ eulog (verbal, verb, substantive). Paul lovingly plays with the idea. The believer is a citizen of heaven and the spiritual blessings count for most to him. In the heavenly places in Christ In four other places in Ephesians (Ephesians 1:20; Ephesians 2:6; Ephesians 3:10; Ephesians 6:12). This precise phrase (with εν en) occurs nowhere else in the N.T. and has a clearly local meaning in Ephesians 1:20; Ephesians 2:6; Ephesians 3:10, doubtful in Ephesians 6:12, but probably so here. In Ephesians 2:6 the believer is conceived as already seated with Christ. Heaven is the real abode of the citizen of Christ‘s kingdom (Philemon 3:20) who is a stranger on earth (Philemon 1:27; Ephesians 2:19). The word επουρανιος epouranios (heavenly) occurs in various passages in the N.T. in contrast with τα επιγεια ta epigeia (the earthly) as in John 3:12; 1 Corinthians 15:40,1 Corinthians 15:48,1 Corinthians 15:49; Philemon 2:10, with πατρις patris (country) in Hebrews 11:16, with κλησις klēsis (calling) in Hebrews 3:1, with δωρεα dōrea (gift) in Hebrews 6:4, with βασιλεια basileia (kingdom) in 2 Timothy 4:18. [source]
Philippians 3:21Subdue [ὑποτάξαι] Rev., subject. See on James 4:7. It is more than merely subdue. It is to bring all things within His divine economy; to marshal them all under Himself in the new heaven and the new earth in which shall dwell righteousness. Hence the perfected heavenly state as depicted by John is thrown into the figure of a city, an organized commonwealth. The verb is thus in harmony with Phlippians 3:20. The work of God in Christ is therefore not only to transform, but to subject, and that not only the body, but all things. See 1 Corinthians 15:25-27; Romans 8:19,Romans 8:20; Ephesians 1:10,Ephesians 1:21,Ephesians 1:22; Ephesians 4:10. [source]
Philippians 2:9A name [] Rev., correctly, the name. This expression is differently explained: either the particular name given to Christ, as Jesus or Lord; or name is taken in the sense of dignity or glory, which is a common Old-Testament usage, and occurs in Ephesians 1:21; Hebrews 1:4. Under the former explanation a variety of names are proposed, as Son of God, Lord, God, Christ Jesus. The sense of the personal name Jesus seems to meet all the conditions, and the personal sense is the simpler, since Jesus occurs immediately after with the word name, and again Jesus Christ in Phlippians 2:11. The name Jesus was bestowed on Christ at the beginning of His humiliation, but prophetically as the One who should save His people from their sins, Matthew 1:21. It was the personal name of others besides; but if that is an objection here, it is equally an objection in Phlippians 2:10. The dignity is expressed by above every name. He bears the name in His glory. See Acts 9:5. See on Matthew 1:21. [source]
Philippians 2:10That in the name of Jesus every knee should bow [ινα εν τωι ονοματι Ιησου παν γονυ καμπσηι] First aorist active subjunctive of καμπτω kamptō old verb, to bend, to bow, in purpose clause with ινα hina Not perfunctory genuflections whenever the name of Jesus is mentioned, but universal acknowledgment of the majesty and power of Jesus who carries his human name and nature to heaven. This universal homage to Jesus is seen in Romans 8:22; Ephesians 1:20-22 and in particular Revelation 5:13. [source]
Colossians 1:19It pleased the Father that in Him should all fullness dwell [ἐν αὐτῷ εὐδόκησεν πᾶν τὸ πλήρωμα κατοικῆσαι] Εὐδοκέω tothink it good, to be well pleased is used in the New Testament, both of divine and of human good-pleasure; but, in the former case, always of God the Father. So Matthew 3:17; Luke 12:32; 1 Corinthians 1:21. The subject of was well pleased, God, is omitted as in James 1:12, and must be supplied; so that, literally, the passage would read, God was well pleased that in Him, etc. Rev., it was the good pleasure of the Father. Fullness, Rev, correctly, the fullness. See on Romans 11:12; see on John 1:16. The word must be taken in its passive sense - that with which a thing is filled, not that which fills. The fullness denotes the sum-total of the divine powers and attributes. In Christ dwelt all the fullness of God as deity. The relation of essential deity to creation and redemption alike, is exhibited by John in the very beginning of his gospel, with which this passage should be compared. In John the order is: 1. The essential nature of Christ; 2. Creation; 3. Redemption. Here it is: 1. Redemption (Colossians 1:13); 2. Essential being of the Son (Colossians 1:15); 3. The Son as Creator (Colossians 1:16); 4. The Church, with Christ as its head (Colossians 1:18). Compare 2 Corinthians 5:19; Ephesians 1:19,Ephesians 1:20,Ephesians 1:23. Paul does not add of the Godhead to the fullness, as in Colossians 2:9since the word occurs in direct connection with those which describe Christ's essential nature, and it would seem not to have occurred to the apostle that it could be understood in any other sense than as an expression of the plenitude of the divine attributes and powers. Thus the phrase in Him should all the fullness dwell gathers into a grand climax the previous statements - image of God, first-born of all creation, Creator, the eternally preexistent, the Head of the Church, the victor over death, first in all things. On this summit we pause, looking, like John, from Christ in His fullness of deity to the exhibition of that divine fullness in redemption consummated in heaven (Colossians 1:20-22). -DIVIDER-
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There must also be taken into the account the selection of this word fullness with reference to the false teaching in the Colossian church, the errors which afterward were developed more distinctly in the Gnostic schools. Pleroma fullness was used by the Gnostic teachers in a technical sense, to express the sum-total of the divine powers and attributes. “From the pleroma they supposed that all those agencies issued through which God has at any time exerted His power in creation, or manifested His will through revelation. These mediatorial beings would retain more or less of its influence, according as they claimed direct parentage from it, or traced their descent through successive evolutions. But in all cases this pleroma was distributed, diluted, transformed, and darkened by foreign admixture. They were only partial and blurred images, often deceptive caricatures, of their original, broken lights of the great Central Light” (Lightfoot). Christ may have been ranked with these inferior images of the divine by the Colossian teachers. Hence the significance of the assertion that the totality of the divine dwells in Him. [source]
Colossians 1:16By Him and for Him [δι ' αὐτοῦ καὶ εἰς αὐτὸν] Rev., better, through Him and unto Him. See on Romans 11:36. Compare in Him at the beginning of the verse. There Christ was represented as the conditional cause of all things. All things came to pass within the sphere of His personality and as dependent upon it. Here He appears as the mediating cause; through Him, as 1 Corinthians 8:6. Unto Him. All things, as they had their beginning in Him, tend to Him as their consummation, to depend on and serve Him. Compare Revelation 22:13; and Hebrews 2:10; “for whose sake ( δι ' ὃν ) and through whose agency ( δι ' οὗ ) are all things” Rev., “for whom and through whom.” See also Ephesians 1:10,Ephesians 1:23; Ephesians 4:10; Philemon 2:9-11; 1 Corinthians 15:28. The false teachers maintained that the universe proceeded from God indirectly, through a succession of emanations. Christ, at best, was only one of these. As such, the universe could not find its consummation in Him. [source]
Colossians 1:16Thrones, dominions, principalities, powers [θρόνοι, κυριότητες, ἀρχαὶ, ἐξουσίαι] Compare Ephesians 1:21; Ephesians 3:10; Ephesians 6:12; 1 Corinthians 15:24; Romans 8:38; Colossians 2:10,Colossians 2:15; Titus 3:1. In Titus 3:1, they refer to earthly dignities, and these are probably included in 1 Corinthians 15:24. It is doubtful whether any definite succession of rank is intended. At any rate it is impossible to accurately define the distinctions. It has been observed that wherever principalities ( ἀρχαὶ ) and powers ( ἐξουσίαι ) occur together, principalities always precedes, and that δύναμις power(see Ephesians 1:21) when occurring with either of the two, follows it; or, when occurring with both, follows both. The primary reference is, no doubt, to the celestial orders; but the expressions things on earth, and not only in this world in the parallel passage, Ephesians 1:21, indicate that it may possibly include earthly dignities. Principalities and powers are used of both good and evil powers. See Ephesians 3:10; Ephesians 6:12; Colossians 2:15. The passage is aimed at the angel-worship of the Colossians (see Introduction); showing that while they have been discussing the various grades of angels which fill the space between God and men, and depending on them as media of communion with God, they have degraded Christ who is above them all, and is the sole mediator. Compare Hebrews 1:5-14, where the ideas of the Son as Creator and as Lord of the angels are also combined. Thrones occurs only here in enumerations of this kind. It seems to indicate the highest grade. Compare Revelation 4:4, θρόνοι thronesA.V. seats, and see note. Thrones here probably means the enthroned angels. Dominions or dominations, also Ephesians 1:21. Principalities or princedoms. In Romans 8:38, this occurs without powers which usually accompanies it. [source]
Colossians 2:10Ye are made full [εστε πεπληρωμενοι] Periphrastic perfect passive indicative of πληροω plēroō but only one predicate, not two. Christ is our fulness of which we all partake (John 1:16; Ephesians 1:23) and our goal is to be made full of God in Christ (Ephesians 3:19). “In Christ they find the satisfaction of every spiritual want” (Peake). [source]
Colossians 1:14Forgiveness [ἄφεσιν] See on remission, Romans 3:25; see on forgiven, James 5:15. Forgiveness defines redemption. Lightfoot's suggestion is very interesting that this precise definition may convey an allusion to the perversion of the term ἀπολύτρωσις by the Gnostics of a later age, and which was possibly foreshadowed in the teaching of the Colossian heretics. The Gnostics used it to signify the result of initiation into certain mysteries. Lightfoot quotes from Irenaeus the baptismal formula of the Marcosians “into unity and redemption ( ἀπολύτρωσιν ) and communion of powers.” The idea of a redemption of the world, and (in a perverted form) of the person and work of Christ as having part in it, distinctively marked the Gnostic schools. That from which the world was redeemed, however; was not sin, in the proper sense of the term, but something inherent in the constitution of the world itself, and therefore due to its Creator. In the following passage the person of Christ is defined as related to God and to creation; and absolute supremacy is claimed for Him. See Introduction to this volume, and compare Ephesians 1:20-23, and Philemon 2:6-11. -DIVIDER-
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1 Thessalonians 4:16Archangel [ἀρχαγγέλου] Only here and Judges 1:9. Not in O.T. The Pauline angelology shows traces of Rabbinical teachings in the idea of orders of angels. See Ephesians 1:21; Colossians 1:16; Romans 8:38. The archangels appear in the apocryphal literature. In the Book of Enoch (see on Judges 1:14) four are named, Michael, Uriel, Raphael, and Gabriel. Michael is set over the tree which, at the time of the great judgment, will be given over to the righteous and humble, and from the fruit of which life will be given to the elect. In Revelation href="/desk/?q=re+8:2&sr=1">Revelation 8:2. See also on Judges 1:9, and comp. Daniel 12:1. [source]
