speaks[13] of 'the glory of love ... alive but yet frost-bound. The
root is alive, but the branches are almost dry. There is a heart alive
within, and within are leaves and fruits; but they are waiting for a
summer.' That is surely what we feel. The world cries out for
brotherhood. We are perpetually explaining that brotherhood can only
become actual, in the long run, where men know themselves to be, and in
fact are, sons of God. We are continually pointing out that external
legislative social reforms can only effect good where there exists, to
respond to them and to use them, some strength and purity of inward
character: that outward reforms without moral redemption would effect
evil rather than good. All this is true and it is necessary to explain
it. But the convincing demonstration begins at that point where
Christianity makes man feel, and see in fact, that it contains in
itself the remedy for social evils, because it has the spirit of love:
where the Church is so actually presented as that men should feel and
know that this is a true human {137} brotherhood. It is the social,
human, brotherly power of the Church which is what is at the present
moment best calculated to win the consciences and convince the
intellects of men. But this actual living spirit of self-sacrificing
love--this spirit of real brotherhood--how 'frost-bound' it is! How
large the area of the Church, how many its institutions, where it is
not (to say the least) the most obvious thing represented! In fact,
social reform, and that the most thorough and the most permanent,
requires nothing more than that professing Christians should be better
Christians, Christians who really believe what St. Paul and St. John
say about the love of the brethren. Come then, O breath of the divine
Spirit, and breathe upon these bones of the Christian Church, that they
may live!
And outside the area of nominal Christianity how 'frost-bound' our
evangelizing love. Surely the Church of England, as part of the
expansive British nation, has an apostleship to the nations comparable
to St. Paul's. Yet missionary zeal, as directed towards the natives of
India, or Japan, or Africa, is a very restricted thing; noticeably
restricted it must be confessed among those who most love the name of
Catholic: and almost non-existent in the great majority of those who
are {138} yet members of the national Church. But it cannot be too
deeply felt that to St. Paul the reconciliation of men with God is
inseparable from the reconciliation of man with man. The atonement
with God that is not an atonement among men he would not own. A peace
with God that leaves us content that Hindoos and Japanese and Africans
should not be of our religion is a false peace. A Christian who is not
really in heart and will a missionary is not a Christian at all.
Missionary effort is not a speciality of a few Christians, though, like
every other part of Christian life, it has its special organs. It is
an essential, never to be forgotten, part of all true Christian living,
and thinking, and praying.
The missionary obligation of the Church depends, no doubt, chiefly on
the command of Christ, 'Go ye and make disciples of all the nations.'
But it is made intelligible when we realize that Christianity is really
a catholic religion, and that only in proportion as its catholicity
becomes a reality is its true power and richness exhibited. Each new
race which is introduced into the Church not only itself receives the
blessings of our religion, but reacts upon it to bring out new and
unsuspected aspects and {139} beauties of its truth and influence. It
has been so when Greeks, and Latins, and Teutons, and Kelts, and Slavs
have each in turn been brought into the growing circle of believers.
How impoverished was the exhibition of Christianity which the Jewish
Christians were capable of giving by themselves! How much of the
treasures of wisdom and power which lie hid in Christ awaited the Greek
intellect, and the Roman spirit of government, and the Teutonic
individuality, and the temper and character of the Kelt and the Slav,
before they could leap into light! And can we doubt that now again not
only would Indians, and Japanese, and Africans, and Chinamen be the
better for Christianity, but that Christianity would be unspeakably
also the richer for their adhesion--for the gifts which the subtlety of
India, and the grace of Japan, and the silent patience of China are
capable of bringing into the city of God.
Come, then, O breath of the divine Spirit, and breathe upon the dead
bones of the Christian churches that forget that they are evangelists
of the nations, that they may live and stand upon their feet, an
exceeding great army, an army with banners.
[1] Acts xxii. 17-21. 'While I prayed in the temple, I fell into a
trance, and saw him saying unto me, Make haste, and get thee quickly
out of Jerusalem.... Depart: for I will send thee forth far hence unto
the Gentiles.'
[2] Gal. i. 15. 'It was the good pleasure of God, who separated me,
_even_ from my mother's womb, and called me through his grace, to
reveal his Son in me, that I might preach him among the Gentiles.'
