Of whom the whole family in heaven and earth is named,
The whole family. Middleton, Ellicott, etc., translate, 'every family'-alluding to the several families in heaven and in earth supposed to exist (Theophylact) - the apostle thus implying that God, as Father to us His adopted children, is the Prototype of the paternal relation wherever found. But the idea that 'the holy angels are bound up in spiritual families or compaternities,' is found nowhere else in Scripture. Acts 2:36, where the article is in most of the oldest manuscript omitted, yet the translation is, "all the house of Israel;" also Ephesians 2:21, "all the building" х pasa (G3956) oikodomee (G3619): without the article], show that in New Testament Greek the translation is justifiable, 'all the family,' or "the whole family." Nouns referring to what is well known and defined, like proper names, can omit the article. Scripture views angels and men, the saints militant and those with God, as 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 our "brethren" (Revelation 19:10), and "sons of God" by creation, as we by adoption (Job 38:7). The Church is part of the grand family, which comprehends, besides men, the 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 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 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 - derive their origin and their name as sons of our heavenly Father х Patria (G3965), from Pater (G3962)]. To bear God's name is to belong to God as His special people (Numbers 6:27; Isaiah 43:7; Isaiah 44:5; Romans 9:25-26).