2 Thessalonians 1:9Glory of his power [δόξης τῆς ἰσχύος αὐτοῦ] For glory see on 1 Thessalonians 2:12. Ἱσχὺς powernot often in Paul. It is indwelling power put forth or embodied, either aggressively or as an obstacle to resistance: physical power organized or working under individual direction. An army and a fortress are both ἰσχυρὸς. The power inhering in the magistrate, which is put forth in laws or judicial decisions, is ἰσχὺς , and makes the edicts ἰσχυρὰ validand hard to resist. Δύναμις is the indwelling power which comes to manifestation in ἰσχὺς The precise phrase used here does not appear elsewhere in N.T. In lxx, Isaiah 2:10,Isaiah 2:19,Isaiah 2:21. The power ( δύναμις ) and glory of God are associated in Matthew 24:30; Mark 13:26; Luke 21:27; Revelation 4:11; Revelation 19:1. Comp. κράτος τῆς δόξης αὐτοῦ strengthof his glory, Colossians 1:11. Additional Note on ὄλεθρον αἰώνιον eternaldestruction, 2 Thessalonians 1:9 Ἁιών transliterated eon is a period of time of longer or shorter duration, having a beginning and an end, and complete in itself. Aristotle ( περὶ οὐρανοῦ , i. 9,15) says: “The period which includes the whole time of each one's life is called the eon of each one.” Hence it often means the life of a man, as in Homer, where one's life ( αἰών ) is said to leave him or to consume away (Il. v. 685; Od. v. 160). It is not, however, limited to human life; it signifies any period in the course of events, as the period or age before Christ; the period of the millennium; the mytho-logical period before the beginnings of history. The word has not “a stationary and mechanical value” (De Quincey). It does not mean a period of a fixed length for all cases. There are as many eons as entities, the respective durations of which are fixed by the normal conditions of the several entities. There is one eon of a human life, another of the life of a nation, another of a crow's life, another of an oak's life. The length of the eon depends on the subject to which it is attached. It is sometimes translated world; world representing a period or a series of periods of time. See Matthew 12:32; Matthew 13:40,Matthew 13:49; Luke 1:70; 1 Corinthians 1:20; 1 Corinthians 2:6; Ephesians 1:21. Similarly οἱ αἰῶνες theworlds, the universe, the aggregate of the ages or periods, and their contents which are included in the duration of the world. 1 Corinthians 2:7; 1 Corinthians 10:11; Hebrews 1:2; Hebrews 9:26; Hebrews 11:3. -DIVIDER-
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The word always carries the notion of time, and not of eternity. It always means a period of time. Otherwise it would be impossible to account for the plural, or for such qualifying expressions as this age, or the age to come. It does not mean something endless or everlasting. To deduce that meaning from its relation to ἀεί is absurd; for, apart from the fact that the meaning of a word is not definitely fixed by its derivation, ἀεί does not signify endless duration. When the writer of the Pastoral Epistles quotes the saying that the Cretans are always ( ἀεί ) liars (Titus 1:12), he surely does not mean that the Cretans will go on lying to all eternity. See also Acts 7:51; 2 Corinthians 4:11; 2 Corinthians 6:10; Hebrews 3:10; 1 Peter 3:15. Ἁεί means habitually or continually within the limit of the subject's life. In our colloquial dialect everlastingly is used in the same way. “The boy is everlastingly tormenting me to buy him a drum.”-DIVIDER-
In the New Testament the history of the world is conceived as developed through a succession of eons. A series of such eons precedes the introduction of a new series inaugurated by the Christian dispensation, and the end of the world and the second coming of Christ are to mark the beginning of another series. See Ephesians 3:11. Paul contemplates eons before and after the Christian era. Ephesians 1:21; Ephesians 2:7; Ephesians 3:9,Ephesians 3:21; 1 Corinthians 10:11; comp. Hebrews 9:26. He includes the series of eons in one great eon, ὁ αἰὼν τῶν αἰώνων theeon of the eons (Ephesians 3:21); and the author of the Epistle to the Hebrews describes the throne of God as enduring unto the eon of the eons (Hebrews 1:8). The plural is also used, eons of the eons, signifying all the successive periods which make up the sum total of the ages collectively. Romans 16:27; Galatians 1:5; Philemon 4:20, etc. This plural phrase is applied by Paul to God only. -DIVIDER-
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The adjective αἰώνιος in like manner carries the idea of time. Neither the noun nor the adjective, in themselves, carry the sense of endless or everlasting. They may acquire that sense by their connotation, as, on the other hand, ἀΐ̀διος , which means everlasting, has its meaning limited to a given point of time in Judges 1:6. Ἁιώνιος means enduring through or pertaining to a period of time. Both the noun and the adjective are applied to limited periods. Thus the phrase εἰς τὸν αἰῶνα , habitually rendered forever, is often used of duration which is limited in the very nature of the case. See, for a few out of many instances, lxx, Exodus 21:6; Exodus 29:9; Exodus 32:13; Joshua 14:9; 1 Samuel 8:13; Leviticus 25:46; Deuteronomy 15:17; 1 Chronicles 28:4. See also Matthew 21:19; John 13:8; 1 Corinthians 8:13. The same is true of αἰώνιος . Out of 150 instances in lxx, four-fifths imply limited duration. For a few instances see Genesis 48:4; Numbers 10:8; Numbers 15:15; Proverbs 22:28; Jonah 2:6; Habakkuk 3:6; Isaiah 61:8. -DIVIDER-
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Words which are habitually applied to things temporal or material can not carry in themselves the sense of endlessness. Even when applied to God, we are not forced to render αἰώνιος everlastingOf course the life of God is endless; but the question is whether, in describing God as αἰώνιος , it was intended to describe the duration of his being, or whether some different and larger idea was not contemplated. That God lives longer than men, and lives on everlastingly, and has lived everlastingly, are, no doubt, great and significant facts; yet they are not the dominant or the most impressive facts in God's relations to time. God's eternity does not stand merely or chiefly for a scale of length. It is not primarily a mathematical but a moral fact. The relations of God to time include and imply far more than the bare fact of endless continuance. They carry with them the fact that God transcends time; works on different principles and on a vaster scale than the wisdom of time provides; oversteps the conditions and the motives of time; marshals the successive eons from a point outside of time, on lines which run out into his own measureless cycles, and for sublime moral ends which the creature of threescore and ten years cannot grasp and does not even suspect. -DIVIDER-
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There is a word for everlasting if that idea is demanded. That αἰώνιος occurs rarely in the New Testament and in lxx does not prove that its place was taken by αἰώνιος . It rather goes to show that less importance was attached to the bare idea of everlastingness than later theological thought has given it. Paul uses the word once, in Romans 1:20, where he speaks of “the everlasting power and divinity of God.” In Romans 16:26he speaks of the eternal God ( τοῦ αἰωνίου θεοῦ ); but that he does not mean the everlasting God is perfectly clear from the context. He has said that “the mystery” has been kept in silence in times eternal ( χρόνοις αἰωνίοις ), by which he does not mean everlasting times, but the successive eons which elapsed before Christ was proclaimed. God therefore is described as the God of the eons, the God who pervaded and controlled those periods before the incarnation. To the same effect is the title ὁ βασιλεὺς τῶν αἰώνων theKing of the eons, applied to God in 1 Timothy 1:17; Revelation 15:3; comp. 2Timothy href="/desk/?q=2ti+1:9&sr=1">2 Timothy 1:9; Titus 1:2), cannot mean before everlasting times. To say that God bestowed grace on men, or promised them eternal life before endless times, would be absurd. The meaning is of old, as Luke 1:70. The grace and the promise were given in time, but far back in the ages, before the times of reckoning the eons. -DIVIDER-
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Ζωὴ αἰώνιος eternallife, which occurs 42 times in N.T., but not in lxx, is not endless life, but life pertaining to a certain age or eon, or continuing during that eon. I repeat, life may be endless. The life in union with Christ is endless, but the fact is not expressed by αἰώνιος . Κόλασις αἰώνιος , rendered everlasting punishment (Matthew 25:46), is the punishment peculiar to an eon other than that in which Christ is speaking. In some cases ζωὴ αἰώνιος does not refer specifically to the life beyond time, but rather to the eon or dispensation of Messiah which succeeds the legal dispensation. See Matthew 19:16; John 5:39. John says that ζωὴ αἰώνιος is the present possession of those who believe on the Son of God, John 3:36; John 5:24; John 6:47,John 6:64. The Father's commandment is ζωὴ αἰώσιος , John 12:50; to know the only true God and Jesus Christ is ζωὴ αἰώνιος , John 17:3. -DIVIDER-
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Bishop Westcott very justly says, commenting upon the terms used by John to describe life under different aspects: “In considering these phrases it is necessary to premise that in spiritual things we must guard against all conclusions which rest upon the notions of succession and duration. 'Eternal life' is that which St. Paul speaks of as ἡ ὄντως ζωὴ thelife which is life indeed, and ἡ ζωὴ τοῦ θεοῦ thelife of God. It is not an endless duration of being in time, but being of which time is not a measure. We have indeed no powers to grasp the idea except through forms and images of sense. These must be used, but we must not transfer them as realities to another order.”-DIVIDER-
Thus, while αἰώνιος carries the idea of time, though not of endlessness, there belongs to it also, more or less, a sense of quality. Its character is ethical rather than mathematical. The deepest significance of the life beyond time lies, not in endlessness, but in the moral quality of the eon into which the life passes. It is comparatively unimportant whether or not the rich fool, when his soul was required of him (Luke 12:20), entered upon a state that was endless. The principal, the tremendous fact, as Christ unmistakably puts it, was that, in the new eon, the motives, the aims, the conditions, the successes and awards of time counted for nothing. In time, his barns and their contents were everything; the soul was nothing. In the new life the soul was first and everything, and the barns and storehouses nothing. The bliss of the sanctified does not consist primarily in its endlessness, but in the nobler moral conditions of the new eon, - the years of the holy and eternal God. Duration is a secondary idea. When it enters it enters as an accompaniment and outgrowth of moral conditions. -DIVIDER-
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In the present passage it is urged that ὄλεθρον destructionpoints to an unchangeable, irremediable, and endless condition. If this be true, if ὄλεθρος isextinction, then the passage teaches the annihilation of the wicked, in which case the adjective αἰώνιος is superfluous, since extinction is final, and excludes the idea of duration. But ὄλεθρος does not always mean destruction or extinction. Take the kindred verb ἀπόλλυμι todestroy, put an end to, or in the middle voice, to be lost, to perish. Peter says, “the world being deluged with water, perished ” ( ἀπολοῦνται 2 Peter 3:6); but the world did not become extinct, it was renewed. In Hebrews 1:11,Hebrews 1:12quoted from Isaiah href="/desk/?q=isa+51:6&sr=1">Isaiah 51:6,Isaiah 51:16; Isaiah 65:17; Isaiah 66:22; 2 Peter 3:13; Revelation 21:1. Similarly, “the Son of man came to save that which was lost ” ( ἀπολωλός ), Luke 19:10. Jesus charged his apostles to go to the lost ( ἀπολωλότα ) sheep of the house of Israel, Matthew 10:6, comp. Matthew 15:24. “He that shall lose ( ἀπολέσῃ ) his life for my sake shall find it,” Matthew 16:25. Comp. Luke 15:6,Luke 15:9,Luke 15:32. -DIVIDER-
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In this passage the word destruction is qualified. It is “destruction from the presence of the Lord and from the glory of his power, “ at his second coming, in the new eon. In other words, it is the severance, at a given point of time, of those who obey not the gospel from the presence and the glory of Christ. Ἁιώνιος may therefore describe this severance as continuing during the millennial eon between Christ's coming and the final judgment; as being for the wicked prolonged throughout that eon and characteristic of it, or it may describe the severance as characterizing or enduring through a period or eon succeeding the final judgment, the extent of which period is not defined. In neither case is αἰώνιος to be interpreted as everlasting or endless.sa180 [source]
Hebrews 1:3Sat down on the right hand of the majesty on high [ἐκάθισεν ἐν δεξιᾷ τῆς μεγαλωσύνης ἐν ὑψηλοῖς] Comp. Psalm 110:1,Hebrews 8:1; Hebrews 10:12; Hebrews 12:2; Ephesians 1:20; Revelation 3:21. The verb denotes a solemn, formal act; the assumption of a position of dignity and authority The reference is to Christ's ascension. In his exalted state he will still be bearing on all things toward their consummation, still dealing with sin as the great high priest in the heavenly sanctuary. This is elaborated later. See Hebrews 8:1-13; Hebrews 9:12ff. Μεγαλωσύνη majestyonly here, Hebrews 8:1; Judges 1:25. Quite often in lxx. There is suggested, not a contrast with his humiliation, but his resumption of his original dignity, described in the former part of this verse. Ἐν ὑψηλοῖς , lit. in the high places. Const. with sat down, not with majesty. The phrase N.T.olxx, Psalm 92:4; Psalm 112:5. Ἐν τοῖς ὑψίστοις inthe highest (places ), in the Gospels, and only in doxologies. See Matthew 21:9; Mark 11:10; Luke 2:14. Ἐν τοῖς ἐπουρανίοις inthe heavenly (places ), only in Ephesians. See Ephesians 1:3,Ephesians 1:20; Ephesians 2:6; Ephesians 3:10; Ephesians 6:12. [source]
