Due to my source the format of this post is a bit odd; sorry, but I didn't have the time to reformat it.
Eph. 1:3. The Ascription
In the ascription, St. Paul does not begin with his thought of his readers, as in 1 Thess. 1:2, 2 Thess. 1:3, and Col. 1:3, in which he commences by thanking God for them. But he opens with a psalm of praise to God, as he did five years before, in 56 A.D., when Titus had brought him good news from Corinth. Then he wrote: 2 Cor. 1:3.
Blessed [is] the God and Father
Of our Lord, Jesus Christ,
The Father of mercies
And God of every consolation.
The devout Jew, by a habit that is more than second nature, is led on almost every occasion to thank God in some formula, which commences with the words, “Blessed art Thou, Lord our God, King of the World.” About a hundred such forms may be found in Rabbinical books. And since grace builds on nature, St. Paul, naturally influenced by Jewish piety, and supernaturally influenced by the Holy Spirit, turns to God, and dictates,
Eph. 1:3.
Blessed [is] the God and Father
Of our Lord, Jesus Christ.
So, as in the preceding couplet, a parallel is formed by the Father and the Son. As to the word “blessed,” it will be remembered that the Highpriest used it for the Divine Name, when he asked our Lord,
Mark 14:61.
Thou art the Christ,
The Son of the Blessed?
Always in the Greek text of the New Testament, and almost always in the Greek Vulgate of the Old, the word is used of God, and of Him alone. Here indeed, St. Paul is speaking of the First Person in the Ever-Blessed Trinity, whom the Divine Son and Eternal Word, having become incarnate, could regard not only as Father but also as God, so that He could say to His disciples,
John 20:17.
I am ascending toward My Father
And your Father,
And My God
And your God.
And in this encyclical we will presently meet the words,
Eph. 1:17.
In order that the God of our Lord, Jesus Christ,
The Father of glory.…
When we speak of blessing God, it is plain that we do not imply any addition to His intrinsic and essential glory. It is our utmost reach to praise Him and glorify Him merely extrinsically; and that blessing from us is only a pale reflection of the intrinsic and essential blessing, which He has given us. Therefore, St. Paul confesses what has been done for us by God,
Eph. 1:3.
Who blessed us
In every spiritual blessing.
It is not a blessing in the city and the field, in the basket and the store, Deut. 28:3–5. And to make clear what he means by these spiritual blessings, St. Paul tells his readers of the sphere, in which it is found, that is
Eph. 1:3c.
In the heavenlies,
In Christ.
The meaning of the phrase, “in the heavenlies,” will have some connection with the parallel phrase “in Christ.” It is interpreted by the Syriac Vulgate as “in the heavens.” In Eph. 1:20, it will be so represented by Victorinus, about 360, the Vatican manuscript B, about 331, St. Hilary of Poitiers, about 354, the cursive 7, of Cent. xi. and the cursive 213, of Cent. xiv. The expression, peculiar to this encyclical, and characteristic of it, is found again in 2:6, 3:10, and 6:12. It will be better to postpone the proper discussion of the phrase till its last occurrence, 6:12, in the section on the “Resistance of the Christian Warrior,” 6:10–17, that the earlier instances may guide us to its meaning.
It is, however, sufficiently clear that the blessings belong to the supernatural order, and are dynamically related to the natural and visible world. They are found in real but mystical union and communion with Incarnate God. Although “in every spiritual blessing” may seem a strange expression, it is better to preserve the preposition, as it indicates the order of things, in which we find our good; and the three lines which commence with “in” have a cumulative effect.
As to the phrase, “in Christ,” St. Paul alone can unfold its meaning, for it is characteristically Pauline. Twenty-nine times it is found in his epistles. Elsewhere, it is only met three times, and then in the First Epistle of St. Peter, which was greatly influenced by this encyclical. The phrase takes form as “in the Christ,” in four other Pauline passages, three of them in the present epistle. The presence of the article presents the word as a title, the absence of the article implying that it is used as a proper name. In forty-three other passages, the phrase is enlarged as “in Christ Jesus.” The expression cannot be explained as “by means of Christ.” As we shall find, the blessing is given by God in Christ, Eph. 4:32. It is given to us in that close union with Him, which constitutes redeemed men His members, Eph. 5:30, and His Mystical Body, completing Him, Eph. 1:23.
Eph. 1:4. Election
Having indicated the spiritual blessings by reference to their sphere, St. Paul proceeds to enumerate them. First of all, God, who is to be blessed, so blessed us in Christ,
Eph. 1:4.
According as He selected us for Himself in Him
Before the foundation of [the] world,
For us to be holy and unblemished before Him
In love.
The first blessing, then, is selection in the eternal purpose for a condition of consecration to God, and of freedom from sin. The fact of selection alone is asserted. It is not the moment to vindicate its justice by pointing to God’s foreknowledge of those who would co-operate with His grace, and to His consequent selection of them. It is God’s act alone, that is in question. Though the Greek verb, which we render as “He selected for Himself,” may be used as meaning merely “He selected,” yet the reflexive element can hardly be neglected in the present case. It was a selection for Himself, always the highest object of action, and then, the only possible one. The phrase “in Him” also is essential, for it is “in Christ,” as members of His Body, we were chosen before any created thing came into existence with space and time. It is probably from this sentence that St. Peter, two years later, in the spring of 62, borrowed the phrase, “before [the] foundation of [the] world,” when he spoke of Christ as a lamb,
1 Pet. 1:20.
Foreknown indeed before [the] foundation of [the] world,
But manifested at [the] end of the times on account of you.
There is a third place, in which the phrase is found. But there it would be more than rash to assert that St. John, though he shows a knowledge of this epistle, made use, about the year 100, of St. Paul’s expression to render the Aramaic of our Lord’s words,
John 17:24.
Because Thou didst love Me
Before [the] foundation of [the] world.
