Ephesians 1:18

understanding--The oldest manuscripts, versions, and Fathers, read "heart." Compare the contrary state of unbelieving, the heart being in fault (Eph 4:18; Mat 13:15). Translate, "Having the eyes of your heart enlightened" (Eph 5:14; Mat 4:16). The first effect of the Spirit moving in the new creation, as in the original physical creation (Gen 1:3; Co2 4:6). So THEOPHILUS to AUTOLYCUS (1.3), "the ears of the heart." Where spiritual light is, there is life (Joh 1:4). The heart is "the core of life" [HARLESS], and the fountain of the thoughts; whence "the heart" in Scripture includes the mind, as well as the inclination. Its "eye," or inward vision, both receives and contemplates the light (Mat 6:22-23). The eye is the symbol of intelligence (Eze 1:18).

the hope of his calling--the hope appertaining to His having called you; or, to the calling wherewith He has called you.

and--omitted in the oldest manuscripts and versions.

riches of the glory-- (Col 1:27).

his inheritance in the saints--The inheritance which he has in store in the case of the saints. I prefer explaining, "The inheritance which He has in his saints." (See on Eph 1:11; Deu 32:9).

Jamieson, Fausset & Brown — Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.

Eph 1:18-21. The eyes of your understanding being enlightened — That is, I pray that God would do this for you by the discoveries of his gospel, and the operation of his grace. Observe, reader, it is by the eyes of the understanding alone that we discern the things of God; and in order hereto these eyes must first be opened, and then enlightened, by the Spirit of wisdom and revelation, spoken of in the former verse. That ye may know what is the hope of his calling — That ye may know, experimentally and delightfully, what are the blessings which God, by his word and Spirit, has called you to hope for. For hope seems to be put here chiefly for the objects of hope, as it is likewise Col 1:5; Tit 2:13. The apostle, however, may also include the grounds of this hope; with which, in order to their further establishment, the apostle wished them to be more fully acquainted. And what the riches of the glory of his inheritance in his saints — How great the blessings of his grace are, conferred on his saints here, and what an immense treasure of blessedness and glory he hath provided for them hereafter. And what is the exceeding greatness of his power to us-ward, who cordially believe — Both in raising our souls from the death of sin, and preserving them in spiritual life; influencing our hearts in such a manner as effectually to conquer all our prejudices against Christianity, and against true religion in every form, and so as to make us new creatures in Christ Jesus; according to the working of his mighty power — Greek, κατα την ενεργειαν του κρατους της ισχους αυτου, expressions, the strong emphasis and admirable force of which, as Bishop Pearson has observed, are scarcely to be paralleled in any author, and are superior to what our language can reach. Doddridge renders them, according to the energy of the power of his might, a translation which, however, falls very short of the original. See also Blackwall’s Sacred Classics, vol. 1. p. 307. Which he wrought in Christ — By the same almighty power whereby he raised Christ from the dead, for no less would suffice; and set him at his own right hand — That is, he hath exalted him in his human nature, as a recompense for his sufferings, to the quiet, everlasting possession of all possible blessedness, majesty, and glory. Far above all principality and power, and might and dominion — That is, God hath invested him with uncontrollable authority over all demons in hell, and angels in heaven, and all the princes and potentates on earth; and every name that is named — Name is here, by a usual figure, put for the person who possesses the authority signified by that name. We know the king is above all, though we cannot name all the officers of his court: so we know that Christ is above all, though we are not able to name all his subjects; not only in this world, but also in that which is to come — The invisible world, in which the potentates mentioned in the former part of the verse rule, is called the world to come, not because it does not yet exist, but because it is to come to us, not being yet visible. We may observe here, that of the four different names given to good angels in this verse, the two first αρχαι, principalities, and εξουσιαι, powers, are given to evil angels, (Eph 6:12,) and to men, Luk 12:11. From this we learn, that there are different orders and degrees of government and subordination among good and bad angels in the invisible world, as among men in the visible world. It is observed by Chandler, that αρχη, the first word, signifies empire of the largest extent, being used by Greek writers to denote the empire of Alexander, after he had conquered the East, and the empire of the Romans; and that κυριοτης, the last word in the verse, signifies the lowest degree of power, power of the smallest extent. So that although we do not know precisely what kind or degree of power is marked by these different names, when applied to good and bad angels, yet we perceive the meaning in general to be, that to our Lord, in his human nature, are subjected the highest, the intermediate, and the lowest orders of beings in the universe; having power, whether among angels or men. According to this view of Christ’s dominion, he is placed above every created nature, however excellent it may be. See Macknight, and Col 1:16.

Joseph Benson's Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1811–1818) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

EPHESIANS

THE HOPE OF THE CALLING

Eph 1:18

A man’s prayers for others are a very fair thermometer of his own religious condition. What he asks for them will largely indicate what he thinks best for himself; and how he asks it will show the firmness of his own faith and the fervour of his own feeling. There is nothing colder than the intercession of a cold Christian; and, on the other hand, in no part of the fervid Apostle Paul’s writings do his words come more winged and fast, or his spirit glow with greater fervour of affection and holy desire than in his petitions for his friends.

In that great prayer, of which my text forms a part, we have his response to the good news that had reached him of the steadfastness in faith and abundance in love of these Ephesian Christians. As the best expression of his glad love he asks for them the knowledge of three things, of which my text is the first, and the other two are the ‘riches of the glory of the inheritance’ and ‘the exceeding greatness of God’s power.’

Now if we take the ‘hope’ in my text, as is often done, as meaning the thing hoped for, there seems to be but a shadowy difference between the first and the second of these subjects of the apostolic petition. Whereas, if we take it as meaning, not the object on which the emotion is fixed, but the emotion itself, then all the three stand in a natural gradation and connection. We have, first, the Christian emotion; then the object upon which it is fixed; ‘the glory of the inheritance’; then the power by which the latter is brought and the former is realised. We shall consider the second and third of these petitions in following sermons. For the present I confine myself to this first, the Apostle’s great desire for Christians who had already made considerable progress in the Christian life, ‘that they may know,’ by experiencing it, ‘what is the hope of His calling.’

I. Now the first thought that these words suggest to me is this, that the Christian hope is based upon the facts of Christian experience.

What does the Apostle mean by naming it ‘the hope of his calling’? He means this, that the great act of the divine mercy revealed to us in the Gospel, by which God summons and invites men to Himself, will naturally produce in those who have yielded to it a hope of immortal and perfect life. Because God has called men, therefore the man who has yielded to the call may legitimately, and must, if he is to do his duty, cherish such a hope. It is clear enough that this is so, inasmuch as, unless there be a heaven of completeness for us who have yielded to the summons and obeyed the invitation of God in His Gospel, His whole procedure is enigmatical and bewildering. The fact of the call is inexplicable; the cost of it is no less so. It was not worth while for God to make the world unless with respect to another which was to follow. It is still less worth His while to redeem the world if the results of that redemption, as they are exhibited here and now, and as they are capable of being exhibited in this present condition of things, are all that are to flow from it. It was not worth Christ’s while to die, it was not worth God’s while to send His Son, there was no sense or consistency in that great voice that echoes from heaven, calling us to love and serve Him, unless, beyond the jangling contradictions, and imperfect attainments, and foiled aspirations, and fragmentary faith, and broken services of earth, there be a region of completeness where all that was tendency here shall have become effect; and all that was but in germ here, and sorely frostbitten by the ungenial climate, and shrivelled by the foul vapours in the atmosphere, shall blossom and burgeon into eternal life. The Christian life, as it is to-day, in its attainments and imperfections, is at once the witness of the reality of the power that has produced it, and clamantly calls for a sphere and environment in which that power shall be able to produce the effects which it is capable of producing.

God is ‘not a man that He should lie, nor the son of man that He should repent.’ Men begin grand designs which never get further than the paper that they are drawn on; or they build a porch, and then they are bankrupt, or change their minds, or die, and the palace remains unrealised, and all that pass by mock and say, ‘This man began to build and was not able to finish.’ But God’s designs are certain of accomplishment. Unless we are to be reduced to a state of utter intellectual bewilderment and confusion, and forgo our belief in His veracity and resources to execute His designs, the design that lies in the calling must needs lead on to the realm of perfectness. If we consider the agent by which it is effected, even the risen Christ; if we consider the cost at which it was accomplished, even the death on the Cross, the mission of His Son, and His assumption of the limitations of an incarnate life; if we consider the manifest potencies of the power that He has brought into operation in the present Christian life; and if we consider, side by side with these, the stark, staring contradictions and as manifest inevitable limitations of the effects of that power, His calling carries in its depths the assurance that what He means shall be done, that Jesus Christ has not died in vain, that He has not ascended to fill a solitary throne, but is the Firstfruits of a great harvest; and that we shall one day be all that it is in the gospel of our salvation to make us, unhindered by the limitations and unthwarted by the antagonisms of this poor human life of ours. Unless there be a heaven in which all desires shall be satisfied, all evils removed, all good perfected, all ragged trees made symmetrical and full-grown, and all souls that love Him radiant with His own perfect image, then the light that seemed a light from heaven is the most delusive of all the marsh-fires of earth, and nothing in the illusions of sense or of men’s cunning is so cruel or so tragic as the calling that seemed to be the voice of God, and summoned us to a heaven which was only a dream.

II. And so, secondly, notice how this hope of our text is in some sense the very topstone of the Christian life.

Paul has heard, concerning these people in Ephesus, of their faith and love. And because he has heard of these, therefore he brings this prayer. These two-the faith which apprehends the manifestation of God in Jesus Christ, and the love which that faith produces in the heart that accepts the revelation of the infinite love-are crowned by, and are imperfect without, and naturally lead on to the brightness of this great hope, Faith-the reliance of the spirit upon the veracity of the revealing God-gives hope its contents; for the Christian hope is not spun out of your own imaginations, nor is it the mere making objective in a future life of the unfulfilled desires of this disappointing present, but it is the recognition by the trusting spirit of the great and starry truths that are flashed upon it by the Word of God. Faith draws back the curtain, and Hope gazes into the supernal abysses. My hope, if it be anything else than the veriest will-o’-the-wisp and delusion, is the answer of my heart to the revealed truth of God.

Similarly the love which flows from faith not only necessarily leads on to the expectation of union being perfected with the object of its warm affection, but also so works upon the heart and character as that the false and seducing loves which draw away, like some sluice upon a river, the current of life from its true channel, are all sanctified and no more hinder hope. Loving, we hope for that which, unless we loved, would not draw desires nor yield foretastes of sweetness which, like perfumed oil, feed the pure flame of hope.

The triad of Christian graces is completed by Hope. Without her fair presence something is wanting to the completeness of her elder sisters. The great Campanile at Florence, though it be inlaid with glowing marbles, and fair sculptures, and perfect in its beauty, wants the gilded, skyward-pointing pinnacle of its topmost pyramid; and so it stands incomplete. And thus faith and love need for their crowning and completion the topmost grace that looks up to the sky, and is sure of a mansion there.

Brethren, our Christianity is wofully imperfect unless faith and love find their acme, their outstretching completion, in this Christian hope. Do you seek to complete your faith and love by a living hope full of immortality?

