I absolutely love Paul's description of God's grace as it comes to us through Jesus Christ. Verse 8 is a subordinate clause further describing the grace (or χάρις) that Paul first introduced in verse 6 and mentioned again in verse 7. the operating word of this subordinate clause is περισσεύω, which very basically means "abounds" or "overflows." My NIV translation rephrases this something to the effect of "God lavished," and although that is a pretty warm-feely rendering of the text, I get theological goosebumps from the implications of "grace overflowing to us."
Although it isn't necessarily heresy to claim that God's giving us grace through Jesus Christ was an act of deliberation, I'm not sure that's the picture Paul was painting when he selected the verb περισσεύω. The relative pronoun--referring obviously back to the word "grace" in the preceding verse--clearly adopts "grace" as its subject. The grace, by nature, abounds. God's grace naturally overflows. This by no means makes our receiving the grace an involuntary incident on God's part. God might not have ever created humanity as part of the overall scheme of the cosmos--later to be "summarized" or "recapitulated" in Christ (ἀνακεφαλαιόω, verse 10)--without intending for them to receive his grace, which he knows to abound naturally. Yes, perhaps after all it is an act of deliberation, but more in the fact that God designed it as part of the "plan of salvation" (οἰκονομία, verse 10) embedded in the cosmos, creating us with a purpose of receiving his grace by placing us in the position to receive its abundance.
Verse 8 also uses the phrase "in all wisdom and intelligence" (my translation; σοφίᾳ translates to wisdom, while φρονήσει indicates knowledge and intelligence) to further qualify the overflowing of God's grace. It reads: [τῆς χάριτος...] ἧς ἐπερίσσεθσεν εἰς ἡμᾶς, ἐν πάσῃ σοφίᾳ καὶ φρονήσει. For some reason, when I first read and attempted to translate this verse, my thoughts got lost on the implications of the different translations of the preposition ἐν. In the NIV translation, it is translated as "with," which I always thought to convey accompaniment. ἑν could also be translated as "in" or "by" or "within," though I think the most appropriate translation is "in," however ambiguous it may be. How does this change the meaning? Being the aspiring Christian scholar I am, I cannot help but wonder what the relationship between Christian knowledge and grace was to Paul. Could this phrase not also be Paul's way of calling Jesus "all wisdom and intelligence"? I suppose there could be evidence both ways...
Friday, January 30, 2009
Ephesians 1:1-14 (my translation)
(1) Paul, an apostle of Jesus Christ according to the desire of God, to the saints who are in Ephesus and who are faithful in Jesus Christ: (2) Grace to y'all and peace from our father God and from Lord Jesus Christ.
(3) Blessed, God and father of our Lord Jesus Christ, having blessed y'all in Christ in all spiritual blessing in the heavens, (4) just as he chose us in himself before the foundation of the cosmos to be holy and blameless before his face in love, (5) having predestined us into adoption into himself through Jesus Christ, according to the good pleasure of his will, (6) into the praise of the glory of his grace, [grace] which he bestowed upon us in the One being loved, (7) in whom we have redemption by means of his blood, redemption which is the forgiveness of transgressions, according to the riches of his grace, (8) [grace] which overflowed to us in all wisdom and intelligence, (9) having made known to us the mystery of his desire, according to his good pleasure which he planned in him [Jesus Christ], (10) into the plan of the completion of proper seasons, all things to be summarized in the Christ--the things in the heavens and the things on the earth in him-- (11) in whom also we were appointed, being predestined according to the purpose of operating all things according to the counsel of his will, (12) to our being in the praise of his glory, [we] the ones having hoped before in the Christ, (13) in whom also y'all, having heard the account of truth, the good news of your salvation, in whom having believed in him also y'all were sealed with the holy spirit of the covenant, (14) which is a pledge of our inheritance into redemption of the preserving--into praise of his glory.
(3) Blessed, God and father of our Lord Jesus Christ, having blessed y'all in Christ in all spiritual blessing in the heavens, (4) just as he chose us in himself before the foundation of the cosmos to be holy and blameless before his face in love, (5) having predestined us into adoption into himself through Jesus Christ, according to the good pleasure of his will, (6) into the praise of the glory of his grace, [grace] which he bestowed upon us in the One being loved, (7) in whom we have redemption by means of his blood, redemption which is the forgiveness of transgressions, according to the riches of his grace, (8) [grace] which overflowed to us in all wisdom and intelligence, (9) having made known to us the mystery of his desire, according to his good pleasure which he planned in him [Jesus Christ], (10) into the plan of the completion of proper seasons, all things to be summarized in the Christ--the things in the heavens and the things on the earth in him-- (11) in whom also we were appointed, being predestined according to the purpose of operating all things according to the counsel of his will, (12) to our being in the praise of his glory, [we] the ones having hoped before in the Christ, (13) in whom also y'all, having heard the account of truth, the good news of your salvation, in whom having believed in him also y'all were sealed with the holy spirit of the covenant, (14) which is a pledge of our inheritance into redemption of the preserving--into praise of his glory.
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