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The Expositor's Bible: The Epistle to the Ephesians
The key to the designation Father of glory is in Romans vi. 4: “Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father.” In the light of this august manifestation of God’s power to save His lost sons in Christ, we are called to see light (vv. 19, 20). Its glory shines already about God’s blessed name of Father, thrice glorified in the apostle’s praise (vv. 3–14). The title is the counterpart of “the Father of compassions” in 2 Corinthians i. 3.
And now, what has the apostle to ask of the Father of men under these glorious appellations? He asks “a spirit of wisdom and revelation in the full-knowledge64 of Him, – the eyes of your heart enlightened, in order that you may know,” etc. This recalls the emphasis with which in verses 8 and 9 he set “wisdom and intelligence” amongst the first blessings bestowed by Divine grace upon the Church. It was the gift which the Asian Churches at the present juncture most needed; this is just now the burden of the apostle’s prayers for his people.
The spirit of wisdom and revelation desired will proceed from the Holy Spirit dwelling in these Gentile believers (ver. 13). But it must belong to their own spirit and direct their personal mental activity, the spirit of revelation becoming “the spirit of their mind” (iv. 23). When St Paul asks for “a spirit of wisdom and revelation,” he desires that his readers may have amongst themselves a fountain of inspiration and share in the prophetic gifts diffused through the Church.65 And “the knowledge – the full, deep knowledge of God” is the sphere “in” which this richer inspiration and spiritual wisdom are exercised and nourished. “Philosophy, taking man for its centre, says, Know thyself: only the inspired word, which proceeds from God, has been able to say, Know God.”66
The connexion of the first clause of verse 18 with the last of verse 17 is not very clear in St Paul’s Greek; there is a characteristic incoherence of structure. The continuity of thought is unmistakable. He prays that through this inspired wisdom his readers may have their reason enlightened to see the grandeur and wealth of their religion. This is a vision for “the eyes of the heart.” It is disclosed to the eye behind the eye, to the heart which is the true discerner.
“The seeing eyes
See best by the light in the heart that lies.”
Yonder is an ox grazing in the meadow on a bright summer’s day. Round him is spread the fairest landscape, – a broad stretch of herbage embroidered with flowers, the river gleaming in and out amongst the distant trees, the hills on both sides bounding the quiet valley, sunshine and shadows chasing each other as they leap from height to height. But of all this what sees the grazing ox? So much lush pasture and cool shade and clear water where his feet may plash when he has done feeding. In the same meadow there stands a poet musing, or a painter busy at his easel; and on the soul of that gifted man there descends, through eyes outwardly discerning no more than those of the beast at his side, a vision of wonder and beauty which will make all time richer. The eyes of the man’s heart are opened, and the spirit of wisdom and revelation is given him in the knowledge of God’s work in nature.
Like differences exist amongst men in regard to the things of religion. “So foolish was I and ignorant,” says the Psalmist, speaking of his former dejection and unbelief, “I was as a beast before Thee!” There shall be two men sitting side by side in the same house of prayer, at the same gate of heaven. The one sees heaven opened; he hears the eternal song; his spirit is a temple filled with the glory of God. The other sees the place and the aspect of his fellow-worshippers; he hears the music of organ and choir, and the sound of some preacher’s voice. But as for anything besides, any influence from another world, it is no more to him at that moment than is the music in the poet’s soul or the colours on the painter’s canvas to the ox that eateth grass.
It is not the strangeness and distance of Divine things alone that cause insensibility; their familiarity has the same effect. We know all this gospel so well. We have read it, listened to it, gone over its points of doctrine a hundred times. It is trite and easy to us as a worn glove. We discuss without a tremor of emotion truths the first whisper and dim promise of which once lifted men’s souls into ecstasy, or cast them down into depths of shame and bewilderment so that they forgot to eat their bread. The awe of things eternal, the mystery of our faith, the Spirit of glory and of God rest on us no longer. So there come to be, as one hears it said, gospel-hardened hearers – and gospel-hardened preachers! The eyes see – and see not; the ears hear – and hear not; the lips speak without feeling; the heart is waxen fat. This is the nemesis of grace abused. It is the result that follows by an inevitable psychological law, where outward contact with spiritual truth is not attended with an inward apprehension and response. How do we need to pray, in handling these dread themes, for a true sense and savour of Divine things, – that there may be given, and ever given afresh to us “a spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of God.”
