Wait eagerly (553) apekdechomai by Greek Word Studies

Eagerly wait (553) (apekdechomai from apó = intensifier [see Vincent below] + ekdechomai = expect, look for <> from ek = out + dechomai = receive kindly, accept deliberately and readily) means waiting in great anticipation but with patience (compare our English expression "wait it out"). To expect fully. To look (wait) for assiduously (marked by careful unremitting attention) and patiently. Note the "we" ("we eagerly wait") indicates Paul included himself among those who had this attitude toward Christ’s coming. Apekdechomai is used 8 times in the NT in the NASB (Ro 3x; 1 Co; Gal; Phil; Heb; 1 P) and is translated awaiting eagerly, 1; eagerly await, 1; eagerly wait, 1; wait eagerly, 1; waiting, 2; waiting eagerly, 1; waits eagerly, 1. This verb is not found in the Septuagint (LXX). The fulfillment of our life, the outlook of our citizenship, is in Christ's coming. Kenneth Wuest explains that apekdechomai is... "...a Greek word made up of three words put together, the word, “to receive,” (dechomai) which speaks of a welcoming or appropriating reception such as is tendered to a friend who comes to visit one; the word “off,” (apo) speaking here of the withdrawal of one’s attention from other objects, and the word “out,” (ek) used here in a perfective sense which intensifies the already existing meaning of the word. The composite word speaks of an attitude of intense yearning and eager waiting for the coming of the Lord Jesus into the air to take His Bride to heaven with Him, the attention being withdrawn from all else and concentrated upon the Lord Jesus." (Wuest, K. S. Wuest's Word Studies from the Greek New Testament: Eerdmans) Apekdechomai is in the present tense indicating this is a heavenly citizen's continual mindset (Do you frequently contemplate His return beloved?) and the middle voice which indicates the subject is the beneficiary of the waiting. Wuest picks up on this nuance of the middle voice with the translation "eagerly waiting to welcome the Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, and to receive Him to ourselves" where "to ourselves" is the reflexive aspect of the middle voice. What a beautiful picture of the Bride, His Church, waiting to receive Him to herself! A waiting, welcoming mindset will motivate the bride to keep herself pure and holy. Marvin Vincent writes that... "the compounded preposition apo denotes the withdrawal of attention from inferior objects. The word is habitually used in the New Testament with reference to a future manifestation of the glory of Christ or of His people." (Vincent, M. R. Word studies in the New Testament Vol. 3, Page 1-453) A T Robertson adds that apekdechomai is a... "Rare and late double compound (perfective use of prepositions like wait out) which vividly pictures Paul’s eagerness for the second coming of Christ as the normal attitude of the Christian colonist whose home is heaven." (Robertson, A. Word Pictures in the New Testament) Apekdechomai pictures waiting in great anticipation but with patience. Awaiting eagerly and expectantly for some future event and so to look forward eagerly. Note that seven of the eight NT uses of apekdechomai are related in some way to our "blessed hope", the return of our Lord Jesus Christ. H. A. A. Kennedy wrote The compound emphasizes the intense yearning for the Parousia (The Expositor’s Greek Testament) Alfred Plummer declared that the first part of the compound word translated “look for” implies disregard of other things and concentration on one object. (A Commentary on St. Paul’s Epistle to the Philippians. 1919) James Montgomery Boice stated that the expectation of the Lord’s personal and imminent return gave joy and power to the early Christians and to the Christian communities Below are the seven other NT uses of apekdechomai Ro 8:19, 23, 25 For the anxious longing of the creation waits eagerly for the revealing of the sons of God...23 And not only this, but also we ourselves, having the first fruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves groan within ourselves, waiting eagerly for our adoption as sons, the redemption of our body....25 But if we hope for what we do not see, with perseverance we wait eagerly for it." (Note the object of the waiting is our future glory = future tense salvation = which will culminate when Christ's returns) 1 Corinthians 1:7 so that you are not lacking in any gift, awaiting eagerly the revelation of our Lord Jesus Christ, Galatians 5:5 For we through the Spirit, by faith, are waiting for the hope of righteousness (ultimately fulfilled in Christ). Hebrews 9:28 so Christ also, having been offered once to bear the sins of many, shall appear a second time for salvation without reference to sin, to those who eagerly await Him. 1 Peter 3:20 who once were disobedient, when the patience of God kept waiting in the days of Noah, during the construction of the ark, in which a few, that is, eight persons, were brought safely through the water. For a Savior the Lord Jesus Christ - Showers comments that Philippians 3:20 indicates that the expectation of Christ’s coming was so intense for Paul and the other Christians of New Testament times that it was the primary focus of their concentration. Would it have been so if there were no possibility of an any-moment coming? (Maranatha Our Lord, Come!) ><>><>><> PHILIPPIANS 3:20 - One of the terms used often during the 1992 Summer Olympics by television sports commentators was dual