Ephesians 5:1-14. The subject pursued: Christ's Sacrifice the supreme example of self-sacrifice: Purity: Reproof of darkness by light 1. _therefore_ The argument passes unbroken from the previous words. _followers_ Lit. "_imitators_." The A. V. consistently uses "_follow_," "_follower_," to render... [ Continue Reading ]
_walk_ On the metaphor, see above on Ephesians 2:2. It is just in the _steps_of actual life that Divine grace is to shew itself, if it is indeed present. _as Christ also_ "_Also_," as an Exemplar additional to the Father, and in different though profoundly kindred respects. See next notes. On "God... [ Continue Reading ]
_Let no_man _deceive you_ See for similar warnings Romans 16:18; 1Co 3:18; 2 Corinthians 11:3; Col 2:8; 2 Thessalonians 2:3; James 1:26. _vain_ Lit., EMPTY; alien to the _solidity_of the immoveable _facts_that the body cannot sin without sin of the spirit; that body and spirit alike are concerned in... [ Continue Reading ]
_Be not_ Lit., BECOME NOT. _Nolite fieri_(Latin versions). _partakers_ in disobedience, and so in the coming wrath.... [ Continue Reading ]
_sometimes_ Better, in modern English, ONCE, FORMERLY. SEE ON Ephesians 2:13 above. He refers to the whole period of their unconverted life. _darkness_ Not merely "in the dark". So had the night of spiritual ignorance and sin penetrated them that they were, as it were, night itself, night embodied.... [ Continue Reading ]
_for_ The suppressed link of thought is, "Walk in a path wholly _unlike_that of the disobedient; _for_the path of the light must be such." _the fruit of the Spirit_ Cp. Galatians 5:22. But the literary evidence here supports the reading THE FRUIT OF THE LIGHT. The metaphor "fruit" (found here only... [ Continue Reading ]
_proving_ Testing, by the touchstone of His declared and beloved Will; putting every action, and course of action unreservedly to that _proof_, and unreservedly _approving_, in action, all that passes it. Cp. Romans 1:28 (where lit. "they did not _approve_to retain God, &c."), Romans 12:2 (a close p... [ Continue Reading ]
_unfruitful_ "For the end of these things is death" (Romans 6:21). The metaphor of _fruit_, which we have just had (Ephesians 5:9), is almost always used in connexions of good. See a close parallel, Galatians 5:19; Galatians 5:22, "the _works_of the flesh"; "the _fruit_of the Spirit." _darkness_ Lit... [ Continue Reading ]
_even to speak_ See above on "not once named", Ephesians 5:12. Perhaps the suggestion here is that the "reproof" of Ephesians 5:11 was to come more through a holy life, and less through condemnatory words. Not that such should never be used; but that they are weak reproofs compared with those issuin... [ Continue Reading ]
_all_things _that are reproved_ More lit., ALL THINGS, WHEN BEING REPROVED, or CONVICTED. _doth make manifest_ Render, certainly, IS MADE MANIFEST, or more precisely, IS BEING MANIFESTED. So the Lat. versions, and, with verbal variations, all the older English Versions except the Genevan (1557), wh... [ Continue Reading ]
_Wherefore_ With regard to the fact that whatever is really brought to light, in the sense of true spiritual conviction, becomes light. he _saith_ Or possibly IT (the Scripture) SAITH. See note on Ephesians 4:8. _Awake_, &c. These words occur nowhere in the O.T. verbatim. St Jerome, on the verse, m... [ Continue Reading ]
The subject pursued: the talent of time: temperance: spiritual songs: thanksgiving: humility 15. _See then_ The more general exhortation to a holy life-walk is resumed here, after the special entreaties thus given to avoid, yet influence, surrounding darkness. _walk_ The seventh and last occurrenc... [ Continue Reading ]
_redeeming the time_ Lit., BUYING OUT (from other ownership) THE OPPORTUNITY. So Colossians 4:5. The same phrase occurs (Aramaic and Greek) Daniel 2:8; "I knew of a certainty that ye would _buy the time_"; where the meaning plainly is, "that ye would get your desired opportunity, _at the expense of_... [ Continue Reading ]
_be ye not_ Lit., BECOME YE NOT; let not unwatchfulness pull you down. _understanding_ Better, probably, UNDERSTAND. _what the will of the Lord is_ "The good, and perfect, and acceptable will of God" apprehended by the disciple who is "being _transformed_by the _renewing of his mind_" (Romans 12:2,... [ Continue Reading ]
_drunk with wine_ Cp. for similar cautions, Proverbs 20:1; Proverbs 23:30-31; Luke 21:34; Rom 13:13; 1 Corinthians 5:11; 1 Corinthians 6:10; Galatians 5:21; 1 Timothy 3:3. "He fitly follows up a warning against impurity with a warning against drunkenness" (Bengel). _wherein_ In "being drunken with w... [ Continue Reading ]
