Ephesians 2:7

ἵνα ἐνδείξηται ἐν τοῖς αἰῶσιν τοῖς ἐπερχομένοις τὸν ὑπερβάλλοντα πλοῦτον τῆς χάριτος αὐτοῦ : that He might shew forth in the ages that are coming the exceeding riches of His grace. For the τὸν ὑπερβάλλοντα πλοῦτον of the TR the neuter form τὸ ὑπερβάλλον πλοῦτος is preferred by most editors (LTTrWHRV). The satisfaction of His love was God's motive in quickening and raising them. The manifestation of His glory in its surpassing wealth is His final purpose in the same. The verb ἐνδείκνυσθαι occurs eleven times in the Pauline Epistles and Hebrews, and nowhere else in the NT. The active is very rare even in the classics, and is never found in the NT. Hence the ἐνδείξηται is to be taken as a simple active (not as = shew forth for Himself), all the more by reason of the αὐτοῦ. What is meant by the τοῖς αἰῶσιν τοῖς ἐπερχομένοις ? Some give it the widest possible sense, e.g., per omne vestrum tempus reliquum quum in hac vita tum in futura quoque (Morus), “the successively arriving ages and generations from that time to the second coming of Christ” (Ell.). But it is rather another form of the αἰὼν ὁ μέλλων (Harl., Olsh., Mey., Haupt, etc.), the part. ἐπερχόμενος being used of the future (e.g., Jer. 47:11; Isaiah 41:4; Isaiah 41:22-23; Isaiah 42:23; Luke 21:26; James 5:1, etc.), and the future being conceived of as made up of an undefined series of periods. In other cases reduplicated expressions, αἰῶνες τῶν αἰώνων, etc., are used to express the idea of eternity. God's purpose, therefore, is that in the eternal future, the future which opens with Christ's Parousia, and in all the continuing length of that future, the grace of His ways with those once dead in sins should be declared and understood in all the grandeur of its exceeding riches. ἐν χρηστότητι ἐφʼ ἡμᾶς : in kindness toward us. The ἐν is taken by some (Mey., etc.) as the instrumental ἐν, “by means of kindness”. It is more natural to give it the proper force of “in,” as defining the way in which the grace showed itself in its surpassing riches. It was in the form of kindness directed towards us. The χρηστότης, which means moral goodness in Romans 3:12, has here the more usual sense of benignity (cf. Romans 2:4; Romans 11:12; 2 Corinthians 6:6; Galatians 5:22; Colossians 3:12; Titus 3:4). ἐν Χριστῷ Ἰησοῦ : in Christ Jesus. Again is Paul careful to remind his readers that all this grace and the manifestation of it in its riches have their ground and reason in Christ.