Verse 5
5. This complete cycle of gospel thought St. Paul rounds out with a doxology, as in Romans 11:36; Romans 9:5; Romans 16:27; Ephesians 3:21; 1 Timothy 1:17.
Be glory Rather, the glory, with the article; that is, (not, as Alford and Lightfoot, the glory belonging to him, but) the glory of so glorious a redemption. “God’s all the glory man’s the endless bliss.”
For ever and ever Literal Greek, into aeons of aeons into ages of ages. The phrase does not, with absolute exactness, express eternity, but only indefinite immensity. It does not absolutely deny all end, but ignores all end. It was, no doubt, the most powerful phrase to express eternity, and to explode from thought all idea of end that the language of the New Testament age knew. Hence it is here used to designate the duration of the existence of the divine glory. It may be added that the word aeon, in this phrase, is the same as that in the previous verse, which we have rendered time-world. This phrase, then, suggests that the endless future is not to be a quiet characterless stream, but a perpetual roll of stupendous revolutions.
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