The Expositor's Bible: The Epistle to the Ephesians. Findlay George Gillanders

1

The translation given in this volume is based upon the Revised Version, but deviates from it in some particulars. These deviations will be explained in the exposition.

2

The case against authenticity is ably stated in Dr. S. Davidson’s Introduction to the N. T.; see also Baur’s Paul, Pfleiderer’s Paulinism, Hilgenfeld’s Einleitung, Hatch’s article on “Paul” in the Encyclopædia Britannica. The case for the defence may be found in Weiss’, Salmon’s, Bleek’s, or Dods’ N. T. Introduction– the last brief, but to the point; in Reuss’ History of the N. T.; Milligan’s article on “Ephesians” in Encycl. Brit.; Gloag’s Introduction to the Pauline Epp.; Meyer’s, or Beet’s, or Eadie’s Commentary; Sabatier’s The Apostle Paul.

3

Rom. xi. 16–24; Acts xiii. 26; Gal. iii. 7, 14.

4

Gal. iii. 10–13; 2 Cor. v. 20, 21, etc.

5

Gal. ii. 20; 1 Cor. vi. 17.

6

See ch. i. 9–13, ii. 11–22, iii. 5–11, iv. 1–16, v. 23–32.

7

Gal ii. 20; Eph. v. 25.

8

Rom. i. 16; Eph. ii. 17–20.

9

1 Tim. iii. 15, 16; 2 Tim. ii. 20, 21.

10

Eph. iii. 21, v. 32.

11

Kritik d. Epheser-u. Kolosserbriefe auf Grund einer Analyse ihres Verwandtschaftsverhältnisses (Leipzig, 1872). A work more subtle and scientific, more replete with learning, and yet more unconvincing than this of Holtzmann, we do not know.

Von Soden, the latest interpreter of this school and Holtzmann’s collaborateur in the new Hand-Commentar, accepts Colossians in its integrity as the work of Paul, retracting previous doubts on the subject. Ephesians he believes to have been written by a Jewish disciple of Paul in his name, about the end of the first century.

12

Matt. xvi. 15–18; John xvii. 10: I am glorified in them.

13

See his Saint Paul, Introduction, pp. xii.–xxiii.

14

See Col. ii. 15, 18, 20–23.

15

E.g., in Rom. i. 1–7, viii. 28–30, xi. 33–36, xvi. 25–27.

16

See the Winer-Moulton N. T. Grammar, p. 709: “It is in writers of great mental vivacity – more taken up with the thought than with the mode of its expression – that we may expect to find anacolutha most frequently. Hence they are especially numerous in the epistolary style of the apostle Paul.”

17

Eph. iii. 1; Phil. i. 13; Philem. 9.

18

Ch. i. 15, iv. 20, 21.

19

Col. i. 4, ii. 1; Rom. xv. 15, 16.

20

“My brethren” in ch. vi. 10 is an insertion of the copyists. Even the closing benediction, ch. vi. 23, 24, is in the third person– a thing unexampled in St Paul’s epistles.

21

Ch. vi. 21, 22; Col. iv. 7–9.

22

Compare Maclaren on Colossians and Philemon, p. 406, in this series.

23

Τοῖς ἁγίοις τοῖς οὖσιν … καὶ πιστοῖς ἐν Χριστῳ Ἰησοῦ. The interposition of the heterogeneous attributive between ἁγίοις and πιστοῖς is harsh and improbable – not to say, with Hofmann, “quite incredible.” The two latest German commentaries to hand, that of Beck and of von Soden (in the Hand-Commentar), interpreters of opposite schools, agree with Hofmann in rejecting the local adjunct and regarding πιστοῖς as the complement of τοῖς οὖσιν.

24

Origen, in his fanciful way, makes of τοῖς οὖσιν a predicate by itself: “the saints who are,” who possess real being like God Himself (Exod. iii. 14) – “called from non-existence into existence.” He compares 1 Cor. i. 28.

25

See, e. g., ver. 18, ii. 19, iii. 18, iv. 12, v. 3.

26

Ch. ii. 7, iii. 5, 21; Col. i. 26.

27

Vv. 13, 14; Rom. viii. 2–6, 16; 1 Cor. ii. 12; Gal v. 16, 22–25.

28

εἰς αὐτόν, for Him; not αὐτῳ, to Him.

29

Ch. v. 25–27; Col. i. 27–29; Jude 24.

30

On sonship, see Chapters XV.–XVII. and XIX. in The Epistle to the Galatians (Expositor’s Bible).

31

From a valuable and suggestive paper by W. E. Ball, LL.D., on “St Paul and the Roman Law,” in the Contemporary Review, August 1891.

32

See vv. 12, 13, where Jews and Gentiles, collectively, are distinguished; and ch. ii. 11, 12, iii. 2–6, 21, iv. 4, 5, v. 25–27.

33

The arrangement above made of the lines of this intricate passage is designed to guide the eye to its elucidation. Our disposition of the verses has not been determined by any preconceived interpretation, but by the parallelism of expression and cadences of phrase. The rhythmical structure of the piece, it seems to us, supplies the key to its explanation, and reduces to order its long-drawn and heaped-up relative and prepositional clauses, which are grammatically so unmanageable.

34

Χαῖρε, κεχαριτωμένη. It is impossible to reproduce in English the beautiful assonance – the play of sound and sense – in Gabriel’s greeting, as St Luke renders it.

35

See Rom. i. 16–18, iii. 19–v. 21, vi. 7, vii. 1–6, viii. 1–4, 31–34, x. 6–9; 1 Cor. xv. 3, 4, 17, 56, 57; 2 Cor. v. 18–21; Gal. ii. 14–iii. 14, vi. 12–14. The latter passages the writer has endeavoured to expound in Chapters X. to XII. and XXVIII. of his Commentary on Galatians in this series.

36

It is an error to suppose, as one sometimes hears it said, that trespasses or transgressions are a light and comparatively trivial form of sin. Both words denote, in the language of Scripture, definite offences against known law, departures from known duty. Adam’s sin was the typical “transgression” and “trespass” (Rom. v. 14, 15, etc.; comp. ii. 23; Gal. iii. 19).

37

Gal. iii. 13; 1 Cor. vi. 19, 20.

38

See The Evangelical