Ephesians 1:14

the earnest The Gr. word is arrhabôn. It appears in the LXX. (only in Genesis 38:17-18; Genesis 38:20); in the later Greek classics (e.g. Aristotle); and in the Latin classics. It is Shemitic (Heb. "êrâbhôn, Genesis 38) by derivation. See further, Additional Note, p. 164. It probably reached the Greeks and Latins through the (Shemitic) Phenician traders. By derivation it has to do with exchange, and so first means a pledge(the word used here by the ancient Latin versions) to be exchanged between two parties to an agreement first given, then on fulfilment returned. But usage brought it to the kindred meaning of an earnest;a part of a price, given as a tangible promise of the payment of the whole in time. Thus it is defined by the Greek lexicographers. It was used for the bridegroom's betrothal-gifts to the bride; a case exactly in point here. In ecclesiastical Latin, prose and verse, it appears usually in the shortened form arra. It survives in the French arrhes, the money paid to strike a bargain. Arrhâbônoccurs elsewhere in N. T. 2 Corinthians 1:22; 2 Corinthians 5:5. There, as here, it denotes the gifts of the Holy Spirit given to the saints, as the part-payment of their coming "weight of glory," the inmost essence of which is the complete attainment (1 John 3:2) of that likeness to their Lord which the Spirit begins and developes here (2 Corinthians 3:18). A kindred expression is "the firstfruitsof the Spirit," Romans 8:23, where see note in this Series.

our inheritance The "enjoyment fully for ever" of God in Christ; the final Canaan of the true Israel, His "heirs" because His children (Romans 8:17).

until Better, perhaps (as the more usual meaning of the Gr.), unto; with a view to; as the spiritual means to the glorious end.

redemption See note on Ephesians 1:7, and on Romans 8:23. The saints already "have redemption," in the radical sense of Acceptance, rescue from condemnation into sonship. But they still look forward to redemption, in the developed sense of actual emancipation from the last effects of sin, which is to come when the body is glorified along with the spirit.

the purchased possession The R. V. renders "God's ownpossession." "Purchased" is an idea not necessary to the Gr. noun (though such passages as Acts 20:28 readily suggest it as a kindred idea here), which denotes simply "acquisition," however made. The explanatory word "God" is doubtless a true interpretation. The noun is the same as that in 1 Peter 2:9, where "peculiar" means (literally from the Gr.) "intended for (His) personal property". Thus the thought here is not of "glory" as the "property" of the saints, but of the saints, the Church, the New Israel (cp. Exodus 19:5; Psalms 135:4), as the property of God, to be hereafter actually "bought back" from the grave for His eternal use and pleasure.

unto the praise of His glory Cp. note on Ephesians 1:12. Here perhaps the word "glory" has a special reference to the manifestation of the Divine Character, as the Object of praise, in the glorifiedworld.