The Epistle of St. Paul to the Ephesians
By Michael Ferrebee Sadler
[Spelling selectively modernized. Bible citations converted to all Arabic numerals. Footnotes moved into or near their places of citation.]
Introduction.
Authenticity
The Epistle to the Ephesians has been accepted from the first by the Church as written by St. Paul.
It is quoted by an author living as early as the last decade of the first century, Clement of Rome, who, in his first Epistle (chapter xlvi.), writes: “Have we not all one God, and one Christ? Is there not one Spirit of grace poured out upon us? And have we not one calling in Christ?”
Polycarp (at the beginning of the second century) writes: “By grace ye are saved, not of works” (chapter i.).
He also quotes it as Scripture in chapter xii. “It is declared then in these Scriptures: ‘Be ye angry, and sin not,’ and ‘Let not the sun go down on your wrath.’”
Ignatius to Ephesians, i., says: “Being the followers of God” – lit. imitators (μιμηται), same word as in Eph. 5:1, also, “Him Who gave himself for us, an offering and sacrifice to God.”
Ignatius to Polycarp, ch. v., writes: “ In like manner, also, exhort my brethren, in the name of Jesus Christ, that they love their wives even as the Lord the Church.”
Justin Martyr. This father (A.D. 140) three times quotes St. Paul’s rendering of Psalm 68:18, which is not according to either the Hebrew or Septuagint. The words are these: “He ascended on high, He led captivity captive, He gave gifts to men.” In both Hebrew and Septuagint we read: “Thou hast ascended,” etc., “Thou hast received gifts in man.”
Irenaeus (A.D. 180) against Heresies, i. 8, 5. “This also Paul says: ‘For whatsoever doth make manifest is light.’” Also, v. 2, 3: “As the blessed Paul says, in his Epistle to the Ephesians, ‘For we are members of his body, of his flesh, and of his bones.’”
In an index to Irenaeus, I see that the Epistle to the Ephesians is referred to by him about thirty times.
The Muratorian Canon says: “Cum beatus Apostolus Paulus, sequens prodecessoris sui Johannis ordinem, nonnisi nominatim septem Ecclesiis scribat ordine tali: ad Corinthios (prima), ad Ephesios (secunda), ad Philippenses (tertia),” etc.
Clement of Alexandria (end of second century) quotes or refers to the Epistle to the Ephesians nearly sixty times. In book iii., chapter xii. of the Pedagogue he quotes verbatim almost all the latter part of chapter 4, beginning with “putting away lying”.
Tertullian (end of second century) quotes the Epistle to the Ephesians above fifty times in his work against Marcion, and above seventy times in his other works. In chapter xvii. of his fifth book he takes notice of the attempt made by Marcion to show that this Epistle was written to the Laodiceans: “We have it on the true tradition of the Church that this Epistle was sent to the Ephesians, not to the Laodiceans. Marcion, however, was very desirous of giving it the new title, as if he were extremely accurate in investigating such a point.”
The Epistle, then, was accepted by the Church from the first, and has continued to be so received to the present times. In this century some German critics, relying only on the conjectures of their own imagination, and setting aside as beneath their notice such testimonies of the first, second, and third centuries as are adduced above, say that they discover in it language and ideas which they pronounce to be not Pauline, and consider it to be the work of some pupil of St. Paul’s, who has contrived to impose upon the Church, as genuine, a forgery; and this for no apparent reason, for there is no doctrine of this Epistle which is not set forth more fully in other Epistles. The doctrine of Election, for instance, is more fully discussed in the Epistle to the Romans; the doctrine of Salvation by grace, through faith, in the Epistles to the Galatians and Romans; the truth that the Church is the Body of Christ, in the Epistles to the Corinthians and Romans; the depravity of human nature, in the Epistle to the Romans; the equality of Jews and Gentiles in Christ pervades the Romans and Galatians; the moral and evangelical precepts, though sometimes expressed in different language, are the same precisely as those in other epistles: so that no reason of any sort can be assigned for the forgery. Besides, the absurdity of forging an epistle to such a Christian community as that of Ephesus and the neighbouring cities! They would have at once known that they had never received such a letter, and would have denounced it.
It should be remembered that these German destructive critics live 1800 years after the publication and reception of these New Testament documents. Their conduct is as absurd as it would be for critics 1800 years hence – that is, in 3600 – putting us down as deceived respecting the authorship of the theological books written less than a century ago.
The Christians of the first two or three centuries were perfectly familiar with the fact that there were such things as apocryphal and spurious books then in circulation, and they kept them distinct from the Canon. The whole history of Eusebius bears witness to their care in receiving no book unless well authenticated. [De Wette’s allegations against the genuineness of this epistle because of its language and ideas being different from that of St. Paul’s, are well handled in Dean Alford’s “Prolegomena,” of which I beg leave to give the following outline. “It is either a genuine production of the Apostle or a forgery. If a forgery, a most successful one, for it has imposed on the subapostolic age, and on the Church ever since. We have then a right to expect in it the phenomena of successful forgery: close imitation, skillful avoidance of aught which might seem unlike him whose name it bears, and avoidance of everything unpauline. But the whole of De Wette’s reasoning assumes the exact opposite of what a forger would do. The Epistle is to him unpauline both in diction and ideas. Now this might be a good reason for believing an anonymous writing not to be St. Paul’s, but it is no reason why a forgery bearing his name should have been successful. On the contrary, its unpauline diction and ideas would have caused it to be immediately detected, not only in Ephesus, where he had so long laboured, but by all the readers of his other epistles when they were collected and in the hands of the Church generally.”]
Date and Place of Writing.
The date of the writing of this Epistle is mixed up with the ascertainment of the place in which it was written. It was written during the time when St. Paul was a prisoner. Now he was in custody, more or less strict, from the time he was put in bonds by the chief captain (Acts 21:33), about 58 or 59, to his release, after his imprisonment in Rome, about A.D. 63. His confinement, when he was at Caesarea, seems to have been by no means strict. It is described in Acts 24:23: “He commanded a centurion to keep Paul, and to let him have liberty, and that he should forbid none of his acquaintance to minister or come to him; “but when at Rome he was suffered to dwell by himself with a soldier that kept him (Acts 28:16). To this soldier he was chained, one end of a chain being fastened to his wrist, and the other to the soldier’s. To this he alludes in Acts 28:20. But during the time he was in Rome – at least, the greater part of it – he had more liberty to preach than what he had in Caesarea, for there, on account of the enmity of the Jews, only his acquaintances, i.e., personal friends, were permitted to visit him, whereas in Rome he “preached the kingdom of God, and taught those things which concern the Lord Jesus,” most probably in a large room in his own hired house.
Now this latter fact makes it exceedingly probable, if not absolutely certain, that he wrote the Epistle from Rome; for in Eph. 6:19 he asks the Ephesians to pray for him, “that utterance may be given unto him, that he may open his mouth boldly to make known the mystery of the Gospel, for which he was an ambassador in bonds.” He could not have asked their prayers for this when only personal friends were allowed to see him; but he could when he was in a place where all could come unto him, and he could preach the kingdom of God to all.
This seems to me to put out of the question any writing from Caesarea. But another and also powerful argument is that assuming, as in fact is certain, that the Epistles to the Ephesians and Colossians were written at the same time, he had about him his chief companions, Tychicus, Aristarchus, Marcus, Zenas, Epaphras, Luke, and Demas. Now it is exceedingly improbable that these were with him in Caesarea, though Lucas joined him as he embarked, and Aristarchus also was in the ship. And in the Epistle to Philemon, four of these are described as his fellow labourers – a name which could hardly be given to them when he himself was shut up from labouring as he was able to do in Rome.
Another argument for assigning Rome to be the place is that Onesimus is sent with Tychicus, when he bore the Epistle to the Colossians to Colosse. Now he carried at the same time St. Paul’s letter to his master, Philemon, in which St. Paul desires Philemon to prepare him a lodging, as he trusted that through his prayers he should be given to him. He could not possibly have written this from Caesarea, as he had then before him his imprisonment in Rome, as his Lord Himself had assured him (Acts 23:11).
There can be no doubt, then, that the Epistle was written during his imprisonment at Rome, that is, between A.D. 60 and 63; but at what time during those two or three years is uncertain.
To What Church Was the Epistle Written?
This question need not have been raised, except for the omission of “in Ephesus,” found in two Uncial MSS., and one Cursive, and the fact that some fathers – Basil and Origen – consulted MSS. in which the words, “in Ephesus” were not to be found.
If the Epistle was addressed to any one Church, it must have been to that of Ephesus; but the omission of the words is taken as signifying that the Epistle was encyclical, and that in some manuscripts, copied immediately after the reception of the Epistle, the words εν Εφέσω were omitted, and a blank space left to be filled up by the name of the Church to which the copy was forwarded. We will notice a few points in the contents of the Epistle, which seem to some to indicate that this was the fact.
Chapter 1:15 has been supposed to imply that he had only heard of their conversion by hearsay, or he would hardly have written, “I also, after I heard of your faith ... and love”; but the Apostle here cannot be thought to allude to their conversion, but to their continuance in faith and love.
The Apostle having been in confinement for three years or more before he wrote this, could only have heard of the faith and love of the Ephesians through report. And it seems as if he could not have written this of the Churches of a large district, but only of one Church, and that the principal one, in which he had personally laboured so long.
2. Then it is said that in this Epistle there are no salutations at the end, which it is assumed there would have been if it was written to a Church in which he must have known so many. But the use of such an argument is to me surprising, for of the nine letters of the Apostle written to Churches, no less than six or, in fact, seven are without salutations. There are none in the two Epistles to the Corinthians; none in that to the Galatians; none in the two to the Thessalonians; none in this; and though two or three names are mentioned in the last chapter of the Epistle to the Philippians, no salutations are sent to particular persons. So that, if we may judge by his letters that are extant, it was not the Apostle’s rule to send particular greetings. And if it be urged that he had laboured long among them, and must have had many to whom he was personally attached, we reply that exactly the same thing was true of the Corinthian, Galatian, and Thessalonian Churches, to whom no particular salutations are sent. Besides this, the very great number of persons who had had the privilege of his personal ministrations (Acts 20:20, 31) would probably prevent him singling out particular persons. And if we add that Tychicus, who brought the letter to them, had a special order to declare to them personal matters relating to himself (Eph. 6:21), it is most probable that he sent special salutations through him by word of mouth.
Upon the whole, giving the most ample significance to the difference of reading (the omission of εν Εφέσω), the fact seems to have been that he undoubtedly sent the original letter to the Ephesian Church, inscribed to “the saints which are in Ephesus,” but that he gave directions that copies should be sent to the churches in the neighbourhood; and that from these copies the words, “in Ephesus,” were omitted, as supposed to be unsuitable, and from some of these copies the omission in the MSS., א and B, and in the copies mentioned by Basil, had its origin. It seems extremely improbable that he would send a letter with so many personal references in it without an inscription, and yet containing the participle τοις ουσιν (“which are”), which seems to demand the name of a place, which place could be originally no other than Ephesus.
Another question before we conclude. The Colossian Christians are directed to send the Epistle which St. Paul wrote to them to the Laodiceans, and to receive in return, and read, some letter from Laodicea. This could not possibly be a letter written by the Laodicean Church, but must have been some letter of St. Paul’s. Was it, then, some letter which has been lost, or was it this Epistle to the Ephesians which had been sent to the Laodicean Church? I believe the latter. Laodicea was comparatively near to Colosse, and both at a considerable distance from Ephesus. It was natural, then, that if a copy of the Ephesian Epistle had been sent to Laodicea by St. Paul’s direction, that he should order the Colossians to send for it, and send theirs to Laodicea.
For What Purpose Was It Written?
The more carefully we read the Epistle, the more plain it seems that St. Paul had one object in writing it, and that was to set forth the truth that the Church was “one body in Christ”.
The Unity of the Church is not Unity in doctrine only, or Unity in sentiment, or Unity in organization, or Unity in hope, or in love, or in profession, but Unity in Christ as the Mystical Body of which He is the Head. It may be said that the Epistle was written to set forth the mystery contained in the two words, “IN CHRIST”. The election, the predestination, the forgiveness, the exaltation, the sealing, the vivifying, the new creating, the bringing near, the union of the two divisions of mankind, the reconciling of all to God, the building of the spiritual temple, are all “in Christ”. In Him is the calling, in Him is the Unity of Spirit, faith, Baptism. In Him are the gifts of the ministry: He is the Head from which the whole body maketh increase. In Him they have been taught; Him they have to be clothed with. Because in Him they are members one of another, they have to put away lying. They have to be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another even as God IN Christ had forgiven them.
In the latter part of the fifth chapter, even the home duties of families are based upon the relation of Christians to Christ, as members of His Body. Wives are to be subject to their husbands because the husband is the head of the wife, as Christ is the Head of the Church, and the Saviour of the Body – that is, the mystical Body. Husbands are to love their wives as Christ loved the Church, Who gave Himself for her that He might sanctify her, and cleanse her in Baptism. And, lastly, the original mystery of marriage: the wife being taken out of the flesh of the husband, is appealed to, as illustrating the union of Christ with His Church.
Such is the teaching of the Epistle. All is founded upon being in Christ, as if it was the Apostle’s one idea. And, as he treats it, it is worthy of being such, for under it is comprehended all our relations to God, and all our relations to our brethren.
Chapter 1
1:1. Paul, an apostle of Jesus Christ by [2 Cor. 1:1. Rom. 1:7.] the will of God, to [2 Cor. 1:1.] the saints which are at Ephesus, and [1 Cor. 4:17. Eph. 6:21. Col. 1:2.] to the faithful in Christ Jesus:
1. “At Ephesus.” So A, D, E, F, G, K, L, P, all Cursives but one (67**), Ital., Vulg.; but omitted by א, B, and apparently not read by Origen. There is a long note on the reading in Westcott and Hort’s “New Testament in Greek,” vol. ii. p. 123. The readings from the Fathers are given more fully in Tischendorf, eighth edition.
1. “Paul, an Apostle of Jesus Christ by the will of God.” “By the will of God.” This has not the same signification as the “not of men, neither by man,” of Galatians 1:1. He had no need in writing this Epistle to assert his unique and independent Apostleship. It seems rather to mean that, notwithstanding his early life and his attachment to an obsolete system, God chose him to be an Apostle.
“To the saints which are at Ephesus.” It is very difficult in this our day to realize that “saints” here means Christians; not Christians indeed, or true Christians only, but simply baptized professing Christians. Our hesitation about this arises from the disbelief so widely spread amongst us in this day that Baptism is a holy rite, ordained by God to admit us into a holy fellowship – the mystical Body of Christ. And yet we must make every excuse for those who, because of the lives of the great body of the baptized, have this difficulty. It was felt as early as the time of Chrysostom, who writes, “Observe whom he calls saints, men with wives, and children, and domestics. For that these are they whom he calls by this name is plain from the end of the Epistle, as, e.g., when he says, ‘Wives, submit yourselves to your own husbands.’ And again, ‘Children, obey your parents,’ and, ‘servants, be obedient to your masters.’ Think how great is the indolence that now possesses us, how rare is anything like virtue, how great the abundance of virtuous men must there have been, when even secular men could be called saints and faithful.”
“Saints” means persons dedicated to God. In the religion of St. Paul’s youth, the religion of Moses, and Joshua, and Samuel, and David (which was his religion to the end, though regenerated and spiritualized), priests and temples and vessels even were sanctified, and so the Christians to whom he writes were sanctified to be priests of God, temples of the Holy Ghost, vessels made to honour. Nothing, we should think (if we did not know the perversity of human nature) would be more likely to bring men to their senses in spiritual matters than the thought that they are in any sense dedicated to God.
“At Ephesus.” For the doubt which some have cast on the reality of these words, see Introduction.
“And to the faithful in Christ Jesus.” Faithful here means believers – believers in what afterwards was called the Catholic Faith – the truth revealed by God respecting His Son as the Eternal Word, His own Son, made man, crucified, risen, and ascended. (Rom. 1:1–3; 1 Cor. 15:1–10, Phil. 2:5–10; 1 Tim. 3:16.) The word also signifies at times faithful to the belief professed, but it cannot mean so in this place, for in many places of this very Epistle St. Paul assumes that some to whom he writes might not be thus faithful, for he warns them against lying, uncleanness, fornication, and such like sins.
“In Christ Jesus.” In Him in that unspeakably mysterious way which the Lord first alludes to in John 6:56, “He that eateth my Flesh and drinketh my Blood, dwelleth in me and I in him”; and again in the same Gospel, John 15:1–6, in the parable of the vine and the branches.
1:2. Grace [Gal. 1:3. Titus 1:4.] be to you, and peace, from God our Father, and from the Lord Jesus Christ.
2. “Grace be to you, and peace, from God our Father, and from the Lord Jesus Christ.” Grace, i.e., kindness and favour, not merely in the breast of God, but proceeding from Him to us in the shape of spiritual life and power to crucify sin and love Him.
“And peace.” Peace not only with Him, but with one another, for discord and quarrelling and divisions separate us from God, and prevent us from realizing His peace within us.
“From God our Father, and from the Lord Jesus Christ.” This is one of those many places which by implication assert the Godhead of the Son as distinctly as if He was in them called God. Who is this Jesus Christ? He is One at the side of God, so as to be along with His Father the fountain of grace.
1:3. Blessed *be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who hath blessed us with all spiritual blessings in heavenly **places in Christ: [*2 Cor. 1:3. 1 Peter 1:3. | **Or, things, Eph. 6:12.]
3. “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.” “I ascend unto my Father and your Father, and to my God and your God.”
“Who hath blessed us with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ.” Rather “who blessed us.” This seems to intimate a particular time when God thus blessed us in Christ; and no doubt if we give due attention to the latter verses of this chapter, we shall acknowledge that this time was that of the exaltation of Christ. For the Apostle says, “What is the exceeding greatness of his power to usward who believe, according to the working of his mighty power which he wrought in Christ, when he raised him from the dead, and set him at his own right hand in the heavenly places.”
“In heavenly places” – “In the heavenlies”. Some take this as supralocal, as in the bosom of Deity, but if we take into full account in “Christ Jesus,” as in a living Divine Mediator, is it not parallel to “your life is hid with Christ in God,” “Ye are complete in Him who is the head of all principality and power” (Col. 2:10, 3:3.)?
1:4. According as *he hath chosen us in him **before the foundation of the world, that we should ***be holy and without blame before him in love: [*Rom. 8:28. 2 Thess. 2:13. 2 Tim. 1:9. James 2:5. 1 Peter. 1:2, 2:9. | ** 1 Peter 1:2, 20. | ***Luke 1:75. Eph. 2:10, 5:27; Col. 1:22. 1 Thess. 4:7. Titus 2:12. | “Without blame”; without blemish, a sacrificial term. See Lev. 1:3.]
4–5. “According as he hath chosen us in him before the foundation of the world ... having predestinated us,” etc. We now come to some statements of the Apostle in which he employs predestinarian language, and that, no doubt, as the expression of predestinarian ideas.
Now the question arises, why did he employ this language in writing to the Ephesian Christians, or how came he to entertain the ideas which these predestinarian terms embody? Was the doctrine of predestination peculiar to him, or indeed was it his specialty? There are many Christian interpreters who seem to think that it was, but the mistake is surprising, for our Lord expresses the whole truth in very absolute terms in John 15:16, “Ye have not chosen me, but I have chosen you, and ordained you, that ye should bring forth fruit, and that your fruit should remain.” And St. Peter commences his Epistle with precisely the same predestinarian terms as St. Paul does (1 Peter 1:2, etc.).
St. Paul uses this predestinarian language and entertained these ideas because he was a Jew, and thoroughly believed in the Old Testament as the expression of the will and purposes of God. If it be further asked, why does he use this language in writing to Gentiles, we answer, it was because by far the greater part of the Scriptures of his Gentile converts consisted of the Book of the Old Testament. Every Epistle seems to take for granted that the Book of the Old Covenant was in the hands of the members of the Church. In all probability the Ephesian converts had only one of the four Gospels – that according to St. Luke. It was very doubtful whether any of the Epistles of the Apostle to local churches, such as those to the Romans, Corinthians, and Galatians, had been transcribed and circulated among the churches generally. The Gospels and Epistles of St. John and the Apocalypse were not yet written, so that the Ephesian Converts were thrown back mainly on the Old Testament for their spiritual edification.
Now we scarcely realize how completely the Old Testament is a Predestinarian Book. The keynote is struck in Deut. 7:6, “Thou art an holy people unto the Lord thy God: the Lord thy God hath chosen thee to be a special people unto himself, above all people that are upon the face of the earth. The Lord did not set his love upon you, nor chose you because ye were more in number ... etc. But because the Lord loved you, and because he would keep the oath which he had sworn unto your fathers.”
Now the whole of the Old Testament, with perhaps the exception of the book of Job, proceeds on these lines. The history is that of no common nation, but of a chosen people. Their very reverses are the chastisements of a nation whom God had chosen to be His peculiar people. Their national songs are those of an elect race. Their prophets are sent, not to preach to the heathen, but to bring back to God those whom He claimed as His own. The most important prophet begins his prophecy with, “I have nourished and brought up children and they have rebelled against me.” (Isaiah 1:2.) And the last prophet opens with, “I have loved you, saith the Lord, Yet ye say, Wherein hast thou loved us? Was not Esau Jacob’s brother? saith the Lord: yet I loved Jacob, and I hated Esau, and laid his mountains and his heritage waste for the dragons of the wilderness.” (Mal. 1:1–3.) Again, all through the Psalms and the Prophets it is “Jacob my chosen,” “Israel mine elect”.
Now this, with the exception of one Gospel and perhaps an Epistle or two, was the Bible of the Apostolic Christians. The book of God’s promises seemed to witness to these Gentiles their own exclusion. All through it the children of Abraham were the chosen, the beloved, the children, whereas the Gentiles (and amongst them, of course, those of Ephesus,) the unchosen, the unloved, the strangers. How was this to be met? It is very remarkable how St. Paul in this chapter meets it. He puts from himself all the tokens of God’s election on which, before his conversion, he had relied: his descent from Abraham, Isaac, and Israel, and from Benjamin, his circumcision, his Ultra Judaism, his blamelessness in the matter of the law. Whatever gain these might have been he counts them but loss; and he fixes the hopes of his own election and of those of his countrymen who believed, on the fact that God had given him to believe in the Seed to Whom, in reality, He had made the promises (Gal. 3:16–29). And this goodwill of God towards him was no matter of yesterday. It was settled by God before the foundation of the world, and its purpose was that he and his countrymen, co-believers with him, should be “holy and without blame before him in love”. So that he pronounces his own election, and those of his converts, to be the same – an election not in Abraham as the forefather of the chosen race, but in Christ, in Whom all the families of the earth should be blessed – in Christ, in Whom there is neither Jew nor Greek, but He is all and in all. Now let the reader remember that the Apostle could not say anything higher, anything more endearing than this. The terms in which God sets forth His love to His people are not addressed to individuals, but to the elect body. “The Lord hath chosen Zion to be an habitation for himself, he hath longed for her. This shall be my rest forever, here will I dwell, for I have a delight therein.” (Psa. 132:13–14.)
So that, in these predestinarian words, the Apostle says to the Ephesians: You are partakers on equal terms with me in the highest blessings which a creature can receive. God hath chosen me to be an instrument of His greatest purposes; to this end He hath called me out of the mass of my countrymen to believe in His Son, and He hath called you out of the unbelieving mass of your countrymen to believe in the same Son. We are both chosen in Christ. And this was no afterthought on God’s part. It was no outcome of present circumstances, conceived yesterday and annulled tomorrow. It was settled by Him from the first. “Known unto God are all his works from the beginning of the world” (Acts 15:18). Just as He preordained the coming of His Son, so He preordained in Him His Church. And if He has made His word to come effectually to you, He has preordained you to be in that Church, and so to be instruments of His purposes.
Now, if the Calvinist says, This does not suit me, I must have something more absolute, something more philosophical, something more independent of Old Testament ideas of nation and Church than this: then we retort, You must go to someone besides St. Paul for it, for he earnestly desires to connect the present with the past. But if you will have something more abstract, you have it in St. Paul’s words: “Who maketh thee to differ from another, and what hast thou that thou didst not receive? Now if thou didst receive it, why dost thou glory as if thou hadst not received it (but didst endow thyself with it)? “Now this is the great general truth, that all creatures are what they are through the will of God, and that this will is not a thing of today or yesterday, but was distinctly in the mind of God during past ages. Such must be the truth of things if God has not left all things to chance, but has a plan foreseen and preordained which will make known to the universe the wisdom and goodness of His purposes (Eph. 3:9–10).
Such is the Election set forth in this Epistle. I have not brought out the other side of it – that we have to respond to all this, to justify God’s goodness, to continue in the vine of His grace (John 15:1–10, Rom. 11:17–22), and such things. We shall have abundant opportunities for this as we go on.
“That we should be holy and without blame before him in love.” This is the safeguard of this holy truth. We are not chosen to faith only, that we should be merely believers, but “that we should be holy and without blame before him in love.” Chrysostom’s remarks are exceedingly good: “That you may not imagine then, when you hear that He hath chosen us, that faith alone is sufficient, he proceeds to add life and conduct. To this end, saith he, hath He chosen us, and on this condition, that we should be holy, and without blame. And so, formerly, He chose the Jews. On what terms? This nation, saith he, hath He chosen from the rest of the nations. Now if men in their choices choose what is best, much more doth God. And, indeed, the fact of their being chosen is at once a token of the loving kindness of God, and of their moral goodness. For, doubtless, He chose them as approved. He hath Himself rendered us holy, but then we must continue holy. A holy man is he who is a partaker of faith. A blameless man is he who leads an irreproachable life. It is not, however, simply holiness and irreproachableness that He requires, but that we should appear such before Him. For there are holy and blameless characters, who yet are esteemed as such only by men – those who are like whited sepulchers, and like such as wear sheep’s clothing. It is not such, however, He requires, but such as the prophet speaks of: ‘And according to the cleanness of my hands’. What cleanness? That which is so in His eyesight. He requires that holiness on which the eye of God may look.” If it be answered that God requires absolute holiness and blamelessness, we answer, No. He does not require that which is impossible as long as our flesh is unrenewed. He requires simplicity and godly sincerity. He requires carefulness, watchfulness, and humility.
“In love.” Some take this “in love” with the next verse, “Having in his love predestinated us”. But such was the stress which St. Paul laid on love as the Christian grace that the great probability is he would associate it with holiness and blamelessness – holiness of character, blamelessness of conduct, and love as the first fruit of the Spirit, without which no other grace was acceptable (1 Cor. 13).
1:5. *Having predestinated us unto **the adoption of children by Jesus Christ to himself, ***according to the good pleasure of his will, [*Rom. 8:29–30. Eph. 1:11. | **John 1:12. Rom. 8:15. 2 Cor. 6:18. Gal. 4:5. 1 John 3:1. | ***Matt. 11:26. Luke 12:32. 1 Cor. 1:21. Eph. 1:9.]
5. “Having predestinated us unto the adoption of children by Christ Jesus,” etc. This is an amplification of the preceding. He chose us, having predestinated us. The choosing and the predestinating are, in the Divine Mind, independent of time. All is one act in God. Is there any difference in the ideas of election and predestination? Yes. Election is choosing out of a number, whereas predestination is God’s determining long beforehand to do this.
“To the adoption of children by Jesus Christ to himself.” “The adoption of children” or “of sons” is, in the Greek, comprehended in the one word υιοθεσία. To this adoption we are predestinated, not in Adam, not in Abraham, but in Christ – through believing in Him and being made members of His Mystical Body. All men are naturally children of God in Adam. “We are also his offspring” (Acts 17:28); and in Malachi 2:10: “Have we not all one Father, hath not one God created us?” also Luke 3:38: The circumcised seed of Abraham partook also of a lower adoption: thus God says, “Israel is my son, my firstborn.” And God says in Isaiah 1:2: “I have nourished and brought up children, and they have rebelled against me.”
But the adoption under the Christian dispensation was far beyond this. “As many as received him, to them gave he right to become the sons of God.” This Sonship was by “a new birth of water and of the Spirit.” It was the being in Christ as branches of the true Vine (John 15:1–10), branches of the Divine Olive Tree (Rom. 11:17), members of the Mystical Body.
Two or three questions arise respecting this. Is it connected with Baptism? We answer, it cannot ordinarily be dissociated from it, for our Lord Himself has joined water with the Spirit as coefficients, in bringing us into the Kingdom of God, and our Apostle says: “By his mercy he saved us by the bath of New Birth and renewing of the Holy Ghost” (Titus 3:5).
