Bible Commentary

Expositor's Bible Commentary Ephesians 1:1 Paul, an apostle of Jesus Christ by the will of God, to the saints which are at Ephesus, and to the faithful in Christ Jesus: Chapter 1 THE INTRODUCTION THE WRITER AND READERS Ephesians 1:1-2 In passing from the Galatian to the Ephesian epistle we are conscious of entering a different atmosphere. We leave the region of controversy for that of meditation. From the battle-field we step into the hush and stillness of the temple. Ephesians 1:3-14 of this chapter constitute the most sustained and perfect act of praise that is found in the apostle’s letters. It is as though a door were suddenly opened in heaven; it shuts behind us, and earthly tumult dies away. The contrast between these two writings, following each other in the established order of the epistles, is singular and in some ways extreme. They are, respectively, the most combative and peaceful, the most impassioned and unimpassioned, the most concrete and abstract, the most human and divine amongst the great apostle’s writings. Yet there is a fundamental resemblance and identity of character. The two letters are not the expression of different minds, but of different phases of the same mind. In the Paul of Galatians the Paul of Ephesians is latent; the contemplative thinker, the devout mystic, behind the ardent missionary and the masterly debater. Those critics who recognise the genuine apostle only in the four previous epistles and reject whatever does not conform strictly to their type, do not perceive how much is needed to make up a man like the apostle Paul. Without the inwardness, the brooding faculty, the power of abstract and metaphysical thinking displayed in the epistles of this group, he could never have wrought out the system of doctrine contained in those earlier writings, nor grasped the principles which he there applies with such vigour and effect. That so many serious and able scholars doubt, or even deny, St. Paul’s authorship of this epistle on internal grounds and because of the contrast to which we have referred, is one of those phenomena which in future histories of religious thought will be quoted as the curiosities of a hypercritical age. Let us observe some of the Pauline qualities that are stamped upon the face of this document. There is, in the first place, the apostle’s intellectual note, what has been well called his "passion for the absolute." St. Paul’s was one of those minds, so discomposing to superficial and merely practical thinkers, which cannot be content with half-way conclusions. For every principle he seeks its ultimate basis; every line of thought he pushes to its furthest limits. His gospel, if he is to rest in it, must supply a principle of unity that will bind together all the elements of his mental world. Hence, in contesting the Jewish claim to religious superiority on the ground of circumcision and the Abrahamic covenant, St. Paul developed in the epistle to the Galatians a religious philosophy of history; he arrived at a view of the function of the law in the education of mankind which disposed not only of the question at issue, but of all such questions. He established forever the principle of salvation by faith and of spiritual sonship to God. What that former argument effects for the history of revelation, is done here for the gospel in its relations to society and universal life. The principle of Christ’s headship is carried to its largest results. The centre of the Church becomes the centre of the universe. God’s plan of the ages is disclosed, ranging through eternity and embracing every form of being, and "gathering into one all things in the Christ." In Galatians and Romans the thought of salvation by Christ breaks through Jewish limits and spreads itself over the field of history; in Colossians and Ephesians the idea of life in Christ overleaps the barriers of time and human existence, and brings "things in heaven and things in earth and things beneath the earth" under its sway. The second, historical note of original Paulinism we recognise in the writer’s "attitude towards Judaism." We should be prepared to stake the genuineness of the epistle on this consideration alone. The position and point of view of the Jewish apostle to the Gentiles are unique in history. It is difficult to conceive how any one but Paul himself, at any other juncture, could have represented the relation of Jew and Gentile to each other as it is put before us here. The writer is a Jew, a man nourished on the hope of Israel, { Ephesians 1:12 } who had looked at his fellow-men across "the middle wall of partition". { Ephesians 2:14 } In his view, the covenant and the Christ belong, in the first instance and as by birthright, to the men of Israel. They are "the near," who live hard by the city and house of God. The blessedness of the Gentile readers consists in the revelation that they are "fellow-heirs and of the same body and joint-partakers with us of the promise in Christ Jesus". { Ephesians 3:6 } What is this but to say, as the apostle had done before, that the branches "of the naturally wild olive tree" were "against nature grafted into the good