Hebrews 1:3Being [ων] Absolute and timeless existence (present active participle of ειμι eimi) in contrast with γενομενος genomenos in Hebrews 1:4 like ην ēn in John 1:1 (in contrast with εγενετο egeneto in John 1:14) and like υπαρχων huparchōn and γενομενος genomenos in Philemon 2:6. The effulgence of his glory The word απαυγασμα apaugasma late substantive from απαυγαζω apaugazō to emit brightness The meaning “effulgence” suits the context better, though it gives the idea of eternal generation of the Son (John 1:1), the term Father applied to God necessarily involving Son. See this same metaphor in 2 Corinthians 4:6. The very image of his substance (Χαρακτηρ charaktēr tēs hupostaseōs). χαρασσω Charaktēr is an old word from τηρ charassō to cut, to scratch, to mark. It first was the agent (note ending = χαραγμα tēr) or tool that did the marking, then the mark or impress made, the exact reproduction, a meaning clearly expressed by χαρακτηρ charagma (Acts 17:29; Revelation 13:16.). Menander had already used (Moffatt) υποστασις charaktēr in the sense of our “character.” The word occurs in the inscriptions for “person” as well as for “exact reproduction” of a person. The word ψποστασις hupostasis for the being or essence of God “is a philosophical rather than a religious term” (Moffatt). Etymologically it is the sediment or foundation under a building (for instance). In Hebrews 11:1 μορπη τεου hypostasis is like the “title-deed” idea found in the papyri. Athanasius rightly used Hebrews 1:1-4 in his controversy with Arius. Paul in Philemon 2:5-11 pictures the real and eternal deity of Christ free from the philosophical language here employed. But even Paul‘s simpler phrase Λογος morphē theou (the form of God) has difficulties of its own. The use of περων τε Logos in John 1:1-18 is parallel to Hebrews 1:1-4. And upholding (περω pherōn te). Present active participle of ων pherō closely connected with τε ōn (being) by τωι ρηματι της δυναμεως αυτου te and like Colossians 1:17 in idea. The newer science as expounded by Eddington and Jeans is in harmony with the spiritual and personal conception of creation here presented. By the word of his power (ρημα tōi rēmati tēs dunameōs autou). Instrumental case of ρηματι τεου rēma (word). See Hebrews 11:3 for αυτου rēmati theou (by the word of God) as the explanation of creation like Genesis, but here καταρισμον των αμαρτιων autou refers to God‘s Son as in Hebrews 1:2. Purification of sins (Καταρισμος katharismon tōn hamartiōn). καταριζω Katharismos is from ποιησαμενος katharizō to cleanse (Matthew 8:3; Hebrews 9:14), here only in Hebrews, but in same sense of cleansing from sins, 2 Peter 1:9; Job 7:21. Note middle participle ευραμενος poiēsamenos like εκατισεν heuramenos in Hebrews 9:12. This is the first mention of the priestly work of Christ, the keynote of this Epistle. Sat down (κατιζω ekathisen). First aorist active of της μεγαλοσυνης εν υπσηλοις kathizō “took his seat,” a formal and dignified act. Of the Majesty on high (μεγας tēs megalosunēs en hupsēlois). Late word from εν υπσηλοις megas only in lxx (Deut 32:3; 2Sam 7:23, etc.), Aristeas, Hebrews 1:3; Hebrews 8:1; Judges 1:25. Christ resumed his original dignity and glory (John 17:5). The phrase εν υπσιστοις en hupsēlois occurs in the Psalms (Psalm 93:4), here only in N.T., elsewhere εν τοις επουρανιοις en hupsistois in the highest (Matthew 21:9; Luke 2:14) or en tois epouraniois in the heavenlies (Ephesians 1:3,Ephesians 1:20). Jesus is here pictured as King (Prophet and Priest also) Messiah seated at the right hand of God. [source]
Hebrews 1:3The effulgence of his glory [απαυγασμα της δοχης] The word απαυγασμα apaugasma late substantive from απαυγαζω apaugazō to emit brightness The meaning “effulgence” suits the context better, though it gives the idea of eternal generation of the Son (John 1:1), the term Father applied to God necessarily involving Son. See this same metaphor in 2 Corinthians 4:6. The very image of his substance (Χαρακτηρ charaktēr tēs hupostaseōs). χαρασσω Charaktēr is an old word from τηρ charassō to cut, to scratch, to mark. It first was the agent (note ending = χαραγμα tēr) or tool that did the marking, then the mark or impress made, the exact reproduction, a meaning clearly expressed by χαρακτηρ charagma (Acts 17:29; Revelation 13:16.). Menander had already used (Moffatt) υποστασις charaktēr in the sense of our “character.” The word occurs in the inscriptions for “person” as well as for “exact reproduction” of a person. The word ψποστασις hupostasis for the being or essence of God “is a philosophical rather than a religious term” (Moffatt). Etymologically it is the sediment or foundation under a building (for instance). In Hebrews 11:1 μορπη τεου hypostasis is like the “title-deed” idea found in the papyri. Athanasius rightly used Hebrews 1:1-4 in his controversy with Arius. Paul in Philemon 2:5-11 pictures the real and eternal deity of Christ free from the philosophical language here employed. But even Paul‘s simpler phrase Λογος morphē theou (the form of God) has difficulties of its own. The use of περων τε Logos in John 1:1-18 is parallel to Hebrews 1:1-4. And upholding (περω pherōn te). Present active participle of ων pherō closely connected with τε ōn (being) by τωι ρηματι της δυναμεως αυτου te and like Colossians 1:17 in idea. The newer science as expounded by Eddington and Jeans is in harmony with the spiritual and personal conception of creation here presented. By the word of his power (ρημα tōi rēmati tēs dunameōs autou). Instrumental case of ρηματι τεου rēma (word). See Hebrews 11:3 for αυτου rēmati theou (by the word of God) as the explanation of creation like Genesis, but here καταρισμον των αμαρτιων autou refers to God‘s Son as in Hebrews 1:2. Purification of sins (Καταρισμος katharismon tōn hamartiōn). καταριζω Katharismos is from ποιησαμενος katharizō to cleanse (Matthew 8:3; Hebrews 9:14), here only in Hebrews, but in same sense of cleansing from sins, 2 Peter 1:9; Job 7:21. Note middle participle ευραμενος poiēsamenos like εκατισεν heuramenos in Hebrews 9:12. This is the first mention of the priestly work of Christ, the keynote of this Epistle. Sat down (κατιζω ekathisen). First aorist active of της μεγαλοσυνης εν υπσηλοις kathizō “took his seat,” a formal and dignified act. Of the Majesty on high (μεγας tēs megalosunēs en hupsēlois). Late word from εν υπσηλοις megas only in lxx (Deut 32:3; 2Sam 7:23, etc.), Aristeas, Hebrews 1:3; Hebrews 8:1; Judges 1:25. Christ resumed his original dignity and glory (John 17:5). The phrase εν υπσιστοις en hupsēlois occurs in the Psalms (Psalm 93:4), here only in N.T., elsewhere εν τοις επουρανιοις en hupsistois in the highest (Matthew 21:9; Luke 2:14) or en tois epouraniois in the heavenlies (Ephesians 1:3,Ephesians 1:20). Jesus is here pictured as King (Prophet and Priest also) Messiah seated at the right hand of God. [source]
2 Peter 2:10After the flesh [οπισω σαρκος] Hebraistic use of οπισω opisō as with αμαρτιων hamartiōn (sins) in Isaiah 65:2. Cf. Matthew 4:19; 1 Timothy 5:15.Of defilement (μιασμου miasmou). Old word (from μιαινω miainō Titus 1:15), here only in N.T.Despise dominion Κυριοτης Kuriotēs is late word for lordship (perhaps God or Christ) (from Κυριος Kurios), in Colossians 1:16; Ephesians 1:21; Judges 1:8. Genitive case after καταπρουντας kataphrountas (thinking down on, Matthew 6:24).Daring (τολμηται tolmētai). Old substantive (from τολμαω tolmaō to dare), daring men, here only in N.T.Self-willed Old adjective (from αυτος autos and ηδομαι hēdomai), self-pleasing, arrogant, in N.T. only here and Titus 1:7.They tremble not to rail at dignities (δοχας ου τρεμουσιν βλασπημουντες doxas ou tremousin blasphēmountes). “They tremble not blaspheming dignities.” Τρεμω Tremō is old verb (Mark 5:33), used only in present as here and imperfect. Here with the complementary participle βλασπημουντες blasphēmountes rather than the infinitive βλασπημειν blasphēmein See Judges 1:8. Perhaps these dignities (δοχας doxas) are angels (εςιλ evil). [source]
2 Peter 2:10Despise dominion [κυριοτητος καταπρονουντας] Κυριοτης Kuriotēs is late word for lordship (perhaps God or Christ) (from Κυριος Kurios), in Colossians 1:16; Ephesians 1:21; Judges 1:8. Genitive case after καταπρουντας kataphrountas (thinking down on, Matthew 6:24).Daring (τολμηται tolmētai). Old substantive (from τολμαω tolmaō to dare), daring men, here only in N.T.Self-willed Old adjective (from αυτος autos and ηδομαι hēdomai), self-pleasing, arrogant, in N.T. only here and Titus 1:7.They tremble not to rail at dignities (δοχας ου τρεμουσιν βλασπημουντες doxas ou tremousin blasphēmountes). “They tremble not blaspheming dignities.” Τρεμω Tremō is old verb (Mark 5:33), used only in present as here and imperfect. Here with the complementary participle βλασπημουντες blasphēmountes rather than the infinitive βλασπημειν blasphēmein See Judges 1:8. Perhaps these dignities (δοχας doxas) are angels (εςιλ evil). [source]
Jude 1:8Dominion - dignities [κυριότητα - δόξας] It is not easy to determine the exact meaning of these two terms. Κυριότης , dominion, occurs in three other passages, Ephesians 1:21; Colossians 1:16; 2 Peter 2:10. In the first two, and probably in the third, the reference is to angelic dignities. Some explain this passage and the one in Peter, of evil angels. In Colossians the term is used with thrones, principalities, and powers, with reference to the orders of the celestial hierarchy as conceived by Gnostic teachers, and with a view to exalt Christ above all these. Glories or dignities is used in this concrete sense only here and at 2 Peter 2:10. [source]
Jude 1:6First estate [ἀρχὴν] The word originally signifies beginning, and so frequently in New Testament, mostly in the Gospels, Acts, Hebrews, Catholic Epistles, and Apocalypse. From this comes a secondary meaning of sovereignty, dominion, magistracy, as being the beginning or first place of power. So mostly by Paul, as principalities (Romans 8:38); rule (1 Corinthians 15:24). Compare Luke 12:11, magistrates; Rev., rulers; and Luke 20:20, power. Rev., rule. A peculiar use of the word occurs at Acts 10:11, “the sheet knit at the four corners ( ἀρχαῖς );” the corners being the beginnings of the sheet. In this passage the A. V. has adopted the first meaning, beginning, in its rendering first estate. Rev. adopts the second, rendering principality. The Jews regarded the angels as having dominion over earthly creatures; and the angels are often spoken of in the New Testament as ἀρχαί , principalities; as Romans 8:38; Ephesians 1:21; so that this term would be appropriate to designate their dignity, which they forsook. [source]
Revelation 3:7The holy, he that is true [ο αγιοσ ο αλητινος] Separate articles (four in all) for each item in this description. “The holy, the genuine.” Asyndeton in the Greek. Latin Vulgate, Sanctus et Verus. αγιος Hosea hagios is ascribed to God in Revelation 4:8; Revelation 6:10 (both αλητινος hagios and αλητινος alēthinos as here), but to Christ in Mark 1:24; Luke 4:34; John 6:69; Acts 4:27,Acts 4:30; 1 John 2:20, a recognized title of the Messiah as the consecrated one set apart. Swete notes that αλητης alēthinos is verus as distinguished from verax So it is applied to God in Revelation 6:10 and to Christ in Revelation 3:14; Revelation 19:11 as in John 1:9; John 6:32; John 15:1.He that hath the key of David (και ουδεις κλεισει ho echōn tēn klein Daueid). This epithet comes from Isaiah 22:22, where Eliakim as the chief steward of the royal household holds the keys of power. Christ as the Messiah (Revelation 5:5; Revelation 22:16) has exclusive power in heaven, on earth, and in Hades (Matthew 16:19; Matthew 28:18; Romans 14:9; Philemon 2:9.; Revelation 1:18). Christ has power to admit and exclude of his own will (Matthew 25:10.; Ephesians 1:22; Revelation 3:21; Revelation 19:11-16; Revelation 20:4; Revelation 22:16).And none shall shut Charles calls the structure Hebrew (future active indicative of ο ανοιγων kleiō), and not Greek because it does not correspond to the present articular participle just before και ουδεις ανοιγει ho anoigōn (the one opening), but it occurs often in this book as in the very next clause, “and none openeth” (κλειων kai oudeis anoigei) over against κλειει kleiōn (present active participle, opening) though here some MSS. read kleiei (present active indicative, open). [source]
What do the individual words in Ephesians 1:2 mean?
