PUBLIC-DOMAIN CHRISTIAN BOOK
The Expositor's Bible: The Epistle to the Ephesians
Findlay, George G. (George Gillanders) · 128,236 words · 187 reading sections
_The Double Reconciliation._
[86] Rom. i. 19-23; comp. John i. 10: "He [the true Light] was _in the world_, and the world knew Him not." [87] Magnus ab integro saeclorum nascitur ordo. Jam redit et Virgo, redeunt Saturnia regna; Jam nova progenies coelo demittitur alto. Tu modo nascenti puero, quo ferrea primum Desinet, ac toto surget gens a…
652 wordsSECTION 62_The Double Reconciliation._
In his earlier writings the apostle has been concerned chiefly to guard the position and rights of the two parties within the Church. He has abundantly maintained, especially in the epistle to the Galatians, the claims of Gentile believers in Christ against Judaic assumptions and impositions. He has defended the just p…
907 wordsSECTION 63_The Double Reconciliation._
If Christendom were worthy of her Master and her name, this question would be answered with no doubtful affirmative. The Church is well able, if she were prepared, to go up and possess the whole earth for her Lord. The way is open; the means are in her hand. Nor is she ignorant, nor wholly negligent of her opportunity …
664 wordsSECTION 64_The Double Reconciliation._
Thus within and without the Church the work of atonement will advance, with Christ ever for its preacher (ver. 17). He speaks through the words and the lives of His ten thousand messengers,--men of every order, in every age and country of the earth. The leaven of Christ's peace will spread till the lump is leavened. Go…
908 wordsSECTION 65_The Double Reconciliation._
Perhaps you say: This is immoral, surely, that the just should suffer for the unjust; that one commits the offence, and another bears the penalty.--Stay a moment: that is only half the truth. We are more than individuals; we are members of a race; and vicarious suffering runs through life. Our sufferings and wrong-doin…
514 wordsSECTION 66_God'S Temple In Humanity._
[89] See to this effect such passages as Rom. i. 16 (_to the Jew first_), ix. 4, 5; and especially xi. 13-32. [90] Gal. iii. 28; Col. iii. 11. Comp. John x. 16, xi. 52. See _The Epistle to the Galatians_ (Expositor's Bible), Chapter XV. "So then ye are no more strangers and sojourners, but ye are fellow-citizens wit…
661 wordsSECTION 67_God'S Temple In Humanity._
Yes, we willingly admit, such human service is "religion pure and undefiled, _before our God and Father_." If service is rendered to our kind as worship to the Father of men; if we reverence in each man the image of God and the shrine of His Spirit; if we are seeking to cleanse and adorn in men the temple where the Mos…
693 wordsSECTION 68_God'S Temple In Humanity._
Such was the catholicism of the apostolic age. The true reading of verse 21, as it is restored by the Revisers, is an incidental witness to the date of the epistle. A churchman of the second century, writing under Paul's name in the interests of catholic unity as it was then understood, would scarcely have penned such …
751 wordsSECTION 69_God'S Temple In Humanity._
When each organ of the body in its own degree is perfect and holds its place in keeping with the rest, we think no longer of their individual perfection, of the charm of this feature or of that; they are forgotten in the beauty of the perfect frame. So it will be in the body of Christ, when its several communions, clea…
675 wordsSECTION 70_God'S Temple In Humanity._
These men have laid _the foundation_--Peter and Paul, John and James, Barnabas and Silas, and the rest. They are our spiritual progenitors, the fathers of our faith. We see Jesus Christ through their eyes; we read His teaching, and catch His Spirit in their words. Their testimony, in its essential facts, stands secure …
702 wordsSECTION 71_The Secret Of The Ages._
[91] =Pasa oikodomê=, according to the well-established critical reading. For =pas= without the article, implying a various whole, compare =pasês ktiseôs= in Col. i. 15; =pasa graphê=, 2 Tim. iii. 16; =en pasê anastrophê=, 1 Peter i. 15; and =Theos pasês charitos=, 1 Peter v. 10. "For this cause I Paul, the prisoner o…
723 wordsSECTION 72_The Secret Of The Ages._
In close connexion with these statements, St Paul speaks there, as he does here, of his own heavy sufferings endured on this account and the joy they gave him. He is the instrument of a glorious purpose worthy of God; he is the mouthpiece of a revelation waiting to be spoken since the world began, that is addressed to …
