The Pulpit Commentary — Ephesians — Section 177

inability to make up our minds a.bout the essential doctrines of the faith. If we arc tossed about ~ke vessels 1:1nmoored, if w~ are a prey to designing and cunning men, wo cannot contribute anything to the unity of the Church. 2. Our development will enable us to be communicative and so far edifying. (Vera. 15, 16.) For as we grow in knowledge of Christ we learn to speak the truth in love. A speechless member of the community cannot contribute much to unity and edification. We are bound to be witnesses. And loving language a.bout the Lord promotes the glorious unity. It grows as the organism grows in mutual adnptation, stren11:tb, and power. The Church, thus growing in the knowledge of the living Head and pervaded by the one Spirit of Iifo and of love, advances towards the perfection which Christ has shown us. Harless and Monod, in writing on these verses, refer to the indeterminate character of the passage as to the realization of the perfect state being in this w0rld or beyond it. Du t the emphasis is la.id by Paul upon the fact of development, and how each individual may contribute to the consummation in the unity of the Church. If ea.eh of us con- siders his duty in the matter of edifying that body of which, a.s a. believer, he forms a. pa.rt, the glorious development will make its steady progress towards the perfection to be realized a.t last. It is surely worth an effort to contribute something to such a purpose.-R. M. E. Vers. 17-32.-Raw material for CJ11ristian unity. It comes upon us with some• thing like a. surprise, the exhortations of the present passage after the glories which have gone before. But they a.re instructive in that they bring out the raw material out of which Paul hoped to manufacture Christian uni_j;y. It is evident that he despaired of none, even supposing they had been guilty of the gravest crimes and characterized by the deepest pollution. Does not his grand hope rebuke our faint-heartedness? I. CoNSIDER THE HORAL DEACONS HERE DROUGHT BEFORE THE EPHESIANS. (Vers. 17-20.) Paul presents in the beginning of the Epistle to the Romans a frightful picture of the i=orality of the heathen. He had studied the question carefully, as a missionary to the heathen must. He here gives a. briefer analysis, but one exceedingly vivid and instructive. The terrible fact was that many of the Gentiles had" given themselves up to lasciviousness, to work all uncleanness with greediness,'' and Paul gives us here the reason of it. They had got utterly " hardened" and " past feeling." This was through their ignorance of the holy God, from whose life, with all its purifying power, they were consequently alienated. They had nothing for it in these circumstances but to follow the glimmer of their own dukened understandings, and to walk in the vanity of their minds. It was a case of alienation and isolation from the only Source of purity and of life. Paul consequently holds up the licentious Gentiles as beacons to warn th~ Ephesians away from the paths of sin, that they may walk worthily as the children of God. II. CONSIDER TBE SPIDITUAL RENEWAL TO WHICH HE BUMllONS TBEH. (Vers. 21-24.) The unconverted and lascivious heathen only showed to what excess of sin the old nature within each of us will proceed, if it be not put away, The beacons show the possibility of every sinful soul if it be not converted unto God. Hence Paul counsels the Ephesians to "put a.way, as concerning your former manner of life, the old man, which waxeth corrupt after the lusts of deceit; and that ye be renewed in the spirit of your mind, and put on the new man, which after God bath been created in righteousness and holiness of truth" (Revised Version). The" old man" is the sinful nature which wo a.II possess as children of Adam; the "new man " is the hotter nature which God creates within us. But this new nature does not assert itself as new faculties and new powers, but utilizes the understanding and affections and will, which it finds already within us, so that according to proper mental laws we experience our renewal. 'rho means by which this renewal is brought about are Christ and his offices and benefits; iu other words, it is effected by" tho truth as it is in Jesus." 'l'he moral manifestation is in '' righteousness and holiness of truth." III. CONSIDER THE SERIOUS IHNS AGAINST WRICH HE WARNS TIIE ErrrESIANB. (Vers. 25-29.) It is evident, from tho way in which he mentions them, that they prevailed in heathenism, and that the Ephesians had been previously guilty of them. They bring out vividly the raw material with which he had to work, and they should sustain the hope of rniBBionaries still. 1. Falsf<Ttood. It is evident that the veracity of the  176 'fHE EPISTLE TO THE EPHESiANB. [OH, IV. 1-32.