But God selected us in Him, that is, in Christ, that we should be holy and unblemished before Him, that is, before Himself. That such a real holiness and such a real freedom from blemish would be required of us by God is witnessed by our own conscience, by the common consent of mankind, and by the inspired Apostle, when he wrote to the Thessalonians, saying,
1 Thess. 4:3.
For this is the will of God—
Your sanctification.
And again he writes in the same letter,
1 Thess. 4:7.
For God did not call us on condition of uncleanness,
But in sanctification.
Now we must consider whether we are right in joining the phrase “in love” to the requirement of a holy and unblemished state. Does God demand that holiness and blamelessness subsist in Christian love as at once the field of Christian virtues, their bond and their crown? In that case, the phrase “in love” refers to our love. And it is properly joined to the words which precede it, as in Eph. 4:2, 15, 16, 5:2; Col. 2:2, and 1 Thess. 5:13. This mode of connecting the words is confirmed by the other verses of the present passage, in which such qualifying clauses must be linked to the preceding, and not to the succeeding words, Eph. 1:3, 4, 6, 8, 9, 10. Were it otherwise, as is supposed by St. Chrysostom before 398, the Syriac Vulgate in 411, and Mopsuestian Theodore before 429, then we should be obliged to explain “in love” as “in God’s love,” and to render the next line a.
Eph. 1:5.
When He pre-determined us in love unto adoption.
Or with still less probability, we should be led, with the Syrian Ephraem, about 373, and Pelagius, who began to spread heresy in Rome in 405, to connect the phrase “in love” with the verb “chosen” at the beginning of the verse, and to say that God selected us in love. But the phrase is found again in Eph. 3:17, 4:2, 15, 16, 5:2; and in every case denotes love, that proceeds from us, and not from God.
Eph. 1:5, 6a. Predestination
Predestination follows the act of choice and selection. At least, so St. Paul represents the process, as he uses human language to express Divine operations, which cannot involve any change intrinsically in God. In reasoning upon such matters, the mind of man is easily lost in wandering mazes, because our intellects must travel from point to point, and contemplate some particle of the infinite truth, as a microscope isolates and emphasises some tiny detail.
We know indeed that there is an eternal act of predestination, the kingdom of the blessed being prepared for them from[the] foundation of [the] world, Matt. 25:34. We know that God’s acts are eternal, and do not involve any intrinsic change in Him. We know also that our call is not according to our works, but according to His own purpose and grace, 2 Tim. 1:9. Indeed, no natural works of ours could merit any supernatural grace, much less the complete grace of predestination, in its full sense as embracing the whole series of graces from the first grace to the final glory. We know too that predestination and reprobation are both conditional. That is implied in God’s justice, and His desire for the salvation of all men, 1 Tim. 2:4. And even St. Paul feared lest he should become disapproved, although he had preached to others, 1 Cor. 9:27.
To shew the internal harmony of the doctrine and its external harmony with philosophy, the Thomists will make a distinction in the grace, the predestined receiving efficacious as well as sufficient grace. The Congruists will find a distinction in the circumstances of the persons, God giving grace to the predestined in circumstances, in which they will accept it. And the Molinists will seek their distinction in the human will, the predestined being those who will freely accept God’s grace.
The mind of St. Paul, balanced by its contemplative and missionary activities, vigorous in its sway of men, and lowly in its surrender to God, does not pause even a moment on the problem, which so many regard as insoluble, but hastens forward to tell how God further blessed us,
Eph. 1:5.
When He pre-determined us unto adoption
By means of Jesus Christ unto Him.
It is true that the word, which we have rendered “when He pre-determined,” is a participle. But it is in the aorist or indefinite past time. And we have no English participle to represent a momentary act in the indefinite past. The perfect participle, “having pre-determined,” would connect the result of the act with the present time.
We note now that the pre-determination or pre-destination was not independent of our Lord. It involved the Incarnation of the Eternal Son, and the anointing of Him as Head of all the creation. As Jesus and as Christ, He, the Son of God by nature, will lift some of His creatures to share the Divine Life as sons of God by adoption. Therefore the parallel lines balance the expression “when He pre-determined us” by the phrase “by means of Jesus Christ,” and the words “unto adoption” by the words “unto Him,” that is, unto God the Father Himself.
The employment of adoption to illustrate the Christian’s position is peculiarly Pauline, the five Biblical occurrences of the word being confined to his epistles, Gal. 4:5, Rom. 8:15, 23, 9:4, and the present passage, Eph. 1:5. In the pre-Christian Greek inscriptions of the Ægean Islands, however, there are numerous examples, a man being described as such a one “but according to adoption the son of such a one.” The antithesis, as Deissmann points out in his Bible Studies, p. 239, is between katà genesin, “according to origin” and kath’ huiothesian de, “but according to adoption.”
Although there was informal adoption among the Jews, as in Mordecai’s adoption of Esther, Esther 2:7, and Jeconiah’s adoption of Salathiel, the son of Neri, Jer. 22:30, Matt. 1:12, it did not imply all that St. Paul means by the word. In Israel, a childless man might find an heir through the marriage of his widow with his brother, as Heli found a son in St. Joseph, actually the child of Jacob, Luke 3:23, Matt. 1:16, Eusebius, History, I. vii. 6, Heli and Jacob being brothers by the same mother. But according to Greek custom, current in the Galatian cities of Pisidian Antioch, Iconium, Lystra and Derbe, a man adopted a son by making him his heir, as we, in Pauline language, became sons of Abraham by becoming heirs of his faith, Gal. 3:7, because it followed, if heirs, then children. But a Roman would have said, if children, then heirs, as St. Paul does in addressing the Roman Christians, 8:17.
Now adoption in the Roman form implied the sale of the person by his natural father and the purchase of him by his adoptive one. Witnesses were required; and according to the ancient rite, a pair of scales was struck with a piece of copper, this being a survival of a more primitive barter. But when the person had been adopted, he entered on all the rights and duties of a son. Therefore, St. Paul speaks of Christians as using the language of sons, crying “Father,” Rom. 8:15, because they have already received the Spirit of adoption. And yet the adoption is imperfect, because the full rights of sonship are withheld till the redemption of the body, Rom. 8:23.