777 wordsSECTION 73_The Secret Of The Ages._
The particular aspect of the mystery of Christ with which the apostle is concerned, is that of His relationship to the Gentile world. "The grace of God," he says in verse 2, "was given me _for you_." Such is "the dispensation" in which God is now engaged. Upon this lavish and undreamed-of scale He is dealing forth salv…
761 wordsSECTION 74_The Secret Of The Ages._
The secret was further disclosed to Peter, when he was taught at the house of Cornelius "not to call any man common or unclean." He saw, and the Church of Jerusalem saw and confessed that God "gave the like gift" to uncircumcised Gentiles as to themselves and had "purified their hearts by faith." Many prophetic voices,…
911 wordsSECTION 75_The Secret Of The Ages._
The apostle was not unaware of the vast influence he now possessed, and that must accrue to him in the future from the transcendent interest of the doctrines committed to his charge. There is no false modesty about this splendidly gifted man. It is his not only to "preach to the Gentiles the good news of Christ's unsea…
364 wordsSECTION 76_Earth Teaching Heaven._
[92] See Gal. iii. 7, v. 5; Rom. viii. 14-25; 1 Peter i. 4, 5. "To the intent that now unto the principalities and powers in the heavenly _places_ might be made known through the Church the manifold wisdom of God, according to the purpose of the ages which He formed in the Christ, _even_ Jesus our Lord: in whom we …
666 wordsSECTION 77_Earth Teaching Heaven._
* * * * * I. The textual critics restore the definite article which later copyists had dropped before the word _Christ_ in verse 11. We have already remarked the frequency of "the Christ" in this epistle.[93] Once besides this peculiar combination of the names of our Saviour occurs--in Colossians ii. 6, where Lightfoo…
721 wordsSECTION 78_Earth Teaching Heaven._
II. The universe is one. There is a solidarity of rational and moral interests amongst all intelligences. Granting the existence of such beings as the angels of Scripture, we should expect them to be profoundly concerned in the redeeming work of Christ. They are the "watchers" and "holy ones" spoken of by the later Isa…
772 wordsSECTION 79_Earth Teaching Heaven._
One would suppose from what the apostle hints, that our world presents a problem unique in the kingdom of God, one which raises questions more complicated and crucial than have elsewhere arisen. The heavenly princedoms are learning through the Church "the _manifold_ wisdom of God." His love, in its pure essence, those …
818 wordsSECTION 80_Earth Teaching Heaven._
III. Suddenly, according to his wont, the apostle drops down from the heights of contemplation to the level of ordinary fact. He descends in verse 12 from the thought of the eternal purpose and the education of the angels to the struggling Church. The assurance of its life in the Spirit corresponds to the grandeur of t…
687 wordsSECTION 81_The Comprehension Of Christ._
Those that love him should _boast_ rather than grieve over his afflictions. "We make our boast in you amongst the Churches of God," he wrote to the distressed Thessalonians (2 Ep. i. 4), "for your patience and faith in all your persecutions and afflictions"; so he would have the Churches think of him. When good men suf…
662 wordsSECTION 82_The Comprehension Of Christ._
Let us pause for a moment to join in St Paul's invocation: "I bow my knees to the Father, of whom [not _the whole family_, but] _every family_ in heaven and upon earth is named." The point of St Paul's original phrase is somewhat lost in translation. The Greek word for _family_ (_patria_) is based on that for _father_ …
1,024 wordsSECTION 83_The Comprehension Of Christ._
The apostle points to "the inner man" as the seat of this invigoration, thinking perhaps of its secrecy. While the world buffets and dismays the Christian, new vigour and joy are infused into his soul. The surface waters and summer brooks of comfort fail; but there opens in the heart a spring fed by the river of life p…
730 wordsSECTION 84_The Comprehension Of Christ._
The difference in significance between "Christ" or "Christ Jesus" and "the Christ" in such a sentence as this, is not unlike the difference between "Queen Victoria" and "the Queen." The latter phrase brings Her Majesty before us in the grandeur and splendour of her Queenship. We think of her vast dominion, of her line …