olive tree" and allowed to "partake of its root and fatness," along with "the natural branches," the children of the stock of Abraham who claimed it for "their own"; that "the men of faith are sons of Abraham" and "Abraham’s blessing has come on the Gentiles through faith"? { Romans 11:16-24 , Acts 13:26 , Galatians 3:7 , Galatians 3:14 } For our author this revelation has lost none of its novelty and surprise. He is in the midst of the excitement it has produced, and is himself its chief agent and mouthpiece. { Ephesians 3:1-9 } This disclosure of God’s secret plans for the world overwhelms him by its magnitude, by the splendour with which it invests the Divine character, and the sense of his personal unworthiness to be entrusted with it. We utterly disbelieve that any later Christian writer could or would have personated the apostle and mimicked his tone and sentiments in regard to his vocation, in the way that the "critical" hypothesis assumes. The criterion of Erasmus is decisive: Nemo potest Paulinum pectus effingere. St. Paul’s doctrine of "the cross" is admittedly his specific theological note. In the shameful sacrificial death of Jesus Christ he saw the instrument of man’s release from the curse of the broken law; { Galatians 3:10-13 , 2 Corinthians 5:20-21 , etc.} and through this knowledge the cross, which was the "scandal" of Saul the Pharisee, had become Paul’s glory and its proclamation the business of his life. It is this doctrine, in its original strength and fulness, which lies behind such sentences as those of Ephesians 1:7 , Ephesians 2:13 , and Ephesians 5:2 : "We have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses-brought nigh in the blood of Christ-an offering and sacrifice to God for an odour of sweet smell." Another mark of the apostle’s hand, his specific spiritual note, we find in the "mysticism" that pervades the epistle and forms, in fact, its substance. "I live no longer: Christ lives in me." "He that is joined to the Lord is one spirit." { Galatians 2:20 , 1 Corinthians 6:17 } In these sentences of the earlier letters we discover the spring of St. Paul’s theology, lying in his own experience-"the sense of personal union through the Spirit with Christ Jesus." This was the deepest fact of Paul’s consciousness. Here it meets us at every turn. More than twenty times the phrase "in Christ" or its equivalents recur, applied to Christian acts or states. It is enough to refer Ephesians 3:17 , "that the Christ may make His dwelling in your hearts through faith," to show how profoundly this mysterious relationship is realised in this letter. No other New Testament writer conceived the idea in Paul’s way, nor has any subsequent writer of whom we know made the like constant and original use of it. It was the habit of the apostle’s mind, the index of his innermost life. Kindred to this, and hardly less conspicuous, is his conception of "God in Christ" { 2 Corinthians 5:19 } saving and operating upon men, who, as we read here, "chose us in Christ before the world’s foundation- forgave us in Him-made us in Him to sit together in the heavenly places-formed us in Christ Jesus for good works." The ethical note of the true Paulinism is the conception of the "new man" in Christ Jesus, whose sins were slain by His death, and who shares His risen life unto God. { Romans 6:1-23 } From this idea, as from a fountainhead, the apostle in the parallel Colossian epistle { Colossians 3:1-25 } deduces the new Christian morality. The temper and disposition of the believer, his conduct in all social duties and practical affairs are the expression of a "life hid with Christ in God." It is the identical "new man" of Romans and Colossians who presents himself as our ideal here, raised with Christ from the dead and "sitting with Him in the heavenly places." The newness of life in which he walks receives its impulse and direction from this exalted fellowship. The characteristics of St. Paul’s teaching which We have described-his logical thoroughness and finality, his peculiar historical, theological, spiritual, and ethical standpoint and manner of thought-are combined in the conception which is the specific note of this epistle, viz., its idea of "the Church" as the body of Christ, -or in other words, of "the new humanity" created in Him. This forms the centre of the circle of thought in which the writer’s mind moves; it is the meeting point of the various lines of thought that we have already traced. The doctrine of personal salvation wrought out in the great evangelical epistles terminates in that of social and collective salvation. A new and. precious title is conferred on Christ: He is "Saviour of the body," { Ephesians 5:23 } i.e., of the corporate Christian community. "The Son of God who loved me and gave up Himself for me,’" becomes "the Christ" who "loved the Church and gave up Himself for her." "The new man" is no longer the individual, a mere transformed ego; he is the type and beginning of a new mankind. A perfect society of men, all sons of God in Christ, is being constituted around the cross, in which the old antagonisms are reconciled, the ideal of creation is restored, and a body