Ephesians 5:14

Wherefore he saith, Awake thou that sleepest, and arise from the dead, and Christ shall shine upon thee.

Wherefore he saith ... Here again, we have the phenomenon of Paul an apostle of Christ producing Scripture, in exactly the same way as the prophets of the Old Testament, and introducing his words with exactly the same formula, "Thus saith the Lord," "God saith," etc. As Hendriksen said, "There is no sound reason here to interpret this in any other way than in Ephesians 4:8."[13] See under Ephesians 4:8 for another example of the same phenomenon.

Despite the obvious, however, the translators and commentators have done a number of strange things with this verse: (1) They have accused Paul of misquoting Scripture; (2) they have suggested that the words here are an early Christian song; and to accommodate that view, they have translated the words of the above clause as "Wherefore it saith!"; (3) they have said, "Through error or forgetfulness, the writer has mistaken this fragment of a Christian hymn to be a quotation from the Old Testament!"[14] We categorically reject such interpretations, there being utterly no reason whatever why such views should be trusted.

[13] William Hendriksen, op. cit., p. 234.

[14] Francis O. Beare, op. cit., p. 711.