+I. The extent of His headship.+--1. Over all worlds. 2. Over the
whole human race. 3. Over the Church.
+II. The subserviency of its administration to the interests of His
Church.+--1. For the edification of His Church. 2. For its
defence. 3. For its increase.
+III. Its grounds.+--1. His merit. 2. His qualifications. Whom do ye
serve?--_G. Brooks._
_The Headship of Christ._--The verse consists of two statements:--
+I. That Christ is Head over all things.+--The Father hath given
Christ to be Head over all things. 1. Originally involved in a
covenant or agreement between the Father and the Son. 2. Now a matter
of history. 3. The path of Christ to the mediatorial throne capable
of being traced. 4. He there laid deep the foundations. 5. The whole
universe is under His sway--heaven, earth, hell, all worlds, all
elements. 6. He is qualified for such dominion--Divine attributes,
angelic spirits, believers, the devil and wicked men, the Holy Spirit.
+II. That Christ is Head over all things, to the Church.+--Christ
sits upon the throne in the same character in which He trod the earth
and hung upon the cross. 1. It is as Mediator. 2. The same ends which
He contemplated. It was for the Church He clothed Himself in human
form. 3. He gives a peculiar character to the entire Divine
government. He Christianises it. 4. He employs all His attributes,
resources, creatures.
+Lessons.+--1. _Redemption is a wide and extended plan, not so easily
accomplished, not so limited._ 2. _All creatures and dominions should
do Christ homage._ 3. _The Church is secure from real danger._
4. _Believers may well glory in Christ as their Head.--Stewart._
* * * * * * * *
+CHAPTER II.+
_CRITICAL AND EXPLANATORY NOTES._
Ver. 1. +And you did He quicken.+--The italics in A.V. and R.V. show
a broken construction of St. Paul's meaning, the verb being supplied
from ver. 5, where the broken thread is taken up again. +Dead in
trespasses and sins.+--"Dead through," etc. (R.V.). "What did they
die of?" it might be asked; and the apostle answers, "Of trespasses
and sins" (so _Alford_). "The word for trespasses is one of a
mournfully numerous group of words" (_Trench_). It has sometimes the
milder meaning of "faults," "mitigating circumstances" being
considered. It makes special reference "to the subjective passivity
and suffering of him who misses or falls short of the enjoined
command" (_Cremer_). Meyer denies any "_real_ distinction between the
words for 'trespasses' and 'sins.' They denote the same thing as a
'fall' and a 'missing.'"
Ver. 2. "Shadows," says Meyer, "before the light which arises in ver.
4." +Wherein in time past ye walked.+--It is a sombre picture--men
walking about "to find themselves dishonourable graves" in the
"valley of the shadow of death," knowing not whither they go because
the darkness--the gloom of spiritual death--"hath blinded their eyes"
(1 John ii. 11). +According to the course of this world.+--Well
translated by our modern "zeit-geist," or "spirit of the age." +The
prince of the power of the air.+--However contemptuous St. Paul may
be of the creations of the Gnostic fancy, he never dreams of saying
there is nothing existent unless it can be seen and felt. The dark
realm and its ruler are not myths to the apostle.
Ver. 3. +Among whom also we all had our conversation.+--St. Paul does
not glorify himself at the expense of his readers' past life. True
his had not been a life swayed by animal delights (Acts xxvi. 5), but
it had been marked by implacable enmity to the Son of God. +And were
by nature children of wrath.+--"For the wrath of God is revealed from
heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, . . .
whether it be Jewish or Gentile."
Ver. 4. +But God, who is rich in mercy.+--"Unto all that call upon
Him" (Rom. x. 12). "He hath shut all up into disobedience, that He
might have mercy upon all" (Rom. xi. 32), +For His great love
wherewith He loved us.+--"A combination only used when the notion of
the verb is to be extended" (_Winer_).