Our predestination to adoption was
Eph. 1:5.
According to the good pleasure of His will,
6a.
To [the] praise of [the] glory of His grace.
Again, we note a reference to God’s will, such as that in Eph. 1:1, which explained St. Paul’s apostolate. Here indeed, we contemplate the eternal order, and learn the eternal decree of the Triune God, whose will and purpose are one with His own Essential Being and Nature. Good infinitely and eternally as He is, what seems to His Will to be well is truly good. And His adoption of us is what seemed to be well, His good pleasure, His good will, or purpose. So we multiply expressions to render the Greek word eudokia, coined indeed by the Greek Vulgate to translate the Hebrew word rtāsôn, “delight” or “goodwill,” of the Psalms. It is also used in St. Luke’s version of the Angelic Song to indicate the men in whom God is well pleased, for the true text in these parallels runs,
Luke 2:14.
Glory in [the] highest [heavens] to God,
And peace on earth among men of [His] good pleasure.
And as our predestination to adoption was according to the benevolence of His will, it was also to [the] praise of [the] glory of His grace, for His grace and unbought favour became manifested by such an action. That manifestation of His grace became His extrinsic glory, which in turn becomes His praise even now, both in the voices of intelligent beings and in the inarticulate utterances of the whole irrational creation, straining forward as it expects the revealing of the sons of God, Rom. 8:19.
To the Greek, the word charts, “grace,” first of all suggested graceful speech or form, then favourable regard or deed towards such an object, and finally, gratitude for such favour. The Greek Vulgate used the word chiefly for the Hebrew chēn, “favour,” in the sense of favourable regard. In the Greek Testament, the word is used for a favourable regard, Acts 2:47, 7:46. 24:27, 25:9, and for a favourable deed, Acts 25:3. It is freely used of God’s favourable act in admitting Gentiles to the New Covenant, for example, Acts 9:23, 1 Cor. 1:4. It is specially and frequently applied by St. Paul to his own ministry in connection with that admission of the Gentiles, for example, 1 Cor. 3:10, 15:10, Rom. 1:5, 12:3, 15:15. And the Apostle emphasises the difference between it and “debt” and natural “works,” as St. Augustine will lay stress on the distinction between it and free will.
Eph. 1:6b. Sanctification
To election, predestination and adoption, another blessing is added in the gift of the grace, which makes us gracious in the sense of being pleasing to God. Therefore, having mentioned God’s grace, St. Paul at once adds,
Eph. 1:6b.
With which He made us gracious
In the Beloved.
The pronoun, rendered “with which,” is indeed in the genitive, according to the older manuscripts. But that is due to the genitive, “of His grace,” which precedes. This has attracted the relative pronoun into the genitive form from a dative, or more probably from an accusative, as the dative does not seem subject to attraction in the Greek Testament.
As to the verb, it means “to make gracious,” as a verb of similar termination means “to make a slave,” In Sirach, it is asked,
Ecclus. 18:17.
Behold, is not a word beyond a good gift?
And both are with a man, who has been made gracious.
Again, the verb is used of our Blessed Lady in St. Luke’s version of the Angelic Salutation,
Luke 1:28.
Hail, thou, who hast been made gracious.
Here, the Syriac Vulgate confirms the Latin by its “full of grace,” and enables us to find what Aramaic expression most probably underlay St. Luke’s Greek translation.
Such a mode of expression as
… His grace
With which He made us gracious,
or “graced us,” or “endued us with grace,” is very emphatic, and finds parallels in
Eph. 1:19.
According to the activity of the might of His strength.
20.
With which He was active in the Messiah;
Eph. 2:4b.
On account of His much love,
[With] which He loved us;
Eph. 4:1.
Of the calling, with which you were called;
and
2 Cor. 1:4.
By means of the consolation,
With which we ourselves are being consoled.
In the present passage, we are plainly not dealing with such graces as those of working miracles, which are given to a man in trust for others, and do not of themselves make him more pleasing to God. But we are dealing with such a grace, as makes a man gracious and pleasing before God. Of such graces, there are some, such as the Divine Law, or the example of our Lord, which affect the man externally and extrinsically; and there are others also, which affect a man’s actions. None of these can be in question, but something deeper and richer still, for God has used it to make us gracious in the Beloved. Therefore, it is a lasting quality, infused into us, not a passing assistance or stimulus. It is that sanctifying grace, by which a man is made just and placed in a state of friendship with God.
Since this is so unique a grace, St. Paul employs a unique name, the Beloved, for Him, in whom it is given to us. In the parallel passage of the Epistle to the Colossians, the title is “the Son of His Love.” There, speaking of the Father, St. Paul said,
Col. 1:13.
Who rescued us out of the authority of the darkness.
And removed [us] into the kingdom of the Son of His Love,
14.
In whom we have the redemption,
The remission of the sins.
Of the two Greek words, ēgapēmenos, the perfect participle, “having been loved,” and agapētos “loved,” or “lovable,” both being rendered “beloved,” the latter is found several times in the Gospels. It is argued by Armitage Robinson, in his Commentary, p. 231, that St. Matthew’s substitution of it for “the Elect,” in his quotation, 12:18, from Isaiah 42:1, shows he regarded “the Beloved” as a distinct title. This is confirmed both by the parallelism of
Matt. 3:17.
This is My Son (Ps. 2:7),
The Beloved, in whom I was well pleased (Is. 42:1),
and by the Old Syriac, which renders the Greek phrase in every case save one as “My Son and My Beloved.” It was the easier for the title to become a Messianic one, as it was used for an only child, Gen. 22:2, 12, 16. As such a Messianic title, it is characteristic of the “Vision,” 200:6–11, in the Ascension of Isaiah, that portion being written soon after Domitian’s accession in 81 A.D.
