Ephesians 1:12

12. We The same we as in the preceding verses, meaning Paul and his Ephesians directly, including all believers inferentially. Most commentators (including Meyer, Ellicott, and Riddle) make who in apposition with we, and to… glory, the main predicate; reading thus: that we who first trusted in Christ should be to the praise of his glory. (!) It seems sufficient to refute this to note, that to the praise of his glory, however pregnant in meaning, is, in every instance, a subordinate clause, and not the main predicate of the sentence, Ephesians 1:6; Ephesians 1:14; none the less so in the last instance because brought so emphatically at the close of the sentence. The meaning of the verse is: we are predestinated, the glory being God’s, to be fore-hopers in Christ.

First trusted Literal Greek, the ones having fore-hoped in Christ. It does not mean that we trusted (or, more correctly rendered, fore-hoped) before somebody else, or that we are by God designed to be the earliest believers; but we, like all believers, hoped for the restitutive inheritance in Christ before its realization. As Ephesians 1:9-10 describe the restitution, Ephesians 1:11 says we have an inheritance therein, being predestinated; Ephesians 1:12 now tells us to what we are predestinated, namely, to being fore-hopers in Christ for attaining the inheritance in the restitution.

All the commentators we have examined here seem, we think, to miss the true meaning. The we they take to be Jews, and ye Gentiles; the distinctive of the Jews being, that they fore-hoped in the Christ, that is, the Messiah. Alford thinks it a proof of this meaning that Christ has here the article before it, and so signifies the Messiah. It seems enough to reply that Christ has the article before it in Ephesians 1:10, where it signifies the Messiah, not as specifically fore-hoped by the Jews, but the Messiah of our race, as its great restorer. The we of Ephesians 1:12 must, then, be the we of Ephesians 1:11, and that of all the previous wes, or first persons plural, of the paragraph; so that it would follow that Paul is, forsooth, all the time speaking about Jews until Ephesians 1:13! If not, let we of Ephesians 1:11 be the universal elect, and of Ephesians 1:12 the Jews; then what is the meaning? It would then mean we, the universal Church, are predestinated in order that we, Jews, expecting the Messiah, may be to the praise of his glory!

But what is the meaning of the Greek word (rendered incorrectly in the English version first trusted) προηλπικοτας , the ones having fore-hoped fore-hopers? It means those who hoped before the attainment of the object of hope; hoped for a distant restitution. The objection of Alford, that fore-hope is, then, nothing more than hope, is nugatory. One might as well say that to predestinate, that is, to fore-destine, is nothing more than to destine. But in both cases the prefix serves to rest the mind on the anterior state of the hoping man, as looking to, and waiting for, the future result.