PUBLIC-DOMAIN CHRISTIAN BOOK
The Expositor's Bible: The Epistle to the Ephesians
Findlay, George G. (George Gillanders) · 128,236 words · 187 reading sections
Chapter I.
Produced by Marcia Brooks, Colin Bell, Nigel Blower and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images generously made available by The Internet Archive/Canadian Libraries) [Transcriber's Note: This e-text is intended for users whose text readers cannot display th…
272 wordsSECTION 2Saved For An End.
The Apostle's Hymn of Praise--Blessed be God!--Blessing spiritual, heavenly, Christian--In the Beginning the Election of Grace--The World and its Founder--Redemption embedded in Creation--God's prescient Choice--Our Holiness His Purpose--Divine Adoption--Who are the Elect? 21 Structure of the Paragraph--Grace an …
258 wordsSECTION 3Knowing The Unknowable.
Wherefore remember!--Sudden and gradual Conversion--The Gentile World: Godless, hopeless, Christless--Away with the Atheists!--The double Pessimism--The Uncircumcision--Nigh in the Blood of Christ--Reunion in Guilt and in Pardon 120 The Jewish War--The two Parties in the Church--The Jewish Enmity typical--The new …
282 wordsSECTION 4Doctrine And Ethics.
The Prisoner in the Lord--The Foes of Church Peace: Low-mindedness, Ambition, Resentfulness--The Basis of Unity: sevenfold, threefold--One Body despite Divisions--One Spirit makes one Body--Unity of Life and Hope--One Lord in all Churches--Baptism a Sign of Christ's Rule, the Seal of a corporate Life--The one God,…
269 wordsSECTION 5Request: Commendation: Benediction.
Right the Fruit of Light--All Virtue from one Source--Unbelief and Immorality--Christian Goodness--The Way of Righteousness--Truth the Hall-mark of Sanctity--Verity and Veracity--Specialists in Virtue--Reproof of open and of hidden Sins--Manifestation and Transformation 321 Soberness and Excitement--The heedful Lo…
273 wordsSECTION 6_The Writer And Readers._
=Ou monon Ephesou alla schedo pasês tês Asias ho Paulos houtos peisas metestêsen hikano ochlon= (Demetrius the Silversmith). ACTS xix. 26. "Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus through the will of God, to the saints, who are indeed faithful in Christ Jesus: Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus…
695 wordsSECTION 7_The Writer And Readers._
The second, historical note of original Paulinism we recognize in the writer's _attitude towards Judaism_. We should be prepared to stake the genuineness of the epistle on this consideration alone. The position and point of view of the Jewish apostle to the Gentiles are unique in history. It is difficult to conceive ho…
724 wordsSECTION 8_The Writer And Readers._
The ethical note of the true Paulinism is the conception of the _new man_ in Christ Jesus, whose sins were slain by His death, and who shares His risen life unto God (Rom. vi.). From this idea, as from a fountainhead, the apostle in the parallel Colossian epistle (ch. iii.) deduces the new Christian morality. The tempe…
668 wordsSECTION 9_The Writer And Readers._
The idea of the Church is not, however, independently developed. Ephesians and Colossians are companion letters,--the complement and explanation of each other. Both "speak with regard to Christ and the Church"; both reveal the Divine "glory in the Church and in Christ Jesus."[10] The emphasis of Ephesians falls on the …
766 wordsSECTION 10_The Writer And Readers._
* * * * * But that it was addressed to "the saints which are _in Ephesus_" is more difficult to believe. The apostle has "heard of the faith which prevails amongst" his readers; he presumes that they "have heard of the Christ, and were taught in Him according as truth is in Jesus."[18] He hopes that by "reading" this …
711 wordsSECTION 11_The Writer And Readers._
At the close of his epistle to the Colossians St Paul directs this Church to procure "from Laodicea," in exchange for their own, a letter which he is sending there (iv. 16). Is it possible that we have the lost Laodicean document in the epistle before us? So Ussher suggested; and though the assumption is not essential …
702 wordsSECTION 12Footnotes:
* * * * * The Salutation is according to St Paul's established form of greeting. [1] The translation given in this volume is based upon the Revised Version, but deviates from it in some particulars. These deviations will be explained in the exposition. [2] The case against authenticity is ably stated in Dr. S. David…