724 wordsSECTION 85_The Comprehension Of Christ._
III. The prayers now offered might suffice, if St Paul were concerned only for the individual needs of those to whom he writes and their personal advancement in the new life. But it is otherwise. _The Church_ fills his mind. Its lofty claims at every turn he has pressed on our attention. This is God's holy temple and t…
702 wordsSECTION 86_The Comprehension Of Christ._
We draw close about us the walls of Christ's wide house, as if to confine Him in our single chamber. We call our particular communion "the Church," and the rest "the sects"; and disfranchise, so far as our word and judgement go, a multitude of Christ's freemen and God's elect, our fellow-citizens in the New Jerusalem--…
423 wordsSECTION 87_Knowing The Unknowable._
[94] See ch. i. 17, ii. 18, 22, and especially ch. iv. 4-6. [95] See pp. 47, 83, 169. [96] _Lectures on Ephesians_, pp. 235-8. No one who has read Dr. R. W. Dale's noble Lectures on this epistle, can write upon the same subject without being deeply in his debt. [97] _Der Brief Pauli an die Epheser_, p. 138. Hofmann …
836 wordsSECTION 88_Knowing The Unknowable._
When, turning from Christ Himself in His own person and presence, before whom praise is speechless, we contemplate the manifestations of His love to mankind; when we consider that its fountain lies in the bosom of the Eternal; when we trace its footsteps prepared from the world's foundation, and perceive it choosing a …
747 wordsSECTION 89_Knowing The Unknowable._
The apostle prays that his readers may know the love of Christ. This is a part of the Divine plenitude; nor is there anything in it deeper. But there is more to know. When he asks for "_all_ the fulness," he thinks of other elements of revelation in which we are to participate. God's _wisdom_, His _truth_, His _righteo…
812 wordsSECTION 90_Knowing The Unknowable._
Let us therefore praise Him "who is able to do beyond all things"--beyond the best that His best servants have wished and striven for. Had men ever asked or thought of such a gift to the world as Jesus Christ? Had the prophets foreseen one tenth part of His greatness? In their boldest dreams did the disciples anticipat…
674 wordsSECTION 91_Knowing The Unknowable._
The Church, being the creation of God's love in Christ and the receptacle of His communicative fulness, is the vessel formed for His praise. Her worship is a daily tribute to the Divine majesty and bounty. The life of her people in the world, her witness for Christ and warfare against sin, her ceaseless ministries to h…
677 wordsSECTION 92_The Fundamental Unities._
The end comes: God is all in all. At this furthest horizon of thought, Christ and His own are seen together rendering to God unceasing glory. "It is good we return unto the ancient bond of unity in the Church of God, which was _one faith_, _one baptism_, and not _one hierarchy_, _one discipline_; and that we observe…
727 wordsSECTION 93_The Fundamental Unities._
The conditions for such pursuing and preserving of peace in the fold of Christ are briefly indicated in verses 1 and 2. There must be-- (1) _A due sense of the dignity of our Christian calling_: "Walk worthily," he says, "of the calling where with you were called." This exhortation, of course, includes much besides in…
668 wordsSECTION 94_The Fundamental Unities._
Closely considered, we find that the seven unities resolve themselves into three, centring in the names of the Divine Trinity--the Spirit, the Lord, and the Father. The Spirit and the Lord are each accompanied by two kindred uniting elements; while the one God and Father, placed alone, in Himself forms a threefold bond…
820 wordsSECTION 95_The Fundamental Unities._
He who has the Spirit of Christ, will find a place within His body. The Spirit of Jesus Christ is a communicative, sociable spirit. The child of God seeks out his brethren; like is drawn to like, bone to bone and sinew to its sinew in the building up of the risen body. By an instinct of its life, the new-born soul form…
834 wordsSECTION 96_The Fundamental Unities._
"One common wave of thought and joy, Lifting mankind again!" II. The first group of unities leads us to the second. If one Spirit dwells within us, it is _one Lord_ who reigns over us. We have one hope to work for; it is because we have _one faith_ to live by. A common fellowship implies a common creed. Thus Christ …
