The Expositor's Bible: The Epistle to the Ephesians

Tychicus was well known in the Asian Churches, and suitable therefore to be sent upon this errand. And the commendation given to him would be very welcome to the circle to which he belonged. The apostle has great tact in these personal matters, the tact which belongs to delicate feeling and a generous mind. He calls his messenger “the beloved brother” in his relation to the Church in general, and “faithful minister in the Lord” in his special relation to himself. So he describes Epaphroditus to the Philippians as “your apostle and minister of my need.” In conveying these letters and messages, this worthy man was Paul’s apostle and minister of his need in regard to the Asian Churches. He is a “minister in the Lord,” inasmuch as this office lies within the range of his service to the Lord Christ.

We observe that in writing to the Colossians the apostle applies to Onesimus, the converted slave, the honourable epithets applied here to this long-tried friend: “the faithful and beloved brother” (Col. iv. 9). Every Christian believer should be in the eyes of his fellows a “beloved brother.” And every true servant of Christ and His people is a “faithful minister in the Lord,” be his rank high or low, and whether official hands have been laid upon his head or not. We are apt, by a trick of words, to limit to the order which we suitably call “the ministry” expressions that the New Testament applies to the common ministry of Christ’s saints (comp. iv. 12). This devoted servant of Christ is employed just now as a newsman and letter-carrier. But what a high responsibility it was, to be the bearer to the Asian cities, and to the Church for all time, of the epistles of Paul the apostle to the Ephesians, Colossians and Philemon. Had Tychicus been careless or dishonest, had he lost these precious documents or tampered with them, how great the loss to mankind! We cannot read them without feeling our debt to this beloved brother and faithful servant of the Church. Those who travel upon Christ’s business, who link distant communities to each other and convey from one to another the Holy Spirit’s fellowship and grace, are “the messengers of the Churches and the glory of Christ” (2 Cor. viii. 23).

The Benediction“Peace be to the brethren, and love with faith,From God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.Grace be with all them that love our Lord Jesus ChristIn incorruption” (vv. 23, 24).

Grace and Peace were the first words of the epistle, – the apostle’s salutation to all his Churches. In Peace and Grace he breathes out his final blessing. The benediction is fuller than in most of the epistles, and exhibits several peculiar features.

To the Thessalonians (2 Ep. iii. 16) St Paul wished: “Peace continually, in all ways, from the Lord of peace Himself”; and he commends the Romans twice to “the God of peace” (ch. xv. 33, xvi. 20): the Corinthians he bids to “live in peace,” so that “the God of love and peace” may be with them (2 Cor. xiii. 11). There is nothing in the least degree strange or un-Pauline in the wishes here expressed, except the fact that they are put in the third person – “Peace to the brethren,” etc. – instead of being addressed directly to the readers in the second person, as in all other of the apostle’s extant closing benedictions. This peculiarity, as we observed in the first Chapter, is in accordance with the encyclical and impersonal stamp of the epistle.184 It is Paul’s most catholic benediction, his blessing upon “all the Israel of God” (comp. Gal. vi. 16).

“With faith,” that “love” is desired whereby, according to the Pauline ethics of salvation, faith works (Gal. v. 6), the love which as a vitalizing organic force creates the new man, formed in all his doings and dispositions after the image of Jesus Christ. From chapter iv. 1–3 we have learnt how “peace” and “love” attend each other. Love is the source of the forbearance, the mutual consideration and self-sacrifice, without which there is no peace within the Church. Peace springs from love: love waits on faith. Amongst brethren in Christ, members of the same household of faith, peace and love have their home. These are the sons of peace: with good will and good hope, entering or quitting their abode, we say, “Peace be to this house!”

The peace that the apostle looks for amongst Christian brethren is the fruit of peace with God through Christ. Such “peace guarding the thoughts and heart” of each Christian man, nothing contrary thereto will arise amongst them. Calm and quiet hearts make a peaceful Church. There are no clashing interests, no selfish competitions, no strife as to who shall be greatest. Differences of opinion and taste are kept within the bounds of mutual submission. The awe of God’s presence with His people, the remembrance of the dear price at which His Church was purchased, the sense of Christ’s Lordship in the Spirit and of the sacredness of our brotherhood in Him, check all turbulence and rivalry and teach us to seek the things that make for peace.