584 wordsSECTION 13_The Eternal Purpose._
=Hous proegnô, kai proôrisen symmorphous tês eikonos tou huiou autou, eis to einai auto prôtotokon en pollois adelphois; hous de proôrisen, toutous kai ekalesen; kai hous ekalesen, toutous kai edikaiôsen; hous de edikaiôsen, toutous kai edoxasen.= ROM. viii. 29, 30. We enter this epistle through a magnificent ga…
699 wordsSECTION 14_The Eternal Purpose._
_Blessed be God!_--It is the perpetual strain of the Old Testament, from Melchizedek down to Daniel,--of David in his triumph, and Job in his misery. But not hitherto could men say, Blessed be _the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ_! He was "the Most High God, the God of heaven,"--"Jehovah, God of Israel, who onl…
687 wordsSECTION 15_The Eternal Purpose._
"As He chose us in Him before the world's foundation, That we should be holy and unblemished before Him: When in love He foreordained us To filial adoption through Jesus Christ for Himself, According to the good pleasure of His will,-- To the praise of the glory of His grace" (vv. 4-6a). Here is St Paul's first c…
811 wordsSECTION 16_The Eternal Purpose._
The Divine election of men in Christ is further defined in the words of verse 5: "Having in love predestined us," and "according to the good pleasure of His will." _Election_ is selection; it is the antecedent in the mind of God in Christ of the preference which Christ showed when He said to His disciples, "I have chos…
746 wordsSECTION 17_The Eternal Purpose._
Now, this Divine character is native to the sons of God. The ideal which God had for men was always the same. The father of the race was made in His image. In the Old Testament Israel receives the command: "You shall be holy, for I, Jehovah your God, am holy." But it was in Jesus Christ that the breadth of this command…
653 wordsSECTION 18Footnotes:
On the other hand, we may not widen the pronoun further; we cannot allow that the sonship here signified is man's natural relation to God, that to which he was born by creation. This robs the word "adoption" of its distinctive force. The sonship in question, while grounded "in Christ" from eternity, is conferred "throu…
333 wordsSECTION 19_The Bestowment Of Grace._
"Which grace He bestowed on us, in the Beloved One: In whom we have the redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, According to the riches of His grace: Which He made to abound toward us in all wisdom and prudence, making known to us the mystery of His will, According to His good pleasure: …
905 wordsSECTION 20_The Bestowment Of Grace._
On rising from the dead our Saviour commissioned the apostles to "proclaim in His name repentance and remission of sins to all nations" (Luke xxiv. 47). It was thus He proposed to save the world. This proclamation is the "good news" of the gospel. The announcement meets the first need of the serious and awakened human …
650 wordsSECTION 21_The Bestowment Of Grace._
This sequel to verse 7 is somewhat of a surprise. The reader is apt to slur over verse 8, half sensible of some jar and incongruity between it and the context. It scarcely occurs to us to associate wisdom and good sense with the pardon of sin, as kindred bestowments of the gospel. Minds of the evangelical order are oft…
734 wordsSECTION 22_The Bestowment Of Grace._
But let us observe here that our wisdom and prudence lie in the knowledge of God's will. Truth is not to be found in any system of logical notions, in schemes and syntheses of the laws of nature or of thought. The human mind can never rest for long in abstractions. It will not accept for its basis of thought that which…
690 wordsSECTION 23_The Bestowment Of Grace._
This last expression (ver. 9), notwithstanding what he has said in verses 4 and 5, still needs elucidation. He will pause for an instant to set forth once more the eternal purpose, to the knowledge of which the Church is now admitted. The communication of this mystery is, he says, "according to God's good pleasure whic…
814 wordsSECTION 24_The Bestowment Of Grace._
