Chapter 3

We will now read from the opening of chapter 3 to chapter 4:16. When we meditate on such a scripture as the Epistle to the Ephesians, we ought to take care that knowledge be not over-valued; that we do not give it a disproportionate place. When Nicodemus came to the Lord to inquire into heavenly secrets, He turned him back from being a mere enquirer as to heavenly objects, to begin with himself. So Paul refused to bring out the mystery to the Corinthians, because of their low moral standing. So we ought to approach Ephesian truth rather cautiously, looking at our own moral condition. The Lord’s dealing with Nicodemus was morally of one character with Paul’s dealing with the Corinthians. So there is a moral title to breathe Ephesian atmosphere, or else we might get giddy on such heights. We must tread softly, not timidly, as if they were not our own. These deepest secrets of the bosom. belong to us; but the vessel is to be fitted morally to receive them.
Now, we were distinguishing, in the first chapter, between the heavenly calling and the calling of the church; and, in the second chapter, we were looking at our death and life condition, and our alienated and near condition. In entering on the third chapter, we resume the mystery. Did you ever see a moral beauty in this chapter being a parenthesis? It has struck me a good deal, the mystery being a parenthesis, that it should be here unfolded in a parenthetic chapter.
Here we get the church more largely opened out to us. Paul was the depositary of this mystery, and he got it by revelation. You will say he got everything by revelation; and so he did, as he tells us in Galatians. Where does Paul date his apostleship? From Christ in the flesh? No; from Christ in Glory. Where the ether apostles? From Christ in the flesh—the Lord walking down here. But Paul never knew Christ in the flesh. So specific was his calling, and so specific the truth committed to him. By revelation, then, the mystery was made known to him. Now, why does he say, “In few words”? Why, if he had spent chapters on it, it would have been but few words. If all that the Lord had done had been written, the world itself would not contain the books that should be written, John tells us, in a note of admiration. Just so; this thing was so magnificent that to spend chapters on it would have been but few words. You and I want to find these notes of admiration in ourselves. They are very suited to us. “He made known unto me the mystery—which in other ages was not made known—that the Gentiles should be fellow-heirs,” not with the Jews merely, but with Christ. The body will have Jews in it; but still it is characteristically Gentile. So he loses sight of the Jews, and tells the Gentiles that they are fellow-heirs with Christ.
Here we have a new kind of inheritance—to be of the same body, and fellow-heirs with the Son of His love; not Gentiles grafted on a body of Jews. “Unto me, who am less than the least of all saints.” This is characteristic. The Jews were taken up, because they were the least of all nations. You were taken up, because you were a poor uncircumcised distant Gentile, with no hope or God; and Paul was taken up because he was less than the least of all saints. He takes the beggar from the dung-hill. That is the way of God. Now, what was the operation of the mystery? “To the intent that now unto the principalities and powers in heavenly places might be known by the church the manifold wisdom of God.” This reminds us of Colossians 1:25. Paul’s ministry came “to fill out the Word of God.” You will say: Will you put it above the ministry of Christ? Indeed, I do, dispensationally. The ways of God shine brighter and brighter unto the perfect day. What light we stand in! We are in the light as God is in the light. The multiform variegated wisdom of God is now told out in all its forms of beauty. That which I now get is high calling into fellow-heirship—one body with the Lord of glory. I have reached the very head itself; and sit down in sight of the coronation of Christ and His elect. So I have completed it; I have reached the manifold wisdom of God. Then He comes down a little, “In whom we have boldness and confidence by the faith of Him.” How He loves to put that foundation under our feet! If we are in the light where God dwells, we are in the citadel of strength which God has erected. It would not do to be in the light, if we were not surrounded by the citadel.
The apostle now becomes a suppliant, as he did before in chapter 1. Having again rehearsed the mystery, he becomes, in verse 14, a man of prayer for us. In chapter 1 he prays to the God of our Lord Jesus; and he prays that you may know the glory that awaits you, and the strength that is conducting you there; and he prays to the God of our Lord Jesus.
Here his prayer is, that you may know the love that has destined you there; and he prays to the Father of our Lord Jesus. His heart instinctively turns itself to the Father’s bosom, which is the source of all our eternal blessedness. “Out of thy heart Thou didst it,” as David says. And does not your heart instinctively dictate this distinction, as you find yourself in prayer with God in glory, the Father in love, and Christ in salvation? When I think of glory and strength, I am in company with the God of the Lord Jesus. When I think of love, I am in company with the Father of the Lord Jesus. These are evidences in the Book that address themselves to the conscience. Scripture is a great self-evidencing body of light. Then he makes his prayer. One little word we must pause on— “Of whom the whole family.” Critics say a better translation is, “every family,” and I accept it from the whole context.
