St. Paul's Epistle to the Ephesians Part 8

3. St. Paul conceives his function to be to 'make men see,' or 'bring into the light' a long hidden secret of G.o.d now in part disclosed to the apostles, and to be by them disclosed to the world--in part, for its contents are still 'unsearchable' in their depth and in the 'manifoldness' of divine wisdom which they imply. But what is disclosed is no afterthought of G.o.d. It is an eternal purpose; and it is all of a piece with the original idea of creation: it is a 'secret ... hidden in G.o.d who created all things.' Redemption in fact interprets to angels and men what G.o.d's purpose in creation originally was. To minister to this disclosure is enough for any {133} man. It makes all St. Paul's tribulations only such as it is worth while to bear; and the Gentiles, in their turn, should find their glory in his tribulations as an evidence of how much he thought it worth while to suffer in what is their cause no less truly than his.

[Sidenote: St. Paul's second prayer]

Here, as in the first chapter, the consideration of the glory, and consequently the difficulty, of the gospel which St. Paul has to deliver leads him off--just at the point where he seems to be resuming the uncompleted sentence with which he began--into a prayer that the Asiatic Christians may have strength given them to apprehend the wealth of their spiritual position and opportunity. He invokes G.o.d as the universal 'father (_pater_) from whom every family (_patria_)--every company of men knit together by common relation to one father--is named,' because this has direct reference to his purpose. All men recognize family, or blood relations and obligations. St. Paul reminds them that every conceivable society on earth or in heaven which is bound by the ties of a common fatherhood, derives its 'name' and therefore its significance from a larger relationship, an all-embracing relationship of which these lower ones are but shadows--the relationship to the one Father: {134} and he calls upon the one Father to strengthen men to transcend all narrownesses of family or blood, and rise to realize their position in the great family, the great brotherhood under the one Father. To do this a strengthening of the inner man, or inner life, by the divine Spirit is indeed needed.

Christ must be not only possessed by Christians, but realized. He must dwell in their hearts by the realizing power of an active personal faith. Where this is so--where faith is vigorous--there life must be rooted and founded on love. Christian faith involves love. For it is faith in a Father and His Son and His Spirit; and love, and nothing but love, is the gift of the Father in the Son by the Spirit. This love then will strengthen them, in the fellowship of the saints or consecrated ones altogether, to apprehend G.o.d's work and purpose in all its dimensions--breadth and length and depth and height--and to know Christ's love (which yet pa.s.ses knowledge and remains unknowable), and to find their whole being, not as separate individuals, but as one body praying and working and thinking together, expanded to take in the fulness of what G.o.d is, the full complement of the divine life. To be thus enlightened and enlarged is what St. Paul {135} understands by being a 'good catholic': that is what he prays all these Asiatic Christians may become.

And his prayer pa.s.ses into a doxology--an ascription of glory to G.o.d because He is able to realize even what pa.s.ses our power to conceive or to ask for; and that without doing more for us than He has already pledged Himself to do and actually begun to accomplish in us. And this glory he would have eternally ascribed to G.o.d in the Church which lives by His life; and also (where alone G.o.d can never fail of His full rights) in Him in whom alone G.o.d's life is perfectly realized, and worship perfectly rendered Him under conditions of manhood, in Jesus the Christ.

For this cause I bow my knees unto the Father, from whom every family in heaven and on earth is named, that he would grant you, according to the riches of his glory, that ye may be strengthened with power through his Spirit in the inward man; that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith; to the end that ye, being rooted and grounded in love, may be strong to apprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ which pa.s.seth knowledge, that ye may be filled unto all the fulness of G.o.d.

Now unto him that is able to do exceeding abundantly above all that we ask or think, according to the power that worketh in us, unto him _be_ the glory in the {136} church and in Christ Jesus unto all generations for ever and ever. Amen.