III. Thirdly, notice how this hope is an all-important element in the Christian life.

The Apostle asks for it as the best thing that can befall these Ephesian Christians, as the one thing that they need to make them strong and good and blessed. There are many other aspects of desire for them which appear in other parts of this letter. But here all Christian progress is regarded as being held in solution and included in vigorous hope.

Why is the activity of hope thus important for Christian life? Because it stimulates effort, calms sorrows, takes the fascination out of temptations, supplies a new aim for life and a new measure for the things of time and sense.

If we lived, as we ought to live, in the habitual apprehension of the great future awaiting all real Christians, would it not change the whole aspect of life? The world is very big when it is looked at from any point upon its surface; but suppose it could be looked at from the central sun, how large would it appear then? We can shift our station in like fashion, and then we get the true measure at once of the insignificance and of the greatness of life. This world means nothing worthy, except as an introduction to another. Not that thereby there will follow in any wise man contempt for the present, for the very same reference to the future which dwarfs the greatnesses and dwindles the sorrows, and almost extinguishes the dazzling lights of this present, does also lift it to its true significance and importance. It is the vestibule of that future, and that future is conditioned throughout by the results of the few years that we live here. An apprenticeship may be a very poor matter, looked at in itself; and the boy may say What is the use of my working at all these trivial things? but, since it is apprenticeship, it is worth while to attend to every trifle in its course, for attention to them will affect the standing of the man all his days.

Here and now we are getting ready for the great workshop yonder; learning the trick of the tools, and how to use our fingers and our powers, and, when the schooling is done, we shall be set to nobler work, and receive ample wages for the years here. Because that great ‘to-morrow will be as this day’ of earthly life, ‘and much more abundant,’ therefore it is no trifle to work amongst the trifles; and nothing is small which may tell on our condition yonder. The least deflection from the straight line, however acute may be the angle which the divergent lines enclose at the starting, and however small may seem to be the deviation from parallelism, will, if prolonged to infinity, have room between the two for all the stars, and the distance between them will be that the one is in heaven and the other is in hell. And so it is a great thing to live amongst the little things, and life gains its true significance when we dwarf and magnify it by linking it with the world to come.

If we only kept that hope bright before us, how little discomforts and sorrows and troubles would matter! Life would become ‘a solemn scorn of ills.’ It does not matter much what kind of cabin accommodation we have if we are only going a short voyage; the main thing is to make the port. If we, as Christian people, cherish, as we ought to do, this great hope, then we shall be able to control, and not to despise but to exalt this fleeting and transient scene, because it is linked inseparably with the life that is to come.

IV. Lastly, this hope needs enlightened eyes.

The Apostle prays that God may give to these Ephesians ‘the spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of Him,’ and then he adds, as the result of that gift, the desire that the Ephesian believers may have ‘the eyes of their hearts enlightened.’ That is a remarkable expression. It does not mean, as an English reader might suppose it to mean, that the affections are the agents by which this knowledge reaches us; but ‘heart’ is here used, as it often is in Scripture, as a general expression for the whole inward life, and all that the Apostle means is that, by the gift of the Divine Spirit of wisdom, a man’s inner nature may be so touched as to be capable of perceiving and grasping the ‘hope of the calling.’

Observe, too, the language, ‘that ye may know the hope.’ How can you know a hope? How do you know any kind of feeling? By having it. The only way of knowing what is the hope is to hope, and this is only possible by dint of these eyes of the understanding being enlightened. For our inward nature, as we have it, and as we use it, without the touch of that Divine Spirit, is so engrossed with this present that the far-off blessedness to which my text refers has no chance of entering there. No man can look at something beside him with one eye, and at something half a mile off with the other. You have to focus the eye according to the object; and he who is gazing upon the near is thereby made blind to that which is afar off. If we go crawling along the low levels with our eyes upon the dust, then of course we cannot see the crown above.

We need more than the historical revelation of the light in order to enlighten the inward nature. There is many a man here now who knows all about the immortality that is brought to light by Jesus Christ just as well as the Christian man whose soul is full of the hope of it, and who yet, for all his knowledge, does not know the hope, because he has not felt it. You have to get further than to the acceptance intellectually of the historical facts of a risen and ascended Saviour before there can be, in your heart, any vital hope of immortality. The inward eye must be cleared and strengthened, cross lights must be shut out so that we may direct the single eye of our hearts towards the great objects which alone are worthy of its fixed contemplation. And we cannot do that without a divine help, that Spirit of wisdom which will fill our hearts if we ask for it, which will fix our affections, which will clear our eyesight, which will withdraw it from seeing vanity as well as give it reality to see.

But we must observe the conditions. Since this clearness of hope comes not merely from the acceptance as a truth of the fact of Christ’s Resurrection and Ascension, but comes through the gift of that Divine Spirit, then to have it you must ask for it. Christian people, do you ask for it? Do you ever pray-I do not mean in words, but in real desire-that God would help you to keep steadily before you that great future to which we are all going so fast? If you do you will get the answer. Seek for that Spirit; use it, and do not resist its touches. Do not fix your gaze on the world when God is trying to draw you to fix it upon Himself. Think more about Jesus Christ, more about God’s high calling, live nearer to Him, and try more honestly, more earnestly, more prayerfully, more habitually, even amidst all the troubles and difficulties and trivialities of each day, to cultivate that great faculty of joyful and assured hope.

Surely God did not endue us with the power of hoping that we might fling it all away on trivial, transient things. We are all far too short-sighted; our fault is not that we do not hope, but that we hope for such near things, for such small things, like the old mariners who had no compass nor sextant, and were obliged to creep timidly along the coasts, and steer from headland to headland. But we ought to launch boldly out into mid-ocean, knowing that we have before us that star that cannot guide us amiss. Do not set your hopes on the things that perish, for if you do, hopes fulfilled and hopes disappointed will be equally bitter in your mouths. And you older people who, like myself, are drawing near the end of your days, and have little else left to hope for in this world, do you see to it that your anticipations extend ‘above the ruinable skies.’ There is an object beyond experience, above imagination, without example, for which the creation wants a comparison, we an apprehension, and the Word of God itself a sufficient revelation. ‘It doth not yet appear what we shall be.’ God hath called us to His eternal kingdom and glory; let us seek to walk in the light of the ‘hope of His calling.’

EPHESIANS

GOD’S INHERITANCE IN THE SAINTS

Eph 1:18

The misery of Hope is that it so often owes its materials to the strength of our desires or to the activity of our imagination. But when mere wishes or fancies spin the thread, Hope cannot weave a lasting fabric. And so one of the old prophets, in speaking of the delusive hopes of man, says that they are like ‘spiders’ webs,’ and ‘shall not become garments.’ Paul, then, having been asking for these Ephesian Christians that they might have hopes lofty and worthy, and such as God’s summons to them would inspire, passes on to ask that they might have the material out of which they could weave such hope, namely, a sure and clear knowledge of the future blessings. The language in which he describes that future is remarkable-’the riches of the glory of His inheritance in the saints.’ He calls it God’s inheritance, not as meaning that God is the Inheritor, but the Giver. He speaks of it as ‘in the saints,’ meaning that, just as the land of Canaan was distributed amongst tribes and families, and each man got his own little plot, so that broad land is parted out amongst those who are ‘partakers of the inheritance of the saints in light.’

And so my text suggests to me three points to which I seek to call your attention. First, the inheritance; second, the heirs; and third, the heirs’ present knowledge of their future possession.

I. First, then, note the inheritance.

Now we must discharge from the word some of its ordinary associations. There is no reference to the thought of succession in it, as the mere English reader is accustomed to think-to whom inheritance means possession by the death of another. The idea is simply that of possession. The figure which underlies the word is, of course, that of the ancient partition of the land of Canaan amongst the tribes, but we must go a great deal deeper than that in order to understand its whole sweep and fulness of meaning.

What is the portion for a soul? God. God is Heaven, and Heaven is God. No interpretation of ‘the inheritance,’ however it may run into cheap and vulgar sensuous descriptions of a future glory, has come within sight of the meaning of the word, unless it has grasped this as the central thought: ‘Whom have I in heaven but Thee? And there is none upon earth that I desire beside Thee.’ Only God can be the portion of a human spirit. And none else can fill the narrowest and the smallest of man’s needs.

So, then, if there were realised all the accumulated changes of progress in blessedness, and the withdrawal of all external causes of disquiet and weariness and weeping, still the heart would hunger and be empty of its true possession unless God Himself had flowed into it. It were but a poor advancement and the gain of a loss, if yearnings were made immortal, and the aching vacuity, which haunts every soul that is parted from God, were cursed with immortality. It would be so, if it be not true that the inheritance is nothing less than the fuller possession of God Himself.

And how do men possess God? How do we possess one another, here and now? By precisely the same way, only indefinitely expanded and exalted, do we possess Him here, and shall we possess Him hereafter. Heart to heart is joined by love which is mutual and interpenetrating possession; where ‘mine’ and ‘thine’ become blended, like the several portions of the one ray of white light, in the blessed word ‘ours.’ Contemplation makes us possessors of God. Assimilation to His character makes us own and have Him. They who love and gaze, and are being changed by still degrees into His likeness, possess Him. This is the central idea of man’s future destiny and highest blessedness, a union with God closer and more intimate in degree, but yet essentially the same in kind, as is here possible amidst the shows and vanities and wearinesses of this mortal life. ‘His servants shall serve Him, and see His face, and His name shall be on their foreheads.’ Obedience, contemplation, transformation, these are the hands by which we here lay hold on God; and they in the heavens grasp Him just as we here on earth may do. The ‘inheritance’ is God Himself.

Surely that is in accordance with the whole teaching of Scripture, and is but the expansion of plain words which tell us that we ‘are heirs of God.’ If that be so, then all the other subsidiary blessings which have been, to the sore detriment of Christian anticipation and of Christian life in a hundred ways, elevated into disproportionate importance, fall into their right places, and are more when they are looked upon as secondary than when they are looked upon as primary.

Ah, brethren! neither the sensuous metaphors which, in accommodation to our weakness, Scripture has used to paint that future so that we may, in some measure, comprehend it, nor the translation of these, in so far as they refer to circumstances and externals, are enough for us. It is blessed to know that ‘there shall be no night there’-blessed to grasp all those sweet negatives which contradict the miseries of the world, and to think of no sin, no curse, no tears, no sighing nor sorrow, neither any more pain, ‘because the former things have passed away.’ It is sweet and ennobling to think that, when we are discharged of the load of this cumbrous flesh, we shall be much more ourselves, and able to see where now is but darkness, and to feel where now is but vacancy. It is blessed to think of the recognising of lost and loved ones. But all these blessednesses, heaped together, as it seems to me, would become sickeningly the same if prolonged through eternity, unless we had God for our very own. Eternal is an awful word, even when the noun that goes with it is blessedness. And I know not how even the redeemed could be saved, as the long ages rolled on, from the oppression of monotony, and the feeling, ‘I would not live always,’ unless God was ‘the strength of their hearts, and their portion for ever.’ We must rise above everything that merely applies to changes in our own natures and in our relations to the external universe, and to other orders of creatures; and grasp, as the hidden sweetness that lies in the calyx of the gorgeous flower, the possession of God Himself as the rapture of our joy and the heaven of our heaven.

