The Pulpit Commentary — Ephesians — Section 278

\ ers. 5--9.-.The duties of servants and masters. I. DUTY OF SERVANTS. " Servants ~ obedient unto them that according to the flesh are your masters." The Revise~ ha,e shomi good judgment in retaining" servants" here, and putting "bond-servants" ill the ma..--gin. For though" bond" (the same word) is in the eighth verse distinguished from "free,'' yet the thought requires a modification of the meaning. It would be pedantic to translate in the sixth verse " bond-servants of Christ" ( or elsewhere, "Paul a slave of Christ"), for slavery is the idea we exclude from the service of Christ. And this wider use of the word is favoured by the word not being used for" masters" which conveys the idea of <kspotj,c authority. Further, the principles laid down have no exclusive reference t.o slaves. They are such as would have had force if this perverted form of service had never existed. It is right, then, to use a word which covers all forms of service. It is true that (owing to the carrying out of the apostolic principles, and generally the influence of Christianity) times have very much changed. There is almost nowhere now bondage on the one side and absolutism on the other. The relations between masters and servants are of a freer nature, and depend on reasonableness on both sides. This being the case, it is to be desired, not that self-interest or class- interest should rule these relations, but the principles here laid down by the apostle. 1. The grounding of the duty. "With fear and trembling, in singleness of your heart, as unto Christ." (1) The =ter is representative of Christ. Four times are servants reminded of this. The apostolic exhortation is saturated with it. A very unworthy representative the despot of the household or slave-holder (in the very conception of the thing, apart from personal qualities) was. But the apostle does not stigmatize him as a usu..-per, a pretender, and call upon the slaves to rise and cast off his despotism. Strange to say (having him principally in his mind), he regards him as legitimately filiing the place of Christ. That is to say, underneath all that slave-holding (whatever it was) there ,vas still a representation, a trne representation, of the authority of Christ, before which the sla,e was to bow. And that was going to the root of the matter. It was more decisive and penetrative than if he had asked them to be reconciled to tho evil of their position on the ground that Christ had suffered greater evil when in the world. He refused to regard the relation as disannulled by the accident of despotism ; in the master according to the flesh (whoever he might be) he saw a real representation of the authority of Christ, and he called upon them to render obedience unto him as unto Christ. All cannot be masters. For disciplinary purposes, some are servants and some are masters, and some both servants and masters. In the early and Middle Ages there were men who were carried away with a frenzy of obedience. Those words, " I am among you as one that servcth," seemed to put a bad mark on the master state, and to mark out the servant state as not only the safer, but the grander, more Christ- like state of the two. And so they put thcm~elves under superiors, begged in Christ's name to be ruled, and thought they approached Christ wh~n thc_y ~rfo~mcd th~ most meni.:J.l duties. It must be understood that the state which with Chnst cames the hks::ina is that (whether of master or servant) wl:::;ch is not self-sought, but in which Chr;st ~e,;s fit to place us. (2) The appropria,te disposition tou:ard the master as the r•prtser,folire c,f Christ. "\Vith fear and trembling." The slave wa.., to fear and trt::nUe before Lis master, not because that despotic master of his was able to put him in c~.ai?:ts r,r v, take awav his life, bot because he represented an authority above bad:<:G by trY1!l,:kss power, which was able to deal with him, and would righteously dei.l wi.:h him, for nr:glectoo duty. That lx-iug the ground, the duty remains unmodified. Cll, VI, 1-24.] 'fHE EPISTLE TO 'l'HE EPHESIANS. 279