[10] The earliest and simplest expression of the matter is that in St.
Paul's earliest epistle (1 Thess. v. 10), Christ 'died for us ... that
we should live together with him.'
[11] Eph. i. 7; cf. ii. 13 ff.
[12] Rom. ix. 21.
[13] 1 Cor. xii. 22 ff.
[14] Cf. St. Matt. xiii. 13-15; St. John xii. 39, 40. We are not (Rom.
ix. 17) told _why_ Pharaoh was brought out on the stage of history as
an example of God's hardening judgement. But no doubt there was a
moral reason.
[15] Rom. ix-xi.
[16] Rom. xi. 29.
[17] Rom. xi. 33.
[18] 1 Tim. ii. 4.
[19] 1 Cor. ix. 27.
[20] Rom. viii. 38, 39
[21] I am using the word here not in its Bible sense, for in the Bible
God is said to 'know' men in the sense of fixing His choice or approval
upon them; and to 'foreknow' is therefore to approve or choose
beforehand, as suitable instruments for a divine purpose. I am using
the word in its ordinary sense.
[22] Rom. viii. 28-30.
[23] Phil. i. 6.
[24] Amos iii. 2.
[25] On the Jewish idea of election, cf. app. note C, p. 261.
[26] Col. i. 1.
[27] Col. i. 28.
[28] See app. note C, p. 257.
{78}
DIVISION I. Sec. 2. CHAPTER I. 15-23.
_St. Paul's Prayer._
St. Paul follows up this first expression of the great thoughts that
fill his mind with a deep and comprehensive thanksgiving for that large
measure of correspondence with the divine purpose which is reported
from the Asiatic churches, and with a prayer for their full
enlightenment in heart and intellect. He prays that they may rise to
the true science of what their Christian calling, as fellow-inheritors
with the saints of the divine blessing, really means; and to an
adequate expectation of what God intends to do in them, on the analogy
of what He has already done in Christ their head.
For this cause I also, having heard of the faith in the Lord Jesus
which is among you, and which _ye shew_ toward all the saints, cease
not to give thanks for you, making mention _of you_ in my prayers; that
the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give unto
you a spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of him; having
the eyes of your heart enlightened, that ye may know what is the hope
of his calling, what the riches {79} of the glory of his inheritance in
the saints, and what the exceeding greatness of his power to us-ward
who believe, according to that working of the strength of his might
which he wrought in Christ, when he raised him from the dead, and made
him to sit at his right hand in the heavenly _places_, far above all
rule, and authority, and power, and dominion, and every name that is
named, not only in this world, but also in that which is to come: and
he put all things in subjection under his feet, and gave him to be head
over all things to the church, which is his body, the fulness of him
that filleth all in all.
There is very little further explanation needed for this passage. But
three phrases may be noted:--
(1) St. Paul calls the Father 'the God of our Lord Jesus Christ,' as
our Lord Himself calls Him 'my God' (John xx. 17) in His resurrection
state. It is no doubt of Christ _as man_ that the Father is God; but
this relation of the Son as man to the Father depends upon an eternal
subordination in which the Son, even as God, stands to the Father from
whom He derives His divine life. The essential subordination of the
Son (and Spirit) to the Father as the one fount of Godhead, is
continually suggested in the New Testament; but it involves no
inferiority in Godhead, or subsequence in time--'nothing before or
after, nothing greater or less,' as the _Quicunque vult_ says. And it
conveys to us the moral lesson that a subordinate position is not to be
resented as if it were a dishonour.
(2) The spirit of 'wisdom and revelation' vouchsafed to us is to enable
us to apprehend in a measure the divine 'wisdom and prudence[1]'
manifested in God's work of creation and redemption. The humility
which is content to correspond patiently and teachably with the method
of God is, as Francis Bacon was at pains to teach, of the essence of
all fruitful human science.
(3) The expression 'the fulness' or 'the fulness of the Godhead[2]'
means the sum total of the divine attributes, which, instead of being
spread over different angelic mediators, as the Colossians were
disposed to imagine, are, by the divine will, all concentrated and
combined in the glorified Christ. And here St. Paul teaches the
Ephesian Christians that all that belongs to the glorified Christ is to
belong also to the Church, which is His body. It is Christ who gives
to all creatures whatever various gifts of life they have. He 'filleth
all in all'; that is, 'He filleth the whole universe with all variety
of {81} gifts.' But something much more than various gifts--the sum
total of all He is--He pours, or intends to pour, into the Church, so
that the Church as well as the Christ shall embody, and thus be
identified with, the fulness of the divine attributes. At present the
Church is this only ideally, or in the divine intention: the actually
existing Church has still much need of growth that her members 'may be
filled (as they are not at present) up to the measure of the divine
fulness'; or, in other words, up to 'the measure of the stature of the
fulness of the Christ[3].'
