Cambridge Greek Testament Commentary

Ephesians 5:2

καθὼς καὶ ὁ χριστὸς ἠγάπησεν ὑμᾶς καὶ παρέδωκεν ἑαυτὸν ὑπὲρ ὑμῶν. Familiarity ought not to dull our sense of wonder at this instinctive re-enforcement of the appeal to the example of God by an appeal to the example of Christ. It has its ground in the Gospels. Because He could say ‘He that hath seen me hath seen the Father,’ He could say also ‘Take my yoke upon you and learn from me,’ and His example in loving is the measure and ground of the ‘New Commandment ‘John 13. The love of Christ is characteristically and finally displayed in His Death. It is this that gives the Cross its constraining power over the hearts of men. See 2 Corinthians 5:14; Galatians 2:20. And it was meant from the first to bear fruit after its kind, in similar acts of self-surrender on the part of His disciples, Mark 10:45. Later, in this Epistle, Ephesians 5:25 f., one result of the self-surrender is seen in its power to consecrate and cleanse the Church. Here it is regarded in its Godward aspect as the final expression of human adoration and worship, ‘an offering of a sweet savour.’ As a sacrifice for sin the offering of Christ on our behalf is represented especially in the Epistle to the Hebrews as single and complete. There is no hint anywhere that we can share any part of that burthen with Him. But as this verse more than any other helps us to realize, there is another side to the Cross. Regarded as the perfect expression of dutiful love to God and man, finding expression in the uttermost self-sacrifice for the service of His brethren, there is that in the Cross on which the heart of the Father can rest with infinite satisfaction, and which makes it a worthy offering in our name as well as on our behalf, gathering up into itself every longing to find some outlet for adoring gratitude and every aspiration after Divine Communion which the heart of man has known or can know. In this aspect of the sacrifice of the Cross St Paul here calls Christians to take a living and personal share. He reminds us that what we do in loving service of our brethren after the example of Christ is at the same time an offering of a sweet savour before God. It is the service which we offer in the temple which we are. On this side of Christian life and on the whole thought of Christian sacrifice, see Hort’s notes on 1 Peter 2:5. The thought that the restored Israel would constitute a ‘sacrifice of sweet savour’ is found in Ezekiel 20:41. Cf. also Philippians 4:18 where the kindness shown by the Philippians to St Paul at Rome is described in the same terms.

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Cambridge Greek Testament Commentary

Ephesians 5:2

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