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Ephesians 2 — Commentary 4

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Benson Commentary Ephesians 2:1 And you hath he quickened , who were dead in trespasses and sins; Ephesians 2:1-2 . And you, &c. — In the nineteenth and twentieth verses of the preceding chapter, the apostle had spoken of God’s working in the believers at Ephesus, in order to their conversion, and resurrection from spiritual death to spiritual life, by the same almighty power whereby he raised Christ from the dead. On the mention of this he runs on, in the fulness of his heart, into a flow of thought concerning the glory of Christ’s exaltation, in the three following verses. He here resumes the thread of his discourse. You hath he quickened — Or, (as these words are not in the original,) if we connect this verse with the last clause of the preceding chapter, we may read, you hath he filled, namely, with his gifts and graces, and thereby hath made you alive to himself; who were dead — Not only diseased, but dead; absolutely devoid of all spiritual life, and as incapable of quickening yourselves, as persons literally dead are of restoring their bodies to life. In this sense Locke paraphrases the words: “Ye were so entirely under the power of sin, that ye had no more power, nor hope, nor ability, to get out of it, than men dead and buried have to get out of their graves.” The truth is, unawakened, impenitent, and unbelieving sinners, are dead in three respects; 1st, They are under condemnation, on account of their past depravity and various transgressions, to the second death, or to future wrath and punishment, like criminals under sentence of death for their crimes. 2d, They are destitute of all union with God, and in a state of separation from him, and alienation from his life, chap. Ephesians 4:18 ; Colossians 1:21 . 3d, They are carnally minded; that is, their thoughts and affections are set upon visible and temporal things, which is spiritual death, ( Romans 8:6 ,) implying deadness or aversion to spiritual and divine things. In trespasses and sins — Sins seem to be spoken chiefly of the Gentiles who knew not God; trespasses of the Jews, who had his law, and yet regarded it not. Or the expressions may be used indiscriminately, without any such distinction being intended; for all trespasses are sins, and all sins are trespasses, properly speaking. Wherein in time past ye walked — ????????????? , ye walked about, or walked continually. For, as Grotius observes, the word significat consuetudinem, implies custom, or habit. According to the course of this world — ???? ??? ????? , according to the age, or the common usage of the age in which you lived, and to those corrupt principles and practices which prevailed around you. The word above mentioned, translated course, properly means along series of times, wherein one corrupt age follows another. The prince of the power of the air — “That wicked spirit, who commands the legions of fallen angels, that by divine permission range in the air, and fly from place to place, in pursuit of their pernicious purpose of corrupting and destroying mankind.” So Dr. Doddridge, who observes, “This refers to a Jewish tradition, that the air is inhabited by evil spirits, a notion which the apostle seems to approve.” Macknight’s interpretation of the passage is nearly the same, as follows: “Power, being here put for those who exercise power, (as it is likewise chap. Ephesians 1:21 , and Colossians 2:10 ,) signifies those powerful evil spirits, whose confinement [mentioned by Jude, Ephesians 2:6 ] is not of such a nature as to hinder them from going to and fro on the earth. And therefore, being irreconcilable enemies of God and goodness, they use the liberty granted to them in opposing God, and in ruining men by their temptations, 1 Peter 5:8 . And that they may do this the more effectually, they have ranged themselves under the direction of one chief, here called their prince; but in other passages Satan, and the devil. Perhaps also he is called their prince, because he instigated them to rebel against God, and was their leader in that rebellion. See 1 John 5:19 .” To these quotations we may add, with Bengelius, “A power this the effect of which all may perceive, though all do not understand the cause of it; a power unspeakably penetrating and widely diffused, but yet, as to its baleful influences, beneath the orb of believers.” The spirit that now worketh — ??????????? , worketh inwardly with energy. So he did, and so he doth work in all ages; in the children of disobedience — In all that disbelieve and disobey the gospel. Ephesians 2:2 Wherein in time past ye walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that now worketh in the children of disobedience: Ephesians 2:3 Among whom also we all had our conversation in times past in the lusts of our flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind; and were by nature the children of wrath, even as others. Ephesians 2:3 . Among whom also we — Jews, as well as you Gentiles; had our conversation — That is, our course of life; in times past — At least in some degree, whatever our education or religious profession might have been. Here the apostle speaks in the name of the generality of the converted Jews, as his changing the expression from ye Ephesians to we, plainly declares; including himself and all other Christians, whose former character and state he affirms to have been the same with respect to sin and misery, with the character and state of the children of disobedience: and it is so professedly the design of the beginning of his epistle to the Romans, to prove that the Jews had not, in point of justification, any advantage above the Gentiles, ( Romans 3:9 ,) that it is surprising any men of learning and knowledge should contend for the contrary. In the lusts of our flesh — To the base appetites of which we were enslaved, so as to forget the true dignity and happiness of rational and immortal spirits: fulfilling the desires of the flesh — Yielding to, and suffering ourselves to be governed by those corrupt appetites, inclinations, and passions, which had their seat in our fallen body, or in our evil nature; and of the mind — The earthly and devilish mind, that is, the desires, lusts, and passions, which were inherent in our still more corrupted souls. Observe, reader, the desires or lusts of the flesh, lead men to gluttony, drunkenness, fornication, adultery, and other gross, brutal sins: and the inclinations or desires of the mind, or imaginations, (as ???????? may be rendered,) prompt them to ambition, revenge, covetousness, and whatever other earthly and diabolical wickedness can have place in the fallen spirit of man. And were by nature — That is, in our natural state, or by reason of our natural inclination to all sorts of evil, and this even from our birth; children of wrath — Having the wrath of God abiding on us; even as others — As well as the Gentiles. This expression, by nature, occurs also Galatians 4:8 ; Romans 2:14 ; and thrice in chap. 11. But in none of those places does it signify by custom, or practice, or customary practice, as some affirm. Nor can it mean so here. For this would make the apostle guilty of gross tautology, their customary sinning having been expressed already in the former part of the verse. But all these passages agree in expressing what belongs to the nature of the persons spoken of. Ephesians 2:4 But God, who is rich in mercy, for his great love wherewith he loved us, Ephesians 2:4-6 . But God, who is rich in mercy — That is, in compassion for us, amidst our sins and miseries, and in his free, gratuitous goodness and readiness to pardon the guilty, and save the lost: for his great love — Of benevolence and bounty; wherewith he loved us — When there was nothing in us but sin and misery to move him to do it. Love in God was the cause why he resolved to show mercy to certain descriptions of persons, namely, to such as should obey the gospel call to repentance, faith, and new obedience. Love is a desire to communicate good to us, considered as creatures; but mercy respects us as fallen into sin and misery; even when we — Jews and Gentiles, and all men; were dead in sins — See on Ephesians 2:1 . Hath he quickened us — Brought us into spiritual life, by begetting in us repentance unto life, and living faith, and in consequence thereof by justifying us, or reversing the sentence of condemnation to eternal death under which we lay, taking us also into his favour, and uniting us to himself, by giving us his quickening and renewing Spirit, in consequence of which our affections are set on things above, and we become spiritually minded, which is life and peace. Together with Christ — In conformity to his resurrection from the dead, and by virtue of our relation to him and union with him. By grace ye are saved — By God’s mere mercy, or undeserved goodness, which is the original source and moving cause of our salvation; and by the enlightening, quickening, and renewing influences of the Holy Spirit, the efficient cause of it. The apostle speaks indifferently either in the first or second person, the Jews and Gentiles being in the same circumstances both by nature and by grace. This doctrine lays the axe to the very root of spiritual pride, and glorying in ourselves. Therefore St. Paul, foreseeing the backwardness of mankind to receive it, yet knowing the absolute necessity of its being received, again asserts the very same truth, ( Ephesians 2:8 ,) in the very same words. And hath raised us up together — Both Jews and Gentiles, already in spirit, having not only rained our souls from spiritual death to spiritual life, but having given us assurance of the resurrection of our bodies, and begotten us again, as his children and his heirs, to a lively hope of a heavenly inheritance, and enabled us to set our affections on the felicity and glory implied therein: and made us sit together in heavenly places in and through Christ Jesus — Our head and representative, who has already been admitted into heaven as our forerunner, to take possession of these glorious mansions for us. For by means of that relation between him and us, which divine grace hath established, we may look upon his resurrection and exaltation to the right hand of God, as the certain pledge and security of ours; and regarding him under the character of a public person, who is thus raised and exalted in our name, we may be said to share in those felicities and dignities which are conferred on him. Ephesians 2:5 Even when we were dead in sins, hath quickened us together with Christ, (by grace ye are saved;) Ephesians 2:6 And hath raised us up together, and made us sit together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus: Ephesians 2:7 That in the ages to come he might shew the exceeding riches of his grace in his kindness toward us through Christ Jesus. Ephesians 2:7-9 . That in the ages to come — As if he had said, His great design in doing all this for us is, that in all succeeding ages, under the dispensation of the gospel, he might show — Might demonstrate and display, (as the word ?????????? implies,) for the instruction and encouragement of others; the exceeding riches of his grace — Manifested both to Jews and Gentiles; in his kindness — His benignity and bounty; toward us — In pardoning, adopting, regenerating, and finally saving us; through Christ Jesus — For we have received the whole blessing by him, and are partakers of it as connected with him, whom God hath appointed our head and Saviour, and taught us to regard as our great representative. For (to repeat the important truth before asserted) by grace are ye saved through faith — Grace, as signifying the free mercy, or unmerited goodness of God, without any respect to human worthiness, confers the glorious gift of salvation; and grace, in the other sense of the expression, namely, the influence of the Spirit, prepares us for the reception of the blessed gift, and conveys it to us; and faith in the Lord Jesus as our Redeemer and Saviour, our Governor and Judge, and in the truths and promises of his holy gospel, with an empty hand, and without any pretence to personal desert; faith, productive of unfeigned love and obedience, receives the heavenly blessing. And that not of yourselves — This refers to the whole preceding clause, and means, 1st, Your salvation is not of yourselves, is not of your own power, nor of your own merit; strictly speaking, you can neither save yourselves, nor deserve that God should save you; your salvation, in all its branches, present and eternal, is from God, to whom alone it belongs to enlighten, justify, sanctify, and glorify you, and it is from him as a free, undeserved gift. Just Song of Solomon , 2 d, Your faith, whereby you receive salvation, is not of yourselves, not of your own power, nor of your own merit; you can neither believe of yourselves, without supernatural light from the word and Spirit of truth, wisdom, and revelation; and divine grace inclining and enabling you to apply to and rely on Christ for salvation, and on the truths and promises of God through him; nor can you, by works done while you are yourselves in unbelief and unrenewed, deserve that God should give you faith. But your faith, as well as your salvation, is the gift of God; is of his operation, Colossians 2:12 ; from his light shining into your hearts, 2 Corinthians 4:6 ; and is from him as a free gift, asked indeed of him, and obtained from him, in and by prayer, but utterly unmerited on your part. “God, by the gracious influence of his Spirit, fixes our attention to the great objects of faith, subdues our prejudices against it, awakens holy affections in our souls, and, on the whole, enables us to believe, and to persevere in believing, till we receive the great end of our faith in the complete salvation of our souls.” — Doddridge. Not of works — Neither this faith, nor this salvation, is merited by, or is owing to, any works you ever performed, will or can perform, whether in obedience to the law of Moses, ceremonial or moral, or any other law whatever; much less is it merited by, or owing to, any works done previous to your conversion. Lest any man should boast — As if he had, by his own works of righteousness, procured salvation, and so should ascribe the glory of it to himself, rather than to God. Ephesians 2:8 For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God: Ephesians 2:9 Not of works, lest any man should boast. Ephesians 2:10 For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them. Ephesians 2:10 . For we are his workmanship — As if he had said, And it appears that it is not by any works or ability of our own that we are saved, or possess the faith whereby salvation is received, because all the ability we have in spiritual things is from God, and is the consequence of his creating us anew; for as all acts of acceptable obedience must proceed from faith, and this faith is wrought in our hearts by the gracious influence of the Divine Spirit, it is most certain that we must acknowledge ourselves to be his workmanship, so far as there is any thing in us agreeable to the nature and will of God; being created in and through Christ Jesus unto good works — In order that we may have inclination and power both to perform them, and to delight in so doing; and may give ourselves up to this, and be continually engaged therein, as far as we have ability and opportunity. This creation of believers through Christ Jesus unto good works, Dr. Taylor, in his Key to the Romans, understands of the formation of believers into one body or church, under the government of Christ, because in the Christian Church believers enjoy the greatest advantages for performing good works, and because this formation of the church is termed ( Ephesians 2:15 ) a creation of Jews and Gentiles into one new man under Christ. The same account he gives of the making men alive, mentioned Ephesians 2:5 . “Others, however, with more reason,” says Dr. Macknight, “think that a person’s enjoying, in the Christian Church, great advantages for becoming alive and for doing good works, is not the whole” (and is it any part?) “of what the apostle means” by these expressions, but that they “denote the operation of the Holy Spirit in making men alive, and enabling them to do good works by means of the advantages that they enjoy.” Which God hath before ordained — Or appointed in his eternal counsels, and in the declarations of his word; it being his will and pleasure, that they who have believed on him through his Son, and are thereby made new creatures, should be careful to maintain good works, Titus 3:8 . But the apostle’s expression, ??? ???????????? ? ???? , rather signifies, which God hath before prepared; that is, hath prepared the occasions of good works, and the means and opportunities of doing them. Or, as some render the clause, for which God hath prepared us, namely, by the knowledge of the gospel, and the influences of his Spirit: that we should walk in them — Should live in the constant performance of them, though not be justified by them. In other words, He hath purified the fountain, that the streams may be pure; hath made the tree good, that the fruit may be good; hath made us new creatures, that we may live new lives; one grand and important end certainly of our regeneration. So that we must still ascribe the whole glory of all the good that is in us, or is done by us, to God. Ephesians 2:11 Wherefore remember, that ye being in time past Gentiles in the flesh, who are called Uncircumcision by that which is called the Circumcision in the flesh made by hands; Ephesians 2:11-12 . Wherefore — To increase your sense of God’s goodness in saving you, and