The fulness, according to St. Paul's doctrine, is to be sought first in
the eternal God; then in the glorified Christ; then, through Him, in
the fully developed Church; and, finally, through the Church, in a
sense in the universe as a whole, when the work of redemption is done
and God is at last 'all in all' throughout His creation.
It may be noticed that St. Paul, in this doctrine of 'the fulness,' is
thinking rather of the divine attributes as manifested, than as they
are in themselves: and of Christ, not as the eternal {82} Son of God,
but, more particularly, as incarnate and glorified. It was the 'good
pleasure' of the Father to fill the exalted Christ, the first-begotten
from the dead, with the fulness of divine glory and power as the reward
of the humility and love which He showed when He 'emptied himself in
taking the form of a servant[4].' This bestowal was no doubt a giving
anew to Him, as man and as head of the Church, what was eternally His
as Son of the Father.
There is another interpretation adopted by Chrysostom in ancient times,
and by Dr. Hort among moderns, of the phrase 'the church which is his
body, the fulness of him who filleth all in all.' According to them
the Church is regarded as making the Christ complete. It is in this
sense the 'fulfilment' of Christ, because without the Church He would
be a head without its members: and then the rest of the sentence should
be translated differently--'the church which is his body, the
fulfilment of him who is fulfilled in all ways with all things.' But
this is decidedly less agreeable to the general use of the expression
'the fulness' in the epistles to the Colossians and Ephesians[5].
{83}
[Sidenote: _Some practical lessons_]
We may also pause to recognize one or two ways in which St. Paul's view
of the Christian religion, as exhibited in the opening of this epistle,
suggests special deficiencies among ourselves.
(1) St. Paul's Christianity is a religion of thankfulness. This
epistle is a burst of exuberant praise. Yet he was himself a prisoner,
and the church of Ephesus, with the other Asiatic churches, was sorely
threatened with moral and spiritual perils of all kinds. The secret of
this thankfulness is that he looks straight away from himself and his
surroundings up to God. He measures the value of human life and work
not by what immediate experience suggests, but by what he knows of the
purpose of God. In spite of all the obstacles opposed by human
wilfulness and weakness and sin, he knows that His purpose will effect
itself: therefore he 'rejoices in the Lord always,' and no discouraging
circumstances can quench the springs of his rejoicing. Our
Christianity is apt to be of a very 'dutiful' kind. We mean to do our
duty, we attend church and go to our communions. But our hearts are
full of the difficulties, the hardships, {84} the obstacles which the
situation presents, and we go on our way sadly, downhearted and
despondent. We need to learn or learn anew from St. Paul that true
Christianity is inseparable from deep joy; and the secret of that joy
lies in a continual looking away from all else--away from sin and its
ways, and from the manifold hindrances to the good we would do--up to
God, His love, His purpose, His will. In proportion as we do look up
to Him we shall rejoice, and in proportion as we rejoice in the Lord
will our religion have tone and power and attractiveness.
(2) St. Paul appeals to the Asiatic Christians not to become something
they are not, or to acquire some spiritual gift that they have not
received, but simply to realize what they already are, and to claim the
privileges of their baptized state. They are already 'adopted as
sons[6].' They have, like the Galatians, received 'the Spirit of
adoption.' The point now is that they should realize and put into
practice what already belongs to them. This mode of appeal is based on
the doctrine--in spite of its many perversions the most valuable
doctrine--of baptismal {85} regeneration. The false method of
appeal--as if careless Christians needed to _become_ sons of God--which
involves a false idea of 'regeneration,' has been so much identified
with popular Protestantism, that I cannot do better than quote some
very apposite remarks by the late Congregationalist teacher, Dr. Dale,
of blessed memory, from his noble commentary on this very epistle to
the Ephesians:--
'This adoption of which Paul speaks is something more than a mere legal
and formal act, conveying certain high prerogatives. We are "called
the sons of God" because we are really made His sons by a new and
supernatural birth. Regeneration is sometimes described as though it
were merely a change in a man's principles of conduct in his character,
his tastes, his habits. The description is theologically false, and
practically most pernicious and misleading. If regeneration were
nothing more than this, we should have to speak of a man as being more
or less regenerate, according to the extent of his moral reformation;
but this would be contrary to the idiom of New Testament thought. That
a great change in the moral region of a man's nature will certainly
follow regeneration is true; this change, however, is not regeneration
itself, but the effect of regeneration; and the moral change which
regeneration produces varies in many ways in different men. In some
the change is immediate, decisive, and apparently complete. In others
it is extremely gradual, and may be for a long time hardly discernible.
In some regenerate men grave sins remain for a time unforsaken, perhaps
unrecognized. Look at these Ephesian Christians. {86} The Apostle has
to tell them that they must put away falsehood and speak the truth;
that they must give up thieving, and foul talk, and covetousness, and
gross sensual sin.
