Ephesians 5:27

ἵνα παραστήση αὐτὴν [αὐτὸς] ἑαυτῷ ἔνδοξον τὴν ἐκκλησίαν : that He might Himself present to Himself the Church, glorious. Statement of the remote, ultimate object with which Christ “gave Himself up” to death; as the immediate object, which has that final purpose in view, is expressed by the ἁγιάσῃ. For αὐτήν of the TR, supported by [648] 3 [649], most cursives, Syr.-P., etc., the reading αὐτός is to be substituted on the authority of [650] [651] [652] [653] * [654] [655], Syr.-Harc, Vulg., etc. It is Christ Himself who is to present the Church, and it is to Himself He is to present it. He is at once the Agent and the End or Object of the presentation. The παραστήσῃ is not to be taken here to mean the presenting of the Church as an offering. It is true that the verb is so used in Romans 12:1; but the case is different here, in respect both of the ruling idea of the paragraph and of the introduction of ἑαυτῷ. It would be incongruous with Paul's teaching to speak of Christ as presenting an offering to Himself. The idea, as the context suggests, is that of the bridegroom presenting or setting forth the bride; cf. 2 Corinthians 11:2. The anarthrous ἔνδοξον is a case of tertiary predicate (cf. Buttm., Gram. of N. T. Greek, p. 473). The rendering, therefore, is not “present a glorious Church,” but “present the Church, glorious,” i.e., in the aspect, or character of gloriousness. The presentation in view, which is given here as the final object of Christ's surrendering of Himself to death, and is exhibited (by use of the aor.) as a single def. act, cannot be anything done in the world that now is (as is supposed by Beng., Harl., Hofm., etc.), but must be referred (with Aug., Jer., Rück., De Wette, Bleek, Mey., Ell., Alf. and most) to the future consummation, the event of the Parousia. μὴ ἔχουσαν σπῖλον : not having spot. Explanation of what is implied on the negative side in the ἔνδοξον. The neg. μή is in place, as the clause refers to the purpose in the mind of Christ. The word σπῖλος = spot, moral blemish, takes the place of the Attic κηλίς in later Greek writers (Dionys., Harl., Plut., Lucian, Joseph., etc.). It occurs only once again in the NT (2 Peter 2:13). The “ ι ” being short in composition (ἄσπῐλος), WH, Ell., Alf., etc., accentuate it σπίλος; Lach., Tisch., Lipsius, Mey., etc., retain σπῖλος. ἢ ῥυτίδα : or wrinkle. The word ῥυτίς occurs only this once in the NT, and is not found in the Apocrypha or in the LXX, but is not infrequent in profane Greek, whether classical (Aristoph., Plato, etc.), or late (Diod., Plut., Lucian, etc.). Attempts have been made (by Aug., Grot., etc.) to establish a distinction between σπίλον and ῥυτίδα here, but without success. ἤ τι τῶν τοιούτων; or any such thing. The article gives this the force of anything belonging to the class of such things as deform and defile. ἀλλʼ ἵνα ᾖ ἁγία καὶ ἄμωμος : but that it should be holy and unblamable. The regular construction would have taken some such form as ἀλλʼ οὖσαν, etc. It is changed here, perhaps with a view to variety, as if the paragraph had begun with ἵνα μὴ ἔχῃ. Such oratio variata was common in Greek, and there are numerous examples of it in the NT generally (e.g., Mark 12:38; John 8:53; Acts 20:34; Acts 22:17; 1 Peter 2:7), and especially in the Pauline writings (Romans 1:12; Romans 4:12; Romans 12:6; 1 Corinthians 7:13; 1 Corinthians 14:1; 2 Corinthians 11:23; Philippians 2:22). See Jelf, Greek Gram., § 909; Win.-Moult., p. 722; Buttm., Gram, of N. T. Greek, p. 241. On ἄμωμος see under Ephesians 1:4 above.

[648] Codex Claromontanus (sæc. vi.), a Græco-Latin MS. at Paris, edited by Tischendorf in 1852.

[649] Codex Mosquensis (sæc. ix.), edited by Matthæi in 1782.

[650] Codex Vaticanus (sæc. iv.), published in photographic facsimile in 1889 under the care of the Abbate Cozza-Luzi.

[651] Codex Sinaiticus (sæc. iv.), now at St. Petersburg, published in facsimile type by its discoverer, Tischendorf, in 1862.

[652] Codex Alexandrinus (sæc. v.), at the British Museum, published in photographic facsimile by Sir E. M. Thompson (1879).

[653] Codex Claromontanus (sæc. vi.), a Græco-Latin MS. at Paris, edited by Tischendorf in 1852.

[654] Codex Boernerianus (sæc. ix.), a Græco-Latin MS., at Dresden, edited by Matthæi in 1791. Written by an Irish scribe, it once formed part of the same volume as Codex Sangallensis (δ) of the Gospels. The Latin text, g, is based on the O.L. translation.

[655] Codex Angelicus (sæc. ix.), at Rome, collated by Tischendorf and others.