St. Augustine, with his eye on the imperfections of the Church, speaks[13] of 'the glory of love ... alive but yet frost-bound. The root is alive, but the branches are almost dry. There is a heart alive within, and within are leaves and fruits; but they are waiting for a summer.' That is surely what we feel. The world cries out for brotherhood. We are perpetually explaining that brotherhood can only become actual, in the long run, where men know themselves to be, and in fact are, sons of G.o.d. We are continually pointing out that external legislative social reforms can only effect good where there exists, to respond to them and to use them, some strength and purity of inward character: that outward reforms without moral redemption would effect evil rather than good. All this is true and it is necessary to explain it. But the convincing demonstration begins at that point where Christianity makes man feel, and see in fact, that it contains in itself the remedy for social evils, because it has the spirit of love: where the Church is so actually presented as that men should feel and know that this is a true human {137} brotherhood. It is the social, human, brotherly power of the Church which is what is at the present moment best calculated to win the consciences and convince the intellects of men. But this actual living spirit of self-sacrificing love--this spirit of real brotherhood--how 'frost-bound' it is! How large the area of the Church, how many its inst.i.tutions, where it is not (to say the least) the most obvious thing represented! In fact, social reform, and that the most thorough and the most permanent, requires nothing more than that professing Christians should be better Christians, Christians who really believe what St. Paul and St. John say about the love of the brethren. Come then, O breath of the divine Spirit, and breathe upon these bones of the Christian Church, that they may live!

And outside the area of nominal Christianity how 'frost-bound' our evangelizing love. Surely the Church of England, as part of the expansive British nation, has an apostleship to the nations comparable to St. Paul's. Yet missionary zeal, as directed towards the natives of India, or j.a.pan, or Africa, is a very restricted thing; noticeably restricted it must be confessed among those who most love the name of Catholic: and almost non-existent in the great majority of those who are {138} yet members of the national Church. But it cannot be too deeply felt that to St. Paul the reconciliation of men with G.o.d is inseparable from the reconciliation of man with man. The atonement with G.o.d that is not an atonement among men he would not own. A peace with G.o.d that leaves us content that Hindoos and j.a.panese and Africans should not be of our religion is a false peace. A Christian who is not really in heart and will a missionary is not a Christian at all.

Missionary effort is not a speciality of a few Christians, though, like every other part of Christian life, it has its special organs. It is an essential, never to be forgotten, part of all true Christian living, and thinking, and praying.

The missionary obligation of the Church depends, no doubt, chiefly on the command of Christ, 'Go ye and make disciples of all the nations.'

But it is made intelligible when we realize that Christianity is really a catholic religion, and that only in proportion as its catholicity becomes a reality is its true power and richness exhibited. Each new race which is introduced into the Church not only itself receives the blessings of our religion, but reacts upon it to bring out new and unsuspected aspects and {139} beauties of its truth and influence. It has been so when Greeks, and Latins, and Teutons, and Kelts, and Slavs have each in turn been brought into the growing circle of believers.

How impoverished was the exhibition of Christianity which the Jewish Christians were capable of giving by themselves! How much of the treasures of wisdom and power which lie hid in Christ awaited the Greek intellect, and the Roman spirit of government, and the Teutonic individuality, and the temper and character of the Kelt and the Slav, before they could leap into light! And can we doubt that now again not only would Indians, and j.a.panese, and Africans, and Chinamen be the better for Christianity, but that Christianity would be unspeakably also the richer for their adhesion--for the gifts which the subtlety of India, and the grace of j.a.pan, and the silent patience of China are capable of bringing into the city of G.o.d.

Come, then, O breath of the divine Spirit, and breathe upon the dead bones of the Christian churches that forget that they are evangelists of the nations, that they may live and stand upon their feet, an exceeding great army, an army with banners.

[1] Acts xxii. 17-21. 'While I prayed in the temple, I fell into a trance, and saw him saying unto me, Make haste, and get thee quickly out of Jerusalem.... Depart: for I will send thee forth far hence unto the Gentiles.'

[2] Gal. i. 15. 'It was the good pleasure of G.o.d, who separated me, _even_ from my mother's womb, and called me through his grace, to reveal his Son in me, that I might preach him among the Gentiles.'