There is no difficulty about believing this if we can apprehend that Christ is a Divine Person, Who has instituted a Divine System, and is omnipresent to make every sacramental act as effectual in the last age as in the first.
Secondly, does this Adoption belong to Infants? Our Lord’s words and acts respecting them oblige us to believe that it does, and there is no difficulty in it if we believe that Christ is the Second Adam, and that human beings are grafted into Him in order to receive a benefit corresponding to the injury they have received from the first Adam. It seems in accordance with the goodness of God that He should ordain that the system of His Son should be as comprehensive in transmitting good as the system of evil which it was introduced to counteract and destroy is in transmitting sin.
“By Christ Jesus.” Christ is the channel or instrument through Whom we receive all spiritual good things.
“According to the good pleasure of his will.” What he means to say, then, is this: God earnestly aims at, earnestly desires, our Salvation. Wherefore, then, is it that He so loveth us, whence hath He such affection? It is of His goodness alone. For grace itself is the fruit of goodness.
1:6. To the praise of the glory of his grace, *wherein he hath made us accepted in **the beloved. [*Rom. 3:24, 5:15. | **Matt. 3:17, 17:5. John 3:35, 10:17. | “Wherein”. So D, E, G, K, L, most Cursives, d, e, f, g, Vulg., Goth., etc.; but א, A, B, P, some Cursives, etc., read, “wherewith he endued us.” So Revisers.]
6. “To the praise of the glory of his grace,” etc. Here grace is tacitly opposed to nature. If man had continued in his original innocence then there would have been abundant glory to God from the natural order of things; but to remedy the fall grace was required, and now the glory of the new state of things in Christ is glory to Grace – i.e., to that which is infinitely above nature – to the kindness and love which brought about the Incarnation, and to the diffusion of the Nature of the Son of God consequent upon that Incarnation.
“Wherein he hath made us accepted in the beloved.” “Made us accepted,” or “bestowed grace upon us.” The same word as in Luke 1:28: “Hail, thou that art highly favoured,” or “replenished to the full with grace.”
“In the beloved,” i.e., not in our state of nature, but in our Evangelical state, as incorporated into Christ.
1:7. *In whom we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins, according to **the riches of his grace; [*Acts 20:28. Rom. 3:24. Col. 1:14. Heb. 9:12. 1 Peter 1:18–19. Rev. 5:9. | **Rom. 2:4, 3:24, 9:23. Eph. 2:7, 3:8, 16. Phil. 4:19.]
7. “In whom we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins,” etc. We must ask the same question respecting the use of these terms of atonement by the Apostle as we did respecting the use of predestinarian terms. Why did St. Paul write “In whom we have redemption through his Blood, the forgiveness of sins”? We answer, Because he was a Jew, and had from his earliest youth been educated in the idea that atonement depended upon the Jewish Sacrificial system; and now, taught by the Spirit of God, he centered all atonement in the One Sacrifice, respecting which the prophet spake, “An we like sheep have gone astray, we have turned every one to his own way, and the Lord hath laid on him the iniquity of us all.” All the propitiatory expressions of the New Testament (at least the principal ones) are derived from the Old Testament. It pleased Almighty God in preparing a people for the reception and dissemination of the final truth to give them a form of worship which could not be given to unfallen creatures, but was eminently suited for fallen ones. The ideas underlying this service were: first, confession that the offerer deserved death, and required atonement; and secondly, that he must surrender himself in the victim or substitute which God ordered. This is all comprehended in the account of the first sacrifice ordained in the book of Leviticus 1:1–4: “He shall put his hand on the head of the burnt offering, and it shall be accepted for him to make atonement for him.”
This mode of worship being ordained by God, was no doubt in the wisdom of God the best way for preparing His chosen people, and, through them, mankind, to receive the way of access to God through the Blood of the Eternal Son. What the blood of the particular victim did for the particular Israelite, that the Sacrifice of the Son of God did for all mankind, and was efficacious for each man who would claim his part in it.
I may, and with reason, be expected to say something respecting the mystery of the Atonement. The mystery never, of course, can be cleared up, because it is a purely Divine Mystery, for it concerns a transaction between two Persons in the Ever-Blessed Trinity. But much of the difficulty may be cleared away if we dismiss from our minds the idea that the Atonement is forensic, i.e., that a judge sitting to administer justice accepts the punishment of an innocent person instead of that of a guilty one. This is not the idea, but the underlying thought is the acceptance of an act of worship, i.e., a sacrifice. Christ in the matter of His atonement does what we in our way constantly do. He sacrifices Himself for others, for His Church, for the [human] race. The mystery is not in the act, but in His being able to do the act, to gather up and represent in His own Person all mankind. Now the explanation of this is the mystery of His Person, that He was God and man, of a reasonable soul and human flesh. God brought about at the first that all mankind should be both naturally and federally in one man – Adam. He might have done otherwise: He might not have willed the unity of the race, but brought into being many heads. But He willed that they should be one, and so under one head, in order that He might, if He chose, deal with them as one. This one fell (as in Adam all die), and there seemed to be no hope, for where was it to come from?
Now God in His Eternal counsels had provided for this. He permitted His Son to come amongst the race personally as a member of its best and choicest family. He permitted that Son to live under all the sinless conditions of our fallen human nature, and in the strait path of duty – because He would assert the truth – to expose Himself to the most extreme hatred and malice of wicked men and to die a fearfully painful and shameful death.
Now such an One so coming amongst us, so living, so suffering, could not but be the Head of the race. If there could be an Adam, He must be that Adam – the first Adam must surrender his place to Him. If the race could be dealt with as one, it must be dealt with through Him – if the race could be represented, it must be by Him. All this, if the Incarnation be true, must be so. If the very Son of God came into the race, He could not come to be a nobody. What could He be? He could be nothing but THE Man, the Adam, the Seed, the Heir, the Head, the Firstborn, for He was the God-man. And so He offered Himself, not so much in the way of worship, though every act of His was worship, but of devotion – He devoted Himself to His Father so far as to not avoid death for the honour of His Father’s character, His true religion and worship. He had to assert the truth respecting His Father, and respecting Himself as the unique Son of that Father. He had to assert the truth respecting religion that it was dishonoured in the persons of those who most ostentatiously professed it. He had to assert the truth respecting the most honoured traditions of His country that they made void the law; respecting the Sabbath, that it was made for man and not man for it; respecting Jerusalem, the city of the great king, that it would cease to be the home of God’s worship; for thus swerving not a hair’s breadth from the path of duty in witnessing to the truth – for this He was crucified. All other acts of devotion paled before this, as well they might, and this His one crowning act became, as we might well believe, the Sacrifice through which God might accept the world.
One question more. Is there any imputation in this His Sacrifice? There is, if we can rightly apprehend it. But it is not an unreal forensic imputation but, we may say, almost a natural one, if Christ be the actual Head of Mankind; for the idea of imputation is very common amongst us. The disgrace of a foul deed, or the honour of a good deed attaches to a whole family. A man takes the son of a very valued friend into his employment. He fails in his duty, and his employer says to him, I might reasonably dismiss you, but for the sake of your father, whom I warmly loved, I will not do so. Now this acceptance “for the sake of,” which we so constantly act upon in our intercourse with one another, God acts upon in His intercourse with us. It seems to me the best word to describe the Divine reality. Under it may be comprehended all the sacrificial terms. The Death of the Son of God was the most real of all sacrifices. The virtue of all other sacrifices put together cannot be named beside it, and so the Apostle says, “In whom we have redemption through His Blood, the remission of sins.”
“According to the riches of his grace.” The grace or good will is on the part of God the Father, Who in the counsels of the ever-blessed Trinity gave His Son, and the Son in obedience to Him consented to become the Head of the fallen race. This “riches of grace” is incompatible with the forensic explanation of the atonement; for there is no particular kindness or good will in accepting an exact equivalent, but there is grace in accepting a sacrifice from which in all its stages all idea of mere payment is excluded, and which in all its stages is based on self-surrender, self-devotion, self-sacrifice and filial obedience.
Again, much of the grace and mystery of atonement is wrapped up in the words, “Therefore doth my Father love me, because I lay down my life, that I might take it again” (John 10:17). He laid down His life as an Atonement, that He might resume it again as an Intercessor, and continue to offer to His Father His people in Himself. The Atonement is not to be contemplated apart from the Resurrection and Ascension and perpetual Intercession, as they are not to be contemplated apart from it.
1:8. Wherein he hath abounded toward us in all wisdom and prudence;
8. “Wherein he hath abounded toward us in all wisdom and prudence.” This “wisdom and prudence” may be either the wisdom and prudence with which God acts in the matter of atonement and forgiveness, or it may be the wisdom and prudence which He infuses into us. I cannot but think that, taking the context into account, it is the former. The mode of atonement or forgiveness which God has instituted magnifies not only His grace, but His wisdom and prudence, which latter may be described as wisdom in action. It is an atonement dependent upon the most costly of conceivable sacrifices. Its application to each sinner depends upon his repentance and his belief in the Son of God, Who offered the Sacrifice. It is complete in its remission of past sin and complete in its grace against future sin. It enables God to pardon readily, and yet not for a moment to be thought indifferent to sin. In fact, the wisdom in planning and preordaining it, and the prudence in carrying it out, exceed all thought.
If, however, it means the wisdom and prudence infused into us, then our minds revert to the spirit of wisdom and counsel with which the Messiah was anointed that He might bestow it upon us.
The true Christian is the wisest of men, inasmuch as, taught by the wisdom of God, he understands the things of God so far as they can be apprehended by man in flesh and blood, and the most prudent of men, because his prudence does not only take into account the few years of his existence here, but the judgment which he will have to undergo, and the eternal ages in which he must live in heaven or in hell.
1:9. *Having made known unto us the mystery of his will, according to his good pleasure **which he hath purposed in himself: [*Rom. 16:25. Eph. 3:4, 9. Col. 1:26. | **Eph. 3:11. 2 Tim. 1:9.]
9. “Having made known unto us the mystery of his will, according to his good pleasure which,” etc. This mystery of God’s will is again touched upon in Eph. 3:5–6, and to our examination of this latter place we shall reserve our fuller consideration of this. The mystery is made known, but it still remains a mystery – that is, we know by revelation that it is, but not how it is – it yet remains one of the most inscrutable things of God. But in this mystery of God’s Will made known, St. Paul may allude to the unfolding of the mystery of the call of the Gentiles in the Jewish prophets, as particularly in the promise to Abraham, “In thy seed shall all the nations of the earth be blessed” (Gen. 22:18). Also in the latter part of Psa. 22, “All the ends of the world shall remember themselves and be turned unto the Lord, and all the kindred of the nations shall worship before him”; and Isa. 11:9–10.
“According to his good pleasure which he hath purposed in himself.” A purpose prompted by His kindness and love, not by His severity or justice. “Which he hath purposed in himself.” This seems to mean that, if we may say so with the utmost reverence, in the counsels of the Trinity the Father took the initiative of love and mercy, and resolved to establish that eternal concord between all the members of his intelligent creation, which is expressed in the next verse.
1:10. That in the dispensation of *the fullness of times **he might gather together in one ***all things, in Christ, both which are in 4*heaven, and which are on earth; even in him: [*Gal. 4:4. Heb. 1:2, 9:10. 1 Peter 1:20. | **1 Cor. 3:22–23, 11:3. Eph. 2:15, 3:15. | ***Phil. 2:9–10. Col. 1:20. | 4*Gr. the heavens.]
10. “That in the dispensation of the fullness of times he might gather together in one all things in Christ.” “In the dispensation.” Rather perhaps for, or with regard to, the “dispensation,” i.e., the “economy” or “ministration”. The fullness of the times required its own economy or management, or dealing with.
“The fullness of times.” No doubt the time of the Incarnation, “When the fullness of the time was come God sent forth his son,” in order that He might gather together in one all things in Christ, and might again knit them together in one. They were formerly under one head in Adam (at least in God’s intention), but through sin there was disorganization and separation amongst God’s intelligent creatures, and they were again to be brought under one head (ανακεφαλαιώσθαι) in a far more perfect and glorious way than was possible under a mere forefather, or natural head of a race.
“All things in Christ, both which are in heaven,” etc. No doubt this includes all creatures that can understand Redemption and glorify God for it. Of course it includes all the angelic natures who desire to look into the things made known by the Gospel (1 Peter 1:12), and for whose instruction in the manifold wisdom of God the Church itself was ordained (Eph. 3:10).
But what means he by “all things which are on earth,” seeing that so few, who have heard the preaching, have received the Gospel, and so few of the untold generations of men have to this day even so much as heard it? We are to remember that a very small part of God’s dealings is yet made known to us – that we know little or nothing of the wide application of such places, as “for this cause was the Gospel preached also to them that are dead” (1 Peter 4:6).
In fact, no limits can be assigned to the application of a verse like this. It may include the inhabitants of other worlds besides ours. It may extend to the farthest future – to the nations peopling the new earth under conditions of which we can form little or no conception (Rev. 21:24). Such is the Divine Greatness of the Author of Redemption, that no limits of time or space, of which we are accustomed to take account, can be assigned to its issues.
1:11. *In whom also we have obtained an inheritance, **being predestinated according to ***the purpose of him who worketh all things after the counsel of his own will: [*Acts 20:32, 26:18. Rom. 8:17. Col. 1:12, 3:24. Titus 3:7. James 2:5. 1 Peter 1:4. | **Eph. 1:5. | ***Isa. 46:10–11. | “In whom also we have obtained an inheritance.” So א, B, K, L, P, most Cursives, f, Vulg., etc.; but A, D, E, F, G, read, “we were called.”]
11. “In whom also (i.e. in Christ) we have obtained an inheritance, being predestinated,” etc. Here he descends from the infinitely high and deep thoughts, which seem to embrace the universe, to assert his own part and the part of his brethren in these unspeakable blessings. Surpassingly great though all this be, we have our share in it. We have obtained part and lot in it, and that not as a matter of yesterday, but through the predestination of Him Who is above time, Who inhabits eternity, with Whom all duration is one eternal now.
“According to the purpose of Him who worketh all things after the counsel,” etc. The choice of ourselves and of all whom God predestinates, is not according to chance, or if the word may be spoken, caprice, but for an all-wise and all-benevolent purpose. He has a purpose in the choice of His instruments, in order that they may, through His working with them, carry out a settled plan, which plan is, partially at least, revealed to us in Eph. 3:10, “to the intent that now to the principalities and powers in heavenly places might be known, by the Church, the manifold wisdom of God.”
“His own will.” Of God’s will in the destiny of the whole universe, we may have but faint glimpses, but of His will respecting each one of us we have very plain revelations indeed. “God our Saviour, who will (θέλει) have all men to be saved, and to come to the knowledge of the truth” (1 Tim. 2:4). “This is the will of God, even your sanctification” (1 Thess. 4:3). “Who gave himself for us, that he might deliver us from this present evil world, according to the will of God and our Father” (Gal. 1:4). Have we our place in the great plan of God, by which His Will, which embraces all the world, is carried out? Our one proof of this to ourselves is that His Will is being accomplished in us – otherwise we carry out His Will as the devils do, and not as the angels.
1:12. *That we should be to the praise of his glory, **who first ***trusted in Christ. [*Eph. 1:6, 14. 2 Thess. 2:13. | **James 1:18. | ***Or, hoped.]
12. “That we should be to the praise of his glory, who first trusted in Christ.” This is held by many leading commentators to mean, “who beforehand hoped in Christ – who hoped in the Messiah before He came, and so welcomed Him when He appeared.” But this can hardly be the meaning, for St. Paul was not amongst these. The commonly accepted meaning seems preferable, “who trusted in Christ first,” i.e., before the Gentiles, and who were led by God to believe in Him, that they might preach Him to the Gentiles.
1:13. In whom ye also trusted, after that ye heard *the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation: in whom also after that ye believed, **ye were sealed with that holy Spirit of promise. [*John 1:17. 2 Cor. 6:7. | **2 Cor. 1:22. Eph. 4:30.]
13. “In whom ye also trusted after that ye heard the word of truth,” etc. The word “trusted” is not in the original, and the word which should be supplied is probably “were sealed”.
“Ye also.” “Ye Gentiles.” Mark how even in this Epistle, apparently addressed to all faithful Christians, the original distinction between the Jew and the Gentile (though done away in Christ) yet occupies the Apostle’s mind. Hitherto it has been “we” the original election, now it is “ye” – “After that ye heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation.” The Gentiles knew no prophecies respecting Christ till they heard them in the preaching of the Gospel by their first Evangelizers.
“In whom also after that ye believed, ye were sealed with that Holy Spirit,” etc. Two or three interpretations have been given to, this sealing.
1st. That it is the gift of the Holy Spirit to enlighten the understanding and purify the heart, considered as apart from any particular ordinance, such as Baptism or Confirmation, in the due reception of which, however, we are especially led to look for the Spirit.
2nd. That it is Baptism.
3rd. That it is the Laying on of hands.
At first, considering that the gift of the Holy Spirit in enlightening the understanding and purifying the heart is of such unspeakable importance to each separate soul, and makes the all-important difference between the heathen man and the Christian, we are inclined to set aside all connection with any outward rite received after the first believing. But the very words of the Apostle here, “after that having believed,” point us to some particular time after the first believing. And here the account in Acts 19 comes in, as, showing that the Apostle evidently alluded to a sealing subsequent to either first believing, or Baptism. We read there that St. Paul asked certain disciples, “Have ye received the Holy Ghost since ye believed?”; and being answered in the negative, he caused them to be baptized in the Name of the Lord Jesus, and not till then did he lay his hands upon them, and the Holy Ghost came upon them, and they spake with tongues and prophesied. Now we find that in the early Church this laying on of hands was constantly called the seal, and the gift of the Holy Spirit associated specially with it. Thus in Tertullian’s treatise on Baptism (A.D. 200), “Next to this the hand is laid upon us, calling upon and inviting the Holy Spirit through the blessing”; and Cyprian (A.D. 250), “Which custom has also descended to us, that they who are baptized may be brought to the rulers of the Church, and by our prayer, and by the laying on of hands, may obtain the Holy Ghost, and be consummated with the Lord’s signature” (Epist. lxxiii.). It is very probable, then, that St. Paul has this in his mind under the term “sealing,” for this outward sealing, followed by the visibly miraculous gifts of the Spirit, was God’s particular witness to the call and election of the Gentile believers; thus Acts 11:15,18; and Gal. 3:5. Anyhow, the due consideration of Acts 19:1–7 will convince us that St. Paul attached great weight to this sealing, which was manifested in visible gifts, as well as in invisible graces.
“With that Holy Spirit of promise.” “With that Spirit of promise the Holy One.” This may mean that Holy Spirit Who is the especial promise of the Father. “Behold, I send the promise of my Father upon you” (Luke 24:49); or that Holy Spirit Who is, in Himself, the promise and pledge of all possible blessings which the creature can receive.
1:14. *Which is the earnest of our inheritance**until the redemption of ***the purchased possession, 4*unto the praise of his glory. [*2 Cor. 1:22, 5:5. | **Luke 21:28. Rom. 8:23. Eph. 4:30. | ***Acts 20:28. |4* Eph. 1:6, 12. 1 Peter 2:9.
14. “Which is the earnest of our inheritance, until the redemption of,” etc. See my notes on 2 Cor. 1:22 for examination of the word arrhabon (αρραβών), here translated “earnest”. The full inheritance will not be recovered till the last day, when we shall be raised again in our glorified bodies (Rom. 8:23); but the pledge of it is in the present possession of the gift of the Spirit. “If the Spirit of him that raised up Jesus from the dead dwell in you, he that raised up Christ from the dead shall also quicken your mortal bodies by His Spirit that dwelleth in you” (Rom. 8:11).
“Until the redemption of the purchased possession.” The Lord hath purchased the whole Church with His Blood (Acts 20:28). Now to purchase is to obtain possession. But the Church, though His by right, is not in its fullest sense His till each and every member of it is perfected in His grace and presented faultless before Him at the last (Eph. 5:27), each one being raised up in the likeness of His glorious Body. Redemption is, in New Testament language, not yet complete. The full price is paid, but the full value purchased is reserved to the end. Thus in Rom. 8:23, “the Redemption of our body”; and in 1 Cor. 1:30, Redemption is mentioned last: “Jesus Christ, Who of God is made unto us wisdom, and righteousness, and sanctification, and Redemption.”
1:15. Wherefore I also, *after I heard of your faith in the Lord Jesus, and love unto all the saints. [Col. 1:4. Philemon 5. | “And love”. So D, E, F, G, K, L, most Cursives, d, e, f, g, Vulg., Syr., Copt., Goth.; but א, A, B, P, Origen, etc., omit “love”.]
15. “Wherefore I also, after I heard of your faith in the Lord Jesus,” etc. It has been supposed that this implies that he had not seen the persons to whom he now writes, but had only heard of their faith and love through others. But if it he remembered that he wrote this Epistle from his prison, or state of confinement in Rome, and that he was continually sending to know the spiritual state of his converts in all parts of the world, then it is only likely that he wrote this after having received some report of them that they were not declining, but rather increasing in faith and love.
“Faith in the Lord Jesus – love to all the saints.” “In Christ Jesus neither circumcision availeth anything nor uncircumcision, but faith which worketh by love” (Gal. 5:6).
“Love to all the saints” may mean that they sent to relieve the wants of those who were living at a distance from them. St. Paul, in the earnestness which he displayed in the matter of the maintenance of the poor saints in Jerusalem, seems to attach much importance to assisting strangers whom Christians had never seen, but whose only claim was the common profession of faith in the Son of God.
1:16. *Cease not to give thanks for you, making mention of you in my prayers; [*Rom. 1:9. Phil. 1:3–4. Col. 1:3. Thess. 1:2. 2 Thess. 1:3. | “Making mention of you”. So D (Gr.)*, E, K, L, P, most Cursives, Vulg., Syr., Cop., Arm.; but א, A, B, D*, and nine Cursives, omit “of you”.]
16. “Cease not to give thanks for you, making mention of you in my prayers.” The thanksgiving being mentioned first seems to predominate. He thanks God for what he has heard respecting their faith, and he prays that they may progress in the realization of what God has revealed to them.
1:17. That *the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, **may give unto you the spirit of wisdom and revelation ***in the knowledge of him: [*John 20:17. | **Col. 1:9. | ***Or, for the acknowledgment, Col. 2:2.]
17. “That the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory,” etc. Christ having become very man is, with respect to His human nature, a creature of God; as He says: “I ascend unto my Father and your Father, and to my God and your God” (John 20:17).
The Lord, then, has towards us not only the infinite benevolence of the Divine Nature, but also all creature sympathy. He and we have One common God and Father. He is, as He is described in Colossians 1, “the firstborn of every creature” (Col. 1:15).
“The Father of glory.” This seems to be a kindred expression to the “Father of lights” in James 1:17. I do not consider that it means here, as some suggest, the Father of the Lord’s Divine Nature. Glory, as here; Lights, as in James 1:17; Mercies, as in 2 Cor. 1:3, are personified, and are supposed to issue so wholly from the very Person of God, that He is not their maker or author, but their Father.
“The spirit of wisdom and Revelation in the knowledge of him.” The spirit of wisdom is placed first because the mind must be in a prepared state, i.e., endowed with heavenly discernment to receive a revelation rightly.
1:18. *The eyes of your understanding being enlightened; that ye may know what is **the hope of his calling, and what the riches of the glory of his ***inheritance in the saints. [*Acts 26:18. | **Eph. 2:12, 4:4. |***Eph. 1:11. | “Your understanding”. So a few Cursives; but א, A, B, D, E, F, G, K, L, P, most Cursives, Dict., Vulg., Syr., read, “of your heart”.]
18. “The eyes of your understanding being enlightened.” There can be little doubt but that “heart” is the true reading – “the eyes of your heart” – Divine knowledge such as the Apostle prays for being a matter rather for the heart to apprehend, than for the understanding to comprehend.
The Apostle now proceeds to pray on behalf of his converts, that being thus gifted with the spirit of wisdom and understanding, and enlightened in heart, they may know three things, “the hope of His calling,” “the riches of the glory of His inheritance,” and “the exceeding greatness of His power” towards believers as exemplified in the Resurrection and Ascension of the Lord, and His Headship over all things on behalf of His Body the Church.
(1) “The hope of God’s calling.” When God causes His voice to be heard in the inmost soul of one, alienated till then from Him, and so having no true or well-grounded hope, it must be to inspire that man with hope, particularly as this calling on God’s part separates a man from this world, and gives him hopes and fears, too, above and beyond the world. In the case of the earliest Christians these hopes respecting this world came so completely to an end that the Apostle could say: “If in this life only we have hope in Christ, we are of all men most miserable” (1 Cor. 15:19). Now the hope of God’s calling was not only a hope beyond the grave – a hope of eternal life – but it was a hope that all things, no matter how adverse, worked together for good to them that loved God. The victory of this hope over present things is best expressed in other words of this Apostle: “Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? ... Nay, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him that loved us” (Rom. 8:35).
“And what the riches of the glory of his inheritance.” The visions of future good things are described in Scripture as beyond measure bright and beautiful. No matter what explanation we give to the two last chapters of the book of the Revelation, they set forth a state of material grandeur and magnificence suitable to be the habitation of those who are raised up in the likeness of Christ’s glorious Body.
There, if anywhere, is an attempt to set forth the things which “eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither hath it entered into the heart of man to conceive.” Until we get rid of the idea that the future state of blessedness will be a vast hall or place of assembly in which all will be equal and engaged in one unvaried occupation, and rather look upon it as a kingdom (Luke 19:17–19), having the ranks and gradations and varied employments of a vast but most holy community, we shall not be able to enter into this Apostolic prayer. Mark, too, how the epithets are, as it were, piled on one another. It is not the inheritance, but the glory of the inheritance; and not that only, but the riches of the glory of the inheritance.
1:19. And what is the exceeding greatness of his power to usward who believe, *according to the working **of his mighty power, [*Eph. 3:7. Col. 1:29, 2:12. | **Gr. Of the might of his power.]
19. “And what is the exceeding greatness of his power to usward who believe,” etc. The power exerted on our behalf in eternity will be according to the measure of two things – the power exercised by God in the Resurrection of Christ, and the power exerted by God in causing Christ to ascend, and in giving Him a seat at His right Hand, and putting all things under His feet.
The exceeding greatness of God’s power as energized in Christ at His Resurrection seems to be that He raised His Son from the dead in a spiritual, life-giving, and glorified body – a body remaining a body, and so capable of being felt, and handled, and yet having all the properties of a spirit, so that it should pass as a spirit through all obstacles, be visible and invisible at will, be above the conditions of space, and be able to rise from the earth to heaven itself.
1:20. Which he wrought in Christ, when *he raised him from the dead, and **set him at his own right hand in heavenly places, [*Acts 2:24, 33. | **Psa. 110:1. Acts 7:55–56. Col. 3:1. Heb. 1:3, 10:12.]
“And set him at his own right hand in the heavenly places.”
1:21. *Far above all **principality, and power, and might, and dominion, and every name that is named, not only in this world, but also in that which is to come: [*Phil. 2:9–10. Col. 2:10. Hebr. 1:4. | Rom. 8:38. Col. 1:16, 2:15.]
21. “Far above all principality, and power, and might, and dominion,” etc. The power of God in the exaltation of Christ to His right Hand seems a different exhibition of power to that put forth in raising Him from the dead. If He caused Him to ascend into heaven it was following this up to set Him at His own right Hand in accordance with His prayer, “And now, O Father, glorify thou me with thine own self with the glory which I had with thee before the world was” (John 17:5). It may be that the power of God was set forth in the bowing of the heavenly hosts of all orders and ranks to adore in His human form Him Whom they had in past ages adored as God only, in the bosom of the Father. But we know nothing whatsoever of the condition of this heavenly and eternal world, only we have to remember that God hath exercised some further power in the exaltation of Christ on our behalf. It is the exceeding greatness of His power to usward who believe, displayed in the exaltation of the God-Man.
It is to be remarked how often St. Paul recognizes the gradations in the heavenly hosts. Thus Romans 8:38, “I am persuaded that ... neither angels, nor principalities, nor powers,” etc., and in Col. 1:16, “By him were all things created, that are in heaven, and that are in earth, visible and invisible, whether they be thrones, or dominions, or principalities, or powers”: and he recognizes the same gradations in evil angels, “We wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against wicked spirits in high places” (Eph. 6:12); and also Col. 2:15, “Having spoiled principalities and powers”.
Now these, all these, by an exertion of the mightiest authority of God, are under Christ. Just as God gave Him the Name which is above every name, so hath He given to Him the power which is above every power. And this for Himself and for us. For Himself that He might be glorified in His human nature with the glory which He had from Eternity in His Divine Essence, and for us, as the following verses show.