is provided to contain the fulness of Christ, a holy temple which God inhabits in the Spirit. Of this edifice, with the cross for its centre and Christ Jesus for its corner-stone, Jew and Gentile form the material-"the Jew first," lying nearest to the site. The apostle Paul necessarily conceived the reconstruction of humanity under the form of a reconciliation of Israel and the Gentiles. The Catholicism we have here is Paul’s Catholicism of "Gentile engrafting"-not Clement’s, of "churchly order and uniformity"; nor Ignatius’, of "monepiscopal rule." It is profoundly characteristic of this apostle, that in "the law" which had been to his own experience the barrier and ground of quarrel between the soul and God, "the strength of sin," he should come to see likewise the barrier between men and men, and the strength of the sinful enmity which distracted the Churches of his foundation. { Ephesians 2:14-16 } The representation of the Church contained in this epistle is, therefore, by no means, new in its elements. Such texts as 1 Corinthians 3:16-17 ("Ye are God’s temple," etc.) and 1 Corinthians 12:12-27 (concerning the "one body and many members") bring us near to its actual expression. But the figures of the "body" and "temple" in these passages, had they stood alone, might be read as mere passing illustrations of the nature of Christian fellowship. Now they become proper designations of the Church, and receive their full significance. While in 1 Corinthians, moreover, these phrases do not look beyond the particular community addressed, in Ephesians they embrace the entire Christian society. This epistle signalises a great step forwards in the development of the apostle’s theology-perhaps we might say, the last step. The Pastoral epistles serve to put the final apostolic seal upon the theological edifice that is now complete. Their care is with the guarding and furnishing of the "great house" which our epistle is engaged in building. The idea of the Church is not, however, independently developed. Ephesians and Colossians are companion letters, -the complement and explanation of each other. Both "speak with regard to Christ and the Church"; both reveal the Divine "glory in the Church and in Christ Jesus." The emphasis of Ephesians falls on the former, of Colossians on the latter of these objects. The doctrine of the Person of Christ and that of the nature of the Church proceed with equal step. The two epistles form one process of thought. Criticism has attempted to derive first one and then the other of the two from its fellow, thus, in effect, stultifying itself. Finally Dr. Holtzmann, in his " Kritik der Kolosser- und Epheserbriefe, " undertook to show that each epistle was in turn dependent on the other. There is, Holtzmann says, a Pauline nucleus hidden in Colossians, which he has himself extracted. By its aid some ecclesiastic of genius in the second century composed the Ephesian epistle. He then returned to the brief Colossian writing of St. Paul, and worked it up, with his own Ephesian composition lying before him, into our existing epistle to the Colossians. This complicated and too ingenious hypothesis has not satisfied anyone except its author, and need not detain us here. But Holtzmann has at any rate made good, against his predecessors on the negative sides, the unity of origin of the two canonical epistles, the fact that they proceed from one mint and coinage. They are twin epistles, the offspring of a single birth in the apostle’s mind. Much of their subject matter, especially in the ethical section, is common to both. The glory of the Christ and the greatness of the Church are truths inseparable in the nature of things, wedded to each other. To the confession, "Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God," His response ever is, "I will build my Church." The same correspondence exists between these two epistles in the dialectic movement of the apostle’s thought. At the same time, there is a considerable difference between the two writings in point of style. M. Renan, who accepts Colossians from Paul’s hand, and who admits that "among all the epistles bearing the name of Paul the epistle to the Ephesians is perhaps that which has been most anciently cited as a composition of the apostle of the Gentiles," yet speaks of this epistle as a "verbose amplification" of the other, "a commonplace letter, diffuse and pointless, loaded with useless words and repetitions, entangled and overgrown with irrelevances, full of pleonasms and obscurities." In this instance Renan’s literary sense has deserted him. While Colossians is quick in movement, terse and pointed, in some places so sparing of words as to be almost hopelessly obscure, Ephesians from beginning to end is measured and deliberate, exuberant in language, and obscure, where it is so, not from the brevity, but from the length and involution of its periods. It is occupied with a few great ideas, which the author strives to set forth in all their amplitude and significance. Colossians is a letter of discussion; Ephesians of reflection. The whole difference of style lies in this. In the reflective passages of Colossians, as