of the obligation he hath thereby laid on you to do good works; remember that ye being in time past Gentiles — Ignorant, vicious, and idolatrous, neither circumcised in body nor in spirit; who were accordingly called Uncircumcision — By way of reproach, by that which is called the Circumcision — By those who call themselves the circumcised, and think this a proof that they are the people of God; and who, indeed, have that outward circumcision in the flesh made by hands — By this description of circumcision, the apostle puts his readers in mind of the inward circumcision, the circumcision of the heart, made by the Spirit of God, of which the outward circumcision was only an emblem, ( Romans 2:29 ,) and intimated that the Jews had no reason to boast of the outward circumcision, unless it was accompanied with the circumcision of the heart. That ye were without Christ — Having no faith in him, or knowledge of him, and so were destitute of all those blessings which he bestows on his believing and obedient people; being aliens from the commonwealth of Israel — Both as to their temporal privileges and spiritual blessings; and strangers from the covenants of promise — Namely, that made with Abraham, and that made with the Israelites at Sinai, which promised and prefigured Christ’s coming to procure and bestow those blessings. As the promises contained in these covenants centred in the great promise of the Messiah, and of salvation through him, he therefore speaks of them in the singular number, as only one promise. Having no hope — No sure hope, either of present pardon or future felicity, because they had no promise whereon to build their hope. That the heathens had among them the doctrine of a future state,” says Dr. Doddridge, “and that it was popularly taught, and generally believed by the common people, must, I think, appear incontestable, to any who are at all acquainted with antiquity; but it is as apparent that they reasoned very weakly upon the subject, and that they had no well-grounded hope of future happiness, and that they were but very little impressed with it, so that they had no Deity to which they prayed for eternal life, as the fathers often demonstrate. And by far the greater part of their most learned philosophers either expressly denied, in private lectures to their pupils, the doctrine of future rewards and punishments, or taught principles quite inconsistent with it.” And without God — Being wholly ignorant of the true God, and so in effect atheists. Such in truth are, more or less, all men, in all ages, till they know God by the teaching of his own Spirit: in the world — The wide, vain world, wherein ye wander up and down, unholy and unhappy. “Both the Christians and heathens,” as Dr. Whitby observes, “called each other atheists, though both worshipped some deity, real or imaginary; because each supposed the other to reject that which was the true object of adoration. But it is not to be conceived that the apostle would have given to the heathens the character of atheists, if the worship of the one living and true God had really prevailed among them to that degree which some Christian divines have incautiously maintained that it did. The truth of the matter seems to have been, that, though several of them speak of their Jupiter in terms proper to the one self-existent and eternal Deity only, yet they taught and believed other things of him quite inconsistent with such perfections. And those who had some knowledge of the one Supreme Eternal Cause, yet practically disregarded him: and, however they might reconcile it with the dictates of their consciences, worshipped inferior deities; and many of them such as were represented under the most scandalous characters, to the neglect of the Supreme Being, and the destruction of all true religion.” Ephesians 2:12 That at that time ye were without Christ, being aliens from the commonwealth of Israel, and strangers from the covenants of promise, having no hope, and without God in the world: Ephesians 2:13 But now in Christ Jesus ye who sometimes were far off are made nigh by the blood of Christ. Ephesians 2:13-14 . But now in Christ Jesus — In consequence of your union with him, and your interest in him by faith, ye, who formerly were far off — From God and his people, (as in Ephesians 2:12 ,) are made nigh to both, by the blood of Christ — Whereby he hath atoned for your sins, and opened a free and honourable way for your approaching God, and becoming entitled to all the privileges of his people. For he is our peace — Not only as he purchased it, and confers it on such as truly believe in him, but as he is the very bond and centre of the union of believers with God and each other; who hath made both — Believing Jews and Gentiles, one church, one flock of Christ. This union of the Jews and the Gentiles, so as to make them one people, was foretold by our Lord, when he said, ( John 10:16 ,) Other sheep I have which are not of this fold: are not Jews; and they shall hear my voice, and there shall be one fold: Greek, ??? ?????? , one flock, though in different folds, and one shepherd. The apostle here describes, 1st, The conjunction of the Gentiles with Israel, Ephesians 2:14-15 ; and, 2d, The conjunction of both with God, Ephesians 2:16-18 . And hath broken down the middle wall of partition — The ceremonial law, which the apostle here compares to that wall in the Jewish temple, which separated the court of Israel from the court of the Gentiles. For many of the rites of that law could be performed nowhere but in the temple of Jerusalem. But Christ, having now taken away that law, and prescribed, under the gospel, a spiritual form of worship, which may be performed everywhere, he hath thereby provided for joining Jews and Gentiles in one church, and making them all one people in God: a union which could not have taken place if the Mosaic law had been continued. For the worship of God, as to various branches of it, being confined by that law to the temple at Jerusalem, the greatest part of the Gentiles could certainly not have come thither to worship with the Jews. Ephesians 2:14 For he is our peace, who hath made both one, and hath broken down the middle wall of partition between us ; Ephesians 2:15 Having abolished in his flesh the enmity, even the law of commandments contained in ordinances; for to make in himself of twain one new man, so making peace; Ephesians 2:15-18 . Having abolished in his flesh — By the sufferings and death endured therein; the cause of enmity between the Jews and Gentiles, even the law of ceremonial commandments, contained in ordinances — Consisting in many institutions and appointments concerning the outward worship of God; such as those of circumcision, sacrifices, clean and unclean meats, washings, and holy days; which, being founded in the mere pleasure of God, might be abolished when he saw fit. These ordinances Jesus abolished, that he might make in himself — That is, by uniting them to himself as their head; of twain — Of Jews and Gentiles, who were at such a distance before; one new man — One mystical body, one church, renewed by the Holy Ghost, and uniting in one new way of gospel worship: so making peace — Between the two kinds of people, and even laying a foundation for the most sincere mutual love and friendship: And, or moreover, to complete this blessed work of making peace, that he might reconcile both, as thus united in one body, and animated by one spirit, not merely to one another, but unto God, by his death on the cross — By which he expiated the guilt of sin, and rendered God reconcileable, and ready to pardon the penitent that should believe in Jesus; and by which he procured for mankind, whether Jews or Gentiles, the Holy Spirit to work repentance and faith in them, and destroy that carnal mind, which is enmity against God, ( Romans 8:7 ,) and all those sinful passions which are connected therewith, and which render men odious in his sight, and hostile to one another. And came — After his resurrection; and preached peace — By his authorized ambassadors, (to whom he had committed the important trust of treating with sinners in his name and stead, 2 Corinthians 5:19-20 ,) to you Gentiles, which were afar off — At the utmost distance from God; and to them that were nigh — To the Jews, who were comparatively nigh, being his visible church. For through him — Through his mediation, his sacrifice and intercession; we both — Believing Jews and Gentiles; have access — Have liberty of approach; by one Spirit — Inspiring us with faith, hope, and love, and rendering us sincere, spiritual, fervent, and constant, in our prayers, praises, and all acts of worship and service: unto the Father — That is, unto God as a Father reconciled in Christ, and beholding us with paternal eyes of love, complacency, and delight. Ephesians 2:16 And that he might reconcile both unto God in one body