Three things the apostle desires that his readers may see with the heart’s enlightened eyes: the hope to which God calls them, the wealth that He possesses in them, and the power which He is prepared to exert upon them as believing men.
I. What, then, is our hope in God? What is the ideal of our faith? For what purpose has God called us into the fellowship of His Son? What is our religion going to do for us and to make of us?
It will bring us safe home to heaven. It will deliver us from the present evil world, and preserve us unto Christ’s heavenly kingdom. God forbid that we should make light of “the hope laid up for us in the heavens,” or cast it aside. It is an anchor of the soul, both sure and steadfast. But is it the hope of our calling? Is this what St Paul here chiefly signifies? We are very sure that it is not. But it is the one thing which stands for the hope of the gospel in many minds. “We trust that our sins are forgiven: we hope that we shall get to heaven!” The experience of how many Christian believers begins and ends there. We make of our religion a harbour of refuge, a soothing anodyne, an escape from the anguish of guilt and the fear of death; not a life-vocation, a grand pursuit. The definition we have quoted may suffice for the beginning and the end; but we need something to fill out that formula, to give body and substance, meaning and movement to the life of faith.
Let the apostle tell us what he regarded, for himself, as the end of religion, what was the object of his ambition and pursuit. “One thing I do,” he writes to the Philippians, opening to them all his heart, – “One thing I do. I press towards the mark for the prize of my high calling of God in Christ Jesus.” And what, pray, was that mark? – “that I may gain Christ and be found in Him! – that I may know Him, and the power of His resurrection and the fellowship of His sufferings, being conformed to His death, if by any means I may attain unto the final resurrection from the dead.” Yes, Paul hopes for heaven; but he hopes for something else first, and most. It is through Christ that he sees heaven. To know Christ, to love Christ, to serve Christ, to follow Christ, to be like Christ, to be with Christ for ever! – that is what St Paul lived for. Whatever aim he pursues or affection he cherishes, Christ lies in it and reaches beyond it. In doing or in suffering, in his intellect and his heart, in his thoughts for himself or for others, Christ is all things to him and in all. When life is thus filled with Christ, heaven becomes, as one may say, a mere circumstance, and death but an incident upon the way, – in the soul’s everlasting pursuit of Christ.
Behold, then, brethren, the hope of our calling. God could not call us to any destiny less or lower than this. It would have been unworthy of Him, – and may we not say, unworthy of ourselves, if we are in truth His sons? From eternity the Father of spirits has predestined you and me to be holy and without blemish before Him, – in a word, to be conformed to the image of His Son. Every other hope is dross compared to this.
II. Another vision for the heart’s eyes, still more amazing than that we have seen: “what is,” St Paul writes, “the riches of the glory of God’s inheritance in the saints.”
We saw, in considering the eleventh and fourteenth verses, how the apostle, in characteristic fashion, plays upon the double aspect of the inheritance, regarding it now as the heritage of the saints in God and again as His heritage in them. The former side of this relationship was indicated in the “hope of the Divine calling,” – which we live and strive for as it is promised us by God; and the latter comes out, by way of contrast, in this second clause. Verse 18 repeats in another way the antithesis of verse 14 between our inheritance and God’s acquisition. We must understand that God sets great store by us His human children, and counts Himself rich in our affection and our service. How deeply it must affect us to know this, and to see the glory that in God’s eyes belongs to His possession in believing men.
What presumption is all this, some one says. How preposterous to imagine that the Maker of the worlds interests Himself in atoms like ourselves, – in the ephemera of this insignificant planet! But moral magnitudes are not to be measured by a foot-rule. The mind which can traverse the immensities of space and hold them in its grasp, transcends the things it counts and weighs. As it is amongst earthly powers, so the law may hold betwixt sphere and sphere in the system of worlds, in the relations of bodies terrestrial and celestial to each other, that “God has chosen the weak things to put to shame the mighty, and the things that are not to bring to nought the things that are.” Through the Church He is “making known to the potentates in the heavenly places His manifold wisdom” (iii, 10). The lowly can sing evermore with Mary in the Magnificat: “He that is mighty hath magnified me.” If it be true that God spared not His Son for our salvation and has sealed us with the seal of His Spirit, if He chose us before the world’s foundation to be His saints, He must set upon those saints an infinite value. We may despise ourselves; but He thinks great things of us.