indeed in the earlier epistles, we find the stateliness of movement and rhythmical fulness of expression which in this epistle are sustained throughout. Both epistles are marked by those unfinished sentences and anacolutha, the grammatical inconsequence associated with close continuity of thought, which is a main characteristic of St. Paul’s style. The epistle to the Colossians is like a mountain stream forcing its way through some rugged defile; that to the Ephesians is the smooth lake below, in which its chafed waters restfully expand. These sister epistles represent the moods of conflict and repose which alternated in St. Paul’s mobile nature. In general, the writings of this group, belonging to the time of the apostle’s imprisonment and advancing age, display less passion and energy, but a more tranquil spirit than those of the Jewish controversy. They are prison letters, the fruit of a time when the author’s mind had been much thrown in upon itself: They have been well styled "the afternoon epistles"; being marked by the subdued and reflective temper natural to this period of life. Ephesians is, in truth, the typical representative of the third group of Paul’s epistles, as Galatians is of the second. There is abundant reason to be satisfied that this letter came, as it purports to do, from "Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus through God’s will." But that it was addressed to "the saints which are in Ephesus" is more difficult to believe. The apostle has "heard of the faith which prevails. amongst" his readers; he presumes that they "have heard of the Christ, and were taught in Him according as truth is in Jesus." He hopes that by "reading" this epistle they will "perceive his understanding in the mystery of Christ". { Ephesians 3:2-4 } He writes somewhat thus to the Colossians and Romans, whom he had never seen; but can we imagine Paul addressing in this distant and Uncertain fashion his children in the faith? In Ephesus he had laboured "for the space of three whole years," { Acts 20:31 } longer than in any other city of the Gentile mission, except Antioch. His speech to the Ephesian elders at Miletus, delivered four years ago, was surcharged with personal feeling, full of pathetic reminiscence and the signs of interested acquaintance with the individual membership of the Ephesian Church. In the epistle such signs are altogether wanting. The absence of greetings and messages we could understand, these Tychicus might convey by word of mouth. But how the man who wrote the epistles to the Philippians and Corinthians could have composed this long and careful letter to his own Ephesian people without a single word of endearment or familiarity, and without the least allusion to his past intercourse with them, we cannot understand. It is in the destination that the only serious difficulty lies touching the authorship. Nowhere do we see more of "the apostle" and less of "the man" in St. Paul; nowhere more of "the" Church, and less of "this or that" particular church. It agrees with these internal indications that the local designation is wanting in the oldest Greek copies of the letter that are extant. The two great manuscripts of the fourth century, the Vatican and Sinaitic codices, omit the words "in Ephesus." Basil in the fourth century did not accept them, and says that "the old copies" were without them. Origen, in the beginning of the third century, seems to have known nothing of them. And Tertullian, at the end of the second century, while he condemns the heretic Marcion (who lived about fifty years earlier) for entitling the epistle "To the Laodiceans," quotes only the title against him, and not the text of the address, which he would presumably have done, had he read it in the form familiar to us. We are compelled to suppose, with Westcott and Hort and the textual critics generally, that these words form no part of the original address. Here the "circular hypothesis" of Beza and Ussher comes to our aid. It is supposed that the letter was destined for a number of Churches in Asia Minor, which Tychicus was directed to visit in the course of the journey which took him to Colossi. Along with the letters for the Colossians and Philemon, he was entrusted with this more general epistle, intended for the Gentile Christian communities of the neighbouring region at large: During St. Paul’s ministry at Ephesus, we are told that "all those that dwell in Asia heard the word of the Lord, both Jews and Greeks". { Acts 19:10 } In so large and populous an area, amongst the Churches founded at this time there were doubtless others beside those of the Lycus valley "which had not seen Paul’s face in the flesh," some about which the apostle had less precise knowledge than he had of these through Epaphras and Onesimus, but for whom he was no less desirous that their "hearts should be comforted, and brought into all the wealth of the full assurance of the understanding in the knowledge of the mystery of God". { Colossians 2:1-2 } To which or how many of the Asian Churches Tychicus would be able to communicate the letter was, presumably, uncertain when it was written at Rome; and the designation