“Peace and love,” the apostle desires. Love includes peace, and more; for it labours not to prevent contention only, but to help and enrich in all ways the body of Christ. By such “toil of love” faith is made complete. We are bidden indeed, in certain matters, to “have faith to ourselves before God” (Rom. xiv. 22). This maxim holds where one has a special faith in regard to such things as eating flesh or drinking wine, in which any one of us may without offence differ from his brethren. But it is a poor faith that dwells upon questions of this nature, and makes its religion of them. The essentials of faith, as we saw them delineated in chapter iv. 1–6, are things that unite and not distinguish us.

As faith grows and deepens, it makes new channels in which love may flow. “We are bound to thank God always for you,” writes St Paul to the Thessalonians (2 Ep. i. 3), “for that your faith groweth exceedingly, and the love of each one of you all toward one another multiplieth.” This is the sound and true growth of faith. Where an intenser faith makes men disputatious and exclusive; where it fails to breed meekness and courtesy, we cannot but suspect its quality. Such faith may be sincere; but it is mixed with a lamentable ignorance, and a resistance to the Holy Spirit that is likely to end in grave offence. “Contending earnestly for the faith” does not mean contending angrily, with the weapons of satire and censoriousness. It is well to remember that we are not the judges of our brethren. There are many questions raised and discussed amongst us, which we may safely leave to the judgement of the last day. It is too easy to fill the air with matters of contention, and to excite a sore and suspicious temper destructive of peace, and in which nothing but fault-finding will flourish. If we must contend, we may surely debate quietly on secondary matters, while we are one in Christ. If we have not love with faith, our faith is worthless (1 Cor. xiii. 2).

Deep beneath the peace that dwells in the Church and the love that fills each believer’s heart, is the eternal fountain of grace. “Grace be with all those who love our Lord Jesus Christ,” says the apostle. Grace is theirs already; and they desire nothing so much as its increase. Their love to Christ is the fruit of the grace of God that is with them. This wish includes all good wishes; it surpasses both our deservings and desires. All that God prepared for us in His eternal counsels, and that Christ purchased by His redeeming love, all of good that our nature can receive now and for ever, is embraced in this one word: Grace be with you.

“With all them that love our Lord Jesus Christ,” Paul says; for it is to lovers of Christ that God gives the continuance of His grace. If our love to Christ fails, grace leaves us. God cannot look with favour upon the man who has no love to His Son Jesus Christ. In giving his blessing to the Corinthians, St Paul was compelled to write with his own hand: “If any man love not the Lord, let him be anathema.” The blessing involves the anathema. God’s love is not a love of indifference, an indiscriminate, immoral affection. It is a love of choice and predilection – “If any man love me,” said Jesus, “my Father will love him.” Is not the condition reasonable, – and the inference inevitable? The Father cannot grant His grace to those who have seen and hated Him in His Son and image. By that hatred they refuse His grace, and cast it from them.

On the other hand, a sincere love to the Lord Jesus Christ opens the heart to all the rich and purifying influences of Divine grace. The sinful woman, stained with false and foul love, who washed the Saviour’s feet with her tears, attained in that act to a height of purity undreamed of by the virtuous Pharisee. This new and holy flame burns out impure passion from the soul: it kindles lofty thoughts; it makes crooked natures straight, and timid and weak natures brave and strong. “To them that love God, we know, all things work together for good.” To them that love Christ, all things contribute blessing; all conditions and events of life become means of grace. If we love Christ, we shall love His people, – the Church, the bride of Christ from whom He will never be parted in our thoughts. If we love Christ, we shall love the work He has laid upon us, and the word He has taught us, and the sacramental pledges He has given us in remembrance of Him and assurance of His coming. If we love Him, we shall “keep His commandments,” and He will keep His promise to send us the “other Helper, to be with us for ever, even the Spirit of truth.” The gift of the Holy Spirit is the all-sufficiency of grace.185 Here is the innermost sanctuary of our religion, the fountain and beginning of the soul’s eternal life, – in the love which joins it to the Lord in one spirit.

In incorruption is the last and sealing word of this letter, which we have been so long studying together. It “stands as the crown and climax of this glorious epistle” (Alford). Like so many other words of the epistle, at first sight its interpretation is not clear. The apostle has used the term in several other passages, as synonymous with immortality186 and denoting the state of the blessed after the resurrection, when they will stand before God complete in body and in spirit, with all that is mortal in them swallowed up of life – “raised in incorruption.” But there is nothing in this context to lead up to the idea of personal, bodily immortality. Those who construe the apostle’s words in this sense, place a comma before the final clause and treat it as a qualification of the main predicate of the sentence: “Grace be with all them that love our Lord, – grace [culminating] in incorruption” – or in other words, “grace crowned with glory!” But it must be admitted that this is somewhat strained.