And if that be so, then these accumulated words with which the Apostle, in his fiery, impetuous way, tries to set forth the greatness of what he is speaking about, receive a loftier meaning than they otherwise would have.

‘The riches of the glory of His inheritance’-now that word ‘riches,’ or ‘wealth,’ is a favourite of Paul’s; and in this single letter occurs, if I count rightly, five times. In addition to our text, it is used twice in connection with God’s grace, ‘the riches of His grace’ once in connection with Jesus, ‘the unsearchable riches of Christ’; and once in a similar connection to, though with a different application from, our text, ‘the riches of His glory.’ Always, you see, it is applied to something that is special and properly divine. And here, therefore, it applies, not to the abundance of any creatural good, however exuberant and inexhaustible the store of it may be, but simply and solely to that unwearying energy, that self-feeding and ever-burning and never-decaying light, which is God. Of Him alone it can be said that work does not exhaust, nor Being tend to its own extinction, nor expenditure of resources to their diminution. The guarantee for eternal blessedness is the ‘riches’ of the eternal God, and so we may be sure that no time can exhaust, nor any expenditure empty, either His storehouse or our wealth.

And again, the ‘glory’ is not the lustrous light, however dazzling to our feeble eyes that may be, of any creature that reflects the light of God, but it is the far-flashing and never-dying radiance of His own manifestation of Himself to the hearts and souls of them that love Him. And so the ‘inheritance is incorruptible and undefiled, and fadeth not away’; not merely by reason of the communicated will of God operating upon creatures whom He preserves untarnished by corruption, and ungnawed by decay, but because He Himself is the ‘inheritance,’ and on Him time hath no power. On His wealth all His creatures may hang for ever; and it shall be as it was in the sweet parable of the miracle of old, the fragments that remain will be more than when the meal began. ‘The riches of the glory of His inheritance.’

II. Now notice, secondly, the heirs.

The words of my text receive, perhaps, their best commentary and explanation in those words which the writer of them heard, on the Damascus road, when the voice from heaven spoke to him about men ‘obtaining an inheritance among them that are sanctified.’ It almost sounds like an echo of that long past, but never-to-be-forgotten voice, when our Apostle writes as he does in our text.

Now what does he mean by ‘saints’? Who are these amongst whom the broad acres of that infinite prairie are to be parted out? The word has attracted to itself contemptuous meanings and ascetical meanings, and meanings which really deny the true democracy of Christianity and the equality of all believers in the sight of God. But its scriptural use has none of these narrowing and confusing associations adhering to it, nor does it even directly and at first mean, as we generally take it to mean, pure men, holy in the sense of clean and righteous. But something goes before that phase of meaning, and it is this-a saint is a man separated and set apart for God, as His property. That is the true meaning of the word. It is its meaning as it is applied to the vessels of the Temple, the priests, the services, and the altar. It is its meaning, only with the necessary substitution of spirit for body, as it is applied in the New Testament as a designation co-extensive with that of believers.

How does a man belong to God?

We asked a minute or two ago how God belonged to men. The answer to the converse question is almost identical. A man belongs to God by the affection of his heart, by the submission of his will, by the reference of his actions to Him; and he who thus belongs to God, in the same act in which he gives himself to God, receives God as his possession. The thing must be reciprocal. ‘All mine is Thine’; and God answers, ‘And all Mine is thine.’ He ever meets our ‘O Lord, I yield myself to Thee,’ with His ‘And My child, I give Myself to thee.’ It is so in regard of our earthly loves. It is so in regard of our relations to Him. And that being the case, purity, which is generally taken by careless readers as being the main idea of sanctity, will follow this self-surrender, which is the basis of all goodness, everywhere and always.

If that be true, and I do not think it can be effectively denied, then the next step is a very plain one, and that is that for the perfect possession of God, which is heaven, the same thing is needed in its perfection which is required for the partial possession of Him that makes the Christian life of earth. And just as here we get Him for ours in proportion as we give up ourselves to be His, so yonder the inheritance belongs, and can only belong to, ‘the saints.’ So, then, one can see that there is nothing arbitrary in this limitation of a possession, which in its very nature cannot go beyond the bounds which are thus marked out for it. If heaven were the vulgar thing that some of you think it, if that future life were desirable simply because you escaped from some external punishment and got all sorts of outward blessings and joys, felicities and advantages, hung round the neck, or pinned upon the breast, as they do to successful fighters, why then, of course, there might be partiality in the distribution of the decorations. But if that possession hinges upon our yielding ourselves to Him, then there is not an arbitrary link in the whole chain. Faith is set forth as the condition of heaven, because faith is the means of union with Christ, by and from whom alone we draw the motives for self-surrender and the power for sanctity. You cannot have heaven unless you have God. That is step number one. You cannot have God unless you have ‘holiness, without which no man shall see the Lord.’ That is step number two. You cannot have holiness without faith. That is step number three. ‘An inheritance among them that are sanctified’; and then there is added, ‘by faith which is in Me.’

It is clear, too, what a fatal delusion some of us are under who think that we shall, and fancy that we should like to, as we say, ‘go to heaven when we die.’ Why, heaven is here, round about you, a present heaven in the imitation of God, in the practice of righteousness, in the cultivation of dependence upon Him, in the yielding of yourselves up to Him. Heaven is here, and by your own choice you stop outside of it. There must be a correspondence between environment and nature for blessedness. ‘The mind is its own place,’ as the great Puritan poet taught us, ‘and makes a heaven of hell, a hell of heaven.’ Fishes die on the shore, and the man that drew them out dies in the water. Gills cannot breathe where lungs are useful, and lungs cannot, where gills come into play. If you have not here and now the holiness which knits you to God, and gives you possession of Him, you would not like ‘heaven,’ if it were possible to carry you to that place, in so far as it is a place. It is rather strange, if you hope to go to heaven when you die, that you should be very unwilling to spend a little time in it whilst you are alive, and that you should expect blessedness then from that presence of God which brings you no blessedness now.

III. Lastly, we have here the heirs’ present knowledge of their future blessedness.

The Apostle asks that these men may know a thing that clearly seems unknowable. It is an impossible petition, we might be ready to say, because it is clear enough that there can be no true knowledge of the conditions and details of that future life. The dark mountains that lie between us and it hide their secret well, and few or no stray beams have reached us. An unborn babe, or a chrysalis in a hole in the ground or in a chink of a tree, might think as wisely about its future condition as we can do about that life beyond. There can be no knowledge until there is experience.

What, then, does Paul mean by framing such a petition as this? The answer is found in noticing that the knowledge which he is imploring here is a consequence of a previous knowledge. For, in a former verse, he prays that these men may have ‘the spirit of wisdom in the knowledge of God’; and when they have got the knowledge of God he thinks that they will have got the knowledge of ‘the riches of the glory of His inheritance in the saints.’ Now, turn that into other words, and it is just this, that the knowledge of God, which comes by faith and love here, is in kind so identical with the fullest and loftiest riches of the knowledge of Him hereafter, that, if we have the one, we are not without the other. The one is in germ, the other, no doubt, full blown; the one is the twinkling of the rushlight, as it were, the other is the blaze of the sunshine. The two states of being are so correspondent that from the one we draw our clearest knowledge of the other. There are telescopes, in using which you do not look up when you want to see the stars, but down on to a reflecting mirror, and there you see them. Such a reflecting mirror, though it be sometimes muddied and dimmed and always very small, are the experiences of the Christian soul here.

So, dear friends, if we want to know as much as may be known of the blessedness of heaven, let us seek to possess as much as may be possessed of the knowledge and love of God on earth. Then we shall know the centre, at any rate; and that is light, though the circumference may be very dark. Much will remain obscure. That is of very small consequence to Hope, which does not need information half so much as it needs assurance. Like some flower in the cranny of the rock, it can spread a broad bright blossom on little soil, if only it be firmly rooted.

The path for us all is plain. Come to Jesus Christ as sinful men, and take what He has given, who has given Himself for us. Touched by His love, let us love Him back again, and yield ourselves to Him, and He will give Himself to us. They who can say, ‘O Lord! I am Thine,’ are sure to hear from heaven, ‘I am thine.’ And they who possess, in being possessed by, God Himself, do not need to die in order to go to heaven, but are at least doorkeepers in the house of the Lord now, and stand where they can see into the inner sanctuary which they will one day tread. A life of faith brings Heaven to us, and thereby gives us the surest and the clearest knowledge of what we shall be, and have, when we are brought to heaven.

Alexander MacLaren, Expositions of Holy Scripture (1904–1910) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

1:18 Confident hope for believers is the anticipation of Christ’s return and his future blessings that they will share. Joined with Christ, believers become joint heirs with him of all God’s promised blessings.

Tyndale Open Study Notes — © Tyndale Open Resources, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Text via the HelloAO Bible API.

Eph 1:18. Πεφωτισμένους, enlightened) The accusative absolute, as Act 26:3, when the eyes of your understanding (heart) shall have been enlightened. The article τοὺς, with ὀφθαλμοὺς, presupposes that the eyes are already present [inasmuch as being no longer in the darkness of unbelief]; and does not allow that they can be considered as about to be given now or hereafter, as if for the first time. But if ὀφθαλμοὺς were without the article, it might be taken in an abstract sense, and construed with may give.—τοὺς ὀφθαλμοὺς τῆς καρδίας, the eyes of the heart) Comp. Eph 4:18; Mat 13:15. The heart is that by which we perceive matters so important, ch. Eph 3:17. So Theophilus speaks of the ears of the heart, 50:1 to Autol. 100:3; add the note on Chrysost. de Sacerd., p. 429: and plainly the eyes of the heart. Smyrn. ep. concerning Polycarp, § 2. [καρδίας,[16] a remarkable reading.—Not. Crit.]—τίς—ΤΊς—ΤΊ, What—what—what [Eph 1:19]) Comp. the following verse. Three remarkable points of time, in regard to the future, the present, comp. Eph 3:6, and the past.—τῆς κλήσεως αὐτοῦ, of His calling) The calling by which He called you. In the saints follows, as the apostle often names together the called and saints.

[16] Rec. Text, without any of the oldest authorities, reads διανοίας, of the understanding. But ABD(Δ)Gfg Vulg. read καρδίας.—ED.

