Atos 20:28

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Over the which the Holy Ghost hath made you overseers. — Better, in which the Holy Ghost set you as watchers. The word used is the same as that commonly translated bishops, but, as used here in connection with the idea of the flock, it requires a word less technically ecclesiastical. It will be noticed that the word is commonly used in the New Testament as associated with this imagery. So in 1 Pedro 2:25, we have “the Shepherd and Bishop of your souls,” and the corresponding verb in 1 Pedro 5:2, “feed the flock of God... taking the oversight thereof.” The appointment, as referred to the Holy Ghost, implies, probably, (1) the inward call, the impulse which drew the man to the office; (2) the attestation of that call by the voices of the prophets, as in Atos 13:2; 1 Timóteo 4:1; (3) the bestowal of gifts fitting them for the work.

To feed the church of God, which he hath purchased with his own blood. — It is clear that the words as they stand in the text are of immense importance, as bearing their witness to the belief of the Apostolic Church at once in the absolute divinity of Christ and in the nature of His redemptive work. The MSS., however, vary in their readings. Some of the best uncials and versions give “God;” others, of almost equal authority, give “Lord;” others, again, combine the two “Lord and God.” The fact that elsewhere St. Paul invariably speaks of “the Church of God” (e.g., 1 Coríntios 1:2; 2 Coríntios 1:1; Gálatas 1:13; 1 Tessalonicenses 2:14, et al.), and never “the Church of the Lord,” may be allowed, from one point of view, some weight as internal evidence in favour of the Received reading; while from another it may be urged that it might have tempted a transcriber to substitute a familiar for an unfamiliar phrase. Accepting that reading, the words not only confirm the great truths of the Church’s creed, but give an implicit sanction to the language of theology or devotion, when it applies to the divine nature of our Lord predicates that belong strictly to the human nature which was associated with it. So Ignatius (Romanos 6) spoke of “the passion of my God,” and Tertullian (Ad Uxor, ii. 3) and Clement of Alexandria (Quis dives, c. 34) use the very phrase “the blood of God” which this passage suggests, and the Eastern Church at the council of Ephesus gave to the Blessed Virgin the title of Theotŏkos Deipara, the mother of the very God. So in the liturgy which bears the name of St. James the brother of the Lord, he is described as Adelphotheos, the brother of God, and that name is still current among the Greek Christians of Jerusalem. The general drift of the language of the New Testament writers was, however, in the other direction, and predicated human acts and attributes of the man Christ Jesus, Divine acts and attributes of the eternal Son; and it is obvious that this tends at once to greater accuracy of thought, and is really more reverential than the other.

In the word “purchased” (or, more literally, acquired for himself), we recognise the idea, though not the word, of redemption. The same verb is used in 1 Timóteo 3:13. The thought seems to have been one which specially characterised the teaching of St. Paul at Ephesus (Efésios 1:14 : “the redemption of the purchased possession”). Comp. also, “ye were bought with a price,” in 1 Coríntios 6:20, which, it will be remembered, was written from that city. The same idea is expressed in the “peculiar people” of 1 Pedro 2:9; literally, a people for a purchased possession, and so, as it were, the peculium, or personal property of Him who had paid the purchase money.

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