'He addresses them as "saints." He describes them as having been
chosen in Christ before the foundation of the world, and foreordained
by God unto adoption as sons unto Himself; and yet he knows that they
are in danger of committing these base and flagrant offences. It was
hard for them to escape from the vices of heathenism. They were
regenerate; but as yet, in some of them, the moral effects of
regeneration were very incomplete, the change which regeneration was
ultimately certain to produce in their moral life had only begun, and
it was checked and hindered by a thousand hostile influences.
'The simplest and most obvious account of regeneration is the truest.
When a man is regenerated he receives a new life and receives it from
God. In itself regeneration is not a change in his old life, but the
beginning of a new life which is conferred by the immediate and
supernatural act of the Holy Spirit. The man is really "born again."
A higher nature comes to him than that which he inherited from his
human parents; he is "begotten of God," "born of the Spirit."'
This passage, especially as coming from Dr. Dale, supplies a very
valuable corrective to still current religious mistakes. But surely we
have no ground for saying that the moral effects 'certainly' follow
regeneration, or follow it in all cases. It is not 'ultimately certain
to produce' them in all persons, but only in those who {87} exhibit,
sooner or later, the moral correspondence of a converted will.
(3) Most Christians who have reacted from Calvinism and its false
doctrine of predestination have ceased to think about the truth which
it represents. But we need to make a right instead of a wrong use of
these great ideas of predestination and election, and thus to get rid
of all the miserable narrowness and hopelessness which settles down
upon us when we allow ourselves to think of religion as mainly a
process of saving our own souls, and when we live only in our present
feelings.
What can be more inspiring and strengthening than to believe that there
is an eternal purpose of God working itself out in the universe through
all its stages and parts; that this eternal purpose includes us, and
has fastened upon us individually and brought us into Christ and His
Church, to make true men of us; and that it has done all this not for
our own sakes only, but to disclose something more of God's glory and
for the fulfilment of great and universal purposes, which are to
radiate out even from us? Wherever St. Paul sees the hand of God in
present experience, at once his mind works back to an eternal will and
therefore also {88} forward to an eternal and adequate result. And
this backward and forward look transfigures the present with a new
glory and a fresh hope. So will it be with us if this same
characteristically Christian way of looking at any apparent movement of
God in the present, in our own souls or in the world outside us,
becomes habitually and instinctively ours. God never acts on a sudden
impulse or without purpose of continuance. Certainly He can be trusted
not to stop and leave things unfinished. When He hath begun any good
work He will assuredly perfect it, if we will let Him.
[1] i. 8.
[2] See Col. i. 19; ii. 9; cf. ii. 3, 'in Christ are all the treasures
of wisdom and knowledge hidden.'
[3] Eph. iii. 19; iv. 13. It is not certain that by Him 'who filleth
all in all' St. Paul does not mean the Father rather than the Son. But
iv. 10 supports the interpretation given above.
[4] Col. i. 19; Phil. ii. 9-11.
[5] And the word rendered 'filleth' may have a middle and not a passive
sense, the idea being perhaps suggested that God 'fills all things for
his own purpose.'
[6] That is, they were 'predestined to an adoption' (Eph. i. 5) which
it is implied they have already received.
{89}
DIVISION I. Sec. 3. CHAPTER II. 1-10.
_Sin and redemption._
[Sidenote: _The depth of sin_]
In the first chapter of the epistle, St. Paul has had before his eyes
the glory of God's redemptive work--the wonder of His purpose of pure
love for the universe through the Church. His imagination has kindled
at the thought of the length, the breadth, the height of the divine
operation:--the length, for it is an eternal purpose slowly worked out
through the ages; the breadth, for it is to extend over the whole
universe; the height, for it is to carry men up to no lower point than
the throne of Christ in the heavenly places. But now he stops to call
the attention of his converts to what we may call a 'fourth dimension'
of the divine operation--its depth. How wonderfully low God had
stooped, in order to reach the point to which man had sunk! The
Asiatic Christians are bidden to ponder anew, and by {90} contrast to
their present experience, the life which they had once lived before
they knew Christ or were found in Him.
Let us read the apostle's words, and then consider them in detail:--
And you _did he quicken_, when ye were dead through your trespasses and
sins, wherein aforetime ye walked according to the course of this
world, according to the prince of the power of the air, of the spirit
that now worketh in the sons of disobedience; among whom we also all
once lived in the lusts of our flesh, doing the desires of the flesh
and of the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, even as the rest.