Bengel's Gnomon of the New Testament — English translation (T&T Clark, Edinburgh, 1860) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Eph_1:18. Πεφωτισμένους τοὺς ὀφθαλμοὺς κ.τ.λ.] is usually (as also by Rückert, Matthies, Meier, Holzhausen, Harless, Winzer, Olshausen, de Wette, Baumgarten-Crusius, Schenkel, Buttmann, neut. Gr. p. 272 [E. T. 317]) taken as appositional, and made dependent on δῴη ὑμῖν; in which case it has been rightly observed that the translation should not be, with Luther: enlightened eyes, but, on account of the article: He may give to you the eyes enlightened, etc. But (1) in general an enlightened understanding is not proper to be set forth as in apposition to the Holy Spirit, but rather as the effect of the same. (2) The conception that God gives to them their eyes (which as such they already have) in the condition of enlightenment, as πεφωτισμένους, remains in any case an awkward one; inasmuch as we should have to transform the giving, which was still a proper and actual giving in Eph_1:17 zeugmatically into the notion of making at Eph_1:18 (Flatt, following Heinsius, quite arbitrarily supplies εἶναι), in order to remove the incongruity caused by the presence of the article. Bengel, with his fine insight, aptly remarks: Quodsi ὀφθαλμούς esset sine articulo, posset in sensu abstracto sumi (enlightened eyes) et cum det construi. Hence, with Beza, Bengel, Koppe, Bleek, πεφωτισμ. is to be taken as the so-called accusative absolute, such as, from a mingling in the conception of two sorts of construction, is to be met with often also in classical writersand that without repeating the subject (ὑμᾶς) in the accusative (in opposition to Buttmann)instead of another case which would be required in strict accordance with the construction, particularly instead of the dative (ὕπεστί μοι θράσος ἁδυπνόνων κλύουσαν ἀρτίως ὀνειράτων, Soph. El. 479 f.; Plat. Lach. p. 186 D; Thuc. v. 79. 1); and thus Bezas proposal to read πεφωτισμένοις was entirely uncalled for. Comp. Act_26:3. See, generally, Brunck, ad Soph. l.c.; Jacobs, ad Athen. p. 97; Stallbaum, ad Plat. Symp. p. 176 D, and ad Rep. pp. 386 B, 500 C, 586 E; Kühner and Krüger, ad Xen. Anab. i. 2. 1; Nägelsb. on Iliad, ed. 3, p. 181. Accordingly, πεφωτισμ. relates to ὑμῖν, and τοὺς ὀφθ. is the accusative of more precise definition: enlightened in respect of the eyes of your heart, i.e. so that ye are then enlightened, etc., with which is expressed the result of the communication of the Spirit prayed for (1Th_3:13; Php_3:21; Hermann, ad Viger. p. 897 f.; Pflugk, ad Eur. Hec. 690).

τοὺς ὀφθαλμ. τῆς καρδ. ὑμ.] figurative designation of the understanding (Plat. Pol. vii. p. 533 D: τὸ τῆς ψυχῆς ὄμμα, Soph. p. 254 A; comp. Ovid. Met. xv. 64, and see Grotius and Wetstein), which is enlightened, when man discerns the divine truth. The opposite: Rom_1:21; Rom_11:8; Rom_11:10. The reference of the enlightenment to knowledge is necessarily given by ὀφθαλμούς, and should not have been regarded as one-sided (in opposition to Harless); and the power of the new life is not here included under the πεφωτισμ., since it is not the heart in general, but the eyes of the heart that are set forth as enlightened, consequently the organ of cognition. Comp. Clem. ad Cor. 1.Eph 19: ἐμβλέψομεν τοῖς ὄμμασι τῆς ψυχῆς εἰς τὸ μακρόθυμον αὐτοῦ βούλημα; and 1.Eph 36: ἠνεῴχθησαν ἡμῶν οἱ ὀφθαλμοὶ τῆς καρδίας.

καρδία] does not merely denote, according to the popular biblical usage, the faculty of emotion and desire (Olshausen, Opusc. p. 159; Stirm in the Tüb. Zeitschr. 1834, 3, p. 53), but is the concrete expression for the central seat of the psychicopneumatic personality, consequently embracing together all the agencies (thinking, willing, feeling) in the exercise of which man has the consciousness of his personal inward experience; in which case the context must suggest what side of the self-conscious inner activity of life (here, the cognitive) is in particular to be thought of. Comp. Rom_1:21; 2Co_4:6; Heb_4:12; Php_4:7; 2Pe_1:19; and see, on the activity of the heart in thinking and cognition, Delitzsch, Psychol. p. 248 f., as also Krumm, de notionib. psychol. Paul. p. 50.[114]

εἰς τὸ εἰδέναι ὑμᾶς] aim of ΠΕΦΩΤΙΣΜ. Κ.Τ.Λ.: in order that ye may know what (quanta) is the hope of His calling, i.e. what a great and glorious hope is given to the man, whom God has called to the kingdom of the Messiah, by means of that calling (τῆς κλήσ. is genitive of the efficient cause). ἘΛΠΊς, accordingly, is not here, any more than elsewhere (Rom_8:24; Gal_5:5; Col_1:5, al.), res specrata, as the majority, including Meier and Olshausen, take it. Observe also here the three main elements in the subjective state of Christians: faith, and love, and hope (Eph_1:15; Eph_1:18); in presence of faith and love the enlightenment by the Holy Spirit is to make the glory of hope more and more known; for the πολίτευμα of Christians is in heaven (Php_3:20), whither their whole thoughts and efforts are directed. Faith, with the love which accompanies it, remains the centre of Christianity; but hope withal encourages and animates by holding before them the constant object of their aim. Comp. Rom_5:2; Rom_8:18 ff.; 1Co_9:24 ff.; 2Co_4:17; 2Co_13:12 f.; Gal_6:9; Php_3:12 ff.; Col_1:23; Col_3:1 ff. This in opposition to Weiss, who here finds hope brought into prominence, quite after the Petrine manner, as the centre of Christianity (Petrin. Lehrbegr. p. 427).

καὶ τίς ὁ πλοῦτος κ.τ.λ.] this is now the object of the hope. The repetition of τίς, as well as the ΚΑῚ ΤΊς … ΚΑῚ ΤΊ, has rhetorical emphasis (comp. Rom_11:34 f.); and, in Ὁ ΠΛΟῦΤΟς Τῆς ΔΌΞΗς Τῆς ΚΛΗΡΟΝΟΜΊΑς ΑὐΤΟῦ, what a copious and grand accumulation, mirroring, as it were, the weightiness of the thing itself! which is not to be weakened by adjectival resolution of the genitives. Comp. Col_1:27; 2Co_4:17. ΔΌΞΑ, glory, is the essential characteristic of the Messianic salvation to be received from God as an inheritance at the Parousia (Rom_8:17); and how great the rich fulness of this glory is, the readers are called to realize. ἐν τοῖς ἁγίοις does not mean: in the Holiest of all (Heb_9:12), as Homberg and Calovius conjectured, for this is not suggested by the context; but: among the saints (Num_18:23; Job_42:15; Act_20:32; Act_26:18); for the community of believers (these are the ἅγιοι, Eph_1:1; Eph_1:4), inasmuch as they are to be the subjects of the Messianic bliss, is the sphere, outside of which this ΠΛΟῦΤΟς Κ.Τ.Λ. will not be found. Comp. Ὁ ΚΛῆΡΟς ΤῶΝ ἉΓΊΩΝ, Col_1:12. It is connected with the ἘΣΤΊ to be mentally supplied after ΤΊς, so that we have to translate, as is required by the article before ΠΛΟῦΤΟς: what, i.e. how great and exceeding, is the riches, etc., among the saints. Harless objects that Paul must have written ὁ ἐν τοῖς ἁγίοις, and that ἘΝ ΤΟῖς ἉΓΊΟΙς receives unduly the main stress. But the construction ΤΊς ἘΣΤΙΝ Ὁ ΠΛΟῦΤΟς ἘΝ ΤΟῖς ἉΓΊΟΙς is in fact logically quite correct, and ἘΝ ΤΟῖς ἉΓΊΟΙς would have of necessity the main emphasis only if it stood after ΤΊς. Usually (as by Rückert, Harless, Winzer, Olshausen, but not by Koppe and de Wette) ἘΝ ΤΟῖς ἉΓΊΟΙς is regarded as an appendage to Τῆς ΚΛΗΡΟΝΟΜ. ΑὐΤΟῦ: the inheritance given by God among the saints, in connection with which Rückert, quite at variance with N.T. usage, explains ΟἹ ἍΓΙΟΙ of the collective body of morally good beings in the other world. But since Ἡ ΚΛΗΡΟΝΟΜΊΑ ΘΕΟῦ is completely and formally defined by this very ΘΕΟῦ (ΑὐΤΟῦ), and does not first receive its completeness by means of ἘΝ ΤΟῖς ἉΓΊΟΙς (see, on the contrary, Rom_8:17; Gal_4:7), this more precisely defining addition must have been attached by means of Τῆς, and passages like Rom_9:3; 1Ti_6:17; 1Co_10:18; 2Co_7:7 (see Fritzsche, ad Rom. I. p. 195 f.), are not analogous. If αὐτοῦ were not in the text, ἐν τοῖς ἁγίοις might be the definition of the ΚΛΗΡΟΝΟΜΊΑ here meant, and blended with Τῆς ΚΛΗΡΟΝΟΜΊΑς so as to form one idea. We may add, that Harless wrongly refers the riches of the glory, etc., preponderantly to the present earthly βασιλεία τοῦ Θεοῦ. Comp. de Wette. It is only the future kingdom of God, to be set up at the Parousia, that is the object of the κληρονομία (1Co_6:9; 1Co_15:50; Gal_5:21; Eph_5:5; Mat_25:34); and here in particular the context (ἘΛΠΊς, Eph_1:18; ἘΓΕΊΡΑς Κ.Τ.Λ., Eph_1:20) still points to the future glory, which Paul realizes as already present.

[114] The observation of the latter, that the cognitive activity of the heart is based on internal experience (which, however, holds good not only as to St. Paul, but also elsewhere in the N.T.), is not refuted by the rejoinder of Delitzsch, p. 177. In this very passage (comp. Eph_3:18) the cognition is not merely discursive, but the experience, in which it has its root, is that of the divine communication of the Spirit and enlightenment. Analogous is the case with 2Co_4:6. As to Php_4:7, see on that passage. The heart, as the seat of self-consciousness and of the conscience, is the receptacle of experience and elaborates it. Comp. Beck, bibl. Seelenl. p. 67. If it does not admit the experience, or does not elaborate it unto saving knowledge, it is closed (Act_14:16), hardened (Eph_4:18), slothful (Luk_24:25), covered as with a veil (2Co_3:15), void of understanding, etc. See also Oehler in Herzogs Encykl. VI. p. 17.

