Ephesians 1:7

ἔσχομεν (א*D* boh aeth), also a variant in Colossians 1:14, where it is supported by B boh and given a place in margin by WH.

7. ἐν ᾧ ἔχομεν κ.τ.λ. Cf. Colossians 1:14 ‘In whom we “have and hold” our deliverance by means of His blood, that is, the forgiveness of our transgressions.’ Here first in the Epistle we find ourselves confronted, though but for a moment, with the fact of sin. ἐν ᾧ. Once more ‘as incorporate in whom.’ Cf. Romans 3:24 and Du Bose, Gospel according to St Paul, pp. 84 ff. ἔχομεν, cf. Ephesians 2:18; Ephesians 3:12 The word implies, as in Romans 5:1, εἰρήνην ἔχωμεν, more than bare possession. See J. H. Moulton, Proleg., p. 110. Cf. Matthew 12:12.

τὴν�. See esp. Hort on 1 Peter 1:19, Westcott on Hebrews 9:15. Used here, as in Romans 3:24; Colossians 1:14, of a present deliverance. In Ephesians 1:14; Ephesians 4:30 the deliverance is future. The word properly means deliverance from bondage on payment of a ransom. Sometimes, however, as in Hebrews 11:35, and often in the Psalms in the case of the simple verb λυτροῦσθαι, the fact of deliverance irrespective of the method by which it is effected seems alone prominent. In 1 Peter 1:18 f. the language shows that the writer was conscious, perhaps remembering Mark 10:45 (λύτρον�), of the metaphor implied in the word, and it is possible that St Paul’s διὰ τοῦ αἵματος here may be due to the same cause, but apart from the phrase τῆς ἐν Χρ. Ἰ. in Romans 3:24, which is further defined by reference to a power of propitiation residing ἐν τῷ αἵματι, he nowhere else gives any hint of the method of deliverance. He is chiefly interested, as here and in Colossians 1:14; Romans 3:24 and Titus 2:14 (cf. Psalms 130:8), in emphasizing the fact that it is a deliverance from the guilt and power of sin.

A question has been raised why St Paul, here as in the Colossians, seems to go out of his way to introduce the thought of redemption and supply a definition of it? It has been pointed out that redemption is the one thought which all the forms of Gnosticism adopted from Christianity, and it has been suggested that St Paul’s words are directed against some form of incipient Gnosticism. Neither here nor in his use of what became later the still more definitely technical term πλήρωμα is this inference necessary. The thoughts of redemption and forgiveness were, as Romans 3:24 shows, so closely connected in the mind of St Paul with the thought of the grace of God to sinful man that no further justification of the reference is required by the context, and, if there is any polemic force in the definition, it may be more fruitfully sought for in relation to current Jewish conceptions of the nature of the deliverance which God had in store for His Israel, cf. Luke 2:38.

διὰ τοῦ αἵματος. See Additional Note. διὰ τοῦ αἵματος αὐτοῦ, sc. τοῦ ἠγαπημένου; cf. Acts 20:28, τὴν ἐκκλ. τ. θ. ἣν περιεποιήσατο διὰ τοῦ αἵματος τοῦ ἰδίου, esp. if υἱοῦ has dropped out after ἰδίου. This parallel suggests that the Blood may be here regarded as the cost of our deliverance as it is expressly in 1 Peter 1:19 and Revelation 1:5; Revelation 5:9 But as the article is not repeated (cf. Romans 3:24 and see Winer-Moulton, 171 f., but ct. Blass, p. 159) before διὰ τ. αἱ. the phrase may be taken with ἔχομεν rather than with ἀπολύτρωσιν, i.e. ‘the Blood’ is regarded as directly affecting our power to lay hold on the deliverance, cf. 1 John 1:7. The phrase that follows shows that St Paul is thinking here of our emancipation from sin rather than of the right over us which God acquired by the price He paid. Both thoughts are combined in Psalms 74(73):2, ‘purchased and redeemed,’ Acts 20:28 Cf. Ephesians 1:14 and Acts 20:28.

τὴν ἄφεσιν τῶν παραπτωμάτων, ‘the forgiveness of our trespasses.’ ἄφεσις here only and in Colossians 1:14 in St Paul’s Epistles. In St Paul’s speeches it occurs Acts 13:38; Acts 26:18 τῶν παραπτωμάτων, cf. Ephesians 2:1; Ephesians 2:5 Apart from Matthew 6:14 f., Mark 11:25 f., παραπτ. is found only in St Paul in N.T. In LXX. it is found eight times in Ezekiel, but it is otherwise rare. It presents ‘sin’ as a ‘falling away,’ the interruption of fellowship by the violation of a covenant.

κατὰ τὸ πλοῦτος τῆς χάριτος αὐτοῦ. St Paul is full in this Epistle of the abundance of God’s resources (1) of grace, here and in Ephesians 2:7; (2) of mercy, Ephesians 2:4; (3) of glory, Ephesians 1:18; Ephesians 3:16; cf. Romans 9:23; Philippians 4:19; Colossians 1:27. These treasures are all stored up in Christ (cf. Ephesians 3:8 and Colossians 2:2). In Romans 2:4 he speaks of the riches of God’s kindness and patience and long-suffering, and in Romans 11:33 of the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God. Contrast ‘the weak and beggarly (πτωχὰ) elements’ of Galatians 4:9. ‘Grace’ is constantly associated in St Paul’s mind with the thought of triumphant profusion, ὑπερβάλλουσα, 2 Corinthians 9:14; cf. Ephesians 2:7; ἐπερίσσευσεν, Ephesians 1:8; ὑπερεπερίσσευσεν, Romans 5:20; ὑπερεπλεόνασεν, 1 Timothy 1:14. The phrase here further qualifies ἔχομεν τὴν�, grace being chiefly seen as grace in the forgiveness of sins. But the fuller thought of grace expressed in Ephesians 1:6 reasserts itself in the next clause, when it is clear that he is thinking of the whole effect of the revelation of God’s attitude to men and of His purpose for them, and not only of forgiveness.