We naturally put as a parallel to these and other verses of this
epistle (iv. 17-19) the terrible passage in Romans i, where St. Paul
describes the developement of sin in the Gentile world; how it had its
origin in the refusal of the human will to recognize God, how out of
the perversion of will it spread to the blinding of the understanding,
and then to giving an overmastering power and an unnatural distortion
to the passions, so that a state of moral lawlessness was produced and
maintained.
What are we to say as to the truth of these accounts of the moral
condition of the heathen world? No doubt there is a good deal to be
{91} said on the other side. Roman simplicity and virtue, and the
sanctity of domestic life, had not, as contemporary inscriptions and
historical records make perfectly evident, faded out of the Roman
Empire, and philanthropy and love of the poor were recognized
excellences. Nor had philosophic virtue vanished from the schools[1].
And all this St. Paul would not be slow to recognize. In the Epistle
to the Romans[2] itself he speaks in language, such as a Stoic might
have used, of those who, uninstructed by any special divine law, were a
law unto themselves, in that they showed the practical effect of the
law written in their hearts. We must therefore recognize that St. Paul
is, in the passage we are now considering, speaking ideally; that is to
say, he is speaking of the general tendency of the heathen life, just
as he speaks ideally of the Christian church in view of its general
tendency; and he is speaking of it as he mostly knew it himself in the
notoriously corrupt cities of the east, Antioch and Ephesus. Ephesus,
in particular, had an extraordinarily bad character for vice as much as
for superstition; and what {92} St. Paul says of the heathen life does
not in fact make up a stronger indictment or present a blacker picture
than what is said by a Stoic philosopher, perhaps his contemporary, who
wrote at Ephesus, under the shelter of the name of the great Ephesian
of ancient days, Heracleitus[3]. Moreover, St. Paul appeals
unhesitatingly to the actual experience of these Asiatic Christians,
and there is no reason to doubt that their consciences would have
responded to what he said to them about the old life out of which they
had been brought.
Let us now analyze a little more exactly this account St. Paul gives of
the state of sin which he saw around him in contemporary society.
(1) 'Ye walked according to the course of this world.' By 'this world'
St. Paul, like the other New Testament writers, means practically human
society as it organizes itself for its own purposes of pleasure or
profit without thought of God, or at least without thought of God as He
truly is. These Asiatic Christians, then, had formerly ordered their
life and conduct according to the demands and expectations of the
worldly world, obeying its motives, governed {93} by its fashions and
its laws, and indifferent to those considerations which it repudiated
or ignored.
(2) But to belong to the world in this sense is, in St. Paul's mind, to
belong to the kingdom of Satan. The worldly world had its origin from
a false desire of independence on man's part. He did not want to be
controlled by God; he wanted to live his own life for himself. But in
liberating himself according to his wishes from the control of God he
fell, according to St. Paul's belief, under another control. Rebellion
had been in the universe before man. There are invisible rebel
spirits, of whose real existence and influence St. Paul had no more
doubt than any other Jew who was not a Sadducee. And, indeed, our Lord
had so spoken of good and evil spirits as to assure His disciples of
their existence and influence. These rebel wills are unseen by us and
in most respects unknown, but they organize and give a certain
coherence and continuity to evil in the world. There thus arises a
sort of kingdom of evil over against the kingdom of God, and those who
will not surrender themselves to God and His kingdom, become perforce
servants of Satan and his kingdom. It is in view of this truth that
St. Paul {94} tells these Asiatic Christians that they used to walk
according 'to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that now
worketh in the sons of disobedience.' (These evil spirits were, by a
natural way of thinking, located in the air, according to the
contemporary Jewish ideas; and the idea is, if nothing more, a
convenient metaphor for a subtle and pervading influence.) This view
of their old life, as a bondage to evil spirits, is one which would be
as easily realized by inhabitants of Asiatic cities, where men were
largely occupied in finding charms against bad spirits, as by modern
Indian converts from devil-worship. Christianity recognizes a basis of
reality in the superstition from which at the same time it delivers men.
(3) The main characteristic of this old godless life had been
lawlessness, but St. Paul here, as in his Epistle to the Romans,
associates Jews with Gentiles, 'we' with 'you,' in the same
condemnation. The spirits, or real selves of the Christians, had been,
in their former state, dominated by their appetites or their
imaginations. They were occupied in doing what their flesh or their
thoughts suggested. It is noticeable that St. Paul puts 'the mind'
side by side with 'the flesh' as a cause of sin, the intellectual {95}
side by side with the sensual and emotional nature. We often in fact,
in our age, have experience of people who are not 'sensual' in the
ordinary sense, but who live lives which have no goodness, no
perseverance, no order, no fruitfulness in them, because they are the
slaves of the ideas of their own mind as they present themselves, now
one, now another; unregulated ideas being in fact, just as much as
unregulated passions, fluctuating, arbitrary, and tyrannous. Nothing
is more truly needed to-day than the discipline of the imagination.