Ver. 5. +Even when we were dead in sins.+--The phrase which closes
ver. 3, difficult as it is, must receive an interpretation in harmony
with this statement. It is the very marrow of the Gospel that, "while
we were yet sinners, Christ died for the ungodly." That the wrath of
God is real we know, but "God is love." +By grace ye are
saved.+--"Grace" is as truly characteristic of St. Paul's writing as
his autograph signature; it, too, is the token ("sign-manual") in
every epistle (2 Thess. iii. 17, 18).
Ver. 6. +In heavenly places.+--As in ch. i. 3.
Ver. 7. +The exceeding riches of His grace.+--The wealth of mercy
mentioned in ver. 4 more fully stated. Grace is condescension to an
inferior or kindness to the undeserving. +In kindness toward
us.+--"Kindness" here represents in the original "a beautiful word,
as it is the expression of a beautiful grace" (_Trench_). It is that
"fruit of the Spirit" (Gal. v. 22) called "gentleness" in the A.V.,
but which would be better named "benignity."
Ver. 8. +For by grace are ye saved, through faith.+--"'By grace'
expresses the motive, 'through faith' the subjective means"
(_Winer_). The emphasis is on "by grace."
Ver. 9. +Not of works, lest any man should boast.+--The more
beautiful the works achieved the more natural it is for a man to feel
his works to be meritorious. One can understand that a man jealous
for the honour of God, like Calvin, should speak of the excellencies
of those out of Christ as "splendid vices," even though we prefer
another explanation of them.
Ver. 10. +For we are His workmanship.+--We get our word "poem" from
that which we here translate workmanship, lit., "something made."
Every Christian belongs to those of whom God says, "This people have
I formed for Myself, that they should show forth My praise" (Isa.
xliii. 21). The archetype of all our goodness lies in the Divine
thought, as the slow uprising of a stately cathedral is the
embodiment of the conception of the architect's brain.
Ver. 11. +Wherefore remember, that ye, etc.+--All that follows in the
verse serves to define the "ye," the verb following in ver. 12 after
the repeated "ye"--"ye were without Christ." "Called
Uncircumcision . . . called the Circumcision." As much rancour lies
in these words as generally is carried by terms of arrogance on the
part of those only nominally religious, and the scornful epithets
flung in return. They can be matched by our modern use of "The world"
and "Other-worldliness."
Ver. 12. +Without Christ.+--Not so much "not in possession of Christ"
as "outside Christ," or, as in R.V., "separate from Christ." The true
commentary is John xv. 4, 5. The branch "severed from" the trunk by
knife or storm bears no fruit thenceforth; disciples "apart from
Christ can do nothing." +Being aliens from the commonwealth.+--What
memories might start at this word! Did St. Paul think of the
separation from the Jewish synagogue in Ephesus or of the fanatical
outburst created in Jerusalem when "the Jews from Asia" saw Trophimus
the Ephesian in company with the apostle? To such Jews the Gentiles
were nothing but _massa perditionis._ Like vers. 2, 3, this is a
reminder of the dark past, the misery of which did not consist in a
Jewish taunt so much as in a life of heathenish vices. +Having no
hope, and without God in the world.+--To be godless--not sure that
there is any God--this is to take the "master-light of all our
seeing" from us; to live regardless of Him, or wishing there were no
God--"that way madness lies." To be "God-forsaken" with a house full
of idols--that is the irony of idolatrous heathenism.
Ver. 13. +Ye who sometimes were far off are made nigh.+--The Gentile
may sing his hymn in Jewish words: "Doubtless Thou art our Father,
though Abraham be ignorant of us, and Israel acknowledge us not:
Thou, O Lord, art our Father, our Redeemer; from everlasting is Thy
name." _"Lo-ammi"_ ("not My people") is no longer their name (Hos.
ii. 23; Rom. ix. 24, 25).
Ver. 14. +For He is our peace, who hath made both one.+--"Not the
Peacemaker merely, for indeed at His own great cost He procured
peace, and is Himself the bond of union of both" (Jew and Gentile).
