Ephesians 4:21

εἴ γε. Cf. on Ephesians 3:2 not implying doubt.

αὐτὸν ἠκούσατε. ‘If He was the subject of the message that ye heard.’ If St Paul had thought of Him as the speaker he would (as in Romans 10:14) have used the gen.

καὶ ἐν αὐτῷ ἐδιδάχθητε. Cf. on Ephesians 1:13. ἐν αὐτῷ, in realized union with Him. Our use of ‘in’ as defining a subject of instruction may mislead us here. There seems no instance of such a use of ἐν. Even in Colossians 1:28 διδ … ἐν πάσῃ σοφίᾳ, the ἐν is probably instrumental.

καθὼς ἔστιν�. ‘As there is truthfulness in Jesus.’ The clause is difficult. It is important in interpreting it to bear in mind in the first place that it is a parenthesis. The infinitives ἀποθέσθαι and ἀνανεοῦσθαι that follow depend on ἐδιδάχθητε. It is therefore, to say the least, unlikely that the clause contains a statement on an important Christological problem. An allusion to the perfect embodiment of the Christ in the humanity of Jesus might have been in place in controversy with Cerinthus, but it seems to belong to a region of thought remote from the present context. We need not therefore consider farther the possibility of reading (with Hort) ἀληθείᾳ for ἀλήθεια. In the second place, it is impossible to dissociate the use of ἀλήθεια here from the use of ἀληθεύειν in Ephesians 4:15, and of τῆς� in Ephesians 4:24. As the contrast with ἡ πλάνη (Ephesians 4:14), ἡ� (Ephesians 4:22) and τὸ ψεῦδος (Ephesians 4:25) shows, ἀλήθεια has throughout the passage a vital and moral even more than an ‘intellectual’ content. It might be rendered on the one side ‘reality,’ on the other ‘truthfulness.’ As a personal characteristic it implies a perfect response on our part to the facts of the position in which we find ourselves, i.e. to the relationships by which we are surrounded, facts and relationships to which our natural selfishness makes us continually untrue. It is at once to guide and to stimulate the effort, that such truthfulness will require of us, that St Paul reminds us of the abiding presence of just this quality in the humanity of our Lord.

ἐν τῷ Ἰησοῦ. The use of the name Jesus by itself is rare in St Paul. It is used here because the reference is to a personal quality possessed by Him, and not in the first instance by us in virtue of our union with Him. There seems to be only one instance (Revelation 1:9) where ἐν Ἰησοῦ stands in this latter sense as the equivalent of the Pauline ἐν Χριστῷ or ἐν Κυρίῳ. There is an instructive contrast with many points of contact with St Paul’s language here, in John 8:44. Notice esp. τὰς ἐπιθυμίας τοῦ πατρὸς ὑμῶν—ὅτι οὐκ ἔστιν� ἐν αὐτῷ—ὅταν λαλῇ τὸ ψεῦδος. The interpretation given above is on the lines suggested by Origen’s comment. J.T.[126]

[127] vol. III. p. 418. ὥς ἐστιν�, ἀποθεμένοις τε κατὰ τὴν προτέραν�.τ.λ. Compare also Whitaker.

[126] Journal of Theological Studies.

[127] Journal of Theological Studies.