01.05. ESSAY NO. 5

ESSAY NO. 5

Ephesians 1:1-23 closes with God’s having executed his eternal purpose as far as the call­ing of his church into existence. The second chapter deals with the material he built into his church, and with its construction.

“The Prince of This World” In Eden, Satan hatched a successful rebellion to obtain the earth, as a revolted province from God, for his own domain. This chapter broadly gives man’s state after millenniums under Satan’s reign. He is “the prince” of all men who walk “according to the course of this world,” for he is “the spirit that now worketh in the sons of disobedience” (Ephesians 2:2) to moti­vate and direct them. Twice, Christ calls him “the prince of this world” (John 12:31; John 14:30); Paul calls him “the god of this world” (2 Corinthians 4:4). The major­ity of men are still “sons of disobedience,” and un­known to themselves, tools of Satan. Modern civili­zation with its scientific-humanism and disposition more and more to discard God as being no longer needed is, in Paul’s sense, “this world.” Men who re­pudiate “this world” to accept Christ as Lord con­stitute the church. Humanity breaks down into these dichotomous groups—the church and the world. That saints may realize the depths from which they have been lifted and the incompatibility of these groups, Paul paints in this chapter an appalling picture of the devil-dominated world. Ephesians has been called, “The alps of the Bible.” It does contain a long, lofty mountain range of God’s grace, but it also contains a vast deep of Satan’s malice.

According to the Bible, Satan is an actual person with superhuman powers and resources, who works underground, achieves great success, and really chal­lenges God. “The whole world lieth in the evil one” (1 John 5:19); that is, in, “The devil and Satan, the deceiver of the whole world” (Revelation 12:9). He is not a discredited legend from an unenlightened past or a modern symbol. He is no myth or clown, but a discrea­tive, mighty adversary to God and a most perilous foe to man. Satan is a bold, unflinching pretender, who even dared the attempt to win over to his side, as he did Eve, Christ, the rightful owner of the earth. Probably, only God himself knows more and does more than Satan knows and does. The modern, mellow, jocular unconcern toward him pleases him, but it is anti-Christian. “Be . . . the devil . . . walketh about seeking whom he may devour” (1 Peter 5:8).

Judaism and Paganism are Failures Being Jew or Gentile is beside the question of con­demnation. “We (Jews) were by nature children of wrath, even as the rest (Gentiles)” (Ephesians 2:3). “But God, being rich in mercy . . . even when we were dead, made us alive together with Christ (by grace have ye been saved)” (Ephesians 2:4-5). The emphasis Paul puts on God’s mercy and grace in human salvation makes sense in relation to the havoc wrought by Satan in man’s personality. Human nature is so distorted and thrown off balance that man cannot right himself. God must redeem him from his sins and from him­self by a spiritual birth from above. Those who re­main “in the flesh cannot please God” (Romans 8:8). Men, “Separate from Christ . . . having no hope and without God in the world” (Ephesians 2:2) are not sick but dead. The spirit of a “good moral man” out of Christ is as dead as his buried body. Christ said, “None is good save one, even God” (Luke 18:19). Paul built David’s, “There is none that doeth good, no, not so much as one” (Romans 3:12), into his great argument for universal human condemnation. Salvation by char­acter is an impossibility. “For by grace have ye been saved through faith; and that not of yourselves, it (salvation) is the gift of God” (Ephesians 2:8). Man’s obtain­ing his salvation on the condition of his own faith does not nullify God’s giving it to him by his grace. When Paul mixed with the throngs of Christ-less men in Ephesus or Corinth, he saw them as dead men! This helps explain his tireless energy and fiery zeal as a missionary to the heathen. God’s creating his church out of such human wreckage glorifies his wis­dom, goodness, and power; and shouts aloft “the exceeding riches of his grace in kindness” (Ephesians 2:7).