Charles Hodge on Ephesians 4:32

V. 32. Exhortation to the opposite virtues. We are required to be χρηστοί. The word properly means useful; then disposed to do good. Thus God is said to be χρηστός, kind or benignant, to the unthankful and the evil, Luke 6, 35. Tender-hearted, εὔσπλαγχνοι, which in the parallel passage, Col. 3, 12, is expressed by "bowels of compassion." That is, pity, compassion towards the suffering. Forgiving one another, χαριζόμενοι ἑαυτοῖς. The verb means to give as a matter of favour, then to forgive, to pardon freely. Even as, i. e. because God in Christ hath freely forgiven you. This is the motive which should constrain us to forgive others. God’s forgiveness towards us is free; it precedes even our repentance and is the cause of it. It is exercised notwithstanding the number, the enormity and the long continuance of our transgressions. He forgives us far more than we can ever be called upon to. forgive others. God forgives us in Christ. Out of Christ he is, in virtue of his holiness and justice, a consuming fire; but in him, he is long-suffering, abundant in mercy, and ready to forgive.

Vs. 1. 2. As God has placed us under so great obligation, "be ye, therefore, imitators of God." The exhortation is enlarged. We are not only to imitate God in being forgiving, but also as becomes dear children, by walking in love. As God is love, and as we by regeneration and adoption are his children, we are bound to exercise love habitually. Our whole walk should be characterized by it. As Christ also hath loved us. This is the reason why we should love one another. We should be like Christ, which is being like God, for Christ is God. The apostle makes no distinction between our being the objects of God’s love and our being the objects of the love of Christ. We are to be imitators of God in love, for Christ hath loved us. And given himself for us. Here as elsewhere the great evidence of divine love is the death of Christ. See ver. 25. ch. 3, 19. John 15, 13. "Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends." Gal. 2, 20, "Who loved me and gave himself for me." 1 John 3, 16, "Hereby perceive we the love of God, because he laid down his life for us, and we ought to lay down our lives for the brethren." Christ’s death was for us as a sacrifice, and therefore, from the nature of the transaction, in our place. Whether the idea of substitution be expressed by ὑπὲρ ἡμῶν depends on the context rather than on the force of the preposition. To die for any one, may mean either for his benefit or in his stead, as the connection demands. Christ gave himself, as an offering and a sacrifice, προσφορὰν καὶ θυσίαν; the latter term explains the former. Any thing presented to God was a προσφορά, but θυσία was something slain. The addition of that term, therefore, determines the nature of the offering. This is elsewhere determined by the nature of the thing offered, as in Heb. 10, 10, "the offering of the body of Christ;" or, "himself," Heb. 9, 14. 25; by the effects ascribed to it, viz. expiation of guilt and the propitiation of God, which are the appropriate effects of a sin-offering; see Heb. 2, 17; 10, 10. 14; Rom. 3, 25; 5, 9. 10: by explanatory expressions, "the one offering of Christ" is declared to be μίαν ὑπὲρ ἁμαρτιῶν θυσίαν, Heb. 10, 12; "a sacrifice for sin," and προσφορὰ περὶ ἁμαρτίας, Heb. 10, 18; ἀντίλυτρον, and λύτρον ἀντὶ πολλῶν, as in 1 Tim. 2, 6. Matt. 20, 28; it is called a propitiation, Rom. 3, 25, as well as a ransom. Christ himself, therefore, is called the Lamb of God who bore our sins; his blood is the object of faith or ground of confidence, by which, as the blood of a sacrifice, we are redeemed, 1 Pet. 1, 18. 19. He saves us as a priest does, i. e. by a sacrifice. Every victim ever slain on Pagan altars was a declaration of the necessity for such a sacrifice; all the blood shed on Jewish altars was a prophecy and promise of propitiation by the blood of Christ; and the whole New Testament is the record of the Son of God offering himself up as a sacrifice for the sins of the world. This, according to the faith of the church universal, is the sum of the Gospel—the incarnation and death of the eternal Son of God as a propitiation for sin. There can, therefore, be no doubt as to the sense in which the apostle here declares Christ to be an offering and a sacrifice.

There is some doubt as to the construction of the words, "to God." They may be connected with what precedes, "He gave himself as a sacrifice to God;" or with the following clause, "For a sweet savour to God," i. e. acceptable to him. The sense of the whole would then be, ‘He gave himself, παρέδωκεν ἑαυτὸν, (unto death, εἰς θάνατον,) an offering and sacrifice well pleasing to God.’ The reasons in favour of this construction are—1. That παραδιδόναι means properly to deliver up to the power of any one, and is not the suitable or common term to express the idea of presenting as a sacrifice. The word almost always used in such cases is προσφέρειν, to bring near to, to offer. 2. With Paul the favourite construction of παραδιδόναι is with εἰς and not with the dative. 3. In Hebrew, from which the phrase εἰς ὀσμὴν εὐωδίας here used is borrowed, the expression is רֵיחַ־נִיחֹחַ לַיהוָה, (a sweet smelling savour to Jehovah), which the Septuagint render, ὀσμὴ εὐωδίας τῷ Κυρίῳ. It is not probable in using so familiar a scriptural phrase Paul would depart from the common construction. The Hebrew phrase properly means a savour of rest; that is, one which composes, pacifies, or pleases. The last is what the Greek expresses, and therefore the equivalent expression is εὐάρεστον τῷ Θεῷ, well pleasing to God. Rom. 12, 1. Phil. 4, 18. It was in the exercise of the highest conceivable love, which ought to influence all our conduct, that Christ delivered himself unto death, an offering and sacrifice well pleasing unto God.