[39] Bishop Ellicott, who advocates the latter rendering, objects to Meyer’s interpretation that it is “doubtful in point of usage.” _Pace tanti viri_, we must retort this objection upon the new translation. _To obtain by lot, to have (a thing) allotted to one_, is the meaning regularly given to κληροῦσθαι in the classical dictionaries; and in O.T. usage the _lot_ (κλῆρος) becomes the _inheritance_ (the thing _allotted_). The verb is repeatedly used by Philo with the meaning _to obtain_, or _receive an inheritance_; whereas there seems to be no real parallel to the other rendering. It is true that κληροῦσθαι in the sense of the A.V. requires an object; but that is virtually supplied by ἐν ᾧ: “we had our inheritance allotted _in Christ_.” Comp. Col. i. 12, “the lot of the saints _in the light_,” which signifies not the locality, but the nature and content of the saints’ heritage. [40] See Gal. iii. 22--iv. 7; and Chapters XV.--XVII. in the _Expositor’s Bible_ (Galatians), on Sonship and Inheritance in St Paul. [41] Compare Acts xxvi. 18, which also speaks to this association of ideas in St Paul’s mind, with vers. 4, 5, 7, and 11 in this chapter. [42] Vv. 8, 9, ch. iii. 4, 5; comp. Col. ii. 2, 3; 1 Cor. ii. 6-9. [43] “The fulness of the time,” Gal. iv. 4; “in due season,” Rom. v. 6; “in its own times,” 1 Tim. ii. 6. These are all synonymous expressions for the Messianic era. Comp. Heb. i. 2, ix. 26; 1 Pet. i. 20. [44] Ch. iii. 8, 9; Col. i. 25; 1 Cor. iv. 1; 1 Tim. i. 4, i. 7; 2 Tim. i. 9-11; and especially Rom. xvi. 25, 26. [45] Comp. ch. v. 5; 1 Cor. xv. 24-28; Phil. ii. 9-12; Heb. ii. 8; Rev. i. 5, xi. 15, xvii. 14; Dan. vii. 13, 14. [46] One wonders that our Revisers, so attentive to all points of Greek idiom, did not think it worth while to discriminate between _Christ_ and _the Christ_ in such passages as this. In Ephesians this distinction is especially conspicuous and significant. See vv. 12, 20 iii. 17, iv. 20, v. 23; similarly in 1 Cor. xv. 22; Rom. xv. 3. CHAPTER IV. _THE FINAL REDEMPTION._ “[That we might be to the praise of His glory:] We who had before hoped in the Christ, in whom also ye _have hoped_, Since ye heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation,-- In whom indeed, when ye believed, ye were sealed with the Holy Spirit of the promise, Which is the earnest of our inheritance, till the redemption of _God’s_ possession,-- To the praise of His glory.” EPH. i. 12-14.