St. Paul's Epistle to the Ephesians Part 10

[9] Hil. _de Trin._ viii. 7-9. The last sentence is condensed.

[10] Vol. i. p. 317 (Longmans, 1895).

[11] 1 Thess. iv. 14.

[12] _In Ps._ lvi. i.

[13] It is one very noticeable feature of the recent Encyclical of Leo XIII on the Unity of the Church ('satis cognitum') that it a.s.sumes that 'only a despotic monarch can secure to any society unity and strength.'

[14] Romans x. 9.

[15] For example, see Gal. i. 6-9.

[16] Acts xv. 23-29.

[17] Romans xiv. 56; cf. Phil. iii. 15-16.

[18] Cf. Hort, _Ecclesia_, p. 169, who brings out that _all_ members of the local churches, better and worse, are regarded as members of the universal Church. 'There is no evidence that St. Paul regarded membership of the universal Church as invisible and exclusively spiritual, and shared by only a limited number of the members of the external Ecclesiae.' See also app. note E, p. 267.

[19] 1 Cor. xii. 13.

[20] Acts xix. 1-7.

[21] 1 Cor. x. 16, 17.

[22] See app. note E, p. 269.

[23] In ii. 20 and iii. 5, 'Apostles and prophets' are spoken of together almost as one cla.s.s included under one definite article. And of course the apostle Paul remained also, what he is first called, a prophet (Acts xiii. i). Apostles were also prophets; but not all prophets were apostles. They can be, therefore, grouped apart as they are here (iv. 11).

[24] 2 Tim. iv. 5.

[25] 1 Tim. iv. 14; 2 Tim. i. 6.

[26] Acts xiv. 23. This is interpreted by the phrase (Acts xx. 28) 'The Holy Ghost made you bishops.' Cf. t.i.tus i. 5, 'I left thee ... to appoint elders in every city.... For the bishop must be blameless.' I a.s.sume here the _practical_ ident.i.ty of bishops and presbyters, as Acts xx. 28, t.i.t. i. 5-7, Acts xiv. 23 (with Phil. i. 1) seem to require.

But 'the presbyters' or the 'presbyterate' was the more general name for the governing body of a church, and an apostle can therefore call himself a presbyter or include himself in the presbyterate (1 Peter v.

1; 1 Tim. iv. 14), whereas he would hardly call himself a 'bishop.'

{172}

DIVISION II. CHAPTERS IV. 17-VI. 24.

_Doctrine and conduct._

[Sidenote: _Doctrine and conduct_]

Here the apostle, with a final 'therefore,' resuming the 'therefore' of IV. i, pa.s.ses without further delay to the entirely practical portion of the epistle.

These 'therefores' are characteristic of St. Paul. They indicate his deep sense of the vital and necessary connexion between the Christian mode of living and the doctrines of Christian belief. Christian belief is a mould fashioning human conduct by a constant and uniform pressure into a characteristic type, or a set of forces urging it along certain lines of movement. Thus when some point of Christian belief has been expounded there follows a 'therefore' indicating the inevitable moral consequence of such belief where it is intelligently and voluntarily held. Of course the consequence does not follow of mechanical necessity. The doctrine acts by an appeal to the will. 'I beseech you {173} therefore, brethren, by the mercies of G.o.d'--so St. Paul makes his appeal to the Romans, when he had given them his great exposition of the doctrines of grace and justification[1]. When he has expounded the doctrine of the resurrection to the Corinthians[2], he concludes--'_Therefore_, my beloved brethren, be ye stedfast,' &c. The doctrine of the Epistle to the Colossians leads to two conclusions: 'mortify _therefore_' and 'put on _therefore_, as G.o.d's elect, holy and beloved, a heart of compa.s.sion[3].' The Epistle to the Hebrews contains similar moral appeals based on dogmatic statements.

'_Therefore_ let us give the more earnest heed.' 'Having _therefore_, brethren, boldness by the blood of Jesus, let us draw near with a true heart.' '_Therefore_ let us lay aside every weight[4].' These 'therefores,' I say, indicate a fundamental characteristic of Christianity: it is a manner of living based upon a disclosure of divine truth about G.o.d and His will, about man's nature and his sin, about G.o.d's redemptive action and its methods and intentions.

Among ourselves to-day we hear frequently enough disparaging reference to theological {174} doctrine whether as a subject for study or for definite instruction. Theological dogmas are alluded to as things remote from the ordinary concerns of men and a.s.sociated with the jarring interests of different religious bodies or of their clergy, with 'denominationalism' or 'sacerdotalism[5].' This idea has been due in great measure no doubt to faults in theologians and priests. But it is none the less absurd, when it is seriously considered. If those whose lives have given the most shining examples of practical Christianity in all ages were cross-questioned, it would be found that the overwhelming majority would, in all simplicity, attribute what was good in their life to their definite beliefs. Indeed, it is self evident that it must have a practically vast effect on a man's conduct whether, for instance, he really believes that his own and other men's lives, after some seventy years of probation in this world, pa.s.s under divine judgement, only to enter into new and eternal conditions where they will inevitably reap the fruits of their previous careers. {175} It must make a vital difference whether he believes that the world is the expression of blind force or of the will of a living, loving, G.o.d; whether or no he believes that G.o.d personally cares for each individual: whether or no he believes that G.o.d's interest in the world was such as to move Him to redeem it, by the sacrifice of Himself, from the tyranny of sin: whether he believes in divine forgiveness and G.o.d's indwelling by His Spirit: whether he believes in a divine brotherhood and divine means of grace in a household of G.o.d in the world. In fact, if the practical ethics of India and China, or the Turkish Empire and Morocco, are considered side by side with those of Christian Europe, it is impossible to resist the conviction that men's behaviour depends in the long run on what they believe about G.o.d.

