The Pulpit Commentary — Ephesians — Section 101

ture, contrary also to the constitution of the soul and the nature of the work. Man is so constituted that no moral change can he effected in him irre.•pective of his own efforts. He must work. All that the expression means is that man's works are not the cause. "By grace are ye saved through faith." But if faith is required, and it is an undoubted necessity, where is the freeness of the grace? Elsewhere Paul says that "it is _of faith, that i~ m~y be of grace." T~o _remark~ will explain this. (1) J<'ctith i.~ essentially an immeritorious act. Because It IS the sunplest act of the mind, and an act for which man has a strong propensity; he has never taken credit for it; he never can. There is no virtue in believing. (2) This essentially unmeritorious act is itself the gift of God. Not a gift in the sense in which existence is a gift, but in the sense in which knowledge is a gift. It is o. gift, because God gives the mental capacity for it, reveals the true objects for it, and· furnishes the opportunities for studying the evidence essential to produce it.-D. T. Vers. 11-22.-Gospel reconciliation--its subjects, agency, and results. "Where- fore remember, that ye being in time p~st Gentiles in the flesh, who are called Uncir- cumcision by that which is called the Circumcision in the flesh made by hands; that at that time ye were without Christ, being aliens from the commonwealth of Israel, and strangers from the covenants of promise, having no hope, and without God in the world: but now in Christ Jesus ye who sometimes were far off are made nigh by the blood of Christ. For he is our Peace, who bath made both one, and bath broken down the middle wall of partitiou between us; having abolished in his flesh the enmity, even the law of commandments contained in or.dinances ; for to make in himself of twain one new man, so making peace; and that he might reconcile both unto God in one body by the cross, having slain the enmity thereby: and came and preached peace to you which were afar off, and to them that were nigh. For through him we both have access by one Spirit nnto the Father. Now therefore ye are no more strangers and foreiguers, but fellow-citizens with the saints, and of the household of God; and are built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ himself being the chief Corner-stone; in whom all the buildini: fitly framed together !tl"Oweth unto an holy temple in the Lord : in wbom ye also are builded together for an habitation of God through the Spirit." Reconciliation is the grand idea of this passage, and it sets before us the C01'1dition of its subjects, the nature of ies agency, e.nd the blessedness of its achievement. I. THE CONDITION OF ITS SUllJE<n'B. They a.re here presented in two e.spects- aspects in which all men in their uuregenerated state are found. 1. .As socially dishai·- monized. Between the Jews and the Gentiles there was no accord; on the contrar j, there was a deep, mutual variance in sympathy nnd soul. 'l'here was a "middle wall of partition between them." That wall was built by political prejudices e.nd religious differences, and was cemented by a mutual "enmity." So that they were "aliens," and "strangers," and morally "far off" from each other. There a.re these socinl differences between unregenerate men now, the world over. Instead of union, there is division-harmony, there is discord-love, there is enmity. Hence the eternal feuds, domestic, social, ecclesiastical, political. Some "middle wall of partition" divides family from family, class from class, nation from nation, me.n from mnn. 2. .A.~ religiously disharmonized. There was not only a mutul\l variance bet-ween Jew 11ml Gentile, but there was a variance between both and God. Religiously the Jew· is represented here as being" without Christ," ignorant of him, and uninterested in him; "without hope," without any well-founded hope of future good; "without God"- practical atheists. Living every day e.s if no God existed. Does not this describe the religious condition of all unr,egenerate men in every part of the world? What e. picture of the moral world I Hideous, yet life-like I II. THE NATURE OF ITS AGE.'ICY, Who is the great Reconciler? Who is he that reconciles men to men, and all to Gou? There is One, e.nd only One. "Now in Christ Jesus ye who sometimes were far off a.re me.de nigh." The pnssnge gives three ideas about this reconciling. I. It is the work of ,elf-sacrifice. Christ docs it by his "blood," by his "cross." What is the blood of Christ? Not, of course, the vital fluid which flowed through his corporeal veins-not hie mere existence, but the governing moral spirit of hie life. The real life of e. man is his governing disposition. This is ll'.l'HESIANS, Ji  9S THE EPISTLE 'l'O THE, Jil'HESIANS. [OH, 1L 1--22,