And is this, after all, so hard to understand? If the alternative were put to some owner of wide lands and houses full of treasure: “Now, you must lose that fine estate, or see your own son lost and ruined! You must part with a hundred thousand pounds – or with your best friend!” there could be no doubt in such a case what the choice would be of a man of sense and worth, one who sees with the eyes of the heart. Shall we think less nobly of God than of a right-minded man amongst ourselves? – Suppose, again, that one of our great cities were so full of wealth that the poorest were housed in palaces and fared sumptuously every day, though its citizens were profligates and thieves and cowards! What would its opulence and luxury be worth? Is it not evident that character is the only possession of intrinsic value, and that this alone gives worth and weight to other properties? “The saints that are in the earth and the excellent” are earth’s riches.
So far as we can judge of His ways, the great God who made us cares comparatively little about the upholstery and machinery of the universe; but He cares immensely about men, about the character and destiny of men. There is nothing in all that physical science discloses for God to love, nothing kindred to Himself. “Hast thou considered my servant Job?” the Hebrew poet pictures Him saying before heaven and hell! – “Hast thou considered my servant Job? – a perfect man and upright: there is none like him in the earth.” How proud God is of a man like that, in a world like this. Who can tell the value that the Father of glory sets upon the tried fidelity of His humblest servant here on earth; the intensity with which He reciprocates the confidence of one timid, trembling human heart, or the simple reverence of one little child that lisps His awful name? “He taketh pleasure in them that fear Him, in those that hope in His mercy!” Beneath His feet all the worlds lie spread in their starry splendour, our sun with its train of planets no more than one glimmering spot of light amongst ten thousand. But amidst this magnificence, what is the sight that wins His tender fatherly regard? “To that man will I look, that is poor and of a contrite spirit, and that trembles at my word.” Thus saith the High and Lofty One that inhabiteth eternity. The Creator rejoices in His works as at the beginning, the Lord of heaven and earth in His dominion. But these are not His “inheritance.” That is in the love of His children, in the character and number of His saints. We are to be the praise of His glory.
Let us learn, then, to respect ourselves. Let us not take the world’s tinsel for wealth, and spend our time, like the man in Bunyan’s dream, scraping with “the muck-rake” while the crown of life shines above our head. The riches of a Church – nay, of any human community – lies not in its moneyed resources, but in the men and women that compose it, in their godlike attributes of mind and heart, in their knowledge, their zeal, their love to God and man, in the purity, the gentleness, the truthfulness and courage and fidelity that are found amongst them. These are the qualities which give distinction to human life, and are beautiful in the eyes of God and holy angels. “Man that is in honour and understandeth not, is like the beasts that perish.”
III. One thing more we need to understand, or what we have seen already will be of little practical avail. We may see glorious visions, we may cherish high aspirations; and they may prove to be but the dreams of vanity. Nay, it is conceivable that God Himself might have wealth invested in our nature, a treasure beyond price, shipwrecked and sunk irrecoverably through our sin. What means exist for realizing this inheritance? what power is there at work to recover these forfeited hopes, and that glory of God of which we have come so miserably short?
The answer lies in the apostle’s words: “That ye may know what is the exceeding greatness of His power toward us that believe,” – a power measured by “the energy of the might of His strength67 which He wrought in the Christ, when He raised Him from the dead and set Him at His right hand in the heavenly places.” This is the power that we have to count upon, the force that is yoked to the world’s salvation and is at the service of our faith. Its energy has turned the tide and reversed the stream of nature – in the person of Jesus Christ and in the course of human history. It has changed death to life. Above all, it certifies the forgiveness of sin and releases us from its liabilities; it transforms the law of sin and death into the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus.