I believe there are to be households in heaven, as well as on earth. I believe, when I take an intelligent view of the coming millennial heavens, I see various families, as well as on the millennial earth. I see principalities, thrones, dominions; and I see the church as the body of Christ, carried and seated above all. There may be, as was quoted before, “The noble army of martyrs,” “The goodly fellowship of the prophets.” There may be a patriarchal household, and a prophetic household in the world to come; but the church of the living God, in company with her Head, will be there above all.
It is a fine thing to read astronomy and geography after this manner!
There will be a heaven, by-and-by, studded with the sons of God—with morning stars! and there will be no jealousies or envyings among them.
We want largeness of thought; and largeness of thought need not take us out of accuracy of thought.
Having closed this parenthetic chapter, and its parenthetic purpose, we are entering the fourth chapter. He resumes what he was saying in chapter 3:1: “I, therefore, the prisoner of the Lord.” That again is characteristic, that the church should have her high calling told out from a prison in Rome. If we walked a natural path, and died a natural death, we should go from prisons and stakes to Christ in glory. The saint should be an unresisting witness against the world. The world thinks separation from it an insult ; and it will not be insulted without revenge. So Paul unfolds the mystery from the gloomy dungeons of Rome. The church is a martyred thing on the earth. Now he tells us to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace. We should be cherishing that temper of soul that makes us in honor esteem one another. What a beautiful casket in which to deposit such a treasure! “All lowliness, and meekness, with long-suffering.” In the moral history of Christendom, pride has broken that casket. Then he shows what the unity of the Spirit is, which we cannot destroy. We may break the casket, and expose the treasure; but we cannot break it. Do we come from north, south, east, and west, Jews and Gentiles? When we sit down together, it is in one Lord, one faith, one baptism. We should be cherishing that temper of soul that makes us in honor esteem one another. What a beautiful casket in which to deposit such a treasure! “All lowliness, and meekness, with long-suffering.” In the moral history of Christendom, pride has broken that casket. Then he shows what the unity of the Spirit is, which we cannot destroy. We may break the casket, and expose the treasure; but we cannot break it. Do we come from north, south, east, and west, Jews and Gentiles? When we sit down together, it is in one Lord, one faith, one baptism.
We must pause a little on the verses that follow. Suppose I say, “We must look back to Genesis 3.” You may answer, “These are very distant scriptures, both locally and in the material.” But there is a beautiful connection between them. In Genesis 3 we see the victory of the serpent, and the ruin of man. In Ephesians 4 we see the conquest of Christ, and the redemption of man. It is the undoing of the mischief of Genesis 3 Satan made man a drudge on the earth, and a captive to his lusts. The Lord comes to make the devil and his hosts His captives. There is a magnificent moral opposition in this. And what has He done with the old captive He puts him in a more wonderful place than that out of which Satan took him When He comes to make the hosts of hell His captives, He will let them learn what He can do with him that was once a captive. He has made us independent of everything. We are not only made proof against the deceiver; but we grow up by resources given us. The church grows up with energies deposited in herself. He makes captivity captive, on the one hand; and, on the other hand, shows what He is about to do with that poor thing that the serpent once ruined. The story is reversed since Genesis 3. We get the captivity of man, and the glorification of man. There the doctrinal part ends. Now how shall our souls deal with it? Shall we be prepared for such magnificent disclosures of God’s mind? Are they too weighty for us? I have often felt it so. Intercourse with men on the footstool is so pleasant; but that arises from a quantity of the human mixing with that which should be unmixed. So he prays that we might be strengthened with might by the Spirit in the inner man. The human mind is not able to measure these things. If my heart were opened to the sense of what the Lord Jesus is, I should say, “Nearer, my Lord, to Thee; nearer to Thee.” The footstool may be very pleasant, but, “nearer to Thee!” That Christ may dwell in my heart, and not the scene around me; and that I may know His love, which passeth knowledge.
Chapter 4
I observed that the doctrinal part of the epistle closes at chapter 4:16. We will read to the end of the chapter. Let us just retrace the doctrinal teaching of the epistle. The first grand characteristic we are given about the calling of the church is, that it is a calling in Christ. So we find in chapter 1 the word in abounds. “Seated in heavenly places in Him;” “Accepted in the Beloved.” And it is not only present possessions in Christ, but our interest in Him was before the world began (vs. 4), and after the world closes. (vs. 11). You will tell me all the ransomed rest on sovereignty; and so they do; and the very angels too who kept their first estate; but the character of the church-election is, that it is not mere abstract election, but election “in Him,” and you never leave Him.