was left open. Its conveyance by Tychicus { Ephesians 6:21-22 } supplied the only limit to its distribution. Proconsular Asia was the richest and most peaceful province of the Empire, so populous that it was called "the province of five hundred cities." Ephesus was only the largest of many flourishing commercial and manufacturing towns. At the close of his epistle to the Colossians St. Paul directs this Church to procure "from Laodicea," in exchange for their own, a letter which he is sending there. { Colossians 4:16 } Is it possible that we have the lost Laodicean document in the epistle before us? So Ussher suggested; and though the assumption is not essential to his theory, it falls in with it very aptly. Marcion may, after all, have preserved a reminiscence of the fact that Laodicea, as well as Ephesus, shared in this letter. The conjecture is endorsed by Lightfoot, who says, writing on Colossians 4:16 : "There are good reasons for the belief that St. Paul here alludes to the so-called epistle to the Ephesians, which was in fact a circular letter, addressed to the principal Churches of proconsular Asia. Tychicus was obliged to pass through Laodicea on his way to Colossae, and would leave a copy there before the Colossian letter was delivered." The two epistles admirably supplement each other. The Apocalyptic letter "to the seven Churches which are in Asia," ranging from Ephesus to Laodicea, { Revelation 2:1-29 ; Revelation 3:1-22 } shows how much the Christian communities of this region had in common and how natural it would be to address them collectively. For the same region, with a yet wider scope, the "first catholic epistle of Peter" was destined, a writing that has many points of contact with this. Ephesus being the metropolis of the Asian Churches, and claiming a special interest in St. Paul, came to regard the epistle as specially her own. Through Ephesus, moreover, it was communicated to the Church in other provinces. Hence if came to pass that when Paul’s epistles were gathered into a single volume and a title was needed for this along with the rest, "To the Ephesians" was written over it; and this reference, standing in the title, in course of time found its way into the text of the address. We propose to read this letter as "the general epistle of Paul to the Churches of Asia," or "to Ephesus and its daughter Churches." But how are we to read the address, with the local definition wanting? There are two constructions open to us: (1) We might suppose that a space was left blank in the original to be filled in afterwards by Tychicus with the names of the particular Churches to which he distributed copies, or to be supplied by the voice of the reader. But if that were so, we should have expected to find some trace of this variety of designation in the ancient witnesses. As it is, the documents either give Ephesus in the address, or supply no local name at all. Nor is there, so far as we are aware, any analogy in ancient usage for the proceeding suggested. Moreover, the order of the Greek words is against this supposition. (2) We prefer, therefore, to follow Origen and Basil, with some modern exegetes, in reading the sentence straight on, as it stands in the Sinaitic and Vatican copies. It then becomes: "To the saints, who are indeed faithful in Christ Jesus." "The saints" is the apostle’s designation for Christian believers generally, as men consecrated to God in, Christ. { 1 Corinthians 1:2 } The qualifying phrase "those who are indeed faithful in Christ Jesus," is admonitory. As Lightfoot says with reference to the parallel qualification in Colossians 1:2 , "This unusual addition is full of meaning. Some members of the (Asian) Churches were shaken in their allegiance, even if they had not fallen from it. The apostle therefore wishes it to be understood that, when he speaks of the saints, he means those who are true and steadfast members of the brotherhood. In this way he obliquely hints at the defections" By this further definition "he does not directly exclude any, but he indirectly warns all." We are reminded that we are in the neighbourhood of the Colossian heresy. Beneath the calm tenor of this epistle, the ear catches an undertone of controversy. In Ephesians 4:14 and Ephesians 6:10-20 this undertone becomes clearly audible. We shall find the epistle end with the note of warning with which it begins. The Salutation is according to St. Paul’s established form of greeting. Ephesians 1:3 Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who hath blessed us with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ: Chapter 2 THE ETERNAL PURPOSE Ephesians 1:3-19 WE enter this epistle through magnificent gateway. The introductory Act of Praise, extending from verse 3 to 14, { Ephesians 1:3-14 } is one of the most sublime of inspired utterances, an overture worthy of the composition that it introduces. Its first sentence compels us to feel the insufficiency of our powers for its due rendering. The apostle surveys in this thanksgiving the entire course of the revelation of grace. Standing with the men of his day, the new-born community of the Sons of God in Christ, midway