We preachers hear it said sometimes: “You live in a speculative world. Your doctrines are ideal and visionary, – altogether too high for men as they are and the world as we find it. Human nature and experience, the coarse realities of life are all against you.”
What would our objectors have said at the grave-side of Jesus? “The beautiful dreamer, the sublime idealist! He was too good for a world such as ours. It was sure to end like this. His ideas of life were utterly impracticable.” So they would have moralized. “And the good prophet talked – strangest fanaticism of all – of rising again on the third day! One thing at least we know, that the dead are dead and gone from us. No, we shall never see Jesus or His like again. Purity cannot live in this infected air. The grave ends all hope for men.” But, despite human nature and human experience, He has risen again, He lives for ever! That is the apostle’s message and testimony to the world. For those “who believe” it, all things are possible. A life is within our reach that seemed far off as earth from heaven. You may become a perfect saint.
From His open grave Christ breathed on His disciples, and through them on all mankind, the Holy Spirit. This is the efficient cause of Christianity, – the Spirit that raised Jesus our Lord from the dead. The limit to its efficacy lies in the defects of our faith, in our failure to comprehend what God gave us in His Son. Is anything now too hard for the Lord? Shall anything be called impossible, in the line of God’s promise and man’s spiritual need? Can we put an arrest upon the working of this mysterious force, upon the Spirit of the new life, and say to it: Thus far shalt thou go, and no farther?
Look at Jesus where He was – the poor, tortured, wounded body, slain by our sins, lying cold and still in Joseph’s grave: then lift up your eyes and see Him where He is, – enthroned in the worship and wonder of heaven! Measure by that distance, by the sweep and lift of that almighty Arm, the strength of the forces engaged to your salvation, the might of the powers at work through the ages for the redemption of humanity.
THE DOCTRINE
Ύψηλῶν σφόδρα γέμει τῶν νοημάτων καὶ ὑπερόγκων. Ἃ γὰρ μηδαμοῦ σχέδον ἐφθέγξατο, ταῦτα ἐνταῦθά φησιν.
John Chrysostom: In epistolam ad Ephesios.CHAPTER VI.
WHAT GOD WROUGHT IN THE CHRIST
“He raised Him from the dead, and made Him to sit at His right hand in the heavenly places, far above all rule, and authority, and power, and dominion, and every name that is named, not only in this world, but also in that which is to come: and He put all things in subjection under His feet, and Him He gave – the head over all things – to the Church which is His body, – the fulness of Him that filleth all in all.” – Eph. i. 20–23.
The division that we make at verse 20, marking off at this point the commencement of the Doctrine of the epistle, may appear somewhat forced. The great doxology of the first half of the chapter is intensely theological; and the prayer which follows it, like that of the letter to the Colossians, melts into doctrine imperceptibly. The apostle teaches upon his knees. The things he has to tell his readers, and the things he has asked on their behalf from God, are to a great extent the same. Still the writer’s attitude in the second chapter is manifestly that of teaching; and his doctrine there is so directly based upon the concluding sentences of his prayer, that it is necessary for logical arrangement to place these verses within the doctrinal section of the epistle.
The resurrection of Christ made men sensible that a new force of life had come into the world, of incalculable potency. This power was in existence before. In prelusive ways, it has wrought in the world from its foundation, and since the fall of man. By the incarnation of the Son of God it took possession of human flesh; by His sacrificial death it won its decisive triumph. But the virtue of these acts of Divine grace lay in their hiding of power, in the self-abnegation of the Son of God who emptied Himself and took a servant’s form, and became obedient unto death.
With what a rebound did the “energy of the might of God’s strength” put forth itself in Him, when once this sacrifice was accomplished! Even His disciples who had seen Jesus still the tempest and feed the multitude from a handful of bread and call back the spirit to its mortal frame, had not dreamed of the might of Godhead latent in Him, until they beheld Him risen from the dead. He had promised this in words; but they understood His words only when they saw the fact, when He actually stood before them “alive after His passion.” The scene of Calvary – the cruel sufferings of their Master, His helpless ignominy and abandonment by God, the malignant triumph of his enemies – gave to this revelation an effect beyond measure astonishing and profound in its impression. From the stupor of grief and despair they were raised to a boundless hope, as Jesus rose from the death of the cross to glorious life and Godhead.