by the cross, having slain the enmity thereby: Ephesians 2:17 And came and preached peace to you which were afar off, and to them that were nigh. Ephesians 2:18 For through him we both have access by one Spirit unto the Father. Ephesians 2:19 Now therefore ye are no more strangers and foreigners, but fellowcitizens with the saints, and of the household of God; Ephesians 2:19-22 . Now, therefore — Being thus reconciled; ye — Believing Gentiles; are no more strangers and foreigners — If it be necessary to make any distinction as to the signification of these two words, in the former, ( ????? ,) the apostle may refer to persons of a different country; and in the latter, ( ???????? ,) to those of a different family. The following clause evidently leads to this sense. But fellow-citizens with the saints — The Church of God is here spoken of under the emblem of a city, as it is also Isaiah 26:1-2 ; Isaiah 60:1 , &c. Isaiah 62:12 ; Php 3:20 , (where the original expression signifies, our citizenship in heaven, ) as also Hebrews 12:22 ; Revelation 21:10-27 , and in many other places of the Old and New Testaments. Of this city, the believers at Ephesus are here represented as genuine citizens, entitled to all the glorious immunities and privileges of it; and of the household of God — Members of his family, his servants, yea, his sons and daughters. As if he had said, God not only stands related to you as a king to his people, or the chief magistrate of a city to the citizens; but as a father to his children, who are under his peculiar protection and care, have the nearest access to him, and most intimate communion with him. “Perhaps,” says Doddridge, “this latter clause, ??????? ??? ???? , domestics of God, may have some relation to that peculiar nearness to God in which the Jewish priests were, and refer to that great intimacy of unrestrained converse with God, to which we, as Christians, are admitted; in which respect our privileges seem to resemble, not only those of the people praying in the common court of Israel, but those of the priests, worshipping in the house itself. Nay, it is elsewhere added, by a figure, which seems beautifully to rise even on this, that we have confidence to enter into the holiest by the blood of Jesus.” And are built — Here the apostle alludes to a building, particularly to the temple at Jerusalem, to which he compares God’s visible church, as is evident from the subsequent verse; and he represents the believers at Ephesus as constituent parts of this building; upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets — the fundamental doctrines declared by them, on which the faith and hope of all true believers are built. God laid the foundation of his church by them. Thus the city of the living God, the new Jerusalem, which is the church of God, in its most perfect state in the world to come, is said ( Revelation 21:14 ) to be built on the foundation of the twelve apostles of the Lamb. The Jewish prophets are also said, not improperly, to be the foundation of God’s church, because they bore testimony, though some of them in an obscure manner, to most of the doctrines of the gospel. Perhaps, however, as the prophets are here mentioned after the apostles, the Christian prophets may be meant; to whom, by a peculiar inspiration, the true meaning of the writings of Moses and the prophets was made known. Jesus Christ himself being the chief corner-stone — Namely, of the foundation, holding the several parts of the building together, and supporting the chief weight of the edifice. It is true, this stone may be considered as placed either at the top or at the bottom of the building; but the latter seems here to be meant; because, in the following verse, the building is said to be fifty joined together by this stone, and to grow into a holy temple for the Lord. Elsewhere, Christ is termed the foundation itself, 1 Corinthians 3:11 , where see the note. The Lord Jesus, however, is also the head of the corner — The top corner-stone; for so he terms himself Matthew 21:42 . In — Or on; whom all the building — The whole fabric of the universal church, with all its members, and the doctrines which they believe, the precepts which they obey, and the promises which they embrace, and in which they confide; yea, with all the blessings enjoyed in time, and expected in eternity; fitly framed together — Harmoniously joined in its several parts, and compacted so as to add beauty, strength, and unity to the whole; groweth — Riseth up like a large pile of living materials, namely, by the continual accession of new converts, and the advancing graces of those already converted; unto a holy temple in the Lord — Fitly dedicated to the Lord Christ, as being raised and supported by him; a temple in which God displays his presence, yea, dwells, and is worshipped in spirit and in truth. What is the temple of Diana of the Ephesians, whom ye formerly worshipped, compared to this? See note on 1 Peter 2:4-5 . In whom ye also — At Ephesus, believing in Christ, and placing your confidence in him as the foundation and high- priest of this temple; are builded together — With other believers, whether Jews or Gentiles; for a habitation of God — That God may dwell among you, as a holy and harmonious society, and in you as individuals, your bodies and souls being also his temples, ( 1 Corinthians 3:16 ; 1 Corinthians 6:19 ; 2 Corinthians 6:16 ,) through the Spirit — Of truth and grace, of power, purity, and consolation; of holiness and happiness, which God hath promised to all that believe in his Son, John 7:38-39 ; Acts 2:39 . Ephesians 2:20 And are built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ himself being the chief corner stone ; Ephesians 2:21 In whom all the building fitly framed together groweth unto an holy temple in the Lord: Ephesians 2:22 In whom ye also are builded together for an habitation of God through the Spirit. Benson Commentary on the Old and New Te

Expositors

Expositor's Bible Commentary Ephesians 2:1 And you hath he quickened , who were dead in trespasses and sins; Chapter 7 FROM DEATH TO LIFE Ephesians 2:1-6 We pass by a sudden transition, just as in Colossians 1:21-22 , from the thought of that which God wrought in Christ Himself to that which He works through Christ in believing men. So God raised, exalted, and glorified His Son Jesus Christ { Ephesians 1:19-23 } -and you! The finely woven threads of the apostle’s thought are frequently severed, and awkward chasms made in the highway of his argument, by our chapter and verse divisions. The words inserted in our Version (did He quicken) are borrowed by anticipation from Ephesians 2:5 ; but they are more than supplied already in the foregoing context. "The same almighty hand that was laid upon the body of the dead Christ and lifted Him from Joseph’s. grave to the highest seat in heaven, is now laid upon your soul. It has raised you from the grave of death and sin to share by faith His celestial life." The apostle, in Ephesians 2:3 , pointedly includes amongst the "dead in trespasses and sins" himself and his Jewish fellow-believers as they "once lived," when they obeyed the motions and "volitions of the flesh," and so were "by birth" not children of favour, as Jews presumed, but "children of anger, even as the rest." This passage gives us a sublime view of the event of our conversion. It associates that change in us with the stupendous miracle which took place in our Redeemer. The one act is a continuation of the other. There is an acting over again in us of Christ’s crucifixion, resurrection, and ascension, when we realise through faith that which was done for mankind in Him. At the same time, the redemption which is in Christ Jesus is no mere legacy, to be received or declined; it is not something done once for all, and left to be appropriated passively by our individual will. It is a "power of God unto salvation," unceasingly operative and effective, that works "of faith and unto faith, " that summons men to faith, challenging human confidence wherever its message travels and awakening the spiritual possibilities dormant in our nature. It is a supernatural force, then, which is at work upon us in the word of Christ. It is a resurrection power, that turns death into life. And it is a power instinct with love. The love which went out towards the slain and buried Jesus when the Father stooped to raise Him from the dead, bends over us as we lie in the grave of our sins, and exerts itself with a might no less transcendent, that it may raise us from the dust of death to sit with Him in the heavenly places ( Ephesians 2:4-6 ). Let us look at the two sides of the change effected in men by the gospel-at the death they leave, and the life into which they enter. Let us contemplate the task to which this unmatched power has set itself. I. You that were dead, the apostle says. Jesus Christ came into a