754 wordsSECTION 97_The Fundamental Unities._
In this rule lies the ultimate ground of union for men, and for all creatures. Our fellowship in the faith of Christ is deep as the nature of God; its blessedness rich as His love; its bonds strong and eternal as His power. III. The last and greatest of the unities still remains. Add to our fellowship in the one Spiri…
540 wordsSECTION 98_The Measure Of The Gift Of Christ._
[98] See ch. v. 14; 1 Tim. i. 17, ii. 5, 6, vi. 15, 16; 2 Tim. ii. 11-13. "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 al…
928 wordsSECTION 99_The Measure Of The Gift Of Christ._
In this conquest David "gave to men" rather than "received"--gave even to his stubborn enemies (witness his subsequent transaction with Araunah the Jebusite for the site of the temple); for that which he took from them served to build amongst them God's habitation: "that," as the Psalmist sings, "the Lord God might dwe…
655 wordsSECTION 100_The Measure Of The Gift Of Christ._
Mere authority, even Omnipotence, could not suffice to save and bless moral beings like ourselves; nor even the best will joined to Omnipotence. Christ gained by His humiliation, in some sense, a new fulness added to the fulness of the Godhead. This gain of His sufferings is implied in what the apostle writes in Coloss…
763 wordsSECTION 101_The Measure Of The Gift Of Christ._
This "captivity" implies a warfare, even as the ascent of Christ a previous descending. The Son of God came not into His earthly kingdom as kings are said to have come sometimes disguised amongst their subjects, that they might learn better of their state and hear their true mind; nor as the Greeks fabled of their gods…
708 wordsSECTION 102_The Measure Of The Gift Of Christ._
What may we not expect from Him who has led captive such a captivity! What surprises of blessing and miracles of grace there are awaiting us, that shall fill our mouth with laughter and our tongue with singing--gifts and succours coming to the Church from unlooked-for quarters and reinforcements from the ranks of the e…
763 wordsSECTION 103_The Measure Of The Gift Of Christ._
The _prophets_,[104] like the apostles and evangelists, belonged to the Church at large, rather than to one locality. But their gift of inspiration did not carry with it the claim to rule in the Church. This was the function of the apostles generally, and of the pastor-bishops, or elders, locally appointed. The first …
790 wordsSECTION 104_The Measure Of The Gift Of Christ._
There is nothing new or surprising to the Lord Jesus in the progress of our times and the developments of modern thought, nothing for which He is not perfectly prepared. He has taken their measure long ere this, and holds them within His grasp. The government is upon His shoulders--"the weight of all this unintelligibl…
394 wordsSECTION 105_The Growth Of The Church._
[99] Comp. Hebrews x. 1, 2, 10-14 with xi. 13-16, 39, 40, xii. 23, 24; also vi. 12. [100] The words of David in Browning's _Saul_, turned from the future tense into the present. [101] 2 Cor. ii. 14; comp. Eph. ii. 6, 7. [102] 2 Tim. iv. 5; Acts viii. 26-40, xxi. 8. [103] In Acts xiv. 4, 14, _Barnabas and Paul_ are …
666 wordsSECTION 106_The Growth Of The Church._
(1) The "perfect [full-grown] man" of verse 13 is the _individual_, not the generic man, not "the one [collective] new man" of chapter ii. 15. The Greek words for _man_ in these two places differ.[105] The apostle proposes to the Christian ministry the end that he was himself pursuing, viz., to "present _every man_ per…
721 wordsSECTION 107_The Growth Of The Church._
* * * * * These difficult verses unfold to us three main conceptions: _The goal of the Church's life_ (ver. 13), _the malady which arrests its development_ (ver. 14), and _the means and conditions of its growth_ (vv. 15, 16). I. The mark at which the Church has to arrive is set forth, in harmony with the tenor of the…
715 wordsSECTION 108_The Growth Of The Church._
"Names and sects and parties fall: Thou, O Christ, art all in all!" The second and third _unto_ of verse 13 are parallel with the first, and with each other. A truer faith and better knowledge of Christ uniting believers to each other, at the same time develope in each of them a riper character. Jesus Christ was the …
680 wordsSECTION 109_The Growth Of The Church._