Of the same nature was the effect produced by His manifestation to Paul himself. The Nazarene prophet known to Saul by report as an attractive teacher and worker of miracles, had made enormous pretensions, blasphemous if they were not true. He put Himself forward as the Messiah and the very Son of God! But when brought to the test, His power utterly failed. God disowned and forsook Him; and He “was crucified of weakness.” His followers declared, indeed, that He had returned from the grave. But who could believe them, a handful of Galilean enthusiasts, desperately clinging to the name of their disgraced leader! If He has risen, why does He not show Himself to others? Who can accept a crucified Messiah? The new faith is a madness, and an insult to our common Judaism! Such were Saul’s former thoughts of the Christ. But when his challenge was met and the Risen One confronted him in the way to Damascus, when from that Form of insufferable glory there came a voice saying, “I am Jesus, whom thou persecutest!” it was enough. Instantly the conviction penetrated his soul, “He liveth by the power of God.” Saul’s previous reasonings against the Messiahship of Jesus by the same rigorous logic were now turned into arguments for Him.
It is “the Christ,” let us observe, in whom God “wrought raising Him from the dead”: the Christ of Jewish hope (ver. 12), the centre and sum of the Divine counsel for the world (ver. 10),68 the Christ whom in that moment never to be forgotten the humbled Saul recognized in the crucified Nazarene.
The demonstration of the power of Christianity Paul had found in the resurrection of Jesus Christ. The power which raised Him from the dead is the working energy of our faith. Let us see what this mysterious power wrought in the Redeemer Himself; and then we will consider how it bears upon us. There are two steps indicated in Christ’s exaltation: He was raised from the death of the cross to new life amongst men; and again from the world of men He was raised to the throne of God in heaven. In the enthronement of Jesus Christ at the Father’s right hand, verses 22, 23 further distinguish two separate acts: there was conferred on Him a universal Lordship; and He was made specifically Head of the Church, being given to her for her Lord and Life, He who contains the fulness of the Godhead. Such is the line of thought marked out for us.
I. God raised the Christ from the dead.
This assertion is the corner-stone of St Paul’s life and doctrine, and of the existence of Christendom. Did the event really take place? There were Christians at Corinth who affirmed, “There is no resurrection of the dead.” And there are followers of Jesus now who with deep sadness confess, like the author of Obermann once more:
“Now He is dead! Far hence He liesIn the lorn Syrian town;And on His grave, with shining eyes,The Syrian stars look down.”If we are driven to this surrender, compelled to think that it was an apparition, a creation of their own passionate longing and heated fancy that the disciples saw and conversed with during those forty days, an apparition sprung from his fevered remorse that arrested Saul on the Damascus road – if we no longer believe in Jesus and the resurrection, it is in vain that we still call ourselves Christians. The foundation of the Christian creed is struck away from under our feet. Its spell is broken; its energy is gone.
Individual men may and do continue to believe in Christ, with no faith in the supernatural, men who are sceptics in regard to His resurrection and miracles. They believe in Himself, they say, not in His legendary wonders; in His character and teaching, in His beneficent influence – in the spiritual Christ, whom no physical marvel can exalt above His intrinsic greatness. And such trust in Him, where it is sincere, He accepts for all that it is worth, from the believer’s heart. But this is not the faith that saved Paul, and built the Church. It is not the faith which will save the world. It is the faith of compromise and transition, the faith of those whose conscience and heart cling to Christ while their reason gives its verdict against Him. Such belief may hold good for the individuals who profess it; but it must die with them. No skill of reasoning or grace of sentiment will for long conceal its inconsistency. The plain, blunt sense of mankind will decide again, as it has done already, that Jesus Christ was either a blasphemer, or He was the Son of the eternal God; either He rose from the dead in very truth, or His religion is a fable. Christianity is not bound up with the infallibility of the Church, whether in Pope or Councils, nor with the inerrancy of the letter of Scripture: it stands or falls with the reality of the facts of the gospel, with the risen life of Christ and His presence in the Spirit amongst men.