+The middle wall of partition.+--M. Ganneau, the discoverer of the
Moabite Stone, found built into the wall of a ruined Moslem convent a
stone, believed to be from the Temple, with this inscription: "No
stranger-born (non-Jew) may enter within the circuit of the barrier
and enclosure that is around the sacred court; and whoever shall be
caught [intruding] there, upon himself be the blame of the death that
will consequently follow." Josephus describes this fence and its
warning inscription (_Wars of the Jews,_ Bk. V., ch. v., § 2). It is
rather the spirit of exclusiveness which Christ threw down. The stone
wall Titus threw down and made all a common field, afterwards.
Ver. 15. +Having abolished in His flesh the enmity.+--The enmity of
Jew and Gentile; the abolition of their enmity to God is mentioned
later. "First be reconciled to thy brother, and then come and offer
thy gift," for reconciliation to God. +The law of commandments
contained in ordinances.+--The slave whose duty it was to take the
child to his teacher might say, "Don't do that." St. Paul does not
regard the function of the law as more than that (Gal. iii. 23-25).
+One new man.+--Trench, in an admirable section, distinguishes
between the new in time (_recens_) and the new in quality (_novum_).
The word here means new in quality, "as set over against that which
has seen service, the outworn." "It is not an amalgam of Jew and
Gentile" (_Meyer_).
Ver. 16. +That He might reconcile both unto God.+--The word
"reconcile" implies "a _restitution_ to a state from which they had
fallen, or which was potentially theirs, or for which they were
destined" (_Lightfoot,_ Col. i. 20). +The cross having slain the
enmity.+--Gentile authority and Jewish malevolence met in the
sentence to that painful death; and both Gentile and Jew,
acknowledging the Son of God, shall cease their strife, and love as
brethren.
Ver. 17. +Came and preached peace.+--By means of His messengers, as
St. Paul tells the Galatians that Christ was "evidently set forth
crucified amongst them." +To you afar off, and to them that were
nigh.+--Isaiah's phrase (Isa. lvii. 19). The Christ uplifted "out of
the earth" draws _all men_ to Him.
Ver. 18. +For through Him we both have access.+--St. Paul's way of
proclaiming His Master's saying, "I am the door; by Me if _any man_
enter in he shall be saved"; including the other equally precious, "I
am the way: no man cometh unto the Father but by Me." "Access" here
means "introduction."
Ver. 19. +So then.+--Inference of vers. 14-18. +Strangers and
foreigners.+--By the latter word is meant those who temporarily abide
in a place, but are without the privileges of it. There is a verb "to
parish" in certain parts of England which shows how a word can
entirely reverse its original meaning. It not only means "to adjoin,"
but "to belong to." +Fellow-citizens with the saints.+--Enjoying all
civic liberties, and able to say, "This is my own, my native land,"
when he finds "Mount Zion and the city of the living God" (cf. Heb.
xi. 13, 14). +And of the household of God.+--The association grows
more intimate. The words might possibly mean "domestics of God" (Rev.
xxii. 3, 4); but when we think of the "Father's house" we must
interpret "of the family circle of God."
Ver. 20. +Being built upon the foundation.+--From the future of a
household St. Paul passes easily to the structure, based on "the
Church's One Foundation." +The chief corner-stone.+--"The historic
Christ, to whom all Christian belief and life have reference, as
necessarily conditions through Himself the existence and endurance of
each Christian commonwealth, as the existence and steadiness of a
building are dependent on the indispensable cornerstone, which
upholds the whole structure" (_Meyer_). The difference between our
passage and 1 Cor. iii. 11 is one of figure only.
Ver. 21. +All the building.+--R.V. "each several building."
+Fitly-framed-together.+--One word in the original, found again only
in ch. iv. 16 in this form.
Ver. 22. +For a habitation.+--The word so translated is found again
only in Rev. xviii. 2, a sharp contrast to this verse.
_MAIN HOMILETICS OF THE PARAGRAPH.--Verses_ 1-3.
