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Selected Verse: Ephesians 5:5 - King James
| Verse |
Translation |
Text |
| Eph 5:5 |
King James |
For this ye know, that no whoremonger, nor unclean person, nor covetous man, who is an idolater, hath any inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and of God. |
Summary Of Commentaries Associated With The Selected Verse
| A Commentary, Critical, Practical, and Explanatory on the Old and New Testaments, by Robert Jamieson, A.R. Fausset and David Brown [1882] |
this ye know--The oldest manuscripts read, "Of this ye are sure knowing"; or as ALFORD, "This ye know being aware."
covetous . . . idolater-- (Col 3:5). The best reading may be translated, That is to say, literally, which is (in other words) an idolater. Paul himself had forsaken all for Christ (Co2 6:10; Co2 11:27). Covetousness is worship of the creature instead of the Creator, the highest treason against the King of kings (Sa1 15:3; Mat 6:24; Phi 3:19; Jo1 2:15).
hath--The present implies the fixedness of the exclusion, grounded on the eternal verities of that kingdom [ALFORD].
of Christ and of God--rather, as one Greek article is applied to both, "of Christ and God," implying their perfect oneness, which is consistent only with the doctrine that Christ is God (compare Th2 1:12; Ti1 5:21; Ti1 6:13). |
| Notes on the Bible, by Albert Barnes, [1834] |
For this ye know - Be assured of this. The object here is to deter from indulgence in those vices by the solemn assurance that no one who committed them could possibly be saved.
Nor unclean person - No one of corrupt and licentious life can be saved; see Rev 22:15.
Nor covetous man, who is an idolater - That is, he bestows on money the affections due to God; see Col 3:5. To worship money is as real idolatry as to worship a block of stone. If this be so, what an idolatrous world is this! How many idolatrous are there in professedly Christian lands! How many, it is to be feared, in the church itself! And since every covetous man is certainly to be excluded from the kingdom of God, how anxious should we be to examine our hearts, and to know whether this sin may not lie at our door!
Hath any inheritance, ... - Such an one shall never enter heaven. This settles the inquiry about the final destiny of a large portion of the world; and this solemn sentence our conscience and all our views of heaven approve. Let us learn hence:
(1) that heaven will be "pure."
(2) that it will be a "desirable" place for who would wish to live always with the licentious and the impure?
(3) it is right to reprove these vices and to preach against them. Shall we not be allowed to preach against those sins which will certainly exclude people from heaven?
(4) a large part of the world is exposed to the wrath of God. What numbers are covetous! What multitudes are licentious! In how many places is licentiousness openly and unblushingly practiced! In how many more places in secret! And in how many more is the "heart" polluted, while the external conduct is moral; the soul "corrupt," while the individual moves in respectable society!
(5) what a world of shame will hell be! How dishonorable and disgraceful to be damned forever, and to linger on in eternal fires, because the man was too polluted to be admitted into pure society! Here, perhaps, he moved in fashionable life, and was rich and honored, and flattered; there he will be sent down to hell because his whole soul was corrupt, and because God would not suffer heaven to be contaminated by his presence!
(6) what doom awaits the "covetous" man! He, like the sensualist, is to be excluded from the kingdom of God. And what is to be his doom? Will he have a place apart from the common damned - a golden palace and a bed of down in hell? No. It will be no small part of his aggravation that he will be doomed to spend an eternity with those in comparison with whom on earth, perhaps, he thought himself to be pure as an angel of light.
(7) with this multitude of the licentious and the covetous, will sink to hell all who are not renewed and sanctified. What a prospect for the "happy," the fashionable, the moral, the amiable, and the lovely, who have no religion! For all the impenitent and the unbelieving, there is but one home in eternity. Hell is less terrible from its penal fires and its smoke of torment, than from its being made up of the profane, the sensual, and the vile; and its supremest horrors arise from its being the place where shall be gathered all the corrupt and unholy dwellers in a fallen world; all who are so impure that they cannot be admitted into heaven. Why then will the refined, the moral, and the amiable not be persuaded to seek the society of a pure heaven? to be prepared for the world where holy beings dwell? |
| Vincent's Word Studies, by Marvin R. Vincent [1886] |
Ye know (ἴστε γινώσκοντες)
The A.V. fails to give the whole force of the expression, which is, ye know recognizing. Rev., ye know of a surety.
Idolater
Compare Col 3:5, and see on Co1 5:10. |
| Adam Clarke Commentary on the Whole Bible - Published 1810-1826 |
| For this ye know - Ye must be convinced of the dangerous and ruinous tendency of such a spirit and conduct, when ye know that persons of this character can never inherit the kingdom of God. See on Eph 5:3 (note); and see the observations on the Greek article at the end of this epistle. |
13 I give thee charge in the sight of God, who quickeneth all things, and before Christ Jesus, who before Pontius Pilate witnessed a good confession;
21 I charge thee before God, and the Lord Jesus Christ, and the elect angels, that thou observe these things without preferring one before another, doing nothing by partiality.
12 That the name of our Lord Jesus Christ may be glorified in you, and ye in him, according to the grace of our God and the Lord Jesus Christ.
15 Love not the world, neither the things that are in the world. If any man love the world, the love of the Father is not in him.
19 Whose end is destruction, whose God is their belly, and whose glory is in their shame, who mind earthly things.)
24 No man can serve two masters: for either he will hate the one, and love the other; or else he will hold to the one, and despise the other. Ye cannot serve God and mammon.
3 Now go and smite Amalek, and utterly destroy all that they have, and spare them not; but slay both man and woman, infant and suckling, ox and sheep, camel and ass.
27 In weariness and painfulness, in watchings often, in hunger and thirst, in fastings often, in cold and nakedness.
10 As sorrowful, yet alway rejoicing; as poor, yet making many rich; as having nothing, and yet possessing all things.
5 Mortify therefore your members which are upon the earth; fornication, uncleanness, inordinate affection, evil concupiscence, and covetousness, which is idolatry:
5 Mortify therefore your members which are upon the earth; fornication, uncleanness, inordinate affection, evil concupiscence, and covetousness, which is idolatry:
15 For without are dogs, and sorcerers, and whoremongers, and murderers, and idolaters, and whosoever loveth and maketh a lie.
10 Yet not altogether with the fornicators of this world, or with the covetous, or extortioners, or with idolaters; for then must ye needs go out of the world.
5 Mortify therefore your members which are upon the earth; fornication, uncleanness, inordinate affection, evil concupiscence, and covetousness, which is idolatry:
3 But fornication, and all uncleanness, or covetousness, let it not be once named among you, as becometh saints;