Meyer — Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the New Testament — English translation by Peter Christie, edited by Frederick Crombie (T&T Clark, 1880) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Eph 1:18 . πεφωτισμένους τοὺς ὀφθαλμοὺς τῆς διανοίας ὑμῶν : the eyes of your understanding (heart) being enlightened . For the διανοίας of the TR, which is very poorly attested, καρδίας is to be read (with LTTrWHRV) on the authority of the best MSS., representing the different families ( [96] [97] [98] [99] [100] [101] [102] , etc.). The ὑμῶν is to be retained, though it is omitted by [103] 17, etc., and is bracketed by WH. The syntax of the sentence is difficult, but is best taken (with AV, Bez., Beng., Bleek, Mey., etc.) as an acc. absol. The existence, indeed, of the acc. absol. in the NT is still doubted by some good grammarians (Winer, Blass, etc.), and alleged cases are disposed of as anacoloutha . But such a construction, though of much rarer occurrence than the gen. absol., was not unknown to classical Greek ( cf. Jelf, Gr. Gram. , ii., p. 406), even where there was no repetition of the subject ( cf. Mey., in loc. ), and there appear to be at least a few instances of it in the NT, e.g. , certainly in Act 26:3 (admitted by Buttm., Gram. of N. T. Greek , p. 347). and probably in Rom 8:3 , etc. The syntax is otherwise explained here ( e.g. , by Harl., Stier, etc.) as a case of apposition, the ὀφθαλμούς continuing the πνεῦμα , as if = “that He may give unto you the spirit of wisdom and revelation enlightened eyes,” an explanation in the highest degree awkward and next to impossible in view of the τούς . The presence of the article before ὀφθαλμούς and its absence before πεφωτισμένους point to a case of tertiary predicate (Buttm.), so that the sense would rather be “give unto you the Spirit to wit, eyes enlightened”. Others (Ell., etc.) account for it as an instance of lax construction and abnormal case (by no means rare in the NT), the πεφωτισμένους standing for πεφωτισμένοις and the τοὺς ὀφθαλμούς being the defining acc. = “that he may give unto you being enlightened as to the eyes of your heart” (Ell., etc.). Only in biblical and ecclesiastical Greek is φωτίζω used of the inward enlightenment which means a spiritual, saving knowledge of the things of God; cf. φωτισθέντες as applied to those who had become Christians (Heb 6:4 ; Heb 10:32 ), and the subsequent use of the same term to describe the “baptised” in early Christian literature. The unusual figure of speech, “the eyes of your heart,” is peculiarly appropriate here. The gift in question is the special gift of knowledge or insight, hence the figure of the eyes . The knowledge is a spiritual knowledge; hence “the eyes of the heart ,” καρδία being the “inner man,” the seat and centre of the mental and spiritual life, with special reference at times to the faculty of intelligence (Mat 13:15 ; Joh 12:40 ; Act 28:27 ; Rom 1:21 ; 2Co 4:6 ; Heb 4:12 , etc.). εἰς τὸ εἰδέναι ὑμᾶς : that ye may know . The object of the enlightenment, viz., knowledge , a fuller knowledge of certain things now specified. τίς ἐστιν ἡ ἐλπίς τῆς κλήσεως αὐτοῦ : what is the hope of his calling . The τίς is to be taken in its proper sense, not “how great” nor “of what kind,” but “what” what the hope really and essentially is. The κλῆσις αὐτοῦ is the call of which God is the author, and that is an effectual call. In the Gospels the κλητό are contrasted with the ἐκλεκτοί , the “chosen” being the select few of the “called” (Mat 22:14 ). In the Epistles the “ called of God” are always those to whom the call has come with effect, who have listened to it and been made believers. The κλήσεως is best taken as the gen. of efficient cause (Mey., Ell., etc.) the hope effected, wrought by the call. Hence the ἐλπίς is not the object hoped for (a sense which it has occasionally in the NT, e.g. , Tit 2:13 ; Col 1:5 ; probably also Gal 5:5 ; Heb 6:18 ), but the attitude of mind, the subjective hope, the assured Christian expectation. καὶ τίς ὁ πλοῦτος τῆς δόξης τῆς κληρονομίας αὐτοῦ : [ and ] what the riches of the glory of his inheritance . The best critics (LTTrWHRV) omit the καί of the RV, the diplomatic evidence ( [104] [105] [106] [107] [108] , etc.) being decidedly against it, although it has the support of [109] [110] [111] [112] as well as certain Versions and Fathers. It does not follow from this omission, however, that we have not three distinct things mentioned in the three clauses, or that the second and third, which refer to the inheritance and the power , are only co-ordinate with the first, specifying two things relating to the ἐλπίς (so Haupt). The κληρονομία is not the inheritance which God has in us (a sense which the word seems never to have in the NT), but the inheritance which God gives to us and which is the object of our hope. The αὐτοῦ is the gen. of origin . The magnificence of this inheritance, the perfected blessedness of the Consummation, is expressed by a series of terms setting it forth in respect of the glory belonging to it and the riches pertaining to that glory, and these as qualities for the better knowledge of which a new illumination of the Spirit is desired. The δόξης and the κληρονομίας are genitives of possession or of characteristic quality . ἐν τοῖς ἀγίοις : in the saints . How is this to be connected? Many (Harl., Rück., Olsh., Alf., etc.) attach it immediately to κληρονομίας = “the inheritance given by God among the saints,” or, as Alf. paraphrases it, “ His inheritance in , whose example and fulness and embodying is in, the saints ”. This would have been a more reasonable interpretation if the κληρονομίας had been followed by τῆς ; in the absence of the article it would suit better if the κληρονομία could be taken as meaning God’s inheritance in us. It is best on the whole to regard the ἐν τοῖς ἀγίοις as related to the idea of the clause as a whole and as expressing the sphere within which ( ἐν = among) these riches of the glory of the inheritance are known and realised. The κληρονομία is the future inheritance, which is ours at present only in foretaste. The “saints” are the whole community of those set apart to God in Jesus Christ ( cf. Act 20:32 ; Act 26:18 ), and that community contemplated specially in its future completeness. This is the seat of the inheritance, or the circle within which alone it is to be found in its riches and glory.

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

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

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

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

[100] Codex Augiensis (sæc. ix.), a Græco-Latin MS., at Trinity College, Cambridge, edited by Scrivener in 1859. Its Greek text is almost identical with that of G, and it is therefore not cited save where it differs from that MS. Its Latin version, f, presents the Vulgate text with some modifications.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

[108] Codex Augiensis (sæc. ix.), a Græco-Latin MS., at Trinity College, Cambridge, edited by Scrivener in 1859. Its Greek text is almost identical with that of G, and it is therefore not cited save where it differs from that MS. Its Latin version, f, presents the Vulgate text with some modifications.

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

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

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

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

The Expositor's Greek Testament, edited by W. Robertson Nicoll (1897–1910) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Eph_1:18

The eyes of your understanding being enlightened. Instead of διανοίας, understanding, the great majority of ancient manuscripts and versions read καρδίας, heart, which is no doubt the true reading. The word heart in Scripture is often used as we use the word soul, to designate the whole spiritual nature in man. Rom_1:21; 2Co_4:6.

This clause, πεφωτισμένους τοὺς ὀφθαλμοὺς τῆς καρ δίας ὑμῶν, may either be taken absolutely as our translators have understood it or considered as in apposition and explanatory of what precedes. That he may give you the spirit of wisdom, etc., eyes enlightened, etc. This latter mode of explanation is the one commonly adopted. The effect of the gift of the spirit of wisdom is this illumination, not of the speculative understanding merely, but of the whole soul. For light and knowledge in Scripture often include the ideas of holiness and happiness, as well as that of intellectual apprehension. Compare such passages as Joh_8:12, Light of life; Act_26:18, To turn from darkness to light; Eph_5:8, Ye were sometime darkness, but now are ye light in the Lord. Believers, therefore, are called children of the light. Luk_16:8; 1Th_5:5.

The residue of this verse εἰς τὸ εἰδἐναι ὑμᾶς, κτλ. contains a second petition. Having prayed that the Ephesians might be enlightened in the knowledge of God and of divine things, the apostle here prays, as the effect of that illumination, that they may have a proper appreciation of the inheritance to which they have attained.

That ye may know what is the hope of his calling, i.e. the hope of which his calling is the source; or to which he has called you. The vocation here spoken of is not merely the external call of the Gospel, but the effectual call of God by the Spirit, to which the word κλῆσις in the epistles of Paul always refers. The word hope is by many here understood objectively for the things hoped for; as in Rom_8:24, and Col_1:5, The hope laid up for you in heaven. It is then identical with the inheritance mentioned in the latter part of the verse. This, however, is a reason against that interpretation. There are two things which the apostle mentions and which he desires they may know. First, the nature and value of the hope which they are now, on the call of God, authorized to indulge; and secondly, the glory of the inheritance in reserve for them. It is better, therefore, to take the word in its ordinary subjective sense. It is a great thing to know, or estimate aright the value of a well founded hope of salvation.

And what the riches of the glory of his inheritance, καὶ τίς ὁ πλοῦτος τῆς δόξης τῆς κληρονομίας αὐτοῦ, i.e. what is the abundance and greatness of the excellence of that inheritance of which God is the author. The apostle labors here, and still more in the following verses, for language to express the greatness of his conceptions. This inheritance is not only divine as having God for its author; but it is a glorious inheritance; and not simply glorious, but the glory of it is inconceivably great.

In the saints, ἐν τοῖς ἁγίοις. These words admit of different constructions, but the most natural is to refer them to the immediately preceding clause, His inheritance in the saints; i.e. which is to be enjoyed among them. Compare Act_20:32, and Act_26:18, An inheritance among them that are sanctified; Col_1:12, Partakers of the inheritance of the saints in light. It was one part of the peculiar blessedness of the Gentile Christians, who had been strangers and foreigners, that they were to become fellow citizens of the saints. It was therefore an exaltation of the inheritance, now set before them, to call it the inheritance prepared for the saints, or peculiar people of God.

Charles Hodge — Commentary on Romans (1835), First Corinthians (1857), and Ephesians (1856) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

What blessings they are which he calleth you to hope for whom he calleth to Christ.

Geneva Bible (1599) marginal notes — public domain. Text via Bolls.life.

Verse 18. The eyes of your understanding being enlightened] The understanding is that power or faculty in the soul by which knowledge or information is received, and the recipient power is here termed the EYES of the understanding; and we learn from this that ὁπερ ὁ οφθαλμος εν τῳ σωματι, τουτο ὁ νους εν τῃ ψυχη, as Philo expresses it: What the eye is to the body, the understanding is to the soul; and that as the eye is not light in itself, and can discern nothing but by the means of light shining, not only on the objects to be viewed, but into the eye itself; so the understanding of man can discern no sacred thing of or by itself, but sees by the influence of the Spirit of wisdom and revelation; for without the influence of God's Holy Spirit no man ever became wise unto salvation, no more than a man ever discerned an object, (no matter how perfect soever his eye might have been,) without the instrumentality of light.

Instead of της διανοιας, of your understanding, της καρδιας, of your heart, is the reading of ABDEFG, and several others; also both the Syriac, all the Arabic, the Coptic, the AEthiopic, Armenian, Sahidic, Slavonian, Vulgate, and Itala, besides several of the fathers. The eyes of your HEART is undoubtedly the true reading.

The hope of his calling] That you may clearly discern the glorious and important objects of your hope, to the enjoyment of which God has called or invited you.

The riches of the glory of his inheritance] That you may understand what is the glorious abundance of the spiritual things to which you are entitled, in consequence of being made children of God; for if children, then heirs, heirs of that glorious inheritance which God has provided for the saints-for all genuine Christians, whether formerly Jews or Gentiles. On the chief subject of this verse, see the notes on Gal 4:6; Gal 4:7.

Adam Clarke's Commentary on the Bible (1810–1826) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

18. The eyes of your understanding being enlightened. The eyes of your heart is the rendering of the Vulgate, which is supported by some Greek manuscripts. The difference is immaterial, for the Hebrews frequently employ it to denote the rational powers of the soul, though more strictly, being the seat of the affections, it means the will or desire; but I have preferred the ordinary translation.