Observe that the apostle says "in _the Christ_."[46] He is not speaking of Christ in the abstract, considered in His own Person or as He dwells in heaven, but in His relations to men and to time. The Christ manifest in Jesus (iv. 20, 21), the Christ of prophets and apostles, the Messiah of the ages, the Husband of the …
582 wordsSECTION 25Footnotes:
[33] The arrangement above made of the lines of this intricate passage is designed to guide the eye to its elucidation. Our disposition of the verses has not been determined by any preconceived interpretation, but by the parallelism of expression and cadences of phrase. The rhythmical structure of the piece, it seems t…
621 wordsSECTION 26_The Final Redemption._
"[That we might be to the praise of His glory:] We who had before hoped in the Christ, in whom also ye _have hoped_, Since ye heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation,-- In whom indeed, when ye believed, ye were sealed with the Holy Spirit of the promise, Which is the earnest of our inheritance, till …
678 wordsSECTION 27_The Final Redemption._
Salvation, as St Paul understands it, includes our uttermost deliverance, the end of death itself (1 Cor. xv. 26). He renders praise to God for that He has sealed Gentile equally with Jewish believers with the stamp of His Spirit, which makes them His property and gives assurance of absolute redemption. * * * * * The…
669 wordsSECTION 28_The Final Redemption._
When the sealing Spirit is called the Spirit _of promise_, does the expression look backward or forward? Is the apostle thinking of the past promise now fulfilled, or of some promise still to be fulfilled? The former, undoubtedly, is true. _The_ promise (the article is significant[53]) is, in the words of Christ, "the …
768 wordsSECTION 29_The Final Redemption._
But if we have no sure word of prophecy to speak, we had better be silent. Men are not saved by illusion or speculation. Christianity did not begin by offering to mankind a legend for a gospel, or win the ear of the world for a beautiful romance. When the apostles preached Jesus and the resurrection, they declared what…
742 wordsSECTION 30_The Final Redemption._
III. The end for which the seal of God was affixed to Paul's Gentile readers, along with their Jewish brethren in Christ, appears in the last verse, with which the Act of Praise terminates: "sealed," he says, "with the Holy Spirit, which is the earnest of our inheritance, _until the redemption of the possession_." The…
689 wordsSECTION 31_The Final Redemption._
So long as mortality afflicts us, God cannot be satisfied on our account. His children are suffering and tortured; His people mourn under the oppression of the enemy. They sigh, and creation with them, under the burdensome and infirm tabernacle of the flesh, this body of our humiliation for which the hungry grave clamo…
704 wordsSECTION 32Footnotes:
With this hope swelling their hearts, the apostle's readers once more triumphantly join in the refrain: TO THE PRAISE OF HIS GLORY. [47] Exod. xix. 3-6; Deut. iv. 20, 21; 1 Kings viii. 51, 53; Ps. lxxviii. 71, etc. With the above comp. Gen. xv. 8; Numb. xviii. 20; Jos. xiii. 33; Ps. xvi. 5. [48] Ch. iv. 30. The "seal…
337 wordsSECTION 33_For The Eyes Of The Heart._
"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…
753 wordsSECTION 34_For The Eyes Of The Heart._
The key to the designation _Father of glory_ is in Romans vi. 4: "Christ was raised from the dead through _the glory of the Father_." In the light of this august manifestation of God's power to save His lost sons in Christ, we are called to see light (vv. 19, 20). Its glory shines already about God's blessed name of Fa…
720 wordsSECTION 35_For The Eyes Of The Heart._
It is not the strangeness and distance of Divine things alone that cause insensibility; their familiarity has the same effect. We know all this gospel so well. We have read it, listened to it, gone over its points of doctrine a hundred times. It is trite and easy to us as a worn glove. We discuss without a tremor of em…
737 wordsSECTION 36_For The Eyes Of The Heart._
Behold, then, brethren, the hope of our calling. God could not call us to any destiny less or lower than this. It would have been unworthy of Him,--and may we not say, unworthy of ourselves, if we are in truth His sons? From eternity the Father of spirits has predestined you and me to be holy and without blemish before…
