1.―INTRODUCTORY.
THE Epistle to the Ephesians, written from Rome by the apostle Paul during his imprisonment there, contains, without doubt, the revelation of Christian truth in its highest character. In considering it, therefore, it is well to briefly recall the circumstances connecting the inspired writer of it with Ephesus, and the relation which the epistle bears to his other writings.
Paul had already visited Athens and Corinth, the great centers of Greek learning and civilization, preaching the gospel, in the latter place especially, in the Jewish synagogue; and there it was that the great rupture took place with the Jews. When they opposed and spoke injuriously, he formally separated from them, saying, “Your blood be upon your own heads: I am clean; from henceforth I will go unto the Gentiles” (Acts 18:66And when they opposed themselves, and blasphemed, he shook his raiment, and said unto them, Your blood be upon your own heads; I am clean: from henceforth I will go unto the Gentiles. (Acts 18:6)).
Paul’s action on this occasion formed a great and momentous turning-point in the service of the gospel, to which the Lord Himself gave His personal and special approval and encouragement, saying to him by vision in the night, “Fear not, but speak, and be not silent, because I am with thee.” From this time the Christian assembly stands forth in its distinctive character and separateness from the earthly Judaistic religious system (cf. Acts 13:46, 4746Then Paul and Barnabas waxed bold, and said, It was necessary that the word of God should first have been spoken to you: but seeing ye put it from you, and judge yourselves unworthy of everlasting life, lo, we turn to the Gentiles. 47For so hath the Lord commanded us, saying, I have set thee to be a light of the Gentiles, that thou shouldest be for salvation unto the ends of the earth. (Acts 13:46‑47)).
After teaching there a year and a half, the Jews with one consent rose against Paul, and sought, but in vain, to put the law in force against him. In the providence of God, man’s judgment-seat, though inert and oblivious in divine things, becomes in this case a protector of the truth. From thence Paul sailed for Syria, and on his journey visited Ephesus. Here he entered into the synagogue and found a company of Jews interested in the Word of God, and evidently of unprejudiced minds. It is not said how far their consciences were reached, but it is not a little significant that Paul declined to remain longer with them, but promised to return again if God willed.
At Ephesus, too, it was that Apollos first appeared upon the scene, knowing only the baptism of John; nor is anything said of his Christian baptism. Aquila and Priscilla unfolded to him more exactly the way of God; and afterward he departed thence for Corinth. At this time Paul again visits Ephesus, and finds there disciples, twelve in number, who had not received the Holy Spirit, being only baptized to John’s baptism. He instructs them that they should believe on Jesus, and then baptizes them to His name; and having laid his hands on them, they receive the Holy Spirit.
This is the last recorded instance of men owning the baptism of John; they are brought into the assembly or house of God by baptism to the name of Christ, and the last bond which seemed to connect Judaism and Christianity or to be a link of transition between them is finally snapped. Thus we see at this important juncture that the testimony rendered distinctively to the Jew, which, after the warning at Antioch in Pisidia, had been formally closed at Corinth, though in divine long-suffering continued still at Ephesus, was now to cease forever.
Accordingly, after speaking boldly at Ephesus during three months, reasoning and persuading concerning the kingdom of God, Paul at length separated the disciples from the hardened and unbelieving Jews, and reasoned daily for two years in the School of Tyrannus. All the Jews and Greeks who dwelt in pro-consular Asia were thus enabled to hear the Word of the Lord.
Moreover, the God-forsaken and helpless Condition of the Jew, in contrast with the divine power and glory manifested in Paul, is, clearly evidenced at this time. Diseases were healed and wicked spirits cast out by merely placing upon the sick napkins or aprons brought from Paul, while Jewish exorcists, particularly the two sons of Sceva, a Jewish high priest, pretending to exert the same power, were overpowered by the demoniac, and driven out of the house naked and wounded. Thus the name of the Lord Jesus was magnified, and fear fell upon all, both Jews and Greeks, who inhabited Ephesus. The Word of the Lord also increased mightily and prevailed, whereas their books of charms and magical arts were burnt publicly to the value of fifty thousand pieces of silver.