between the ages past and to come, { Ephesians 2:7 , Ephesians 3:5 , Ephesians 3:21 Colossians 1:26 } he looks backward to the course of man’s salvation when it lay a silent thought in the mind of God, and forward to the hour when it shall have accomplished its promise and achieved our redemption. In this grand evolution of the Divine plan three stages are marked by the refrain, thrice repeated, "To the praise of His Glory, of the glory of His Grace" ( Ephesians 1:6 , Ephesians 1:12 , Ephesians 1:14 ). St. Paul’s psalm is thus divided into three strophes, or stanzas: he sings the glory of redeeming love in its past designs, its present bestowments, and its future fruition. The paragraph, forming but one sentence and spun upon a single golden thread, is a piece of thought-music, -a sort of fugue, in which from Eternity to eternity the counsel of love is pursued by Paul’s bold and exulting thought. Despite the grammatical involution of the style here carried to an extreme, and underneath the apparatus of Greek pronouns and participles, there is a fine Hebraistic lilt pervading the doxology. The refrain is in the manner of Psalm 42:1-11 ; Psalm 43:1-5 ; Psalm 99:1-9 , where in the former instance "health of countenance," and in the latter "holy is He" gives the keynote of the poet’s melody and parts his song into three balanced stanzas. In such poetry the strophes may be unequal in length, each developing its own thought freely, and yet there is harmony in their combination. Here the central idea, that of God’s actual bounty to believers, fills a space equal to that of the other two. But there is a pause in it, at Ephesians 1:10 , which in effect resumes the idea of the first strophe and works it in as a motif to the second, carrying on both in a full stream till they lose themselves in the third and culminating movement. Throughout the piece there runs in varying expression the phrase "in Christ-in the Beloved-in Him-in whom," weaving the verses into subtle continuity. The theme of the entire composition is given in Ephesians 1:3 , which does not enter into the threefold division we have described, but forms a prelude to it. "Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ: who hath blessed us, In every blessing of the Spirit, in the heavenly places, in Christ." Blessed be God!-It is the song of the universe, in which heaven and earth take responsive parts. "When the morning stars sang together and all the sons of God shouted for joy," this concert began, and continues still through the travail of creation and the sorrow and sighing of men. The work praises the Master. All sinless creatures, by their order and harmony, by the variety of their powers and beauty of their forms and delight of their existence, declare their Creator’s glory. That praise to the Most High God which the lower creatures act instrumentally, it is man’s privilege to utter in discourse of reason and music of the heart. Man is Nature’s high priest; and above other men, the poet. Time will be, as it has been, when it shall be accounted the poet’s honour and the crown of his art, that he should take the high praises of God into his mouth, making hymns to the glory of the Supreme Maker, and giving voice to the dumb praise of inanimate nature and to the noblest thoughts of his fellows concerning the Blessed God. Blessed be God!-It is the perpetual strain of the Old Testament, from Melchizedek down to Daniel, -of David in his triumph, and Job in his misery. But not hitherto could men say, Blessed be "the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ!" He was "the Most High God, the God of heaven,"-"Jehovah, God of Israel, who only doeth wondrous things,"-"the Shepherd" and "the Rock" of His people, -"the true God, the living God, and an everlasting King"; and these are glorious titles, which have raised men’s thoughts to moods of highest reverence and trust. But the name of "Father," and "Father of our Lord Jesus Christ," surpasses and outshines them all. With wondering love and joy unspeakable St. Paul pronounces this "Benedictus." God was not less to him the Almighty, the High and Holy One dwelling in eternity, than in the days of his youthful Jewish faith; but the Eternal and All-holy One was now his Father in Jesus Christ. Blessed be His name: and let the whole earth be filled with His glory! The apostle’s psalm is a psalm of thanksgiving to God blessing and blessed. The second clause. rhythmically answers to the first. True, our blessing of Him is far different from His blessing of us: ours in thought and words; His in mighty deeds of salvation. Yet in the fruit of lips giving thanks to His name there is a revenue of blessing paid to God which He delights in, and requires. "O thou that inhabitest the praises of Israel," grant us to bless Thee while we live and to lift up our hands in Thy name! By three qualifying adjuncts the blessings which the Father of Christ bestowed upon us is defined: in respect of its nature, its sphere, and its personal ground. The blessings that prompt the apostle’s praise are not such as those conspicuous in the Old Covenant: "Blessed shalt thou be in the city, and in the field; in the