dead world-He the one living man, alive in body, soul, and spirit- alive to God in the world. He was, like none besides, aware of God and of God’s love breathing in His Spirit, "living not by bread alone, but by every word that proceeded from His mouth." "This," He said, "is life eternal." If His definition was correct, if it be life to know God, then the world into which Christ entered by His human birth, the world of heathendom and Judaism, was veritably dying or dead-"dead indeed unto God." Its condition was visible to discerning eyes. It was a world rotting in its corruption, mouldering in its decay, and which to His pure sense had the moral aspect and odour of a charnel-house. We realise very imperfectly the distress, the inward nausea, the conflict of disgust and pity which the fact of being in such a world as this and belonging to it caused in the nature of Jesus Christ, in a soul that was in perfect sympathy with God. Never was there loneliness such as His, the solitude of life in a region peopled with the dead. The joy which Christ had in his little flock, in those whom the Father had given Him out of the world, was proportionately great. In them He found companionship, teachableness, signs of a heart awakening towards God-men to whom life was in some degree what it was to Him. He had come, as the prophet in his vision, into "the valley full of dry bones," and He "prophesied to these slain that they might live." What a comfort to see, at His first words, a shaking in the valley, -to see some who stirred at His voice, who stood upon their feet and gathered round Him-not yet a great army, but a band of living men! In their breasts, inspired from His, was the life of the future. "I am come," He said, "that they might have life." It was the work of Jesus Christ to breathe His vital spirit into the corpse of humanity, to reanimate the world. When St. Paul speaks of his readers in their heathen condition as "dead," it is not a figure of speech. He does not mean that they were like dead men, that their state resembled death; "nor only that they were in peril of death; but he signifies a real and present death" (Calvin). They were, in the inmost sense and truth of things, dead men. We are twofold creatures, two-lived, - spirits cased in flesh. Our human nature is capable, therefore, of strange duplicities. It is possible for us to be alive and flourishing upon one side of our being, while we are paralysed or lifeless upon the other. As our bodies live in commerce with the light and air, in the environment of house and food and daily exercise of the limbs and senses under the economy of material nature, so our spirits live by the breath of prayer, by faith and love towards God, by reverence and filial submission, by communion with things unseen and eternal. "With Thee," says the Psalmist to his God, "is the fountain of life: in Thy light we see light." We must daily resort to that fountain and drink of its pure stream, we must faithfully walk in that light, or there is no such life for us. The soul that wants a true faith in God, wants the proper spring and principle of its being. It sees not the light, it hears not the voices, it breathes not the air of that higher world where its origin and its destiny lie. The man who walks the earth a sinner against God becomes by the act and fact of his transgression a dead man. He has imbibed the fatal poison; it runs in his veins. The doom of sin lies on his unforgiven spirit. He carries death and judgment about with him. They lie down with him at night and wake with him in the morning; they take part in his transactions; they sit by his side in the feast of life. His works are "dead works"; his joys and hopes are all shadowed and tainted. Within his living frame he bears a coffined soul. With the machinery of life, with the faculties and possibilities of a spiritual being, the man lies crushed under the activity of the senses, wasted and decaying for want of the breath of the Spirit of God. In its coldness and powerlessness-too often in its visible corruption-his nature shows the symptoms of advancing death. It is dead as the tree is dead, cut off from its root; as the fire is dead when the spark is gone out; dead as a man is dead, when the heart stops. As it is with the departed saints sleeping in Christ, -"put to death, indeed, in the flesh, but living in the spirit,"-so by a terrible inversion with the wicked in this life. They are put to death, indeed, in the spirit, while they. live in the flesh. They may be and often are powerfully alive and active in their relations to the world of sense, while on the unseen and Godward side utterly paralysed. Ask such a man about his business or family concerns; touch on affairs of politics or trade, -and you deal with a living mind, its powers and susceptibilities awake and alert. But let the conversation pass to other themes; sound him on questions of the inner life; ask him what he thinks of Christ, how he stands towards God, how he fares in the spiritual conflict, -and you strike a note to which there is no response. You have taken him out of his element. He is a practical man, he tells you; he does not live in the clouds, or hunt after shadows; he believes in hard facts, in things that he can grasp and handle. "The natural man perceiveth not the things of the Spirit of God. They are foolishness to him." They are pictures to the eye of the blind, heavenly music to the stone-deaf. And yet that hardened man of the world-starve and ignore his own spirit and shut up its mystic chambers as he will-cannot easily destroy himself. He has not extirpated his religious nature, nor crushed out, though he has suppressed, the craving for God in his breast. And when the callous surface of his life is broken through, under some unusual stress, some heavy loss or the shock of a great bereavement, one may catch a glimpse of the deeper world within of which the man himself was so little conscious. And what is to be seen there? Haunting memories of past sin, fears of a conscience fretted already by the undying worm, forms of weird and ghostly dread flitting amid the gloom and dust of death through that closed house of the spirit, - "The bat and owl inhabit here: The snake nests on the altar stone: The sacred vessels moulder near: The image of the God is gone!" In this condition of death the word of life comes to men. It is the state not of heathendom alone; but of those also, favoured with the light of revelation, who have not opened to it the eyes of the heart, of all who are "doing the desires of the flesh and the thoughts"-who are governed by their own impulses and ideas and serve no will above the world of sense. Without distinction of birth or formal religious standing, "all" who thus live and walk are dead while they live. Their trespasses and sins have killed them. From first to last Scripture testifies: "Your sins have separated between you and your God." We find a hundred excuses for our irreligion: there is the cause. There is nothing in the universe to separate any one of us from the love and fellowship of his Maker but his own unforsaken sin. It is true there are other hindrances to faith, intellectual difficulties of great weight and seriousness, that press upon many minds. For such men Christ has all possible sympathy and patience. There is a real, though hidden faith that "lives in honest doubt." Some men have more faith than they suppose, while others certainly have much less. One has a name to live, and yet is dead; another, perchance, has a name to die, and yet is alive to God through Jesus Christ. There are endless complications, self-contradictions, and misunderstandings in human nature. "Many are first" in the ranks of religious profession and notoriety, "which shall be last, and the last first." We make the largest allowance for this element of uncertainty in the line that bounds faith from unfaith; "The Lord knoweth them that are His." No intellectual difficulty, no mere misunderstanding, will ultimately or for long separate between God and the soul that He has made. It is antipathy that separates. "They did not like to retain God in their knowledge": that is Paul’s explanation of the ungodliness and vice of the ancient world. And it holds good still in countless instances. "Numbers in this bad world talk loudly against religion in order to encourage each other in sin, because they need encouragement. They know that they ought to be other than they are; but are glad to avail themselves of anything that looks like argument, to overcome their consciences withal" (Newman). The fashionable scepticism of the day too often conceals an inner revolt against the moral demands of the Christian life; it is the pretext of a carnal mind, which is "enmity against God, because it is not subject to His law." Christ’s sentence upon unbelief as He knew it was this: "Light is come into the