Greek Commentary for Ephesians 1:2
One of the leading words of the epistle. It is used thirteen times. [source]
Reverse Greek Commentary Search for Ephesians 1:2
Swete notes that the author “passes beyond the field of history into that of theology,” an early and most cherished belief (Acts 7:55.; Romans 8:34; Ephesians 1:20; Colossians 3:1; Hebrews 1:3; Hebrews 8:1; Hebrews 10:12; Hebrews 12:2; 1 Peter 3:22; Revelation 3:21). [source]
The exposition of this much controverted passage does not fall within the scope of this work. We may observe, 1. That Jesus here lays down the preliminary conditions of entrance into His kingdom, expanding and explaining His statement in John 3:3. -DIVIDER- -DIVIDER- 2. That this condition is here stated as complex, including two distinct factors, water and the Spirit. 3. That the former of these two factors is not to be merged in the latter; that the spiritual element is not to exclude or obliterate the external and ritual element. We are not to understand with Calvin, the Holy Spirit as the purifying water in the spiritual sense: “water which is the Spirit.”-DIVIDER- 4. That water points definitely to the rite of baptism, and that with a twofold reference - to the past and to the future. Water naturally suggested to Nicodemus the baptism of John, which was then awakening such profound and general interest; and, with this, the symbolical purifications of the Jews, and the Old Testament use of washing as the figure of purifying from sin (Psalm 2:2, Psalm 2:7; Ezekiel 36:25; Zechariah 13:1). Jesus' words opened to Nicodemus a new and more spiritual significance in both the ceremonial purifications and the baptism of John which the Pharisees had rejected (Luke 7:30). John's rite had a real and legitimate relation to the kingdom of God which Nicodemus must accept. -DIVIDER- -DIVIDER- 5. That while Jesus asserted the obligation of the outward rite, He asserted likewise, as its necessary complement, the presence and creating and informing energy of the Spirit with which John had promised that the coming one should baptize. That as John's baptism had been unto repentance, for the remission of sins, so the new life must include the real no less than the symbolic cleansing of the old, sinful life, and the infusion by the Spirit of a new and divine principle of life. Thus Jesus' words included a prophetic reference to the complete ideal of Christian baptism - “the washing of regeneration and the renewing of the Holy Ghost” (Titus 3:5; Ephesians 5:26); according to which the two factors are inseparably blended (not the one swallowed up by the other), and the new life is inaugurated both symbolically in the baptism with water, and actually in the renewing by the Holy Spirit, yet so as that the rite, through its association with the Spirit's energy, is more than a mere symbol: is a veritable vehicle of grace to the recipient, and acquires a substantial part in the inauguration of the new life. Baptism, considered merely as a rite, and apart from the operation of the Spirit, does not and cannot impart the new life. Without the Spirit it is a lie. It is a truthful sign only as the sign of an inward and spiritual grace. -DIVIDER- -DIVIDER- 6. That the ideal of the new life presented in our Lord's words, includes the relation of the regenerated man to an organization. The object of the new birth is declared to be that a man may see and enter into the kingdom of God. But the kingdom of God is an economy. It includes and implies the organized Christian community. This is one of the facts which, with its accompanying obligation, is revealed to the new vision of the new man. He sees not only God, but the kingdom of God; God as King of an organized citizenship; God as the Father of the family of mankind; obligation to God implying obligation to the neighbor; obligation to Christ implying obligation to the church, of which He is the head, “which is His body, the fullness of Him that filleth all things with all things” (Ephesians 1:23). Through water alone, the mere external rite of baptism, a man may pass into the outward fellowship of the visible church without seeing or entering the kingdom of God. Through water and the Spirit, he passes indeed into the outward fellowship, but through that into the vision and fellowship of the kingdom of God. [source]
These and the succeeding words are the Evangelist's, not the Baptist's. The word fullness ( πλήρωμα ) is found here only in John, but frequently occurs in the writings of Paul, whose use of it in Ephesians and Colossians illustrates the sense in John; these being Asiatic churches which fell, later, within the sphere of John's influence. The word is akin to πλήρης , full (John 1:14), and to πληροῦν , to fill or complete; and means that which is complete in itself, plenitude, entire number or quantity. Thus the crew of a ship is called πλήρωμα , its complement. Aristophanes (“Wasps,” 660), “ τούτων πλήρωμα , the sum-total of these, is nearly two thousand talents.” Herodotus (iii., 22) says that the full term of man's life among the Persians is eighty years; and Aristotle (“Polities,” iv., 4) refers to Socrates as saying that the eight classes, representing different industries in the state, constitute the pleroma of the state (see Plato, “Republic,” 371). In Ephesians 1:23, Paul says that the church is the pleroma of Christ: i.e., the plenitude of the divine graces in Christ is communicated to the Church as His body, making all the body, supplied and knit together through the joints and bands, to increase with the increase of God (Colossians 2:19; compare Ephesians 4:16). Similarly he prays (Ephesians 3:19) that the brethren may be filled unto all the pleroma of God: i.e., that they may be filled with the fullness which God imparts. More closely related to John's use of the term here are Colossians 1:19, “It pleased the Father that in Him (Christ) should all the fullness ( τὸ πλήρωμα , note the article) dwell;” and Colossians 2:9, Colossians 2:10, “In Him dwelleth all the pleroma of the Godhead bodily (i.e., corporally, becoming incarnate ), and in Him ye are fulfilled ( πεπληρωμένοι ).” This declares that the whole aggregate of the divine powers and graces appeared in the incarnate Word, and corresponds with John's statement that “the Word became flesh and tabernacled among men, full of grace and truth;” while “ye are fulfilled ” answers to John's “of His fullness we all received.” Hence John's meaning here is that Christians receive from the divine completeness whatever each requires for the perfection of his character and for the accomplishment of his work (compare John 15:15; John 17:22). [source]
Correct text (Aleph B C D L) and not και kai (and) of the Textus Receptus. Explanatory reason for John 1:14. Of his fulness The only instance of πληρωμα plērōma in John‘s writings, though five times of Christ in Paul‘s Epistles (Colossians 1:19; Colossians 2:9; Ephesians 1:23; Ephesians 3:19; Ephesians 4:13). See Colossians 1:19 for discussion of these terms of the Gnostics that Paul employs for all the attributes of God summed up in Christ (Colossians 2:9) and so used here by John of the Incarnate Logos. We all John is facing the same Gnostic depreciation of Christ of which Paul writes in Colossians. So here John appeals to all his own contemporaries as participants with him in the fulness of the Logos. Received Second aorist active indicative of λαμβανω lambanō a wider experience than beholding The point is in αντι anti a preposition disappearing in the Koiné and here only in John. It is in the locative case of αντα anta (end), “at the end,” and was used of exchange in sale. See Luke 11:11, αντι ιχτυος οπιν anti ichthuos ophin “a serpent for a fish,” Hebrews 12:2 where “joy” and “cross” are balanced against each other. Here the picture is “grace” taking the place of “grace” like the manna fresh each morning, new grace for the new day and the new service. [source]
Rising from the throne to protect and receive his servant. Usually Jesus is represented in the New Testament as seated at the Father's right hand. See Ephesians 1:20; Colossians 3:1; Hebrews 1:3. [source]
Full of the Holy Spirit, gazing steadfastly into heaven, he saw God‘s glory and Jesus “standing” as if he had risen to cheer the brave Stephen. Elsewhere (save Acts 7:56 also) he is pictured as sitting at the right hand of God (the Session of Christ) as in Matthew 26:64; Mark 16:19; Acts 2:34; Ephesians 1:20; Colossians 3:1; Hebrews 1:3. [source]
Σάρξ fleshoccurs in the classics in the physical sense only. Homer commonly uses it in the plural as denoting all the flesh or muscles of the body. Later the singular occurs in the same sense. Paul's use of this and other psychological terms must be determined largely by the Old-Testament usage as it appears in the Septuagint. 1. In the physical sense. The literal flesh. In the Septuagint τὰ κρέα flesh(plural) is used where the reference is to the parts of animals slain, and αἱ σάρκες , flesh (plural) where the reference is to flesh as the covering of the living body. Hence Paul uses κρέα in Romans 14:21; 1 Corinthians 8:13, of the flesh of sacrificed animals. Compare also the adjective σάρκιμος fleshy 2 Corinthians 3:3; and Ezekiel 11:19; Ezekiel 36:26, Sept. -DIVIDER- -DIVIDER- 2. Kindred. Denoting natural or physical relationship, Romans 1:3; Romans 9:3-8; Romans 11:14; Galatians 4:23, Galatians 4:29; 1 Corinthians 10:18; Philemon 1:16. This usage forms a transition to the following sense: the whole human body. Flesh is the medium in and through which the natural relationship of man manifests itself. Kindred is conceived as based on community of bodily substance. Therefore:-DIVIDER- 3. The body itself. The whole being designated by the part, as being its main substance and characteristic, 1 Corinthians 6:16; 1 Corinthians 7:28; 2 Corinthians 4:11; 2 Corinthians 7:5; 2 Corinthians 10:3; 2 Corinthians 12:7. Romans 2:28; Galatians 6:13, etc. Paul follows the Septuagint in sometimes using σῶμα bodyand sometimes σάρξ fleshin this sense, so that the terms occasionally seem to be practically synonymous. Thus 1 Corinthians 6:16, 1 Corinthians 6:17, where the phrase one body is illustrated and confirmed by one flesh. See Genesis 2:24; Ephesians 5:28, Ephesians 5:31, where the two are apparently interchanged. Compare 2 Corinthians 4:10, 2 Corinthians 4:11; 1 Corinthians 5:3, and Colossians 2:5. Σάρξ , however, differs from σῶμα in that it can only signify the organism of an earthly, living being consisting of flesh and bones, and cannot denote “either an earthly organism that is not living, or a living organism that is not earthly” (Wendt, in Dickson). Σῶμα not thus limited. Thus it may denote the organism of the plant (1 Corinthians 15:37, 1 Corinthians 15:38) or the celestial bodies (1 Corinthians 15:40). Hence the two conceptions are related as general and special: σῶμα bodybeing the material organism apart from any definite matter (not from any sort of matter), σάρξ , flesh, the definite, earthly, animal organism. The two are synonymons when σῶμα is used, from the context, of an earthly, animal body. Compare Philemon 1:22; 2 Corinthians 5:1-8. -DIVIDER- -DIVIDER- Σῶμα bodyand not σάρξ fleshis used when the reference is to a metaphorical organism, as the church, Romans 12:4sqq.; 1 Corinthians 10:16; 12:12-27; Ephesians 1:23; Ephesians 2:16; Colossians 1:18, etc. -DIVIDER- -DIVIDER- The σάρξ is described as mortal (2 Corinthians 4:11); subject to infirmity (Galatians 4:13; 2 Corinthians 12:7); locally limited (Colossians 2:15); an object of fostering care (Ephesians 5:29). -DIVIDER- -DIVIDER- 4. Living beings generally, including their mental nature, and with a correlated notion of weakness and perishableness. Thus the phrase πᾶσα σάρξ allflesh (Genesis 6:12; Isaiah 49:26; Isaiah 49:23). This accessory notion of weakness stands in contrast with God. In Paul the phrase all flesh is cited from the Old Testament (Romans 3:20; Galatians 2:16) and is used independently (1 Corinthians 1:29). In all these instances before God is added. So in Galatians 1:16, flesh and blood implies a contrast of human with divine wisdom. Compare 1 Corinthians 15:50; Ephesians 6:12. This leads up to-DIVIDER- 5. Man “either as a creature in his natural state apart from Christ, or the creaturely side or aspect of the man in Christ.” Hence it is correlated with ἄνθρωπος man 1 Corinthians 3:3; Romans 6:19; 2 Corinthians 5:17. Compare Romans 6:6; Ephesians 4:22; Colossians 3:9; Galatians 5:24. Thus the flesh would seem to be interchangeable with the old man. -DIVIDER- -DIVIDER- It has affections and lusts (Galatians 5:24); willings (Ephesians 2:3; Romans 8:6, Romans 8:7); a mind (Colossians 2:18); a body (Colossians 2:11). -DIVIDER- -DIVIDER- It is in sharp contrast with πνεῦμα spirit(Galatians 3:3, Galatians 3:19; Galatians 5:16, Galatians 5:17, Galatians 5:19-24; Galatians 6:8; Romans 8:4). The flesh and the spirit are thus antagonistic. Σάρξ fleshbefore or in contrast with his reception of the divine element whereby he becomes a new creature in Christ: the whole being of man as it exists and acts apart from the influence of the Spirit. It properly characterizes, therefore, not merely the lower forms of sensual gratification, but all - the highest developments of the life estranged from God, whether physical, intellectual, or aesthetic. -DIVIDER- -DIVIDER- It must be carefully noted:-DIVIDER- 1. That Paul does not identify flesh and sin. Compare, flesh of sin, Romans 8:3. See Romans 7:17, Romans 7:18; 2 Corinthians 7:1; Galatians 2:20. -DIVIDER- -DIVIDER- 2. That Paul does not identify σάρξ withthe material body nor associate sin exclusively and predominantly with the body. The flesh is the flesh of the living man animated by the soul ( ψυχή ) as its principle of life, and is distinctly used as coordinate with ἄνθρωπος manAs in the Old Testament, “it embraces in an emphatic manner the nature of man, mental and corporeal, with its internal distinctions.” The spirit as well as the flesh is capable of defilement (2 Corinthians 7:1; compare 1 Corinthians 7:34). Christian life is to be transformed by the renewing of the mind (Romans 12:2; compare Ephesians 4:23). -DIVIDER- -DIVIDER- 3. That Paul does not identify the material side of man with evil. The flesh is not the native seat and source of sin. It is only its organ, and the seat of sin's manifestation. Matter is not essentially evil. The logical consequence of this would be that no service of God is possible while the material organism remains. See Romans 12:1. The flesh is not necessarily sinful in itself; but as it has existed from the time of the introduction of sin through Adam, it is recognized by Paul as tainted with sin. Jesus appeared in the flesh, and yet was sinless (2 Corinthians 5:21).The motions of sins ( τὰ παθήματα τῶν ἁμαρτιῶν )Motions used in earlier English for emotions or impulses. Thus Bacon: “He that standeth at a stay where others rise, can hardly avoid motions of envy” (“Essay” xiv.). The word is nearly synonymous with πάθος passion(Romans 1:26, note). From πάθειν tosuffer; a feeling which the mind undergoes, a passion, desire. Rev., sinful passions: which led to sins.Did work ( ἐνηργεῖτο )Rev., wrought. See 2 Corinthians 1:6; 2 Corinthians 4:12; Ephesians 3:20; Galatians 5:6; Philemon 2:13; Colossians 1:29. Compare Mark 6:14, and see on power, John 1:12. [source]
