The sovereignty of Divine grace was shown in the wide difference between the conduct of the believers and that of_ the men who feared that the gospel was going to dry np the sources of their wealth, and raised the tumult that led to the expulsion of the apostle. Those who were led by a Divine hand surrendered everything for Christ; those who followed the impulse of their own hearts would have crncified the Son of God afresh rather than given up their gains. A Church that had surrendered so much for Christ could not but be very dear to the apostle. It may be said that we do not find in the Epistle any special allusion to this sacrifice. But neither does any such allusion occur in the address to the elders at Miletus nor in the Epistles to Timothy. Possibly the form of expression in eh. iii. 8, "the unsearchable riches of Christ," may have been suggested by the fact that, for his sake, many Ephesians had given np the riches of this world. But both in the Epistle to the Ephesians and in those to Timothy the mind of the apostle seems to have passed from the minuter features of the :indi- vidual character. and life to those broad manifestations of corrnption, on the one hand, that marked their unregenerate life, and those precioua fruits of Divine grace, on the other, that thereafter began to adorn their character. The anxieties he had about the Ephesian Church arose from a restlessness and selfishness of which doubtless he saw many evidences. It seems to have been a strongly emotional Church-distinguished for the warmth of its first love (Rev. ii. 4). Where there is not a strong backbone of con- scientious fidelity to truth and submission to law, Churches of the emotional type are very liable to degenerate; hence the anxiety of the apostle, and hence those forebodings of coming declension that, in one point at least, were verified before the close of the century (Rev. ii. 1-7).
IV. DESIGN A.ND SCOPE OF TilE EPISTLE. No specific object occupies the apostle's attention in this Epistle, as in those, for instance, to the Galatia.ns and the Colossians. His design is :~ general one-to confirm, animate, and elevate. By God's blessing on his labours while he was among them, they had started aright on the Christian course ; he now desires to give them a. fresh impulse in the same direction. 'l'he evils of which he had warned the elders at Miletua had not yet begun to break out ; against these, therefore, he docs not require to sound the trumpet anew. At the moment of his writing· there was little to coITect either in doctrine or in practice, and there was little to disturb the serenity of the apostle's mind in the contempla.tion of their state. The atmosphero of this Epistle is thus very calm, and the sky bright and sunny. Tho apostle and his correspondents seem to walk together on the Delectable Mountains; they sit with Christ in heavenly places. W o seem to hear the call and enjoy the scenery of the Song of Solomon: " For, lo, the winter is past, the rain is over and gone; the flowers appear on the earth; the time of the singing of birds is come, and the voice of tbe turtle is heard in our viii INTRODUCTION TO
land." We are near the New Jerusalem, and the Lord is to us nn everlast- ing light, and our God our glory. After the usual saluta.tion, the apostle breaks out into a fervent thanks- giving on behalf of the Ephesians, for the Christian blessings now in their enjoyment, tracing these to their ultimate source, the good will of the Father who had placed their welfare on the securest possible footing, seeing he had chosen them in Christ before the beginning of the world, and blessed them with all the blessings of the Spirit. From the beginning of the Epistle the several functions of the three Persons of the Trinity in redemption are recognized, and the medium or element in which all the blessings of redemp- tion are possessed and enjoyed by believers is made prominent-" in Christ Jesus." Then we have an earnest prayer for the spiritual growth of the Ephesians, and more especially for their growth through experience in their souls of that Divine power of which the nature and the measure were seen in the resnrrection of J esns Christ from the dead, and in his elevation to the position of Head over all thin,,,<>S to the Church. The Church is declared to be Christ's body, and, in subsequent parts of the Epistle, this figure is worked out in a practical way. The spiritual history of the Ephesians is then more fully and minutely dwelt on, in order to bring out the sovereignty and riches of the grace which they had experienced. From death they had been brought to a state of life; from wrath to acceptance; from lying spiritually in the grave to sitting with Christ in. heavenly places ; from moral distance to moral near- ness. No atom of this was due to themselves,-it was all of grace; and one purpose why they had been so treated was that the riches of God's grace might thereby be for ever revealed. Jew and Gentile were thus on an eq=l footing in the sight of God, and a great spiritual temple was in the course of being reared, in which Jew and Gentile would equally share, and which would, when completed, exemplify the fulness of blessing and the fulness of beauty of the new creation in Christ Jesus. The apostle then makes a digression to emphasize the goodness of God in placing Jew and Gentile on the same level, and he takes occasion to show the ITeatness of the privile(J'e O conferred on himself as the instrument that Goa'° chose to announce his goodness to the Gentiles. Having shown that the Gentiles had received a right to all the unsearchable riches of Chriot, he proceeds to offer an earnest prayer to the effect that they might praotically receive and enjoy a larger measure of these riches-a larger measure of blessing in their relation to each of the three Persons of the Godhead. Then begins, at eh. iv., the more practical part of the Epistle. Some principles have yet, however, to be laid down. The relation of believers to each other, and also their relation to Jesus Christ, are made the basis of encourao-ement and exl1ortation; Christ, as Head of the Church, treating hia Chu;ch as one, bas obtained for her and bestowed on her certain gifts with a. view to edif, all the members and advance them in the direction of THE EPISTLE 'l'O THE EPHESIANS. ix