citizenship. One athlete with dual citizenship was a swimmer named Martin Zubero. He was born in the United States, where he has lived nearly all of his life. He attended the University of Florida and trained for competition in the U.S. However, he was swimming under the colors of Spain. Why? His father is a citizen of Spain and so Martin is too. At the Olympics, he chose to represent his father's nation, to which he felt greater allegiance. Christians too have dual citizenship. We are citizens of this world, no matter what nation we live in, and as followers of Christ we are also citizens of heaven (Phil. 3:20). We have all the rights and privileges that accompany being a child of God. He is not only our heavenly Father but our King, and our first loyalty must be to His kingdom. —D. C. Egner (Our Daily Bread, Copyright RBC Ministries, Grand Rapids, MI. Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved) WE LIVE IN THIS WORLD, BUT OUR ALLEGIANCE IS TO HEAVEN. ><>><>><> For our citizenship is in heaven - As believers in the Lord Jesus, we are citizens of heaven. Here on earth we are only pilgrims journeying toward our eternal home. Yet all too often we act as if this world is our permanent residence. Many years ago, a man visited his longtime friend, a British military officer stationed in an African jungle. One day when the friend entered the officer's hut, he was startled to see him dressed in formal attire and seated at a table beautifully set with silverware and fine china. The visitor, thinking his friend might have lost his mind, asked why he was all dressed up and seated at a table so sumptuously arrayed out in the middle of nowhere. The officer explained, "Once a week I follow this routine to remind myself of who I am—a British citizen. I want to maintain the customs of my real home and live according to the codes of British conduct, no matter how those around me live. I want to avoid substituting a foreign culture for that of my homeland." Christians should have a similar concern. Our true citizenship is in heaven, so we must beware of substituting the foreign culture of this world for that of our real homeland (see Ro 12:2). We are not to take on its sinful ways or adopt its values. We need to live in such a way that others will see that we are different. And we need to remember that we are strangers in this world and citizens of heaven. —R W De Haan (Our Daily Bread, Copyright RBC Ministries, Grand Rapids, MI. Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved) The Christian who lives above the world draws closer to heaven. ><>><>><> PHILIPPIANS 3:20 - The great preacher F. B. Meyer once asked D. L. Moody, "What is the secret of your success?" Moody replied, "For many years I have never given an address without the consciousness that the Lord may come before I have finished." This may well explain the intensity of his service and the zeal of his ministry for Christ. One of the most encouraging teachings in the Bible is that of the Lord's return to earth. Three times Revelation 22 repeats this promise. As God was about to close the pages of divine revelation, He called attention to this grand theme, announcing in the words of Christ Himself, "Surely I am coming quickly." The last words of our Lord before leaving this earth twenty centuries ago remind us that He is coming back for us. With such a forceful assurance closing the canon of Scripture, we can have this hope continually in our hearts. The expectation of seeing our Savior, being like Him, and being with Him for eternity should prompt us, as it did Moody, to serve the Lord. In this sinful world it's easy to lose our upward look. Yet we must keep the hope of Christ's return burning in our hearts. The apostle Paul talked about this when he said, "For our citizenship is in heaven, from which we also eagerly wait for the Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ" (Phil. 3:20). The hope of His last words, "Surely I am coming quickly," should motivate us all to lives of sacrificial service. —Paul R. Van Gorder (Our Daily Bread, Copyright RBC Ministries, Grand Rapids, MI. Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved) The hope of glorification keeps before us the need of purification. ><>><>><> F B Meyer... BURGESSES OF HEAVEN Phil. 3:17, 18, 19, 20, 21 THE Greek word translated conversation is, as we saw in Phil. 1:27, the root from which we derive our word politics, politician, policeman, and such like; and the true rendering in each case should be citizenship. In the earlier passage it might be rendered: "Be true citizens of God's commonwealth--let your life befit your high calling to be burgesses of the New Jerusalem"; and in this passage it might be rendered: "Your city home is in heaven." The same thought pervades the Scriptures. "Now they desire a better country, that is, a heavenly" (Heb. 11:16). "The city which hath foundations, whose builder and maker is God" (Heb. 11:10). Even the patriarchs descried and greeted from afar the palaces of that heavenly city. And the inspired writer takes up the same attitude when he says: "Here we have no continuing city, but we seek one to come." Our Citizenship in Heaven. If we would resemble the saints of past days we must conceive of our citizenship as being in Heaven. That a man should be a citizen of a city, but live in a foreign country, is not an unusual circumstance. In these days when men are scattered so widely over the world, many of the citizens of London are to be found in