The rendering of our ordinary version, “in sincerity” (in the Revised rendering, “uncorruptness”), gives an ethical sense to the word that is scarcely borne out by usage. It is a different, though kindred expression that St Paul employs to express “uncorruptness” in Titus ii. 7.187

It appears to us that the term “incorruption,” in its ordinary significance, applies fitly to the believer’s love for the Lord, when the word is read in accordance with the symbolism of the epistle. This love is the life of the body of Christ. In it lies the Church’s immortality. The gates of death prevail not against her, rooted and grounded as she is in love to the risen and immortal Christ. “May that love be maintained,” the apostle says, “in its deathless power. Let it be an unspoilt and unwasting love.”

Of earthly love we often say with sadness: —

“Space is against thee: it can part!Time is against thee: it can chill!”

Not so with the love of Christ. Neither death nor life parts the soul from Him. Our love to the Lord Jesus Christ seats us with Him in the heavenly places, – above the realm of decay, above this wasting flesh and perishing world.

1

The translation given in this volume is based upon the Revised Version, but deviates from it in some particulars. These deviations will be explained in the exposition.

2

The case against authenticity is ably stated in Dr. S. Davidson’s Introduction to the N. T.; see also Baur’s Paul, Pfleiderer’s Paulinism, Hilgenfeld’s Einleitung, Hatch’s article on “Paul” in the Encyclopædia Britannica. The case for the defence may be found in Weiss’, Salmon’s, Bleek’s, or Dods’ N. T. Introduction– the last brief, but to the point; in Reuss’ History of the N. T.; Milligan’s article on “Ephesians” in Encycl. Brit.; Gloag’s Introduction to the Pauline Epp.; Meyer’s, or Beet’s, or Eadie’s Commentary; Sabatier’s The Apostle Paul.

3

Rom. xi. 16–24; Acts xiii. 26; Gal. iii. 7, 14.

4

Gal. iii. 10–13; 2 Cor. v. 20, 21, etc.

5

Gal. ii. 20; 1 Cor. vi. 17.

6

See ch. i. 9–13, ii. 11–22, iii. 5–11, iv. 1–16, v. 23–32.

7

Gal ii. 20; Eph. v. 25.

8

Rom. i. 16; Eph. ii. 17–20.

9

1 Tim. iii. 15, 16; 2 Tim. ii. 20, 21.

10

Eph. iii. 21, v. 32.

11

Kritik d. Epheser-u. Kolosserbriefe auf Grund einer Analyse ihres Verwandtschaftsverhältnisses (Leipzig, 1872). A work more subtle and scientific, more replete with learning, and yet more unconvincing than this of Holtzmann, we do not know.

Von Soden, the latest interpreter of this school and Holtzmann’s collaborateur in the new Hand-Commentar, accepts Colossians in its integrity as the work of Paul, retracting previous doubts on the subject. Ephesians he believes to have been written by a Jewish disciple of Paul in his name, about the end of the first century.

12

Matt. xvi. 15–18; John xvii. 10: I am glorified in them.

13

See his Saint Paul, Introduction, pp. xii.–xxiii.

14

See Col. ii. 15, 18, 20–23.

15

E.g., in Rom. i. 1–7, viii. 28–30, xi. 33–36, xvi. 25–27.

16

See the Winer-Moulton N. T. Grammar, p. 709: “It is in writers of great mental vivacity – more taken up with the thought than with the mode of its expression – that we may expect to find anacolutha most frequently. Hence they are especially numerous in the epistolary style of the apostle Paul.”

17

Eph. iii. 1; Phil. i. 13; Philem. 9.

18

Ch. i. 15, iv. 20, 21.

19

Col. i. 4, ii. 1; Rom. xv. 15, 16.

20

“My brethren” in ch. vi. 10 is an insertion of the copyists. Even the closing benediction, ch. vi. 23, 24, is in the third person– a thing unexampled in St Paul’s epistles.

21

Ch. vi. 21, 22; Col. iv. 7–9.

22

Compare Maclaren on Colossians and Philemon, p. 406, in this series.