The appearance of false doctrine in the Asian Churches made their undeveloped condition a matter for peculiar apprehension to the apostle. The Colossian heresy, for example, with which he is dealing at this present moment, would have no attraction for ripe and settled Christians. But such a "scheme of error" was exactl…
675 wordsSECTION 110_The Growth Of The Church._
To the craft of false teachers St Paul would have his Churches oppose the weapons only of _truth and love_. "Holding the truth in love," they will "grow up in all things into Christ." Sincere believers, heartily devoted to Christ, will not fall into fatal error. A healthy life instinctively repels disease. They "have a…
665 wordsSECTION 111Footnotes:
"Wherever two or three are met together in my name," said Jesus, "there am I in the midst." In the multitude of these obscure and humble meetings of brethren who love each other for Christ's sake, is the grace supplied, the love diffused abroad, by which the Church lives and thrives. The vitality of the Church of Chris…
397 wordsSECTION 112_The Walk Of The Gentiles._
=En kainotêti zôês peripatêsômen.=--ROM. vi. 4. "This I say, therefore, and testify in the Lord, that ye no longer walk as the Gentiles also walk, in the vanity of their mind, being darkened in their understanding, alienated from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them, because of the hardening of…
726 wordsSECTION 113_The Walk Of The Gentiles._
The men of intellect, who held themselves aloof from popular beliefs, for the most part confessed that their philosophies were speculative and futile, that certainty in the greatest and most serious matters was unattainable. Pilate's question, "What is truth?"--no jesting question surely--passed from lip to lip and fro…
790 wordsSECTION 114_The Walk Of The Gentiles._
In vanity of mind and darkness of reasoning men stumble onwards to the end of life, to the end of time. The world's wisdom and the lessons of its history give no hope of any real advance from darkness to light until, as Plato said, "We are able more safely and securely to make our journey, borne on some firmer vehicle,…
732 wordsSECTION 115_The Walk Of The Gentiles._
And this banishment was due to the cause already described,--to the radical perversion of the Gentile mind, which is re-affirmed in the double prepositional clause of verse 18: "because of the ignorance that is in them, because of the hardening of their heart." The repeated preposition (_because of_) attaches the two p…
677 wordsSECTION 116_The Walk Of The Gentiles._
But the Jewish nation as a whole, and the mass of the pagans, remained at present obstinately disbelieving. They had no perception of the life of God, and felt no need of it; and when offered, they thrust it from them. Theirs was another god, "the god of this world," who "blinds the minds of the unbelieving" (2 Cor. iv…
700 wordsSECTION 117_The Walk Of The Gentiles._
Amongst the Jews whom our Lord addressed, the choice lay between "God and Mammon"; in Corinth and Ephesus, it was "Christ or Belial." These ancient gods of the world--"mud-gods," as Thomas Carlyle called them--are set up in the high places of our populous cities. To the slavery of business and the pride of wealth men s…
365 wordsSECTION 118_The Two Human Types._
[112] "The persons here denounced," says Lightfoot on Phil. iii. 18, "are not the Judaizing teachers, but the antinomian reactionists.... The stress of Paul's grief lies in the fact that they degraded the true doctrine of liberty, so as to minister to their profligate and worldly living." Comp. 1 Peter iv. 3, 4; 2 Pete…
792 wordsSECTION 119_The Two Human Types._
There are several considerations which help to account for it. When St Paul first arrived at Ephesus, eight years before this time, he "found certain disciples" there who had been "baptized into John's baptism," but had not "received the Holy Spirit" nor even heard of such a thing (Acts xix. 1-7). Apollos formerly belo…
756 wordsSECTION 120_The Two Human Types._
It is an entire mistake to suppose that the apostle Paul was indifferent to the historical tradition of Jesus; that the Christ he taught was a product of his personal inspiration, of his inward experience and theological reflection. This preaching of an abstract Christ, distinct from the actual Jesus, is the very thing…
671 wordsSource & rights
Public domain in the USA; original historical text digitized by Project Gutenberg.
Project Gutenberg source record →
Historical Christian writing; not Scripture.