Ephesians 5:26

sanctify and cleanseit] Better, again, her. And the pronoun is slightly emphatic by position; as if to say, "It was in herinterest that He did this, and so in the wife's interest the husband should be ready for sacrifice."

" Sanctify and cleanse:" lit., sanctify, cleansing; both the verbs being in the aorist, and being thus most naturally referred to one and same crisis, not, as R.V. seems to imply, ("sanctify, having cleansed,") to a sanctifying process consequent on a cleansing. The Church was decisively "sanctified," separated from the claim and dominion of sin unto God, when she was decisively "cleansed," accepted as guiltless.

It needs remembrance that the word "to sanctify" lends itself equally, according to context, to ideas of crisisand of process. In one aspect the human being, decisively claimed and regenerated by God for Himself, issanctified. In another aspect, in view of each successive subjective experience of renunciation of self for God, he is beingsanctified. The sanctifying crisis here in view is that of regeneration. This is put before us ideally as the regeneration of the Church. The Idea is realized historically in the regeneration of individuals, with a view to the final total. On this individual aspect of the matter, cp. John 3:3; John 3:5; 1 Corinthians 6:11.

with the washing of water Lit., by the laver of the water. So Titus 3:5; "through the laver of regeneration," the only other N.T. passage where the noun rendered "laver" occurs.

Here, undoubtedly, Holy Baptism is referred to. It is another and most important question, what is the precise bearing of the Rite upon regeneration; whether it is the special channel of infusion of the new life, or its federal and legal "conveyance," the Seal upon the Covenant of it, and upon the actual grant of it. But in any case there is aconnexion, divinely established, between Regeneration and Baptism. For ourselves, we hold that Baptism is a true analogue to the sacrament of Circumcision, and that its direct and essential work is that of a Divine seal. This view we believe to be (1) the view in truest harmony with the whole spirit of the Gospel, (2) the view most consonant with observed facts, (3) the view which, under wide varieties of expression, was held, in essence, by the pre-medieval Church (and not wholly forgotten even in the medieval Church), and by the great Anglican Protestant doctors of the 16th and 17th centuries. But it is to be remembered that this view leaves untouched the fact of aprofound and sacred connexion between New Birth and Baptism. And it is entirely consonant with language of high reverence and honour for the Rite, language often applicable, properly, only to the related Blessing, under remembrance that the Rite derives all its greatness from the spiritual Reality to which it stands related.

by the word Quite lit., in utterance, or in an utterance. The Gr. is rhêma, not logos. We may translate (having regard to the N. T. usage of "in," similar cases), attended by, or conditioned by, an utterance: as if to say, not a merelaver of water, but one which is what it is only as joined to declared truth. What is the "utterance" in question? The Gr. word (in the singular), occurs elsewhere in the Epistles, Romans 10:8; Rom 10:17; 2 Corinthians 13:1, below, Ephesians 6:17; Hebrews 1:3; Hebrews 6:5; Hebrews 11:3; 1 Peter 1:25 (twice). In almost every case it refers to a definite Divine utterance, whether of truth or of will. We explain it here accordingly as the utterance of that New Covenant of the Gospel of which Baptism is the seal, or, to put it more generally, the revelation of salvation embodied in "the Name of the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost" (Matthew 28:19), or in "the Name of the Lord Jesus" (Acts 19:5). Baptism, in connexion withthat revelation and the reception of it, is "the laver of new birth"(Titus 3:5).

Cp. the parallel 1 Peter 3:21; in which we see the same care to correct any possible inferences from the material aspect of Baptism, as if the rite itself, apart from the moral surroundings of the rite, were a saving thing.