“He that believeth on Him shall not be confounded.”—1 Peter ii. 6.
St. Paul declares that faith is the gift of God (Ephes. ii. 8). His words, “And that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God,” refer to the word “faith.”
A new generation of youthful expositors confidently assert that these words refer to “by grace are ye saved.” The majority of them are evidently ignorant of the history of the exegesis of the text. They only know that the pronoun “that” in the clause “and that not of yourselves” is a Greek neuter. And without further examination they consider it settled that the neuter pronoun can not refer to “faith,” which is a Greek feminine.
Allow us to put our readers on their guard against the thoughtless prattle of shallow school-learning. It should be remembered that while our exegesis is and always has been the one accepted almost without exception, the opposite opinion is shared by only a few expositors of later times. Nearly all the church fathers and almost all the theologians eminent for Greek scholarship judged that the words “it is the gift of God” refer to faith.
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This was the exegesis, according to the ancient tradition, of the churches in which St. Paul had labored.
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Of those that spoke the Greek language and were familiar with the peculiar Greek construction.
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Of the Latin church fathers, who maintained close contact with the Greek world.
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Of such scholars as Erasmus, Grotius, and others, who as philologists were without peers; and in them all the more remarkable, since personally they favored the exposition that faith is the work of man.
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Of Beza, Zanchius, Piscator, Voetius, Heidegger, and even of Wolf, Bengel, Estius, Michaelis, Rosenmüller, Flatt, Meier,
Baumgarten-Crusius, etc., who to the present day maintain the original tradition.
And lastly, Calvin, altho he is said to have favored the other exegesis. But if he had surrendered the original interpretation, he would have given some reason for it; for he was thoroughly acquainted with it. And this makes it probable that he never intended to discuss the question. That he adhered to the traditional exegesis is proven from his own words, in his “Antidote Against the Decrees of the Conciliam of Trente” (page 190, edition 1547): “Faith is not of man, but of God.”
Even our educated Reformed laymen are acquainted with the fact, if it were only from the study of the magnificent commentary on the Ephesians by Petrus Dinant, minister at Rotterdam, who flourished in the latter part of the seventeenth century. He published it in 1710, and the book had such a large sale that it was reissued in 1726; even now it is in great demand. We quote from it the following (vol. i., p. 451): “‘And that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God.’ The word ‘that,’ (GR. tau omicron upsilon w/tonos tau omicron), refers either to the preceding ‘being saved,’ or to ‘faith.’ To the former it can not refer, St. Paul having stated already that salvation is a gift of God. Hence it must refer to faith. It is true the Greek (GR. tau omicron upsilon w/tonos tau omicron), is a neuter, while (GR. pi iota w/tonos sigma tau eta sigma), faith, is a feminine. But Greek scholars know that the relative pronoun may refer just as well to the following (GR. delta omega w tonos rho omicron upsilon), gift, which is neuter, as to the preceding (GR. pi iota w/tonos sigma tau nu sigma), which is feminine, according to the rule in Greek grammar governing this point. Hence ‘that,’ viz., ‘faith, is not of yourselves, it is the gift of God.”‘
But recent discoveries may have upset this ancient exegesis. If the modern expositors of Utrecht, Gröningen, and Leyden, who make a hobby of this modern exegesis, will therefore show us this recent discovery, we will give them an attentive hearing. But they fail to do this. On the contrary, they say: “The matter is settled, and so plain that even a tyro in Greek can see it.” And by saying this, they judge themselves. For brains incomparably superior, such as Erasmus and Hugo Grotius, knew so much of Greek that they were at least acquainted with the Greek rudiments. And we may venture to say that all the Greek scholarship now lodged in the brains of our exegetes at the universities just named would not half fill the cup which Erasmus and Grotius together filled to the brim. Wherefore we confidently maintain the traditional exegesis.
The positive assurance wherewith these young expositors make
their assertions need not surprise us. The explanation is easily found. They were nearly all prepared at universities whose professors of New-Testament exegesis seek to estrange their students from the traditional interpretation of the Scripture by making surprising observations; *e.g.,*the students had learned at home that “the gift of God,” in Ephes. ii. 8, refers to faith; but they had never consulted the original text. Then the professor observed, with perfect correctness, that it does not read (GR. alpha w/tonos upsilon tau eta) but (GR. tau omicron upsilon w/tonos tau omicron), adding: “The gentlemen can see for themselves that this can not refer to faith.” And, unacquainted with the subject, his inexperienced hearers suppose that nothing more remains to be said. If their Greek scholarship had been more thorough and extensive, they would have been able to judge more independently.