The other word for “Beloved,” ēgapēmenos, “having been loved,” is found in our present passage, and is used of Israel in the Greek Vulgate. Sometimes it renders “Jeshurun,” Deut. 32:15, 33:5, 26, Isaiah, 44:2, and sometimes yādîd “beloved.” Like “Servant” and “Elect,” it was transferred from Israel to the Messiah At least so we argue from its application to the Messiah in such passages as Barnabas iii. 6, iv. 3, 8, written at Alexandria between 70 and 79 A.D., the inscription in the epistle of St. Ignatius to the Smyrnaeans, written in 115 A.D., the Acts of Paul and Thekla, 1, which is a second century edition of a first century document, and the Paedagogus, or “Tutor,” I. vi. 25, written before 195 by St. Clement, head of the Alexandrian School from 189 to 202. It is reasonably argued that all such passages arc not dependent on Eph. 1:6, and therefore imply an independent tendency to make Israel’s title, “Beloved,” a name of the Messiah.
Some witnesses add “His Son” to the word “Beloved”; but the phrase is clearly a gloss, though a correct one. It was not in the Peshitta Syriac, in 411, nor in the text of the Harclean Syriac, in 616. We find it in Claromontanus D, of Cent. 6, in its copy, Sangerman E, of Cent. 9, and in two other Western manuscripts of the same century, Augien F and its twin, Boernerian G. But in these, it appears to have entered the Greek column from the Latin one. It is most probable that the Gothic version also derived it from a Latin source. Victorinus and Ambrosiaster, both of Rome and about 360, have it; and St. Jerome says distinctly that it is found in the Latin manuscripts, Vallarsi’s St. Jerome, vii. 552c. As the Latin Vulgate of the Epistles, in 385 A.D., was really a modified form of the Old Latin, we naturally find it in the Vulgate manuscripts, though not in the original form of Codex Amiatinus. But in 388 A.D., St. Jerome, in his commentary on this passage, definitely rejected that phrase, “which is contained in the Latin manuscripts”; and we may certainly hold it for a Latin gloss.
Eph. 1:7. Redemption
To election, predestination, adoption, and sanctification, we are now taught to add redemption. Happily, the mention of the Beloved has given the Apostle his theme, for it is the Beloved,
Eph. 1:7.
In whom we have the redemption
By means of His Blood.
And then to define the redemption and its fulness, St. Paul adds
Eph. 1:7c.
The remission of lapses
According to the wealth of His grace.
So, at this point, sin and the penalty for sin interrupt the development of the Eternal Counsel. The Fall intervenes; and He, in whom we were selected, predetermined, adopted and sanctified, must now become our priest and sacrifice to save us by the offering of His own Blood. That oblation spoke of a surrendered life, for as the Mosaic Law taught, Gen. 9:4, Lev. 17:11, 14, and Deut. 12:23, the blood represented the soul and the life.
The spiritual order, instituted by God, had been violated. And there must now be the acknowledgment of God’s supreme dominion, the vindication of the interrupted design, and the restoration of the harmony. The shedding of blood confessed God as Lord of life and death. Suffering made satisfaction for the sins. And merit won back the graces lost. Some confusion has been introduced into the question by the way in which the word “Atonement,” used in 1611 for at-one-ment, reconciliation and restoration, came before 1911 to mean reparation and satisfaction.
Reparation is indeed one element in the question. And as this question was concerned with the sin, it had regard to deliverance from the penalty and the bond of sin. Therefore, in this epistle, St. Paul defines the redemption by the unique phrase,
Eph. 1:7.
The remission of lapses,
as he has just defined it in the Epistle to the Colossians as
Col. 1:14.
The remission of the sins.
There are, it is well known, various names for sin, each emphasising some special feature of it. Among these, the Hebrew chattā’th and the Greek hamartia are generally rendered “sin,” and imply a missing the mark, an error. The Hebrew pésha’ and the Greek parábasis mean “transgression,” and imply rebellion in the violation of a law. In the present passage, sin is regarded as a fall, a lapse, the word being perfectly appropriate in a context, which was indicating the lofty line of human life in the counsel of God.
For the moment, we are not regarding the need of manifesting God’s dominion, which has been transgressed, or the restoration of the harmony, which has been broken. We are concerned only with man as a sinner, and ask how he may be delivered from his sin. We are looking at the negative aspect, forgiveness, not at the positive, reconciliation. Yet whatever word we may use may mislead us by its metaphorical associations. If we speak of ransom and redemption, the very figure of speech may betray us, as it betrayed St. Irenaeus, Heresies, v. 1, and many others into supposing a ransom paid to Satan, as if the rebel spirit had rights over us against God. No doubt, the Greek word apo-lútrōsis, “redemption,” is used to signify deliverance simply. In the Greek Vulgate, it is only found in Dan. 4:30, where the words “my time of the redemption came” are used by Nebuchadnezzar of his own recovery. Nor can we easily make the word mean more than deliverance in the injunction,
Luke 21:28.
Look up and lift up your heads.
Because your redemption nears;
or in the explanation of the completed adoption as “the redemption of the body,” Rom. 8:23, or in the account of those who were “bastinadoed, not accepting deliverance,” Heb. 11:35. Indeed, Armitage Robinson, in his excellent commentary on this epistle, p. 147, suggests the word “emancipation” as a better translation than “redemption.”
St. Paul checks one expression by another, that of apo-lútrōsis, “redemption,” by the phrase, “by means of His Blood,” implying sacrifice, and also by the word áphesis, “remission,” “sending away,” “discharge,” “forgiveness.” But indeed, in a matter which involves so many elements and so many spiritual relations, not all the metaphors to be drawn from the visible world could do more than offer a rushlight illumination of spatial depths. Even the question of satisfaction alone involves the nature and effects of sin, our Lord’s divine nature, His vicarious sacrifice and priesthood, as well as the deathless love and infinite justice of God in providing and accepting that Sacrifice.
Since the Redemption, as well as the Eternal Counsel, had its source in the resources of God’s grace and bounty, St. Paul, who so frequently uses the word “wealth” of God’s grace and glory, speaks of the redemption and the remission as given fully and abundantly,
Eph. 1:7.