This obvious conclusion is, in part, veiled from our eyes by two facts.

One is that logic works slowly in human life. Take a transverse section of humanity at any particular moment, and it appears a ma.s.s of inconsistencies. It might almost suggest that there is no connexion at all between belief and practice. But the same appearance is not presented by human life in its long reaches. There you see how, in the {176} slow result, an alteration of belief involves an alteration of practice. Thus to take an example: at present our social conscience about the obligations of marriage, or about personal purity, or about suicide, unsatisfactory as it may appear to be to an earnest Christian, is still saturated with Christian sentiment which is the result of a prolonged impression left by Christian doctrine. If the doctrine were to pa.s.s out of the minds of Englishmen in general, after a generation or two there would be a weakening or destruction of the corresponding sentiment, and an abolition of what is at present an obstacle to the reign of sensual or selfish desires. But it takes some generations for the effect of any weakening of belief to make itself felt.

There is another fact which veils from the eyes of people in general the real connexion between morals and doctrine. It is that it is largely mediate or indirect. The moral standard of the 'average man'

is, unconsciously, kept up by the morals of the best men and women.

For social opinion is with the majority the force which mainly influences their practice, and social opinion depends largely on leaders. 'It is when the best men cease trying that the world sinks back like lead.' Let anything {177} happen which should silence the moral effort of the best individuals, and disaster would be imminent.

But this is exactly what would be the result if the best men and women were to cease to be Christian believers. It is the highest level of our common life that would be depressed. The result all round would be indirect, but it would be widespread and disastrous.

I do not mean, or think, that this weakening of religious belief in the best men and women is occurring. I only instance its morally certain results to make apparent how the general bearing of religious beliefs on social practice is, in one way, veiled by its indirectness.

But to St. Paul all this is self-evident. He sees quite clearly that Christianity is to be a new life, a new social and ethical manifestation in the world, because Christians believe that G.o.d has made plain to them in Jesus Christ His character, nature, and redemptive purposes, and has given, by His Spirit, a practical power to their wills to correspond with the truth revealed to their intelligences and hearts.

So he proceeds from his exposition of the great doctrines of the Church of the Redemption to its practical moral consequences.

[1] Rom. xii. 1.

[2] 1 Cor. xv. 58.

[3] Col. iii. 5, 12.

[4] Heb. ii. 1; x. 19; xii. 1.

[5] An interesting expression of this sort of feeling is to be found in George Crabbe's poem, _The Library_. On the whole we must have improved since his day in our perception of the connexion of Christian doctrine with Christian practice.

{178}

DIVISION II. -- 1. CHAPTER IV. 17-24.

_Christianity a new life._

[Sidenote: _New life in Christ_]

The characteristic words of St. Paul's gospel--grace, forgiveness, mercy, liberty, justification by faith not by works--may naturally, when taken by themselves and isolated from their context, lead to a false thought of G.o.d as morally 'easy going,' and to a corrupt laxity of conduct. Such a result has shown itself within the area of modern history in the antinomianism of some Protestant bodies. But long before the Reformation St. Paul's words were 'wrested by the ignorant and unstedfast to their own destruction[1].' It was probably a misunderstanding of St. Paul's doctrine of justification by faith which called forth the protest of St. James' epistle. And indeed the traces of this tendency to pervert the gospel are apparent enough in {179} St.

Paul's own epistles. Divine grace, it was even argued, can better show its largeness if we afford it an opportunity by the abundance of our sin. 'Let us continue in sin that grace may abound.' To this monstrous suggestion St. Paul replies, in his epistle to the Romans[2], that it rests on a complete misconception. Christian faith is an introduction into Christ. Believing we are baptized into Him. This means that we are to live as He lived towards the world of sin and towards G.o.d. It means that we surrender ourselves in a spirit of glad obedience to be moulded after His pattern. If our believing does not lead to this new living, beyond all question it is a spurious thing, and none of the Christian privileges attach to it. With a similar purpose St. Paul writes here to the Asiatics--newly-made Christians, who lived in the midst of an appallingly corrupt society, and whose inherited traditions of conduct were altogether lacking in self-restraint--to warn them against possible abuses of their Christian privileges and Christian liberty.

To be a Christian is to be committed to a new life different utterly from the old life.

What was the old life? In writing to the {180} Romans St. Paul describes the life of the contemporary heathen world as having its origin in a refusal of the will to acknowledge G.o.d. 'They glorified Him not as G.o.d.' 'They refused to have G.o.d in their knowledge.' Hence a darkening of the understanding. 'They became vain in their reasonings; their senseless hearts were darkened; professing themselves to be wise they became fools.' This explains the origin and possibility of so foolish a worship as that of men and beasts.

Further, with the obscuring of the intelligence there was a perversion and emanc.i.p.ation of the pa.s.sions, resulting in all forms of lawlessness and unnatural vice. A similar description of the 'old life' St. Paul gives here. The root of evil here also appears to be in the 'heart'