Commentaries:
Jamieson, Fausset, and Brown
the whole family—ALFORD, MIDDLETON, and others translate, "every family": alluding to the several families in heaven and in earth supposed to exist [THEOPHYLACT, Æcumenius, in SUICER, 2.633], the apostle thus being supposed to imply that God, in His relation of Father to us His adopted children, is the great prototype of the paternal relation wherever found. But the idea that "the holy angels are bound up in spiritual families or compaternities," is nowhere else in Scripture referred to. And Acts 2:36, where the article is similarly omitted, and yet the translation is, "All the house of Israel," shows that in New Testament Greek the translation is justifiable, "all the family," or "the whole family": which accords with Scripture views, that angels and men, the saints militant and those with God, are one holy family joined under the one Father in Christ, the mediator between heaven and earth (Ephesians 1:10; Philippians 2:10). Hence angels are termed our "brethren" (Revelation 19:10), and "sons of God" by creation, as we are by adoption (Job 38:7). The Church is part of the grand family, or kingdom, which comprehends, besides men, the higher spiritual world, where the archetype, to the realization of which redeemed man is now tending, is already realized. This universal idea of the "kingdom" of God as one divine community, is presented to us in the Lord's Prayer. By sin men were estranged, not only from God, but from that higher spiritual world in which the kingdom of God is already realized. As Christ when He reconciled men to God, united them to one another in a divine community (joined to Himself, the one Head), breaking down the partition wall between Jew and Gentile (Ephesians 2:14), so also He joins them in communion with all those who have already attained that perfection in the kingdom of God, to which the Church on earth is aspiring (Colossians 1:20) [NEANDER].
is named—derives its origin and its name as sons of God. To be named, and to be, are one with God. To bear God's name is to belong to God as His own peculiar people (Numbers 6:27; Isaiah 43:7; Isaiah 44:5; Romans 9:25-26).
Other Jamieson, Fausset, and Brown entries containing Ephesians 3:15:
Song of Solomon 3:4
1 Corinthians 4:9
Ephesians 1:10
Ephesians 3:1
Ephesians 3:14
2 Timothy 3:16
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