941 wordsSECTION 37_For The Eyes Of The Heart._
Let us learn, then, to respect ourselves. Let us not take the world's tinsel for wealth, and spend our time, like the man in Bunyan's dream, scraping with "the muck-rake" while the crown of life shines above our head. The riches of a Church--nay, of any human community--lies not in its moneyed resources, but in the men…
691 wordsSECTION 38Footnotes:
Look at Jesus where He was--the poor, tortured, wounded body, slain by our sins, lying cold and still in Joseph's grave: then lift up your eyes and see Him _where He is_,--enthroned in the worship and wonder of heaven! Measure by that distance, by the sweep and lift of that almighty Arm, the strength of the forces enga…
309 wordsSECTION 39_What God Wrought In The Christ._
=Hypsêlôn sphodra gemei tôn noêmatôn kai hyperonkôn. Ha gar mêdamou schedon ephthenxato, tauta entautha phêsin.= JOHN CHRYSOSTOM: _In epistolam ad Ephesios._ "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…
719 wordsSECTION 40_What God Wrought In The Christ._
It is "_the_ Christ," let us observe, in whom God "wrought raising Him from the dead": the Christ of Jewish hope (ver. 12), the centre and sum of the Divine counsel for the world (ver. 10),[68] the Christ whom in that moment never to be forgotten the humbled Saul recognized in the crucified Nazarene. The demonstration…
894 wordsSECTION 41_What God Wrought In The Christ._
Christ's was not the only resurrection; but it is the only _final_ resurrection. Lazarus of Bethany left his tomb at the word of Jesus, a living man; but he was still a mortal man, doomed to see corruption. He returned from the grave on this side, as he had entered it, "bound hand and foot with grave-clothes." Not so w…
806 wordsSECTION 42_What God Wrought In The Christ._
"In the heavenlies" now abides the Risen One. This expression, so frequent in the epistle as to be characteristic of it,[70] denotes not locality so much as condition and sphere. It speaks of the bright and deathless world of God and the angels, of which the sky has always been to men the symbol. Thither Christ ascende…
711 wordsSECTION 43_What God Wrought In The Christ._
III. The second clause of verse 22 begins with an emphasis upon the _object_ which the English Version fails to recognize: "and _Him_ He gave"--the Christ exalted to universal authority--"_Him_ God gave, Head over all things [as He is], to the Church which is His body,--the fulness of Him who fills all things in all." …
686 wordsSECTION 44Footnotes:
Again there was poured into the empty, humbled and impoverished form of the Son of God the brightness of the Father's glory and the infinitude of the Father's authority and power. The majesty that He had foregone was restored to Him in undiminished measure. But how great a change meanwhile in Him who received it! This …
331 wordsSECTION 45_From Death To Life._
"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, …
724 wordsSECTION 46_From Death To Life._
Its condition was visible to discerning eyes. It was a world rotting in its corruption, mouldering in its decay, and which to His pure sense had the moral aspect and odour of the charnel-house. We realize very imperfectly the distress, the inward nausea, the conflict of disgust and pity which the fact of being in such …
707 wordsSECTION 47_From Death To Life._
As it is with the departed saints sleeping in Christ,--"put to death, indeed, in the flesh, but living in the spirit,"--so by a terrible inversion with the wicked in this life. They are put to death, indeed, in the spirit, while they live in the flesh. They may be and often are powerfully alive and active in their rela…
690 wordsSECTION 48_From Death To Life._
It is _antipathy_ that separates. "They did not like to retain God in their knowledge"; that is Paul's explanation of the ungodliness and vice of the ancient world. And it holds good still in countless instances. "Numbers in this bad world talk loudly against religion in order to encourage each other in sin, because th…
720 wordsSECTION 49_From Death To Life._
Above this feverous, sin-laden atmosphere the apostle sees God's anger brooding in threatening clouds. For our trespasses and sins are, after all, not forced on us by our environment. Those offences by which we provoke God, lie in our nature; they are no mere casual acts, they belong to our bias and disposition. Sin is…