India, Burmah, and Australia, on a visit for temporary purposes; and so the anomaly is often presented of men being strangers in the place where they are resident, but most at home in the city from which they are absent. What is true of the pilgrim-life was pre-eminently true of Jesus Christ, who said of Himself, "He that came down from heaven, the Son of Man who is in heaven," as though during His earthly life He recognised that His citizenship in His Father's city remained unimpaired, and that residence for thirty years amongst men did not naturalise Him as a citizen of earth. In the collect for Advent Sunday we are told that the Son of God came to visit us in great humility; and four times over in the Gospels the Lord's life on earth is described as a visit. All the time He was amongst men, He was a citizen of that city, therefore He lay in a borrowed manger; His body was deposited in a borrowed grave; He had not where to lay His head; and when every man went to his own home, He went to the Mount of Olives. Throughout His life He was a pilgrim and foreigner as all the fathers were. Like Master, Like Man. And what is true of Jesus Christ should be true of every Christian. As Lady Powerscourt puts it: "The Christian is not a man who, standing on earth, looks up to heaven; but who, being in heaven, looks down upon earth, and throughout his life he recognises that he is a foreigner indeed." And this very aspect of the Christian will bring him into conflict with the men of this world, for when he says in his Master's words: "I am not of this world, I am from above, ye are from beneath," they gnash their teeth at him, and cast him out, as the citizens of Vanity Fair did Christian and his companion. One of the Puritans sweetly says: "It cannot be expected that the men of this world can ever understand the Christian life, because they have never been in the City from which he hails, and therefore are altogether ignorant of its manner of life and mode of speech." The world is unable to recognise us, because our language, speech, dress, manner, and method of life are altogether different from that which is in vogue in its society. If unconverted men lay their hands upon your shoulders to hail you as one of themselves, begin to question in your own heart whether you are truly living as one of the citizens of the New Jerusalem. This Citizenship is a Matter of Birthright. In a memorable moment, when the Apostle had been delivered from his foes, he asserted his right to be interrogated without scourging, on the ground of his being a Roman citizen. The chief captain was immediately informed and hastened to his side. "A Roman? With great price I obtained this right! .... Ah!" the Apostle said, "but I was freeborn, my birth carried with it the right of citizenship." Yes, and the residence of a thousand years in Heaven would not make us more certainly citizens of the New Jerusalem, than we are at this moment, if we are born from above. Grant that we still live on this side of the veil which hides the transient from the enduring, the temporal from the eternal, the seen from the unseen, yet, so soon as we are regenerate of the Holy Spirit, in the first moment of our new life, we become enrolled in the list of burgesses, we have the franchise of the New Jerusalem given to us, our names are entered upon its directory. Though as yet we have not taken up the right, and entered into the enjoyment of all that awaits us, we have, nevertheless, the right to enter in through the gate into the city. This may not help you much now, but, I pray you, meditate on it for a few moments daily, and you will find it becoming a growing force to withdraw you from the things of this world, and to attach you to the things of the other world; you will come to reckon that you must set your affection on that city to which you belong, that you must lay up your treasures there where neither moth nor rust corrupt, and that you must regulate your conduct by the regulations that rule in that city. Every regenerate person, by the fact of the new birth, has obtained the franchise of the City of God. To Belong to that City should be a Matter of Joy and Pride. Athens was the glory of Greece, and though the smaller states and cities were in perpetual conflict, every Greek was proud of her peerless beauty and culture. The citizen of Rome, traveling afar, bore himself as a stronger, prouder man, because he could say, "I am a Roman." And if we could really see things as they are, and disentangle ourselves from the net of the material, there is nothing of which we should be more proud, than to belong to that great commonwealth which includes all pure and holy souls of every age, and which shall stand when all cities and politics, all thrones and empires have disappeared, as the foam on the wave that bears it. Men speak of Rome as the eternal city. She has no right to that title. There is only one eternal city, because its foundations cannot be impaired by revolution or change; because its walls are founded on God's eternal covenant of truth; and because all its laws and regulations are based upon the principles of eternal truth. From out of those city gates proceed the angels to all parts of the universe, but they return to it, as the metropolis of life. Thither the kings and princes of science, of literature, of music, of art bring their treasures. The saints of every age find their home there. Her light is brighter than the sun's; there is no temple because God is her Temple; her river