[B-Greek] Ephesians 1:3-4
Harold Holmyard
hholmyard at ont.com
Fri Jul 28 14:59:30 EDT 2006
Dear Joe,
>I am wrestling with an issue involving the word kathos (KAQWS for those who use the B-Greek system). There are several definitions for this including 'just as', according to' or 'basis', which can be applied. Wallace describes the use as either showing correlation or cause. BAGD uses this as an example of cause.
>
>Given these definitions, the idea of election is related to the idea of blessing as:
>
>1) we are blessed in the same way that we are chosen
>2) we are blessed based on the fact that we are chosen
>3) we are blessed based according to the fact that we are chosen
>
>Now for the issue. Several commentators (Hoehner, O'Brien, Hendrikson, and Bob Diffenbaugh's write up at Bible .org) take the election to be not just related to the blessing but one of the blessings. Two commentators (Salmond and Martin-Lloyd Jones) take the idea to be the basis of the blessing, making the blessings undefined in this passage.
>
>I am stumped. It seems that the 'plain reading' makes the blessing dependent on the election, but to be undefined in this context. How do those who take the other position justify seeing both cause of and definition of in the same phrase?
>
>
HH: This seems to be an interpretive issue as well as a strictly
grammatical one, since as you say, there are a couple of options. BAGD
does list Eph 1:4 under the causal sense, but BAGD states that this
understanding involves taking KAQWS as starting a new sentence with an
idea like "since" or "insofar as." However, I have always read 1:4 as
connected to 1:3, not as a new sentence. So I have read KAQWS as
comparative or correlative word, and I have heard many say that 1:3-14
is essentially one sentence in Greek. That is the view of Harold W.
Hoehner, _Ephesians: An Exegetical Commentary_ (p. 153), who says, "In
the Greek text, 1:3-14 is a single long sentence of 202 words."
HH: With a correlative sense, the idea I derive is that God's blessing
of us with all spiritual blessing in heavenly places corresponds to the
way He chose us from before the foundation of the world so that we might
be holy and blameless before Him in love. That is, our spiritual
blessings mesh with that divine purpose and serve to accomplish it
instrumentally. Both the gifting and the choosing are sovereign divine
acts of wonderful grace and promise for our entire existence.
Yours,
Harold Holmyard
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