Monday, November 22, 2004

Philippians 1:11

Textus Receptus:
πεπληρωμενοι καρπων δικαιοσυνης των δια ιησου χριστου εις δοξαν και επαινον θεου

King James:
Being filled with the fruits of righteousness, which are by Jesus Christ, unto the glory and praise of God.

Comments:
Being filled: While the tense implies something already completed with ongoing results, the context from the previous verse leads to the conclusion that this fulness is something that will have been realized when Christ has returned and kept them pure and blameless.

fruits of righteousness: The syntax (genitive) of the phrase "of righteousness" would either simply name the "fruits" or identify the source of the "fruits". Here, based on the testimony he gives in the following verses, it seems apparent that he is giving the source of the fruits. He uses "fruit" in exactly the same way in verse 22 of the same chapter. In other words, Paul says the Philippians will have the kinds of things (behaviors and attitudes, for instance) which righteousness (which could be a reference either to justification, or to obedient living within it, or both--the word is used twice in chapter 3:9) produces.

glory and praise: If there is any significance to the pairing of these words beyond emphasis by apposition it is that glory (doxa) is generally more rooted in and directed at its object while praise (epainon) is more often focused in the observer and directed outward. In other words, the glory of God, inevitable because of its source in Him, is offered to Him while the praise of God is what any observant person pronounces about God, often to others. In fact Paul mentions the "praise" of "glory" three times in Ephesians 1:6, 12, and 14 in a manner compatible with this emphasis. As believers mature in Christ, they become more aware of the intrinsic and revealed truth about God and respond more appropriately to it, both toward Him and abroad.

Paraphrase:
When Christ does finish His work in you, you will be completely full of the products that flow out of justification--the things God does when He saves you and when your life is conformed to that salvation. And those things will lead both to your personal recognition and verbal expression of God's awe-inspiring nature.

1 comment:

sofyst said...

I see that comments are now enabled...fun. I do enjoy your posts, they remind me of a commentary, my own little commentary on the web. Yet, I very much enjoy your article on predestination, because it was controversial. I do wish you would post more of such.