653 wordsSECTION 50_From Death To Life._
But there are things no less divine, had we eyes for their marvel, that take place upon this earth day by day. When a human soul awakes from its trespasses and sins, when the love of God is poured into a heart that was cold and empty, when the Spirit of God breathes into a spirit lying powerless and buried in the flesh…
611 wordsSECTION 51_Saved For An End._
[74] For the antithesis of "you" and "we," comp. vv. 11-18, ch. i, 12, 13; also Rom. iii. 19, 23 (_For there is no distinction_), Gal. ii. 15. [75] =Poiountes ta thelêmata tês sarkos kai tôn dianoiôn= (ver. 3). [76] Perhaps this double rendering may bring out the force of =kata to aiôna tou kosmou toutou=. [77] In t…
752 wordsSECTION 52_Saved For An End._
God's mercy regards us as we are weak and miserable: His _love_ regards us as we are, in spite of trespass and offence, His offspring,--objects of "much love" amid much displeasure, "even when we were dead through our trespasses." What does the story of the prodigal son mean but this? and what Christ's great word to Ni…
843 wordsSECTION 53_Saved For An End._
Greatly do we need, like the Asian disciples of Paul and John, to "assure our hearts" before God. With death confronting us, with the hideous evil of the world oppressing us; when the air is laden with the contagion of sin; when the faith of the strongest wears the cast of doubt; when the word of promise shines dimly t…
704 wordsSECTION 54_Saved For An End._
Grace, moreover, sets us great tasks. There should be something to show in deed and life for the wealth of kindness spent upon us, some visible and commensurate result of the vast preparations of the gospel plan. Of this result the apostle saw the earnest in the work of faith wrought by his Gentile Churches. St Paul w…
742 wordsSECTION 55Footnotes:
Never was any prediction better fulfilled. This spot of history shines with a light before which every other shows pale and commonplace. The companions of Jesus, the humble fraternities of the first Christian century have been the object of reverent interest and intent research on the part of all centuries since. Their…
354 wordsSECTION 56_The Far And Near._
"Wherefore remember, that aforetime ye, the Gentiles in the flesh, who are called Uncircumcision by that which is called Circumcision in the flesh, made by hands; that ye were at that time separate from Christ, being aliens from the commonwealth of Israel, and strangers from the covenants of promise, having no hope…
677 wordsSECTION 57_The Far And Near._
"Shaping to truth the froward will Along His narrow way,"-- such remembrances are a priceless treasure, that grows richer as we grow wiser. It awakens a joy not so thrilling nor so prompt in utterance as that of the soul snatched like a brand from the burning, but which passes understanding. Blessed are the children …
676 wordsSECTION 58_The Far And Near._
The more thoughtful and pious among the heathen felt this already. When the apostle denounced the idols and their pompous worship as "these vanities," his words found an echo in the Gentile conscience. The classical Paganism held the multitude by the force of habit and local pride, and by its sensuous and artistic char…
680 wordsSECTION 59_The Far And Near._
Our modern speech and literature and our habits of feeling have been for so many generations steeped in the influence of Christ's teaching, and it has thrown so many tender and hallowed thoughts around the state of our beloved dead, that it is impossible even for those who are personally without hope in Christ to reali…
737 wordsSECTION 60_The Far And Near._
When the Greeks in Passion week desired to see Him, He exclaimed: "I, if I be lifted up from the earth, will draw _all_ unto me." The cross of Jesus was to draw humanity around it, by its infinite love and sorrow, by the perfect apprehension there was in it of the world's guilt and need, and the perfect submission to t…
260 wordsSource & rights
Public domain in the USA; original historical text digitized by Project Gutenberg.
Project Gutenberg source record →
Historical Christian writing; not Scripture.