According to the wealth of His grace.
Eph. 1:8, 9d. The Messianic Prophecies
So far the blessings have had regard to our state, as that of souls, selected, predestined, adopted, sanctified and redeemed. Now St. Paul passes to the gift of a Divine Revelation, by which men have been taken into fellowship with God in His Eternal Purpose. Therefore, having mentioned God’s grace, he continues,
Eph. 1:8.
Which [grace] He caused to abound unto us
In every [form of] wisdom and prudence.
We have rendered the verb as “He caused to abound.” Some may argue that it generally means, “He abounded,” and that we should render the line,
Which He abounded in unto us,
especially as the relative is in the genitive. But we can explain that form of the relative as due to the preceding genitive “of grace,” which has attracted the relative into its own form. And St. Paul uses the verb in the sense of “causing to abound” in I Thess. 3:12 and 2 Cor. 9:8. In the latter passage, we read
2 Cor. 9:8.
But God can cause every grace to abound unto you,
the words resembling our present passage in more than form.
As we cannot well say
In every wisdom and prudence,
we render the line
In every [form of] wisdom and prudence.
Before considering these words, “wisdom” and “prudence,” we may read the next lines, as they indicate the time in which God caused His grace so to abound. It was
Eph. 1:9a.
When He made known to us
The mystery of His Will.
We have rendered an aorist or indefinite past participle by “when He made known,” as we translated another in Eph. 1:5, by “when He pre-determined.” So doing, we preserved the indefiniteness of the time and the definiteness of the act as done once for all.
Presently, St. Paul will tell us of God’s will to summarise all things in the Christ, and of Israel’s place in God’s counsel. Then he will treat of the Gentiles. So the verses we are examining would take their place in the order of the argument as representing the burden of Old Testament prophecy. Already, the first person plural, which has stood for all the redeemed, is beginning to denote Israelites. As the Choice, the Predestination, the Adoption, and the Sanctification spoke of the Eternal Counsel, and the Redemption was connected with the Fall of Man, so the Revelation now represents the stream of prophecy, which flowed from Eden to Malachi.
If we now look at the words “wisdom” and “prudence,” their sense will be plainer. God’s grace, when He revealed the secret purpose of His will, abounded in every form of wisdom and prudence, wisdom referring to intellectual, and prudence to practical excellence. It has been objected that such words cannot be applied to God; but they certainly are most apt to describe the way chosen to unfold the future Messiah and His kingdom. For Messianic prophecy was an organic growth in ever richer harmony with the Divine purpose and in ever closer adaptation to the needs of men. Indeed, we might paraphrase these lines of St. Paul by the opening words of the Epistle to the Hebrews,
Heb. 1:1.
Multi-partially and multi-modally of old,
God, [having] spoken to the fathers in the prophets.
The many parts or pieces of the truth implied the wisdom, which had conceived the complete scheme, as the many modes of communication involved prudence in adapting the revelation to the needs and capacities of men.
True it is that such words are inadequate in respect of God, but we only apply them, and such terms as “Father” and “Son,” “Love” and “Light,” to express an analogy, and to serve as poor and feeble symbols of the truth. Surely, we must employ such expressions, when we would tell how God has in a temporal world taught finite men the Mystery or Divine secret, which His will had in an eternal world chosen from all possible alternatives for realisation. Language must be broken in the effort to express such themes; but the themes are not lost for the mind that looks through the broken language to the meaning it would convey.
With regard to the word “mystery,” Menander and Cicero use it for a secret. The former, in a fragment, forbids us to tell our mystery to a friend; and the latter, writing to Atticus iv. 18, does not employ a secretary, as the letters contain so many mysteries. The Greek Vulgate employs the word in the same sense in Judith 2:2, Tobit 12:7, 11, 2 Maccabees 13:21, Sirach 22:22, 27:16, 17, 21, and Wisdom 6:22. The same usage is followed by Theodotion in Psalm 25:14, Proverbs 20:19, and Daniel 2:18, 19, 27, 29, and by Symmachus in Proverbs 11:13. In Wisdom 14:15, 23, however, the word is transferred from ordinary secrets to the pagan rites, their ritual acts or ritual objects, which were concealed from the uninitiated. It would appear that the word “mysteries,” in this sense, is first found in Herodotus 2:51.
In the Greek Testament, the word is generally used of a truth, revealed by God. We cannot say that the volume is anticipated in this by the Book of Enoch, which in several places, for example, 8:3, 9:6, 10:7, 16:3, written soon after 170 B.C., used the word “mysteries” in its Greek version for knowledge, communicated by fallen angels to the daughters of men. For the New Testament uses the word to imply a divine secret, divinely revealed. This employment of the word is characteristic of the Epistle to the Ephesians, where it is found in 1:9, 3:3, 4, 9, 5:32, and 6:19. And it corresponds to the use of the Hebrew word, sôdh, “counsel,” in
Amos. 3:7.
For my Lord Jehovah will not do a thing
Unless He has revealed His counsel
To His servants, the prophets.
In the Apocalypse, the word means such a divine secret. It is applied also to the divine meaning of the seven stars, 1:20, and of the Woman on the Beast, 17:7, as well as to the name “Babylon,” as involving a divine secret in its inner meaning, 17:5. And it is also used of the prophetic revelation, which unveiled a divine secret, 10:7.
It is evidently impossible for us to discuss the Messianic Prophecies at this moment. But we may recall three, which lie at the basis of the Apostle’s argument, and prepare us for the next step of his argument. The first of these is
Gen. 1:26.
And God said,
“We will make Man,
“In our image,
“According to our likeness,
“And they will subdue the fish of the sea
“And the fowl of the heavens
“And the beast
“And all the earth
“And every crawling thing
“That is crawling upon the earth.”
That universal dominion of man is taken up again in Psalm 8, where it is connected with the Ideal Man.
Ps. 8:7.
Thou didst cause Him to rule over the works of Thy hands;
Thou hast put everything under His feet—
8.