1:22. And *hath put all things under his feet, and gave him **to be the head over all things to the church, [*Psa. 8:6. Matt. 28:18. 1 Cor. 15:27. Heb. 2:8. | **Eph. 4:15–16. Col. 1:18. Heb. 2:7.]
22. “And hath put all things under his feet, and gave him to be the head over all things,” etc. “Put all things under his feet.” This seems to be much in the mind of the Apostle. He dwells upon it very fully in 1 Cor. 15. It is a citation or adaptation of Psalm 8. But whereas in this Psalm it refers only to earthly things (sheep, oxen, beasts of the field, etc.), in his reference to it the Apostle applies it to the whole created universe.
“And gave him to be the head over all things to the Church, which is his body,” etc. This mystery is dwelt upon with great fullness in 1 Cor. 12: “As the body is one, and hath many members, and all the members of that one body, being many, are one body: so also in Christ. For by one Spirit are we all baptized into one body. … The body is not one member but many. … Now ye are the body of Christ, and members in particular.” Here, however, it seems to be spoken of still more divinely, or from its Divine side.
1:23. *Which is his body, **the fullness of him ***that filleth all in all. [Rom. 12:5. 1 Cor. 12:12, 27. Eph. 4:12, 5:23, 30. Col. 1:18, 24. | **Col. 2:9. | ***1 Cor. 12:6. Eph. 4:10. Col. 3:11.]
In 1 Cor. 12 the Apostle principally contemplates the co-working of the members together in this world. Here he rather looks upon the Church as the Body of Christ in heaven, and being inseparable from Him, as sharing His Exaltation.
The question presents itself, is this body visible or invisible? Unquestionably it is regarded by the Apostle as visible. It is the same thing which is spoken of in Eph. 4:4: “There is one body, and one Spirit” – one body, and, as such, bound to be visible; one Spirit, to which it pertains to be invisible. The Church is one vast mystery or Sacramentum having its outward part visible amongst the things of time and sense, and its inward part, its mysterious connection by joints and bands with the Unseen Head, invisible and spiritual. To make it an invisible and merely spiritual body is to frustrate, so far as can be, the intention of God in ordaining its visible sacraments, and visible ministry and organization, just as it frustrates the purpose of God if we regard it as a function of the state, or a higher expression of the benefits of the social state, and such things.
“His body, the fullness of him that filleth all in all.” That is, the completeness of him that filleth all in all. If the Lord is a Head, He must have one body which completes Him, as it were, as one Divine Organization. In 1 Cor. 12:12, the whole body, Head and Members, is called Christ, “As the body is one and hath many members, and all the members of that one body being many are one body, so also is Christ.” “The fullness of Christ is the Church, and rightly, for the complement of the head is the body, and the complement of the body is the head. … Observe how he introduces him as having need of all alike; for unless we be many, and one be the hand, and another the foot, and another some other member, the whole body is not filled up. … Perceivest thou then the riches of the glory of his inheritance? the exceeding greatness of His power towards those who believe? the hope of your calling” (Chrysostom).
Chapter 2
2:1. And *you hath he quickened, **who were dead in trespasses and sins; [*John 5:24. Col. 2:13. | **Eph. 2:5, 4:18.]
1. “And you hath he quickened, who were dead in trespasses and sins.” “And you.” Here the Apostle signifies the Gentiles who believed in Christ and were brought into the Unity of His Body. It is a carrying out of the distinction alluded to in verses 12 and 13: “That WE should be to the praise,” etc. “In whom YE also trusted.”
“Hath he quickened.” We have to supply this from verse 5. But if so we must also supply, “Hath raised us up together, and made us sit together,” from verse 6.
“Who were dead in trespasses and sins.” This being one of the comparatively few, but very decisive places which pronounce those not in Christ to be in a state of death, we must in all humility see as to how far it actually conducts us in this direction, for we may so interpret it as to make nothing of the distinction between right and wrong, and as if God, in His judgment of the heathen, would make no difference between one heathen man and another, but would sweep them all indiscriminately into the same pit of unutterable anguish.
It is universally true that all men require the new life from Christ, and if they have it not are in a state of death compared to those who have it.
But we commonly use the phrase “dead in sin,” of those who have no stirring of spiritual, or even of moral life within them, but are, as we say, dead to all better feelings and aspirations.
Now it was not the Apostle’s purpose to predicate this of all the heathen. If so, he would have denied the truth of what he asserts by implication in Rom. 2:26, “If the uncircumcision keep the righteousness of the law, shall not his uncircumcision be counted for circumcision?” But it was the Apostle’s purpose to predicate this state of death of the generality of the heathen. This he could do without denying that the Spirit of God worked in one here and another there, which differed immeasurably from the mode of His working in the Church (Titus 3:6).
If any one reads, in a Christian spirit, any heathen book, say the “Odes and Satires” of Horace, he will find enough there to convince him that the heathen were in a state of spiritual death. He will find, it is true, much which shows that the moral sense was, if one may so say, intellectually alive, but that is all. They had pleasure in unrighteousness, in all manner of wickedness. They not only did the same, but had pleasure in them that did them.
2:2. *Wherein in time past ye walked according to **the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that now worketh in ***the children of disobedience: [*1 Cor. 6:11, Eph. 4:22. Col. 1:21, 3:7. 1 John 5:19. | **Eph. 6:12. | ***Eph. 5:6, Col. 3:6. | “According to the prince of the power of the air, of the spirit,” etc. So Revisers. “According to the prince of the empire of the air, of the spirit that,” etc. Ellicott.]
2. “Wherein in time past ye walked, according to the course of this world.” “The course of this world,” literally, the “aeon of this world,” but Alford and Ellicott deny any reference to Gnostical aeons, and assert (the former at least) that the authorized translation is the very best. The course of this world, its very days, as the Apostle writes in chapter 5 are evil.
“The prince of the power of the air.” This is by many supposed to mean that the evil one and his wicked angels are not in heaven, and have no access there (Job. 1:6. Luke 10:18), neither as yet are they shut up in hell (Rev. 20:2), but have power to inhabit the air, and so to have ready access to all the dwellers upon earth.
Alford explains it as meaning that they have as ready access to us as the very air with which we are surrounded, and illustrates his meaning by the words of our Lord, when in the parable of the sower He represents the devils as like the fowls of the air, who snatch away the seed sown on the hard beaten path.
Others suppose it to be a Rabbinical interpretation. Thus Dale: “The evil power is described, according to a Rabbinical tradition, as having his home in ‘the air,’ beneath the happy seats of the saints and of the angels which have kept their first estate, and therefore above the sphere of human life.”
“The spirit that now worketh in the children of disobedience.” Those who are under the dominion of willful sin are called here the children of disobedience, just as those who walk in the light are said to be the children of light. Those who willfully disobey God, whoever they are, have the enemy – the evil one – the prince of the power of the air, working within them.
2:3. *Among whom also we all had our conversation in times past in **the lusts of our flesh, fulfilling ***the desires of the flesh and of the mind; and 4*were by nature the children of wrath, even as others. [*Titus 3:3. 1 Peter 4:3. | **Gal. 5:16. | ***Gr. the wills. | 4*Psa. 51:5. Rom. 5:12, 14.]
3. “Among whom also we all had our conversation in times past,” etc. We all – all we the chosen people of God, the Israel, the seed of Abraham – all we, notwithstanding our descent, our circumcision, our Scriptures, our Sacrificial Ritual, our Law – fulfilled the desires of the flesh and of the mind. This is not said as if there were no spiritual persons amongst the Jews, but there was universally a far lower standard than that which was brought in by the teaching of Christ, and by the descent of the Spirit at Pentecost.
“Of the flesh and of the mind.” The latter word, being in the plural, signifies the thoughts or imaginations. It seems equivalent to the fleshly thoughts or imaginations.
“And were by nature the children of wrath.” By nature can mean nothing else than “by birth”. By our natural birth we received from the first Adam a taint of evil which can only be neutralized or removed by our new Birth into the Second Adam, the Lord from heaven. The Scripture, however we may dislike the idea, reveals no entrance of evil into the world but this. But this term “children of wrath” must be read in the light of what we read in the very next verse, “for his great love wherewith he loved us.” Here are children of wrath who are loved by God, the Supreme Being Whom they have offended, with “great” love. How can these two things be reconciled – children of wrath, and yet greatly beloved? With the greatest ease, I answer, if we only lay aside the deductions of human systems. The [human] race were under wrath, and intended by the very God Whose wrath they had incurred to be redeemed from all the effects of that wrath, and placed under an infinitely better state than they were in by creation.
The history of the [human] race, and of every part of it, especially the part most favoured by God, is the history of a race who deserved wrath. Aa very great part of them, if we judge by the simplest rules of right and wrong, deserved very severe wrath, and consequent punishment. And by another proof all are children of wrath, for all incur the effects of wrath in the universal prevalence of death. I am writing, of course, for those who believe that the Scriptures reveal to us the will of God, and certainly the Scriptures make temporal death to be the wages of sin. “By one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin, and so death passed upon all men, in him in whom all have sinned” (Rom. 5:12). It is impossible to isolate any part of the [human] race, and to educate them so as to prevent sin appearing in them, and not only appearing but ruling rampant over them. God Himself for our sakes tried this in the case of His chosen people, and as He foresaw and foretold, it failed. It is then almost natural, almost a self-evident truth that we are by nature, or by birth, children of wrath.
“As others,” i.e., “we Israelites even as the rest of men.” I need hardly say that this doctrine of transmitted sin is our Lord’s doctrine as well as St. Paul’s. The Lord by His universal preaching of repentance assumes that men are sinners, and so have need of it. By His institution of Baptism He assumes that all need to be washed from sin in the bath of new Birth. He includes all under sin when He says, “If ye then being evil know how to give good gifts to your children,” and He includes the chosen seed as all under sin when He says, “If ye believe not that I am he, ye shall die in your sins.”
2:4. But God, *who is rich in mercy, for his great love wherewith he loved us, [*Rom. 10:12. Eph. 1:7, 2:7.]
2:5. *Even when we were dead in sins, hath **quickened us together with Christ, (***by grace ye are saved); [*Rom. 5:6, 8, 10. Eph. 2:1. | **Rom. 6:4–5. Col. 2:12–13, 3:1, 3. ***Or, by whose grace: see Acts 15:11. Eph. 2:8. Titus 3:5.]
2:6. And hath raised us up together, and made us sit together *in heavenly places in Christ Jesus: [*Eph. 1:20.]
4–6. “But God, who, is rich in mercy, for his great love wherewith he loved us. Even when we were dead in sins, hath quickened us together with Christ ... And hath raised us up together,” etc. God hath not quickened us – that is, made us to live with a new principle of life by the law, or even by a new law of mere words, but by the Resurrection of Christ. In His Resurrection God caused that we who believe in Him should receive a new life, and not only receive a new life, but show it openly in a new life before the world, and not only be raised, but be made to ascend with Him and even sit together with Him in heavenly places. That we receive a new life with Christ is the mystery set forth in Romans 6. That we sit together with Him is contained in such words as “our life is hid with Christ in God.”
The new life is not only a new life in the world, but a new life above the world. Such was the Apostolic Life, such was St. Paul’s life. Such has been and is the life of unnumbered saints whom the world has not known, but whom God has known and whom God will make known in a day which may be nearer than we think.
But why does the Apostle interject, “By grace ye are saved”? Evidently to assert that it is not by nature. By nature we are children of wrath only. By grace we are quickened, raised, and set on high in Christ. Such things are beyond the imagination of nature, they can only be in Christ, which is equivalent to “by grace,” inasmuch as only by a special act of grace can we be brought into Christ.
2:7. That in the ages to come he might show the exceeding riches of his grace in *his kindness toward us through Christ Jesus. [Titus 3:4.]
7. “That in the ages to come he might show the exceeding riches,” etc. If He has begun with a thing so wondrous that it could rightly be described as being raised together, and made to sit together in the heavenlies in Christ, what may we look for in the continuance of such loving kindness? “This then he saith, that even we shall sit there. Truly this is surpassing riches, truly surpassing is the greatness of His power, to make us sit down with Christ. Yea, hadst thou ten thousand souls, wouldst thou not lose them for His sake? Yea, hadst thou to enter into the flames, oughtest thou not readily to endure it? And He also Himself too saith again, ‘I will that where I am, there also shall my servants be.’ Why, surely, had ye to be cut to pieces every day, ought ye not, for the sake of these promises, cheerfully to embrace it? Think where He sitteth – above all principality and power. And with whom is it that thou sittest? With Him. And who art thou? A dead carcass, by nature a child of wrath. And what good has thou done? Not any.”
2:8. *For by grace are ye saved **through faith; and that not of yourselves: ***it is the gift of God: [*Eph. 2:5. Rom. 3:24. 2 Tim. 1:9. | **Rom. 4:16. | ***Matt. 16:17. John 6:44, 65. Rom. 10.]
8. “For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God.” This is the corollary from all that precedes. Salvation is described by the Apostle in no ordinary terms, but as a being quickened together with Christ, being raised together with Him, being made to sit with Him in the heavenlies. Now if this be not mere words, not exuberant imagination, but a reality, it is clear that it is of grace, for it is clearly not only beyond human effort, but beyond the highest flights of human imagination – imagination, that is, untaught and unexcited by Revelation, and even when we have Revelation, we are slow to apprehend it in such a transcendent form. For “by grace” we must understand, of course, not merely a simple isolated putting forth of God’s Holy Spirit upon each particular soul, enabling it to believe, but the whole scheme and work of Redemption by Christ; God decreeing, the Son of God accepting the decree, humbling Himself, becoming man, becoming the Second Man, the Lord from heaven, submitting to Crucifixion, rising again, ascending into heaven, and in all this taking us along with Him in His Death, in His resumption of life, in His Exaltation. This must be of grace, in fact, it is all of it grace. And by this we have been saved, and are saved by our submission to it and reception of it, for this is faith. God requires, and He has a right to require, that if He saves us in such a way, we should acknowledge it; and this is our faith. But even this is an act of grace, or unmerited favour on God’s part, that having no merits we should be saved without merits, but by an act of God’s free mercy.
“And that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God.” Whether the “that” (neuter) refers to the fact of God’s saving us by faith, or the faith itself, is all the same; both the graciousness of God’s act in saving us by faith “that it might be of grace,” and the inworking of faith in the soul, are of grace – gifts of God to the undeserving.
But does not this shut out all but a select few – the elect, according to the idea of Calvinistic election? No. Quite the contrary is intended; for when it is said that faith is the gift of God, it is described as being a gift in the hands of a most bountiful Giver – Who “gives to all men liberally, and upbraideth not.”
If the faith or faculty of mind to apprehend such things as are set forth in God’s word were a thing to be worked out by the endeavours of our own mind, we should never have it; but being a gift of God, we can have it by asking Him for it: “Ask and ye shall have.” “If ye then being evil, know how to give good gifts unto your children, how much more shall your heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to them that ask him.”
The place, the worth, the power ascribed to faith in the Word of God, should make everyone who has the least desire to be well with God ask God to give him faith, and say to God constantly, “Lord, increase my faith,” “Lord, I believe, help thou mine unbelief.”
2:9. *Not of works, lest any man should boast. [*Rom. 3:20, 27–28; 4:2, 9:11, 11:6. 1 Cor. 1:29–31. 2 Tim. 1:9. Titus 3:5.]
2:10. For we are *his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works, **which God hath before ***ordained that we should walk in them. [*Deut. 32:6. Psa. 100:3. Isa. 19:25, 44:21. John 3:3, 5. 1 Cor. 3:9. 2 Cor. 5:5, 17. Eph. 4:24. Titus 2:14. | **Eph. 1:4. | ***Or, prepared.]
9–10. “Not of works, lest any man should boast. For we are his workmanship,” etc. Of no evil thing to which men are subject does the Apostle seem to have a greater horror than of boasting. And very reasonably, for boasting is incompatible on the one side with the glory of God, and on the other with the true Christian character. It is incompatible with the glory of God, for the Highest authority lays down that when we have done all, we are to say, “We are unprofitable servants, we have done that which was our duty to do” (Luke 17:10), and this servant says, “Who maketh thee to differ from another? and what hast thou that thou didst not receive? Now if thou didst receive it, why dost thou glory as if thou hadst not received it?” (1 Cor. 4:7).
It is incompatible with the true Christian character, as set forth in such a Beatitude as, “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.” It is incompatible with any true, deep-seated repentance. It is absolutely incompatible with the character of the Lord Himself.
10. “For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works.” The intention of God in creating the new creation in Christ is that men should do good works, good works not according to the demands of the Old Law, but according to the requirements of the New Law – the law of the Spirit of Life in Christ Jesus. If created in Christ to do good works, we are created to do in our measure the good works which He did, particularly the good works of benefiting the bodies and souls of our fellow creatures. We are created in Him to do works to God, in upholding the honour of God. We are created in Christ Jesus to do such works of love or charity, as “suffering long, being kind, envying not, vaunting not oneself, not being puffed up, seeking not our own, not being easily provoked, thinking no evil.” When were we thus created? Some say in Baptism – others at conversion. The Church, following the Scriptures says, and rightly, that we were grafted into Christ in Baptism. Then, if so, we become partakers of the sap of the true Vine – of the fullness of the Divine Olive. But this is only the beginning. We have to abide in the Vine, we have to continue in the goodness of the Divine Olive Tree, and multitudes do not. Such need repentance, restoration, conversion almost we might say, re-engrafting.
But no teaching of Scripture can be plainer than this, that in the Scriptures professing Christians are never addressed as if they were lifeless and powerless to serve God. They are invariably addressed as those who at the very commencement have received some power, some life, some new faculty in Christ, and have to believe this, to remember it, to call it to mind, to stir up some past gift by prayer, and looking upward to Christ. [See particularly my notes on Rom. 6:1–12.]
“Which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them.” Does this mean that God hath preordained the good works of the Christian, so that he must of necessity walk in them, or are we rather to translate it “prepared,” as meaning that God hath aforehand prepared a way to His everlasting favour – the way of holy living, as He prophesied in Isaiah, “Thine ears shall hear a word behind thee, saying, This is the way, walk ye in it, when ye turn to the right hand, and when ye turn to the left” (Isa. 30:21)? I think the latter, though we must also remember the words of the Lord, how He said, “Ye have not chosen me, but I have chosen you, and ordained you, that ye should go and bring forth fruit, and that your fruit should remain” (John 15:16).
2:11. Wherefore *remember, that ye being in time past Gentiles in the flesh, who are called Uncircumcision by that which is called **the Circumcision in the flesh made by hands: [*1 Cor. 12:2. Eph. 5:8. Col. 1:21, 2:13. | **Rom. 2:28–29. Col. 2:11. | “Ye being in time past Gentiles.” “In time past ye,” א, A, B, D, etc.]
11. “Wherefore remember, that ye being in time past Gentiles in the flesh,” etc. As the Lord in His message to the church of Ephesus says, “Remember from whence thou art fallen,” so here by His Spirit through His servant He says, “Remember from what slough and mire I raised thee.” “Ye were Gentiles in the flesh.” There was no mark of God’s covenant even on your flesh.
“Who are called Uncircumcision by that which is called,” etc. It is remarkable how the best of the Jews flung against the heathen the taunt of their being uncircumcised. Thus even David: “This uncircumcised Philistine shall be as one of them” (1 Sam. 17:36), “Lest the daughter of the uncircumcised triumph” (2 Sam. 1:20). This was very well for those who remembered, as David did, that the covenant which God gave to the Jews, of which the sign was circumcision, was His gift, and that it had to be lived to. But it became amongst most of the Jews a mere self-sufficient boast, as St. Paul evidently means here, when he speaks of “that which is called the circumcision in the flesh,” as if he said, the so-called circumcision – the mere outward form utterly unrealized in its true spiritual significance, as making men “debtors to keep the whole law”.
“The circumcision in the flesh made with hands.” The reader will remember the strictly parallel passage in Col. 2:11, in which he speaks of Baptism as the “circumcision made without hands”. Both circumcision and Baptism being administered by men were made with hands, but in circumcision all that was done was by the hand of man, whereas in Baptism, though He makes use of the hands of the minister, the Holy Ghost is the real Baptizer, according to the words, “By one Spirit are we all baptized unto one Body” (1 Cor. 12:13).
2:12. *That at that time ye were without Christ, **being aliens from the commonwealth of Israel, and strangers from ***the covenants of promise, 4*having no hope, 5*and without God in the world: *Eph. 4:18. Col. 1:21. | **See Ezek. 13:9 John 10:16. | ***Rom. 9:4, 8. | 4*1 Thess. 4:13. | 5*Gal. 4:8. 1 Thess. 4:5. | “Aliens”; or “alienated,” Revisers.]
12. “That at that time ye were without Christ.” That is without any conscious part in Him. This does not mean that they were excluded from the benefits of His Intercession, or that they did not belong to Him, as being among the “other sheep,” which He has, “which are not of this fold.” They had no prophecies of Him, no looking for His coming as Israel had. They were afar off, and were not yet made nigh by His Blood.
“Aliens from the commonwealth of Israel,” or the polity of Israel. God said of Israel, “Israel is my Son, even my firstborn” (Exod. 4:22); again, “You only have I known of all the families of the earth” (Amos 3:2). Their privileges are set forth by the Apostle in Rom. 9, ending with “of whom as concerning the flesh Christ came who is over all, God blessed forever.” Bishop Barry writes: “The word used is not alien, but alienated, implying – what is again and again declared to us – that the Covenant with Israel, as it was held in trust for the blessing of all families of the earth, so also was simply the true birthright of humanity from which mankind had fallen.” The objection to this is, if they held it in trust for all humanity, why were they not commanded to proclaim it far and wide?
“Strangers from the covenants of promise.” Not covenant, but covenants. Thus in Rom. 9:4: “To whom pertaineth the adoption, and the glory, and the Covenants.” The Covenants were renewed to the patriarchs in succession, and to Moses and David. Now in some of these, particularly that to Abraham: “And in thy seed shall all the nations of the earth be blessed,” mention was made of the Gentiles, and a part in the Messiah secured to them, but they knew not of it. They were strangers from them. They were, till he appointed time, out of the pale.
“Having no hope.” No well-grounded hope of a future state even, much less of a redemption from past sin. St. Paul, when he wrote this, must have been acquainted with the arguments on which the better sort of heathens relied for the existence of the soul after death, but here he makes nothing of them. At the best they were mere surmises. They had no certainty, and apparently no moral power over heathen society to restrain it, much less to raise it from its utter degradation.
“Without God in the world.” Without any knowledge or recognition of a Creator and moral Governor and Judge. They had gods to whom they offered sacrifice, but they were no gods, and their very existence was disbelieved by the great multitude of the sacrificers.
This is the description of the state of the Gentiles before the Gospel came to them by one whose whole life was a contention for their absolute equality as Christians with the seed of Abraham. Attempts are made to soften all this, as, for instance, one which I have noticed, that they were not originally aliens, but that they alienated themselves. But from what? Certainly not from any commonwealth of Israel, for their widespread alienation preceded by ages the forming of that commonwealth, or polity. If it be said that they alienated themselves, or forsook some previous state of Divine knowledge, we freely grant it; but that is not what St. Paul had in his mind when he used such terms as “the polity of Israel,” or “covenants of promise”.
2:13. *But now in Christ Jesus ye who sometimes were far **off are made nigh by the blood of Christ. [*Gal. 3:28. | **Acts 1:39. Eph. 2:17.]
13. “But now in Christ Jesus ye who sometimes were far off are made nigh,” etc. In every respect in which the Jews were made nigh to God, so were the Gentiles. We cannot approach closer to God than in the direct participation of the Sacrament of the Body and Blood of Christ. Christ is one with God, and in partaking of that most Holy Food the Lord assures us that He dwelleth in us and we in Him. It is to be remembered that the Gentiles are not made nigh to God by any natural means of nearness, or even by the mere diffusion of Divine knowledge, but “in Christ Jesus”. After the Resurrection of Christ, and the descent of the Holy Ghost, the Jew became nigh, and entered into Covenant and partook of the Spirit, not by Circumcision, but by Baptism – the same Baptism by which the Gentiles entered into nearness.
“By the blood of Christ,” i.e., “by His Sacrificial Atonement.” The blood of the Temple victim brought the sacrificer into fellowship with God. “It was accepted for him to make atonement for him” (Levit. 1:4), and so the Blood of the All-atoning Victim brought all men into a state in which, if they believed and were baptized, they would be saved now and at the last.
2:14. For *he is our peace, **who hath made both one, and hath broken down the middle wall of partition between us; [*Mic. 5:5. John 16:33. Acts 10:36. Rom. 5:1. Col. 1:20. | **John 10:16. Gal. 3:28.]
14. “For he is our peace, who hath made both one.” Christ is not only the peacemaker, or reconciler, but He is in His own Person the union of the parties who wore at variance. God and man were not at one, through sin, but Christ having in His Person whole and complete the two natures which were at variance, hath united both in Himself, and so is emphatically our peace.
But in a somewhat lower sense He is our peace, having made both one – i.e., both Jew and Gentile. He hath made both one not as having one nature, for that they had before He came, nor as having one religion, but as members of one mystical body.
“And hath broken down the middle wall of partition between us.” Some suppose that here is an allusion to an actual low wall of partition dividing the court of the Gentiles from the court of Israel.* There was undoubtedly such a wall of separation, but we are not told that it was rent at the moment of the death of Christ, as was the veil between the Holy Place and the Holy of Holies. Others consider that reference is made to the hedge by which the Jewish state of things described under the figure of a vineyard was separated from the Gentile world, Isaiah 5:2: “And he fenced it.” Both are very probable, but the Apostle himself tells us to what he alludes in the next verse.
*[Lewin, in his “Life of St. Paul,” vol. ii., p. 133, gives an inscription engraved on the wall in the original letters. He appends this note. “The literal interpretation of the inscription is, ‘No alien to pass within the balustrade round the temple and the enclosure. Whosoever shall be caught (so doing) must blame himself for the death that will ensue.’ This stone is unquestionably one of the most remarkable discoveries made at Jerusalem. It presents to us the very letters which must have been often read by our Lord and His Apostles as day by day they frequented the temple. Josephus tells us that ‘on advancing to the second temple (ιερον) a stone balustrade (δρύφαχτος) was thrown around it four feet and a half high, and withal beautifully wrought, and in it stood pillars at equal distances proclaiming the law of purity (some in Greek and some in Roman letters), that no alien (αλλόφυλον) might pass within the Sanctuary.’ (Bell. Jud. v. 5, 2.) The stone was detected by M. Ganneau by the side of the Via Dolorosa.”]
2:15. *Having abolished **in his flesh the enmity, even the law of commandments contained in ordinances; for to make in himself of twain one ***new man, so making peace; [*Col. 2:14, 20. | **Col. 1:22. | ***2 Cor. 5:17. Gal. 6:15. Eph. 4:24. | “Of the twain,” i.e., Jews and Gentiles.]
15. “Having abolished in his flesh the enmity, even the law of commandments,” etc. The “ordinances” here should be rendered “decrees”. An allusion is made to those decrees or ordinances of God which tended to separate the Jews from all other nations, particularly those respecting meats as clean and unclean, for it was these which prevented Daniel and his companions from eating of the meat brought from the table of the King of Babylon. Such ordinances were the real hedge separating the Jews not only in matters of religion, but of common life, from the Gentiles, and these Christ abolished.
“In his flesh.” That is, by the Incarnation and its results. Christ assumed in the womb of the Virgin the common nature of all men, and thus having reconciled us to God through the sufferings of that Flesh gave that Flesh for the common life of the world – not of the Jews only, but “of the world” (John 6:61). Christ abolished the enmity and abrogated the law of commandments contained in ordinances, not by the mere teaching of His Spirit, but by the sufferings of His Flesh. He saved and saves us by that which pertained to His lower nature rather than to His higher.
“For to make in himself of twain one new man, so making peace.” “Observe then,” says Chrysostom, “that it is not that the Gentile is become a Jew, but that both the one and the other are entered into another condition. It was not with a view of merely making this last other than he was, that He abolished the law, but rather in order to create the two anew. And well does he on all occasions employ the word ‘make’ or ‘create,’ and does not say ‘might change,’ in order to point out the power of what was done.”
2:16. And that he might *reconcile both unto God in one body by the cross, **having slain the enmity ***thereby; [*Col. 1:20–22. | **Rom. 6:6, 8:3. Col. 2:14. | ***Or, in himself. | “Thereby,” in it.]