is the Holy Spirit of God; her flowers are of amaranth; her streets are of gold; her walls of jasper; her gates of pearl; God Himself is her architect and King. Who may not be rightly proud to belong to such a city! The Goths who conquered the Roman Empire for God broke upon it like an avalanche from another world; and because they were so utterly indifferent to its attractions, they were easily able to overcome it. Who can overcome the world, but those who have our faith--the faith which detaches from this world, because it attaches us to the unseen and eternal, in God and His Christ? The Church of God will never be able to conquer the world so long as she is part of it, but only as she comes on the world from the sphere above it, with the impulse and impetus of those who believe that their city lies beyond the stars. We are to Walk Worthy of It. The Apostle says that there were men in that time who professed the Cross, but who were "enemies of the Cross." Neither Paine nor Voltaire ever inflicted such awful havoc on the religion of Jesus Christ as those false professors who have borne His name, but been destitute of His grace and power. Such men, the Apostle says, mind earthly things. They were made to face God like kings, but they are always rooting in the earth like swine; their ambitions are limited by the horizon of time and sense. They glory in things of which they ought to be ashamed; appetite is their God, and destruction their end. A story is told of a man of wealth who was taking his friend round his magnificent mansion, in which a spacious chamber was dedicated to be a chapel. The visitor, who thought of little else than good living, on entering the chapel, said: "What a magnificent kitchen this would make." Whereupon his host replied: "You are mistaken, this is not a kitchen; when I have made my belly my God, then I will make my chapel my kitchen, but not before." How many men there are whose one thought is set on eating and drinking, and the gratification of sensual appetite. There is no chapel in their life, it is all kitchen. We must Keep an Eye upon the City Gates. That word whence, by the peculiar construction of the Greek does not refer to the heavens, but to the city gate. It is a very tender and fragrant thought that whilst transacting our business on the lowlands of earth, we may ever keep our eye on the city gate into which He entered, whom we love, and through which He will most certainly come again as a Saviour. "Whence, also, we look for the Saviour," "He shall come the second time without sin unto salvation." In these dark and dreadful days the Church needs to turn with unceasing hope towards the Second Advent. Oh! when will those pearly gates open! When will that cavalcade issue forth! When through the dim haze will the Lord come, riding upon His white horse, and followed by the army of Heaven! Come quickly, come quickly, O Saviour of men, who by Thy first coming didst put away our sin, and by Thy second coming will put the crown on the work of salvation by raising and changing our mortal body! Our Vile Body. In the old version we read our vile body. When Archbishop Whately was dying, he asked his chaplain to read to him. The chaplain took up this paragraph reading it as it stands in the A.V. "Stop," said the Archbishop, "not 'vile body', if you please, but body of our humiliation." The body is not vile in the ordinary significance of the word, because Jesus bore it, because His blood purchased it, because the Spirit makes it His Temple, and because it has been so often the medium by which holy impressions have gone forth to others. Not vile; but the body of our humiliation, because it cramps, confines, and limits us; it needs sleep and food; it retains in its very organism the impression of past sins; it is a clanking chain, that holds us down when we would fain rise, so that one understands something of what chained eagles feel, when they fret against the iron bars of their cage, and pine to soar on outspread pinions to the sun. "The body of our humiliation," but it shall be transfigured. It shall rise from its dust, and shall be changed in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, into the likeness of "the body of His glory." We stand upon the transfiguration mount, and behold the body of His glory. We wait with Mary at the open grave, and see the body of His glory. Finally, from the Ascension Mount, we follow the body of His glory, and behold it, shining as the sun. It seems impossible to believe that one day we shall be like Him, and that our mortal shall be radiant with immortality like His. How Shall It Be? How shall these things be? There is but one answer. "By the working whereby he is able to subdue all things unto Himself." Say this over and over again. When the devil is strong, when passion rages, when you cannot be the man you would when it seems as though the world were hopelessly corrupt and the wrongs of time refuse to be adjusted, repeat these words to yourself, as a sweet refrain: "The power by which He is able to subdue all things unto Himself." Oh, take to Thyself Thy great power and reign! Begin now with obdurate wills, with proud and evil hearts, with indomitable pride, with passion and lust. Subdue these, O Christ, and cause us to be transfigured in the spirit, that whilst in the body of humiliation, we may live worthily of our citizenship, and ultimately rise to the immortal. The Joy of the Coming. It is said that as the cattle, which may have been greatly