01.20. ESSAY NO. 20

ESSAY NO. 20 This final "study" in Ephesians deals mainly with the organic, universal church. As God works out his eternal program, the humanly impossible task of get­ting Jew and Gentile, who had been dead together in sin, "alive together with Christ ... to sit with him in the heavenly places," "fitly framed and knit to­gether" for love and life . . ., and "builded together for a habitation of God in the Spirit" is a marvelous demonstration of his infinite wisdom, grace, and power to harmonize incongruities, "so making peace." In this treatise on the one, inter-racial church, Paul rises above the personal and the local. He says nothing about the organization and government of local con­gregations. As Galatians settles the question of Chris­tian freedom for all time, so Ephesians settles the question of Christian unity for all time. The fact that both of these books (each with its special, cardi­nal, Christian doctrine) are still needed as much in the twentieth as in the first century is sad evidence of how little Christendom, despite its professed fi­delity to the Bible, actually follows it. The spiritual elevation of Ephesians with its loftiest peak, "The riches of his grace," is hardly equaled elsewhere in the Bible. Its atmosphere is calm and clear, its sky bright and sunny.

Christ Creates His Church In the prologue of John’s gospel, there are two di­vine creations—a physical and a spiritual. Concerning the former: "All things were made through him (Christ); and without him was not anything made that hath been made" (John 1:3). Concerning the latter: "They that were his (Christ’s) own received him not. But as many as received him, to them gave he the right to become children of God, even to them that believe on his name: who were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God" (John 1:11-13). What a privilege to have such unmerited good news to believe! What a calam­ity if man were so constituted, as some say, that he could not believe!

Man has nothing whatsoever to do with either the planning or the making of these two creations. He had as well try to make a world as to try to make a church. His part in each is the precious opportunity of accepting what God freely provides, of cooperating in confident faith and strict obedience, and thus of becoming a fellow-worker with God unto the blessed increase. In neither does success depend upon noble blood, nor strong, natural character to will and to run ("the will of the flesh"), nor human organizations and institutions ("the will of man"). Human pedigree, individual intellectual and moral excellencies, and ecclesiastical system and priestly craft all combined cannot give "the right to become children of God." The church is more than a humanly-wrought asso­ciation of believers. It is a brotherhood of divinely-regenerated men and women, who by the authority of one Spirit are "all baptized into one body," and are "all made to drink of one Spirit" (1 Corinthians 12:13). All such believers are "added to the Lord" (Acts 5:14). That is, Christ through the Holy Spirit from within, incorporates them with himself into a living organism of which he is head and they are the body. Christ and Christians share the same nature and life, as all parts of the fleshly man share the same blood. These "things . . . entered not into the heart of man," but "God revealed them through the Spirit: for the Spirit searcheth all things, yea, the deep things of God" (1 Corinthians 2:9-10). Spiritual Christians believe and experience all this, and live in its power. But, "The natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God: for they are foolishness to him; and he cannot know them, because they are spiritually judged" (1 Corinthians 2:14). As a man, upon becoming a father, though all arguing beforehand cannot make him know the affections of a father’s heart, knows them after his child is born, so the natural man can know spiritual things only by being "born of water and Spirit" unto the realm of spiritual things. Fallen man cannot understand and live the spiritual life un­til he comes into possession of it by this spiritual birth. If a man can live a Christian life without be­coming a Christian, why did Christ come to earth, die, rise, ascend to heaven, and send the Holy Spirit to inaugurate the church on Pentecost?

There is much fundamental, common truth in the three great analogues of the church (body, temple, and bride) in Ephesians, nevertheless, each analogy has its own particular truths. First, "The church, which is his (Christ’s) body," shows forth on earth the glories of her head, who is enthroned in heaven. Through her, Christ contracts, speaks to, and acts upon the world spiritually. Second, the Holy Spirit as the resident, executive member of the godhead, dwells in the church to vivify and employ her as his living, redemptive organ among the children of men around the earth. "Know ye not that ye are the temple of God, and that the Spirit of God dwelleth in you" (1 Corinthians 3:16). Third, the church is "espoused ... as a pure virgin to Christ" (2 Corinthians 11:2), which espousal is to be followed at the Bridegroom’s coming by "the marriage of the Lamb and his wife (who) hath made herself ready" (Revelation 19:7), "that he might present the church to himself a glorious church, not having spot or wrinkle or any such thing; but that it should be holy and without blemish" (Ephesians 5:27). For all this present and future to be realized how­ever, the church must reproduce both Christ’s cruci­fixion and resurrection in her life. This twofold life is a risen life in union and communion with her risen Lord and a crucified life in relationship to the world. The church is committed to this living-dying life in her baptism: "We are buried therefore with him through baptism into death: that like as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, so we also might walk in newness of life." In their conversion, men are delivered unto a "form (pattern) of teaching" of the dead and risen Christ that molds them into his likeness (Romans 6:4; Romans 6:17). This is Paul’s "always bearing about in the body the dying of Je­sus, that the life also of Jesus may be manifested in our body" (2 Corinthians 4:10). The church is now identified with Christ in his rejection by the world, but when her marriage is come, she will then be identified with him on his glorious throne, thenceforth "in the ages to come" (Ephesians 2:7). No other creatures are so bless­ed in the present or can be so blessed in the future as are members of the church. Reader, are you "es­poused ... as a pure virgin to Christ"? Can you af­ford not to be?