16. “And that he might reconcile both unto God in one body by the cross.” Some suppose that by the one body the Apostle means His own Body which was crucified. But it is far more probable that he means in one mystical body, i.e. one Church. The reconciliation to God was not of Jews and then Gentiles, but of both as making up one Mystical Body. His Church was in Him and so was accepted by God as in Him when His sacrifice was accepted.
“Having slain the enmity thereby.” By the Sacrifice of the Cross all the signs of distinction between Jews and Gentiles were done away. Now these distinctions had made a real enmity. The Jews looked down upon the Gentiles as uncircumcised, unclean, unholy, dishonourers of God through idolatry. Such sentiments naturally bred in them dislike and aversion, which the Gentiles returned with interest, calling the Jews haters of mankind. All the reasons for this enmity in the ordinances of separation Christ did away by abolishing them through His sacrifice. And one of the most remarkable signs that the enmity was at an end was the willingness of distant Gentile Churches to send relief to the poor Christian Jews suffering by famine in Judea. The enmity was to a certain extent kept smoldering through the false teaching of the Judaizers, but this soon came to an end and disappeared utterly.
2:17. And came *and preached peace to you which were afar off, and to **them that were nigh. [*Isa. 57:19. Zech. 9:10. Acts 2:39, 10:36. Rom. 5:1. Eph. 2:13-14. | **Psa. 148:14.]
17. “And came and preached peace to you which were afar off, and to them,” etc. He came and preached peace to them that were nigh, when He came to the assembled Apostles and saluted them in the words, “Peace be unto you.” He came and preached peace to them which were afar off, when He said to His Apostles, “Go ye and disciple all nations, baptizing them,” etc., and when He said “Go ye to all the world and preach the Gospel to every creature.” And He preached in His Apostles, for not only did St. Paul say, “We are ambassadors for Christ, as though God did beseech you by us,” but he said to the Corinthians, “Since ye seek a proof of Christ speaking in me” (2 Cor. 13:3); and again, the Lord Himself had said, “He that heareth you heareth me.”
“To them that were nigh.” The Jews required the preaching of peace, that is, of reconciliation with God, just as much as did the Gentiles. They were practically alienated from God by their evil traditions even while they worshipped Him (Gal. 1:14, 4:9; 1 Peter 1:18), and the rending of the veil at the moment of the Death of Jesus was to them as the breaking down of the wall of partition to the Gentiles.
2:18. For *through him we both have access **by one Spirit unto the Father. [*John 10:9, 14:6. Rom. 5:2. Eph. 3:12. Heb. 4:16, 10:19–20. 1 Peter 3:18. | **1 Cor. 12:13. Eph. 4:4. | “Access,” the access.]
18. “For through him we both have access by one Spirit unto the Father.” Through him, i.e., our peace and the proclaimer of peace to all. “We both have access.” – lit., “we have the access even both of us.” The access, i.e., the introduction, but access is perhaps the better word, as introduction signifies more frequently only the first introduction: whereas, no doubt, continuous access is meant. The access is by prayer and by Eucharist. Prayer is always offered by the Christians by or through Jesus, naming His Name and relying upon His Intercession, and to be accepted it must be offered “in the Spirit,” that is, helped by the Spirit (Rom. 8:26), inspired to a certain degree by the Spirit, and from a heart cleansed, or being cleansed, renewed or being renewed by the Spirit. And still more with Eucharistic access. Take any one of our Eucharistic prayers. Does not each one require faith in Christ’s presence, faith to discern the Lord’s Body, and love to His brethren? Add to this that the Spirit of God is the real Consecrator in every Eucharist, coming upon the elements that they may be to us the Body and Blood of Christ. In this verse we have one of those associations of the Three Persons of the Ever Blessed Trinity which even more than dogmatic statements enable us to realize the Oneness of the Three – One in action, One in will, One in grace and love.
2:19. Now therefore ye are no more strangers and foreigners, but *fellow citizens with the saints, and of **the household of God; [*Phil. 3:20. Heb. 12:22–23. | **Gal 6:10. Eph. 4:12.]
19. “Now therefore ye are no more strangers and foreigners, but fellow citizens,” etc. This is in allusion to verse 12. “Strangers” means those who came into a city, transacted their business, and left: foreigners are persons from other cities dwelling in the city, but having no rights of citizenship, translated “sojourners” by Ellicott. On the contrary, they had not only acquired the rights of citizenship, but had been invested with them. An equivalent expression is in Phil. 3:20, “Our citizenship (not conversation) is in heaven,” and Galatians 4:26, “Jerusalem, which is above, is free, which is the mother of us all,” and again, “Ye are come (lit. ye have come) unto Mount Zion, and unto the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem” (Heb. 12:22).
“And of the household of God.” This is an advance. They are not only of God’s city, but of His household – His family – He is not only their King but their Father.
2:20. And are *built **upon the foundation of the ***apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ himself being the 4*chief corner stone; [*1 Cor. 3:9–10. Eph. 4:12. 1 Peter 2:4–5 | **Matt. 16:18. Gal. 2:9. Rev. 21:14. | ***1 Cor. 12:28. Eph. 4:11. | 4*Pa. 118:22. Isa. 28:16. Matt. 21. 42.]
20. “And are built upon the foundations of the Apostles and Prophets, Jesus Christ Himself,” etc. We have here a very abrupt change of metaphor. Up to this the Apostle describes the Church as a polity or household, now it becomes a temple. Now there are three things which are required to fulfill the Divine Idea.
There is the tree which bears fruit (John 15:1–10, Rom. 11), and the Church is planted and nourished by Divine Grace in order that it may bring forth fruit unto God.
There is the Body under one Head which makes all the members active and energetic in their places and yet act as one (1 Cor. 12).
There is the temple, because the Church is the place or sphere of the true worship of God, as St. Peter describes (1 Peter 2:4), “To whom coming, as to a living stone, disallowed indeed of men,” etc. “Ye also as lively stones are built up a spiritual house, an holy priesthood, to offer up spiritual sacrifices acceptable unto God by Jesus Christ.”
“And are built upon the foundations of the Apostles and Prophets.” Who are the prophets here mentioned? We are told that they cannot be the Jewish prophets because they are mentioned after the Apostles. But surely this is a poor argument. The Christian Church is said by St. Peter to be built upon the foundation of the prophets, when he says, “To him bear all the prophets witness.” But this need not exclude the prophets of the New Testament who not only foretold the future, but especially were endowed by the Spirit with insight into the mysteries of the Gospel (1 Cor. 13:2).
But how can the Apostles and Prophets be called the foundation, seeing that there is one foundation, even Jesus Christ? We answer, that as Christ is the foundation of the Apostles and Prophets themselves, so they are our foundation. The laying of the foundation in the case of each individual soul is the teaching of that soul. Now we are not taught by the lips of Christ Himself as the Apostles were, but through those of SS. Peter, Paul, and John, who heard His teaching and delivered it to the Church, and the Church to us. The teaching or witness of the Apostle is between every Christian and Christ. No man is or can be built upon Christ Himself except through the intervention of those who heard Christ. And so with the Prophets. Look at the multitude who are built upon the foundation of Isaiah, the most distinguished prophet, through his fifty-third chapter, and other prophecies. The very Apostles themselves were in a sense built upon it.
Jesus Christ being the Alpha and Omega – the beginning and the end, the first and the last – is at once the foundation and the top stone. The building rests upon Him, and the building is united above in Him.
There is great difficulty amongst expositors in reconciling the two images, Christ the foundation, and Christ the head of the corner, or chief cornerstone. Some suppose that the latter is the lowest stone of the principal angle of the building, in which the two walls join and by which their respective lines are regulated. Others suppose that it is a large stone running up one corner and uniting the two walls; others that it is a stone at the top. It should be remembered that it is impossible to explain this metaphor, because the building itself is a mystery, as it is a growing building, not growing by being built with hands, but from some inherent life. Thus St. Peter describes it as a building composed of living stones which are made living by coming to and touching One Which is living and so Lifegiving: “To whom coming as to a living stone ... ye also as living stones are built up a spiritual house” (1 Peter 2:4–5). The idea seems to be that the building grows in proportion to a stone which is at the head. The outward or physical idea, so to speak, is incomprehensible, but the inward and spiritual teaching is the plainest possible. We are built up upon Christ as the foundation, for His Godhead, and Incarnation, and Atonement, are the foundation of the whole religion; and we are built up according to His example. The top stone is in heaven, and all the building of living stones rises up to it, and takes its proportions from it.
2:21. *In. whom all the building fitly framed together groweth unto **an holy temple in the Lord: [*Eph. 4:15–16. | **1 Cor. 3:17, 6:19. 2 Cor. 6:16.]
21. “In whom all the building fitly framed together groweth,” etc. This seems to be in accordance with what I have said respecting the chief corner stone being not a part of the foundation or resting upon it, but at the head of the building, so that the growth of the whole building is regulated by its size, or form, or position. So in the next chapter the Head, even Christ, is He “from whom the whole body is fitly joined together and compacted.” The body, if it is to be in symmetry, must grow in proportion to the head.
2:22. *In whom ye also are builded together for an habitation of God through the Spirit. [*1 Peter 2:5.]
22. “In whom ye also are builded together for an habitation of God through the Spirit.” Here again the three persons of the Trinity are joined together as co-factors in the foundation and building up of the Church. The whole is in Christ – it is through the Spirit – it is that God may dwell in it. “The Lord hath chosen Zion to be an habitation for Himself, He hath longed for her. This shall be my rest forever, here will I dwell for I have a delight therein.” “What then is the object of this building? It is that God may dwell in this temple. For each of you severally is a temple, and all of you together are a temple. And he dwelleth in you as the Body of Christ, and dwelleth as in a spiritual temple.” We must remember that in old times the idea of a temple was not only a place to which worshippers resorted, but in which the Deity especially dwelt. Worshippers resorted to it because they supposed that God was peculiarly there; and so “God is in the assemblies of Christian worshippers of a truth” (1 Cor. 14:25).
Chapter 3
3:1. For this cause I Paul, *the prisoner of Jesus Christ, **for you Gentiles, [*Acts 21:33, 28:17, 20. Eph. 4:1, 6:20. Phil. 1:7, 13–14, 16. Col. 4:3, 18. 2 Tim. 1:8, 2:9. Philemon 1:9. | **Gal. 5:11. Col. 1:24. 2 Tim. 2:10.]
1. “For this cause I Paul, the prisoner of Jesus Christ for you Gentiles.” “For this cause,” that is, because ye are no more strangers and foreigners, but fellow citizens. “In whom ye are builded together for an habitation.” If these blessings belonged to them so that they were entitled to them, they should know them, and realize them, and live up to them.
“I Paul, the prisoner of Jesus Christ for you Gentiles.” In the Epistles written during his imprisonment he frequently refers to that imprisonment in order to draw out the love of his Gentile converts for whose sake he suffered it. Three times he mentions it in this Epistle, here and in 4:1 and in 6:20, where he describes himself as “an ambassador in bonds”. Also in Phil. 1:7, 13–14, 16, and very touchingly as connected with his advanced years in the letter to Philemon, “Being such an one as Paul the aged, and now also a prisoner of Jesus Christ.” The reader, of course, knows that he was not a prisoner as being immured in a dungeon, not able to speak except by special permission, but rather as a man under restraint, the restraint of being chained to a soldier who kept him; and so, in all probability, having full liberty to attend all meetings for worship, or preaching, or instruction. He was certainly able to receive “all that came in unto him,” and to preach to them the kingdom of God (Acts 28:30–31).
“For you Gentiles.” He was a prisoner, not so much for preaching Jesus Christ as for preaching the equality of all men in Christ. The circumstance which led to his imprisonment in Rome was the riot in the Temple, instigated by the words, “Men of Israel, help. This is the man that teacheth all men everywhere against the people, and the law, and this place” (Acts 21:28).
This place. Consider how the words just written about “the whole building fitly framed together, growing into an holy temple in the Lord,” might be taken as spoken disparagingly against the material temple in Jerusalem.
2:2. If ye have heard of *the dispensation of the grace of God **which is given me to you-ward: [*Rom. 1:5, 9:13. 1. Cor. 4:1. Eph. 4:7. Col. 1:25. | **Acts 9:15, 13:2. Rom. 12:3. Gal. 1:16. Eph. 2:6. | “If ye have heard.” Rather, “Since ye heard.”]
2. “If ye have heard of the dispensation of the grace of God which is given,” etc. “If ye have heard.” This is understood by many commentators as proving that the Epistle to the Ephesians was a circular Epistle to be sent to many churches, some of which may not have been founded by St. Paul, or ever visited by him. It is inferred that if he had preached two or three years in Ephesus, he could not have expressed as a somewhat doubtful matter whether they had heard the principal feature of his message. But we must remember that the word “if” (είγε), may not express doubt, but rather certainty, as meaning, “seeing that,” “inasmuch as” ye have heard.
“The dispensation of the grace of God.” Rather, “the stewardship”. A dispensation, in the larger sense of the Jewish or Christian dispensation, cannot be committed to anyone, but the stewardship of it can, and it required a wise and faithful steward to dispense such a mystery.
“Which is given me to you-ward.” He was especially sent by Christ to the Gentiles: “Depart, for I will send thee far hence unto the Gentiles” (Acts 22:21).
3:3. *How that **by revelation ***he made known unto me the mystery; (4*as I wrote 5*afore in few words, [*Acts 22:17, 21, 26:17–18. | **Gal. 1:12. | ***Rom. 16:25. Col. 1:26–27. | 4*Eph. 1:9–10. | 5*Or, a little before.]
3. “How that by revelation he made known unto me the mystery,” etc. The mode in which the revelation was conveyed to him was like that by which he received the details respecting the institution of the Eucharist (1 Cor. 11). It was perhaps by vision, perhaps by secret suggestion, or an inpouring of light more or less sudden. Anyhow it cannot be limited to such a message as that which he received in a trance in the Temple (Acts 22:17–21), for that was a command rather than a revelation of a mystery.
“As I wrote afore in few words.” This does not refer to some former Epistle, but to former words of his in this Epistle. It may be understood, “as I have just written,” or “written above”. He had written a few words upon this mystery in Eph. 1:11–23, and 2:11–22.
3:4. Whereby, when ye read, ye may understand my knowledge *in the mystery of Christ) [1 Cor. 4:1. Eph. 6:19.]
4. “Whereby, when ye read, ye may understand my knowledge,” etc. They would perceive if they referred back to these words of this letter that the Apostle had knowledge, not only of a bare fact, the admission of both Jews and Gentiles on equal terms into the Church of Christ, but of the mystery of the fact – rather of the mystery of Christ – on what that mystery rested. It rested on the mystery of the Second Adam, the New Head of the race in Whom, late though He came into the world, all could be gathered together in one. The words to which he referred, few though they were, would indicate what a grasp of this mystery God had given to him.
3:5. *Which in other ages was not made known unto the sons of men, **as it is now revealed unto his holy apostles and prophets by the Spirit; [*Acts 10:28. Rom. 16:25. Eph. 3:9. | **Eph. 2:20.]
5. “Which in other ages was not made known unto the sons of men, as,” etc. This does not mean that there were no intimations of a future reception of the Gentiles, as in Gen. 18:18, and 22:18, and in Psalm 22:27; but that the exceeding graciousness of the way by which Jews and Gentiles were all to be brought into one in Christ was but very faintly, if at all, revealed. In other ages it was not made known, as it is now revealed unto His Holy Apostles and prophets, by the Spirit.
The words of the Apostles Peter and James, at the council held in Jerusalem, show that the Apostles of the circumcision entered very fully into the acknowledgment of this mystery, as particularly the words of Peter, “Put no difference between us and them, purifying their hearts by faith.” But who are the prophets here? Probably this term is here to be used in a very extended sense, as indicating all ministers, all who preached and taught with any assistance of the Spirit.
3:6. That the Gentiles *should be fellow heirs, and **of the same body, and ***partakers of his promise in Christ by the Gospel: [Gal: iii. 28, 29. ch. e. 14. x ch. ii. 15, 16. o Gal. iii. 14.]
6. “That the Gentiles should be fellow heirs, and of the same body,” etc. The Apostle’s meaning would, I think, be brought out more clearly if we read this as “That the Gentiles are co-heirs, and co-members of one body, and co-partakers of his promise by Christ.”
All these are different descriptions of the same mystery.
We are co-heirs, because Christ is the Heir, and we are in Him.
We are co-partakers of God’s promise, because to the one Seed of Abraham were the promises made, and we are in Him.
This place is much to be thought of, for in it St. Paul himself teaches us what is the central truth of his theology. It is not justification by faith so much as membership in Christ. Justification by faith is absolutely needful, because faith is God’s requirement, before we can receive the blessing of union with Christ. Christ and Justification by Christ, and Atonement through His Blood, and Baptismal Incorporation into His Body, are all of faith. Without faith they can neither be apprehended, nor realized, nor continued in; but faith is the means to an end, and that end is inherence in Christ.
3:7. *Whereof I was made a minister, **according to the gift of the grace of God given unto me by ***the effectual working of his power. [*Rom. 15:16. Col. 1:23, 25. | **Rom. 1:5. | ***Rom. 15:18. Eph. 1:19. Col. 1:29.]
7. “Whereof I was made a minister, according to the gift of the grace,” etc. The gift was a gift of grace to fulfill the Apostleship to which God called him, and this grace was mighty in accordance with the effectual working of God’s power. God first gave the gift, and assisted by His power the working of it out in such ways as the conversion of individual souls, the building up of churches, the exercise of discipline (1 Cor. 5:3–5) and the overthrow of adversaries.
3:8. Unto me, *who am less than the least of all saints, is this grace given, that **I should preach among the Gentiles ***the unsearchable riches of Christ; [*1 Cor. 15:9. 1 Tim. 1:13, 15. | **Gal. 1:16, 2:8. 1 Tim. 2:7. 2 Tim. 1:11. | ***Eph. 1:7. Col. 1:27.]
8. “Unto me, who am less than the least of all saints, is this grace given,” etc. God’s having forgiven St. Paul was to him no reason why he should forgive himself. He cherished the memory of his former persecuting and cruel life, to keep himself humble, and to magnify the grace of God in His having made such an one as he had been an effectual instrument of His grace.
“The unsearchable riches of Christ.” Riches which could not be tracked out – beyond all reach of investigation. The knowledge, the power, the grace, the love are alike infinite. And it must be so if He is very God. And yet though beyond all power of searching or investigation, we are yet to search and investigate them. Their being beyond our reach, is no reason why we should not go as far as we can in tracking them out.
3:9. And to make all men, see what is the fellowship of *the mystery, **which from the beginning of the world hath been hid in God, ***who created all things by Jesus Christ: [*Eph. 3:3, 1:9. | **Rom. 16:25. Eph. 3:5. 1 Cor. 2:7. Col. 1:26. | ***Psa. 33:6. Joh 1:3. Col. 1:16. Heb. 1:2. | “Make all men see.” So B, C, D, E, F, G, K, L, P, most Cursives, Ital., Vulg.; but א, A, 67**, omit “all men.” | “The fellowship.” With very little authority; but א, A, B, C, D, E, F, G, K, L, P, most Cursives, Ital., Vulg., Syriac, Copt., read “the economy”. | “By Jesus Christ.” Omitted by א, A, B, C, D, F, G, P, 17, 47, 68, 73, d, e, f, g, Vulg., Syriac, Cop., Arm., AEth., Goth.; but retained by E, K, L, and most Cursives.]
9. “And to make all men see what is the fellowship of the mystery,” etc. Some MSS. and authorities omit “all men,” in which case we must understand Gentiles, “and to make them (the Gentiles) see (or enlighten them upon).”
“What is the fellowship of the mystery.” All the great uncials and other authorities read “the economy, or dispensation of the mystery,” which is, no doubt, the genuine reading. The one meaning, however, shades into the other, the principal feature of the new dispensation is the Catholic fellowship, the gathering together of all things into one in Christ.
“Which from the beginning of the world hath been hid in God, who created all things,” etc. Chrysostom supposes that the economy of the mystery, so far as regards the admission of the Gentiles, was hidden even from the angels. “Angels knew only this, that the Lord’s portion was His people. And again it is said, ‘The Prince of Persia [meaning the Guardian Angel of Persia] withstood me.’ So that it is nothing to be wondered at that they were ignorant of this, for if they were ignorant of the circumstances of the return from the captivity, much more would they be of these things. And the more so, for the glad tidings were these, ‘Who shall save’ (the Prophet Hosea, saith) ‘his people Israel.’ Not a word about the Gentiles. But what concerns the Gentiles the Spirit revealeth. That they were called indeed, the Angels knew, but that it was to the same privileges as Israel, yea, even to sit upon the throne of God, this, who would ever have expected? Who would ever have believed?” It seems to me doubtful, however, if we can go so far as this.
“Who created all things by Jesus Christ.” This is apparently thrown in by the way. God, who created all things – that is, the universe of intelligent creatures – being infinitely good and merciful, is only likely to care for them, and to gather them together in Christ.
The preponderance of authorities is against retaining the words, “by Jesus Christ”. The fact, however, that He did so, is certain from John 1:3, Col. 1:16, Heb. 1:2.
3:10. *To the intent that now **unto the principalities and powers in heavenly places ***might be known by the Church the manifold wisdom of God. [*1 Peter 1:12. | **Rom. 8:38. Eph. 1:21. Col. 1:16. 1 Peter 3:22. | ***1 Cor. 2:7. 1 Tim. 3:16.]
10. “To the intent that now unto the principalities and powers in heavenly,” etc. I dwelt upon this place in my Excursus on Election in Notes on the Epistle to the Romans, and I will now reproduce the substance of what I then said, as it seems to point the way to a practical solution of the difficulties which many have felt respecting Predestination.
God has two purposes in carrying out the providential scheme of the world. He desires to judge all men for the deeds done in their bodies at the judgment seat of His Son at the last day. But it is intolerable to think that the Son of God, the righteous Judge, will judge men who have not been perfectly free agents, who have been compelled by a superior power to do good or to do evil, for which good or evil they will be rewarded or punished. So that it is impossible to reconcile the idea of Election, as generally understood, with the idea of an infinitely just and perfect judgment at the bar of Christ. And yet there is no truth so much insisted upon as this just judgment.
So that it is impossible to suppose that God chooses men beforehand to be on the right hand, or on the left, at that day.
But God, in creating the Church has, according to this verse on which we are now commenting, another purpose. It is to show His manifold wisdom in the government or ordering of that Church, not only to men, but to the principalities and powers in heavenly places. Now we men, from our low and narrow standpoint, can see what a number of lessons may be gathered from the providence of God, as displayed in the history of the Church; as, for instance, the height to which men are raised in virtue and goodness by the reception of the truth, the knowledge which by its teaching they attain to respecting God and eternal things; and, on the other hand, the evil of divisions, the extraordinary permanence of such divisions, the baneful effects of superstition, and yet the healing character of a firm hold on the Incarnation in mitigating much of the evil of such superstition. We can see the innate opposition between the Spirit of the Church and that of the world, the disintegrating nature of all government except the Apostolic, the tendency of established bodies to stagnate, and of sects to decline from the faith, the necessity of holding firmly to all the words of Christ, or of His Spirit, even though we may not be able to reconcile them. Now if God has a preconceived and settled plan in causing His Church to solve, or at least to approach to the solution of so many problems of the deepest importance to responsible intelligences, He must choose beforehand His instruments, only we must remember that any power which God brings to bear upon His instruments will, in no degree whatsoever, affect their place at the Judgment Seat of His Son. No matter what the difficulty, the infinite justice of the Judgment of Christ, and the instructions to be afforded to the highest angels by the fortunes of the Church, which necessitates a choice long beforehand of instruments on God’s part, are each to be held in absolute integrity. But I must refer the reader to pages 354–358 of my Excursus in Notes on the Epistle to the Romans, for the fuller investigation of this matter.
3:11. *According to the eternal purpose which he purposed in Christ Jesus our Lord: [*Eph. 1:9.]
11. “According to the eternal purpose, which he purposed in Christ Jesus our Lord.” It was in the counsels of God from eternity to make this world the theater of events which should afford, even to the highest intelligences, lessons in His Infinite Wisdom; and it was no marvel that it should be so, inasmuch as this world was the scene of the Incarnation, and of the life of the Eternal Son under the conditions of a creature, and of His Death, whereby God found means of reconciling all things to Himself, whether things on earth or things in heaven.
3:12. In whom we have boldness and *access **with confidence by the faith of him. [*Eph. 2:18. | **Heb. 4:15.]
12. “In whom we have boldness and access with confidence by the faith of him.” The word “boldness” is used in the latter part of this Epistle, 6:19 (“that I may open my mouth boldly”) of boldness in speaking to men. Here it seems to signify rather confidence and filial freedom in coming to God.
“And access with confidence.” Even the High Priest, the greatest minister of the Old Covenant, could not be said to have “access with confidence” into the presence of God, seeing that he was in danger of death if he omitted any of the ceremonies wherewith he was to enter into the Holy of Holies. Whereas we have such a promise as “Whatsoever ye shall ask the Father in my Name, he will give it you,” and such as “Having therefore, brethren, boldness to enter into the holiest by the Blood of Jesus, by a new and living way which he hath consecrated for us through the veil, that is to say, his flesh” (Heb. 10:19).
“By the faith of him.” The faith here is the truth respecting His Divine Nature and work which is proposed to the acceptance of our faith. If God has redeemed us at such a cost, the thought of such grace and goodness naturally, one would say, excites confidence.
3:13. *Wherefore I desire that ye faint not at my tribulations **for you, ***which is your glory. [*Acts 14:22. Phil. 1:14. 1 Thess. 3:3. | **Eph. 3:1. | ***2 Cor. 1:6.]
13. “Wherefore I desire that ye faint not at my tribulations for you,” etc. Why should they faint at his tribulations? Because in the religions which then prevailed throughout the world, tribulations and distress were held to be the signs of the anger of the Deity, whereas the Humiliation, Life, and Crucifixion of the Man of Sorrows has changed all this utterly. Now instead of looking upon distress as a sign of the anger of God, we look upon it as a sign of God’s favour, in conforming us in this respect to the image of His Son. We interpret it by the words, “Rejoice, inasmuch as ye are partakers of Christ’s suffering” (1 Peter 4:13), and other words, as “If ye endure chastening, God dealeth with you as with sons” (Heb. 12:7), and “Count it all joy when ye fall into divers trials” (James 1:2).
“Which is your glory.” Why your glory? Because it was a sign that they were very dear to God, and very high in His favour if He permitted one of His chief servants to suffer on their behalf. The sufferings of the martyr and confessor are the glory of the whole Church.
3:14. For this cause I bow my knees unto the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, [“Of our Lord Jesus Christ.” So D, E, F, G, K, L, most Cursives, Ital., Vulg., Goth., Syr.; but omitted by א, A, B, C, P, Copt., AEth.]
3:15. Of whom *the whole family in heaven and earth is named. [*Eph. 1:10. Phil. 2:9–11. | “The whole Family.” “Every family,” Rev.]
14–15. “For this cause I bow my knees unto the Father of our Lord ... is named.” “I bow my knees.” This posture in prayer is, as Wordsworth says, commended to us by the example of Christ (Luke 22:41), by that of the dying Stephen (Acts 7:60), by that of St. Peter (Acts 9:40), and by that of St. Paul (Acts 21:5), and is prescribed by God Himself (Rom. 14:11).
This seems to signify that all created paternity is derived from the uncreated. So Aquinas.
We cannot express in the English the connection in the original between the word “Father” of verse 14, and the “family” of verse 15. It is, “I bow my knees unto the Father (Pater) of whom every patria (or race) is named.”
The word “family” in the Scriptures does not refer so much to a particular family inhabiting one house under one father or head as to races, or rather, to clans.
No doubt St. Paul in using this phrase here intends to signify that all the Gentiles being the children of Adam, and each one being brought into the world by a particular act of the will and power of God, can all claim God as their Father, and are all of the natural family of God, as we may say. This is particularly agreeable to the beginning of a prayer put up by him on the behalf of Gentiles.
The Fatherhood of God through the Incarnation and Mediation of Jesus Christ is so exceedingly great that it puts into the background His Natural Fatherhood, so that we are apt to forget it. But David did not when he prayed, “Thy hands have made me and fashioned me: O give me understanding that I may learn thy commandments” (Psa. 119:73).
This text has various interpretations. St. Athanasius supposes it to imply that God as Father of the Son is the only true Father, and that all created Eternity is a shadow of the true (“Orat. in Arian,” i. 23). St. Jerome says, “As He Who alone is good makes men good, and Who is alone immortal bestows immortality (1 Tim. 6:16), and Who alone is true (Rom. 3:4), imparts the name of truth, so too the only Father, in that He is Creator of all, and the cause of substance to all, gives to the rest (of fathers) to be called father.”