[3] Col. i. 24-29; iv. 3, 4.

[4] Col. iii. 11.

[5] 1 John ii. 7, 8.

[6] Phil. 16.

[7] Eph. iv. 1-3.

[8] Acts xxii. 21; xxvi. 17, 18.

[9] Thus the limitation of the term 'brotherhood' to Christians is implied in 1 Pet. ii. 17, 'Honour all men. Love the brotherhood;' and in 2 Pet. i. 7, 'In your love of the brethren supply love' (i.e. in the narrower and closer circle of believers, learn the wider and all embracing att.i.tude towards men as men); and in 1 Cor. v. 11, 'Any man that is named a brother.' The word brother is throughout the New Testament used of _Christians_ only, except where, in the Acts, it is used by Jews of Jews. Our Lord's language about brotherhood applies to the circle of the disciples, except Matt. xxv. 40, 'One of these my brethren,' i.e. the wretched.

[10] Acts xvii. 28.

[11] Acts xvii. 26.

[12] Dr. Hort thinks 'read' is a technical word for reading the Scriptures, and that this reading of the Old Testament Scriptures is to enable them to appreciate St. Paul's 'understanding in the secret of the Christ.' But I doubt if so technical a use of 'read' can be made out.

[13] _In Epist. Joan, ad Parth._ v. 10.

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DIVISION I. -- 6. CHAPTER IV. 1-16.

_The unity of the church._

[Sidenote: _Connexion of thought_]

This Epistle to the Ephesians, viewed as a whole and from the point of view of a sympathetic intelligence, has a remarkable unity, and a unity progressively developed. Thus, first of all, the apostle opened the imagination of his hearers or readers to consider the place which the catholic church holds in the divine counsels for the universe, in the realization of the human ideal, and in the work of redemption from sin (chap. i and ii). Then he proceeded to justify and explain his own activity in the cause of catholicity, and made them feel at once the glory and the profound difficulty of the ideal of unity in diversity which it involves (chap. iii). It follows naturally and logically that he should set the Church before them as an actually existing organization, and bid them study it exactly and note the grounds of its unity and the common end to which its different elements or members {141} are meant to minister; and this is what he actually does in the fourth chapter (1-16). Viewed, however, as a matter of grammatical structure, it is probable that this pa.s.sage forms another digression--the real necessity of the argument acting as an overmastering motive which pulls contrary to the immediate grammatical purpose of the writer. Thus he had begun, at the beginning of chapter iii, to pa.s.s from the doctrinal exposition which is involved in his opening chapters to practical exhortation. The Asiatic members of the catholic church are to be exhorted to live up to their calling: to turn their backs deliberately on their old heathen habits, and to conform themselves entirely to the principles of their new state. To this exhortation he actually and finally attains at chapter iv. 17. The intervening pa.s.sage (a chapter and a half) is occupied, first, with the digression which we have just considered at length, about St. Paul's mission to the Gentiles and the difficulty of its realization, and with the great prayer which that topic suggests (chap. iii); secondly, with another digression on the character of the unity of the Church. This is, I say, probably the case grammatically. For 'I, Paul, the prisoner of Jesus Christ for you Gentiles' (iii. 1) is almost {142} unmistakably intended to introduce a moral appeal to which his imprisonment for the sake of those to whom he writes adds weight and force[1]. It is taken up, after a digression, in iv. i, 'I, therefore, the prisoner of the Lord, beseech you to walk worthily'; but the appeal there begun yields anew to the necessity of further exposition, and only reaches its free expression in iv. 17, 'This therefore I say and testify in the Lord'; after which point we have moral exhortation and little else.