Flock and oxen—all of them,
And also the beasts of [the] field,
9.
The bird of [the] heavens
And the fishes of [the] sea—
[He, the Man] crossing the paths of [the] sea!
And in Psalm 2, the Ideal Man is definitely presented as the Messiah.
Ps. 2:7.
My Son [art] Thou:
I begot Thee this day.
8.
Ask from Me;
And I will give
Nations [as] Thy possession,
And the ends of [the] earth [as] Thy seizure.
1:9b, 10. The Messianic Purpose
Now, having mentioned the Mystery, or Divine secret, the purpose of God’s will, St. Paul unfolds its contents, saying,
Eph. 1:9b.
According to His good pleasure,
Which He [God] purposed in Him [Christ]
10.
Unto a stewardship of the fulness of the seasons—
To summarise all the things for Himself in the Christ—
The things upon the heavens
And the things over the earth—in Him—
It was necessary to read the six lines together, in order to note that the phrase “in Him” at the end of the second line is repeated at the end of the sixth, where it clearly refers to our Blessed Lord. At the same time, it is evident that He who purposed, proposed, or set before Himself, His own good pleasure, that is, what seemed good to Himself, is God the Father. But for a moment, we perhaps do not see the reference of the word, rendered “according to.” It cannot refer to the making known, for that was not the purpose, the good pleasure, to be realised in the Messiah or Christ. But it has regard to the mystery of God’s will, for that is explained now as the good pleasure of God.
That good pleasure, which God set before himself for realisation in the Messiah, is also explained. First of all, it is an economy, an administration, or a stewardship, which has the fulness of the seasons for its province. The Messiah was intended by God to be steward and administrator of what is described as the fulness of the seasons. Twelve years earlier, writing to the Galatians, 4:4, St. Paul had described the Messianic period as the fulness of the time, the complement and fulfilment of the expectant era. Now, by a slight change, he describes that era as a series of seasons or epochs, as by-and-by, in Eph. 3:5, he will see it in the form of generations.
To explain the stewardship of the Messiah in the Messianic period, St. Paul adds a parallel line with another figure:
Eph. 1:10b.
To summarise all the things for Himself in the Christ.
So he presents God’s purpose as the summarising, the recapitulating “all the things” for Himself in the Messiah, as one would take all the chief points of a theme, one by one, and then present them all together as one whole. The Old Syriac, to judge from Ephraem’s Commentary of about 373 A.D., suggests, and the Pěshīttā or Syriac Vulgate of 411 implies, that the verb means “renew from the beginning.” The Latin Vulgate of 385 also renders it “renew”; but it is explained as “recapitulate” by Tertullian of Carthage about 200 A.D., and by St. Irenaeus according to the Latin translation, made of his works, about 200, or as Westcott and Hort argue, in the fourth century. The Syriac and the Latin, however, must not be held erroneous. In such a case as this, recapitulation or summarisation under a Divine Person implies a restoration and renewal. The elevation of Jews and Gentiles to the supernatural order, and the formation of an harmonious universe, must certainly in view of sin be a redemptive and restorative process.
Four years ago, St. Paul in his Epistle to the Romans, 13:9, had taken the Commandments one by one, and “summarised” them in the direction to love one’s neighbour. So interpreting the verb in our present passage, we retain each of its elements, the prefix ana implying “one by one,” the noun, kephálaion, meaning a heading or chief point, as in Heb. 8:1, and the middle or reflexive form of the verb suggesting that God does this “for Himself.”
All things must be so summarised. But the Greek word for “all things” has the article, and therefore means “all the things in one,” as a whole. And lest anything should seem exempted from Messiah’s jurisdiction by Colossian adoration of angels, Col. 1:16, 2:18, 19, or by the adoration of Nero in the Roman Empire, the Apostle explains “all the things” as
Eph. 1:10c.
The things upon the heavens
And the things over the earth.
Then to emphasise the position of the Messiah as the Head, the Centre, even the sphere of “all the things,” the Apostle repeats the phrase, “in Him.”
Eph. 1:11, 12. The Messianic Kingdom
The Messianic purpose of God was not frustrated. Not utterly in vain were the privileges of the Israelites in regard to the adoption of their nation as God’s firstborn son, Exod. 4:22, the glory of God’s presence in the Shekhînah, Exod. 16:10, the covenants from time to time renewing the Covenant between God and Israel, the Mosaic legislation, the Temple worship, the Messianic promises, the merits of the patriarchs, and the Incarnation of God. These were continually present to St. Paul, as when he enumerated them in his Epistle to the Romans, 9:4, 5.
Now the Apostle, having told of the Divine purpose regarding the Messiah, adds
Eph. 1:11.
In whom we were also allotted [to God],
When we were pre-determined [to Israel’s position],
According to the purpose of Him, who is active in ‘all the things,’
According to the counsel of His will—
12.
Unto the [end] that we be unto praise of His glory,—
[We] who have fore-hoped in the Christ.
As to the last phrase, it would be well to substitute the Hebrew title, “Messiah,” for the Greek word, “Christ.” Neither the latter, nor the English word, “Anointed,” carries quite the same associations, as the word, which became charged with the hopes of Abraham’s children for two thousand years. And again we note that the Greek word for “all things” has the article to imply “all the things in one.”
The Apostle has just spoken of all things as destined to be summarised in the Messiah. He must now deal with Jewish privileges; for the Jews were not only to be summarised with all other creatures, but they had also been appointed to a special position, indicated, for example, in
Deut. 32:9
For the lot of Jehovah is His people:
Jacob is the portion of His possession,
As it were, Jehovah’s people is that, which is assigned to Him by lot. And the portion of the possession, measured off for Him, is His people Jacob. This is a bold and fine figure to express Israel’s special place in the love and purpose of God. So the Apostle, having represented his own people as summarised with others in the Messiah, hastens to add that they were also specially allotted to God in Him. The verb which we render “allotted” is never used in the Greek Vulgate of the Old Testament, and only here in the Greek text of the New. But the meaning is made plain by its derivation from the Greek noun, kleros, “a lot,” and by the reference to Deut. 32:9. So we have no hesitation in rendering it “assigned by lot,” or “allotted.”