Thus, as opposed to the false pretensions of Judaism, the dominant power of the name of the Lord and of the Word of the Lord, found elusively in the Christian assembly, was publicly established for the first time at Ephesus, and thenceforward there is no further testimony to the Jews, except a witness of rejection.
It was clearly declared at the outset of Paul’s ministry that the Jew would reject his gospel (Acts 21: 10), and, at the close of it, that the Gentiles would hear it (28:28). Paul’s earlier epistles strongly insist on this, together with the absolute annulling of the legal system as a ground of relationship with God. At the same time he shows in Romans that though Israel had fallen, and thereby salvation come to the nations, yet they should be grafted in to their own olive tree again, to the great blessing of the world. Meanwhile blindness in part had happened to Israel until the fullness of the nations was brought in. The coming in of the fullness of the nations and the blessing of the world are thus put in strongest contrast.
The setting aside of Judaism and the whole legal system is dealt with fully in the Epistle to the Galatians, which also clearly affirms the new relationships of grace with God and Christ. An example of this was afforded in the person of Paul himself. He had been foremost in Judaism, but God, who had set him apart from his birth, had called him by His grace, and revealed His Son in him, not only as the object of faith, but also as the power of life (Gal. 2:20, 2120I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me. 21I do not frustrate the grace of God: for if righteousness come by the law, then Christ is dead in vain. (Galatians 2:20‑21)). But the Christ who lived in him had been crucified, and had died under the curse of law. Paul therefore had died to law, being crucified with Christ. This was especially true also of believers who had been under law and were obnoxious to its curse, but were redeemed out of it, Christ having become it for them. Justification also comes to the nations in Christ Jesus, and the Spirit is received through faith.
Law, therefore, as a principle of relationship with God is annulled, and the blessing, as well as the inheritance, is established for Jew or Gentile absolutely on the principle of faith. Hagar the bondmaid, typical of the legal system, and her son must be cast out, for the fruit of law, a legal state of soul, can never participate nor inherit with that which is the fruit of heavenly grace, or with those who are sons of God by faith in Christ Jesus, and being of Christ, are Abraham’s seed and heirs according to promise, prior to law.
The two Epistles to the Thessalonians take for granted the rejection of the legal system. The Christian assemblies are addressed as of God in Christ Jesus, whereas the Jews are branded with the mark of Cain, having slain the Lord Jesus and the prophets, and driven out the apostles by persecution. Wrath had come upon them to the uttermost, but Jesus the Son of God, whom the believer awaits from heaven, delivers him from the coming wrath. Heaven is therefore the source of the Christian hope, affording also the glorious display in holiness of that love which works in them to-day. We shall be caught up to meet the Lord in the air. He shall bring us into the Father’s house, His own heavenly dwelling-place, while the heathen persecutors, as well as the idolatrous apostates from Christianity and Judaism, shall be destroyed everlastingly from the presence of the Lord.
While declaring the cutting off of the Jew, the Epistle to the Romans also reveals the bringing in of a new race, in which all believers, Jew or Gentile, are partakers, of which Christ is the Head and Source — a race in position and character like Himself, flesh being set aside in death with Him.
These epistles do not, however, develop further this new thing, nor teach what the Church or assembly is as such. This is reserved for the Corinthian epistles, which view the saints as a gathered company on earth and one body, being members of Christ. Ephesians and Colossians show them joined to the Head in heaven.
While at Ephesus, or at least in the province of Asia, Paul dictated 1 Corinthians (cf. 15:32, 16:19), and 2 Corinthians after the assault upon him by Demetrius and his fellows (cf. Acts 19:1111And God wrought special miracles by the hands of Paul: (Acts 19:11); 2 Cor. 1:88For we would not, brethren, have you ignorant of our trouble which came to us in Asia, that we were pressed out of measure, above strength, insomuch that we despaired even of life: (2 Corinthians 1:8)). Ephesus is thus connected in a very interesting way with Paul as the inspired vessel of the truth of the Church.