But why race or family “in heaven” as well as in earth? This is a secret thing on which we cannot venture to intrude for a moment, only we should gather that as there are kingdoms in heaven under various principalities, so there are races in some sort analogous to those on earth.
3:16. That he would grant you, *according to the riches of his glory, **to be strengthened with might by his Spirit in ***the inner man; [*Rom. 9:23. Eph. 1:7. Phil 4:19. Col. 1:27. | **Eph. 6:10. Col. 1:11. | ***Rom. 7:22. 2 Cor. 4:16.]
16. “That he would grant you, according to the riches of his glory, to be strengthened with might by his Spirit in the inner man;”
3:17. *That Christ may dwell in your hearts by faith; that ye, **being rooted and grounded in love, [*John 14:23. Eph. 2:22. | **Col. 1:23, 2:7.]
17. “That Christ may dwell in your hearts by faith,” etc. All these astonishing things respecting the mystery of all things being made one in Christ were addressed to the intellect in order that they might be received by the heart, and excite in that heart the deepest and sincerest loved God; and now St. Paul proceeds to pray for this on their behalf.
Now observe the remarkable connection of the ideas. A strengthening by the Spirit in the inner man, in order that Christ may dwell therein by faith. How is it that the Apostle prays that the inner man may be strengthened, so that Christ by faith may dwell therein? Should we not have thought that he would rather have prayed that the inner man may be enlightened, or purified, or warmed by love? But he prays that their inner man may be strengthened. Now this is because, from his point of view, unbelief is the weakness, and faith the strength of the soul. Faith is that in the soul which lays hold on unseen things: Christian faith is that which apprehends, or lays hold of the unseen Saviour. Owing to the sin of our nature, the soul, or spirit, or inner man is miserably weakened in its very noblest faculty, its faith by which it apprehends the Unseen God. Faith is the eye by which the soul sees Christ, and by sin that eye has become weak and dim. Faith is the hand which lays hold on Christ, and by sin that hand is palsied. Now when the Spirit of God strengthens the soul, the first effect of this strengthening is that the soul has restored to it the faculty of faith in unseen and eternal things. The eye of the soul is strengthened so that it sees the Son of God. The arm of the soul is strengthened so that it lays hold upon Him, and the whole inner man is strengthened so that it should be able to support the presence of such a Guest. For He hath promised “He that eateth my Flesh, and drinketh my Blood, dwelleth in me and I in him.” [This I have reproduced from a sermon of mine published nearly thirty years ago.] Many are the promises respecting the astonishing effect of faith, such as “in that day ye shall know that I am in my Father, and ye in me, and I in you” (John 14:16–20). “I in them, and thou in me” (John 17:23), “Christ is in you of a truth” (1 Cor. 14:25); also Col. 1:27, “Christ in you,” and Col. 3:11, “Christ is all and in all.”
“That ye, being rooted and grounded in love.” What is this love in which we are to be rooted and grounded? Not the love of God only, but the love of our neighbour – of the brethren. Thus St. John, “He that loveth not his brother whom he hath seen, how can he love God whom he hath not seen?” (1 John 4:20).
But does not the Apostle say, rooted and built up in Him? Yes, but how can we be built up in Christ unless we attend to His own particular commandment, “A new commandment I give unto you that ye love one another as I have loved you.”
3:18. *May be able to comprehend with all saints **what is the breadth, and length, and depth, and height; [*Eph. 1:18. | **Rom. 10:3, 11–12.]
18. “May be able to comprehend with all saints what is the breadth and length,” etc. St. Paul seems here to indicate the infinity of Redemption, or of the love of Christ, if we supply what seems deficient from the next verse. Redemption itself, as well as the love of Him Who wrought it, is infinite, in its length, reaching through eternity – in its breadth embracing the whole intelligent creation – in its depth descending to the depths of Hades – in its height ascending to the throne of God. Many of the ancient Fathers (but not Chrysostom nor Theodoret), see here a reference to the cross, which above all other things is the symbol of the love of Christ, pointing upward to heaven, downward to hell, and its arms extended to the ends of the earth. Thus Origen (quoted in Wordsworth): “By the cross He ascended up on high, and led captivity captive, by it He descended to the lowest parts of the earth (iv. 9), and by it He extendeth Himself to the length and breadth of the whole world.”
The place, however, refers to the greatest, mysteries, unattainable in its height, unsearchable in its depth, infinite in its extension, and had better be left as it is and not defined, particularly if we join with it the next verse.
3:19. And to know the love of Christ, which passeth knowledge, that ye might be filled *with all the fullness of God. [*John 1:16. Eph. 1:23. Col. 2:9–10.]
19. “And to know the love of Christ, which passeth knowledge,” etc. “The love of Christ” – in becoming Incarnate – in enduring the contradiction of sinners, while living among them – in dying – in rising again – and in interceding: all is unsearchable; and so with the love of Christ to the Church, and the love of Christ to each soul, in pardoning it, illuminating it, instructing it, bearing with it; all is unsearchable, all passeth knowledge. This is the happiness of those who belong to Christ, that the prospect before them is boundless. As it is the greatest happiness of the creature to know God, so it is a happiness in which he will always be progressing.
“That ye might be filled with all the fullness of God.” The fullness of God in the Christian will be the fullness of Divine grace and knowledge. “That ye may abound in all the gifts of God, as with all knowledge of God in the mind, and with all love in the heart, and so that ye may be strong and enduring, and never fail or fall short of His Grace.” Bernardino a Piconio.
3:20. Now *unto him that is able to do exceeding abundantly **above all that we ask or think, ***according to the power that worketh in us, [*Rom. 16:25. Jude 24. | **1 Cor. 2:9. | ***Eph. 3:7. Col. 1:29.]
20. “Now unto him that is able to do exceeding abundantly above all that we ask or think.” He becomes conscious, as it were, that he has been praying on their behalf for impossibilities, that they should know a love which passeth knowledge, and be filled with the fullness of Him Who is infinite. But though this is beyond all human endeavour or even imagination or thought, God has put into them His power, i.e., His Spirit to work in them: for that is the “power that worketh in us.” And this Spirit is the third Person in the Trinity. He is God, and can act in our souls with the power of the Creator, enlarging, deepening, exalting, transforming, and so that which seems impossible to men is possible with God. A time there was with holy souls when they could not have asked for what God has given to them, or thought of what God has revealed to them.
3:21. *Unto him be glory in the Church by Christ Jesus throughout all ages, world without end. Amen. [*Rom. 11:36, 16:27. Heb. 13:21. | “In the Church by Christ Jesus.” So K, L, P, most Cursives, Syriac, Arm., AEth., but א, A, B, C, 17, 73, 18, 230, Vulg., Copt., read “in the Church and in Christ Jesus.”]
21. “Unto him be glory in the Church in (or by) Christ Jesus throughout,” etc. To Him, that is, to God the Father, “of Whom and through Whom and to Whom are all things.”
The literal rendering of the last clause is “to all the generations of the ages of ages.” Eternity can only be expressed by this accumulation of expressions of duration. This doxology is founded on verse 10. “To the intent that now to the principalities and powers in heavenly places might be known, by the Church, the manifold wisdom of God.”
Some MSS. read “in the Church and in Christ Jesus.” But surely all the glory which accrues to God from the Church is in Christ Jesus, for we cannot conceive of any glory in the Church to God apart from Him.
Chapter 4
4:1. I therefore, *the prisoner **of the Lord, beseech you that ye ***walk worthy of the vocation wherewith ye are called. [Eph. 3:1. Philemon 1:9. | **Or, in the Lord. | ***Phil. 1:27. Col. 1:10. 1 Thess. 2:12.]
1. “I therefore, the prisoner of the Lord, beseech you, that ye,” etc. The Apostle began the last chapter with calling himself the prisoner of the Lord, and then, as his manner so frequently is, went off to assert the mystery of the call of the Gentiles, the asserting of which was the real cause of his imprisonment. The whole of the last chapter, then, is in a parenthesis, and now he begins practically to apply the astonishing truths which he had enunciated. And the application is still more surprising than the truths themselves, for he teaches us that revelations which seem to exalt us to heaven itself are to be responded to, not by lofty thoughts and soaring imaginations, but by self-abasement. We walk worthy of our vocation, not merely by entertaining grand spiritual ideas and lofty aims, but by submitting to do lowly duties.
4:2. *With all lowliness and meekness, with long-suffering, forbearing one another in love; [Acts 20:19. Gal. 5:22–23. Col. 3:12–13.]
2. “With all lowliness and meekness, with long-suffering, forbearing one another,” etc. This is the echo of the Lord’s very first teaching, “Blessed are the poor in spirit,” – “blessed are they that mourn,” – “blessed are the meek,” – “blessed are the merciful,” – “blessed are the peacemakers.” Whether we ministers and teachers feel these humble and humbling things in our own experience, we are bound to teach them as required by God and as the counterpart in ourselves to the highest truths. For when the highest truths, such as the Incarnation, the Headship of Christ over all things, the Church the mystical body under the Headship of the God-man – the fortunes of the Church as the means of instructing the princes of the heavenly hosts in the manifold wisdom of God – when these things are revealed to the soul and are duly received by it, instead of inflating the soul they abase it: “Am I, such as I am, called by God to know and receive and contemplate these things? who and what am I that I should be thus made to know the highest things of God – the things which the angels desire to look into?”
“With all lowliness.” “Not that which is in words, nor that which is in actions only, but even in one’s very bearing and tone of voice: be not lowly towards one and rude towards another. Be lowly towards all men, be he friend or foe, be he small or great.” (Chrysostom).
“And meekness, with long-suffering, forbearing one another in love.” Thus in the Epistle to the Galatians: “Restore such an one in the spirit of meekness, considering thyself lest thou also be tempted” (Gal. 6:1). “With long-suffering” – the most difficult of Christian virtues, and the one in which the example of the Incarnate Son is most conspicuous; “Who, when he was reviled, reviled not again, when he suffered he threatened not, but committed himself unto him that judgeth righteously” (1 Peter 2:23). “Forbearing one another in love”; not, as Quesnel says, “to bear with the faults of our neighbour through insensibility, or through a certain sweetness of temper or human complaisance, or worldly civility or temporal interest, but to do it through a true and most Christian charity.” “How is it possible to forbear if a man be passionate or censorious? He hath told us, therefore, the manner: in love, saith he. If thou, he would say, art not forbearing to thy neighbour, how shall God be forbearing unto thee? If thou bearest not with thy fellow servant, how shall the Master bear with thee? (Chrysostom.)
4:3. Endeavouring to keep the unity of the Spirit *in the bond of peace. [Col. 3:14.]
3. “Endeavouring to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace.” This is that for which the Lord prayed in His great intercessory prayer, “Keep through thine own name those whom thou hast given me, that they may be one as we are.” (John 17:11.)
What is the unity of the Spirit? It is this: The Holy Ghost is one holy Divine Person, Who by His attribute of Omnipresence, has power to enter into and dwell in the spirits of all men. Being One Person in each soul, He would make each one believe, and love, and think alike: but He has respect to the separate personality of each soul, and so He gives Himself most fully to him who will receive Him most fully. Some welcome Him into them. Some restrain Him. Some even, at times at least, grieve and vex Him. His mission to each one is to show to him the things of the same Christ, to graft in his heart the love of the same God, and to cleanse each one after the same pattern of Holiness. But all this is to be seconded by the endeavours of each one, so that endeavouring to keep the unity of the Spirit is endeavouring to receive all the teaching, all the love, all the cleansing of this one Divine Person.
This is our endeavour, and we are to work out this endeavour in the bond of peace. We are, that is, not only to do this as to God, but as to our brethren, acting with them, not separating ourselves from them; but even looking upon them as in the same family as ourselves, and this because, –
4:4. *There is one body, and **one Spirit, even as ye are called in one ***hope of your calling: [*Rom. 12:5. 1 Cor. 12:12–13. Eph. 2:16. | **1 Cor. 12:4, 11. | ***Eph. 1:18. | “Are called.” “Were called.”]
4. “There is one body and one Spirit, even as ye are called in one hope of your calling.” “One body,” i.e., the mystical Body, the Church. This body consists of members who are all united together under one Head. “As the body is one and hath many members, and all the members of that one body, being many, are one body, so also is Christ.” “The body is not one member but many.” “Now ye are the body of Christ, and members in particular.” (1 Cor. 12.) Now is this body visible? Of course it is, or the Apostle would not call it a body. He calls it a body as being in its nature different from Spirit, though inhabited by Spirit. Body and Spirit are as different from one another as two things created by God can be. And so he says: “There is one body, there is one Spirit.” But again, is this body organized? It must be so if it is to be properly called a body. A body is not a mere mass of unformed flesh – but if it is a body, it must have members, must have nerves, must have joints and bands, and all things that properly belong to the human frame.
But in what does the unifying organization consist? We are told many times that it is (under Christ) in the Apostolic fellowship. Thus, of the first planted Church, it is said that they “continued steadfastly in the Apostles’ doctrine and fellowship” (Acts. 2:42). Thus St. Paul, in speaking of the Church with reference to its unity, writes: “God hath set some (members) in the Church, first Apostles” (1 Cor. 21:28). St. Paul always writes to every Church as if he was over them in the Lord. Thus he writes: “So ordain I in all Churches”; “I praise you that ye keep the ordinances as I delivered them unto you” (1 Cor. 7:17, 11:2). “Ye both do and will do the things which we command you.” “We command you, brethren, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ.” “Such we command and exhort” (2 Thess. 3:4, 6, 12).
Is there anything else in which consists the Unity of the Body? Yes, in the Sacraments. Baptism is mentioned in the next verse, and the Holy Communion, as specially the condition of Unity, in 1 Cor. 10:17, “We being many, are one bread and one body, for we are all partakers of that one bread.”
“One Spirit,” the Holy Spirit, by which there is the Unity of one life throughout the Body. I have mentioned it many times, and note it here again, that the Apostles always assume that the Holy Spirit is given to all – not to some, but to all in the Church. All are held answerable for having received Him – all are commanded to be filled with Him – all are bid not to grieve or quench Him.
“Even as ye are called in one hope of your calling.” What is the hope of your calling? It is the hope of being raised again in the likeness of Christ’s glorious body. “It doth not yet appear what we shall be; but we know that when he shall appear, we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is” (1 John 3:2). There may be many things comprehended in this hope, but this emphatically the one hope of our calling.
4:5. *One Lord, **one faith, ***one baptism, [*1 Cor. 1:13, 8:6, 12:5. 2 Cor. 11:4. | **Jude 3. Eph. 4:13. | ***Gal. 3:27–28. Heb. 6:6.]
5. “One Lord, one faith, one baptism.” One Lord; the Saviour; emphatically One and the same to all men, everywhere, in all ages – the one Mediator – the one Judge of quick and dead, to Whom even the Father has committed all judgment. “One faith” – the faith once delivered unto the saints, the one faith professed at the one baptism; the faith in which, if we would be presented holy and unblamable, and unreprovable, we must continue “grounded and settled,” – the mystery of Godliness, the first article of which is the Incarnation. This faith is the setting forth of the Lord Jesus as originally in the form of God, and equal with God, as Incarnate, Crucified, Risen, Ascended, and Returning to Judge. This is the faith, the One faith, the common faith which God has revealed to our faith – that the individual faith of each one of us should apprehend it and hold it fast, and be united to God by its apprehension.
One able writer has said, “One faith, not a common creed, but a common trust in Christ for eternal righteousness and eternal glory.” But on reading this, the question instantly rises up, Who is this Christ that we should thus trust in Him for eternal righteousness and eternal glory? What man can give us eternal righteousness and eternal glory? The only adequate answer is in the words of the Creed, “The only-begotten Son of God, begotten of his Father before all the ages ... who for us men and for our Salvation came down from heaven, and was incarnate by the Holy Ghost of the Virgin Mary, and was made man.” If it be said that this is implied, we answer that it should not only be implied, but that it is due to God to express it, and the words of the Creed are the expression of the fundamental truths of salvation, not only in the simplest words, but in the order in which the events occurred in the Divine Procedure.
“One Baptism,” in which this faith is first professed, and in which through the action of the Holy Spirit, we are grafted into the Body of Him Who was Incarnate, crucified, and raised again for us. According to the words of the Apostle, “By one Spirit we are all baptized into one Body.”
4:6. One God and Father of all, who is above all, and *through all, and in you all. [Mal. 2:10. 1 Cor. 8:6, 12:6. | *Rom. 11:36. | “In you all.” “You” omitted by א, A, B, C, Copt., AEth., etc. “In you all” read in D, E, F, G, K, L, five Cursives, d, e, f, g, Vulg., Syr.]
6. “One God and Father of all, who is above all, and through all,” etc. All leads up to the Father, God the Father, the fountain of Deity, as He is sometimes called in the fathers. First, the Spirit, as the counterpart of the one Body, then the Lord the Son, as the Divine Head; and as the Head of Christ is God, then the Father, of Whom, and through Whom, and to Whom are all things.
Expositions slightly different are given of this account of the relations of the Father to His creatures. The best seems to be that of Chrysostom: “Above all, that is, above and over all; and through all, that is, providing for, ordering all; and in you all, that is, Who dwelleth in you all.” (Blunt.)
4:7. But *unto every one of us is given grace according to the measure of the gift of Christ. [*Rom. 12:3, 6. 1 Cor. 12:11.]
7. “But unto every one of us is given grace according to the measure,” etc. Does this “every one of us,” or rather “each one of us,” refer to all the members of the Church, or only to some? Though it is abundantly true that all members of the Church have a gift of the Spirit to enable them to be, and to continue, and act as members of Christ, yet here the Apostle seems to refer to those who have ministerial gifts – gifts for the edification of the body. This we gather from verse 11, all between verses 7 and 11 being the exposition or application of a prophecy.
“According to the measure of the gift of Christ.” This seems to mean that Christ, Who alone has received the Spirit absolutely, without measure, distributes the Spirit according to the faith, or powers, or capacities of each one. Thus in the parable of the talents, He gives to one five, to another two, to another one. In His infinite wisdom He measures out differently to each one. For this measuring out to each, see 1 Cor. 12:, particularly 7–8, 27–28.
4:8. Wherefore he saith, *When he ascended up on high, **he led ***captivity captive, and gave gifts unto men. [*Psa. 68:18. | **Judg. 5:12. Col. 2:15. ***Or, a multitude of captives.]
8. “Wherefore he saith, When he ascended up on high, he led captivity captive,” etc. Why does the Apostle quote this passage? Evidently because it is the most striking prophecy in the Old Testament of the Messiah receiving gifts for men, and that on His Ascension into heaven. The Apostle had prayed for the Ephesian converts, that they might realize the exceeding greatness of God’s power to those who believe, which He wrought in Christ when He set Him at His own right hand in heavenly places. Then there began to be one Body and one Spirit inhabiting that Body, One Lord, one Faith, one Baptism.
But besides the general gift, which each one in the Church possessed for his own salvation, there were particular gifts to certain members of the Church who received them to use for the benefit of the whole body. These gifts began to be poured out on His Ascension.
“For men.” The Hebrew is literally, in man, בָאָרָס. So the Septuagint, εν ανθρώπω, which signifies not “for man,” but “in man,” that is, I suppose, in human nature. He received the fullness of the Spirit not in His Divine, but in His Human Nature; and He received It not for Himself, but that He might impart It to His brethren. So that though the rendering “for man” does not express the literal meaning of the Hebrew or Septuagint, it expresses what must be implied in the passage. He received the Spirit to dispense that Spirit.
The clause, “He led captivity captive,” is best explained by the parallel passage in Col. 2:15: “Having spoiled principalities and powers, He made a show of them openly, triumphing over them in it.” The place cannot be satisfactorily interpreted, because it refers to what took place in the sight of the heavenly hosts, and not in the sight of men.
4:9. *(Now that he ascended, what is it but that he also descended first unto the lower parts of the earth? [*John 3:13, 6:33, 62. | “Descended first.” “First” omitted by א, A, C, D, E, F, G, 17, 46, 67**, 73, d, e, g, Vulg. (Amiat.), Cop., Sah., AEth.; but retained by B, K, L, P, most Cursives, Goth., Syriac.]
4:10. He that descended is the same also *that ascended up far above all heavens, **that he might ***fill all things.) [Acts 1:9, 11. 1 Tim. 3:16. Heb. 4:14, 7:26, 8:1, 9:24. | **Acts ii. 33. | ***Or, fulfill.]
9–10. (“Now that he ascended, what is it but that he also descended first into the lower parts, etc., that he might fill all things.”) What is this descent, and why is it introduced here? Most commentators suppose that it signifies the descent into Hades. No doubt it was introduced here to set forth the extreme humiliation of the Lord: His Body was laid under the earth in the grave, and His Spirit descended still further down into the place of departed spirits. The Lord had said, “The Son of man shall be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth” (Matt. 12:40). If it should be asked why the Lord’s humiliation is specifically mentioned, we answer that the whole passage forms part of an exhortation to humility (“with all lowliness and meekness,” etc.). It is the constant habit of the Apostle to turn out of his way, as it were, when any word suggests to him the main lesson he desired to teach. The Lord might not have descended lower than the grave, but it was His Will to accept all the conditions of our death as well as of our life.
How is it that He ascended in order that He might fill all things? In order that He might fill them with His power. By descending He took possession of the regions into which He descended, and by ascending He filled with His power all the universe. “He descended,” says he, “into the lower parts of the earth, beyond which there is none other, and He ascended far above all things to that place beyond which there is none other. This is to show his divine energy and supreme dominion” (Chrysostom).
4:11. *And he gave some, apostles; and some, prophets; and some, **evangelists; and some, ***pastors and 4*teachers; [*1 Cor. 12:28. Eph. 2:20. | **Acts 21:8. 2 Tim. 4:5. | ***Acts 20:28. | 4*Rom. 12:7.]
11. “And he gave some, apostles; and some, prophets; and some, evangelists.” “He gave.” The proper rendering is “He Himself gave,” emphasizing the fact that all ministry springs from Him personally.
“Some Apostles”; rather some, as Apostles, or some to be Apostles. Four ministries are enumerated, not as asserting that there are four orders of ministers, but as mentioning those who were especially endued with the Spirit at that time.
The Apostles were the especial organ of the Spirit – the especial representatives of Christ. According to the words of the Lord, “As my Father sent me, even so send I you, and when He said this He breathed on them, and saith unto them, Receive ye the Holy Ghost” (John 20:21). They comprehended in themselves all the functions of the ministry. They governed as bishops. They directed and led the Churches as pastors, even laying themselves out for pastoral house to house visitation (Acts 20:20). They did the works of Evangelists in preaching to the heathen, and they prophesied (2 Thess. 2.)
The prophets not only prophesied, as Agabus, declaring future events, but made known special revelations from God, and unfolded mysteries (1 Cor. 13:2).
The Evangelists cannot here signify any one of the four, but seem rather to have been the preachers of the Gospel to the heathen. The only one mentioned by name is Philip (Acts 21:8). The pastors and teachers seem to have represented the local ministry.
It may be asked why there is no mention here made of the orders of the ministry – bishops, or presbyters, and deacons? Evidently because the Apostle is here occupied, not with orders of ministry, but with gifts of the Spirit, which were more conspicuous in apostles and prophets at least than in the ordinary Presbyterate and Diaconate. It was not because these orders were not yet instituted, for bishops and deacons are expressly mentioned in an Epistle written within a year of this – that to the Philippians.
It may also be asked, why there is no specific mention of governing power? We answer, because St. Paul was the sole governor of the Churches which he planted. This was a function of his Apostolate, and during his lifetime he never parted with it, or even shared it with any other. And when he died it devolved, as it naturally would, upon those whom he had so closely associated with himself and who knew all his mind.
4:12. *For the perfecting of the saints, for the work of the ministry, **for the edifying of ***the body of Christ: [*1 Cor. 12:7. | **1 Cor. 14:26. | ***Eph. 1:23. Col. 1:24.]
12. “For the perfecting of the saints, for the work of the ministry,” etc. The first “for” (for the perfecting) is a different preposition (προς) to the one in the latter clause (εις). In the last revision it is rendered “for the perfecting of the saints unto the work of ministering, unto the building up of the body of Christ.” Chrysostom, however, whose vernacular was Greek, makes no difference. “Each one edifies, each one perfects, each one ministers.”
The perfecting seems not to refer to the private character of each saint, but to the compacting together of one and all in one body.
“For the work,” or rather, for “work of ministry,” as if all sorts of ministerial work in the Church were here included.
For building up of the Body of Christ, i.e., for fashioning each stone of the spiritual temple, and putting it in its place. This is the work of God, but He does it by the operations of the minister.
The reader will see that in this verse the Apostle has in his eye not the edification of each individual person considered as an unit, but of each member or stone as part of a body or temple.
4:13. Till we all come *in the unity of the faith, **and of the knowledge of the Son of God, unto ***a perfect man, unto the measure of the 4*stature of the fullness of Christ: [*Or, into the unity. | **Col. 2:2. | ***1 Cor. 14:20. Col. 1. | 4*Or, age.]
13. “Till we all come in the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge, ... measure of the stature,” etc. There is the same preposition in all the clauses of this verse. The Revisers render it, “Till we all attain unto the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, unto a perfect man,” etc. He who has attained to the unity of the faith, and by it to the knowledge of the Son of God, has attained to perfect manhood. The unity of the faith here is not merely the great facts of the Catholic creed, but the lively apprehension of these facts. From this comes the true knowledge of the Son of God, as a Person, having personally to do with each true and faithful member of His Body. So that we not only know about Him, but know Him. But is not charity required to form the perfect man? Yes, but the true knowledge of the Son of God cannot be without charity. As St. John writes: “He that loveth his brother abideth in the light,” i.e. in Christ the light (1 John 2:10).
“Unto the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ.” Christ alone possesses the full stature – He alone is absolutely the perfect man. We have to attain to a measure of His fullness – to a participation in His perfection; and for this the ministry, every office and degree of it, is constituted and ordained by God. With a view to this may we ever pray, “Almighty God, by Whose Spirit the whole body of the Church is governed and sanctified, receive our supplication and prayers for all estates of men in Thy holy Church, that every member of the same, in his vocation and ministry may truly and godly serve Thee” (Collect for Good Friday).
4:14. That we henceforth be no more *children, **tossed to and fro, and carried about with every ***wind of doctrine, by the sleight of men, and cunning craftiness, 4*whereby they lie in wait to deceive; [*Isa. 28:9. 1 Cor. 14:20. **Heb. 13:9. | ***Matt. 11:7. | 4*Rom. 14:18.]
14. “That we henceforth be no more children tossed to and fro, and carried about,” etc. Here the Apostle uses three figures to describe the fickleness of unstable Christians. They are like children who are always led by the last speaker, particularly if he delivers what he has to say with confidence and vehemence. They are like ships without ballast, which are at the mercy of every gale of wind. They are like the dupes of gamesters who are despoiled of their property by trickiness, by the skillful manipulation of the dice, as Theodoret explains: “The Apostle calls craft, κυβεία, which is from the verb κυβεύω, to play at dice. Now gamesters of this sort use to move the dice to and fro, and do this craftily.” If Christians, under Apostolic regimen, and taught by inspired prophets and evangelists, were thus in danger of making shipwreck of their faith, and being despoiled of their inheritance, much more should Christians now in this age be on their guard.
4:15. *But **speaking the truth in love, ***may grow up into him, in all things, 4*which is the head, even Christ: [*Zech. 8:16. 2 Cor. 4:2. Eph. 4:25. 1 John 3:18. | **Or, being sincere. | ***Eph. 1:22, 2:21. | 4*Col. 1:18.]
15. “But speaking the truth in love.” “Speaking the truth in love,” has been variously rendered. Thus Alford: “Being followers of truth in love.” Revisers (margin) “dealing truly in love.” Ellicott: “ holding the truth in love.” The latter seems nearest to the idea of the Apostle. It can scarcely signify what is ordinarily meant by “speaking the truth,” – that is provided for in verse 25. Wiclif and the Rheims translation have “doing the truth”: for which compare John 3:21: “He that doeth truth.”
“May grow up into him in all things, which is the head.” The mystical Body is to grow up to the standard of the Head, fully developed as that is, so that there may be symmetry between the two. It is to grow up in accordance with the Head.
4:16. *From whom the whole body fitly joined together and compacted by that which every joint supplieth, according to the effectual working in the measure of every part, maketh increase of the body unto the edifying of itself in love. [*Col. 2:19.]