fruit of thy body, and the fruit of thy ground, and in the increase of thy kine; blessed shall be thy basket, and thy kneading trough." { Deuteronomy 28:3-5 } The gospel pronounces beatitudes of another style: "Blessed are the poor in spirit; blessed the meek, the merciful, the pure in heart, the persecuted." St. Paul had small share indeed in the former class of blessings, a childless, landless, homeless man. Yet what happiness and wealth are his! Out of his poverty he is making all the ages rich! From the gloom of his prison he sheds a light that will guide and cheer the steps of multitudes of earth’s sad wayfarers. Not certainly in the earthly places where he finds himself is Paul the prisoner of Christ Jesus blessed; but "spiritual blessing" and "in heavenly places" how abundantly! His own blessedness he claims for all who are in Christ. Blessing spiritual in its nature is, in St. Paul’s conception of things, blessing in and of the Holy Spirit. In His quickening our spirit lives; through His indwelling health, blessedness, eternal life are ours. In this verse justly the theologians recognise the Trinity of the Father, Christ, and the Holy Spirit. Blessing in the heavenly places is not so much blessing coming from those places- from God the Father who sits there-as it is blessing which lifts us into that supernal region, giving to us a place and heritage in the world of God and of the angels. Two passages of the companion epistles interpret this phrase: "Your life is hid with Christ" in Colossians 3:3 ; and again, "Our citizenship is in heaven." { Php 3:20 } The decisive note of St. Paul’s blessedness lies in the words "in Christ." For him all good is

Paul, an apostle of Jesus Christ by the will of God, to the saints which are at Ephesus. Ephesians 1:1-2 Introductory greeting R. W. Dale, LL. D. In these words we have — I. PAUL'S DESCRIPTION OF HIMSELF. "An apostle of Jesus Christ by the will of God." He attributed nothing to the vigour of his faith, to the passion of his gratitude for the Divine goodness, to the completeness of his self-consecration to Christ's service; he was living and acting under the control of forces which had their origin above and beyond himself; his apostolic work was the effect and expression of a Divine volition. He believed that the Divine will is the root and origin of all Christian righteousness and blessedness. And this is the secret of a strong and effective Christian life. Our spiritual activity reaches its greatest intensity when we are so filled with the glory of the Divine righteousness, the Divine love, and the Divine power, that we are conscious only of God, and all thought of ourselves is lost in Him. II. PAUL'S DESCRIPTION OF THOSE TO WHOM HE IS WRITING. They are "the saints which are at Ephesus, and the faithful in Christ Jesus." 1. Saints. The title of all Christians — not attributing any personal merit to them, but simply recalling their prerogatives and obligations. It reminded them that God had made them His own; that they were "holy" because they belonged to Him. The temple had once been "holy," not because of its magnitude, its stateliness, and the costly materials of which it was built, but because it was the house of God; and the tabernacle, which was erected in the wilderness, though a much meaner structure, was just as "holy" as the temple of Solomon, with its marble courts and its profusion of cedar and brass and silver and gold. The altars were "holy," because they were erected for the service of God. The sacrifices were "holy," because they were offered to Him. The priests were "holy" because they were divinely chosen to discharge the functions of the temple service. The Sabbath was "holy," because God had placed His hand upon it, and separated its hours from common use. The whole Jewish people were "holy," because they were organized into a nation, not for the common purposes which have been the ends of the national existence of other races, but to receive in trust for all mankind exceptional revelations of the character and will of God. And now, according to Paul's conception, every Christian man was a temple, a sacrifice, a priest; his whole life was a sabbath; he belonged to an elect race; he was the subject of an invisible and Divine kingdom; he was a "saint," i.e. , one whom God has set apart for Himself. The act of consecration is God's act, not ours. Our part, is subordinate and secondary. We have only to submit to the authority of the Divine claim, and to receive the dignity conferred by the Divine love. 2. Faithful. Those who have faith have also fidelity; faith guarantees fidelity. 3. In Christ Jesus. One of Paul's characteristic phrases — the keynote of this Epistle. III. PAUL'S SALVATION OR BENEDICTION. "Grace to you," etc. A gospel, a message from God, bringing home to Christian hearts a fresh assurance of the "grace" of God the Father and of the Lord Jesus Christ, a fuller realization and a richer consciousness of the "peace," the infinite and eternal blessings, which that grace conferred. If the true ideal of the Christian life were fulfilled, men would be conscious that whenever we came near to them Christ came near, bringing with Him the rest of heart, the courage, and the hope which His presence always inspires. When He was on earth those who touched the border of His garment were healed of physical sickness. Now that He is in heaven there streams from Him a mightier and more gracious power; and if our union with Christ and Christ's union with us were more complete, that power, working through us, would be a perpetual source of blessing to mankind. ( R. W. Dale, LL. D. )