And what the riches. A comparison, suggested by its excellence, reminds us how unfit we are to receive this elevated knowledge; for the power of God is no small matter. This great power, he tells us, had been exerted, and in a very extraordinary manner, towards the Ephesians, who were thus laid under constant obligations to follow his calling. By thus extolling the grace of God toward themselves, he intended to check every tendency to despise or dislike the duties of the Christian life. But the splendid encomiums which he pronounces on faith convey to us also this instruction, that it is so admirable a work and gift of God, that no language can do justice to its excellence. Paul is not in the habit of throwing out hyperboles without discrimination; but when he comes to treat of a matter which lies so far beyond this world as faith does, he raises our minds to the admiration of heavenly power.

John Calvin's Commentaries (1540-1563) — public domain. Text from the Calvin Translation Society English edition (1840s-50s) via the Christian Classics Ethereal Library (ccel.org). Calvin's coverage is partial (roughly two-thirds of the Bible); uncommented books and verses are honest gaps, never fabricated. The 19th-century editor's footnotes and remarks are omitted so the notes are faithfully Calvin's own voice.

(18) The eyes of your understanding.—The true reading is of your heart, for which the words “of your understanding” have been substituted, so as to yield a simpler and easier expression. The heart is similarly spoken of in relation to spiritual perception in Rom_1:21; 1Co_2:9; 1Co_4:5; it signifies the inner man in his entirety; and the phrase here used seems to convey the all-important truth, that for the knowledge of God all the faculties of understanding, conscience, and affection must be called into energy by the gift of the light of God.

That ye may know.—The knowledge which St. Paul here desires for the Ephesians, in accordance with the whole tone of this Epistle, is a knowledge of heavenly things, only experienced in part upon earth—with an experience, however, sufficient to be an earnest of the hereafter. The succession of ideas follows the order of conversion—first, “calling;” then acceptance to “inheritance;” lastly, “inward working of divine power” in the accepted. To each the conception of looking onward is attached; to the “calling” “hope,” to the “inheritance” “glory,” to the “power” the exaltation of Christ (and of us with Him; see Eph_2:6) to the right hand of God.

The hope of his calling.—(See Eph_4:4.) That is, probably, “the thing hoped for,” because promised, at our calling (as in Gal_5:5; Col_1:5; Tit_2:3; Heb_6:18; and perhaps 1Ti_1:1), for the other objects of knowledge with which it is here joined are certainly objective or external to ourselves. This hope is of the perfection of all, which we are called to enjoy really, but imperfectly, here.

The riches of the glory of his inheritance in the saints.—Comp. Col_1:27, “the riches of the glory of this mystery . . . which is Christ in you, the hope of glory.” The inheritance of God is the unity with Christ, in which lies the earnest and hope of glory. “Among the saints” is best connected with the word “inheritance,” showing that our personal inheritance of Christ gives us a place in the kingdom of heaven here and hereafter.

A Bible Commentary for English Readers, edited by Charles John Ellicott (1878–1897) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

18. The eyes, &c.] The Gr. grammar here is free, and difficult to analyse. We may explain it either, “[that He may grant you to be] enlightened in your eyes,” or, “[grant] your eyes enlightenment.” But the meaning is unmistakable, and well conveyed in A. V. For the metaphor, cp. Psa_119:18; Mat_13:15; Joh_12:40; Act_26:18; Rev_3:18; and see esp. 2Co_3:12 to 2Co_4:6.—The thought of Eph_1:17 is now illustrated and developed in detail.

understanding] Read, heart. The MS. and other documentary evidence is conclusive. The word is highly significant, when we remember that “heart” in Scripture includes affections without excluding intelligence. (See further on Eph_3:17.) The illumination is to be of that deep and subtle kind which, in the light of supreme truth, will shew the affections and will their supreme objects and attractions.

that ye may know] as the immediate effect of the illumination. Observe, they “knew” these things already. The experience in view is novel not in kind but in degree.

what] in its true essence, its “quiddity.”

the hope of his calling] The eternal Prospect opened by, and connected with, the Effectual Call of Divine grace; “that blessed hope” (Tit_2:13), resurrection-glory with the Lord. See, among the wealth of references, Psa_16:9; Act_23:6; Act_24:15; Rom_8:24; Col_1:5; Col_1:27; 1Th_5:8; 1Pe_1:3-4; 1Jn_3:2-3.

“His calling”:—the Voice of Divine Grace, prevailing upon the will. This is the ruling meaning of “call,” “calling,” &c. in the Epistles; while in the Gospels it means no more necessarily than the audible invitations of the Gospel; see e.g. Mat_22:14. Abp Leighton, on 1Pe_2:9, writes of the inner call: “It is an operative word, that effects what it bids. God calls man; He works with him indeed as a reasonable creature; but sure He likewise works as Himself, as an almighty Creator. His call … doth, in a way known to Himself, twine and wind the heart which way He pleaseth.” See esp. 1Co_1:24; and Rom_8:28; Rom_11:29.

riches] See note on Eph_1:7. There the “wealth” was “of grace,” here it is “of glory.” The two are of one piece, developments of one process. In this whole passage the main reference is to the eternal prospect, the life of the glorified. Cp. Rom_2:7; Rom_2:10; Rom_5:2; Rom_8:17-23; Rom_9:23; 1Co_15:43; 2Co_4:17; Php_3:21, &c.—See below on Eph_3:16 for another reference of this same phrase.

his inheritance] The same word as in Eph_1:14, where it is “our inheritance”. It is the same thing from another aspect. There, the saints’ “inheritance” of heavenly glory is before us; here, the state of the glorified as the “inheritance” of the King of glory. The O. T. often describes Israel as Jehovah’s “inheritance;” “the people whom He hath chosen for His own inheritance,” Psa_33:12.—In such a phrase the special thought of “heir-ship” is not to be pressed; nor do the original words, Gr. or Heb., insist upon it. That thought is always ready, wherever context favours (as e. g. Rom_8:17); but the word may import no more than actual possession, however acquired. The Heb. word constantly means “possession,” merely, and is so rendered in A. V.

in the saints] “Amongst them;” manifested in their heavenly life. The Gr. leaves us free to connect these words with either “riches of glory,” or “inheritance”; and we advocate the latter, as the far more natural construction. A fair paraphrase will be, “What is the wealth of the glory of the New Israel in the eternal Canaan, as it will be manifested in the saints”.

“The saints:”—see note on Eph_1:1. The ref. here is to the “all saints” of the heavenly state. Not that the word “saint” is limited to them; on the contrary, the N. T. habitually uses it of Christians in this life. It is context here (as in 1Th_3:13) which lifts it to the sphere of glory.

The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (gen. ed. J. J. S. Perowne; Cambridge University Press, 1878–1918) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

The eyes of your understanding being enlightened,.... By the Spirit of God already, to see the exceeding sinfulness of sin; the insufficiency of their own righteousness; the beauty, glory, fulness, and suitableness of Christ, as a Saviour; the excellency, truth, and usefulness of the doctrines of the Gospel; in which their understandings were before dark, but now had light into them: wherefore these words are not to be considered as part of the apostle's petitions, but rather as what was taken for granted by him; and are to be put into a parenthesis, and the following words to be joined in connection with the preceding verse; unless it should be thought, that the apostle prays for greater illuminations, and for more spiritual light, and that the eyes of their understandings might be more and more enlightened; the phrase, , , "the eye of the understanding", is Rabbinical, and often to be met with in Jewish writings (f); the Alexandrian copy, and several others, the Complutensian edition, the Vulgate Latin, and all the Oriental versions, read, "the eyes of your heart"; and to, , "the eyes of the hearts, or minds", is a phrase used by the Jewish writers (g):

that ye may know what is the hope of his calling; by which is meant, the effectual calling of the saints; which is not a call to an office, or a call merely by the external ministry of the word; but which is internal, special, powerful, high, and heavenly: and this is the calling of God, of which he is the author; who calls with an holy calling, unto eternal glory by Christ Jesus; and which is without repentance: and the hope of this calling, is either eternal happiness, which is the thing hoped for; or Christ, who is the ground and foundation of it; or the grace of hope, which is exercised on both; or all three: for hope of eternal glory, as it is founded on Christ, may be said to be the hope of the calling of God, because it is wrought in the soul at the time of the effectual calling, and what saints are then called to the exercise of; and calling grace, is an encouragement to hope for eternal life; since whom God calls, he justifies and glorifies: and now the apostle prays, that these saints who were called by the grace of God, might know more of Christ, the foundation of their hope; and what that is they are hoping for, and more and more what it is to hope for the same, upon the view of Christ's person, blood, and righteousness:

and what the riches of the glory of his inheritance in the saints; the saints themselves are the Lord's portion, and the lot of his inheritance, in whom he is, and will be abundantly glorified; but here it rather seems to design the heavenly inheritance before spoken of, of which the Spirit is the earnest; and this is the Lord's, it is of his preparing, and it is his gift, and a very rich and glorious inheritance it is: hence it is not only signified by mansions, and everlasting habitations, by an house, and by a city, but by a kingdom; the riches of grace are preparatory to it, and the riches of glory are comprised in it; and this is in, or among the saints, who only have a right unto it, and a meetness for it; and what this inheritance is, with the riches and glory of it, will not be fully known in this life; and indeed but little of it is known; so that such a petition as this is always proper and pertinent.

(f) Zohar in Deut. fol. 119. 3. Jetzirah, p. 22. 78. Ed. Rittangel. R. Levi ben Gersom in Gen. fol. 14. 3. & Philo de opificio Dei, p. 15. (g) Bechinat Olam, p. 260.

John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible (1746–1763) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.

18 The eyes of your understanding being enlightened; that ye may know what is the hope of his calling, and what the riches of the glory of his inheritance in the saints,

Ver. 18. The glory of his inheritance] The glory of heaven is inconceivable, Rev 21:1-27, search is made through all the bowels of the earth for something to shadow it by. No natural knowledge can be had of the third heaven, nor any help by human arts, as Aristotle acknowledges. The glory thereof is fitter to be believed than possible to be discoursed.

John Trapp, A Commentary or Exposition upon All the Books of the Old and New Testament (1647–1656) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

The eyes of your understanding being enlightened - The construction here in the Greek is, probably, “that he may give you (δώη dōē, Eph 1:17) the Spirit of wisdom, etc. - eyes of the understanding enlightened,” etc. Or the phrase, “the eyes of your understanding being enlightened,” may be in the accusative absolute, which Koppe and Bloomfield prefer. The phrase, “the eyes of the understanding,” is a figure that is common in all languages. Thus, Philo says, “What the eye is to the body, that is the mind to the soul;” compare Mat 6:22. The eye is the instrument by which we see; and in like manner the understanding is that by which we perceive truth. The idea here is, that Paul not only wished their “hearts” to be right, but he wished their “understanding” to be right also. Religion has much to do in enlightening the mind. Indeed, its effect there is not less striking and decisive than it is on the heart. The understanding has been blinded by sin. The views which people entertain of themselves and of God are narrow and wrong. The understanding is enfeebled and perverted by the practice of sin. It is limited in its operations by the necessity of the case, and by the impossibility of fully comprehending the great truths which pertain to the divine administration. One of the first effects of true religion is on the understanding. It enlarges its views of truth; gives it more exalted conceptions of God; corrects its errors; raises it up toward the great Fountain of love. And nowhere is the effect of the true religion more apparent than in shedding light on the intellect of the world, and restoring the weak and perverted mind to a just view of the proportion of things, and to the true knowledge of God.

