`That (in spirit) the Gentiles should be fellowheirs, and of the same
body, and partakers of His promise in Christ by the gospel' (Eph. 3:6).
We are here immediately faced with the problem of interpretation. The one
prefix sun `together with' is used three times, sunkleronoma, sussoma,
summetocha, yet the Authorized Version translates these three words Fellow
heirs, Of The Same body, and Partakers. In one word sun is translated `fellow',
in the next word it is rendered `of the same' and in the third case it is not
translated at all except it be by the word `part'. Moffatt translates co-heirs
and co-partners, but falls down over sussoma rendering it `companions', which is
very wide of the mark. We must preserve the threefold use of sun. The Revised
Version gets over the difficulty by rendering the three words `fellow-heirs, and
fellow-members of the body, and fellow-partakers' which while it has the merit
of preserving the three occurrences of the preposition sun, adds to the
apostle's words the word `member' which is questionable. Rotherham, in his
Emphasized New Testament reads `joint heirs, and a joint body and joint
partakers' which is found also in J. N. Darby's translation.
Possibly this is as near to the original as our English language will
permit, but even so, the translation sets us
a problem, for what is a joint body? The essential characteristic of a body is
that it has many members, each differing from the other in function and
importance. Such a body can provide an analogy for a spiritual company, and
this analogy is employed by the apostle in 1 Corinthians 12 where the different
members are indicated. The ancients who were not limited to the English
language, have revealed their difficulty to express the Greek word sussoma
adequately. Jerome renders the word in the Latin Vulgate by concorporates and
says:
`I know that in Latin it makes an ugly sentence. But because it stands in
the Greek, and because every word and syllable and stroke and point in the
Divine Scriptures is full of meaning, I prefer the risks of verbal
malformation to the risk of missing the sense'.
We believe all true Bereans will endorse these sentiments.
One expositor has
used this word `concorporate' but it is not in common use:
`In relation to the Body the members are "incorporate": in relation to one
another they are "concorporate" that is, sharers in the one Body' (J.
Armitage Robinson, D.D.).
Here then, with the advent of the dispensation of the Mystery, a church
came into existence so different from any that had gone before, as to call for
the coining of a word, and the figure which that word conjures up in the mind is
that of a body never seen or known on earth. No one has ever seen a body in
which each member was on absolutely equal terms with any other, but we have
already been reminded that this body is only possible `in Spirit'. Nothing like
this can be discovered before the middle wall went down, and that wall was not
removed until Acts 28. In the flesh, Israel can brook no peer (cf. The olive
tree in Romans 11); only `in Spirit' can such an equality be possible.
Another correction is called for when using the Authorized Version.
Ephesians 3:7 reads `Whereof I was made a minister', and the commencing of a
fresh verse with these words, may prevent the reader from realizing that they
are an integral part of the preceding passage. It is not the full truth to say
that in this new company the Gentiles are joint partakers of His promise in
Christ by the Gospel, the complete statement is that the Gentiles were joint
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