16. “From whom the whole body, fitly joined together and compacted.” The meaning of this verse is that as the human body grows by the vital force flowing from the brain by means of the nerves through each joint. And this vital force acts in each part according to the need of each part (the working in the measure of each several part) and so subserves to the increase of the body in harmonious proportion. So the mystical Body of Christ, which also is fitly joined together and compacted for the better conveyance of grace from Him, grows by grace flowing from Him, which grace flows through the appointed channels into each part, according to the place that part has to fulfill in the body. And so the whole mystical body increases in due proportion, no part being unnaturally large or abnormally strong. But to this the willing, loving cooperation of the members amongst themselves must conduce. To the increase of the body each member must bring love or charity, so that it may act in unity with its fellow members, for all the true and healthy increase of the body depends on that.
A question or two arises.
What in the mystical body is the “being fitly joined together and compacted? “Evidently that which in the natural body we call the nervous system. If the nervous connection fails in joining the head to any particular member, then that member ceases to grow and ceases to act. And so in the mystical body there are channels of grace, which channels of grace are the ministry, and the word and sacraments administered by such ministry. This is no doubt what the Apostle means, for the verse is not an isolated one, but follows upon verse 8, where Christ is said to give gifts unto men; upon verse 11, which explains these gifts as ministerial functions, apostles, prophets, etc.; upon verses 12 and 13, which tell us that these are all ordained for the edifying of the body of Christ, that the whole Church, and each member of it, may all come to the perfect man: upon verse 15, where all that precedes is gathered into “that we may grow up into him in all things.” So that this verse, following upon those which precede it, reveals to us, no doubt, the Church as it exists in the mind and intention of Christ, and as revealed by Him to His Apostle.
But a second question presents itself. Is this the actual state of the Church now? To which we answer, we do not know but what it is. Notwithstanding all divisions, declensions, superstitions, hypocrisies, fanaticism, coldness, Christ may discern these joinings, these compactings, these joints of supply, and may act through them. Surely this wonderful letter could not be written for one century. It must be written for all time. Of one thing we can be most certain, that if any minister or private member of the Church would strive to act up to the ideal of this verse, it would be the most blessed thing possible for himself, for those to whom he ministers, and for those with whom he comes in contact.
4:17. This I say therefore, and testify in the Lord, that *ye henceforth walk not as other Gentiles walk, **in the vanity of their mind. [*Eph. 2:1–3. 4:22. Col. 3:7. 1 Peter 4:3. | **Rom. 1:21. | “As other Gentiles walk.” So E, K, L, P, most Cursives, Syriac, Goth., Arm.; but א, A, B, D, F, G, 10, 17, 47, 51, 67, d, e, f, g, Vulg., Sah., Copt., AEth., omit “other”.]
17. “This I say therefore, and testify in the Lord, that ye henceforth walk not,” etc. There is a very marked change in the teaching of the Epistle in this place. St. Paul here begins to insist upon the practical nature of the high doctrine with which, to this point, he had been occupied. He first commenced this practical application in verse 1 of this chapter, but was led away from it by the mention of the One Body – on the organization and spiritual growth of which he dwells to the last verse, and then he resumes the thread which he had dropped in verse 4.
“This I say therefore.” Therefore, because you are in a system of grace, receiving strength and power to live to God through the joints of supply in the mystical body which I have just mentioned.
“And testify in the Lord.” St. Paul generally uses this word emphatically. To “testify in the Lord” seems almost of the nature of an oath, and shows his very deep feeling of the importance of that which he is about to teach them.
“As other Gentiles,” rather as “the Gentiles” – the unconverted Gentiles – “walk in the vanity of their minds.” Vanity does not mean here conceit, but rather emptiness – nothingness – worthlessness. Not only were the gods of the heathen nothing and so worthless, but even their apprehensions of a future state were without any real foundation. And this vanity or worthlessness was not harmless, but degrading. What could the worship of such deities as Venus and Bacchus do for their votaries, but to lower them, and destroy what remained of the original light within them?
4:18. *Having the understanding darkened, **being alienated from the life of God through the ignorance that is in them, because of the ***blindness of their heart: [*Acts 26:18. | **Eph. 2:12. Gal. 4:8. 1 Thess. 4:5. | ***Rom. 1:21. Or, hardness.]
18. “Having the understanding darkened, being alienated from the life of God ... blindness (or hardness) of their heart.” “The understanding darkened.” When we read some of the moral speculations of some of the great philosophers of Greece, we are tempted to think that however unclean were their hearts, their intellects were unclouded; but it is not so. There seems to have been (I speak, of course, on so vast a subject under correction) no idea of the holiness of God, and, in very few, any idea of His absolute justice. And any true conceptions of God and unseen things were only the property of a few, totally unlike the revelations of the Jewish Scriptures, in which the moral character of God seems expressed in the simplest terms and brought down to the comprehension of the poorest. See for instance the first Psalm, the ten commandments, and the greater part of the book of Proverbs.
“Being alienated from the life of God through the ignorance that is in them, because of the blindness [hardness] of their heart.” Two things apparently, the Apostle says, contribute to their alienation from the life of God, their ignorance, and the hardness of their hearts which led to this ignorance.
Now with respect to this hardness of heart, the reader must remember that the Lord predicates it of His own people, the Jews, where it is said, “He looked upon them, being grieved for the hardness of their hearts.” Again, and still more to the point, the inspired Apostle writes, “Blindness (or hardness, the same word, πώρωσις) in part has happened unto Israel.” (Rom. 11:25.) So that this blindness, or hardness, which has come upon the Gentiles, and is at the root of their ignorance, may be judicial, as indeed it is said to be in Rom. 1:28: “As they did not like to retain God in their knowledge, God gave them over to a reprobate mind,” etc.
We are to remember that in what he writes, the Apostle is not revealing the future state of the Gentiles, but simply urging the Christian, or converted Ephesians, not to imitate them. And as far as I can see, nothing further. If the Apostle had been asked about their state in another world, he would, I believe, have turned round sternly on his interrogator, and said what he has written before, “Them that are without, God judgeth.” (1 Cor. 5:13.)
But a question arises, Does the Apostle here speak of the Gentiles as a body, or does he speak more of individuals? I think the former. He would scarcely say of any individual Gentile that he was of himself through his own action alienated from the life of God, because he inherited his ignorance and hardness of heart. But I have shown in my notes on Romans 1:18–23, that this is true of the whole Gentile world, that they universally fell from a better faith (certainly of the Unity of God) and a purer worship. But still we must remember that God will judge, not worlds, not nations, but individuals, and God will at the last reveal His secret working in each individual soul, and then it will be seen that there was a crisis in each man’s inner life, in which he began to turn to the witness of God within him (no matter how feeble) or to turn from it. If he had turned to the good, much of the ignorance would have been dispersed. If he turned to the evil, the hardness occasioned by this would make the ignorance more invincible. All this seems to me to be demanded by the inspired Apostle’s assertion in Rom. 2:14–16.
4:19. *Who being past feeling **have given themselves over unto lasciviousness, to work all uncleanness with greediness. [*1 Tim. 4:2. | **Rom. 1:24, 26. 1 Peter 4:3.]
19. “Who being past feeling, have given themselves over unto lasciviousness.” “Past feeling” – being utterly insensible to the reproofs or lashes of conscience. “Have given themselves over to lasciviousness to work,” etc. In Rom. 1:24, 26, it is said that God gave them over, here they are said to have given themselves over. Both are true, for both are the same. God gave them up to themselves to show what, if left to themselves, they would do, and they did what had become natural to them. “They gave themselves over unto lasciviousness to work all uncleanness with greediness.” This we learn not from the declarations of Scripture, but from the pages of their popular writers, their wall paintings, and their statutes. What must have been the state of a city whose principal temple had 1,000 prostitutes as its priestesses?
4:20. But ye have not so learned Christ;
4:21. *If so be that ye have heard him, and have been taught by him, as the truth is in Jesus. [Eph. 1:13.]
20–21. “But ye have not so learned Christ; if so be that ye have heard him, and,” etc. To learn Christ is not only to learn His doctrine or His teaching, or even the holiness of His example. It is beyond all this. It cannot be expressed in words, but it can be felt after. Perhaps the best aid to our learning Christ is in His own words, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life; no man cometh unto the Father, but by me.” It is to learn that He is the way to God by coming to God through Him; to learn that He is the truth of God, by apprehending Him as the Image of God; to learn that He is the Life by beginning to live with His Life. It comprehends the reception of all the teaching respecting His Person and work, and of all His example and all His precepts. St. Paul expresses his own experience of thus learning Christ when he speaks about knowing Him, “and the power of His Resurrection, and the fellowship of His sufferings” (Phil. 3:10).
Did the Ephesian Christians then so learn Christ? They had begun to do so, and if they had begun, they were in the way of going on to know more and more – but as to the perfection of this knowledge, it will be the employment of an eternity to acquire it.
21. “If so be ye have heard him, and have been taught by him, as the truth is in Jesus.” The words, “if so be,” do not express a doubt, but rather certainty, “seeing that ye heard Him, and were taught in Him as the truth is in Jesus.” They had heard Him – not only about Him, for He spake to them in the accents of His Apostle. And they were taught in Him according to that which He, the wisdom of God, knew to be the truth. The word truth is without the article in the original, but it can scarcely be rendered in English without it: for not only is there truth in Jesus, but “the truth”. Truth is not something indefinite, but something definite – and here it signifies what is expressed in the next verse – the putting off of the old man and the putting on of the new.
Whatever the truth in Jesus is (and who can measure it?) it is truth according to Holiness, and according to Godliness. This is its first feature, that it is a sin-destroying, sanctifying truth, transforming the man who heartily receives it into the image of God.
4:22. That ye *put off concerning **the former conversation ***the old man, which is corrupt according to the deceitful lusts; [*Col. 2:11, 3:8–9. Heb. 12:1. 1 Peter 2:1. | **Eph. 2:2–3, 4:17. Col. 3:7. 1 Peter 4:3. | ***Rom. 6:6.]
22. “That ye put off concerning the former conversation the old man.” The former conversation, i.e., the former manner of life – that described in verses, 17–19.
“That ye put off ... be renewed ... and that ye put on the new man.” The important question arises, does the Apostle here refer to a past or to a present putting off? If we are led by the teaching a two strictly parallel passages, it signifies that they had at a definite point of past time put off the old man, and begun to be renewed, and put on the new man. These places are Romans 6:6, “Knowing this, that our old man was (not is) crucified with him, that the body of sin might be destroyed, that henceforth we should not serve sin”: and still more plainly, Col. 3:9, “Lie not one to another, seeing that ye have put off the old man with his deeds; and have put on the new man, which is renewed in knowledge after the image of him that created him.” Both these refer to a past putting off and putting on – a deliverance from the guilt of sin, and an endowment with power against sin given at Baptism.
And yet this past putting off and putting on must be followed up by a present putting off and putting on, for the old man, though weakened, is not destroyed. He remains within us, and if not constantly resisted, nay, constantly crucified, will again reassert his power. Any grace given in Baptism, or at any other time, as at Confirmation, has to be renewed. We have constantly to make an act of faith, and to say, “I have been crucified with Christ; I have died with Him. I am His, how can I willfully sin against Him?”
“Corrupt according to the deceitful lusts” – the lusts of deceit, not as if deceit itself lusted, but because the lust itself deceives. It promises pleasure and it always inflicts pain. It promises contentment and it inflicts remorse. It says that you may gratify yourself with impunity, and in the end you find God against you, and His wrath pursuing you.
4:23. And *be renewed in the spirit of your mind; [Rom. 12:2. Col. 3:10.]
23. “And be renewed in the spirit of your mind.” That is, by the Holy Spirit working in you the new heart and the right spirit.
4:24. And that ye *put on the new man, which after God **is created in righteousness and ***true holiness. [*Rom. 4:4. 2 Cor. 5:17. Gal. 6:15. Eph. 6:11. Col. 3:10. | **Eph. 2:10. | ***Or, holiness of truth.]
24. “And that ye put on the new man, which, after God, is created in righteousness.” The new man is no other than Christ Himself, Who is given to us so that we should be clothed with Him. “As many of us,” the Apostle says, “as have been baptized into Christ have put on Christ; “and yet the putting on of Christ is a daily work, for the same Apostle says to the baptized Romans, “Put ye on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make not provision for the flesh to fulfill the lusts thereof.” (Rom. 13:14.)
This is not putting on an outward profession, but it is an investing of the innermost soul or spirit with Him, without Whom, in the sight of a heart-searching God, our spirits are naked.
“Which after God is created in righteousness and true holiness.” The Second Man is the new creation of God, and is the express image of God’s Person, and so this Second Man is “after God”, that is, after the image of God, created in righteousness and true holiness, and He is given to us in order that, being invested with Him, we should be truly righteous and holy.
4:25. Wherefore putting away lying, *speak every man truth with his neighbour: for **we are members one of another. [*Zech. 8:16. Eph. 4:15. Col. 3:9. | **Rom. 12:5.]
25. “Wherefore putting away lying, speak every man truth with his neighbour,” etc. The Apostle now descends to particularize the vices of the old man which are to be put off, and the virtues of the new which are to be put on.
“Putting away lying, speak every man,” etc. Lying destroys all confidence in human society. Now the members of the mystical body have to work together in unity, and the first condition of this is that there must be no deceit; and so the Apostle reminds them of the unity of the Body. We, in Christ, are members one of another. If we are to work together in the common cause of Christ, we must be true to one another.
We cannot help noticing in passing what a hold this truth of our being members of Christ must have had upon St. Paul if he could use it with respect to such a vice as lying. The members of the human body are dumb, and cannot speak to one another, and yet in a certain sense they must be true to one another. But St. Paul ignores the seeming impropriety of the allusion, or at least its indirectness, because he would ground all relations of Christians to one another on the unity and common sympathy of the members of a body to their fellow members. (Comp. 1 Cor. 12.)
4:26. *Be ye angry, and sin not: let not the sun go down upon your wrath:
26. “Be ye angry and sin not: let not the sun,” etc. If we are not angry when we see oppression, fraud, injury, and successful wickedness in such matters as seduction, we can have no hatred of sin, and so we cannot have the mind of God with respect to what is evil. And yet this anger of God in numberless cases ends in bringing the sinner to repentance, and destroying, not himself, but his sin. And in our indignation against successful villainy, we must bear in mind constantly this undoubted truth, that in every case of successful fraud or seduction of innocence, the knave or the seducer does far more injury to himself than he does to the person he has injured. Christ, Who is an infinitely just Judge, and has all the resources of omnipotence and eternity at His disposal, will see to it that full amends are made by the wrongdoer to the wronged one. He will not allow the wrongdoer to hide himself in imputed righteousness when he has made no effort to undo the mischief he has done. The judge of all the earth must not only be an Inflictor of punishment, but a Redresser of wrongs. And this must be in our minds as a fixed principle in all our indignation against sin, if we would “be angry and sin not.”
All commentators, almost as a matter of course, allude to Bishop Butler’s Sermon on Resentment, and if my reader has either not read it, or does not remember its leading teaching, he should without fail make or renew acquaintance with it.
I have spoken above of resentment against sin. But with reference to resentment against private injuries to ourselves (which we must remember may not be sin) we must constantly call to mind the Lord’s words, “Do good to them that hate you.” “Pray for them which despitefully use you and persecute you.”
“Let not the sun go down upon your wrath.” Wesley says on this: “Reprove your brother, and be reconciled immediately. Lose not one day.” A clear, express command, and Wesley adds the question, “Reader, do you keep it?”
4:27. *Neither give place to the devil. [*2 Cor. 2:10–11. James 4:7. 1 Peter 5:9.]
27. “Neither give place to the devil.” If you allow angry or unforgiving thoughts to nestle in your mind, you will find that you cannot pray, and this will give Satan a ready entrance; for by prayer alone do we lay hold on God’s strength against our enemy. And this applies not only to angry, but to unclean, or lustful, or covetous thoughts. By keeping such thoughts in our minds we drive away the good Spirit of God, and we allow the evil spirit to enter.
4:28. Let him that stole steal no more: but rather *let him labour, working with his hands the thing which is good, that he may have **to give ***to him that needeth. [*Acts 20:35. 1 Thess. 4:11. 2 Thess. 3:8, 11–12. | **Or, to distribute. | ***Luke 3:11. | “Him that stole.” Lit. “the stealer – the thief”.]
28. “Let him that stole steal no more: but rather let him labour,” etc. This precept also is grounded, though not so directly, on membership in the one Mystical Body under Christ the Head. He that steals must at once break himself of this habit, not only that he may lead a reputable life, but that he may be able to relieve the wants of his fellow members in the same Body. The Apostle’s words seem to imply that stealing was no uncommon crime, and it is very probable that it was so, if, as we know, the Church was largely recruited from the slave class, some of whom would not be likely at once to sever themselves from old habits, such as pilfering, which had become a second nature to them.
4:29. *Let no corrupt communication proceed out of your mouth, but **that which is good ***to the use of edifying, 4*that it may minister grace unto the hearers. [*Matt. 12:35. Eph. 5:4. Col. 3:8. | **1 Col. 4:6. 1 Thess. 5:11. | ***Or, to edify profitably. | 4*Col. 3:16.]
29. “Let no corrupt communication proceed out of your mouth, but that which is good to the use of edifying,” etc. Here again, in the words “to the use of edifying,” we have another allusion to the mystical body. Foul and filthy language acts in the spiritual building like the leprosy on the wall of the house (Lev. 14:34) rotting and polluting it.
“That which is good to the use of edifying.” This is variously translated, “whatever is good for edification of the need” (Ellicott). “But such as is good for edifying as the need may be” (Revisers). “For building up as may be needed” (Meyrick in Speaker’s “Commentary”). As members in the mystical body we are not only to speak no filthy or corrupt language, but we are bound to edify one another, to build up one another on our most holy faith (Jude 20). As we should watch over our tongue that we speak nothing polluting, so we should be on the watch for opportunities of putting in a good word. How many have been permanently benefitted by a Christian word spoken in season, and how many would blot out if they could from their memories some double entendre, some sneer at holy things, some profane parody of a passage in the word of God.
For corrupt speech is not only indecent speech, but profane speech, and infidel conversation undermining the eternal hopes of the hearer.
“That it may minister grace unto the hearers.” Not only is the sermon of the Christian preacher a means of grace, but so is the private conversation of the true Christian, dispelling doubts, strengthening good resolutions, chasing away evil, confirming men in the faith, encouraging them to persevere, or, in the words of the Apostle, “warning them that are unruly, comforting the feebleminded, supporting the weak” (1 Thess. 5:14).
4:30. And *grieve not the holy Spirit of God, **whereby ye are sealed unto the day of ***redemption. [*Isa. 7:13, 63:10. Ezek. 16:43. 1 Thess. 5:19. | **Eph. 1:13. | ***Luke 21:28. Rom. 8:23. Eph. 1:14. | “Are sealed.” Lit. “were sealed.”]
30. “And grieve not the holy Spirit of God, whereby ye are sealed,” etc. This place, amongst others, teaches us the personality of the Holy Ghost. Only persons can be grieved, for they only can be capable of love, or anger, or grief. Thus St. Stephen speaks of the disobedient Jews “always resisting the Holy Ghost” (Acts 7:51), just as Isaiah had said, “They rebelled and vexed his Holy Spirit” (Isa. 63:10).
This teaches us the fearful truth that we may receive the Holy Spirit and not retain Him, but provoke God to take Him from us. And so with great wisdom the Church puts into our lips the prayer of the Psalmist, “Take not thy Holy Spirit from us.”
“Whereby ye are sealed (or were sealed) unto the day of redemption.” This sealing may have been at Baptism, or at Confirmation. Baptism is rather a work of the Spirit grafting us into the body of Christ, and the Spirit given afterwards. At least so we must understand the teaching of Acts 19:2–6.
Chrysostom comments on this with great power: “Let this seal, then, ever abide on thy mouth, and never destroy the impression. A mouth that hath the Spirit never utters a thing of the kind. Say not, ‘It is nothing if I do utter an unseemly word, if I do insult such an one.’ For this very reason is it a great evil, because it seems to be nothing. For things which seem to be nothing are thus easily thought lightly of; and those which are thought lightly of will thus go on increasing; and those which go on increasing will in consequence become incurable. Thou hast a mouth that hath the Spirit. Think what thou art saying, the moment thou givest birth to a word, think what words beseem a mouth like thine. Thou callest God Father, and dost thou straightway revile thy brother? Think whence it is thou callest God Father. Is it from nature? No, thou couldst never say so. Is it from thy goodness? No, nor is it thus. But whence then is it? It is from pure loving kindness, from tenderness, from His great Mercy. Whenever, then, thou callest God, Father, consider not only this, that by reviling thou art committing things unworthy of thy high birth, but also that it is of loving kindness that thou hast that high birth.”
4:31. *Let all bitterness, and wrath, and anger, and clamour, and *evil speaking, be put away from you, **with all malice: [*Col. 3:8, 19. | **Titus 3:2. James 4:11. 1 Peter 2:1. | ***Titus 3:3.]
31. “Let all bitterness, and wrath, and anger, and clamour, and evil speaking (railing), ... with all malice.” Why does the Apostle add, “with all malice”? Because in neither word, nor demeanour, may there be anything like bitterness or apparent wrath; not a particle of anger, no loud words, no railing, and yet there may be deep-seated malice, watching its opportunity to injure, to slander, to accuse, to alienate friends, in fact, with placid countenance and fair words to work all manner of evil.
4:32. And *be ye kind one to another, tenderhearted, **forgiving one another, even as God for Christ’s sake hath forgiven you. [*2 Cor. 2:10. Col. 3:12–13. | **Matt. 6:14. Mark 11:25. | “Forgiven you.” So א, A, F, G, P, most Cursives, d, e, f, g, Goth., Sah., Copt., AEth.; but B, D, E, K, L, thirty Cursives, Vulg. (Cod. Amiat.), Syriac, Arm., read, “us”.]
32. “And be ye kind one to another, tender-hearted, forgiving one another, even,” etc. These good things are to be practiced among Christians, but they must first be sought. They are the fruits of the Spirit. The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, long-suffering, gentleness, goodness. If any professing Christian feels that he has them not, that he is constantly offending against the law of kindness and mutual forgiveness, he must not give way and say, “It is my constitutional infirmity,” but he must at once and constantly bow before the throne of Him from Whom all good things do come for the gift of love. The prayer for charity must not be his occasional, but his daily prayer, “Pour into our hearts that most excellent gift of charity, the very bond of peace and of all virtue, without which whosoever liveth is counted dead before thee.”
“Even as God, for Christ’s sake, hath forgiven you.” St. Paul always assumes that the Christians to whom he writes are (or have been) forgiven, but as he does not assume for a moment that they are sinless, they may have much to be forgiven.
Many of the Corinthians were not clean, not holy, some not righteous, but he writes to them, “Ye are washed, ye are sanctified, ye are justified in the Name of the Lord Jesus, and by the Spirit of our God” (1 Cor. 6:11).
In the parallel passage in the Epistle to the Colossians, 1 Col. 3, St. Paul writes, “As Christ (or as the Lord) forgave you.”
Chapter 5
5:1. Be *ye therefore followers of God, as dear children; [*Matt. 5:45, 48. Luke 6:36. Eph. 4:32.]
5:2. And *walk in love, **as Christ also hath loved us, and hath given himself for us an offering and a sacrifice to God ***for a sweet smelling savour. [*John 13:34, 15:12. 1 Thess. 4:9. 1 John 3:11, 23; 4:21. | **Gal. 1:4, 2:20. Heb. 7:27, 9:14, 26; 10:10, 12. 1 John 3:16. | ***Gen. 8:21. Lev. 1:9. 2 Cor. 2:15. | “Loved us.” So D, E, F, G, K, L, most Cursives, d, e, f, g, Vulg., Syriac, Copt., Arm., Goth.; but א, A, B, P, about seven Cursives, Soh., AEth., read, “you”. | “Given himself for us.” So א, A, D, E, F, G, K, L, P, most Cursives, d, e, f, g, Vulg., Syr., Copt., Arm.; but B, three Cursives, 37, 73, 116, Sah., AEth., read, “for you”.]
1–2. “Be ye therefore followers of God, as dear children; and walk in love,” etc. This is to be connected with the last verse of the last chapter, “God for Christ’s sake hath forgiven you. Be ye therefore followers of God as beloved children.” Thus our Lord would have us imitate God (for the word signifies imitating [μιμηται] rather than following in anyone’s footsteps) when He says, “Love your enemies ... pray for them that despitefully use you ... that ye may be the children of your Father which is in heaven.” It is scarcely possible to suppose that St. Paul had not these words of our Lord in his mind when he wrote this.
“Imitators of God, as dear children.” Children almost always endeavour to imitate their parents. Much more ought we to imitate God in this matter of forgiveness, seeing that the only Son of God has loved us to the extent of giving Himself for us.
“An offering and a sacrifice to God for a sweet smelling savour.” A difference has been made between an offering (προσφορα) and a sacrifice (θυσία): the former meaning offerings of any sort, and the latter the offering of a slain creature, from its derivation θύω, meaning “to slay”; but they are often used interchangeably.
The “sweet smelling savour” first occurs in Gen. 8:21, in connection with the sacrifice of Noah, and it is constantly repeated with reference to the sacrifices of the law ordained in the books of Exodus and Leviticus. Thus Exod. 29:18, Lev. 2:12. It is, of course, not to be taken materially, but with regard to the devotion or profession of obedience with which the offerer offered the sacrifices. When used in connection with the Levitical offerings, it may mean that God discerned in each sacrifice a showing forth of that One Sacrifice which they were all intended to prefigure.
Here it signifies the infinite satisfaction with which the Father regards the devotion and duty expressed in the self-oblation of His Son.
5:3. But *fornication, and all uncleanness, or covetousness, **let it not be once named among you as becometh saints; [*Rom. 6:13. 1 Cor. 6:18. 2 Cor. 12:21. Eph. 4:19–20. Col. 3:5. 1 Thess. 4:3, etc. | **1 Cor. 5:1.]
3. “But fornication, and all uncleanness, or covetousness, let it not,” etc. Some suppose that the Apostle passes from holy love in which, after the example of Christ, we are to walk, to unholy love by which we dishonour Christ, and destroy the life of God within us.
Fornication, not esteemed as a sin among the heathen: all uncleanness, all secret impurity or open indecency, all covetousness – which does not here seem to mean avaricious, so much as impure and incontinent desires. The commandment which forbids to covet, forbids not only to covet the house, the servant, the ox, but the wife. This is the following-up of the Lord’s teaching, where He says, “whoso looketh upon a woman to lust after her hath committed adultery with her already in his heart” (Matt. 5:28).
“Let it not be once named among you.” Avoid any mention, if you can, of the commission of such sins – at least, never mention any details, never dwell upon them in conversation.
“As becometh saints.” As becometh those dedicated to God, and in the act of that dedication grafted into the Body of a Holy Saviour by the Holy Spirit.
5:4. *Neither filthiness, nor foolish talking, nor jesting, **which are not convenient: but rather giving of thanks. [*Matt. 12:35. Eph. 4:29. | **Rom. 1:28.]
4. “Neither filthiness, nor foolish talking, nor jesting, which,” etc. “Filthiness” – that is, of course, lewd and indecent talk. “Foolish talking,” i.e., talking as the fool or μωρος talks; the μωρος of the book of Proverbs is not the silly man, but the wicked man, the man who speaks against religion, disparages the righteous because they are righteous, makes a mock at sin, makes excuses for it, insinuates doubts respecting God’s judgments, their certainty and their severity. This is the “foolish talking” of the Bible.
“Nor jesting, which are not convenient.” Barrow has a most remarkable sermon on this text, in which he contends for the lawfulness, in its due place, of wit and repartee, and innocent unbending in conversation.
Chrysostom, on the other hand, takes the sterner and more severe side, and seems to condemn all jesting which has for its object the raising of laughter, even when there may be nothing sinful in the allusion.
“Which are not convenient” – not fitting for a Christian to utter. This seems to imply at first sight that, in naming “jesting,” the Apostle is only speaking of indecent or irreverent jesting. But we are to remember that one who lays himself out to be a witty and pleasant companion, and is always on the lookout for some opening for exciting mirth, cannot well be a man who takes life seriously, as the Apostles and first Christians did.
A man was once writing in one of our literary journals against the belief in the eternity of future punishment, and he asserted that the leading preacher in one of our large towns had preached the doctrine in all its horrors in his place of worship; and yet, meeting him afterwards at a dinner party, he found the man brimful of wit and amusing anecdote, keeping the table in a roar, and his inference was that the man could not, and did not, believe what he preached.