The words, “when we were pre-determined,” or “predestined,” represent a Greek participle in aorist or indefinite past time. The Apostle would indicate the special vocation of Israel; but he remembers that he is writing to those, who for the most part are Gentiles. He, who has just written that most courteous and graceful letter to Philemon, shrinks from words, that might seem to belittle his readers, or belaud himself. So he does not define the position, to which Israel was pre-determined, but describes it indefinitely as
Eph. 1:11.
According to the purpose of Him, who is active in ‘all the things,’
According to the counsel of His will.
It is sufficient, the Apostle seems to say, that the Jews were pre-determined and predestined to occupy the place, designed for them by God, who is active in the whole universe, and moulds everything according to His own deliberate will. The last phrase, “the counsel of His will,” is quite clear, though it is found here alone in the Greek Testament. There is much emphasis in the supplementing the word “will” by the word “counsel,” the latter suggesting deliberation, as the adverbial phrase “according to [the] purpose,” that is, “purposely,” also does. But St. Paul speaks anthropomorphically. And he seems to be the first writer to use this word “purpose” of God, Aristotle, in his Rhetoric, iii. 13, written after 338 B.C., using it of the “proposition” or expository section in a speech, and others of a plan.
Of course, it could not be supposed for a moment that God’s Will, which is one with His Divine Essence, could proceed by deliberation, but the Apostle would guard against the unuttered suspicion, that Israel’s place was due to caprice or arbitrary choice. Therefore, St. Paul suggests the Divine motive. But he does so indefinitely and without wounding Gentile susceptibilities. He simply says that the Jews, who had been the first to hope in the Messiah, and had watched for Him in spite of darkness, that could be felt, should be to the praise of God’s glory. Already, the Apostle had pointed out that the predestination to adoption was to the praise of the glory of God’s grace, Eph. 1:6. So we may note that the predestined position is primarily for the manifestation of God’s glory; but the predestined adoption, primarily for the manifestation of His grace.
With regard to the word, rendered “fore-hoped,” it has been questioned whether it means “hoped before Messiah came,” or “hoped before others hoped.” The latter sense is suggested by the context, which contrasts Jews and Gentiles. And it is confirmed by the use of the prefix pro-, “fore-,” in
1 Cor. 11:21.
For each fore-takes his own supper,
that is, takes it before the others take theirs.
It has been suggested that the “we” in 1:12, should be interpreted of Jewish converts, and the “you” in 1:13, of Gentiles. But the “we” and the “you” appear to be representative, because the Apostle is speaking, 1:11, as he spoke in Rom. 3:1–4, 9:1–7, of Israel’s peculiar privileges It would hardly be consistent with the theme of this encyclical to draw a contrast between Jewish and Gentile converts, simply as such. For it proposes to shew the union of Jews and Gentiles without any distinction in the one Messiah; and both belong to the same Messianic or Christian Israel, Eph. 2:13–16.
Eph. 1:13, 14. The Messianic Ingathering of the Gentiles
But the Apostle of the Gentiles must pass on swiftly to the privileges of the Gentile converts. These indeed had not believed in the Messiah before His appearing; but now they were fulfilling what prophets had foretold as to a stream of pilgrims to the spiritual Zion, Micah 4:1. Isaiah 2:2. So St. Paul turns quickly to these, and says,
Eph. 1:13.
In whom you also—
There is no verb, and the utterance is broken off. Of the Jews, he was able to say,
Eph. 1:11.
In whom we were also allotted [to God].
But now the verb “allotted” would be out of place. Yet he would say all he can for these Gentiles, even concluding his account of them, as he had concluded his account of the Jews, with the words,
Eph. 1:12, 1:14.
Unto praise of His glory.
So he will say,
Eph. 1:13.
When you heard the word of truth,
The Gospel of your salvation—
Again, we render a Greek participle of aorist or indefinite past time by a phrase, “when you heard.” The “word of truth,” the word which unfolds the truth, is clearly defined by the parallel and unique expression, “the Gospel of your salvation,” that is, the Gospel which unfolds your salvation. St. James, 1:18, about twenty-one years ago, and St. Paul himself, five years ago, in 2 Cor. 6:7, have already used the phrase, “word of truth.” But in neither case has either word the article, which is found with both words in the present passage.
Now St. Paul resumes the phrase, “in whom you also,” saying,
Eph. 1:13.
In whom also, when you believed, you were sealed
With the Spirit of the promise, the Holy [One].
The expression, “when you believed,” represents the same Greek participle, which the Apostle had used in October, 53, when he asked about twelve men,
Acts 19:2.
If you received [the] Holy Spirit, when you believed.
In the lines we are studying, it would be grammatically possible to render the first as
Eph. 1:13a.
In which [Gospel] also, when you believed [in it], you were sealed.
But to connect belief and the Gospel here, as in Mark 2:15, would be to overlook the initial phrase, “in whom you also,” and the broken character of the sentence. Beside, it would have no parallel in St. Paul’s epistles, and would miss the dominant note of the whole passage, this being found in the phrase “in Christ,” and not in the words “in the Gospel.” Like the other blessings of election, predestination, adoption, sanctification, redemption and enlightenment, the sealing of the soul with the Holy Spirit is given “in Christ.”
We cannot explain the metaphor of sealing by the pagan mysteries, for there the seal was silence, the seal of the lip. Nor has it any apparent connection with such customs as the branding a man with an ivy-leaf in honour of Dionysius, 3 Macc. 2:29. St. Paul seems to have borrowed the figure from daily business. In the autumn of 55, he addressed the Corinthians, 1, 9:2, as the seal of his apostleship, because they, as his converts, authenticated his office. In the next year, 56, he writes again to the Corinthians, an speaks of God,
2 Cor. 1:22.
Who also sealed us.
And gave the earnest [-money] of the Spirit
In our hearts.