That ye may know what is the hope of his calling - What is the full import of that hope to which he has called and invited you by his Spirit and his promises. The meaning here is, that it would be an inestimable privilege to be made fully acquainted with the benefits of the Christian hope, and to be permitted to understand fully what Christians have a right to expect in the world of glory. This is the first thing which the apostle desires they should fully understand,

And what the riches of the glory of his inheritance - This is the second thing which Paul wishes them to understand. There is a force in this language which can be found perhaps nowhere else than in the writings of Paul. His mind is full, and language is burdened and borne down under the weight of his thoughts; see the notes at 2Co 4:17. On the word “riches” used here, see the notes at Eph 1:7. The phrase “riches of glory” means “glorious wealth;” or, as we would say, “how rich and glorious!” The meaning is, that there is an abundance - an infinitude of wealth. It is not such a possession as man may be heir to in this world, which is always limited from the necessity of the case, and which cannot be enjoyed long; it is infinite and inexhaustible; compare notes, Rom 2:4. The “inheritance” hero referred to is eternal life. notes, Rom 8:17.

In the saints - Among the saints. note, 1Co 1:2.

Albert Barnes' Notes on the Bible (1834–1885) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

The eyes of your understanding being enlightened, viz. by that

spirit of revelation: and so this clause explains the former. What the eye is to the body, that the understanding is to the soul. He prays for a further degree of illumination for them.

That ye may know what is the hope of his calling; either:

1. The object of hope, the thing hoped for, as Col 1:5; Gal 5:5; and then the meaning is, what it is to the hope of which God hath called you by the gospel. Or:

2. The grace of hope: q.d. That ye may know how great, and sure, and well grounded that hope is, which by the gospel is wrought in you.

And what the riches of the glory; the glorious riches, or the abundant glory; riches of glory, and riches of grace, Eph 1:7, and riches of glory, Rom 6:23.

Of his; because he is the Father of it: he gives this glory as the Father of glory. As men give inheritances suitable to their estates, so God, as the God of glory, and Father of glory, gives a glorious inheritance.

Inheritance; heaven, called an inheritance both in respect of believers’ title to it by virtue of their adoption, being heirs of God; and in respect of the perpetuity of their enjoying it, on which account it is called an eternal inheritance, Heb 9:15.

In the saints; or, among the saints, those, namely, that are perfect, who alone are possessed of the inheritance, which saints on earth have only in hope.

Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible (1683–1685) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

18. A series of three whats now, in order of climax, unfold the grandeur which it is Paul’s prayer that the Ephesians may know. The climax is indicated by the terms hope, riches, power. They are to realize how cheering their present hope, how rich their future inheritance, and how stupendous the power exerted by God in executing the vast work of preparing and securing that inheritance.

Hope of his calling—That is, the hope of that to the enjoyment of which God calls you. See note, Rom_1:1 and Rom_8:30; 1Co_7:20-22. Eadie mistakenly says: “Man’s calling is often slighted, but God’s is effectual calling.” Scripture frequently declares, in very intense language, that God’s call “is often slighted.” Pro_1:24. In increasing vigour St. Paul adds, the riches of the glory of his inheritance—For the inheritance, consult notes on Eph_1:14; Eph_1:7. Of this inheritance they should realize not only the glory, but the unbounded affluence, the riches of that glory. They must enlarge their understandings to conceive how rich is the glory of the inheritance.

His—God’s to bestow on us. Note on Eph_1:14.

In the saints—As this glory is to take place in the great day of accomplished reconciliation of Eph_1:10, namely, at the advent, and is a reconciliation of all in holiness, we might render this, among the holy ones. Nevertheless, since it is plain that it is the Church (Eph_1:22) particularly whose share in this glory is now in Paul’s view, saints may be the true rendering.

Daniel D. Whedon (gen. ed.), Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1874–1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

That having the eyes of your heart enlightened. "The eyes of your heart" is an unusual expression, but it denotes that to see things clearly there is needed, not merely lumen siccum, but lumen madidum (to borrow terms of Lord Bacon), not merely intellectual clearness, but moral susceptibility and warmth a movement of the heart as well as the head (compare the opposite state, "blindness of the heart,". Eph_4:18) Ye may know what is the hope of his calling; the hope which he calls you to cherish. The glory which he invites you to look forward to, when Christ shall come again, how sure it is and how excellent! How infinitely it surpasses all earthly glory! How it at once ravishes and satisfies the heart! And what the riches of the glory of his inheritance in the saints. If the saints form God"s heritage (see ver. 11), it may be asked Where are the riches of God"s glory in them? But it is not necessary to take the ejn toiv aJgioiv so literally. It may be rendered, "in reference to the saints." The riches of the glory of his inheritance in reference to the saints is the riches of the glory of their privileges as the Lord"s heritage, or people; that is, their privileges are glorious. But this glory is not limp, limited it is wonderfully rich, full, abundant. God gives liberally gives as a King, gives glory to all Christ"s people. "When Christ, who is our life, shall appear, then shall ye also appear with him in glory"; (Col_3:4) "The glory which thou gavest me I have given them." The difference between this glory and ether glory is, human glory is often unjustly accorded, it passes away with wonderful quickness; but this glory is real and everlasting. "When the chief Shepherd shall appear, ye shall receive a crown of glory that fadeth not away.

The connection between the heart and the intellect.

"The eyes of your heart being enlightened.

I THIS IS A SINGULAR EXPRESSION. Yet it is true in philosophy and true in life, as well as consistent with Biblical language. Scripture speaks of applying our hearts unto wisdom, (Psa_90:12) and of "the understanding of the heart". (Luk_1:51)

II THE HEART POWERFULLY INFLUENCES THE UNDERSTANDING. Larochefoucauld says, after his own cynical manner, "The head is the dupe of the heart." There is often undoubtedly a divided interest in the soul of man, where two powers are fighting for the mastery. Coleridge said, at a certain point in his speculative career, "My head was with Spinoza, while my heart was with Paul and John." Scripture is most emphatic in marking the connection between knowledge and holiness. We "grow in grace and in knowledge" together, the two growths not hindering but helping each other. "Blessed are the pure in heart: for they shall see God." Purity of heart gives the insight. And purity of heart rather than accuracy of thought, is the order of the kingdom. "If any man will do his will, he shall know of the doctrine, whether it be of God". (Joh_7:17) How often do we find in human life that interest, vanity, fear, party spirit, determine the conclusions of the intellect! Our opinions often depend upon our lives quite as much as our lives depend upon our opinions. Fichte says that our system of thought is often no more than the history of our hearts. Our judgment is often swayed by our affections.

III IT IS GOD WHO GIVES THE INSIGHT. "The eyes of your heart being enlightened." It is God who "hath given us an understanding to know him that is true"; (1Jn_5:20) not a new faculty, but a new quickness or insight; for "unless a man is born again, he cannot see the kingdom of. (Joh_3:3) It is God who "giveth the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ Jesus". (2Co_4:6) We are "not able of ourselves to think a good thought", (2Co_3:5) and our highest knowledge is a Divine gift. "To you it is given to know the mysteries of the kingdom of God". (Luk_8:10) It ought, therefore, to be the prayer of every Christian, "Open thou mine eyes, that I may see wondrous things out of thy Law;" and we are encouraged in our supplication by the knowledge that "eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, the things which God hath prepared for them that love him". T.C. (1Co_2:9)

The knowledge of God and its outlets.

The effect of the Divine illumination is to enlarge our knowledge in three different directions pointing at once to the hope that is lodged in the heart of our Divine calling, to the glory of our future inheritance, and to the greatness of the change involved in our regeneration by the Holy Spirit. The Apostle Peter reproduces exactly the same order of thought when he blessed God

(1) for having begotten us by the resurrection of Christ from the dead to a lively hope;

(2) to an inheritance incorruptible, undefiled, and unfading;

(3) reserved in heaven for those who are kept by the power of God unto salvation. The ideas are presented in exactly the same order. There is a grand alliance of blessings included in the knowledge of God. T.C.

The hope of God"s calling.

It is impossible to appreciate the hope till we understand the true nature of the calling to which it is so beautifully attached.

I THE CALLING IS THE EFFECTUAL CALL OF GOD BY THE SPIRIT.

1. It is posited securely between predestination on one side and justification on the other; for "whom he did predestinate, them he also called: and whom he called, them he also justified". (Rom_8:30)

2. It is a call to peace: "Let the peace of God rule in your hearts, to the which also ye are called in one body". (Col_3:15)

3. It is a call to blessing: Knowing that ye are thereunto called, that ye should inherit a blessing". (1Pe_3:9)

4. It is a call to eternal glory: "The God of all grace who hath called us unto his eternal glory by Christ Jesus". (1Pe_5:10) It may, therefore, be well described as a high or heavenly calling (Php_3:14; Heb_3:1) New hope is lodged in the heart of this calling.

II THE NATURE OF THE HOPE. It must be regarded both subjectively and objectively, that is, both as a hope allied to joy rejoicing in hope", (Rom_12:12) as "a living hope", (1Pe_1:3) as a hope full of consolation, (Heb_6:18) as a hope "that maketh not ashamed", (Rom_5:5) and as a hope connected with certain deep and strong foundations. These are described in the Epistle to the Hebrews the Epistle of the better hope as "the two immutable things," the oath and the promise of God, terminating or converging upon our great High Priest of the Melchisedec order, who is, by virtue of his atoning work, the real Hope of glory" made known to sinners. (Col_1:27) We cannot know this hope, either subjectively or objectively, without the aid of the Holy Spirit; and therefore the apostle prays," The God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, that ye may abound in hope, by the power of the Holy Ghost". (Rom_15:13) The apostle, therefore, prays here that the Ephesian Christians may have an abounding assurance of their interest in Christ based on the best possible grounds.

1. Every believer is called to have an assurance of his personal interest in Christ. A whole Epistle has been written to help toward this assurance: "These things have I written to you that believe on the Name of the Son of God, that ye may know that ye have eternal life". (1Jn_5:13)

2. It is implied that believers may not fully know "the hope of their calling." Yet they may still be true believers. Faith and assurance are not to be confounded. The hope in question is held by an anchor that cannot be dragged from its sure holding-ground. (Heb_6:18, Heb_6:19)

Hope of all passions most befriends us here; Passions of prouder name befriend us less; Joy has her tears and Transport has her death. Hope like a cordial, innocent, though strong, Man"s heart at once inspirits and serenes.

T.C.

The riches of the glory of God"s inheritance.

How little we know of this inheritance! We desire to know more. There are five points included in our fuller study of this inheritance.