[3] Col. i. 24-29; iv. 3, 4.
[4] Col. iii. 11.
[5] 1 John ii. 7, 8.
[6] Phil. 16.
[7] Eph. iv. 1-3.
[8] Acts xxii. 21; xxvi. 17, 18.
[9] Thus the limitation of the term 'brotherhood' to Christians is
implied in 1 Pet. ii. 17, 'Honour all men. Love the brotherhood;' and
in 2 Pet. i. 7, 'In your love of the brethren supply love' (i.e. in the
narrower and closer circle of believers, learn the wider and all
embracing attitude towards men as men); and in 1 Cor. v. 11, 'Any man
that is named a brother.' The word brother is throughout the New
Testament used of _Christians_ only, except where, in the Acts, it is
used by Jews of Jews. Our Lord's language about brotherhood applies to
the circle of the disciples, except Matt. xxv. 40, 'One of these my
brethren,' i.e. the wretched.
[10] Acts xvii. 28.
[11] Acts xvii. 26.
[12] Dr. Hort thinks 'read' is a technical word for reading the
Scriptures, and that this reading of the Old Testament Scriptures is to
enable them to appreciate St. Paul's 'understanding in the secret of
the Christ.' But I doubt if so technical a use of 'read' can be made
out.
[13] _In Epist. Joan, ad Parth._ v. 10.
{140}
DIVISION I. Sec. 6. CHAPTER IV. 1-16.
_The unity of the church._
[Sidenote: _Connexion of thought_]
This Epistle to the Ephesians, viewed as a whole and from the point of
view of a sympathetic intelligence, has a remarkable unity, and a unity
progressively developed. Thus, first of all, the apostle opened the
imagination of his hearers or readers to consider the place which the
catholic church holds in the divine counsels for the universe, in the
realization of the human ideal, and in the work of redemption from sin
(chap. i and ii). Then he proceeded to justify and explain his own
activity in the cause of catholicity, and made them feel at once the
glory and the profound difficulty of the ideal of unity in diversity
which it involves (chap. iii). It follows naturally and logically that
he should set the Church before them as an actually existing
organization, and bid them study it exactly and note the grounds of its
unity and the common end to which its different elements or members
{141} are meant to minister; and this is what he actually does in the
fourth chapter (1-16). Viewed, however, as a matter of grammatical
structure, it is probable that this passage forms another
digression--the real necessity of the argument acting as an
overmastering motive which pulls contrary to the immediate grammatical
purpose of the writer. Thus he had begun, at the beginning of chapter
iii, to pass from the doctrinal exposition which is involved in his
opening chapters to practical exhortation. The Asiatic members of the
catholic church are to be exhorted to live up to their calling: to turn
their backs deliberately on their old heathen habits, and to conform
themselves entirely to the principles of their new state. To this
exhortation he actually and finally attains at chapter iv. 17. The
intervening passage (a chapter and a half) is occupied, first, with the
digression which we have just considered at length, about St. Paul's
mission to the Gentiles and the difficulty of its realization, and with
the great prayer which that topic suggests (chap. iii); secondly, with
another digression on the character of the unity of the Church. This
is, I say, probably the case grammatically. For 'I, Paul, the prisoner
of Jesus Christ for you Gentiles' (iii. 1) is almost {142} unmistakably
intended to introduce a moral appeal to which his imprisonment for the
sake of those to whom he writes adds weight and force[1]. It is taken
up, after a digression, in iv. i, 'I, therefore, the prisoner of the
Lord, beseech you to walk worthily'; but the appeal there begun yields
anew to the necessity of further exposition, and only reaches its free
expression in iv. 17, 'This therefore I say and testify in the Lord';
after which point we have moral exhortation and little else.