See on John 1:16. The word may mean that with which anything is filled (1 Corinthians 10:26, 1 Corinthians 10:28; Matthew 9:16; Mark 6:43); that which is filled (Ephesians 1:23); possibly the act of filling (Romans 13:10), though this is doubtful. Here in the first sense: the fullness of their number contrasted with the diminution. They will belong as an integral whole to the people of God. [source]
Σῶμα in earlier classical usage signifies a corpse. So always in Homer and often in later Greek. So in the New Testament, Matthew 6:25; Mark 5:29; Mark 14:8; Mark 15:43. It is used of men as slaves, Revelation 18:13. Also in classical Greek of the sum-total. So Plato: τὸ τοῦ κόσμου σῶμα thesum-total of the world (“Timaeus,” 31). The meaning is tinged in some cases by the fact of the vital union of the body with the immaterial nature, as being animated by the ψυξή soulthe principle of individual life. Thus Matthew 6:25, where the two are conceived as forming one organism, so that the material ministries which are predicated of the one are predicated of the other, and the meanings of the two merge into one another. -DIVIDER- -DIVIDER- In Paul it can scarcely be said to be used of a dead body, except in a figurative sense, as Romans 8:10, or by inference, 2 Corinthians 5:8. Commonly of a living body. It occurs with ψυχή soulonly 1 Thessalonians 5:23, and there its distinction from ψυχή rather than its union with it is implied. So in Matthew 10:28, though even there the distinction includes the two as one personality. It is used by Paul:-DIVIDER- 1. Of the living human body, Romans 4:19; 1 Corinthians 6:13; 1 Corinthians 9:27; 1 Corinthians 12:12-26. -DIVIDER- -DIVIDER- 2. Of the Church as the body of Christ, Romans 12:5; 1 Corinthians 12:27; Ephesians 1:23; Colossians 1:18, etc. Σάρξ fleshnever in this sense. -DIVIDER- -DIVIDER- 3. Of plants and heavenly bodies, 1 Corinthians 15:37, 1 Corinthians 15:40. -DIVIDER- -DIVIDER- 4. Of the glorified body of Christ, Philemon 3:21. -DIVIDER- -DIVIDER- 5. Of the spiritual body of risen believers, 1 Corinthians 15:44. -DIVIDER- -DIVIDER- It is distinguished from σάρξ fleshas not being limited to the organism of an earthly, living body, 1 Corinthians 15:37, 1 Corinthians 15:38. It is the material organism apart from any definite matter. It is however sometimes used as practically synonymous with σάρξ , 1 Corinthians 7:16, 1 Corinthians 7:17; Ephesians 5:28, Ephesians 5:31; 2 Corinthians 4:10, 2 Corinthians 4:11. Compare 1 Corinthians 5:3with 2 Corinthians 4:10-122. An ethical conception attaches to it. It is alternated with μέλη membersand the two are associated with sin (Romans 1:24; Romans 6:6; Romans 7:5, Romans 7:24; Romans 8:13; Colossians 3:5), and with sanctification (Romans 12:1; 1 Corinthians 6:19sq.; compare 1 Thessalonians 4:4; 1 Thessalonians 5:23). It is represented as mortal, Romans 8:11; 2 Corinthians 10:10; and as capable of life, 1 Corinthians 13:3; 2 Corinthians 4:10. -DIVIDER- -DIVIDER- In common with μέλη membersit is the instrument of feeling and willing rather than σάρξ , because the object in such cases is to designate the body not definitely as earthly, but generally as organic, Romans 6:12, Romans 6:13, Romans 6:19; 2 Corinthians 5:10. Hence, wherever it is viewed with reference to sin or sanctification, it is the outward organ for the execution of the good or bad resolves of the will. -DIVIDER- -DIVIDER- The phrase body of sin denotes the body belonging to, or ruled by, the power of sin, in which the members are instruments of unrighteousness (Romans 6:13). Not the body as containing the principle of evil in our humanity, since Paul does not regard sin as inherent in, and inseparable from, the body (see Romans 6:13; 1714178012_14; 2 Corinthians 7:1. Compare Matthew 15:19), nor as precisely identical with the old man, an organism or system of evil dispositions, which does not harmonize with Romans 6:12, Romans 6:13, where Paul uses body in the strict sense. “Sin is conceived as the master, to whom the body as slave belongs and is obedient to execute its will. As the slave must perform his definite functions, not because he in himself can perform no others, but because of His actually subsistent relationship of service he may perform no others, while of himself he might belong as well to another master and render other services; so the earthly σῶμα bodybelongs not of itself to the ἁμαρτία sinbut may just as well belong to the Lord (1 Corinthians 6:13), and doubtless it is de facto enslaved to sin, so long as a redemption from this state has not set in by virtue of the divine Spirit” (Romans 7:24: Dickson).DestroyedSee on Romans 3:3.He that is dead ( ὁ ἀποθανὼν )Rev., literally, he that hath died. In a physical sense. Death and its consequences are used as the general illustration of the spiritual truth. It is a habit of Paul to throw in such general illustrations. See Romans 7:2. [source]
So perhaps in 1 Corinthians 6:7, but in Isaiah 31:8 defeat is the idea. Perhaps so here. Fulness (πληρωμα plērōma). Perhaps “completion,” though the word from πληροω plēroō to fill, has a variety of senses, that with which anything is filled (1 Corinthians 10:26, 1 Corinthians 10:28), that which is filled (Ephesians 1:23). How much more? Argument a fortiori as in Romans 11:24. Romans 11:25 illustrates the point. [source]
Perhaps “completion,” though the word from πληροω plēroō to fill, has a variety of senses, that with which anything is filled (1 Corinthians 10:26, 1 Corinthians 10:28), that which is filled (Ephesians 1:23). [source]
Instrumental case. For the word, a falling aside or a false step from παραπιπτω parapiptō see note on Romans 5:15-20. Is come. No verb in the Greek, but γινεται ginetai or γεγονεν gegonen is understood. For to provoke them to jealousy Purpose expressed by εις eis and the articular infinitive, first aorist active, of παραζηλοω parazēloō for which verb see note on 1 Corinthians 10:22. As an historical fact Paul turned to the Gentiles when the Jews rejected his message (Acts 13:45.; Acts 28:28, etc.). The riches of the world (πλουτος κοσμου ploutos kosmou). See note on Romans 10:12. Their loss So perhaps in 1 Corinthians 6:7, but in Isaiah 31:8 defeat is the idea. Perhaps so here. Fulness (πληρωμα plērōma). Perhaps “completion,” though the word from πληροω plēroō to fill, has a variety of senses, that with which anything is filled (1 Corinthians 10:26, 1 Corinthians 10:28), that which is filled (Ephesians 1:23). How much more? Argument a fortiori as in Romans 11:24. Romans 11:25 illustrates the point. [source]
Purpose expressed by εις eis and the articular infinitive, first aorist active, of παραζηλοω parazēloō for which verb see note on 1 Corinthians 10:22. As an historical fact Paul turned to the Gentiles when the Jews rejected his message (Acts 13:45.; Acts 28:28, etc.). The riches of the world (πλουτος κοσμου ploutos kosmou). See note on Romans 10:12. Their loss So perhaps in 1 Corinthians 6:7, but in Isaiah 31:8 defeat is the idea. Perhaps so here. Fulness (πληρωμα plērōma). Perhaps “completion,” though the word from πληροω plēroō to fill, has a variety of senses, that with which anything is filled (1 Corinthians 10:26, 1 Corinthians 10:28), that which is filled (Ephesians 1:23). How much more? Argument a fortiori as in Romans 11:24. Romans 11:25 illustrates the point. [source]
Abstract terms for different orders of spiritual and angelic powers; as Ephesians 1:21; Ephesians 3:10; Ephesians 6:12; Colossians 1:16. [source]
Ephesians 4:9and Ephesians 4:10are parenthetical, showing what the ascension of Christ presupposes. By descending into the depths and ascending above all, He entered upon His function of filling the whole universe, in virtue of which function He distributes gifts to men. See Ephesians 1:23. Rev., properly, inserts this, thus giving the force of the article which calls attention to the fact of ascension alluded to in the quotation. “Now the or this 'He ascended.”' [source]
Compare Ephesians 1:23. [source]
Good angels. See on Ephesians 1:21. [source]
Better, through, as Rev. By means of the Church. This agrees with what was said of the Church as the fullness of God, Ephesians 1:23. [source]
Compare set Him, Ephesians 1:20. Together is ambiguous. Render with Him, as Rev. “Even now we sit there in Him, and shall sit with Him in the end” (Andrews, cited by Ellicott). Compare Romans 8:30; Revelation 3:21. Meyer renders hath given us joint seat. [source]
Another keyword; one of the dominant thoughts of the epistle being the work of the ascended Christ. Places is supplied, the Greek meaning in the heavenlies. Some prefer to supply things, as more definitely characterizing spiritual blessing. But in the four other passages where the phrase occurs, Ephesians 1:20; Ephesians 2:6; Ephesians 3:10; Ephesians 6:12, the sense is local, and ἐπουράνιος heavenlyis local throughout Paul's epistles. The meaning is that the spiritual blessings of God are found in heaven and are brought thence to us. Compare Philemon 3:20. [source]
See on Ephesians 1:2. Local. Not merely of a spiritual state, which does not suit the local expressions made to sit and right hand. [source]
Compounds with ὑπέρ overbeyond, are characteristic of Paul's intensity of style, and mark the struggle of language with the immensity of the divine mysteries, and the opulence of the divine grace. See Ephesians 1:21; Ephesians 3:20; 2 Corinthians 4:17, etc. [source]
“The both,” “the two” The “one new man” of Ephesians 2:15 of which Christ is Head (Ephesians 1:23), the spiritual church. Paul piles up metaphors to express his idea of the Kingdom of God with Christ as King (the church, the body, the commonwealth of Israel, oneness, one new man in Christ, fellow-citizens, the family of God, the temple of God). Thereby On the Cross where he slew the enmity (repeated here) between Jew and Gentile. [source]
Και Kai is genuine here, though not in Colossians 1:3. The one article First aorist active participle of ευλογεω eulogeō the same word, antecedent action to the doxology (ευλογητος eulogētos). With So-called instrumental use of εν en though in is clear. Every spiritual blessing (πασηι ευλογιαι πνευματικηι pasēi eulogiāi pneumatikēi). Third use of the root ευλογ eulog (verbal, verb, substantive). Paul lovingly plays with the idea. The believer is a citizen of heaven and the spiritual blessings count for most to him. In the heavenly places in Christ In four other places in Ephesians (Ephesians 1:20; Ephesians 2:6; Ephesians 3:10; Ephesians 6:12). This precise phrase (with εν en) occurs nowhere else in the N.T. and has a clearly local meaning in Ephesians 1:20; Ephesians 2:6; Ephesians 3:10, doubtful in Ephesians 6:12, but probably so here. In Ephesians 2:6 the believer is conceived as already seated with Christ. Heaven is the real abode of the citizen of Christ‘s kingdom (Philemon 3:20) who is a stranger on earth (Philemon 1:27; Ephesians 2:19). The word επουρανιος epouranios (heavenly) occurs in various passages in the N.T. in contrast with τα επιγεια ta epigeia (the earthly) as in John 3:12; 1 Corinthians 15:40, 1 Corinthians 15:48, 1 Corinthians 15:49; Philemon 2:10, with πατρις patris (country) in Hebrews 11:16, with κλησις klēsis (calling) in Hebrews 3:1, with δωρεα dōrea (gift) in Hebrews 6:4, with βασιλεια basileia (kingdom) in 2 Timothy 4:18. [source]
The “one new man” of Ephesians 2:15 of which Christ is Head (Ephesians 1:23), the spiritual church. Paul piles up metaphors to express his idea of the Kingdom of God with Christ as King (the church, the body, the commonwealth of Israel, oneness, one new man in Christ, fellow-citizens, the family of God, the temple of God). [source]
One mystical body of Christ (the spiritual church or kingdom, cf. Ephesians 1:23; Ephesians 2:16). [source]
See note on Ephesians 1:21. All the heavens (παντων των ουρανων pantōn tōn ouranōn). Ablative case after υπερανω huperanō For the plural used of Christ‘s ascent see note on Hebrews 4:14 and note on Hebrews 7:27. Whether Paul has in mind the Jewish notion of a graded heaven like the third heaven in 2 Corinthians 12:2 or the seven heavens idea one does not know. That he might fill all things This purpose we can understand, the supremacy of Christ (Colossians 2:9.). [source]
