The Pulpit Commentary — Ephesians — Section 169

members of Christ's body must keep rank and order, acting within their own sphere with due wisdom, harmony, and love, the eye not doing the work of the hand, nor the hand the work of the foot, but abiding each in his own calling. IV. THERE IS AN INDIVIDUAL ACTION OF EACH MEMBER. "According to the effectual working in the measure of ever_y part." Each must do its own proper work, according to its position. Just as a man is strong in the faculty which he most exercises, so the member who is strong in the grace that is in Christ Jesus becomes individually efficient according to the operation of that grace. One member is thus apt to teach, another to convince, another to counsel, another to stimulate. V, THE CHANNELS OF BUPPLY-"THE JOINTS AND BANDS"-ARE THE WORD AND ORDINANCES. They convey grace from the Head to the members. The Word of God is the grand means, in connection with baptism and the Lord's Supper. These two ordinances are, indeed, the two appointed symbols of the Church's unity-baptism representing the first action of the Holy Spirit in fitting the members for the body; the Lord's Supper, the drinking into one Spirit, who makes the table a visible centre of union to those brought out of the world. VI. TBE ELEMENT OB SPHERE IN WHICH THE GROWTH OF THE BODY IS EFFECTED, "Love." It is not asserted that we are to grow in love, but that in love, as the sphere of growth, we are to grow in all the elements of perfection. That love which follows the things which make for peace and edification, and bears the infirmities of others, has peculiar faculties for edifying the body of Christ. VII. THE RESULT OF GROWTH. "It maketh increase of the body unto the edifying of itself." The increase is twofold-in the addition of members to the Church, and in the growth of the members in all the elements of spiritual perfection.-T. C. Vera. 17-19.-The moral characteristics of heathenism. The apostle warns the saints of Ephesus not to walk in the ways of paganism. These ways are vividly described. I. THE HEATHEN WALK IN THE VANITY OF THEm MIND. This vanity has its intellectual and its moral side. 1. Intellectually, it represents the waste of speculati vc power upon questions of the profoundest importance, ending usually in pantheism, atheism, or polytheism. 'l'he pagan intellect groped in vain amidst the darkness for light upon duty, upon providence, upon the future life of man. The heathen became vain in their imaginations. 2. Morally, the heathen walked in a. vain show, looked for happiness in riches, honours, and power, and pursued foolish or wicked courses in the effort to a.tta.in these objects of desire, The end of such a walk must always be disappointing. II. EXPLANATION OF THIS VAm LIFE. It is twofold. 1. It arises out of intellectual obscuration. "Having the understanding darkened." Not that the natural genius of the heathen was obscured, for the world must always admire the classics of Greece and Rome; but there was a.II but utter extinction of spiritual light in the heathen mind. There was no saving knowledge. The god of this world had blinded their minds, and their growing apostasy entailed a. judicial blindness which issued in utter darknes~. 2. It arises out of moral estrangement from God," being alienated from tho life of Gou." There could be no light in the mind, because there was I.tO life in the heart. The life of God is not his own life, but the life he lives in his people, which is manifest in their faith and holiness; but the heathen were estranged from that life, so as to have no liking for it and no inclination to it, but rather a love for the life of sin. (1) This moral estrangement is caused by "the ignorance that i8 in them; " for where men are ignorant of God, they have no desire after him, no faith in him, no communion with him, no living according to his will (2) And this ignorance, in turn, springs out of "the hardness of their hearts." The callous heart was proof a.gainst a.ll impression from without, and thus kept the mind uninformed or a.pathetic, till heart and mind were both buried in the gloom of hopeless paganism. III. uLTIHATE RESULTS OF THIS VAIN LIFE, "Who being past fcelin~, have given themselves over unto la.sciviousness to work all uncleanness with greediness." "When ihe hardness of the hea.rt has followed close upon the steps of the darkened mind, conscience loses its power; it becomes seared as with a hot iron; the sense of sin is Jost ; the fear of guilt dies out; and now the way is open to measureless moral disorder. 'fhe sinner  13S THE EPISTLE TO THE EPHESIANS. [OIL IV. 1-82.