Now, therefore, we are to occupy ourselves with what is grammatically a
second digression, but logically and really a most necessary step in
the exposition of St. Paul's thoughts--the subject of the unity of the
church catholic, its nature and obligations. Conscious of the profound
difficulty of welding naturally antagonistic elements, such as Jews and
Gentiles, slaves and free men, into one catholic fellowship, St. Paul
appeals to the Asiatic churches with all the force which he can command
as a prisoner on their account, to 'walk' as their catholic calling
{143} involves; that is, to exhibit all those moral qualities which are
necessary to maintain peace under difficult circumstance--a modest
estimate of oneself (humility or 'lowliness'), a mildness in mutual
relations ('meekness'), an habitual refusal to pass quick judgements on
what one cannot but condemn or dislike ('longsuffering'), a deliberate
forbearance one of another based on love. They are to accept one
another as brethren, with the rights of brethren. And the reason why
they should exhibit these qualities is not far to seek: they actually
share one common supernatural life--the imparted life of the
Spirit--and they are, therefore, to make it their deliberate object to
preserve this actual spiritual unity in its appropriate outward
expression, that is in harmonious fellowship,--'giving diligence to
keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace.'
[Sidenote: _The unity of the church_]
But at this point the idea of the unity of the Church is felt to need
fuller exposition. In what sense are Christians one? They are one as
_one body_ or organization, made up no doubt of a multitude of
differing individual members, but all bound into one, under Christ for
their head, by the fact that the _one Spirit_, which is Christ's
supreme gift, is imparted to the whole {144} organization and every
member of it: and this common corporate life, where the elements are so
different, is made possible by the _one hope_ reaching forward into an
eternal world, which was set before them all when they received their
call into the body of Christ. This should be enough to annihilate
lower and shorter-lived differences. 'There is one body[2] and one
spirit even as ye are called in one hope of your calling.' It follows
from this that there is another threefold unity. For the existence of
the common head involves a common _allegiance to Him as Lord_, an
allegiance which is justified by what He is _believed to be_ by all
Christians; an allegiance, further, which is more than an outward
fealty, being cemented by an actual incorporation into His life which
takes place through the speaking symbol of the _laver of
regeneration_[3]. 'One Lord, one faith, one baptism.' But once more.
This common union with and under Christ in the Spirit, is not anything
less than union with _the one and only God and Father_, who is _over
all_ as the one head (even 'the head of Christ is God'), _through all_
as the pervading presence, _in all_ as the active {145} life, 'one God
and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all things.'
Thus their unity is the deepest and most ultimate conceivable: it has a
width and range from which no one can be excluded: while it has a
closeness and cogency like the unity of blood.
To realize what this unity is and may be, involves on our part a
continual looking out of ourselves, out of all individual, social and
national differences, up to the common source of all the gifts of all
Christians. Whatever each one possesses is simply the gift of the
divine bounty or grace, given to him by a definite act of bestowal,
varying merely in kind and degree according to the sovereign will of
Christ the Lord, the only giver; and it is therefore to be used in His
service and for His ends. The Psalmist had sung of the divine king of
Israel mounting as an earthly conqueror unto his sanctuary throne in
Zion after making captives and receiving gifts from among his enemies
without exception.
'Thou hast gone up into the heights,
Thou hast led captives captive;
Thou hast received gifts among men, yea from the rebellious also[4].'
It stands to reason that to St. Paul's mind this {146} conception is
realized nowhere but in Christ. Its application to Christ is in fact
assumed--'therefore,' i.e. with a view to Christ, 'he' or rather 'it,'
the Scripture 'saith'--and the passage is given free interpretation,
and, more than this, free modification, on the basis of this
assumption. For (1) the ascension of the conquering king is spoken of
as the result of a previous descent to the 'lower regions of this earth
of ours[5].' No man, as St. John says, hath ascended up to heaven but
He that came down from heaven. The person who 'beggared himself' to
come down to our earth and who subsequently mounted into the divine
glory is one and the same person, Christ the incarnate Son; and He thus
descended and re-ascended in order that He might, through the atonement
wrought by Him in the flesh and through the exaltation which rewarded
it, restore to the universe that unity of which sin and rebellion had
robbed it, and 'fill all things' once again with the divine bounty and
presence[6].