“But rather giving of thanks.” So wonderful are the providences of God, so surprising the wisdom and goodness He displays in benefitting His creatures, that opportunities for expressing thanks and praise seem thrust upon us; and yet we Christians may take a lesson from the heathen. It is written respecting Belshazzar’s “impious feast,” that they drank wine, and praised the gods of gold and silver. And yet there is no society from which the Name of the true God and His works and His worship are so effectually banished as they are from what is called good society amongst professing Christians.
5:5. For this ye know, that *no whoremonger, nor unclean person, nor covetous man, **who is an idolater, ***hath any inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and of God. [*1 Cor. 6:9. Gal. 5:19, 21. | **Col. 3:5. | 1 Tim. 6:17. | ***Gal. 5:21. Rev. 22:15. | “This ye know” (εστε γινώσχοντες). So E, K, L, most Cursives, Syriac; but א, A, B, D, F, G, P, thirty Cursives, Ital., Vulg., etc., read, “For this ye know, being assured of it,” ίστε γινώσχοντες.]
5. “For this ye know, that no whoremonger, nor unclean person, nor covetous man,” etc. There is a remarkable difference of reading here. In the Received Text it is, “For this ye are knowing,” (εστε γινώσχοντες); but in many Uncials, and in the Vulgate, it is, “For this ye know, being assured of it.” The Revisers translate, “Ye know of a surety”; and no moral truth is more frequently repeated by the Apostle than that these sins, fornication, uncleanness, evil desires, are not venial, but deadly sins, cutting off from the kingdom of God. But it may be a question for us preachers in this day, “Are our people as certain about it as they ought to be?”
“Nor covetous man who is an idolater.” This seems to allude to anyone who is the slave of some overpowering evil desire, whether in the matter of the seventh commandment, or in the matter of what is ordinarily called covetousness.
“Hath any inheritance in the Kingdom of Christ and of God.” Most commentators interpret this Christ and God as signifying the same Divine Person, “Of Him Who is Christ and God.”
But if not directly, yet indirectly the text asserts the Godhead of the Lord; for the Kingdom is of Christ, and the same Kingdom is of God. Christ must have all the attributes of God if He is to rule the Kingdom as being His as well as God’s.
If a man, having become a Christian, is under the dominion of these evil things, he loses his inheritance. His is the lot of Esau, for as the Apostle writes, “Looking diligently lest there be any fornicator or profane person, as Esau, who for one morsel of meat sold his birthright,” etc. (Heb. 12:15).
5:6. *Let no man deceive you with vain words: for because of these things **cometh the wrath of God ***upon the children of 4*disobedience. [*Jer. 29:8. Matt. 24:4. Col. 2:4, 8, 18. 2 Thess. 2:3. | **Rom. 1:18. | ***Eph. 2:2. | 4*Or, unbelief, Col. 3:6.]
6. “Let no man deceive you with vain words: for because of these things,” etc. It is supposed that these vain words were those of ancient heretics who would persuade men that sins of the flesh were no sins, inasmuch as the flesh was intrinsically evil. And certain forms of heresy, which were then first appearing, certainly taught this; but what are the vain words by which men now encourage themselves in the commission of these sins? One is that, inasmuch as so many commit them, God will not visit such a multitude with his severe displeasure. But this is to dethrone the Judge, and to make Him respect the multitude rather than the law.
Another “vain word” is that these sins are engrained in the natural constitution of men, and that they cannot help them. But the answer is, “we are now in a kingdom of grace, in which it is said by the Spirit, Sin shall not have dominion over you, for ye are not under the law, but under grace.” (Rom. 6:14.)
And a third vain word is worse than all. It is that sin is not sin in the elect – in the true people of God. But surely if any persons were elect, these Christians of Ephesus were; and St. Paul assures them that if they continue to do these things, nothing can save them from the wrath of God here and hereafter.
5:7. Be not ye therefore partakers with them.
5:8. *For ye were sometimes darkness, but now **are ye light in the Lord: walk as ***children of light: [*Isa. 9:2. Matt. 4:16. Acts. 26:18. Rom. 1:21. Eph. 2:11–12, 4:18. Titus 3:3. 1 Peter 2:9. **John 8:12, 12:46. 2 Cor. 3:18, 4:6. 1 Thess. 5:5. 1 John 2:9. | ***Luke 16:8. John 12:36.]
7–8. “Be not ye therefore partakers with them. For ye were sometimes darkness,” etc. This light is the light of God and Christ in the soul. This darkness is the deprivation of such light. “I am the light of the world,” the Lord says. And to these Ephesians, into whose hearts this light had shone, the Apostle says, “now are ye light in the Lord.” This light is never mere intellectual light. It is not even the mere knowledge of the highest things, such as the Trinity and the Incarnation. It is always moral light. The best explanation of this is in the words of St. John, “The darkness is past, and the true light now shineth. He that saith he is in the light and hateth his brother, is in darkness even until now. He that loveth his brother abideth in the light, and there is none occasion of stumbling in him. But he that hateth his brother is in darkness, and walketh in darkness,” etc. (1 John 2:8, 10–11). Now this was probably written in Ephesus, among the people whom St. Paul had converted, and how wonderfully do the Apostles agree! But cannot there be true light without love? Both the Apostles say there cannot, for faith itself, which is the soul’s eye by which we discern unseen and eternal things, avails not without love (Gal. 5:6). And this is the reason why the Lord so solemnly warns us “take heed that the light which is in thee be not darkness.”
“The light which is in us is darkness” (Luke 11:35), if it seems to show in us the Trinity and the Incarnation and the works of the spirit and the Church, and yet does not make us loving, forbearing, forgiving, after the pattern of the Son of God.
We are, then, to walk as children of light, and what this walk is, the Apostle proceeds to say.
5:9. (For *the fruit of the Spirit is in all goodness and righteousness and truth;) [*Gal. 5:22. | “The fruit of the Spirit.” So K, L, most Cursives, but א, A, B, D, E*, F, G, P, six Cursives, Vulg., Goth., Syriac, Copt., Arm., AEth., read “the fruit of the light”.]
9. “For the fruit of the Spirit is in all goodness and righteousness and truth.” There is a remarkable difference of reading here which agrees better with the context. “ The fruit of the light.” At first sight the figure appears unsuitable, for the light cannot, it is supposed, bear fruit. But when men are called, as they constantly are, the children of the light, what are they but the offspring or fruit of the light? The fruit of the light is also the fruit of the Spirit, for the Spirit sheds within us the light of truth and the warmth of love, but the expression “fruit of the light,” runs more closely in connection with the context.
“In all goodness.” That is kindness, gentleness, benevolence, charity.
“And righteousness” in all holy and becoming outward demeanour, in all honesty and integrity.
“And truth,” in all sincerity, or in all conformity to the truth of God as revealed in the Gospel.
5:10. *Proving what is acceptable unto the Lord. [*Rom. 12:2. Phil. 1:10. 1 Thess. 5:21. 1 Tim. 2:3.]
10. “Proving what is acceptable unto the Lord.” Endeavouring by seeking the guidance of God in prayer, by consulting wise and holy men, and by jealously questioning our own private will and inclinations, to find out the will of God, and then to do it.
5:11. And **have no fellowship with **the unfruitful works of darkness, but rather ***reprove them. [*1 Cor. 5:9, 11, 10:20. 2 Cor. 6:14. 2 Thess. 3:6, 14. | **Rom. 6:21, 13:12. Gal. 6:8. | ***Lev. 19:17. 1 Tim. 5:20.]
11. “And have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness, etc. For it is a shame,” etc. The word “fruit,” in regard to religious and moral actions, is always used in a good sense. Thus the Apostle asks in Rom. 6:21, “What fruit had ye then in those things whereof ye are now ashamed? for the end of those things is death”: and again in Gal. 5:19, he contrasts the works of the flesh with the fruits of the Spirit, as if the works of the flesh were the doings of men, whereas the fruits of the Spirit are the offspring of grace. (John 15:1–10.)
“But rather reprove them.” We have fellowship with the works of darkness when we listen to the accounts of them without showing any sign of disapproval. We can only show our want of fellowship with them by reproof.
5:12. *For it is a shame even to speak of those things which are done of them in secret. [*Rom. 1:24, 26. Eph. 5:3.]
12. “For it is a shame even to speak of those things which are done of them in secret.” This seems to follow upon the words “rather reprove them”. The reproof must be short and decisive, and must avoid any details respecting the deed of darkness reproved. The reproof must be of such a sort as to show that you hate the mention of the abominable thing.
5:13. But *all things that are **reproved are made manifest by the light: for whatsoever doth make manifest is light. [*John 3:20–21. Heb. 4:13. | **Or, discovered. | See below.]
13. “But all things that are reproved are made manifest by the light,” etc. “All things” seems to refer not only to the deeds of darkness, but to all moral subjects, and “reproved” may be rendered “discovered”. The light of Christian conviction, being the light of Christ shining in His people, makes all things to appear in their true form or colour. They are made manifest as to what they really are by the true light.
“For whatsoever doth make manifest is light.” The old way of translating this passage was by rendering “make manifest” as a middle form, in which case the sense is very easy, “Whatsoever doth make manifest is light.” There are various kinds of light – natural, moral, intellectual – but they all agree in this, that they all have the property of making light that which was before obscure or dark. We are told, however, that such a rendering is inadmissible, and that we must render φανερούμενον passively, in which case I do not see the meaning of the passage, unless, perhaps, we are allowed to understand that whatsoever is made manifest is in the light, in that the light illuminates it.
Chrysostom has some searching remarks: “Wherefore I entreat you, be ye never backward to reprove, nor displeased at being reproved. By all means let us do all we can to chase away the deadness that is in our brethren, to scatter the darkness, and to attract to us the sun of righteousness.”
5:14. Wherefore *he saith, **Awake thou that sleepest, and ***arise from the dead, and Christ shall give thee light. [*Or, it. | **Isa. 60:1. Rom. 13:11–12. 1 Cor. 15:34. 1 Thess. 5:6. | ***John 5:25. Rom. 6:4–5. Eph. 2:5. Col. 3:1.]
14. “Wherefore he saith, Awake thou that sleepest, and arise from the dead,” etc. St. Paul here seems to quote some scripture passage, but the place is nowhere to be found in Holy Writ. The nearest approach to it is in Isaiah 60:1, “Arise, shine, for thy light is come, and the glory of the Lord is risen upon thee.” And it is suggested that this place may be adapted by St. Paul in a free way, as he seems to adapt other places. Others suppose, with more probability, from the rhythmical cadence of the Greek, that he quotes from a hymn then in use in the Christian assemblies. And we know from the letter of Pliny that hymns addressed to Christ as God were in use in the Churches in his time. It is very probable, however, that the earliest Churches had far more religious literature than we are aware of, and perhaps much of it the utterance of the spirit of prophecy.
The passage itself is most important as regards its teaching. We learn from it that in a Church favoured in every way, there may be some, in fact numbers, who are sleeping the sleep of death. Their sleep, it is true, is not actual death, but it is the image of death. They are like men asleep who move not, work not, even think not, except in disjointed and senseless dreams. These have to be aroused from sleep; more than this, to be awakened as from death. They are to be raised from the death of sin to the life of righteousness.
“And Christ shall give thee light.” The reader will remember the words of St. Peter, 2 Epist. 1:19: “Until the day dawn, and the daystar arise in your hearts.”
If we awake out of sleep, and arise from our death-like slumbers, it is no dim light that will shine upon us. No other than Christ Himself shall dispel our darkness.
5:15. *See then that ye walk circumspectly, not as fools, but as wise, [*Col. 4:5. | “Circumspectly” – “with strictness”. Perhaps, “Look then carefully how ye walk.” So א, B, three or four Cursives; but A, D, E, F, G, K, L, P, most Cursives, Vulg., Syr., read as in Received Text.]
15. “See then that ye walk circumspectly, not as fools, but as wise.” The word circumspectly is translated by most expositors “strictly,” and has reference to a way or path lying before us, which we are carefully to keep to, not turning aside to the right hand or to the left.
5:16. *Redeeming the time, **because the days are evil. [*Gal. 6:10. Col. 4:5. | **Eccles. 11:2, 12. John 12:35. Eph. 6:13.]
16. “Redeeming the time, because the days are evil.” The days which we pass through in this world are under the dominion of evil; and if we live listlessly and carelessly, we yield ourselves to this evil, and lose irrecoverably our precious time, and so by not using it as to God, lay up no treasures in eternity. But if we exert ourselves in this our appointed time to do good, and to speak the truth of God, and to cultivate good habits and holy affections, then we redeem the time, we lay it up for ourselves, so that we so pass through things temporal as to gain the things eternal.
It is surprising what men have been able to do by looking well to what we should call the odds and ends of time. It is related of a celebrated literary man of the last generation, that he learnt several languages during the time that he was dressing every morning. It is related of a great physician that he translated one of the chief Roman poets into English verse during the time that he was driving to see his patients. What time would many men save for prayer if they got up as soon as they awoke in the morning!
5:17. *Wherefore be ye not unwise, but **understanding ***what the will of the Lord is. [*Col. 4:5. | **Rom. 12:2. | ***1 Thess. 4:3, 5:18.]
17. “Wherefore be ye not unwise, but understanding what the will of the Lord is.” The most senseless people are those who have no anxiety respecting the will of Him Who created them, and for Whose pleasure they are and were created.
“But understanding what the will of the Lord is.” And to understand this will requires pains, for the will of the Lord requires to be learned daily: for not a day passes in which we have not – perhaps in some very trifling matter – to choose between the will of the Lord and our own will, or the will of our careless neighbours and friends.
To understand what the will of the Lord is requires that in all things by prayer we should consult God as a friend, and, if possible, ask the advice of wise and good men, and carefully do what we know is always according to the will of God. In fact it follows on the exhortation of the last verse, to walk strictly, and make the most Christian use of our time.
5:18. And *be not drunk with wine, wherein is excess; but be filled with the Spirit: [*Prov. 20:1, 23:20, 30. Isa. 5:11, 22. Luke 21:34.]
18. “And be not drunk with wine, wherein is excess; but be filled with the Spirit.” What a contrast between the two admonitions, “Be not drunk,” “Be filled with the Holy Ghost.” – And yet it is natural, for human beings crave some excitement. Those who are apart from God crave some worldly, or sinful, or fleshly stimulant. Those who are nearest to God crave most earnestly the complete indwelling of His Holy Spirit.
What an extraordinary capacity for good or for evil human nature has! At first it seems incredible that two such precepts should be addressed to the same person, but every minister knows well that religious persons, or at least those who can speak and even act very religiously, are constantly overtaken by the sin of drunkenness, or by the sin of excess, which may not amount to actual drunkenness. And yet the very same persons, if they would put away their strong drink, and earnestly court the indwelling of the Spirit of God, may be filled with a Person in the Trinity.
5:19. Speaking to yourselves *in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody in your heart to the Lord: [*Acts 16:25. 1 Cor. 14:26. Col. 3:16. James 5:13.]
19. “Speaking to yourselves in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing,” etc. “To yourselves,” or “one to another.” Some suppose that this alludes to singing in the Christian assemblies, which Pliny in his celebrated letter describes as done antiphonally (see Excursus 3 in Notes on Acts, p. 521).
“Psalms.” These may have been the Psalms in the Old Testament, as distinguished from the hymns, which may have been the composition of persons at the moment, or may have included such acts of praise as the Gloria in Excelsis, the Magnificat, the Songs of Zacharias and Simeon.
“Hymns and spiritual songs.” We have no means of knowing what these were as distinguished from psalms, whether they were metrical compositions or not. But we may be almost certain that in every Church where there were spiritual gifts there would be these effusions, some of them, perhaps, poured forth at the inspiration of the moment. Neither Chrysostom, however, nor Theodoret make mention of any difference or distinction between the three. Jerome notices that in his time the peasants of Palestine used to chant the psalms to themselves while they ploughed or tended their cattle.
5:20. *Giving thanks always for all things unto God and the Father **in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ; [*Psa. 34:1. Isa. 63:7. Col. 3:17. 1 Thess. 5:18. 2 Thess. 1:3. | **Heb. 13:15. 1 Peter 2:5, 4:11.]
20. “Giving thanks always for all things unto God and the Father in,” etc. “Giving thanks always.” “Always,” as if the mind was not only ever to be in a thankful frame, but constantly to express thankfulness.
“For all things.” What! for disease and pain? Yes, we should do this if we thoroughly believed in the words of the Spirit, “all things work together for good to them that love God”; if we remembered that all forms of prosperity may be curses, and all forms of adversity blessings, according to the words, “Son, remember that thou, in thy lifetime, receivedst thy good things, and likewise Lazarus evil things”; if we remembered that that is absolutely true which is written, “Whom the Lord loveth he chasteneth, and scourgeth every son whom he receiveth.” A man of very great eminence had lived a very healthy and painless life; and when he was at last called hence by a painful disease, he thanked God for what he suffered, as it taught him to sympathize more perfectly with those who suffered pain.
“In the name of our Lord Jesus Christ.” As He is the one Mediator, through Whom all blessings come to us, so all our thanks for these blessings ascend to the Father through Him.
5:21. *Submitting yourselves one to another in the fear of God. [Phil. 3:3. 1 Peter 5:5. | “In the fear of God.” So most Cursives. “In the fear of Christ” in א, A, B, L, P, about thirty-five Cursives, Vulg., Syriac, Copt., etc.]
21. “Submitting yourselves one to another in the fear of God.” ‘Defer one to another,’ ‘give way one to another,’ listen to one another. Act as if each Christian brother was your superior, for the time, at least. There is a remarkable difference of reading, א, A, B, L, P, and other authorities having “in the fear of Christ”. If it be the true reading, that is, if St. Paul himself wrote it, it is the one solitary instance in which any Apostle would have us make the Son of God an object of fear. Submitting ourselves one to another in the fear of God means that we are not to submit through fear of men, or for the sake of advantage, or through natural shrinking or timidity, but because God desires to see the working of His grace within us in our yielding to one another.
5:22. *Wives, submit yourselves unto your own husbands, **as unto the Lord. [*Gen. 3:16. 1 Cor. 14:34. Col. 3:18. Titus 2:5. 1 Peter 3:1. | **Eph. 6:5.]
22. “Wives, submit yourselves unto your own husbands, as unto the Lord.” What a remarkable place the relation between Christ as the Head of the Mystical Body, and the Church as that Body, must have had in the mind of the Apostle, if he could make use of it as he does in the following verses, to inculcate submission in the family. Wives are to submit themselves to their husbands, not only because it is right, but because Christ is the Head of the Church. And it is also a remarkable fact that the Church of England has been guided by the Spirit of God to follow up this instruction in her Office for the Solemnization of Matrimony, not only in causing the latter part of this chapter to be read as an exhortation at the end, but in the beginning, where in the short exhortation we are told that holy matrimony signifies unto us the Mystical Union that is betwixt Christ and His Church, and that it was ordained that “such persons as have not the gift of continency might marry, and keep themselves undefiled members of Christ’s Body.” And it is also a remarkable fact, that the Church did not derive this from the Roman office, in which there is no mention whatsoever of the Union of Christ with His Church, as in any way bearing on the holiness of marriage.
“Unto the Lord.” That is, as unto the Lord Jesus, as appears from the next verse.
5:23. For *the husband is the head of the wife, even as **Christ is the head of the Church: and he is the saviour of ***the body. [*1 Cor. 11:3. | **Eph. 1:22, 4:15. Col. 1:18. ***Eph. 1:23.]
23. “For the husband is the head of the wife, even as Christ is the head of the church.” The Apostle had written this before. “I would have you know that the head of every man is Christ, and the head of the woman is the man, and the head of Christ is God” (1 Cor. 11:3). There he enunciated this truth in order that women might, when in Church, wear the veil, – the badge, or symbol, of submission; now he repeats it in order that they might be really subject.
Christ is not only the Head, but the Saviour of the body. Does the Apostle mean by this that the husband is the Saviour, in any sense, of the wife, by protecting or supporting her? It seems not improbable. And Bishop Wordsworth refers to a passage in Chrysostom: “Such is the relation of a husband to his own wife. He is the head, and therefore has the preeminence. His office is also one of protection and conservation, and he has, therefore, a double claim to submission and affection on her side.”
5:24. Therefore as the church is subject unto Christ, so let the wives be to their own husbands *in everything. [*Col. 3:20, 22. Titus 2:9.]
24. “Therefore as the church is subject unto Christ, so let the wives be to their,” etc. In everything – that is, in all lawful things – in everything which does not contravene the expressed will of God and the faith of Christ. [Another view, however, is taken of the meaning of this last clause more in accordance with the old MSS. of the Greek and the Vulgate: “Being himself the Saviour of the body, but (though no earthly husband can be this in the sense that He is) yet nevertheless as the Church is subject unto Christ, so let,” etc.]
This seems very strong, for the husband may be unreasonable, may be harsh, may be willful, but what the Apostle inculcates serves in nine cases out of ten, when obeyed literally, to maintain peace in the household.
5:25. *Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ also loved the church, and **gave himself for it; [*1 Col. 3:19. 1 Peter 3:7. | **Acts 20:28. Gal. 1:4, 2:20. Eph. 5:2.]
5:26. That he might sanctify and cleanse it *with the washing of water **by the word, [*John 3:5. Titus 3:5. Heb. 10:22. 1 John 5:6. | **John 15:3, 17:17.]
25–26. “Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ also loved the church ... washing of water by the word.” “Even as Christ also loved the Church.” Christ, in his loving relations to His Church, is an example to all husbands. They cannot, of course, attain to His love, but they can strive after some measure of it.
“And gave himself for it; that he might sanctify ... word.” “With the washing of water.” This, no doubt, refers to Holy Baptism, and the expression is to be noted, because the Apostle assumes that whatever sanctification was derived from Christ, it came, in the first place, through Holy Baptism. The Apostle assumes this everywhere. Washing is here rather “laver,” or “bath,” as in Titus 3:5, “through the laver (or bath) of New Birth,” the bath, or font, being rather alluded to, than the act of washing.
“By the word,” or “with the word.” This, by some, is said to mean, by belief in the word preached before receiving Baptism. By others, the word always spoken in Baptism, “I baptize thee in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost.” But the two must be united. The word must go before to prepare for Baptism (Acts 8:35–36, and 16:32–33), or what meaning can Baptism have to the baptized sinner?
“Sanctify and cleanse it.” Here St. Paul, as is usual with him, makes no difference between Sanctification and Justification. He puts Sanctification first, as implying the dedication to God, by the person being engrafted into the Body of Christ, the internal or progressive Sanctification being intended to follow.
I cannot forbear giving Chrysostom’s remarks. “So, then, she was unclean! So, then, she had blemishes; so, then, she was unsightly; so, then, she was worthless. Whatsoever kind of wife thou shalt take, yet shalt thou never take such a bride as the Church, when Christ took her, nor one so far removed from thee as the Church was from Christ. And yet, for all that, He did not abhor her, nor loathed her, for her surpassing deformity. Wouldst thou hear her deformity described? Hear what Paul saith: ‘For ye were sometimes darkness.’ Didst thou see the blackness of her hue? What blacker than darkness? But look at her boldness; ‘living,’ saith he, in malice and envy.’ Look again at her impurity, disobedient, foolish. But what am I saying? She was both foolish and of an evil tongue; and yet, notwithstanding so many were her blemishes, yet did He give Himself up for her in her deformity, as for one in the bloom of youth, as for one dearly beloved, as for one of wonderful beauty. And it was in admiration of this that Paul said, ‘For scarcely for a righteous man will one die.’ And again, ‘In that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.’ And though such as this, He took her, and arrayed her in beauty, and washed her, and refused not even this, to give Himself for her.”
5:27. *That he might present it to himself a glorious church, **not having spot, or wrinkle, or any such thing; ***but that it should be holy and without blemish. [*2 Cor. 11:2. Col. 1:22. | **Cant. 4:7. | ***Eph. 1:4.]
27. “That he might present it (or her) to himself a glorious church, not having spot,” etc. The presentation of the Church in glory is described in Rev. 21:1–8. Her being “without spot or wrinkle, or any such thing,” in Rev. 21:27: “And there shall in no wise enter into it anything that defileth, neither whatsoever worketh abomination, or maketh a lie; but they which are written in the Lamb’s Book of Life.”
“But that it should be holy and without blemish.” This seems to be founded on the sacrificial rule that the victim should be without blemish.
5:28. So ought men to love their wives as their own bodies. He that loveth his wife loveth himself.
28. “So ought men to love their wives as their own bodies.” As Christ loved the Church which He made His Body, so ought the husband to love his wife as being his body. He that loveth his wife loveth himself, for Christ considers the Church a part of Himself, and after His example the husband should consider his wife a part of himself; and so the Apostle proceeds.
5:29. For no man ever yet hated his own flesh; but nourisheth and cherisheth it, even as the Lord the church:
29. “For no one ever yet hated his own flesh; but nourisheth and cherisheth it, even as the Lord the Church.” It is unnatural in a man to hate his own flesh, i.e., to torment it, or starve it, or weaken it, but rather, after the example of the Lord in His treatment of His Church, he should nourish and cherish it. And so it is the destruction of the husband’s happiness if he ill-treat his wife. It is as if he ill-treated his own body. On the contrary, kindness and forbearance to the wife, after the example of Christ’s conduct, is like loving himself, it so conduces to his happiness, and that of his household.
5:30. For *we are members of his body, of his flesh, and of his bones. [*Gen. 2:25. Rom. 12:5. 1 Cor. 6:15, 12:27. | “Of his flesh, and of his bones” omitted by א, A, B, Copt., AEth.; but retained by D, E, F, G, L, P, almost all Cursives, Itala, Vulg., Syriac.]
30. “For we are members of his body, of his flesh, and of his bones.” This is an adaptation of the words of Adam when he recognized that Eve was not like the other creatures, alien in nature from him, but that she was “bone of his bone, and flesh of his flesh,” Eve having been created, not out of the dust, but out of the flesh and bone taken out of his side. The preponderating authority is for the retaining of the words “of his flesh and of his bones”: and without these words the mystery of the union is not brought out.
5:31. *For this cause shall a man leave his father and mother, and shall be joined unto his wife, and they **two shall be one flesh. [*Gen. 2:24. Matt. 19:5. Mark 10:7–8. | **1 Cor. 6:16.]
31. “For this cause shall a man leave his father and mother, and shall be joined unto his wife, and they two shall be one flesh.” These are the words of Adam, speaking prophetically about what would take place amongst his descendants. They set forth that the marriage union is closer than any other; so that, on account of it a man severs that parental union which has been hitherto the most binding upon him. Hitherto his first duty has been to his parents, now it is to his wife.
“And they two shall be one flesh.”
5:32. This is a great mystery: but I speak concerning Christ and the church.
32. “This is a great mystery, but I speak concerning Christ and the church.” The institution of marriage brought before the Apostle’s mind its mystery. A very deep thing it is that two separate human beings should become one flesh in the sight of God as well as of man, nay, more indissolubly in the sight of God than of man. But he turned away from it, as it were, for the time, because there rose up before his spiritual vision that infinitely greater mystery, the spiritual union between Christ and His Church. They too are one flesh. There are three things which are called in Scripture the Body of Christ. There is the Body which was nailed to the Cross, and which rose again and ascended into heaven; and there is that of which He says, “This is my Body.” And this last Body unites in one the mystical Body, for the Holy Ghost assures us that “the Bread which we break is the Communion of the Body of Christ, for we being many are one bread and one Body, for we are all partakers of that one bread” (1 Cor. 10:17), that is, of that Inward Part, which amongst all differences in the outward bread is One and the Same Inward Part,* and so makes those who partake of it one.
*[In a very well-known passage in Hooker, 5, lvi. 7, 8, he recognizes this mystery of Christ’s Flesh uniting the Church in One Body. “Our being in Christ by eternal foreknowledge saveth us not without our actual and real adoption into the fellowship of His saints in this present world. For in Him we actually are by our actual incorporation into that society which hath Him for their head, and doth make together with Him One Body (He and they having in that respect one name, 1 Cor. 12:12), for which cause, by virtue of this mystical conjunction, we are of Him and in Him, even as though our very flesh and bones should be made continuate with His (Eph. 5:30). ... It is too cold an interpretation whereby some men expound our being in Christ to import nothing else but only that the self-same nature which maketh us to be men is in Him, and maketh Him man as we are. For what man in the world is there which hath not so far forth communion with Jesus Christ. It is not this that can sustain the weight of such sentences as speak of the mystery of our coherence with Jesus Christ. (John 14:20, 15:4.) The Church is in Christ as Eve was in Adam. Yea, by grace, we are every one of us in Christ and in His Church, as by nature we are in those our first parents. God made Eve of the rib of Adam. And His Church He frameth out of the very flesh, the very wounded and bleeding side of the Son of Man. His Body crucified and His Blood shed for the life of the world are the true elements of that heavenly being which maketh us such as Himself is of whom we come. For which cause the words of Adam may be fitly the words of Christ concerning His Church, flesh of my ‘flesh and bone of my bone’ – a true native extract out of mine own body. So that in Him, even according to His Manhood, we according to our heavenly being are as branches in that root out of which they grow.” … And again, “For doth any man doubt, but that even from the flesh of Christ our very bodies do receive that life which shall make them glorious at the latter day, and for which they are already accounted parts of His Blessed Body. Our corruptible bodies could never live the life they shall live, were it not that here they are joined with His Body which is incorruptible, and that His is in ours as a cause of immortality, a cause by removing through the Death and Merit of His own flesh that which hindered the life of ours. Christ is therefore both as God and as man, that true Vine whereof we both spiritually and corporally are branches.”]