In the January of 57, he wrote to the Romans from Corinth, and used the figure in two remarkable passages. In the former, Rom. 4:11, Abraham is said to have received sign, that is, circumcision, as a seal of the supernatural justice, into which he had already entered by faith. Circumcision was therefore a seal to authenticate his condition. So to-day, God is blessed at the circumcision of a Jewish boy, because He has sealed the children [of Isaac] with the sign of a holy covenant. In the latter passage, Rom. 15:28, St. Paul speaks of sealing certain fruit to the poor Christians at Jerusalem. He will give them the alms of the Macedonian and Achæan churches. Those alms are the fruit of a partnership, to which the Jewish Christians contributed spiritual things; and the Gentile Christians, carnal things. St. Paul, as the commissioned agent of the two will formally convey the alms from the one partner to the other. To use a phrase now current, he will sign, seal and deliver the goods on behalf of the Gentiles. So that the sealing means the authentication of the transaction, though it is only a figurative way of describing St. Paul’s own verbal confirmation.
Therefore, in speaking of the sealing with the Holy Spirit of promise, St. Paul simply means that the Holy Spirit, not only sanctifies the Christian, and enables him to perform acts of supernatural faith, hope and love; but is also an authentic proof, a seal, that such a man is God’s property and possession. And the Holy Spirit is described as “the Spirit of the promise” in view of such prophecies as those of Joel 2:29, and of our Lord,, who, after His Resurrection, described the Holy Spirit as “the Promise of My Father,” Luke 24:49, Acts 1:4.
The language of metaphor is natural to the Oriental. Not long ago, a traveller in Palestine pointed to the gap in a sheepfold, and asked where was the door. The shepherd replied, “I am the door”; because he lay down in the gap at night; and the words fell naturally from his lips. So when our Lord passed on the night of the Betrayal from the Supper Room across the Temple court on His way to Gethsemane, He pointed to the Golden Vine, the symbol of Israel, on the Porch of the Sanctuary, and said, “I am the true Vine,” John 15:1, 10:9. But no doubt, the language of metaphor, like the language of symbol in the Apocalypse, breaks under the strain imposed upon it. We may recall how the “Word of God,” in the Epistle to the Hebrews 4:12, 13, changes its reference from the written to the living Word. And in the present passage, as in that we quoted from 2 Cor. 1:22, the figure begins with the Christian as the possession, and ends with him as the possessor. Had St. Paul been an amateur essayist, no doubt he could have written out his meaning in full without incurring the adverse criticism of grammatical quibblers; but we should have lost that sense of condensed energy and swift intensity, which announce the presence of a sincere man.
Now, as we have noted, St. Paul pictures the Christian as waiting for the full possession, and as endowed meanwhile with the Holy Spirit in earnest of what is to come. The earnest is part-payment, and differs from the full payment in quantity, not in quality. Therefore, the Hoi Spirit shows the nature of the full payment and full possession in the life and graces which He communicates to the soul. So St. Paul writes of the Holy Spirit, as of Him,
Eph. 1:14.
Who is earnest of our possession
Unto redemption of the acquisition—
Unto praise of His glory.
The word for “earnest” is arrhǎbōn, a Semitic word. It is used by the Greek Vulgate in Gen. 38:17, and there alone, for the Hebrew ‘ērābhôn, from ‘ārábh, “to entwine,” or “pledge.” It seems to have been made known to the Greeks by Phœnician traders; and so it appeared in Aristotle and the later Greek classics. From Greek it passed to classical Latin as árrhabo; thence to later Latin as arrha or arra, and to French as arrhes, money paid 2 striking a bargain. Only in the Greek Vulgate of Gen. 38:17, to which we have just referred, does it mean a pledge. Elsewhere, it means an earnest, and indeed a large part of the payment.
The word, which we have rendered “possession,” is generally translated “inheritance.” But neither the Hebrew verbs yārásh and nāchál, nor the Aramaic verbs, y’rath and ‘achsēn, for which St. Paul and other Hellenist Jews employed it, implied possession by inheritance; Dalman, Words, 125, 126. And with regard to the word, which we represent by “acquisition,” we cannot limit it to purchase, or any other particular mode of acquisition.
Then, as the Holy Spirit is God’s seal, He is also our earnest. And though the noun “Spirit” is neuter in Greek, the relative pronoun “who” is masculine. Possibly, the pronoun is drawn into the masculine gender of the word arrhǎbōn, “earnest,” which follows it, Gal. 3:16, offering us a similar example. But the masculine form of the relative may express the personality of the Divine Spirit, suggested by the title “the Holy [One].”
Now the Holy Spirit is our earnest
Eph. 1:14b.
Unto redemption of the acquisition.
That is to say, He is part-payment unto [the time of the] redemption, and until the acquisition has been redeemed in full. In the parallelism, “acquisition” corresponds to “possession,” and “redemption” to “earnest.” No doubt, the word for “acquisition” comes from a verb, which means to “preserve alive.” It would therefore naturally mean “survival,” as in the Greek Vulgate of 2 Chron. 14:13. But in the middle or reflexive form, the verb means “to acquire for oneself”; and so the noun means “acquisition” on its four occurrences in the Greek Testament, 1 Thess. 5:9, 2 Thess. 2:14, Heb. 10:39, and the present place. There is no difficulty with regard to the word, rendered “redemption,” for it is evident that the word is used here of the full realisation in the future, as it was employed in Eph. 1:7, of that already accomplished on the Cross and in the forgiveness of our sins.
St. Paul, therefore, simply means that the Holy Spirit is our present pledge, until the day when we are able to enter into full and free possession of all that God holds in store for us, Gentiles. That too, like the position of the Jews, will be
Eph. 1:14c.
Unto praise of His glory.
For it is His own glory, that is manifest and resplendent in those whom He honours. However great the treasure they possess, they themselves are only earthenware vessels, 2 Cor. 4:7, like the broken jugs, in which Gideon’s three hundred men held the victorious lights, Judges, 7:20.
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