23

Τοῖς ἁγίοις τοῖς οὖσιν … καὶ πιστοῖς ἐν Χριστῳ Ἰησοῦ. The interposition of the heterogeneous attributive between ἁγίοις and πιστοῖς is harsh and improbable – not to say, with Hofmann, “quite incredible.” The two latest German commentaries to hand, that of Beck and of von Soden (in the Hand-Commentar), interpreters of opposite schools, agree with Hofmann in rejecting the local adjunct and regarding πιστοῖς as the complement of τοῖς οὖσιν.

24

Origen, in his fanciful way, makes of τοῖς οὖσιν a predicate by itself: “the saints who are,” who possess real being like God Himself (Exod. iii. 14) – “called from non-existence into existence.” He compares 1 Cor. i. 28.

25

See, e. g., ver. 18, ii. 19, iii. 18, iv. 12, v. 3.

26

Ch. ii. 7, iii. 5, 21; Col. i. 26.

27

Vv. 13, 14; Rom. viii. 2–6, 16; 1 Cor. ii. 12; Gal v. 16, 22–25.

28

εἰς αὐτόν, for Him; not αὐτῳ, to Him.

29

Ch. v. 25–27; Col. i. 27–29; Jude 24.

30

On sonship, see Chapters XV.–XVII. and XIX. in The Epistle to the Galatians (Expositor’s Bible).

31

From a valuable and suggestive paper by W. E. Ball, LL.D., on “St Paul and the Roman Law,” in the Contemporary Review, August 1891.

32

See vv. 12, 13, where Jews and Gentiles, collectively, are distinguished; and ch. ii. 11, 12, iii. 2–6, 21, iv. 4, 5, v. 25–27.

33

The arrangement above made of the lines of this intricate passage is designed to guide the eye to its elucidation. Our disposition of the verses has not been determined by any preconceived interpretation, but by the parallelism of expression and cadences of phrase. The rhythmical structure of the piece, it seems to us, supplies the key to its explanation, and reduces to order its long-drawn and heaped-up relative and prepositional clauses, which are grammatically so unmanageable.

34

Χαῖρε, κεχαριτωμένη. It is impossible to reproduce in English the beautiful assonance – the play of sound and sense – in Gabriel’s greeting, as St Luke renders it.

35

See Rom. i. 16–18, iii. 19–v. 21, vi. 7, vii. 1–6, viii. 1–4, 31–34, x. 6–9; 1 Cor. xv. 3, 4, 17, 56, 57; 2 Cor. v. 18–21; Gal. ii. 14–iii. 14, vi. 12–14. The latter passages the writer has endeavoured to expound in Chapters X. to XII. and XXVIII. of his Commentary on Galatians in this series.

36

It is an error to suppose, as one sometimes hears it said, that trespasses or transgressions are a light and comparatively trivial form of sin. Both words denote, in the language of Scripture, definite offences against known law, departures from known duty. Adam’s sin was the typical “transgression” and “trespass” (Rom. v. 14, 15, etc.; comp. ii. 23; Gal. iii. 19).

37

Gal. iii. 13; 1 Cor. vi. 19, 20.

38

See The Evangelical Revival, and other Sermons, pp. 149–170, on “The Forgiveness of Sins.”

39

Bishop Ellicott, who advocates the latter rendering, objects to Meyer’s interpretation that it is “doubtful in point of usage.” Pace tanti viri, we must retort this objection upon the new translation. To obtain by lot, to have (a thing) allotted to one, is the meaning regularly given to κληροῦσθαι in the classical dictionaries; and in O.T. usage the lot (κλῆρος) becomes the inheritance (the thing allotted). The verb is repeatedly used by Philo with the meaning to obtain, or receive an inheritance; whereas there seems to be no real parallel to the other rendering. It is true that κληροῦσθαι in the sense of the A.V. requires an object; but that is virtually supplied by ἐν ᾧ: “we had our inheritance allotted in Christ.” Comp. Col. i. 12, “the lot of the saints in the light,” which signifies not the locality, but the nature and content of the saints’ heritage.

40

See Gal. iii. 22 – iv. 7; and Chapters XV. – XVII. in the Expositor’s Bible (Galatians), on Sonship and Inheritance in St Paul.

41

Compare Acts xxvi. 18, which also speaks to this association of ideas in St Paul’s mind, with vers. 4, 5, 7, and 11 in this chapter.

42

Vv. 8, 9, ch. iii. 4, 5; comp. Col. ii. 2, 3; 1 Cor. ii. 6–9.

43

“The fulness of the time,” Gal. iv. 4; “in due season,” Rom. v. 6; “in its own times,” 1 Tim. ii. 6. These are all synonymous expressions for the Messianic era. Comp. Heb. i. 2, ix. 26; 1 Pet. i. 20.