demoralized by the tossing of the vessel and the discomfort of their quarters, draw near land, at the end of a tedious voyage, and scent the breeze which comes over the ship laden with the fragrance of the dover, the effect is immediate, they begin to revive, and toss their heads as though they were keenly conscious that the voyage was almost over, and that the familiar pasture-lands were within reach. So should we look with reviving hope for the coming of Christ, who will put down all rule and authority and power, will subdue all things to Himself, and complete our salvation which begins with the forgiveness and deliverance from the curse, which proceeds to the ever deepening emancipation from the power of corruption, and which will end when this body of humiliation is delivered from the last remains and traces of the fall, and raised in the perfect beauty of the everlasting morning. Is it wonderful that in the first verse of the following chapter, the Apostle turns to the Philippians as his "beloved and longed for brethren," and bids them stand fast? The vision and hope of future glory, when these mortal bodies shall be conformed to the Body of the glory of our Risen Lord, and when the privileges of our heavenly citizenship shall be fully realised, were surely enough to hold them steady as the anchor holds the ship. By all the promises that had been made to them, by all the hopes they cherished, by all the glory which was already flushing the horizon, he urged them to stand fast in the Lord, watching that they should not lose their reward, and waiting until the fulness of the times should bring in the fulness of their redemption. (F. B. Meyer. The Epistle to the Philippians - A Devotional Commentary) Philippians 3:21 who will transform (3SFAI) the body of our humble state into conformity with the body of His glory, by the exertion of the power (PPN) that He has even to subject (AAN) all things to Himself (NASB: Lockman) Greek: os metaschematisei (3SFAI) to soma tes tapeinoseos hemon summorphon to somati tes doxes autou kata ten energeian tou dunasthai (PPN) auton kai hupotaxai (AAN) auto ta panta. Amplified: Who will gtransform and fashion anew the body of our humiliation to conform to and be like the body of His glory and majesty, by exerting that power which enables Him even to subject everything to Himself (Amplified Bible - Lockman) Lightfoot: who shall change the fleeting fashion of these bodies—the bodies of our earthly humiliation—so that they shall take the abiding form of his own body—the body of his risen glory: for such is the working of the mighty power whereby he is able to subdue all things alike unto himself. Phillips: He will re-make these wretched bodies of ours to resemble his own glorious body, by that power of his which makes him the master of everything that is. (Phillips: Touchstone) Wuest: who shall transform this body of ours which has been humiliated [by the presence of indwelling sin and by death and decay], so that it will be conformed to His body of His glory, this in accordance with the operation of Him who is able to bring into subjection to himself all things. (Eerdmans) Young's Literal: who shall transform the body of our humiliation to its becoming conformed to the body of his glory, according to the working of his power, even to subject to himself the all things. WHO WILL TRANSFORM THE BODY OF OUR HUMBLE STATE: os metaschematisei (3SFAI) to soma tes tapeinoseos hemon: (1Co 15:42, 43, 44, 48-54) (See Dr John Macarthur's exposition "Reaching for the Prize") Christ is not only the Savior of our soul but also the Savior of our body, as Paul explains in this passage. Believers have assurance of the forgiveness of our sins because of His death and assurance of our future resurrection and glorification of our bodies because of His resurrection. Hallelujah! Paul appears to be speaking especially of the Rapture (rather than the Second Coming) and the transformation that will take place in the twinkling of an eye, although a few commentators do refer this event to the Second Coming. (See related topic Table comparing Rapture vs Second Coming) Dwight Pentecost reminds us that... Because God has an eternal purpose for this physical body, it is important how we treat it and how we use it now. That is the argument of the apostle as he deals with an important doctrinal problem concerning the Philippians. The Philippians are giving ear to false teachers who are leading them to licentiousness. Because they despise the law of God and the holiness of God as revealed in the Mosaic Law, they have concluded that they can live as they please... Paul’s defense against the perversions that are being practiced by these lawless ones in Philippi is to remind them of the destiny of this human body. (Pentecost, J. D. The Joy of Living: A study of Philippians. Kregel Publications) "Copy and paste the address below into your web browser in order to go to the original page which will allow you to access live links related to the material on this page - these links include Scriptures (which can be read in context), Scripture pop-ups on mouse over, and a variety of related resources such as Bible dictionary articles, commentaries, sermon notes and theological journal articles related to the topic under discussion." http://www.preceptaustin.org/philippians_320-21.htm#Eagerly%20wait

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Wait eagerly (553) apekdechomai

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