5:33. Nevertheless *let every one of you in particular so love his wife even as himself; and the wife see that she **reverence her husband. [*Eph. 5:25. Col. 3:19. | **1 Peter 3:6.]
33. “Nevertheless, let every one of you in particular so love his wife,” etc. This seems to mean: if you cannot as yet realize this exalted idea of marriage, as shadowing forth the unity betwixt Christ and His Church, still attend to the plain duty that each one is to love his wife even as himself, and the wife see that she reverence (or, rather, fear) her husband.
Chapter 6
6:1. Children, *obey your parents in the Lord; for this is right. [*Prov. 23:22. Col. 3:20.]
1. “Children obey your parents in the Lord; for this is right.” It is right according to the natural law. And many heathen nations, as for instance the Hindus, have been as a nation far more strict in obeying this law than Christians. But it is also right, inasmuch as it is a part of the moral law given to the chosen people.
6:2. *Honour thy father and mother; which is the first commandment with promise; [*Ex. 20:12. Deut. 5:16, 27:16. Jer. 35:18. Ezek. 22:7. Mal. 1:6. Matt. 15:4. Mark 7:10.]
6:3. That it may be well with thee, and thou mayest live long on the earth.
2–3. “Honour thy father and mother, which is the first,” etc. “live long on the earth.” It is not the first but the only commandment which has a promise attached to it. Chrysostom has a singular reason why a temporal promise is mentioned by the Apostle. It is that this injunction is addressed to children who could not understand so well the promise of eternal happiness, “For if anyone inquire why it is that he omitted to discourse concerning a (heavenly) kingdom, but set before them the commandment laid down in the law, we will answer, that it is because he speaks to them as infantine.” And this accords with the fact that children are to a great extent under the law, inasmuch as they have to do that which is told them without requiring a reason. This is noticed in Gal. 4:1, “The heir, as long as he is a child differeth nothing from a servant ... but is under tutors and governors.” If it be asked, are no obedient children taken off prematurely, we answer that such may be taken from the evil to come, and such a promise as “that it may be well with thee” has reference also to a life in a better state of things. We may be sure, however, that a promise so emphasized as this is, will be made good, and that God in this, as in all other things, will be clear when He is judged.
6:4. And, *ye fathers, provoke not your children to wrath: but **bring them up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord. [*Col. 3:21. | **Gen. 18:19, 6:7, 20, 11:19. Psa. 78:4. Prov. 19:18, 22:6, 29:17.]
4. “And ye fathers, provoke not your children to wrath, but, bring them up,” etc. Provoke them not by unkind language and undue severity, by partiality, by injustice, by inconsistency of treatment.
“But bring them up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord.” “Nurture” is properly “discipline,” and is the same word as that which is rendered “chastening” in Heb. 12:5, “My son, despise not thou the chastening of the Lord.” Admonition is constant putting in mind, and so Chrysostom: “Never deem it an unnecessary thing that he should be a diligent hearer of the divine Scriptures. ... Make him a Christian. Is it not absurd to send children out to trades, and to school, and to do all you can for this object, and yet not to bring them up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord?”
It is to be particularly noticed here how St. Paul assumes that children are as much members of the Church, and so members of Christ, as their parents, or elders. This shows two things: first, that the children as a rule were brought into the Church by Baptism, and that in this Baptism they were made universally members of Christ. Secondly, that it had the same grace to all, or else the Apostle would have laid down rules respecting the proper age for baptism, and the Christian admonition necessary before they were fit to receive it.
6:5. *Servants, be obedient to them that are your masters according to the flesh, **with fear and trembling, ***in singleness of your heart, as unto Christ; [*Col. 3:22. 1 Tim. 6:1. Titus 2:9. 1 Peter 2:18. | **2 Cor. 7:15. Phil. 2:12. | ***1 Chron. 29:17. Col. 3:22.]
5. “Servants be obedient to them that are your masters according to the flesh.” Servants, not hired labourers or domestic servants, but slaves, whose persons and labour entirely belonged to their master.
He exhorts them to be obedient, not only to Christian masters, but to their own masters according to the flesh, who in very many cases would be heathen. It is remarkable how often and earnestly this duty of slaves is insisted on, and the reason (or at least one most necessary one) is not far to seek. The institution of slavery was recognized over all the heathen world, and nothing could be more detrimental to Christianity than for slaves to act on the principle that their freedom in Christ enabled them to assert their freedom from the obligations of their respective households.
“With fear and trembling.” This phrase must not be understood in exact literalness, as implying that in this case love could not cast out fear. It rather means, with all possible anxiety to please the head of the household, just as “work out your own salvation with fear and trembling” does not mean with slavish fear. “These words do not refer to fear of punishment from the Master, but to the anxiety and self-distrust which make the best Christians say to their Master in heaven, ‘we are unprofitable servants’.”
“In singleness of your heart.” Having one aim, which is to please Christ in the service of your earthly master.
6:6. *Not with eyeservice, as menpleasers; but as the servants of Christ, doing the will of God from the heart; [*Col. 3:22–23.]
6. “Not with eyeservice, as menpleasers.” This must have been the common fault of those generations upon generations of slaves who had no assured hope of the future. They obeyed their masters, not for duty’s sake, but through fear of punishment; and if they knew that any neglect of duty would escape the knowledge of their master, of course they would not trouble themselves about it.
“But as the servants of Christ, doing the will of God from the heart.” In all your service to your masters, carry with you the thought that everything which you do can be made an offering well-pleasing to God, if it is done to God with the intention of pleasing Him in the doing of it.
6:7. With good will doing service, as to the Lord, and not to men:
7. “With good will doing service as to the Lord, and not unto men.” If you love the Lord and believe that He is your Redeemer, and that He has His eye upon you, then you will do your domestic service with a right goodwill, just as you do every other thing in which you think you serve or honour Christ, with deep religious joy.
“With good will doing service.” He does well to speak thus; for since it is possible to do service, even with singleness of heart, and not wrongfully, and yet not in any way with all one’s might, but only so far as fulfilling one’s bounden duty, therefore he says, do it with alacrity, not of necessity, upon principle, not upon constraint. If thus thou do service, thou art no slave if thou do it with good will, from the heart and for Christ’s sake.
6:8. *Knowing that whatsoever good thing any man doeth, the same shall he receive of the Lord, **whether he be bond or free. [*Rom. 2:6. 2 Cor. 5:10. Col. 3:24. | **Gal. 3:28. Col. 3:11.]
8. “Knowing that whatsoever good thing any man doeth, the same shall he,” etc. Here the Apostle extends the principle to all men. No good thing shall lose its reward at the bar of Him Who said, “Whosoever shall give to drink unto one of these little ones a cup of cold water only, he shall in no case lose his reward” (Matt. 10:42).
I shall, D.V., have more to say on this subject of the duties of servants and masters when I come to the Epistle to the Colossians, in which the same truths are set forth in nearly the same words.
6:9. And, ye *masters, do the same things unto them, **forbearing threatening: knowing that ***your Master also is in heaven; 4*neither is there respect of persons with him. [*Col. 4:1. | **Or, moderating. Lev. 25:43. | ***Some read, both you and their Master. John 13:13. 1 Cor. 7:22. | 4*Rom. 2:11. Col. 3:25. | “Your master also.” So K, most Cursives, d, e, Syriac, AEth.; but א, A, B, D, P, four or five Cursives, Vulg., Goth., Copt., Arm., “both their and your Master.” “Your and their Master” read in E, F, G.]
9. “And ye masters, do the same things unto them, forbearing threatening.” “Do the same things unto them.” I think this must mean, “serve them” – do what you can for their bodily and spiritual welfare. Or it may simply mean, “Do to them as you would have them do to you.” In the corresponding part of the Epistle to the Colossians it runs: “Give unto your servants what is just and equal, forbearing threatening,” i.e., all imperiousness and harshness in giving your orders.
“Knowing that your Master also is in heaven.” This is not to be understood as if it meant, “Be afraid of that Master if you are harsh,” but it rather means, “Look to the approval of that Master if ye are kind”; for He has said: “inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me” (Matt. 25:40).
“Neither is there respect of persons with him.” All in His sight are equal, made out of the same dust, redeemed by the same Blood, having the same Baptism, the same faith, the same heavenly and spiritual Food.
6:10. Finally, my brethren, be strong in the Lord, and *in the power of his might. [*Eph. 1:19, 3:16. Col. 1:11.]
10. “Finally, my brethren, be strong in the Lord and in the power of his might.” Having gone through the various duties of Christians one towards another as members of the mystical body, it naturally occurs to him to ask, “Who is sufficient for these things? No one, in his own strength; but then the least member of Christ has the strength of Christ – of Him Whose strength is made perfect in weakness – vouchsafed to him. One single look to Christ, one single prayer to the Father in His Name, will renew in him the strength of Jesus.
“Be strong then in the Lord,” renew, realize your union with Him. “The power of His might” is His Spirit. Thus the Apostle prays for them that they may be strengthened with might by His Spirit in the inner man – and the Spirit is “the Spirit of power, and of love, and of a sound mind” (2 Tim. 1:7).
6:11. *Put on the whole armour of God, that ye may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil. [*Rom. 13:12. 2 Cor. 6:7. Eph. 6:13. 1 Thess. 5:8.]
11. “Put on the whole armour of God, that ye may be able to stand.” The whole armour is, in the Greek, the panoply, the full equipment of the soldier of ancient time, so that if he has his front towards the enemy, none of his missiles can hurt him. The idea of the panoply of God has been supposed to have been suggested to the Apostle by the sight of the soldiers who guarded him, but must it not have been formed on passages of the Old Testament, as particularly Isaiah 11:5: “And righteousness shall be the girdle of his loins, and faithfulness the girdle of his reins”? And again, God is said to “put on righteousness as a breastplate,” (Isa. 59:17), which seem all to be gathered up in a passage in the Book of Wisdom (5:17–20.) “He shall take to him his jealousy for complete armour, [πανοπλία], and make the creature his weapon for the revenge of his enemies. He shall put on righteousness as a breastplate, and true judgment instead of an helmet. He shall take holiness as an invincible shield. His severe wrath shall he sharpen for a sword, and the world shall fight with him against the unwise.” These words of the prophet and the wise man are applied to God, but the wiser man – the Apostle taught by the Spirit – changes their application into one more in accordance with the fitness of things, into the weapons of virtues and graces with which God equips the man who fights on the side of His Son against the powers of evil.
6:12. For we wrestle not against *flesh and blood, but against **principalities, against powers, against ***the rulers of the darkness of this world, against 4*spiritual wickedness in 5*high places. [*Gr. blood and flesh. Matt. 16:17. 1 Cor. 15:50. | **Rom. 8:38. Eph. 1:21. Col. 2:15. | ***Luke 22:53. John 12:31, 14:30. Eph. 2:2. Col. 1:13. | 4*Or, wicked spirits. | 5*Or, heavenly, as chapter 1:3. | “For we wrestle not.” So א, A, E, K, L, P, most Cursives, Vulg., Copt., Arm.; but B, D, F, G, 52, 115, 120, d, e, f, g, Goth., Syriac, AEth., read, “Ye wrestle not.” | “Rulers of the darkness of this world.” So E, K, L, P, most Cursives; but א, A, B, D, F, G, d, e, f, g, Vulg., Goth., Copt., Syriac, read, “of this darkness”.]
12. “For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against,” etc. It is remarkable (that is, when put in contrast with our present unbelief on such matters) how real the world of spirits seemed to our Lord, and to those by whom He chose to represent Himself to mankind. Twice in this Epistle are the hierarchies of the unseen world alluded to – the hierarchy of heaven, where it is said (Eph. 3:10) that to the principalities and powers in heavenly places God, in ruling the Church, teaches His manifold wisdom; and in this place, where the powers of evil are represented as an hierarchy, there being gradations of ranks of evil spirits, some acting under others: and it must be so, for if there is to be any proper warfare, it must be waged by something analogous to armies, disciplined under leaders, rather than to undisciplined mobs.
“For we wrestle not against flesh and blood,” that is, against human nature within, or human beings without.
“But against principalities, against powers.” “Against the principalities, against the powers,” both words having the article, showing that there was much more belief in, and knowledge of these powers of evil than we now possess.
“Against the rulers of the darkness of this world.” Properly, “against the world rulers of this darkness,” as if their rule was worldwide – capable of concentrating under themselves, and bringing to a focus, the evil of this present state of things.
“Against spiritual wickedness in high places” – translated by Bishop Ellicott as “the spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly regions.” The heavenly regions cannot, of course, mean that these spirits inhabit that third heaven, that highest region of all created things, that paradise where the unspeakable words were heard by the Apostle, but rather that they dwell where they can see all that goes on in this present world, and act upon it at once, or, to use a material expression, swoop down upon it, and make their power felt in every part of it, the very notion of an unembodied spirit implying that he comes and goes not like a human being, but traversing space so as to appear and disappear, be present or be absent, at pleasure. The heavenly places thus seem to be the unseen universe with which this present world is environed, and which, at a moment known only to God, will burst upon us, and then we shall know that this present state of things, firm and stable though it seems, is a shadow, and the spiritual and unseen world is a substance.
6:13. *Wherefore take unto you the whole armour of God, that ye may be able to withstand **in the evil day, and ***having done all to stand. [*2 Cor. 10:4. Eph. 6:11. | **Eph 5:16. | ***Or, having overcame all.]
13. “Wherefore take unto you the whole armour of God ... evil day ... having done all, to stand.” Notice how he repeats the order, “take unto you the panoply.”
“That ye may be able to stand in the evil day.” What is this evil day? Is it some day of fierce persecution, or is it some day in which our spiritual foes seem to leave us alone, or is it some crisis in our lives which will put our Christian character more severely to the test than ever it has been put before? It may be all these three. Our Lord said of His crisis, “This is your hour, and the power of darkness.” And He said of St. Peter, “I have prayed for thee that thy faith fail not.” And St. Paul may have had such a crisis when the Lord said to him, “My grace is sufficient for thee.”
“And having done all to stand.” St. Paul could not possibly have written this if he entertained the same idea of salvation as the Plymouth Brethren, and those who are called the Salvation Army, and others do, that salvation is accomplished in a moment in the beginning of the Christian career, and that the sinner has to do nothing – some say not even to pray – but to receive only, and then he is safe for eternity. Instead of this, the Apostle tells us, “Having done all, he is to stand,” i.e., in the crisis which determines his future. This is not to be taken as militating against such a truth as “He loved them unto the end,” or “He that hath begun a good work in you will perform it”; but it must be taken as showing, as clearly as possible, that there must be human endeavour, and that to the full extent of human power (of course with the aid of all grace), and that the armour must be put on and never put off in this life.
6:14. Stand therefore, *having your loins girt about with truth, and **having on the breastplate of righteousness; [*Isa. 11:5. Luke 12:35. 1 Peter 1:13. | **Isa. 59:17. 2 Cor. 6:7. 1 Thess. 5:8.]
14. “Stand therefore, having your loins girt about with truth.” “Stand,” i.e., be always ready, be always in the posture of defense, as if you might at any moment be attacked. What is this girdle, or this being girt about? Chrysostom takes it to be the girdle by which the loins are braced up: “By the loins here he means this: just what the keel is in ships, the same are the loins with us, the basis, or groundwork, of the whole body; for they are, as it were, a foundation, and upon them as the schools of the physicians tell you, your whole frame is built. Now, then, in girding the loins, he is bracing together the soul (1 Peter 1:13).” Blunt takes it to be the girdle, that is, a belt, from which hung many vertical straps covered, with plates of metal, and thus forming a defensive kilt reaching from the waist halfway down to the knees; and of course the girdle might effect this double purpose, strengthening the loins by bracing them tight around, and being the upper part from which the defensive armour of the lower part of the body was hung.
“With truth.” It is said of the Messiah, “the rod of the stem of Jesse,” that “righteousness should be the girdle of His loins, and faithfulness the girdle of his reins” (Isaiah 11:5). This faithfulness, which is rendered in the Septuagint by αλήθεια, the same word which St. Paul uses, must mean faithfulness to God, the sincerity of the servant of God. And sincerity or faithfulness is the very strength and bracing up of the loins of the mind. The first thing in all religion is sincerity. It was the want of this which brought down on the Pharisees the righteous invectives of the Lord, so that St. Paul rightly puts this virtue or grace in the first place. The purest creed, the clearest views of the doctrines of grace, are useless without this truthfulness and sincere allegiance. It is the first command which the Lord gives to those who would wait for Him, “Let your loins be girded about” (Luke 12:35).
“And having on the breastplate of righteousness.” Is this the righteousness of Christ, or that of the sinner? Most certainly the former, but then it is communicated to the sinner, so as to be not outside of him, but in him, in his heart. It is the righteousness of Christ, because it is derived from Him; and it becomes the sinner’s by being worked in him. If we have not righteousness, which comprehends all conformity to the will of God, the missile of the evil one can come straight to our heart. In the first Epistle to the Thess. 5:8, it is said to be “the breastplate of faith and, love.” Wesley writes: “In the breast is the seat of conscience, which is guarded by righteousness.”
6:15. *And your feet shod with the preparation of the gospel of peace; [*Isa. 3:7 Rom. 10:15.]
15. “And your feet shod with the preparation of the gospel of peace.” There is supposed, but without reason, to be a reference here to the prophecy of the proclamation of the Gospel in Isaiah 52:7, “How beautiful on the mountains are the feet of him that bringeth good tidings”; but the allusion is evidently to the sandals of the Roman soldiers, called the caligae, which were thick soles studded with hobnails, which took a firm hold of the ground, especially in rocky or mountainous passes, so that the wearer was not easily moved, but in a state of preparedness for any attack.
Some, however, as Wordsworth, following Chrysostom, see a reference to the Israelites eating their first Passover. “Their guise is that of wayfarers, for their having on shoes, and staves in their hands; and their eating standing, declares nothing else than this.”
But how is it called the preparedness, not of watchfulness, but of the Gospel of peace? Because a true belief in the Gospel, that is, in the truth of Christ Incarnate, crucified, risen, and ascended, is the only thing which gives us a firm footing, an immovable hold on the ground. We are not moved by the things which assail us, because our feet are firm on the Rock. There is peace between God and ourselves through the mediation of Christ, and through our having been enabled by God’s grace to lay hold on it. This peace of God, through our realization of the Gospel, makes us stand firm on the side of God.
6:16. Above all, taking *the shield of faith, where with ye shall be able to quench all the fiery darts of the wicked. [*1 John 5:4.]
16. “Above all, taking the shield of faith, wherewith ye shall be able to quench,” etc. The shield here is the thureos, a large weapon of defense, four feet long by two feet and a half wide, capable of protecting nearly the whole body. Its name was derived from θύρα, a door, as it shielded the soldier as if he were behind a door. This shield is faith. In the original it is “the faith,” as if it was the objective faith. But the objective faith is of no avail, unless our own faith, our faculty of faith, lays hold of it. The shield is not a defense attached to the body, as the girdle, or the breastplate, but has to be shifted to meet the darts or missiles, from whatever quarter they come. So that we are taught that we must be on the alert to receive on this shield any fiery dart, and so quench it. Those fiery darts seem to be the suggestions of infidelity and heresy, or any other evil insinuations which could shake our confidence in God or in Christ. [According to Alford, “One Greek author, Apollodorus, uses the very expression, βαλων βέλεσι πεπυρωμένοις. Appian calls them πυρφόρα τοξεύματα. The Latin name was malleoli. Ammianus Marcellinus describes them as cane arrows, with a head in the form of a distaff filled with lighted material.”] It is easy to apprehend how the Apostle would have us use this shield of faith. The moment an insinuation against the goodness of God or the truth of the Gospel is injected, we must at once call to mind that part of our faith to which it is opposed, as the Incarnation of Christ, if we are tempted to think that God is indifferent towards us; or the Death and Resurrection of the Son of God, if we are tempted to doubt respecting the forgiveness of sins; or the Resurrection of the Son of God to be our life, if we are tempted to forget the new Life from Christ.
6:17. And *take the helmet of salvation, and **the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God: [*Isa. 59:17. 1 Thess. 5:8. | **Heb. 4:12. Rev. 1:16, 2:16. 19:15.]
17. “And take the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit,” etc. This helmet in 1 Thess. 5:8 is the hope of salvation. Salvation, as I have said in note on 2 Cor. 1:10, is at once a past, a present, and a future thing. It is a past thing inasmuch as Our Lord purchased it for us by His Death, and made it over to us in Baptism. (1 Peter 3: 21.) Again, “God hath saved us and called us with an holy calling.” (2 Tim. 1:9.) It is present, for “Now is the accepted time, now is the day of salvation.” (2 Cor. 6:2.) And it is future, for this helmet in another Epistle is the hope of Salvation. In each of these ways the Christian will put on the helmet of Salvation. He will call to mind that he is saved by the Death of Christ. He will call to mind that he is baptized into the Death and Resurrection of Christ. He will be sure that God has given to him the earnest of Salvation in the possession of the Spirit, or he would not now be maintaining any struggle at all, and he will comfort himself with the assurance that God, “Who hath begun a good work in him, will perform it until the day of Jesus Christ” (Phil. 1:6). The realizing of these things will protect his mind, his intellect, as the helmet protects the head.
“And the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God.” Here the Christian has the example of his Divine Master to follow, Who opposed Satan with Scripture, It is written, It is written, It is written, three times. And so we must have passages of God’s Word, which reprove our besetting sins, ever at hand. Are we tempted to foul thoughts? We should meet the temptations with, “Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.” If our uncurbed tongue is our besetting sin, then let us call to mind that, “for every idle word that men shall speak they shall give account thereof in the day of judgment” (Matt. 12:36). If malicious or resentful thoughts, “Forgive, and ye shall be forgiven”; or, “Let all bitterness and wrath be put away from you with all malice” (Eph. 4:31).
6:18. *Praying always with all prayer and supplication in the Spirit, and **watching thereunto with all perseverance and ***supplication for all saints; [*Luke 18:1. Rom. 12:12. Col. 4:2. 1 Thess. 5:17. | **Matt. 26:41. Mark 13:33. | ***Eph. 1:16. Phil. 1:4. 1 Tim. 2:1.]
18. “Praying always with all prayer and supplication in the Spirit.” Praying always, because the Christian is always in danger. He must be ready to call upon God always, whenever a suggestion of evil rises up within him.
“With all prayer and supplication.” Prayer is the general word for all intercourse with God. But because we needy creatures are always requiring God’s grace and help, it generally takes the form of supplication, that is, entreating God for aid in all necessities, and asking God for grace against particular sins, and for particular Christian graces.
“In the Spirit.” The reader will remember the words in Jude, “praying in the Holy Ghost,” and the account of the assistance of the Holy Spirit given to us, Rom. 8:26, “Likewise the Spirit also helpeth our infirmities, for we know not what we should pray for as we ought, but the Spirit maketh intercession for us with groanings which cannot be uttered.”
“And watching thereunto with all perseverance.” Watching means, properly, to deny oneself in sleep, but it here means, most probably, watching against the attacks of our spiritual adversaries; and if we are idle and given to slumber, we cannot do this. It is once used of the vigilance required of ministers in tending and guarding their flocks. (Heb. 13:17.)
“For all saints.” Literally, for all the saints, that is, more particularly for the members of the Church in Ephesus. But of course all Christians are bound to pray for the saints everywhere, as we do when we pray “that all who profess and call themselves Christians may be led into the way of truth”; that “all them that are admitted into the fellowship of Christ’s religion may eschew those things that are contrary to these professions”; and that “every member of Christ’s Church, in his vocation and ministry, may truly and godly serve God.”
6:19. *And for me, that utterance may be given unto me, that I may open my mouth **boldly, to make known the mystery of the gospel, [*Acts 4:29. Col. 4:3. 2 Thess. 3:1. | **2 Cor. 3:12.]
19. “And for me, that utterance may be given unto me,” etc. The Apostle asks for their prayers, not that he may preach boldly Christ crucified; respecting that he had, as far as we know, little persecution to fear compared to that which he brought upon himself by preaching that mystery of the Gospel which set forth that the Gentiles should be fellow heirs, and of the same body, and partakers of God’s promise in Christ equally with the chosen people (Eph. 3:6).
6:20. For which *I am an ambassador **in bonds: that ***therein 4*I may speak boldly, as I ought to speak. [*2 Cor. 5:20. | **Or, in a chain. Acts 16:29, 28:20. Eph. 31. Phi. 1:7, 13–14. 2 Tim. 1:16, 2:9. Philemon 10. | ***Or, thereof. | 4*Acts 28:31. Phil. 1:20. 1 Thess. 2:2.]
20. “For which I am an ambassador in bonds: that therein I may,” etc. He was in bonds, being kept chained to a soldier, and yet he had full liberty to receive all that came unto him. A large portion of these would be Jews, and he might be under some temptation to keep back from them that equality of the Gentiles in Christ which they so much disliked.
6:21. But *that ye also may know my affairs, and how I do, **Tychicus, a beloved brother and faithful minister in the Lord, shall make known to you all things: [*Col. 4:7. Acts 20:4. 2 Tim. 4:12. Titus 3:12.]
21. “But that ye also may know my affairs, and how I do,” etc. Literally, “But that ye may know, ye too, my affairs,” etc. Many conjectures have been made respecting this “ye too”. Some think that it refers to the exactly similar message to the Church at Colosse, and signifies that “ye as well as others may know about me”; others, that as he had heard of their affairs (Eph. 1:15), so they should also hear of his.
Tychicus, the beloved brother and faithful minister in the Lord, was one of the foremost of that band of the disciples of the Apostle through whom he superintended the Churches which he had planted, carrying his messages to them, and through them receiving accounts of the spiritual state of the various Churches. He did not associate these men with himself for mere fellowship’s sake, but as his vicars apostolic – the eyes by which he watched the work of God in the Churches, and the hands by which he directed it. He first appears as a companion of the Apostle in Acts 20:4, and was with him in his last imprisonment in Rome, whence the Apostle sent him again to Ephesus (2 Tim. 4:12).
6:22. *Whom I have sent unto you for the same purpose, that ye might know our affairs, and that he might comfort your hearts. [*Col. 4:8.]
22. “Whom I have sent unto you for the same purpose, that ye might,” etc. “For the same purpose,” rather “for this very purpose.” It would have been the worst of signs if the Ephesian Churches had been indifferent to the concerns of the man through whom they had received the Gospel, and through whose instrumentality they had been united to Christ. St. Paul, as we gather from almost every Epistle, was tenderly jealous respecting the love of his converts, feeling that if they were not true to him, they were probably declining in the love of that Master Who had specially sent him to them as the instrument of their salvation.
6:23. *Peace be to the brethren, and love with faith, from God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. [*1 Peter 5:14.]
23. “Peace be to the brethren, and love with faith, from God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.” Peace is very frequently invoked upon the Churches along with grace. Here peace is followed by love with faith, placing love before faith. There is no theological significance in this, but it shows that the Apostle was not tied to any sequence of doctrine, but expressed himself as being free from the chains of any system.
6:24. Grace be with all them that love our Lord Jesus Christ **in sincerity. Amen. [*Titus 2:7. | **Or, with incorruption. | “Amen.” So D, E, K, L, P, most Cursives, Syriac, Copt., Goth.; but omitted by א, A, B, F, G, 17-73, f, g, Vulg. (Cod. Amiat.), Arm., etc.
¶ Written from Rome unto the Ephesians by Tychicus.
24. “Grace be with all them that love our Lord Jesus Christ in sincerity.” “In incorruption.” For such only can receive the grace of the Lord. “In incorruption” means in sincerity, in purity, in holiness. They love the Lord in sincerity who love Him for the goodness and holiness which is in Him, and for the deliverance from sin and newness of life which He bestows upon them.