1:1,2. All Christians must be saints; if they come not under that character on earth, they will never be saints in glory. Those are not saints, who are not faithful, believing in Christ, and true to the profession they make of relation to their Lord. By grace, understand the free and undeserved love and favour of God, and those graces of the Spirit which come from it; by peace, all other blessings, spiritual and temporal, the fruits of the former. No peace without grace. No peace, nor grace, but from God the Father, and from the Lord Jesus Christ; and the best saints need fresh supplies of the graces of the Spirit, and desire to grow. 1:3-8 Spiritual and heavenly blessings are the best blessings; with which we cannot be miserable, and without which we cannot but be so. This was from the choice of them in Christ, before the foundation of the world, that they should be made holy by separation from sin, being set apart to God, and sanctified by the Holy Spirit, in consequence of their election in Christ. All who are chosen to happiness as the end, are chosen to holiness as the means. In love they were predestinated, or fore-ordained, to be adopted as children of God by faith in Christ Jesus, and to be openly admitted to the privileges of that high relation to himself. The reconciled and adopted believer, the pardoned sinner, gives all the praise of his salvation to his gracious Father. His love appointed this method of redemption, spared not his own Son, and brought believers to hear and embrace this salvation. It was rich grace to provide such a surety as his own Son, and freely to deliver him up. This method of grace gives no encouragement to evil, but shows sin in all its hatefulness, and how it deserves vengeance. The believer's actions, as well as his words, declare the praises of Divine mercy. 1:9-14 Blessings were made known to believers, by the Lord's showing to them the mystery of his sovereign will, and the method of redemption and salvation. But these must have been for ever hidden from us, if God had not made them known by his written word, preached gospel, and Spirit of truth. Christ united the two differing parties, God and man, in his own person, and satisfied for that wrong which caused the separation. He wrought, by his Spirit, those graces of faith and love, whereby we are made one with God, and among ourselves. He dispenses all his blessings, according to his good pleasure. His Divine teaching led whom he pleased to see the glory of those truths, which others were left to blaspheme. What a gracious promise that is, which secures the gift of the Holy Ghost to those who ask him! The sanctifying and comforting influences of the Holy Spirit seal believers as the children of God, and heirs of heaven. These are the first-fruits of holy happiness. For this we were made, and for this we were redeemed; this is the great design of God in all that he has done for us; let all be ascribed unto the praise of his glory. 1:15-23 God has laid up spiritual blessings for us in his Son the Lord Jesus; but requires us to draw them out and fetch them in by prayer. Even the best Christians need to be prayed for: and while we hear of the welfare of Christian friends, we should pray for them. Even true believers greatly want heavenly wisdom. Are not the best of us unwilling to come under God's yoke, though there is no other way to find rest for the soul? Do we not for a little pleasure often part with our peace? And if we dispute less, and prayed more with and for each other, we should daily see more and more what is the hope of our calling, and the riches of the Divine glory in this inheritance. It is desirable to feel the mighty power of Divine grace, beginning and carrying on the work of faith in our souls. But it is difficult to bring a soul to believe fully in Christ, and to venture its all, and the hope of eternal life, upon his righteousness. Nothing less than Almighty power will work this in us. Here is signified that it is Christ the Saviour, who supplies all the necessities of those who trust in him, and gives them all blessings in the richest abundance. And by being partakers of Christ himself, we come to be filled with the fulness of grace and glory in him. How then do those forget themselves who seek for righteousness out of him! This teaches us to come to Christ. And did we know what we are called to, and what we might find in him, surely we should come and be suitors to him. When feeling our weakness and the power of our enemies, we most perceive the greatness of that mighty power which effects the conversion of the believer, and is engaged to perfect his salvation. Surely this will constrain us by love to live to our Redeemer's glory.