Cambridge Greek Testament Commentary

Ephesians 3:20

20 f. THE DOXOLOGY

The Vision and the Prayer find their goal in a Doxology, which is at once an adoring recognition of essential facts and the expression of the deepest longing of a grateful heart. Such an ascription of ‘glory’ to God (see Note D on ὁ πατὴρ τῆς δόξης) is the instinctive response of the human heart to any clear token of His presence and working in Nature or in Grace. That presence has now been brought into living and abiding relation to men in the Church on earth as in Christ Jesus in heaven. The acknowledgement of that Presence in the Doxology recalls the vision and strengthens faith and hope in the certainty of the answer that is in store for the prayer. It is a return to the keynote of the Epistle struck in Ephesians 1:3, when his lips were opened and he spoke blessing God, cf. δύξα in Ephesians 1:6; Ephesians 1:12; Ephesians 1:14.

20. Τῷ δὲ δυναμένῳ. This recalls Ephesians 1:19; Ephesians 3:16. The ascription of power to God is found also in the Doxology of Romans 16:25 : cf. Jude 1:24, and note the addition of κράτος (Revelation 1:6; Revelation 5:13) and δύναμις (Revelation 4:11; Revelation 19:1) in Doxologies.

ὑπὲρ πάντα. ‘More than all,’ ‘beyond everything.’ This phrase is then picked up by ὑπερεκπερισσοῦ ὦν, ‘transcendently beyond what we ask or think.’ The Western reading gives a smoother but less Pauline cast to the sentence by dropping ὑπὲρ.

ὑπερεκπερισσοῦ, governing ὦν, i.e. τούτων ἄ. A characteristically Pauline word, 1 Thessalonians 3:10; 1 Thessalonians 5:13; cf. Daniel 3:22 (Theod.).

αἰτούμεθα ἤ νοοῦμεν. What we put into words falls short of the image in our mind and that falls short of the reality. Cf. Ephesians 3:19; Philippians 4:7 ὑπερέχουσα πάντα νοῦν.

κατὰ τὴν δύναμιν τὴν ἐνεργουμένην ἐν ἡμῖν. ‘The power that is at work—quickened into activity within us.’ Cf. on Ephesians 1:11. What is to be done for us is in fact to be done ‘in’ us, and the power which is capable of producing the final transformation is already at work, Ephesians 1:19; Ephesians 3:7.

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Cambridge Greek Testament Commentary

Ephesians 3:20

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