So-called instrumental use of εν en though in is clear. Every spiritual blessing (πασηι ευλογιαι πνευματικηι pasēi eulogiāi pneumatikēi). Third use of the root ευλογ eulog (verbal, verb, substantive). Paul lovingly plays with the idea. The believer is a citizen of heaven and the spiritual blessings count for most to him. In the heavenly places in Christ In four other places in Ephesians (Ephesians 1:20; Ephesians 2:6; Ephesians 3:10; Ephesians 6:12). This precise phrase (with εν en) occurs nowhere else in the N.T. and has a clearly local meaning in Ephesians 1:20; Ephesians 2:6; Ephesians 3:10, doubtful in Ephesians 6:12, but probably so here. In Ephesians 2:6 the believer is conceived as already seated with Christ. Heaven is the real abode of the citizen of Christ‘s kingdom (Philemon 3:20) who is a stranger on earth (Philemon 1:27; Ephesians 2:19). The word επουρανιος epouranios (heavenly) occurs in various passages in the N.T. in contrast with τα επιγεια ta epigeia (the earthly) as in John 3:12; 1 Corinthians 15:40, 1 Corinthians 15:48, 1 Corinthians 15:49; Philemon 2:10, with πατρις patris (country) in Hebrews 11:16, with κλησις klēsis (calling) in Hebrews 3:1, with δωρεα dōrea (gift) in Hebrews 6:4, with βασιλεια basileia (kingdom) in 2 Timothy 4:18. [source]
is clear. Every spiritual blessing (πασηι ευλογιαι πνευματικηι pasēi eulogiāi pneumatikēi). Third use of the root ευλογ eulog (verbal, verb, substantive). Paul lovingly plays with the idea. The believer is a citizen of heaven and the spiritual blessings count for most to him. In the heavenly places in Christ In four other places in Ephesians (Ephesians 1:20; Ephesians 2:6; Ephesians 3:10; Ephesians 6:12). This precise phrase (with εν en) occurs nowhere else in the N.T. and has a clearly local meaning in Ephesians 1:20; Ephesians 2:6; Ephesians 3:10, doubtful in Ephesians 6:12, but probably so here. In Ephesians 2:6 the believer is conceived as already seated with Christ. Heaven is the real abode of the citizen of Christ‘s kingdom (Philemon 3:20) who is a stranger on earth (Philemon 1:27; Ephesians 2:19). The word επουρανιος epouranios (heavenly) occurs in various passages in the N.T. in contrast with τα επιγεια ta epigeia (the earthly) as in John 3:12; 1 Corinthians 15:40, 1 Corinthians 15:48, 1 Corinthians 15:49; Philemon 2:10, with πατρις patris (country) in Hebrews 11:16, with κλησις klēsis (calling) in Hebrews 3:1, with δωρεα dōrea (gift) in Hebrews 6:4, with βασιλεια basileia (kingdom) in 2 Timothy 4:18. [source]
In four other places in Ephesians (Ephesians 1:20; Ephesians 2:6; Ephesians 3:10; Ephesians 6:12). This precise phrase (with εν en) occurs nowhere else in the N.T. and has a clearly local meaning in Ephesians 1:20; Ephesians 2:6; Ephesians 3:10, doubtful in Ephesians 6:12, but probably so here. In Ephesians 2:6 the believer is conceived as already seated with Christ. Heaven is the real abode of the citizen of Christ‘s kingdom (Philemon 3:20) who is a stranger on earth (Philemon 1:27; Ephesians 2:19). The word επουρανιος epouranios (heavenly) occurs in various passages in the N.T. in contrast with τα επιγεια ta epigeia (the earthly) as in John 3:12; 1 Corinthians 15:40, 1 Corinthians 15:48, 1 Corinthians 15:49; Philemon 2:10, with πατρις patris (country) in Hebrews 11:16, with κλησις klēsis (calling) in Hebrews 3:1, with δωρεα dōrea (gift) in Hebrews 6:4, with βασιλεια basileia (kingdom) in 2 Timothy 4:18. [source]
Rev., subject. See on James 4:7. It is more than merely subdue. It is to bring all things within His divine economy; to marshal them all under Himself in the new heaven and the new earth in which shall dwell righteousness. Hence the perfected heavenly state as depicted by John is thrown into the figure of a city, an organized commonwealth. The verb is thus in harmony with Phlippians 3:20. The work of God in Christ is therefore not only to transform, but to subject, and that not only the body, but all things. See 1 Corinthians 15:25-27; Romans 8:19, Romans 8:20; Ephesians 1:10, Ephesians 1:21, Ephesians 1:22; Ephesians 4:10. [source]
Compare Revelation 5:13; Ephesians 1:20, Ephesians 1:22. The words may apply either to all intelligent beings or to all things. The latter is in accord with Paul's treatment of the creation collectively in Romans 8:19-22, and with the Old-Testament passages, in which all nature is represented as praising God, as Psalm 148:1-14; Psalm 65:13. [source]
Rev., correctly, the name. This expression is differently explained: either the particular name given to Christ, as Jesus or Lord; or name is taken in the sense of dignity or glory, which is a common Old-Testament usage, and occurs in Ephesians 1:21; Hebrews 1:4. Under the former explanation a variety of names are proposed, as Son of God, Lord, God, Christ Jesus. The sense of the personal name Jesus seems to meet all the conditions, and the personal sense is the simpler, since Jesus occurs immediately after with the word name, and again Jesus Christ in Phlippians 2:11. The name Jesus was bestowed on Christ at the beginning of His humiliation, but prophetically as the One who should save His people from their sins, Matthew 1:21. It was the personal name of others besides; but if that is an objection here, it is equally an objection in Phlippians 2:10. The dignity is expressed by above every name. He bears the name in His glory. See Acts 9:5. See on Matthew 1:21. [source]
First aorist active subjunctive of καμπτω kamptō old verb, to bend, to bow, in purpose clause with ινα hina Not perfunctory genuflections whenever the name of Jesus is mentioned, but universal acknowledgment of the majesty and power of Jesus who carries his human name and nature to heaven. This universal homage to Jesus is seen in Romans 8:22; Ephesians 1:20-22 and in particular Revelation 5:13. [source]
Rev., made full. Compare John 1:16; Ephesians 1:23; Ephesians 3:19; Ephesians 4:13. Not, ye are made full in Him, but ye are in Him, made full. In Him dwells the fullness; being in Him, ye are filled. Compare John 17:21; Acts 17:28. [source]
The Church is described as a body, Romans 12:4sq.; 1Corinthians href="/desk/?q=1co+10:17&sr=1">1 Corinthians 10:17, by way of illustrating the functions of the members. Here the image is used to emphasize the position and power of Christ as the head. Compare Colossians 2:19; Ephesians 1:22, Ephesians 1:23; Ephesians 4:4, Ephesians 4:12, Ephesians 4:15, Ephesians 4:16; Ephesians 5:23, Ephesians 5:30. [source]
Jesus is first also in the spiritual realm as he is in nature (Colossians 1:18-20). Paul is fond of the metaphor of the body (σωμα sōma) for believers of which body Christ is the head (κεπαλη kephalē) as seen already in 1 Corinthians 11:3; 1 Corinthians 12:12, 1 Corinthians 12:27; Romans 12:5. See further Colossians 1:24: Colossians 2:19; Ephesians 1:22.; Ephesians 4:2, Ephesians 4:15; Ephesians 5:30. [source]
Εὐδοκέω tothink it good, to be well pleased is used in the New Testament, both of divine and of human good-pleasure; but, in the former case, always of God the Father. So Matthew 3:17; Luke 12:32; 1 Corinthians 1:21. The subject of was well pleased, God, is omitted as in James 1:12, and must be supplied; so that, literally, the passage would read, God was well pleased that in Him, etc. Rev., it was the good pleasure of the Father. Fullness, Rev, correctly, the fullness. See on Romans 11:12; see on John 1:16. The word must be taken in its passive sense - that with which a thing is filled, not that which fills. The fullness denotes the sum-total of the divine powers and attributes. In Christ dwelt all the fullness of God as deity. The relation of essential deity to creation and redemption alike, is exhibited by John in the very beginning of his gospel, with which this passage should be compared. In John the order is: 1. The essential nature of Christ; 2. Creation; 3. Redemption. Here it is: 1. Redemption (Colossians 1:13); 2. Essential being of the Son (Colossians 1:15); 3. The Son as Creator (Colossians 1:16); 4. The Church, with Christ as its head (Colossians 1:18). Compare 2 Corinthians 5:19; Ephesians 1:19, Ephesians 1:20, Ephesians 1:23. Paul does not add of the Godhead to the fullness, as in Colossians 2:9since the word occurs in direct connection with those which describe Christ's essential nature, and it would seem not to have occurred to the apostle that it could be understood in any other sense than as an expression of the plenitude of the divine attributes and powers. Thus the phrase in Him should all the fullness dwell gathers into a grand climax the previous statements - image of God, first-born of all creation, Creator, the eternally preexistent, the Head of the Church, the victor over death, first in all things. On this summit we pause, looking, like John, from Christ in His fullness of deity to the exhibition of that divine fullness in redemption consummated in heaven (Colossians 1:20-22). -DIVIDER- -DIVIDER- There must also be taken into the account the selection of this word fullness with reference to the false teaching in the Colossian church, the errors which afterward were developed more distinctly in the Gnostic schools. Pleroma fullness was used by the Gnostic teachers in a technical sense, to express the sum-total of the divine powers and attributes. “From the pleroma they supposed that all those agencies issued through which God has at any time exerted His power in creation, or manifested His will through revelation. These mediatorial beings would retain more or less of its influence, according as they claimed direct parentage from it, or traced their descent through successive evolutions. But in all cases this pleroma was distributed, diluted, transformed, and darkened by foreign admixture. They were only partial and blurred images, often deceptive caricatures, of their original, broken lights of the great Central Light” (Lightfoot). Christ may have been ranked with these inferior images of the divine by the Colossian teachers. Hence the significance of the assertion that the totality of the divine dwells in Him. [source]
Rev., better, through Him and unto Him. See on Romans 11:36. Compare in Him at the beginning of the verse. There Christ was represented as the conditional cause of all things. All things came to pass within the sphere of His personality and as dependent upon it. Here He appears as the mediating cause; through Him, as 1 Corinthians 8:6. Unto Him. All things, as they had their beginning in Him, tend to Him as their consummation, to depend on and serve Him. Compare Revelation 22:13; and Hebrews 2:10; “for whose sake ( δι ' ὃν ) and through whose agency ( δι ' οὗ ) are all things” Rev., “for whom and through whom.” See also Ephesians 1:10, Ephesians 1:23; Ephesians 4:10; Philemon 2:9-11; 1 Corinthians 15:28. The false teachers maintained that the universe proceeded from God indirectly, through a succession of emanations. Christ, at best, was only one of these. As such, the universe could not find its consummation in Him. [source]
Compare Ephesians 1:21; Ephesians 3:10; Ephesians 6:12; 1 Corinthians 15:24; Romans 8:38; Colossians 2:10, Colossians 2:15; Titus 3:1. In Titus 3:1, they refer to earthly dignities, and these are probably included in 1 Corinthians 15:24. It is doubtful whether any definite succession of rank is intended. At any rate it is impossible to accurately define the distinctions. It has been observed that wherever principalities ( ἀρχαὶ ) and powers ( ἐξουσίαι ) occur together, principalities always precedes, and that δύναμις power(see Ephesians 1:21) when occurring with either of the two, follows it; or, when occurring with both, follows both. The primary reference is, no doubt, to the celestial orders; but the expressions things on earth, and not only in this world in the parallel passage, Ephesians 1:21, indicate that it may possibly include earthly dignities. Principalities and powers are used of both good and evil powers. See Ephesians 3:10; Ephesians 6:12; Colossians 2:15. The passage is aimed at the angel-worship of the Colossians (see Introduction); showing that while they have been discussing the various grades of angels which fill the space between God and men, and depending on them as media of communion with God, they have degraded Christ who is above them all, and is the sole mediator. Compare Hebrews 1:5-14, where the ideas of the Son as Creator and as Lord of the angels are also combined. Thrones occurs only here in enumerations of this kind. It seems to indicate the highest grade. Compare Revelation 4:4, θρόνοι thronesA.V. seats, and see note. Thrones here probably means the enthroned angels. Dominions or dominations, also Ephesians 1:21. Principalities or princedoms. In Romans 8:38, this occurs without powers which usually accompanies it. [source]
Periphrastic perfect passive indicative of πληροω plēroō but only one predicate, not two. Christ is our fulness of which we all partake (John 1:16; Ephesians 1:23) and our goal is to be made full of God in Christ (Ephesians 3:19). “In Christ they find the satisfaction of every spiritual want” (Peake). [source]