world; and men love darkness rather than light, because their deeds are evil." So said the keenest and the kindest judge of men. If we are refusing Him our faith let us be very sure that this condemnation does not touch ourselves. Is there no passion that bribes and suborns the intellect? no desire in the soul that dreads his entrance? no evil deeds that shelter themselves from His accusing light? When the apostle says of his Gentile readers that they "once walked in the way of the age, according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air," the former part of his statement is clear enough. The age in which he lived was godless to the last degree; the stream of the world’s life ran in turbid course toward moral ruin. But the second clause is obscure. The "prince" (or "ruler") who guides the world along its career of rebellion is manifestly Satan, the spirit of darkness and hate whom St. Paul entitles "the god of this world," { 2 Corinthians 4:4 } and in whom Jesus recognised, under the name of "the prince of the world," His great antagonist. { John 14:30 } But what has this spirit of evil to do with "the air"? The Jewish rabbis supposed that the terrestrial atmosphere was Satan’s abode, that it was peopled by demons flitting about invisibly in the encompassing element. But this is a notion foreign to Scripture-certainly not contained in Ephesians 6:12 -and, in its bare physical sense, without point or relevance to this passage. There follows an immediate apposition to "the domain of the air, the spirit that now works in the sons of disobedience." Surely, the air here partakes (if it be only here) of the figurative significance of spirit (i.e., breath). St. Paul refines the Jewish idea of evil spirits dwell in the surrounding atmosphere into an ethical conception of the atmosphere of the world, as that from which the sons of disobedience draw their breath and receive the spirit that inspires them. Here lies, in truth, the dominion of Satan. In other words Satan constituted the Zeitgeist. As Beck profoundly remarks upon this text: "The Power of the air is a fitting designation for the prevailing spirit of the times, whose influence spreads itself like a miasma through the whole atmosphere of the world. It manifests itself as a contagious nature-power; and a spiritus rector works within it, which takes possession of the world of men, alike in individuals and in society, and assumes the direction of it. The form of expression here employed is based on the conception of evil peculiar to Scripture. In Scripture, evil and the principle of evil are not conceived in a purely spiritual way; nor could this be the case in a world of fleshly constitution, where the spiritual has the sensuous for its basis and its vehicle. Spiritual evil exists as a power immanent in cosmical nature." Concerning great tracts of the earth, and large sections even of Christianised communities, we must still confess with St. John: "The world lieth in the Evil One." The air is impregnated with the infection of sin; its germs float about us constantly, and wherever they find lodgment they set up their deadly fever. Sin is the malarial poison native to our soil; it is an epidemic that runs its course through the entire "age of this world." Above this feverous, sin-laden atmosphere the apostle sees God’s anger brooding in threatening clouds. For our trespasses and sins are, after all, not forced on us by our environment. Those offences by which we provoke God lie in our nature; they are no mere casual acts, they belong to our bias and disposition. Sin is a constitutional malady. There exists a bad element in our human nature, which corresponds but too truly to the course and current of the world around us. This the apostle acknowledges for himself and his law-honouring Jewish kindred: "We were by nature children of wrath, even as the rest." So he wrote in the sad confession of Romans 7:14-23 : "I see a different law in my members, warring against the law of my mind and bringing me into captivity to the law of sin which is in my members." It is upon this "other law," the contradiction of His own, upon the sinfulness beneath the sin, that God’s displeasure rests. Human law notes the overt act: "the Lord looketh upon the heart." There is nothing more bitter and humiliating to a conscientious man than the conviction of this penetrating Divine insight, this detection in himself of this incurable sin and the hollowness of his righteousness before God. How it confounds the proud Pharisee to learn that he is as other men are, -and even as this publican! "The sons of disobedience" must needs be "children of wrath." All sin, whether in nature or practice, is the object of God’s fixed displeasure. It cannot be matter of indifference to our Father in heaven that His human children are disobedient toward Himself. Children of His favour or anger we are each one of us, and at every moment. We "keep His commandments, and abide in His love"; or we do not keep them, and are excluded. It is His smile or frown that makes the sunshine or the gloom of our inner life. How strange that men should argue that God’s love forbids His wrath! It is, in truth, the cause of it. I could neither love nor fear a God who did not care enough about me to be angry with me when I sin. If my child does wilful wrong, if by some act of greed or passion he imperils his moral future and destroys the peace and well-being of the house, shall I not be grieved with him, with an anger proportioned to the love I bear him? How much more shall your heavenly Father how much more justly and wisely and mercifully! St. Paul feels no contradiction between the words of verse 3 and those that follow. The same God whose wrath burns against the sons of disobedience while they so continue, is "rich in mercy" and "loved us even when we were dead in our trespasses!" He pities evil men, and to save them spared not His Son from death; but Almighty God, the Father of glory, hates and loathes the evil that is in them, and has determined that if they will not let it go they shall perish with it. II. Such was the death in which Paul and his readers once had lain. But God in His "great love" has "made them to live along with the Christ." How wonderful to have witnessed a resurrection: to see the pale cheek of the little maid, Jairus’ daughter, flush again with the tints of life, and the still frame begin to stir, and the eyes softly open-and she looks upon the face of Jesus! or to watch Lazarus, four days dead, coming out of his tomb, slowly, and as one dreaming, with hands and feet bound in the grave-clothes. Still more marvellous to have beheld the Prince of Life at the dawn of the third day issue from Joseph’s grave, bursting His prison-gates and stepping forth in new-risen glory as one refreshed from slumber. But there are things no less divine, had we eyes for their marvel, that take place upon this earth day by day. When a human soul awakes from its trespasses and sins, when the love of God is poured into a heart that was cold and empty, when the Spirit of God breathes into a spirit lying powerless and buried in the flesh, there is as true a rising from the dead as when Jesus our Lord came out from His sepulchre. It was of this spiritual resurrection that He said: "The hour cometh, and now is, when the dead shall hear the voice of the Son of God, and they that hear shall live." Having said that, He added, concerning the bodily resurrection of mankind, "Marvel not at this; for the hour cometh, in which all that are in the tombs shall hear His voice, and shall come forth!" The second wonder only matches and consummates the first. { John 5:24-28 } "This is life eternal, to know God the Father,"-the life, as the apostle elsewhere calls it, that is "life indeed." It came to St. Paul by a new creation, when, as he describes it, "God who said, Light shall shine out of darkness, shined in our hearts, to give the light of the knowledge of His glory in the face of Jesus Christ." We are born again-the God-consciousness is born within us: an hour mysterious and decisive as that in which our personal consciousness first emerged and the soul knew itself. Now it knows God. Like Jacob at Peniel it says: "I have seen God face to face; and my life is preserved." God and the soul have met in Christ-and are reconciled. The words the apostle uses-"gave us life"-"raised us up"-"seated us in the heavenly places"- embrace the whole range of salvation. "Those united with Christ are through grace delivered from their state of death, not only in the sense that the resurrection and exaltation of Christ redound to their benefit as Divinely imputed to them; but by the life-giving energy of God they are brought out of their condition of death into a new and actual state of life. The act of grace is an act of the Divine power and might, not a mere judicial declaration" (Beck). This