_The Children of Wrath_--
+I. Are spiritually dead.+--"Who were dead in trespasses and sins"
(ver. 1). The only life of which they are conscious, and in which all
their activities are displayed, is a life of sin. They have no
conception of a higher life. They are capable of a higher life and
know it not. The spiritual, the higher form of life, is entombed and
buried under a mass of sin. It is inert, dead, in process of
corruption. Dante refers to such as, "These wretched ones who never
were alive; I ne'er forsooth could have believed it true, that death
had slain such myriads of mankind." Sin first benumbs, then
paralyses, and finally slays our spiritual sensibilities. The soul
dead to God shall not be insensible to the reality of the Divine
wrath.
+II. Are under the spell of an unseen evil power+ (ver. 2).--"The
children of disobedience" are those who are withholding their
allegiance from the Lord Jesus Christ, all those who are unconverted;
not mere gross sinners and open profligates, but such persons as are
strangers to the spiritual life, although they may have many
excellencies of nature and disposition. The apostle plainly asserts
that before he was brought to the knowledge of Christ he was under
the influence of the "prince of the power of the air." This is a
startling statement. It is more startling still if we consider what
sort of man Paul was before his conversion--how excellent, how
earnest, how devoted to the external duties of a religious life. But
startling as it is, it is the apostle who makes it of himself; and
the inference is unavoidable, that all that mass of persons who are
out of Christ and who are not partakers of His resurrection life, who
have given their hearts to the world and not to the Saviour, are just
the captives of Satan, and, without knowing it, are doing his lusts
and accomplishing his will. The disease is not less deadly because it
eats out the life without inflicting pain. The pestilence is not the
less awful because it comes without giving notice of its presence,
borne on the balmy breezes of the bright, cloudless, summer eve. The
vampire does not do its work the less effectually because it fans its
victim with its perfumed wings into an unconscious slumber whilst it
drains away his life-blood and leaves him a corpse. And Satan is not
the less real or the less destructive because he works his fatal work
upon our souls without our even being conscious of his approach.
+III. Are prompted to sin by the instincts of a depraved nature+
(ver. 3).--There is the twofold province of a man's being, by the
lower of which he is allied to the brute creation, and by the higher
to the angels, both being under the dominion of sin. There is the
corrupt body of flesh, and in a higher sense there is the fleshly
mind. Every unregenerate person lives more or less in one or the
other of these provinces--either in the sphere of fleshly lusts or in
the sphere of the fleshly mind. Either he lives simply an animal
life, and is in consequence a fleshly man, whose life consists only
in fulfilling the desires of his lower nature; or he lives in the
higher province of the mind, but it is nevertheless the mind in
darkness, in uncertainty, in doubt--mind and heart alike alienated
from God through the unbelief which is in them. It would not do to
argue from this that our passions are our sins. Sin is not in
appetite but lies in the insubordination of appetite. There is need
of a curbing and governing will, and our discipline consists in
subjugating the lower to the higher. A due balance between the two
regions must be preserved, and it is when passion becomes master and
the lower invades the province of the higher, when the subordinate
becomes insubordinate, that appetite and passion become sin. The
flesh is the great rival of the Spirit, for it asserts that dominion
over a man which the Holy Spirit alone ought to occupy, and these two
are constantly opposed to each other. The depravity within, working
in the thoughts of the mind and the passions of the flesh, prompts to
a course of disobedience and sin.
+IV. Are exposed to condemnation.+--"And were by nature the children
of wrath, even as others." "The wrath of God is revealed from heaven
against all unrighteousness and ungodliness of men." The apostle
shows that even the Jews, who boasted of their birth from Abraham,
were by natural birth equally children of wrath, as the Gentiles whom
the Jews despised on account of their birth from idolaters. The
phrase "children of wrath" is a Hebraism, meaning we are objects of
God's wrath from childhood, in our natural state, as being born in
sin, which God hates. Wrath abides on all who disobey the Gospel in
faith and practice.
+Lessons.+--1. _Sin when it is finished bringeth forth death._
2. _Your adversary the devil walketh about seeking whom he may
devour._ 3. _Because there is wrath, beware!_
_GERM NOTES ON THE VERSES._