Consequently a new character of testimony is opened out in 1 and 2 Corinthians. At the outset the world is set aside by the preaching of Christ and Him crucified, whether it be the Jews seeking signs or Greeks wisdom. But the Christian is of God in Christ, who is made to him wisdom, and righteousness, and holiness, and redemption. He is spiritual, and discerns what is spiritual, for the Spirit of God dwells in him, and in the actual Christian company on earth, as His temple. But more, among them is found the Lord’s cup and the Lord’s table, at which the communion of the blood and of the body of Christ is enjoyed by them, as one loaf, one body. For by one Spirit we have all been baptized into one body, whether Jews or Greeks, and the body is not one member but many, yet the body is one. Of this living and divinely articulated spiritual organism, love is the principle and spring of power. The natural body, moreover, mortal and corruptible as it is, shall be raised in glory incorruptible, immortal and spiritual, suitable to the heavenly treasure that even now is in it. For believers are now heavenly ones, but then shall we bear the image of the heavenly One, the second Man out of heaven.
Therefore we trust in God who raises the dead, and has already established us in Christ, having anointed and sealed us, and given us the earnest of the Spirit in our hearts. Thus are we the epistle of Christ, who Himself is the pattern and the power of this, being the contrast of Moses and the law, for the glory of the Lord shines in His unveiled face. Moreover in the gospel the glory of the Christ shines forth, as the image of God, who has shone in our hearts for the shining forth of His glory in the face of Jesus Christ. Reconciled to God, His righteousness in Christ through Christ made sin, we are of the new creation, and bear the message of reconciliation for others as sons and daughters of the Father.
At Jerusalem the Lord had said to Paul in ecstasy, “Make haste, go quickly out of Jerusalem, for they will not receive thy testimony concerning Me.” At Corinth His message was, “Speak and be not silent.... for I have much people in this city,” demonstrating, as we have seen, the rejection of the Jew and the calling of the Gentile. But now at Ephesus there is no heavenly vision, for the saints themselves are seen in the heavenly places in Christ.
Here, therefore, we are brought to the third epoch or great unfolding of the testimony of God, not now merely revealing the new race, or the new-creation order of manhood in an ascended and glorified Christ, but while developing this fully (Philippians in a practical way), Ephesians and Colossians treat especially of the mystery of “Christ and the assembly,” which is His body.
Colossians first shows the hope laid up in heaven, and the saints fit already to enter in. The power of darkness that once held them being forever broken, and sins being forgiven, the Father has translated them into the kingdom of the Son of His love. Then Christ is seen to be Head of the body, the assembly, firstborn of all creation, being in it, and firstborn from the dead having risen out of it, pre-eminent in all things. By His death the saints are reconciled now, and all things will be when the glory is displayed. But as Christ’s body, the riches of the glory of this mystery among the nations is Christ in them, the hope of glory. They are complete in Him who is the head of all principality and power, being quickened together with Him, and the body of the flesh put off by death.
Ordinances, too, have been nailed to the cross, by which man in Christ has earned supremacy above principalities and authorities. For us the old man is also put off and the new put on, rewed in knowledge according to the image of Him who created him; and the body being ministered to and united together by the joints and bands, increases with the increase of God.
Ephesus shows the saints seated in heavenly places, not merely the hope there. In Christ according to counsel, chosen before the world, they are like Him in relationship to the Father as well as in moral nature, and endowed in Him with the inheritance of the universe. Over this He is supreme Head to the assembly which is His body, and which shares it with Him.
In Colossians the new man is renewed in knowledge after the image of Him who created him. In Ephesians He forms the one new man in Himself. In Colossians the Father has made us meet. In Ephesians we have access to the Father through Christ by one Spirit. Ephesians begins with Christ dead, and we are quickened with Him out of death. In Colossians we put off the flesh in Christ’s death, are buried and raised as well as quickened. The cross in Colossians makes peace, and reconciles us so as to be presented suitably before the fullness of the Godhead; by it the handwriting in ordinances is annulled, and principalities and authorities spoiled. In Ephesians the blood brings nigh to God, annuls the law of commandment, makes peace between Jew and Gentile in one new man, both being reconciled in one body to God by the cross. Here also alone the Bride is revealed. Finally in Ephesians there is the putting on the panoply of God: in Colossians the putting on the character of the new man.