See on remission, Romans 3:25; see on forgiven, James 5:15. Forgiveness defines redemption. Lightfoot's suggestion is very interesting that this precise definition may convey an allusion to the perversion of the term ἀπολύτρωσις by the Gnostics of a later age, and which was possibly foreshadowed in the teaching of the Colossian heretics. The Gnostics used it to signify the result of initiation into certain mysteries. Lightfoot quotes from Irenaeus the baptismal formula of the Marcosians “into unity and redemption ( ἀπολύτρωσιν ) and communion of powers.” The idea of a redemption of the world, and (in a perverted form) of the person and work of Christ as having part in it, distinctively marked the Gnostic schools. That from which the world was redeemed, however; was not sin, in the proper sense of the term, but something inherent in the constitution of the world itself, and therefore due to its Creator. In the following passage the person of Christ is defined as related to God and to creation; and absolute supremacy is claimed for Him. See Introduction to this volume, and compare Ephesians 1:20-23, and Philemon 2:6-11. -DIVIDER- -DIVIDER- [source]
Only here and Judges 1:9. Not in O.T. The Pauline angelology shows traces of Rabbinical teachings in the idea of orders of angels. See Ephesians 1:21; Colossians 1:16; Romans 8:38. The archangels appear in the apocryphal literature. In the Book of Enoch (see on Judges 1:14) four are named, Michael, Uriel, Raphael, and Gabriel. Michael is set over the tree which, at the time of the great judgment, will be given over to the righteous and humble, and from the fruit of which life will be given to the elect. In Revelation href="/desk/?q=re+8:2&sr=1">Revelation 8:2. See also on Judges 1:9, and comp. Daniel 12:1. [source]
For glory see on 1 Thessalonians 2:12. Ἱσχὺς powernot often in Paul. It is indwelling power put forth or embodied, either aggressively or as an obstacle to resistance: physical power organized or working under individual direction. An army and a fortress are both ἰσχυρὸς. The power inhering in the magistrate, which is put forth in laws or judicial decisions, is ἰσχὺς , and makes the edicts ἰσχυρὰ validand hard to resist. Δύναμις is the indwelling power which comes to manifestation in ἰσχὺς The precise phrase used here does not appear elsewhere in N.T. In lxx, Isaiah 2:10, Isaiah 2:19, Isaiah 2:21. The power ( δύναμις ) and glory of God are associated in Matthew 24:30; Mark 13:26; Luke 21:27; Revelation 4:11; Revelation 19:1. Comp. κράτος τῆς δόξης αὐτοῦ strengthof his glory, Colossians 1:11. Additional Note on ὄλεθρον αἰώνιον eternaldestruction, 2 Thessalonians 1:9 Ἁιών transliterated eon is a period of time of longer or shorter duration, having a beginning and an end, and complete in itself. Aristotle ( περὶ οὐρανοῦ , i. 9,15) says: “The period which includes the whole time of each one's life is called the eon of each one.” Hence it often means the life of a man, as in Homer, where one's life ( αἰών ) is said to leave him or to consume away (Il. v. 685; Od. v. 160). It is not, however, limited to human life; it signifies any period in the course of events, as the period or age before Christ; the period of the millennium; the mytho-logical period before the beginnings of history. The word has not “a stationary and mechanical value” (De Quincey). It does not mean a period of a fixed length for all cases. There are as many eons as entities, the respective durations of which are fixed by the normal conditions of the several entities. There is one eon of a human life, another of the life of a nation, another of a crow's life, another of an oak's life. The length of the eon depends on the subject to which it is attached. It is sometimes translated world; world representing a period or a series of periods of time. See Matthew 12:32; Matthew 13:40, Matthew 13:49; Luke 1:70; 1 Corinthians 1:20; 1 Corinthians 2:6; Ephesians 1:21. Similarly οἱ αἰῶνες theworlds, the universe, the aggregate of the ages or periods, and their contents which are included in the duration of the world. 1 Corinthians 2:7; 1 Corinthians 10:11; Hebrews 1:2; Hebrews 9:26; Hebrews 11:3. -DIVIDER- -DIVIDER- The word always carries the notion of time, and not of eternity. It always means a period of time. Otherwise it would be impossible to account for the plural, or for such qualifying expressions as this age, or the age to come. It does not mean something endless or everlasting. To deduce that meaning from its relation to ἀεί is absurd; for, apart from the fact that the meaning of a word is not definitely fixed by its derivation, ἀεί does not signify endless duration. When the writer of the Pastoral Epistles quotes the saying that the Cretans are always ( ἀεί ) liars (Titus 1:12), he surely does not mean that the Cretans will go on lying to all eternity. See also Acts 7:51; 2 Corinthians 4:11; 2 Corinthians 6:10; Hebrews 3:10; 1 Peter 3:15. Ἁεί means habitually or continually within the limit of the subject's life. In our colloquial dialect everlastingly is used in the same way. “The boy is everlastingly tormenting me to buy him a drum.”-DIVIDER- In the New Testament the history of the world is conceived as developed through a succession of eons. A series of such eons precedes the introduction of a new series inaugurated by the Christian dispensation, and the end of the world and the second coming of Christ are to mark the beginning of another series. See Ephesians 3:11. Paul contemplates eons before and after the Christian era. Ephesians 1:21; Ephesians 2:7; Ephesians 3:9, Ephesians 3:21; 1 Corinthians 10:11; comp. Hebrews 9:26. He includes the series of eons in one great eon, ὁ αἰὼν τῶν αἰώνων theeon of the eons (Ephesians 3:21); and the author of the Epistle to the Hebrews describes the throne of God as enduring unto the eon of the eons (Hebrews 1:8). The plural is also used, eons of the eons, signifying all the successive periods which make up the sum total of the ages collectively. Romans 16:27; Galatians 1:5; Philemon 4:20, etc. This plural phrase is applied by Paul to God only. -DIVIDER- -DIVIDER- The adjective αἰώνιος in like manner carries the idea of time. Neither the noun nor the adjective, in themselves, carry the sense of endless or everlasting. They may acquire that sense by their connotation, as, on the other hand, ἀΐ̀διος , which means everlasting, has its meaning limited to a given point of time in Judges 1:6. Ἁιώνιος means enduring through or pertaining to a period of time. Both the noun and the adjective are applied to limited periods. Thus the phrase εἰς τὸν αἰῶνα , habitually rendered forever, is often used of duration which is limited in the very nature of the case. See, for a few out of many instances, lxx, Exodus 21:6; Exodus 29:9; Exodus 32:13; Joshua 14:9; 1 Samuel 8:13; Leviticus 25:46; Deuteronomy 15:17; 1 Chronicles 28:4. See also Matthew 21:19; John 13:8; 1 Corinthians 8:13. The same is true of αἰώνιος . Out of 150 instances in lxx, four-fifths imply limited duration. For a few instances see Genesis 48:4; Numbers 10:8; Numbers 15:15; Proverbs 22:28; Jonah 2:6; Habakkuk 3:6; Isaiah 61:8. -DIVIDER- -DIVIDER- Words which are habitually applied to things temporal or material can not carry in themselves the sense of endlessness. Even when applied to God, we are not forced to render αἰώνιος everlastingOf course the life of God is endless; but the question is whether, in describing God as αἰώνιος , it was intended to describe the duration of his being, or whether some different and larger idea was not contemplated. That God lives longer than men, and lives on everlastingly, and has lived everlastingly, are, no doubt, great and significant facts; yet they are not the dominant or the most impressive facts in God's relations to time. God's eternity does not stand merely or chiefly for a scale of length. It is not primarily a mathematical but a moral fact. The relations of God to time include and imply far more than the bare fact of endless continuance. They carry with them the fact that God transcends time; works on different principles and on a vaster scale than the wisdom of time provides; oversteps the conditions and the motives of time; marshals the successive eons from a point outside of time, on lines which run out into his own measureless cycles, and for sublime moral ends which the creature of threescore and ten years cannot grasp and does not even suspect. -DIVIDER- -DIVIDER- There is a word for everlasting if that idea is demanded. That αἰώνιος occurs rarely in the New Testament and in lxx does not prove that its place was taken by αἰώνιος . It rather goes to show that less importance was attached to the bare idea of everlastingness than later theological thought has given it. Paul uses the word once, in Romans 1:20, where he speaks of “the everlasting power and divinity of God.” In Romans 16:26he speaks of the eternal God ( τοῦ αἰωνίου θεοῦ ); but that he does not mean the everlasting God is perfectly clear from the context. He has said that “the mystery” has been kept in silence in times eternal ( χρόνοις αἰωνίοις ), by which he does not mean everlasting times, but the successive eons which elapsed before Christ was proclaimed. God therefore is described as the God of the eons, the God who pervaded and controlled those periods before the incarnation. To the same effect is the title ὁ βασιλεὺς τῶν αἰώνων theKing of the eons, applied to God in 1 Timothy 1:17; Revelation 15:3; comp. 2Timothy href="/desk/?q=2ti+1:9&sr=1">2 Timothy 1:9; Titus 1:2), cannot mean before everlasting times. To say that God bestowed grace on men, or promised them eternal life before endless times, would be absurd. The meaning is of old, as Luke 1:70. The grace and the promise were given in time, but far back in the ages, before the times of reckoning the eons. -DIVIDER- -DIVIDER- Ζωὴ αἰώνιος eternallife, which occurs 42 times in N.T., but not in lxx, is not endless life, but life pertaining to a certain age or eon, or continuing during that eon. I repeat, life may be endless. The life in union with Christ is endless, but the fact is not expressed by αἰώνιος . Κόλασις αἰώνιος , rendered everlasting punishment (Matthew 25:46), is the punishment peculiar to an eon other than that in which Christ is speaking. In some cases ζωὴ αἰώνιος does not refer specifically to the life beyond time, but rather to the eon or dispensation of Messiah which succeeds the legal dispensation. See Matthew 19:16; John 5:39. John says that ζωὴ αἰώνιος is the present possession of those who believe on the Son of God, John 3:36; John 5:24; John 6:47, John 6:64. The Father's commandment is ζωὴ αἰώσιος , John 12:50; to know the only true God and Jesus Christ is ζωὴ αἰώνιος , John 17:3. -DIVIDER- -DIVIDER- Bishop Westcott very justly says, commenting upon the terms used by John to describe life under different aspects: “In considering these phrases it is necessary to premise that in spiritual things we must guard against all conclusions which rest upon the notions of succession and duration. 'Eternal life' is that which St. Paul speaks of as ἡ ὄντως ζωὴ thelife which is life indeed, and ἡ ζωὴ τοῦ θεοῦ thelife of God. It is not an endless duration of being in time, but being of which time is not a measure. We have indeed no powers to grasp the idea except through forms and images of sense. These must be used, but we must not transfer them as realities to another order.”-DIVIDER- Thus, while αἰώνιος carries the idea of time, though not of endlessness, there belongs to it also, more or less, a sense of quality. Its character is ethical rather than mathematical. The deepest significance of the life beyond time lies, not in endlessness, but in the moral quality of the eon into which the life passes. It is comparatively unimportant whether or not the rich fool, when his soul was required of him (Luke 12:20), entered upon a state that was endless. The principal, the tremendous fact, as Christ unmistakably puts it, was that, in the new eon, the motives, the aims, the conditions, the successes and awards of time counted for nothing. In time, his barns and their contents were everything; the soul was nothing. In the new life the soul was first and everything, and the barns and storehouses nothing. The bliss of the sanctified does not consist primarily in its endlessness, but in the nobler moral conditions of the new eon, - the years of the holy and eternal God. Duration is a secondary idea. When it enters it enters as an accompaniment and outgrowth of moral conditions. -DIVIDER- -DIVIDER- In the present passage it is urged that ὄλεθρον destructionpoints to an unchangeable, irremediable, and endless condition. If this be true, if ὄλεθρος isextinction, then the passage teaches the annihilation of the wicked, in which case the adjective αἰώνιος is superfluous, since extinction is final, and excludes the idea of duration. But ὄλεθρος does not always mean destruction or extinction. Take the kindred verb ἀπόλλυμι todestroy, put an end to, or in the middle voice, to be lost, to perish. Peter says, “the world being deluged with water, perished ” ( ἀπολοῦνται 2 Peter 3:6); but the world did not become extinct, it was renewed. In Hebrews 1:11, Hebrews 1:12quoted from Isaiah href="/desk/?q=isa+51:6&sr=1">Isaiah 51:6, Isaiah 51:16; Isaiah 65:17; Isaiah 66:22; 2 Peter 3:13; Revelation 21:1. Similarly, “the Son of man came to save that which was lost ” ( ἀπολωλός ), Luke 19:10. Jesus charged his apostles to go to the lost ( ἀπολωλότα ) sheep of the house of Israel, Matthew 10:6, comp. Matthew 15:24. “He that shall lose ( ἀπολέσῃ ) his life for my sake shall find it,” Matthew 16:25. Comp. Luke 15:6, Luke 15:9, Luke 15:32. -DIVIDER- -DIVIDER- In this passage the word destruction is qualified. It is “destruction from the presence of the Lord and from the glory of his power, “ at his second coming, in the new eon. In other words, it is the severance, at a given point of time, of those who obey not the gospel from the presence and the glory of Christ. Ἁιώνιος may therefore describe this severance as continuing during the millennial eon between Christ's coming and the final judgment; as being for the wicked prolonged throughout that eon and characteristic of it, or it may describe the severance as characterizing or enduring through a period or eon succeeding the final judgment, the extent of which period is not defined. In neither case is αἰώνιος to be interpreted as everlasting or endless.sa180 [source]
