citizens of the saints. Christ is the Mystery or godliness, as he is God manifest in the flesh, but he is emphatically so as " Christ the Hope of glory" for the Gentiles (Col. i. 27). 2. It was hidden fur ages from the sons of men, both Jew and Gentile. A mystery is either something which bas been concealed, perhaps for ages, anrl which probably would never have been discovered unless the voice of revelation bad proclaimed it; or something which, even when revealed, transcends the power of the human faculties to comprehend it. Now, the Incarnation is a mystery in this double sense; but the call of the Gentiles, as part of "the mystery of Christ," is a mystery ohly in the first-named sense. It was known to the Jews for ages that the Gentiles would share in the blessings of the Messiah's kingdom-and the Apostle Paul quotes Old Testament predictions to prove the fact (Rom. ix. 25-33) ; but it was not known that the Gentiles would be included within the circle of religious privilege by the complete sacrifice of the Hebrew theocracy and the reconstitution of religion on a perfectly new basis, designed equally for all mankind, under which the old di.,tinctions of Jew and Gentile would be done away. There was to be no further room for Jewish particularism. The dispensation which was to carry the world to its last destinies was to be as universal as that embodied in the first promise made to our first parents. 3. The revelation of the mystery. So far as it involved a mission to the Gentiles, it was revealed first to the Apostle Panl at his conversion; for when Christ appeared to him on his journey to Damascus, he said, "I have appeared unto thee for this purpose, to make thee a minister and a witness . . . delivering thee from the people, and from the Gentiles, unto whom now I send thee, to open th_eir eyes, and to turn them from dark- ness to light, and from the power of Sa.tan unto God" (Acts xxvi. 16-18). But tbo fuller exhibition of Gentile privilege is made in this glorious Epistle as well as else- where. It was a revelation made by the Lord himself (Gal. i. 12). But it was madE.' especially to "apostles and prophets," both of them belonging to the new dispensa- tion-the only class of inspired men connected with it who received special infonna- tion from the Holy Spirit, who searches the deep things of God, respecting the new development of the kingdom. The revelation was, indeed, oue of facts as well as of truths. The calling of the Gentiles was made manifest in the Spirit's falling upon Cor- nelius, and in the widespread success of the gospel among the Gentiles, so that the logic of facts beautifully reinforced the more formal revelations of "apostles and pro- phets." 4. The substance of the revelation. "That the Gentiles are fellow-heirs, and of the same body, and partakers of his promise in Christ by the gospel." These are the three points of Gentile privilege. 'fhey were not to receive the blessings of the Messiab's kingdom by being merged as proselytes into the old theocracy, which waf to abide in all itB narrow ritualism. (1) The Gentiles are fellow-heirs. Possession by inheritance involves the ideas of right, certainty, and inalienablen~ss. All that is involved in the benefits of the covenant of grace is our inheritance. Now, the Gentiles are" heirs of God and joint-heirs with Christ" as well as the Jews, just because they are" children of God by faith in Christ Jesus." They cannot be heirs unless they are children; they cannot be children unless they have faith. And because they have faith, they are Abraham's seed. "And if ye be Christ's, then are ye Abraham's seed, and heirs according to the promise" (Gal. iii. 29). The Gentile interest in the inheri- tance may be recent, but it is entire and beyond cavil. Jews and Gentiles have an equal share in all the blessings of the inheritance. (2) The Gentiles are of the same body. This marks e. more intimate relationship. They were all Jews and Gentiles alike, baptized into one body by one Spirit, and thus coalesced into one Church-state, with Christ e.s the Head of both. But while they were thus, as members of one body, partakers of a common life, the Gentile was not there by the permission of the Jew, or the Jew by the permission of the Gentile. They; were both equally baptized into it by the Spirit. The union in one body obliterntes all previous dis- tinctions of character or culture, and all varieties in dispensatioual privilege ; for there is no schism in the body. The Judaistic section of the Church in the apostle's day fought strenuously against the doctrine of the one body. (3) The Gentiles arefellow- partakers of tlie promise. This refers, not so much to the promise of redemption made first to Adam, repeated to Abraham, and embodied in many Old Testament predictions, as to the promise of the Spirit, who enables us to realize all the blessings involved in EPHESIANS, l 114 THE EPISTLE TO THE EPHESIANS. OB. m.1-21.
this first prt,mise. This was, indeed, the ble..~ing of Abraham whiah came upon the Gentile,, (Gal. iii. H). It was conspicuously realized when, in the words of the Apustle Peter, '' the Holy Ghost fell upon them as on us.." There is no promise of the new c..weuant that is not equnlly sure to Gentile and to Jew. .All the three points of Gentile privilege, sett.i.ng forth apparently the relation to Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, nnd ropresent~d in a. sort of spiritual climax, are rea.liEed by union with Christ, made kno'IVIl to us m the gospel. Salvation centres, a.sits objective ground, in Christ Jesus, and the gospel is the medium by which it is subjectively applied to sinners ot man- kind.-'l'. C.