The church finds herself in closest connection with Christ from before the foundation of the world till the glory after the world has run its course. This is the first thought about the church. These things are not predicated of Israel. It is the peculiar calling of the church to be linked and bound up with Christ. Then this church has been “hid in God.” It was, so to speak, God’s bosom secret. The secret that lay nearest to His heart, and deepest in His counsels. We do not find the election of the worthies of old spoken of in that way of mysterious beauty and intimacy. It was hid in God from all ages up to the ministry of Paul. The Epistle to the Ephesians is an instance of accumulation of language. Language grows on the thoughts of the Spirit Himself. Will you tell me, if your soul is bubbling up with some commanding thought, that you will not tell it out again and again, multiply words about it, and even become eloquent? For the heart, not the head, is the parent of eloquence. That is the style of the Spirit in bringing out this secret in this epistle. We get “the praise of His glory;” and “the riches of the glory;” and “the praise of the glory of His grace;” and “the exceeding riches of His grace.” So in chapter 2, when He comes to show those who are the objects of this calling. When He shows their death-estate, description after description is given of them; and when you are brought to see your nearness, again the Spirit multiplies descriptions of what you are.
The consummation of revelation waited on Paul’s ministry, the Gentile apostle. When he brought out this secret, it was the last in the revelation of God, and it was the crown of all the divine purposes. Let me refer you to a little analogy; how did the work of the old creation proceed? One thing after another was created in its beauty, and man came at the last. He was put in the garden; and what was his condition there? He was at home there; but when the cattle were brought up to be named by him, he was not only at home in his own proper place, but he gets the lordship of everything before him He was in his dominions. Was that all? There remained a thing behind, and that thing was the chiefest. He had everything before he got the woman. It was the last thing revealed, and the tip-top of his happiness.
It opened his lips. “Out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaketh.” Adam was happy before, but he was not abounding. When the woman was given to him, it was the height of his joy. So we ought to be prepared for the church waiting for the ministry of Paul. I should be prepared for the last ministry bringing out the richest thing in the counsels of God.
I get the same thing in the story of Jerusalem. When Israel went into Canaan, the sword of Joshua reduced the land to their possession. So it went on in the days of the Judges; and in the days of King Saul they still remained in possession; but all that time Jerusalem was a Jebusite city, all through that season this favored spot, this chief spot in the land—this queen, destined to fix the eye of God—was in the clutches of the Gentile; and it was not till the days of David, God’s own king, that it became the chief absorbing center of everything in the land: the sanctuary, the throne, the place where the tribes went up. It was the chiefest of everything, and it came last. Do we not get there an image of Ephesian truth? God delights Himself in analogies. What are parables but divine analogies? And so, in the very end of the book, we see the woman reappearing as the last and chiefest. The victories have been won—the kingdom seated in dignity; the very last thing in the book is the revelation of the church coming down to show herself in her beauty. (Rev. 21) So I am prepared to listen to Paul without charging him with arrogancy when he says he fills out the Word of God.
Again, the revelation of the church is the richest display of God in grace, glory, and wisdom. The calling of Israel was a rich display of Him. Be it so. God cannot put His hand to anything without displaying Himself thus. But when we come to listen to the mystery of the church, the body and bride of Christ, we are instructed to know that grace in its glory, in its riches, in its exceeding riches, has been manifested, and manifested in the face of creation; in the hearing and seeing of principalities and powers in heavenly places; and there is a simplicity about all this. Does magnificence touch simplicity? It would not be simply divine, if it were not unutterably glorious. If it lay deepest in the divine mind, it was most full of grace, glory, and wisdom. Principalities and powers shall hold their breath while listening to the story that the calling of the church is rehearsing.
Now, what are its titles? It is called the body and the bride; and what do they mean? The body is the expression of this—that the church is set in the highest place of dignity. As the bride, she is set in the nearest place of affection. As the body of Christ, occupying the chiefest point in dignity, all that is in this world, and in that which is to come, will be beneath her. He will be seated above all; and the church, which is His body, is the fullness of Him that filleth all in all. As the bride, she will be in the nearest place of affection. You cannot be too near to the person you love. As the bride of Christ, the church is set close to His heart. The church is destined to be to the heart of Christ what the woman was to Adam. Chapter 5 is as the utterance of Adam over the woman “We are members of His body, of His flesh, and of His bones,” is a reechoing of the ecstatic utterance of the first man over the first woman.
If we love a person, we love to see them in dignity and glory. There you are set in the tip-top place of dignity, and, as the bride, in the nearest place of affection. You might be surprised to hear me say that the Lord Jesus did not complete the revelation of God. When you read the four Gospels, do you read them as the full picture of gospel grace? The Lord’s ministry was a transitional time. Till His death was accomplished, He had not the platform for the display of full gospel grace, or the instrument for forming the church. How could you form a thing with nit the instrument? The Spirit was not given; and the Head was not yet glorified. The opening of the Book of God prepares me for the mystery, and the close of the book shuts me up to it, and seals it on my apprehension, as we now see.
