'The saints which are at Ephesus and the faithful in Christ
Jesus.'--Eph. i. 1.
That is Paul's way of describing a church. There were plenty of very
imperfect Christians in the community at Ephesus and in the other
Asiatic churches to which this letter went. As we know, there were
heretics amongst them, and many others to whom the designation of 'holy'
seemed inapplicable. But Paul classes them all under one category, and
describes the whole body of believing people by these two words, which
must always go together if either of them is truly applied, 'saints' and
'faithful.'
Now I think that from this simple designation we may gather two or three
very obvious indeed, and very familiar and old-fashioned, but also very
important, thoughts.