Now, therefore, we are to occupy ourselves with what is grammatically a second digression, but logically and really a most necessary step in the exposition of St. Paul's thoughts--the subject of the unity of the church catholic, its nature and obligations. Conscious of the profound difficulty of welding naturally antagonistic elements, such as Jews and Gentiles, slaves and free men, into one catholic fellowship, St. Paul appeals to the Asiatic churches with all the force which he can command as a prisoner on their account, to 'walk' as their catholic calling {143} involves; that is, to exhibit all those moral qualities which are necessary to maintain peace under difficult circ.u.mstance--a modest estimate of oneself (humility or 'lowliness'), a mildness in mutual relations ('meekness'), an habitual refusal to pa.s.s quick judgements on what one cannot but condemn or dislike ('longsuffering'), a deliberate forbearance one of another based on love. They are to accept one another as brethren, with the rights of brethren. And the reason why they should exhibit these qualities is not far to seek: they actually share one common supernatural life--the imparted life of the Spirit--and they are, therefore, to make it their deliberate object to preserve this actual spiritual unity in its appropriate outward expression, that is in harmonious fellowship,--'giving diligence to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace.'

[Sidenote: _The unity of the church_]

But at this point the idea of the unity of the Church is felt to need fuller exposition. In what sense are Christians one? They are one as _one body_ or organization, made up no doubt of a mult.i.tude of differing individual members, but all bound into one, under Christ for their head, by the fact that the _one Spirit_, which is Christ's supreme gift, is imparted to the whole {144} organization and every member of it: and this common corporate life, where the elements are so different, is made possible by the _one hope_ reaching forward into an eternal world, which was set before them all when they received their call into the body of Christ. This should be enough to annihilate lower and shorter-lived differences. 'There is one body[2] and one spirit even as ye are called in one hope of your calling.' It follows from this that there is another threefold unity. For the existence of the common head involves a common _allegiance to Him as Lord_, an allegiance which is justified by what He is _believed to be_ by all Christians; an allegiance, further, which is more than an outward fealty, being cemented by an actual incorporation into His life which takes place through the speaking symbol of the _laver of regeneration_[3]. 'One Lord, one faith, one baptism.' But once more.

This common union with and under Christ in the Spirit, is not anything less than union with _the one and only G.o.d and Father_, who is _over all_ as the one head (even 'the head of Christ is G.o.d'), _through all_ as the pervading presence, _in all_ as the active {145} life, 'one G.o.d and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all things.'

Thus their unity is the deepest and most ultimate conceivable: it has a width and range from which no one can be excluded: while it has a closeness and cogency like the unity of blood.

To realize what this unity is and may be, involves on our part a continual looking out of ourselves, out of all individual, social and national differences, up to the common source of all the gifts of all Christians. Whatever each one possesses is simply the gift of the divine bounty or grace, given to him by a definite act of bestowal, varying merely in kind and degree according to the sovereign will of Christ the Lord, the only giver; and it is therefore to be used in His service and for His ends. The Psalmist had sung of the divine king of Israel mounting as an earthly conqueror unto his sanctuary throne in Zion after making captives and receiving gifts from among his enemies without exception.

'Thou hast gone up into the heights, Thou hast led captives captive; Thou hast received gifts among men, yea from the rebellious also[4].'

It stands to reason that to St. Paul's mind this {146} conception is realized nowhere but in Christ. Its application to Christ is in fact a.s.sumed--'therefore,' i.e. with a view to Christ, 'he' or rather 'it,'

the Scripture 'saith'--and the pa.s.sage is given free interpretation, and, more than this, free modification, on the basis of this a.s.sumption. For (1) the ascension of the conquering king is spoken of as the result of a previous descent to the 'lower regions of this earth of ours[5].' No man, as St. John says, hath ascended up to heaven but He that came down from heaven. The person who 'beggared himself' to come down to our earth and who subsequently mounted into the divine glory is one and the same person, Christ the incarnate Son; and He thus descended and re-ascended in order that He might, through the atonement wrought by Him in the flesh and through the exaltation which rewarded it, restore to the universe that unity of which sin and rebellion had robbed it, and 'fill all things' once again with the divine bounty and presence[6].

