The Epistle to the Ephesians
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Introduction[i]
The
epistle to the Ephesians gives us the richest exposition of the blessings of
the saints individually, and of the assembly, setting forth, at the same time, the
counsels of God with regard to the glory of Christ. Christ Himself is viewed as
the One who is to hold all things united in one under His hand, as Head of the
assembly. We see the assembly placed in the most intimate relationship with
Him, as those who compose it are with the Father Himself, and in the heavenly
position dispensed to her by the sovereign grace of God. Now these ways of
grace to her reveal God Himself, and in two distinct characters; as well in
connection with Christ as with Christians. He is the God and Father of our Lord
Jesus Christ. He is the God of Christ, when Christ is looked at as man; the
Father of Christ when Christ is looked at as the Son of His love. In the first
character, the nature of God is revealed; in the second, we see the intimate
relationship which we enjoy to Him who bears this character of Father, and that
according to the excellence of Christ's own relationship to Him. It is this
relationship to the Father, as well as that in which we stand to Christ as His
body and His bride, that is the source of blessing to the saints and to the
assembly of God, of which grace has made us members as a whole.
The
form even of the epistle shews how much the apostle's mind was filled with the
sense of the blessing that belongs to the assembly. After having wished grace
and peace to the saints and the faithful [See Note #1] at Ephesus from God, the Father of true
Christians, and from Jesus Christ their Lord, he begins at once to speak of the
blessings in which all the members of Christ participate. His heart was full of
the immensity of grace; and nothing in the state of the Ephesian Christians
required any particular remarks adapted to that state. It is nearness of heart
to God that produces simplicity, and that enables us in simplicity to enjoy the
blessings of God as God Himself bestows them, as they flow from His heart, in
all their own excellence — to enjoy them in connection with Him who imparts
them, and not merely in a mode adapted to the state of those to whom they are
imparted; or through a communication that only reveals a part of these
blessings, because the soul would not be able to receive more. Yes, when near
to God, we are in simplicity, and the whole extent of His grace and of our
blessings unfolds itself as it is found in Him.
It
is important to remark two things here in passing: first, that moral nearness
to God, and communion with Him, is the only means of any true enlargement in
the knowledge of His ways and of the blessings which He imparts to His
children, because it is the only position in which we can perceive them, or be
morally capable of so doing; and, also, that all conduct which is not suitable
to this nearness to God, all levity of thought, which His presence does not
admit of, makes us lose these communications from Him and renders us incapable
of receiving them. (Compare Joh_14:21-23).
Secondly, it is not that the Lord forsakes us on account of these faults or
this carelessness; He intercedes for us, and we experience His grace, but it is
no longer communion or intelligent progress in the riches of the revelation of
Himself, of the fulness which is in Christ. It is grace adapted to our wants,
an answer to our misery. Jesus stretches out His hand to us according to the
need that we feel — need produced in our hearts by the operation of the Holy
Ghost. This is infinitely precious grace, a sweet experience of His
faithfulness and love: we learn by this means to discern good and evil by
judging self; but the grace had to be adapted to our wants, and to receive a character
according to those wants, as an answer made to them; we have had to think of
ourselves.
In
a case like this the Holy Ghost occupies us with ourselves (in grace, no
doubt), and when we have lost communion with God, we cannot neglect this
turning back upon ourselves without deceiving and hardening ourselves. Alas!
the dealings of many souls with Christ hardly go beyond this character. It is
with all too often the case. In a word, when this happens the thought of sin
having been admitted into the heart, our dealings with the Lord to be true must
be on the ground of this sad admission of sin (in thought, at least). It is
grace alone which allows us again to have to do with God. The fact that He
restores us enhances His grace in our eyes; but this is not communion. When we
walk with God, when we walk after the Spirit without grieving Him, He maintains
us in communion, in the enjoyment of God, the positive source of joy — of an
everlasting joy. This is a position in which He can occupy us — as being ourselves
interested in all that interests Him — with all the development of His
counsels, His glory, and His goodness, in the Person of Jesus the Christ, Jesus
the Son of His love; and the heart is enlarged in the measure of the objects
that occupy it. This is our normal condition. This, in the main, was the case
with the Ephesians.
We
have already remarked, that Paul was specially gifted of God to communicate His
counsels and His ways in Christ; as John was gifted to reveal His character and
life as it was manifested in Jesus. The result of this particular gift in our
apostle is naturally found in the epistle we are considering. Nevertheless we,
as being ourselves in Christ, find in it a remarkable development of our
relationships with God, of the intimacy of those relationships, and of the
effect of that intimacy. Christ is the foundation on which our blessings are
built. It is as being in Him that we enjoy them. We thus become the actual and
present object of the favour of God the Father, even as Christ Himself is its
object. The Father has given us to Him; Christ has died for us, has redeemed,
washed, and quickened us, and presents us, according to the efficacy of His
work, and according to the acceptance of His Person, before God His Father. The
secret of all the assembly's blessing is, that it is blessed with Jesus
Himself; and thus — like Him, viewed as a man — is accepted before God; for the
assembly is His body, and enjoys in Him and by Him all that His Father has
bestowed on Him. Individually the Christian is loved as Christ on earth was
loved; he will hereafter share in the glory of Christ before the eyes of the
world, as a proof that he was so loved, in connection with the name of Father,
which God maintains in regard to this (see Joh_17:23-26).
Hence in general we have in this epistle the believer in Christ, not Christ in
the believer, though that of course be true. It leads up to the privileges of
the believer and of the assembly, more than to the fulness of Christ Himself,
and we find more the contrast of this new position with what we were as of the
world than development of the life of Christ: this is more largely found in
Colossians, which looks more at Christ in us. But this epistle, setting us in
Christ's relationship with God and the Father, and sitting in heavenly places,
gives the highest character of our testimony here.
Now
Christ stands in two relationships with God, His Father. He is a perfect man
before His God; He is a Son with His Father. We are to share both these relationships.
This He announced to His disciples ere He went back to heaven: it is unfolded
in all its extent by the words He spoke, "I go to my Father and your
Father, to my God and your God." This precious — this inappreciable truth
is the foundation of the apostle's teaching in this place. He considered God in
this double aspect, as the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, and as the Father of
our Lord Jesus Christ; and our blessings are in connection with these two
titles.
But
before attempting to set forth in detail the apostle's thought, let us remark
that he begins here entirely with God, His thoughts and His counsels, not with
what man is. We may lay hold of the truth, so to speak, by one or the other of
two ends — by that of the sinner's condition in connection with man's
responsibility, or by that of the thoughts and eternal counsels of God in view
of His own glory. The latter is that side of the truth on which the Spirit here
makes us look. Even redemption, all glorious as it is in itself, is consigned to
the second place, as the means by which we enjoy the effect of God's counsels.
It
was necessary that the ways of God should be considered on this side, that is,
His own thoughts, not merely the means of bringing man into the enjoyment of
the fruit of them. It is the epistle to the Ephesians which thus presents them
to us; as that to the Romans, after saying it is God's goodness, begins with
man's end, demonstrating the evil and presenting grace as meeting and
delivering from it.
Note #1:
The word translated "faithful" might be rendered "believers." It is used as a term of superscription both here and in the epistle to the Colossians. We must remember that the apostle was now in prison, and that Christianity had been established for some years, and was exposed to all kinds of attack. To say that one was a believer as at the beginning, was to say that he was faithful. The word then does not merely express that they believed, nor that each individual walked faithfully, but that the apostle addressed himself to those who by grace faithfully maintained the faith they had received.