comprehensive action of the Divine grace upon believing men takes place by a constant and constantly deepening union of the soul with Christ. This is well expressed by A. Monod: "The entire history of the Son of man is reproduced in the man who believes in Him, not by a simple moral analogy; hut by a spiritual communication which is the true secret of our justification as well as of our sanctification, and indeed of our whole salvation." There is no repetition in the three verbs employed, which are alike extended by the Greek preposition "with" (syn). The first sentence (raised us up "with the Christ") virtually includes everything; it shows us one with Christ who lives evermore to God. The second sentence gathers into its scope all believers-the "you" of verse I and the "we" of Ephesians 2:3 : "He raised us up together, and together made us sit in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus." Nothing is more characteristic of our epistle than this turn of thought. To the conception of our "union with Christ" in His celestial life, it adds that of our "union with each other in Christ" as sharers in common of that life. Christ "reconciles us in one body unto God" ( Ephesians 2:16 ). We sit not alone, but together in the heavenly places. This is the fulness of life; this completes our salvation. Ephesians 2:7 That in the ages to come he might shew the exceeding riches of his grace in his kindness toward us through Christ Jesus. Chapter 8 SAVED FOR AN END Ephesians 2:7-10 The plan which God has formed for men in Christ is of great dimensions every way, -in its length no less than in its breadth and height. He "raised us up and seated us together (Gentiles with Jews) in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, that in the ages which are coming on He might show the surpassing riches of His grace." All the races of mankind and all future ages are embraced in the redeeming purpose and are to share in its boundless wealth. Nor are the ages past excluded from its operations. God "afore prepared the good works in which He summons us to walk." The highway of the new life has been in building since time began. Thus large and limitless is the range of "the purpose and grace given us in Christ Jesus before times eternal". { 2 Timothy 1:9 } But what strikes us most in this passage is the exuberance of the grace itself. Twice over the apostle exclaims, "By grace you are saved": once in Ephesians 2:5 , in an eager, almost jealous parenthesis, where he hastens to assure the readers of their deliverance from the fearful condition just described ( Ephesians 2:1-3 , Ephesians 2:5 ). Again, deliberately and with full definition he states the same fact, in Ephesians 2:8 : "For by grace you are saved, through faith; and this is not of yourselves, it is the gift of God. It does not come of works, to the end that none may boast." These words place us on familiar ground. We recognise the Paul of Galatians and Romans, the dialect and accent of the apostle of salvation by faith. But scarcely anywhere do we find this wonder-working grace so affluently described. "God being rich in mercy, for the great love wherewith He loved us-the exceeding riches of His grace, shown in kindness toward us-the gift of God." "Mercy, love, kindness, grace, gift": what a constellation is here! These terms present the character of God in the gospel under the most delightful aspects, and in vivid contrast to the picture of our human state outlined in the beginning of the chapter. "Mercy" denotes the Divine pitifulness towards feeble, suffering men, akin to those "compassions of God" to which the apostle repeatedly appeals. It is a constant attribute of God in the Old Testament, and fills much the same place there that grace does in the New. "Of mercy and judgment" do the Psalmists sing-of mercy most. Out of the thunder and smoke of Sinai He declared His name: "Jehovah, a God full of compassion and gracious, slow to anger, and plenteous in mercy and truth, keeping mercy for thousands." The dread of God’s justice, the sense of His dazzling holiness and almightiness threw His mercy into bright relief and gave to it an infinite preciousness. It is the contrast which brings in "mercy" here, in verse 4, by antithesis to "wrath" ( Ephesians 2:3 ). These qualities are complementary. The sternest and strongest natures are the most compassionate. God is "rich in mercy." The wealth of His Being pours itself out in the exquisite tendernesses, the unwearied forbearance and forgiveness of His compassion towards men. The Judge of all the earth, whose hate of evil is the fire of hell, is gentler than the softest hearted mother, -rich in mercy as He is grand and terrible in wrath. God’s mercy regards us as we are weak and miserable: His love regards us as we are, in spite of trespass and offence, His offspring, -objects of "much love" amid much displeasure, "even when we were dead through our trespasses." What does the story of the prodigal son mean but this? and what Christ’s great word to Nicodemus?-Grace { John 3:16 } and kindness are love’s executive. Grace is love in administration, love counteracting sin and seeking our salvation. Christ is the embodiment of grace; the cross its supreme expression; the gospel its message to mankind; and Paul himself its trophy and witness. The "overpassing riches" of grace is that affluence of wealth in which through Christ it "superabounded" to the apostolic age and has outdone the magnitude of sin, { Romans 5:20 } in such measure that St. Paul sees future ages gazing with wonder at its benefactions to himself and his fellow-believers. Shown "in kindness toward us," he says, -in a condescending fatherliness, that forgets its anger and softens its old severity into comfort and endearment. God’s kindness is the touch of His hand, the accent of His voice, the cherishing breath of His Spirit. Finally, this generosity of the Divine grace, this infinite goodwill of God toward men, takes expression in the gift-the gift of Christ, the gift of righteousness, { Romans 5:15-18 } the gift of eternal; { Romans 6:23 } or-regarded, as it is here, in the light of experience and possession-the gift of salvation. The opposition of "gift" and "debt," of gratuitous salvation through faith to salvation earned by works of law, belongs to the marrow of St. Paul’s divinity. The teaching of the great evangelical epistles is condensed into the brief words of Ephesians 2:8-9 . The reason here assigned for God’s dealing with men by way of gift and making them absolutely debtors-"lest any one should boast"-was forced upon the apostle’s mind by the stubborn pride of legalism; it is stated in terms identical with those of the earlier letters. Men will glory in their virtues before God; they flaunt the rags of their own righteousness, if any such pretext, even the slightest, remains to them. We sinners are a proud race, and our pride is oftentimes the worst of our sins. Therefore God humbles us by His compassion. He makes to us a free gift of. His righteousness, and excludes every contribution from our store of merit; for if we could supply anything, we should inevitably boast as though all were our own. We must be content to receive mercy, love, grace, kindness- everything, with out deserving the least fraction of the immense sum. How it strips our vanity; how it crushes us to the dust-"the weight of pardoning love!" Concerning the office of faith in salvation we have already spoken in chapter 4. It is on the objective fact rather than the subjective means of salvation that the apostle lays stress in this passage. His readers do not seem to have realised sufficiently what God has given them and the greatness of the salvation already accomplished. They measured inadequately the power which had touched and changed their lives. { Ephesians 1:19 } St. Paul has shown them the depth to which they were formerly sunk, and the height to which they have been raised ( Ephesians 2:16 ). He can therefore assure them, and he does it with redoubled emphasis: "You are saved; By grace you are saved men!" Not "You will be saved"; nor, "You were saved"; nor, "You are in course of salvation,"- for salvation has many moods and tenses, -but, in the perfect passive tense, he asserts the glorious accomplished fact. With the same reassuring emphasis in Ephesians 1:7 he declared, "We have redemption in His blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses." Here is St. Paul’s doctrine, of Assurance. It was laid down by Christ Himself when He said: "He that believeth on the Son of God hath eternal life." This sublime confidence is the ruling note of St. John’s great epistle: "We know that we are in Him We know that we have passed out of death into life This is the victory that overcometh the world, even our faith." It was this confidence of present salvation that made the Church irresistible. With its foundation