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(2) The sense of the psalm is--possibly not without Jewish precedent[7]--altered in expression so that, instead of the conqueror receiving gifts from men, his conquered enemies, we have him represented as 'giving gifts to men.' This modification, whether original in St. Paul or accepted by him, is no doubt due to the fact that his mind is full of the idea of Christ as conquering only to bless, receiving homage only to be enabled to bestow on them who offer it the fulness of the divine bounty. And the 'captives' of Christ, to St. Paul's mind, are no doubt not men, but the hosts of Satan reduced to impotence. The exalted Christ, then, is the source of all gifts in His Church, and He bestows on men various endowments in such a way as to maintain among them a necessary relation. 'No member of the body of Christ is endued with such perfection as to be able, without the a.s.sistance of others, to supply his own necessities. A certain proportion is allotted to each, and it is only by communicating with others that all enjoy what is sufficient for maintaining their respective places in the body[8].' This is the principle of mutual dependence, the fundamental principle of corporate life. Thus 'He gave {148} some as apostles, some prophets,' others in other varying capacities to fulfil varying functions; the principle of the bestowal being the same throughout. Each 'gifted' individual becomes himself a gift to the Church. He is 'gifted' not for his own sake but for the Church's sake--'with a view to the perfecting of the saints,' or 'the complete equipment of the consecrated body,' for the manifold 'work of ministry' entrusted to it; or to look at the matter from a rather different point of view, 'for the purpose of completing the structure of the body of Christ'--that living company of men in whom Christ expresses Himself and through whom He acts upon the world. And that structure is not complete till all together attain what is impossible to any isolated Christian individual, the unity not only of a common faith, but also of a common knowledge of what is revealed in the Son of G.o.d; or, in other words, to the full-grown manhood; which, once again, means that complete developement in which the fulness of the Christ--all the complete array of His attributes and qualities--finds harmonious exhibition over again in His people, His body.

But the possibility of this completeness on the part of the Church as a whole, depends on the {149} stability of the individual members in the common faith. Thus it is Christ's purpose that His members should cease to be as children, stirred up like the waves of the sea, or carried about like feathers, by every wind of false teaching. There is, it must be remembered, a kingdom of deception, an organized attempt to seduce souls, of which wicked men make themselves the instruments.

In view of this hostile kingdom of error, the Christians must abide in the truth revealed to them in love, and so grow up into the completed life of Christ. For He is the head, and in Him they are the body. And the body is a unit of many parts fitted and held together in one life by a supply from the head, which circulates through every joint, and for the full and unimpeded communication of which each several limb must do its proper work, so that the whole body may grow into completed life in that mutual coherence which is Christian love.

This prolonged paraphrase may serve to bring out the innumerable points of interest in that rich pa.s.sage in which St. Paul as it were gives the reins to his imagination and his feelings in order to describe the glory of the unity of the Church.

{150} I therefore, the prisoner in the Lord, beseech you to walk worthily of the calling wherewith ye were called, with all lowliness and meekness, with longsuffering, forbearing one another in love; giving diligence to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace.

_There_ is one body, and one Spirit, even as also ye were called in one hope of your calling; one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one G.o.d and Father of all, who is over all, and through all, and in all. But unto each one of us was the grace given according to the measure of the gift of Christ. Wherefore he saith,

When he ascended on high, he led captivity captive, And gave gifts unto men.

(Now this, He ascended, what is it but that he also descended into the lower parts of the earth? He that descended is the same also that ascended far above all the heavens, that he might fill all things.) And he gave some _to be_ apostles; and some, prophets; and some evangelists; and some, pastors and teachers; for the perfecting of the saints, unto the work of ministering, unto the building up of the body of Christ: till we all attain unto the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of G.o.d, unto a fullgrown man, unto the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ: that we may be no longer children, tossed to and fro and carried about with every wind of doctrine, by the sleight of men, in craftiness, after the wiles of error; but speaking truth in love, may grow up in all things into him, which is the head, _even_ Christ; from whom all the body fitly framed and knit together through that which every joint supplieth, according to the working in _due_ measure of each several part, maketh the increase of the body unto the building up of itself in love.