I OUR TITLE TO IT. It is "a purchased possession" (ver. 14), the price being the blood of Christ. The death of the Testator was necessary that "they which are called might receive the promise of eternal inheritance". (Heb_9:15)

II IT IS A RICH INHERITANCE. God is rich in mercy, rich in grace, rich in love, rich in power, rich in goodness and forbearance; but as to heaven, he is rich in glory. It is there emphatically he will make many rich. Both here and there it will be delightfully true: "My God shall supply all your need according to his riches in glory by Christ Jesus". (Php_4:19) The rich glory of the New Jerusalem is described in the Revelation. (Re 21) Its riches lie essentially in the perpetuity of its blessedness it is "an eternal inheritance.

III IT IS A GLORIOUS INHERITANCE. "The righteous shall shine as the sun", (Mat_13:43) because they are received to the glory of (Rom_15:7) and called to his kingdom and glory. (1Th_2:12) The glory of God himself is to be the light of heaven. (Rev_21:11)

IV IT IS A FATHER"S INHERITANCE. And therefore he is here called "the Father of glory." We are heirs of God as we are children of God by faith in Christ Jesus. "Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, the things which God hath prepared for them that love him.

V IT IS FOR THE SAINTS. "He that overcometh shall inherit all things, and I will be his God". (Rev_21:7) We need to have "the eyes of our heart enlightened," that we may know all the fullness of glory and blessing involved in these five suggestive considerations. T.C.

The Pulpit Commentary (1880–1919), ed. H.D.M. Spence-Jones & Joseph S. Exell — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

The eyes of your understanding - It is with these alone that we discern the things of God. Being first opened, and then enlightened - By his Spirit. That ye may know what is the hope of his calling - That ye may experimentally and delightfully know what are the blessings which God has called you to hope for by his word and his Spirit. And what is the riches of the glory of his inheritance in the saints - What an immense treasure of blessedness he hath provided as an inheritance for holy souls.

John Wesley, Explanatory Notes Upon the Whole Bible (1754–1765) — public domain. Text via the GEBible commentary corpus.

Our apostle proceeds in this verse, and to the end of the chapter, in a very affectionate and fervent prayer, on the behalf of the Ephesians; namely, that the blessed Spirit of God, the author of all divine illumination, would farther open the eyes of their understanding, formerly shut up in heathenish blindness and darkness, that so they might know,

1. What is the hope of his calling; that is, what high and glorious hopes he had called them unto: for hope here is taken for the object of hope, or the great and good things hoped for: and it is said to be the hope of their calling, because, at their conversion from heathenism to Christianity, they were entitled to, and called to the expection of, these great and good things, which were the object of hope.

Where note, The Ephesians’ deplorable state before conversion, they were without hope; and the happy exchange of their condition by embracing Christianity, they were begotten to a lively hope of glorious things, which before they were wholly ignorant of, and strangers to. As a sinner’s misery lies not in what feels, but what he fears; so a Christian’s happiness consists not in what he has in hand, but what he has in hope: May you know what is the hope of his calling.

The second blessing which he prays for on their behalf, is, that they may know what is the riches of the glory of his inheritance in the saints; that is, say some, What an exceeding glorious thing it is to be a Christian! What an exceeding glory redounds to God, by his people, which are his inheritance! say others. But most understand the words as a description of heaven, which is here called an inheritance, a rich inheritance, a glorious inheritance, in or among the saints; that is the saints in heaven, who hold that in possession which the saints on earth have in hope and expectation.

Learn hence, That heaven is the saints’ inheritance. An inheritance is an estate that belongs to children, to all such, and none but such. It is an undeserved possession, and it is a sure and certain possession.

Here note, That Almighty God is said in scripture to make heaven as sure to his saints, by all sorts of ways, as a man can make an inheritance sure to his child. It is theirs by promise, it is theirs by purchase, it is theirs by gift, it is theirs by bequest; it is given by will to them, I appoint by will unto you a kingdom. Luk 22:29

Can any thing be surer, or more ways made secure to any person, than this inheritance of heaven is to the holy servants of God? But, farther, the apostle calls it the riches of the glory of his inheritance; that is, a very rich and exceedingly glorious inheritance: such abundant riches and transcendant glory are found in it, as overwhelm the mind of man that here enters upon the close contemplation of it.

Heaven will appear to be a glorious inheritance, if we consider the glory of the place, the glory of the company, the glory of the employment, and the glory that will be then and there upon our souls and bodies. Lord, make us meet for this glorious inheritance of thy saints in light!

William Burkitt's Expository Notes on the New Testament (1700–1703) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

18. “The eyes of your heart having been enlightened.” Man is a Trinity, consisting of spirit, soul, or heart, all of which are synonymous, and used interchangeably in common parlance. The rank and file of the preachers at the present day are dichotomists; i.e., advocates of the two natures in humanity, confounding and identifying spirit and mind, and consequently preaching mentalities for spiritualities, and utterly heretical so far as gospel truth is concerned. The Bible everywhere teaches trichotomy; i.e., the three natures of humanity, spirit, mind, and body. The spirit is the man himself, consisting of the conscience, the will, and the affections. The conscience survived the fall, and still rings out the voice of God in the soul. The will is the king of humanity, adroitly manipulated by Satan for the damnation of the sinner, but completely wrested out of his hands, and turned over to God by the Holy Ghost in regeneration. Still, a world survives in the profound regions of the affections till utterly eradicated and expurgated by the cleansing blood, applied through the Holy Ghost in the second work of grace; i.e., entire sanctification.

The heart has all the senses; i.e., sight, hearing, smell, taste, and touch, like the body. But though a dead man have all these organs, he is utterly destitute of sensation. So it is with the heart of the sinner till quickened into life by the Holy Spirit. The human soul in the fall was utterly bereft of life. Hence total depravity applies only to the spiritual nature; the mental and physical suffering only partial depravity. Hence the wholesale delusion of the dualistic theology, which winks at the pure spirituality of humanity, substituting intellectualism, thus building up pompous Churches on the mental and physical elements, intermitting the spiritual, and thus letting the souls of their people slip through their fingers into hell. The Christian religion is not materialism nor intellectualism, but pure spirituality, inwrought by the Holy Ghost.

19,20,21. “Placing Him on his right hand in the heavenlies above all the government, authority, power, and lordship, and every name named not only in this age, but in that which is to come.” The Greek aion, erroneously translated “world,” means age. Hence, we see that this is not the last age of this world, but it is to be followed by the glorious millennium, and afterward by the illimitable heavenly ages, sweeping on through all eternity.

William B. Godbey, Commentary on the New Testament (1896–1900) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

18. The eyes of your understanding being enlightened. “Heart,” in the Revision. The moving of the Spirit gives light. See Gen. 1:2. This would follow if they were given “the Spirit of wisdom,” etc. That ye may know. Have a fuller comprehension. The hope of his calling. The hope of eternal life to which God had called them. The riches, etc. See Col. 1:27. The heavenly inheritance given in the saints, rich beyond our conception. See Acts 20:32; 26:18.

B. W. Johnson's The People's New Testament with Notes (1889–1891) — public domain. Electronic text from the Christian Classics Ethereal Library (CCEL) ThML edition.

18. πεφωτισμένους. Agreeing with ὑμῖν by a not uncommon irregularity, cf. Act 15:22. The condition out of which they have been delivered is regarded as ‘darkness,’ cf. Eph 5:8, Eph 4:18: cf. φωτισθέντας Heb 6:4; Heb 10:32, and the use of φωτισμὸς of Baptism.

τοὺς ὀφθαλμοὺς τῆς καρδίας ὑμῶν. For the construction cf. 1Ti 6:5. τῆς καρδίας: the organ of spiritual vision (Mat 5:8; cf. Mat 6:23), as of faith (Rom 10:10), ‘darkened’ by idolatry (Rom 1:21), and by sensuality (Eph 4:18), miserliness, the evil eye (Mat 6:23), hate (1Jn 2:11).

εἰς τὸ εἰδέναι ὑμᾶς κ.τ.λ. The leading words in the threefold vision which will open before their enlightened eyes are all echoes of thoughts that found expression in the opening paragraph. St Paul is praying that the Gentile converts may realize the different elements in the new position into which they have been introduced which have the power to work a moral transformation.

ἡ ἐλπὶς τῆς κλήσεως. Hope was the birthright of Israel (Eph 1:12). It was unknown to the heathen (Eph 2:12). The common hope is the pledge of the Christian unity in body and spirit (Eph 4:4). So in Col 1:4 love to all the saints is grounded on hope, and in Col 1:27 the Gospel to the Gentiles is summed up in the phrase Χριστὸς ἐν ὑμῖν ἡ ἐλπὶς τῆς δόξης: cf. 1Pe 1:3.

τῆς κλήσεως αὐτοῦ. This hope is due to the fact that God Himself has called them to take their place among His people. Cf. Eph 4:1; Eph 4:4; Rom 9:24; 1Pe 1:15. So in Rom 8:30. God’s call is the first stage in the manifestation on earth of His eternal election and is closely linked with justification and glory.

τίς ὁ πλοῦτος τῆς δόξης τῆς κληρονομίας αὐτοῦ ἐν τοῖς ἁγίοις. Cf. Eph 1:11 ἐν ᾧ καὶ ἐκληρώθημεν, and τῆς περιποιήσεως Eph 1:14. The call of God which had come to them gave them a place here and now in God’s inheritance, as that inheritance is constituted by the saints. As possessed by Him the saints behold and radiate His glory. Through them men grow conscious of the presence of God in the world. How inexhaustible then must be the resources at their disposal! With ὁ πλοῦτος cf. Eph 3:8; Eph 3:16. We may perhaps compare 2Th 1:10 ἐνδοξασθῆναι ἐν τοῖς ἁγίοις.

Cambridge Greek Testament for Schools and Colleges (Cambridge University Press, 1896; 21 vols, various authors incl. Carr, Maclear, Plummer, Farrar, Lumby, Moule, M. R. James, Simcox) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

The eyes of your understanding being enlightened [πεφωτισμενους τους οφθαλμους της καρδιας υμων] . Rev., eyes of your heart. Lit., being enlightened as to the eyes of your heart; enlightened being joined with you (ver. 17) by a somewhat irregular construction : may give unto you being enlightened. For a similar construction see Act 14:22. The phrase eyes of the heart occurs nowhere else in the New Testament. Plato has eye of the soul (yuchv, "Sophist," 254). Ovid, speaking of Pythagoras, says : "With his mind he approached the gods, though far removed in heaven, and what nature denied to human sight, he drew forth with the eyes of his heart" (" Metamorphoses, "14, 62 - 64). Heart is not merely the seat of emotion, as in popular usage, but of thought and will. See on Rom 1:21. The particular aspect in which its activity is viewed, perception or cognition, is determined by what follows," that ye may know, " etc.

Hope of His calling. Hope, not, as sometimes, the thing hoped for, but the sentiment or principle of hope which God 's calling inspires.

The riches of the glory of His inheritance. Ellicott remarks that this is a noble accumulation of genitives, "setting forth the inheritance on the side of its glory, and the glory on the side of its riches." Glory is the essential characteristic of salvation, and this glory is richly abounding. His inheritance : which is His, and His gift.

Marvin R. Vincent, Word Studies in the New Testament (1887–1900) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.