secure, the house of life can be steadily and calmly built up. Under the shelter of the full assurance of faith, in the sunshine of God’s love felt in the heart, all spiritual virtues bloom and flourish. But with a faith hesitant, distracted, that is sure of no doctrine in the creed and cannot plant a firm foot anywhere, nothing prospers in the soul or in the Church. Oh, for the clear accent, the ringing, joyous note of apostolic assurance! We want a faith not loud, but deep; a faith not born of sentiment and human sympathy, but that comes from the vision of the living God; a faith whose rock and corner-stone is neither the Church nor the Bible, but Christ Jesus Himself. Greatly do we need, like the Asian disciples of Paul and John, to "assure our hearts" before God. With death confronting us, with the hideous evil of the world oppressing us; when the air is laden with the contagion of sin; when the faith of the strongest wears the cast of doubt; when the word of promise shines dimly through the haze of an all-encompassing scepticism and a hundred voices say, in mockery or grief, Where is now thy God? when the world proclaims us lost, our faith refuted, our gospel obsolete and useless, -then is the time for the Christian assurance to recover its first energy and to rise again in radiant strength from the heart of the Church, from the depths of its mystic life where it is hid with Christ in God. "You are saved!" cries the apostle; not forgetting that his readers have their battle to fight, and many hazards yet to run. { Ephesians 6:10-13 } But they hold the earnest of victory, the foretaste of life eternal. In spirit they sit with Christ in the heavenly places. Pain and death, temptation, persecution, the vicissitudes of earthly history, by these God means to perfect that Which He has begun in His saints-"if you continue in the faith, grounded and firm". { Colossians 1:23 } That condition is expressed, or implied, in all assurance of final salvation. It is a condition which excites to watchfulness, but can never cause misgiving to a loyal heart. God is for us! He justifies us, and counts us His elect. Christ Jesus who died is risen and seated at the right hand of God, and there intercedes for us. Quis separabit? This is the epistle of the Church and of humanity. It dwells on the grand, objective aspects of the truth, rather than upon its subjective experiences. It does not invite us to rest in the comforts and delights of grace, but to lift up our eyes and see whither Christ has translated us and what is the kingdom that we possess in Him. God "quickened us together with the Christ": He "raised us up, He made us to sit in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus." Henceforth "our citizenship is in heaven". { Php 3:20 } This is the inspiring thought of the third group of St. Paul s epistles; we heard it in the first note of his song of praise. { Ephesians 1:3 } It supplies the principle from which St. Paul unfolds the beautiful conception of the Christian life contained in the third chapter of the companion letter to

Illustrator

And you hath He quickened who were dead in trespasses and sins. Ephesians 2:1 The quickening power of the gospel A. F. Muir, M. A. This the peculiar characteristic of the preaching of Christianity in the first age. It came into a world preoccupied by other systems of religion, Jewish and Gentile, and succeeded where they had failed. The secret of its success is the same today — vital power. I. UPON WHOM IS IT EXERTED? 1. The spiritually dead. 2. The bondslaves of Satan. 3. The subjects of Divine wrath. II. THROUGH WHOM DOES IT OPERATE? Christ, the manifested Son of God, is the Alpha and Omega of its proclamations. 1. Through faith men are united to Him. 2. Share in His resurrection. III. IN WHOM IS ITS SOURCE? It is God who ordained the means of salvation, sent His Son into the world to die for sinners, and raising Him from the dead raised also all those who were united to Him by faith by a spiritual resurrection, that they might "walk in newness of life." This gracious work is due — 1. To His nature. "Being rich in mercy." 2. To His affection for men. "For His great love wherewith He loved us." ( A. F. Muir, M. A. )

Matthew Henry

2:1-10 Sin is the death of the soul. A man dead in trespasses and sins has no desire for spiritual pleasures. When we look upon a corpse, it gives an awful feeling. A never-dying spirit is now fled, and has left nothing but the ruins of a man. But if we viewed things aright, we should be far more affected by the thought of a dead soul, a lost, fallen spirit. A state of sin is a state of conformity to this world. Wicked men are slaves to Satan. Satan is the author of that proud, carnal disposition which there is in ungodly men; he rules in the hearts of men. From Scripture it is clear, that whether men have been most prone to sensual or to spiritual wickedness, all men, being naturally children of disobedience, are also by nature children of wrath. What reason have sinners, then, to seek earnestly for that grace which will make them, of children of wrath, children of God and heirs of glory! God's eternal love or good-will toward his creatures, is the fountain whence all his mercies flow to us; and that love of God is great love, and that mercy is rich mercy. And every converted sinner is a saved sinner; delivered from sin and wrath. The grace that saves is the free, undeserved goodness and favour of God; and he saves, not by the works of the law, but through faith in Christ Jesus. Grace in the soul is a new life in the soul. A regenerated sinner becomes a living soul; he lives a life of holiness, being born of God: he lives, being delivered from the guilt of sin, by pardoning and justifying grace. Sinners roll themselves in the dust; sanctified souls sit in heavenly places, are raised above this world, by Christ's grace. The goodness of God in converting and saving sinners heretofore, encourages others in after-time, to hope in his grace and mercy. Our faith, our conversion, and our eternal salvation, are not of works, lest any man should boast. These things are not brought to pass by any thing done by us, therefore all boasting is shut out. All is the free gift of God, and the effect of being quickened by his power. It was his purpose, to which he prepared us, by blessing us with the knowledge of his will, and his Holy Spirit producing such a change in us, that we should glorify God by our good conversation, and perseverance in holiness. None can from Scripture abuse this doctrine, or accuse it of any tendency to evil. All who do so, are without excuse. 2:11-13 Christ and his covenant are the foundation of all the Christian's hopes. A sad and terrible description is here; but who is able to remove himself out of it? Would that this were not a true description of many baptized in the name of Christ. Who can, without trembling, reflect upon the misery of a person, separated for ever from the people of God, cut off from the body of Christ, fallen from the covenant of promise, having no hope, no Saviour, and without any God but a God of vengeance, to all eternity? To have no part in Christ! What true Christian can hear this without horror? Salvation is far from the wicked; but God is a help at hand to his people; and this is by the sufferings and death of Christ. 2:14-18 Jesus Christ made peace by the sacrifice of himself; in every sense Christ was their Peace, the author, centre, and substance of their being at peace with God, and of their union with the Jewish believers in one church. Through the person, sacrifice, and mediation of Christ, sinners are allowed to draw near to God as a Father, and are brought with acceptance into his presence, with their worship and services, under the teaching of the Holy Spirit, as one with the Father and the Son. Christ purchased leave for us to come to God; and the Spirit gives a heart to come, and strength to come, and then grace to serve God acceptably. 2:19-22 The church is compared to a city, and every converted sinner is free of it. It is also compared to a house, and every converted sinner is one of the family; a servant, and a child in God's house. The church is also compared to a building, founded on the doctrine of Christ; delivered by the prophets of the Old Testament, and the apostles of the New. God dwells in all believers now; they become the temple of God through the working of the blessed Spirit. Let us then ask if our hopes are fixed on Christ, according to the doctrine of his word? Have we devoted ourselves as holy temples to God through him? Are we habitations of God by the Spirit, are we spiritually-minded, and do we bring forth the fruits of the Spirit? Let us take heed not to grieve the holy Comforter. Let us desire his gracious presence, and his influences upon our hearts. Let us seek to discharge the duties allotted to us, to the glory of God.