{147}
(2) The sense of the psalm is--possibly not without Jewish
precedent[7]--altered in expression so that, instead of the conqueror
receiving gifts from men, his conquered enemies, we have him
represented as 'giving gifts to men.' This modification, whether
original in St. Paul or accepted by him, is no doubt due to the fact
that his mind is full of the idea of Christ as conquering only to
bless, receiving homage only to be enabled to bestow on them who offer
it the fulness of the divine bounty. And the 'captives' of Christ, to
St. Paul's mind, are no doubt not men, but the hosts of Satan reduced
to impotence. The exalted Christ, then, is the source of all gifts in
His Church, and He bestows on men various endowments in such a way as
to maintain among them a necessary relation. 'No member of the body of
Christ is endued with such perfection as to be able, without the
assistance of others, to supply his own necessities. A certain
proportion is allotted to each, and it is only by communicating with
others that all enjoy what is sufficient for maintaining their
respective places in the body[8].' This is the principle of mutual
dependence, the fundamental principle of corporate life. Thus 'He gave
{148} some as apostles, some prophets,' others in other varying
capacities to fulfil varying functions; the principle of the bestowal
being the same throughout. Each 'gifted' individual becomes himself a
gift to the Church. He is 'gifted' not for his own sake but for the
Church's sake--'with a view to the perfecting of the saints,' or 'the
complete equipment of the consecrated body,' for the manifold 'work of
ministry' entrusted to it; or to look at the matter from a rather
different point of view, 'for the purpose of completing the structure
of the body of Christ'--that living company of men in whom Christ
expresses Himself and through whom He acts upon the world. And that
structure is not complete till all together attain what is impossible
to any isolated Christian individual, the unity not only of a common
faith, but also of a common knowledge of what is revealed in the Son of
God; or, in other words, to the full-grown manhood; which, once again,
means that complete developement in which the fulness of the
Christ--all the complete array of His attributes and qualities--finds
harmonious exhibition over again in His people, His body.
But the possibility of this completeness on the part of the Church as a
whole, depends on the {149} stability of the individual members in the
common faith. Thus it is Christ's purpose that His members should
cease to be as children, stirred up like the waves of the sea, or
carried about like feathers, by every wind of false teaching. There
is, it must be remembered, a kingdom of deception, an organized attempt
to seduce souls, of which wicked men make themselves the instruments.
In view of this hostile kingdom of error, the Christians must abide in
the truth revealed to them in love, and so grow up into the completed
life of Christ. For He is the head, and in Him they are the body. And
the body is a unit of many parts fitted and held together in one life
by a supply from the head, which circulates through every joint, and
for the full and unimpeded communication of which each several limb
must do its proper work, so that the whole body may grow into completed
life in that mutual coherence which is Christian love.
This prolonged paraphrase may serve to bring out the innumerable points
of interest in that rich passage in which St. Paul as it were gives the
reins to his imagination and his feelings in order to describe the
glory of the unity of the Church.
{150} I therefore, the prisoner in the Lord, beseech you to walk
worthily of the calling wherewith ye were called, with all lowliness
and meekness, with longsuffering, forbearing one another in love;
giving diligence to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace.
_There_ is one body, and one Spirit, even as also ye were called in one
hope of your calling; one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and
Father of all, who is over all, and through all, and in all. But unto
each one of us was the grace given according to the measure of the gift
of Christ. Wherefore he saith,
When he ascended on high, he led captivity captive,
And gave gifts unto men.
(Now this, He ascended, what is it but that he also descended into the
lower parts of the earth? He that descended is the same also that
ascended far above all the heavens, that he might fill all things.)
And he gave some _to be_ apostles; and some, prophets; and some
evangelists; and some, pastors and teachers; for the perfecting of the
saints, unto the work of ministering, unto the building up of the body
of Christ: till we all attain unto the unity of the faith, and of the
knowledge of the Son of God, unto a fullgrown man, unto the measure of
the stature of the fulness of Christ: that we may be no longer
children, tossed to and fro and carried about with every wind of
doctrine, by the sleight of men, in craftiness, after the wiles of
error; but speaking truth in love, may grow up in all things into him,
which is the head, _even_ Christ; from whom all the body fitly framed
and knit together through that which every joint supplieth, according
to the working in _due_ measure of each several part, maketh the
increase of the body unto the building up of itself in love.
{151}
In this great conception of church unity there are several points to
which special attention must be given.
i.