_to yourselves_ R.V., ONE TO ANOTHER. The Gr. admits either rendering (see above on Ephesians 4:32); but the parallel, Colossians 3:16 ("teaching and admonishing, &c.") is clearly for the R. V. here, as the much most natural reference there is to _mutual_edification. It has been thought that we hav... [ Continue Reading ]
_always for all_things] Because everything in hourly providence is an expression, to the believing heart, of God's "good, perfect, and acceptable will" (Romans 12:2). In view of this, the Christian will be thankful, both generally and as to details. St Chrysostom's habitual doxology was, "Glory be t... [ Continue Reading ]
_submitting_ The primary point in the spiritual ethics of the Gospel is humiliation; self is dethroned as against God, and consequently as against men. Here the special, but not exclusive, reference is to fellow-Christians. "[The precept] seems to have been suggested by the humble and loving spirit... [ Continue Reading ]
Special Exhortations: the Christian Home: Wife and Husband 22. _Wives_ Cp. Colossians 3:18; 1 Peter 3:1-6. In Col. the corresponding instructions about domestic duty are drawn expressly from the truth (Colossians 3:1) that the believer lives, in the risen Christ, a resurrection-life. _submit yours... [ Continue Reading ]
_the head_ See 1 Corinthians 11:3. The husband and the wife are "one flesh" (Ephesians 5:31), and the husband, in that sacred union, is the leader. So Christ and the Church are one, and Christ is the Leader. _even as_ Not, of course, that the headship of the husband embraces _all_ideas conveyed by... [ Continue Reading ]
_Therefore_ Translate, certainly, BUT. The Apostle has guarded the husband s headship from undue comparison with the Lord's; but now he enforces its true likeness to it. _their own_ There is an emphasis in "_own_"; a suggestion at once of a holy limit, as against wandering loves, and of the fact th... [ Continue Reading ]
_Husbands_ Here the instruction is equally precise and more full. Cp. 1 Peter 3:7. _love_ "in deed and in truth" (1 John 3:18), "giving honour unto the wife as unto the weaker vessel" (1 Pet., quoted above). Monod well says that the Apostle, true to the spirit of the Gospel, speaks to the wife of t... [ Continue Reading ]
_sanctify and cleanse_it] Better, again, HER. And the pronoun is slightly emphatic by position; as if to say, "It was in _her_interest that He did this, and so in the wife's interest the husband should be ready for sacrifice." " _Sanctify and cleanse:_" lit., SANCTIFY, CLEANSING; both the verbs bei... [ Continue Reading ]
_that he_ In the Gr. "_He_" is emphatic; "He to Himself;" with stress on the Lord's personal action. _present_ Cp. for similar use of the same Gr. word 2 Corinthians 4:14; 2 Corinthians 11:2; Colossians 1:22; Colossians 1:28. In Jude 1:24 a similar word is used. The thought is of the heavenly Brideg... [ Continue Reading ]
_So_ With a love akin to the love of Christ just described. The Gr. word is one whose reference tends to _preceding_ideas. _as their own bodies_ A clause explanatory of "So" just above. It was thus that Christ loved the Church. In eternal purpose, and in actual redemption and regeneration, she is a... [ Continue Reading ]
_no_man _ever_ under normal conditions. True, in a distorted mental state a man may "hate his own flesh." And in obedience to the will of God a man may so act as to be _said_to hate it; to choose that it should suffer rather than that God's will should not be done (see, for such a use of "hate", Luk... [ Continue Reading ]
_members_ LIMBS; the word used above Ephesians 4:25; and cp. Romans 12:4-5; 1 Corinthians 6:15 (a strict parallel), 1 Corinthians 12:27. _of his flesh, and of his bones_ Three important MSS. (AB א) supported by other but not considerable authority, omit these words. It has been suggested that they w... [ Continue Reading ]
_For this cause_, &c. The Gr. in this verse is practically identical with that of Genesis 2:24. We may reverently infer that the Apostle was guided to see in that verse a Divine parable of the Coming Forth of the Lord, the Man of Men, from the Father, and His present and eternal mystical Union with... [ Continue Reading ]
_This is_, &c. More precisely, THIS MYSTERY IS GREAT. For the word "mystery" see above, Ephesians 1:9; Ephesians 3:3-4; Ephesians 3:9; and below Ephesians 6:19. The word tends to mean something of the sphere of spiritual truth not discoverable by observation or inference, but revealed. The thing ans... [ Continue Reading ]
_Nevertheless_ The word recalls the reader from the Divine but incidental "mystery" of the mystical Union to the holy relationship which is at once a type of it and sanctified and glorified by it. _of you_ Add, with the Gr., ALSO: "you Christian husbands, _as well as_the heavenly Husband." _his wi... [ Continue Reading ]