44

Ch. iii. 8, 9; Col. i. 25; 1 Cor. iv. 1; 1 Tim. i. 4, i. 7; 2 Tim. i. 9–11; and especially Rom. xvi. 25, 26.

45

Comp. ch. v. 5; 1 Cor. xv. 24–28; Phil. ii. 9–12; Heb. ii. 8; Rev. i. 5, xi. 15, xvii. 14; Dan. vii. 13, 14.

46

One wonders that our Revisers, so attentive to all points of Greek idiom, did not think it worth while to discriminate between Christ and the Christ in such passages as this. In Ephesians this distinction is especially conspicuous and significant. See vv. 12, 20 iii. 17, iv. 20, v. 23; similarly in 1 Cor. xv. 22; Rom. xv. 3.

47

Exod. xix. 3–6; Deut. iv. 20, 21; 1 Kings viii. 51, 53; Ps. lxxviii. 71, etc. With the above comp. Gen. xv. 8; Numb. xviii. 20; Jos. xiii. 33; Ps. xvi. 5.

48

Ch. iv. 30. The “seal” of 2 Tim. ii. 19 has both the first and third of these meanings.

49

Rom. iv. 11; 1 Cor. ix. 2; John iii. 33, vi. 27.

50

Matt. xxvii. 66; Rev. v. 1, etc.

51

Ch. ii. 11; comp. Rom. i. 28, 29; Gal. v, 5, 6; Phil. iii. 2, 3.

52

Comp. Rom. viii. 9–11; 2 Cor. v. 1–5.

53

Acts i. 4, ii. 33, 39, xiii. 32, xxvi. 6; Rom. iv. 13–20; Gal. iii. 14–29.

54

See Rom. x. 14–18; Gal. iii. 2, 5; Col. i. 6, 23; 1 Thess. ii. 13; 2 Tim. i. 13.

55

1 Tim. ii. 1–7, iv. 10; Tit. ii. 11.

56

1 Thess. v. 9; 2 Thess. ii. 14; Heb. x. 39.

57

Comp. Chapter VIII.

58

For the former usage see, along with ver. 7 and ch. ii. 5, 8; Rom. iii, 24, x. 9; Titus iii. 5; 2 Tim. i. 9; Col. i. 14; Heb. ix. 15; for the latter, ch. iv. 30; Luke xxi. 28; Rom. v. 9, 10, viii. 23; Phil. ii. 12; 1 Thess. v. 8, 9; 2 Tim. ii. 10, iv. 18. It may be doubted whether St Paul ever uses these terms to denote present salvation or redemption without the final issue being also in his thoughts. Perhaps he would have called the redemption of ver. 7, in contrast with that of Rom. viii. 23, “the redemption of the spirit.”

59

Hosea xiii. 14; Isa. xxv. 8.

60

The same incoherence occurs in Gal. iv. 5–7: “that we might receive the adoption of sons. And because ye are sons, God sent forth the Spirit of His Son into our hearts.”

61

See Westcott and Hort’s New Testament in Greek, vol. ii., pp. 124, 125.

62

Dr. Beet abides by the critical text. He solves the difficulty by giving πίστις a double sense: “the faith among you in the Lord Jesus, and the faithfulness towards all the saints.” See his Commentary on Ephesians, etc., pp. 284–6.

63

In 1 Thess. i. 7–9; 2 Thess. i. 4, the same thought enters into Paul’s thanksgiving; comp. 2 Cor. ix. 2.

64

This is the emphatic ἐπιγνῶσις, so frequent in the later epistles. See Lightfoot’s note on Col. i. 9; or Cremer’s Lexicon to N.T. Greek.

65

See ch. iii. 3–5, iv. 11; and comp. 1 Cor. xiv. 26–40, etc.

66

Adolphe Monod: Explication de l’épître de S. Paul aux Éphésiens. A deeply spiritual and suggestive Commentary.

67

In this amplitude of expression there is no idle heaping up of words. The four synonyms for power have each a distinct force in the sentence. Δύναμις is power in general, as that which is able to effect some purpose; ἐνέργεια is energy, power in effective action and operation; κράτος is might, mastery, sovereign power, – in the New Testament used chiefly of the power of God; ἰσχύς is force, strength, power resident in some person and belonging to him. This is the order in which the words follow each other. Compare vi. 10 in the Greek.