The Church is one, first of all, because a common inward life, the
Spirit, from a common source, Christ, flows in her veins and makes her
to be one body. What is this 'unity of Spirit?' says Chrysostom. 'As
in a body it is spirit which holds all together, and makes that to be a
unity which consists of different limbs, so it is in the Church. For
the Spirit was given for this purpose that He might unify those who
differ in race and variety of habits.' This inward life is no doubt,
as we shall see, imparted, maintained and perfected through outward
means or institutions--baptism, the eucharist, human offices and
ministries; but none the less it is the inward life which makes the
Church one. So that her unity is like the unity of a family or a race,
a unity of blood and life which exists in spite of all outward
differences: and not like such a unity as is produced by outward
government, as, for example, Armenians, Syrians, Kurds, and Turks make
up the unity of the Turkish empire, or Englishmen and Frenchmen the
Dominion of {152} Canada. The unity of the Christian Church is thus a
unity which ought to express itself in 'the bond of peace,' but which
does not consist in that, any more than the unity of a family consists
in the affection and sympathy which yet brothers ought to have one to
another. This Pauline idea of church unity--which is the idea also of
the New Testament as a whole--constantly finds expression in early
Christian writings, but one particular expression of it may be cited.
Hilary of Poitiers, in argument with the Arians, is confronted with the
position that the phrase 'I and my Father are one' means only one in
will, not one in nature, like the phrase used of the Church, 'one heart
and soul.' He refutes the argument by urging that, in the latter case
also, what is referred to is not a unity of wills but of nature:
believers are 'one thing through a new birth into the same (new)
nature.' 'Ye are all one,' says St. Paul, 'in Christ Jesus.' 'The
apostle teaches that this unity of the faithful comes from the nature
of the sacraments.... What then can concord of minds have to do with a
case where men are already made one by being clothed with one Christ
through the nature of one baptism?[9]' This passage gives {153} a
striking view of what ultimately constitutes church unity.
It is necessary to call attention to this position because the great
Roman church, which occupies so large a space in the whole area of the
church, and impresses its ideas so powerfully upon men's imagination,
has perverted this idea of church unity by a one-sided emphasis on
unity of government. I find a typical modern Roman statement in Dr.
Hunter's _Outlines of Dogmatic Theology_[10]: 'The Church has a
principle of oneness which joins the members together, and
distinguishes the society from a mere aggregate of unconnected units.
The members are associated in order that, believing the revelation that
God has given, and using the means of grace which He has provided,
under the direction of the governors who have their authority from Him,
they may attain the end of their being, the salvation of their souls.
In other words, the unity which the Church must have includes the unity
of faith, unity of worship, and unity of government.' Here we have
church unity described as an outward association of individuals to
attain a certain end by submitting to a common authority in matters of
belief and worship. The {154} unity of spiritual life which St. Paul
and St. Hilary put distinctly first, becomes secondary or subordinate.
It is not even specified among the three chief elements of unity. But
it makes the greatest possible difference whether you say 'the Church
is one because all baptized persons share a common life in Christ, and
ought therefore to behave as "one body,"' or 'the Church is one by
submitting to a common authority in belief, worship, and government.'
The second is the Roman, the first is the apostolic statement.
ii.
Once more, St. Paul's idea of the unity of the Church forbids us to
conceive of it as complete in this world. Each particular church with
its own organization has a certain relative completeness, but it gains
all its meaning and life through fellowship in the body of Christ--the
whole society of men who, having Christ for their head, live in the
unity of a life derived from Him. The head of the body is out of
sight. So also are the members of the body who 'are fallen asleep' but
are still 'in Jesus[11].' It is, so to speak--and increasingly as
history goes {155} on--only the lower limbs of the body who are on the
earth at any particular moment. And they find their centre of unity at
no lower point than Christ, the unseen head. This idea is vigorously
expressed by St. Augustine[12]: 'Since the whole Church is made up of
the head and the body, the head is our Saviour Himself, who suffered
under Pontius Pilate, who now, after He has risen from the dead, sits
at the right hand of God; but the body is the Church--not this church
or that, but the Church scattered over all the world; nor is it that
only which exists among men now living; but they also belong to it who
were before us and are to be after us to the end of the world. For the
whole Church, made up of all the faithful, because all the faithful are
members of Christ, has its head situate in the heavens which governs
this body: though it is separated from their sight, yet it is bound to
them by love."