But in the Epistle to the Ephesians, we get not merely the church, but saints individually. (Chapter 5 and 6) We do not lose our personality. This is said to be the meaning of chapter 4:12. That is an individual thing. The business of gifts is with you individually: “He gave some apostles..... for the perfecting of the saints.” There is a deep intimacy and personality between me and Christ that nothing can ever touch. So the first business of gifts was with each individually, “For the perfecting of the saints.” Then, let the perfected saints set themselves to the work of the ministry and to the edifying of the body. Consequently, in Corinthians, when he had the mystery to bring out, he says, “We speak wisdom among them that are perfect.” So, when we come to practical details, we are addressed individually: “That ye henceforth walk not as other Gentiles walk,” and so on; “Who, being past feeling,” that is, a seared and hardened conscience, with no sense of their own lasciviousness. “But ye have not so learned Christ; if so be that ye have heard Him, and have been taught by Him, as the truth is in Jesus.”
The introduction of the word Jesus here shows personality; and do not you love a personal lesson? Do not you delight to think that you and Christ have a business that none can interfere with? Look at John’s Gospel, as a beautiful picture of the sinner and Christ together. We do not find the Lord in John as a social man, working with apostles. He works alone with the sinner. It is very sweet to see the Spirit refusing to lose sight of the individual. “And that ye put on the new man, which after God is created in righteousness.” This is a much richer creation than the first. Adam was the only object in the first creation that carried an understanding; but you could not say he was created “after God in righteousness and true holiness.” We are told to put away lying, as being members one of another. “Be ye angry, and sin not.” Anger may be as holy a feeling as any other; but do not retain it, so as to let it degenerate into nature. Then, resist “the devil. Let him that stole steal no more.” This is very beautiful. He is not merely to cease from stealing, but to become a workman for others. “Let no corrupt communication proceed out of your mouth, and grieve not the Holy Spirit of God.” Our works are looked at; our words; and now our tempers.
Are you not thankful that Christianity legislates for every bit of you! But what dignity! Your lips may be employed in communicating grace to the hearers; and your thoughts, either in refreshing or grieving the Holy Spirit of God!
“Forgiving one another, even as God for Christ’s sake hath forgiven you.” This is a change from “The Lord’s Prayer.” There you are instructed to know that God will measure Himself by you. “Forgive.... as we forgive.” Here is quite the reverse. I am to measure myself by God; “forgiving, as God hath forgiven you.” This shows, as we were observing before, that the Lord’s ministry was a transitional thing; it had not come out into the full glory of salvation. Now a ministry has gone forth for the perfecting of us individually, and for our edification as the body of Christ.
Chapter 5
We have observed that the doctrinal part of the epistle closed at chapter 4:16. Then, from that to chapter 6:9, we get the practical part, and we get conflict in the end.
Read now chapter 5, and to chapter 6:9; the practical details of Christian life. I should like, first, to say a little about precept.
If we consult the Epistles to the Romans and the Colossians, we shall find in them a different construction from the Philippians. There the apostle is eminently a pastor; looking at the souls of the Philippians. But in the Ephesians, Romans, Colossians, he is a teacher; therefore in them we get doctrine, followed by precept. Now, why do we get precepts in the epistles? Do you always get your conduct directly from precepts No; but by putting your mind in connection with Christ Himself, and the grace of God in your calling. So we get in Titus: “The grace of God.... hath appeared to all men, teaching us that, denying ungodliness and worldly lusts, we should live soberly, righteously, and godly;” that is, if I know the moral virtue of the grace in which I stand, I shall be taught, without precepts, to live soberly, righteously, and godly. Peter tells us exactly the same thing: “Seeing then that all these things shall be dissolved, what manner of persons ought ye to be?” and again, “Seeing that ye look for such things, be diligent.” There is no precept to be diligent; but the eye of the soul is directed to the glory, and to the dissolution of all things present; and it says what manner of persons ought we to be! So practical power derives itself from the grace of our calling.
We get the same thing in the book of Genesis; there are no precepts there, but the patriarchs lived holy lives (through the Spirit, surely) by virtue of their calling. One is called out by “the God of glory.” It is said, as on the lips of Joseph, “How can I do this great wickedness, and sin against God?” It is not that he had precepts; but He looked at God. So in your daily walk you are not commonly looking at precepts, but at Christ. But why, then, the precepts? For several reasons.
Precepts serve as tests. If a soul is backsliding, you may use them in discipline. It is very well, in such a case, to have a well-defined precept to guide you.