Comp. Psalm 110:1, Hebrews 8:1; Hebrews 10:12; Hebrews 12:2; Ephesians 1:20; Revelation 3:21. The verb denotes a solemn, formal act; the assumption of a position of dignity and authority The reference is to Christ's ascension. In his exalted state he will still be bearing on all things toward their consummation, still dealing with sin as the great high priest in the heavenly sanctuary. This is elaborated later. See Hebrews 8:1-13; Hebrews 9:12ff. Μεγαλωσύνη majestyonly here, Hebrews 8:1; Judges 1:25. Quite often in lxx. There is suggested, not a contrast with his humiliation, but his resumption of his original dignity, described in the former part of this verse. Ἐν ὑψηλοῖς , lit. in the high places. Const. with sat down, not with majesty. The phrase N.T.olxx, Psalm 92:4; Psalm 112:5. Ἐν τοῖς ὑψίστοις inthe highest (places ), in the Gospels, and only in doxologies. See Matthew 21:9; Mark 11:10; Luke 2:14. Ἐν τοῖς ἐπουρανίοις inthe heavenly (places ), only in Ephesians. See Ephesians 1:3, Ephesians 1:20; Ephesians 2:6; Ephesians 3:10; Ephesians 6:12. [source]
Absolute and timeless existence (present active participle of ειμι eimi) in contrast with γενομενος genomenos in Hebrews 1:4 like ην ēn in John 1:1 (in contrast with εγενετο egeneto in John 1:14) and like υπαρχων huparchōn and γενομενος genomenos in Philemon 2:6. The effulgence of his glory The word απαυγασμα apaugasma late substantive from απαυγαζω apaugazō to emit brightness The meaning “effulgence” suits the context better, though it gives the idea of eternal generation of the Son (John 1:1), the term Father applied to God necessarily involving Son. See this same metaphor in 2 Corinthians 4:6. The very image of his substance (Χαρακτηρ charaktēr tēs hupostaseōs). χαρασσω Charaktēr is an old word from τηρ charassō to cut, to scratch, to mark. It first was the agent (note ending = χαραγμα tēr) or tool that did the marking, then the mark or impress made, the exact reproduction, a meaning clearly expressed by χαρακτηρ charagma (Acts 17:29; Revelation 13:16.). Menander had already used (Moffatt) υποστασις charaktēr in the sense of our “character.” The word occurs in the inscriptions for “person” as well as for “exact reproduction” of a person. The word ψποστασις hupostasis for the being or essence of God “is a philosophical rather than a religious term” (Moffatt). Etymologically it is the sediment or foundation under a building (for instance). In Hebrews 11:1 μορπη τεου hypostasis is like the “title-deed” idea found in the papyri. Athanasius rightly used Hebrews 1:1-4 in his controversy with Arius. Paul in Philemon 2:5-11 pictures the real and eternal deity of Christ free from the philosophical language here employed. But even Paul‘s simpler phrase Λογος morphē theou (the form of God) has difficulties of its own. The use of περων τε Logos in John 1:1-18 is parallel to Hebrews 1:1-4. And upholding (περω pherōn te). Present active participle of ων pherō closely connected with τε ōn (being) by τωι ρηματι της δυναμεως αυτου te and like Colossians 1:17 in idea. The newer science as expounded by Eddington and Jeans is in harmony with the spiritual and personal conception of creation here presented. By the word of his power (ρημα tōi rēmati tēs dunameōs autou). Instrumental case of ρηματι τεου rēma (word). See Hebrews 11:3 for αυτου rēmati theou (by the word of God) as the explanation of creation like Genesis, but here καταρισμον των αμαρτιων autou refers to God‘s Son as in Hebrews 1:2. Purification of sins (Καταρισμος katharismon tōn hamartiōn). καταριζω Katharismos is from ποιησαμενος katharizō to cleanse (Matthew 8:3; Hebrews 9:14), here only in Hebrews, but in same sense of cleansing from sins, 2 Peter 1:9; Job 7:21. Note middle participle ευραμενος poiēsamenos like εκατισεν heuramenos in Hebrews 9:12. This is the first mention of the priestly work of Christ, the keynote of this Epistle. Sat down (κατιζω ekathisen). First aorist active of της μεγαλοσυνης εν υπσηλοις kathizō “took his seat,” a formal and dignified act. Of the Majesty on high (μεγας tēs megalosunēs en hupsēlois). Late word from εν υπσηλοις megas only in lxx (Deut 32:3; 2Sam 7:23, etc.), Aristeas, Hebrews 1:3; Hebrews 8:1; Judges 1:25. Christ resumed his original dignity and glory (John 17:5). The phrase εν υπσιστοις en hupsēlois occurs in the Psalms (Psalm 93:4), here only in N.T., elsewhere εν τοις επουρανιοις en hupsistois in the highest (Matthew 21:9; Luke 2:14) or en tois epouraniois in the heavenlies (Ephesians 1:3, Ephesians 1:20). Jesus is here pictured as King (Prophet and Priest also) Messiah seated at the right hand of God. [source]
The word απαυγασμα apaugasma late substantive from απαυγαζω apaugazō to emit brightness The meaning “effulgence” suits the context better, though it gives the idea of eternal generation of the Son (John 1:1), the term Father applied to God necessarily involving Son. See this same metaphor in 2 Corinthians 4:6. The very image of his substance (Χαρακτηρ charaktēr tēs hupostaseōs). χαρασσω Charaktēr is an old word from τηρ charassō to cut, to scratch, to mark. It first was the agent (note ending = χαραγμα tēr) or tool that did the marking, then the mark or impress made, the exact reproduction, a meaning clearly expressed by χαρακτηρ charagma (Acts 17:29; Revelation 13:16.). Menander had already used (Moffatt) υποστασις charaktēr in the sense of our “character.” The word occurs in the inscriptions for “person” as well as for “exact reproduction” of a person. The word ψποστασις hupostasis for the being or essence of God “is a philosophical rather than a religious term” (Moffatt). Etymologically it is the sediment or foundation under a building (for instance). In Hebrews 11:1 μορπη τεου hypostasis is like the “title-deed” idea found in the papyri. Athanasius rightly used Hebrews 1:1-4 in his controversy with Arius. Paul in Philemon 2:5-11 pictures the real and eternal deity of Christ free from the philosophical language here employed. But even Paul‘s simpler phrase Λογος morphē theou (the form of God) has difficulties of its own. The use of περων τε Logos in John 1:1-18 is parallel to Hebrews 1:1-4. And upholding (περω pherōn te). Present active participle of ων pherō closely connected with τε ōn (being) by τωι ρηματι της δυναμεως αυτου te and like Colossians 1:17 in idea. The newer science as expounded by Eddington and Jeans is in harmony with the spiritual and personal conception of creation here presented. By the word of his power (ρημα tōi rēmati tēs dunameōs autou). Instrumental case of ρηματι τεου rēma (word). See Hebrews 11:3 for αυτου rēmati theou (by the word of God) as the explanation of creation like Genesis, but here καταρισμον των αμαρτιων autou refers to God‘s Son as in Hebrews 1:2. Purification of sins (Καταρισμος katharismon tōn hamartiōn). καταριζω Katharismos is from ποιησαμενος katharizō to cleanse (Matthew 8:3; Hebrews 9:14), here only in Hebrews, but in same sense of cleansing from sins, 2 Peter 1:9; Job 7:21. Note middle participle ευραμενος poiēsamenos like εκατισεν heuramenos in Hebrews 9:12. This is the first mention of the priestly work of Christ, the keynote of this Epistle. Sat down (κατιζω ekathisen). First aorist active of της μεγαλοσυνης εν υπσηλοις kathizō “took his seat,” a formal and dignified act. Of the Majesty on high (μεγας tēs megalosunēs en hupsēlois). Late word from εν υπσηλοις megas only in lxx (Deut 32:3; 2Sam 7:23, etc.), Aristeas, Hebrews 1:3; Hebrews 8:1; Judges 1:25. Christ resumed his original dignity and glory (John 17:5). The phrase εν υπσιστοις en hupsēlois occurs in the Psalms (Psalm 93:4), here only in N.T., elsewhere εν τοις επουρανιοις en hupsistois in the highest (Matthew 21:9; Luke 2:14) or en tois epouraniois in the heavenlies (Ephesians 1:3, Ephesians 1:20). Jesus is here pictured as King (Prophet and Priest also) Messiah seated at the right hand of God. [source]
Hebraistic use of οπισω opisō as with αμαρτιων hamartiōn (sins) in Isaiah 65:2. Cf. Matthew 4:19; 1 Timothy 5:15.Of defilement (μιασμου miasmou). Old word (from μιαινω miainō Titus 1:15), here only in N.T.Despise dominion Κυριοτης Kuriotēs is late word for lordship (perhaps God or Christ) (from Κυριος Kurios), in Colossians 1:16; Ephesians 1:21; Judges 1:8. Genitive case after καταπρουντας kataphrountas (thinking down on, Matthew 6:24).Daring (τολμηται tolmētai). Old substantive (from τολμαω tolmaō to dare), daring men, here only in N.T.Self-willed Old adjective (from αυτος autos and ηδομαι hēdomai), self-pleasing, arrogant, in N.T. only here and Titus 1:7.They tremble not to rail at dignities (δοχας ου τρεμουσιν βλασπημουντες doxas ou tremousin blasphēmountes). “They tremble not blaspheming dignities.” Τρεμω Tremō is old verb (Mark 5:33), used only in present as here and imperfect. Here with the complementary participle βλασπημουντες blasphēmountes rather than the infinitive βλασπημειν blasphēmein See Judges 1:8. Perhaps these dignities (δοχας doxas) are angels (εςιλ evil). [source]
Κυριοτης Kuriotēs is late word for lordship (perhaps God or Christ) (from Κυριος Kurios), in Colossians 1:16; Ephesians 1:21; Judges 1:8. Genitive case after καταπρουντας kataphrountas (thinking down on, Matthew 6:24).Daring (τολμηται tolmētai). Old substantive (from τολμαω tolmaō to dare), daring men, here only in N.T.Self-willed Old adjective (from αυτος autos and ηδομαι hēdomai), self-pleasing, arrogant, in N.T. only here and Titus 1:7.They tremble not to rail at dignities (δοχας ου τρεμουσιν βλασπημουντες doxas ou tremousin blasphēmountes). “They tremble not blaspheming dignities.” Τρεμω Tremō is old verb (Mark 5:33), used only in present as here and imperfect. Here with the complementary participle βλασπημουντες blasphēmountes rather than the infinitive βλασπημειν blasphēmein See Judges 1:8. Perhaps these dignities (δοχας doxas) are angels (εςιλ evil). [source]
It is not easy to determine the exact meaning of these two terms. Κυριότης , dominion, occurs in three other passages, Ephesians 1:21; Colossians 1:16; 2 Peter 2:10. In the first two, and probably in the third, the reference is to angelic dignities. Some explain this passage and the one in Peter, of evil angels. In Colossians the term is used with thrones, principalities, and powers, with reference to the orders of the celestial hierarchy as conceived by Gnostic teachers, and with a view to exalt Christ above all these. Glories or dignities is used in this concrete sense only here and at 2 Peter 2:10. [source]
The word originally signifies beginning, and so frequently in New Testament, mostly in the Gospels, Acts, Hebrews, Catholic Epistles, and Apocalypse. From this comes a secondary meaning of sovereignty, dominion, magistracy, as being the beginning or first place of power. So mostly by Paul, as principalities (Romans 8:38); rule (1 Corinthians 15:24). Compare Luke 12:11, magistrates; Rev., rulers; and Luke 20:20, power. Rev., rule. A peculiar use of the word occurs at Acts 10:11, “the sheet knit at the four corners ( ἀρχαῖς );” the corners being the beginnings of the sheet. In this passage the A. V. has adopted the first meaning, beginning, in its rendering first estate. Rev. adopts the second, rendering principality. The Jews regarded the angels as having dominion over earthly creatures; and the angels are often spoken of in the New Testament as ἀρχαί , principalities; as Romans 8:38; Ephesians 1:21; so that this term would be appropriate to designate their dignity, which they forsook. [source]
This epithet comes from Isaiah 22:22, where Eliakim as the chief steward of the royal household holds the keys of power. Christ as the Messiah (Revelation 5:5; Revelation 22:16) has exclusive power in heaven, on earth, and in Hades (Matthew 16:19; Matthew 28:18; Romans 14:9; Philemon 2:9.; Revelation 1:18). Christ has power to admit and exclude of his own will (Matthew 25:10.; Ephesians 1:22; Revelation 3:21; Revelation 19:11-16; Revelation 20:4; Revelation 22:16). [source]
Separate articles (four in all) for each item in this description. “The holy, the genuine.” Asyndeton in the Greek. Latin Vulgate, Sanctus et Verus. αγιος Hosea hagios is ascribed to God in Revelation 4:8; Revelation 6:10 (both αλητινος hagios and αλητινος alēthinos as here), but to Christ in Mark 1:24; Luke 4:34; John 6:69; Acts 4:27, Acts 4:30; 1 John 2:20, a recognized title of the Messiah as the consecrated one set apart. Swete notes that αλητης alēthinos is verus as distinguished from verax So it is applied to God in Revelation 6:10 and to Christ in Revelation 3:14; Revelation 19:11 as in John 1:9; John 6:32; John 15:1.He that hath the key of David (και ουδεις κλεισει ho echōn tēn klein Daueid). This epithet comes from Isaiah 22:22, where Eliakim as the chief steward of the royal household holds the keys of power. Christ as the Messiah (Revelation 5:5; Revelation 22:16) has exclusive power in heaven, on earth, and in Hades (Matthew 16:19; Matthew 28:18; Romans 14:9; Philemon 2:9.; Revelation 1:18). Christ has power to admit and exclude of his own will (Matthew 25:10.; Ephesians 1:22; Revelation 3:21; Revelation 19:11-16; Revelation 20:4; Revelation 22:16).And none shall shut Charles calls the structure Hebrew (future active indicative of ο ανοιγων kleiō), and not Greek because it does not correspond to the present articular participle just before και ουδεις ανοιγει ho anoigōn (the one opening), but it occurs often in this book as in the very next clause, “and none openeth” (κλειων kai oudeis anoigei) over against κλειει kleiōn (present active participle, opening) though here some MSS. read kleiei (present active indicative, open). [source]