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by this question of future recognition, perhaps the amended translation of I Cor. 13: 12
will come as a relief:
"Then shall we recognize even as we are recognized."
#4.
Acknowledgment, the spirit of wisdom and revelation
(Eph. 1: 17, 18).
pp. 79, 80
The first fourteen verses of the epistle to the Ephesians contain a revelation of the
distinctive truth of the Mystery, as entrusted to the Apostle Paul in his capacity of the
prisoner of Jesus Christ for us Gentiles. In this opening revelation the Apostle makes
known some unique features of this dispensation. Its blessings are "spiritual"; its sphere
"heavenly places"; its association with the age-purpose, "before the overthrow of the
world"; its pre-eminence in this exalted sphere indicated by the word elsewhere
translated "adoption", and its hope is said to be "prior". At verse fifteen, the Apostle
ceases to add further teaching, and turns to prayer. If epignosis meant simply piling
knowledge upon knowledge, the Apostle could have gone on, regardless of the moral and
spiritual response or lack of response of these Ephesian saints, but at verse seventeen he
prays:
"That the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give unto you the
spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of Him . . . . . that ye may know what is
the hope of His calling . . . . ." (Eph. 1: 17, 18).
The margin of the A.V. reads for the acknowledgment in place of in the knowledge.
The preposition en occurs more than one hundred and twenty times in Ephesians and is
translated "in", "by", "with", "through" and "at"; it is only translated "for" in 4: 32,
where it is translated "for Christ's sake", an exceedingly free rendering and which the
R.V. renders "in Christ".
Accepting, as we have in this series, the translation of epignosis as "acknowledgment"
or "recognition", we still have to ponder the Spirit's meaning. Does the apostle mean
that the gift of a spirit of wisdom and revelation leads to and enables "acknowledgment".
That is, shall we accept the A.V. marginal reading "for the acknowledgment"? or, while
returning the new rendering of the word epignosis, shall we leave unaltered the
preposition en and read "in the acknowledgment"? Should anyone ask what difference
such a rendering would indicate, we reply that in the first translation the spirit of wisdom
and revelation leads to acknowledgment, whereas in the second the spirit of wisdom and
revelation is found in the acknowledgment, and will not be granted, where
acknowledgment is withheld. This is a serious difference, and we believe that the second
translation expresses the truth. How is it that we have to say of one and another believer:
"He did run well, he appeared to be quite convinced, both of the general application of
the principle of right division, and of the particular application to the present dispensation