The Pulpit Commentary — Ephesians — Section 51

Head invested with power sufficient to bring it about? 2. The Church wtanda in an intimate relationship to 0/vrist. "Which is his body.'' As we stand in relation to our body, so Christ stands in relation to his Church. The body of man is a mar~ellous piece of workmanship. "Fearfully and wonderfully made" is language o.pphcable to its structure. But the apostle contemplated it, not from the strictly scientific, but from the religious or more particularly the Christian standpoint. He says that the Church is the body of Christ. This raises the body of m,m to an exalted position. It is not the degraded thing it has been sometimes thought to be. It is after the. pattern of things in the heavens. This is the true way of puttin" it; not, certaiµly, that the Church is made after the pattern of the body, but that the body is made eJter the pattern of the Church. Just as fatherhood existed in God before it existed in man, so body existed in the Divine conception of the Church before it existed,in the human body. Let us look into the bearing-of it. (1) It is in relation to Christ that the .Church has life. The head or brain is the great seat of bodily life, It. is here that there takes place the mysterious union of soul to body. From this as a centre the soul animates the body. There is an equally mysterious union of Christ to the Church.. Upon him as animating Head the Church depend8. (2) It is in relation to Christ that the Church ia organized. An organism is a living structure that, by means of organs, serves its uses. The human body is an elaborate structure of this kind. It is a number of organs arranged to form an organic whole. It is from the brain that -it is organized. From it proceed the various ramifications throughout the body. In the same way the Church is the great living structure, even more elaborate than the human body, It is an organization intended to serve certain uses. It iii from Christ as Head that the Church takes the type of its organization. (3), It i, by Christ that the Ohurch is governed, The brain is the thinking, ruling centre ilia the body. There the thinking is done. From it the whole regulation proceeds. Its commands are carried by the nerves to every part. So Christ is the brain or centre where the thinking goes on for the Church, whence commands are issued to.all the dependent parts. 3. The Ohurcli is that in which Christ is to be fully manifested. "'l'he fulness of him that filleth all in all." We are to understand it to be Christ that filleth all in all. It is he wno fills the sun with its light-giving pro- perties. He fills the seed with its germinating power. He fills the flowers with their power to blossom forth into beauty. He fills the soul.s of men with all their natural qualities, It is Christ, then, who is to be seen in the sunshine, in the waving corn, in the flowers that deck the field, and also in the blossoming forth of genius. But the Church stands in a special relation to Christ. It is his body, and therefore be is to fill it fuller than be does anything else. It is here called bis pleroma, or fulness. A•. he himself is called the Pleroma of God, so the Church is called bis pleroma. There 1s a high sense in which the body is intended to be the manifestation of the soul. We think of Christ in the days of his flesh as having a body with an ideal beauty corre- sponding to his spiritual excellence so far as flesh would allow. It was not a mere sensuous beauty, but rather a beauty that was expressive of holiness. At the same time, it was not a beauty that excluded marring by sorrow and struggle. In the same way the Church is to manifest Christ. It is to be a fitting temple for the Christ within. It is to be that in ·which he is to body himself without any barrier, other tbnn that which marks the Church's finitude. He is to bring up his Church into the highest form BO as to body forth bis beauty, All deformity and weakness are to be excluded, as unworthy of him who is receiving manifestation. All imperfection is al~o to bo excluded such as belongs to lower things which can only, though fi)led by him, bavo broken r~ys of his glory. What a glorious destiny is this for the Chu~oh I How fitting that it should be held up before it in all the grandeur of the concept10°: ! And how fitting that we should see to it that we belong to the Church, and _are guided ~nd ruled by Christ, so that in us, as part of the whole, the glory of Christ shall shme forth 1-R. F. • Vers;-1, 2.-Ths highe,t thing• in the world, "Paul, an apos~le of ~esus ~brist by the will of God to the saints which are at Ephesus, and to the faithful m Christ Jesus: grace be to yo~ and peaoe from God our Father, and from the Lord Jesus <Jhrist." Tlie woids 118t Wore us t~~e of the ~eatest things in human life.  48 THE EPISTLE TO THE EPHESIANS. [OH, L 1-23.