or judgment the standard of yours, and the rule of your conduct. The will of the Lord is the will of Christ. That Lord here means Christ, is plain not only from the general usage of the New Testament, so often re- ferred to, but also from the constant use of the word in this chapter as a designation of the Redeemer. Here again, therefore, the divinity of Christ is seen to be a practical doctrine entering into the daily religious life of the believer. His will is the rule of truth and duty.
V. 18. And (especially) be not drunk with wine. This is an ἀφρόσυνη, a want of sense, especially incon- sistent with the intelligence of the true believer. The man who has a right discernment will not seek refresh- ment or excitement from wine, but from the Holy Spirit. Therefore the apostle adds, but be jilled with the Spirit. In drunkenness, he says, there is ἀσωτία, revelry, debauchery, riot, whatever tends to destruction; for the word is derived from ἄσωτος, which means, what cannot be saved, one given up to a destructive course of life. Comp. Tit. 1,6. 1 Pet. 4,4. Men are said to be filled with wine when completely under its influence ; so they are said to be filled with the Spirit, when he controls all their thoughts, feelings, words, and actions. The expression is a common one in Scripture. Of our Lord himself it was said, “ He was full of the Holy Ghost,” Luke 4, 1; so of Stephen that “he was full of faith and of the Holy Ghost,” Acts 6, 5; and of Barnabas, Acts 11, 24, &c. To the Chris- tian, therefore, the source of strength and joy is not
CHAP. v. vs. 18. 19. 3038
wine, but the blessed Spirit of God. And as drunken- ness produces rioting and debauchery, so the Holy Spirit produces a joy which expresses itself in psalms, and hymns, and spiritual songs. Quid gignit ebrie- tas? dissolutam proterviam, ut quasi excusso freno indecenter homines exultent. Quid spiritualis laetitia, quum ea perfusi sumus? hymnos, psalmos, laudes Dei, gratiarum actiones. Hi sunt vere jucundi fructus et delectabiles. Carvin.
V.19. Δαλοῦντες ἑαυτοῖς (i. 6. ἀλλήλοις, as in 4, 32, and elsewhere), speaking to each other, not to yourselves. Compare Col. 3, 16, where it is, διδάσκοντες καὶ νουθε- τοῦντες ἑαυτούς, teaching and admonishing one another. “Speaking to each other,” signifies the interchange of thoughts and feelings expressed in the psalms and hymns employed. This is supposed to refer to respon- sive singing, in the private assemblies and public worship of Christians, to which the well-known passage of Pliny: Carmen Christo quasi Deo dicunt secum in- vicem, seems also to refer. Whether the passage refers to the responsive method of singing or not, which is somewhat doubtful from the parallel passage in Colos- sians (where Paul speaks of their teaching one another), it at least proves that singing was from the beginning a part of Christian worship, and that not only psalms but hymns also were employed.
The early usage of the words ψαλμός, ὕμνος, ὠδή, appears to have been as loose as that of the correspond- ing English terms, psalm, hymn, song, is with us. A psalm was a hymn, and a hymn a song. Still there