Cambridge Greek Testament Commentary

Ephesians 4:15

ἀληθεύοντες δὲ. ‘Being’ or ‘Living the truth.’ The context shows that far more than truth-speaking is required, and the use of ἀληθεύειν in LXX. is in favour of a wide extension of meaning to truth in all relations of life. Genesis 20:16 καὶ πάντα� = Niph. יָכַח ‘in respect of all thou art righted’; Proverbs 21:3 ποιεῖν δίκαια καὶ� = ‘to do justice and judgement’ = מִשְׁפָּט; Isaiah 44:26 τὴν βουλὴν τῶν� = שָׁלַם Hi. = ‘performeth the counsel of his messengers.’ Sirach 31(34):4 καὶ�; ‘Of that which is false what shall be true?’ The context is treating of the unsubstantial character of dreams. This corresponds to the fuller meaning of ἀλήθεια as ‘truth in fact,’ ‘actual reality,’ and not merely ‘correctness’ of statement, for which Whitaker contends, and to the use of ἀληθινός and ποιεῖν τὴν� in St John.

ἐν�. Here as in Ephesians 4:2 (cf. on Ephesians 1:4) ‘love’ is at once the definition of a life in accordance with the truth (hatred or indifference being a violation of the relationship in which by the very constitution of our being we stand both to God and to our brethren) and the power by which alone a life can be kept true.

αὐξήσωμεν εἰς αὐτὸν. The parallels εἰς ἄνδρα τέλειον, εἰς μέτρον ἡλικίας suggest (so Abbott) (1) ‘up to Him’ as the standard (cf. Ephesians 3:19 εἰς πᾶν τὸ πλήρωμα) or goal of our development, i.e. ‘until we become identified with Him.’ It would be possible to take it (2) = ‘unto Him,’ i.e. for His possession, as Colossians 1:16 τὰ πάντα … εἰς αὐτὸν ἔκτισται, or (3) ‘into Him,’ into closer and closer union until at last our incorporation is complete. This would reach the same end as (1) by a different route. The apparent paradox of members of a body having to grow into their places in the body is inevitable in the spiritual region where the objective fact necessarily precedes the subjective realization, and the battle of life is ‘to become’ what we ‘are.’ The exhortation to the branches ‘to abide in’ the Vine (John 15:4 ff.) implies the same paradox. Cf. the strange phrase in the parallel context in Colossians 2:19 οὐ κρατῶν τὴν κεφαλήν = ‘refusing to abide in.’

τὰ πάντα. ‘In regard to every element in our being,’ nothing being withheld from His dominion.

ὅς ἐστιν ἡ κεφαλή. Cf. Ephesians 1:22; Ephesians 5:23, and esp. Colossians 2:19. The main thought is of sovereignty. It is a somewhat perplexing accident, both here and in Ephesians 1:22, that the metaphor is drawn from the relation of one part of the body to the rest.

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Cambridge Greek Testament Commentary

Ephesians 4:15

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