01.06. ESSAY NO. 6

ESSAY NO. 6

Paul teaches that sinners are justified only when in faith they use the way of free grace ordained by God to save them; that he does not accept men who try to earn justification by self-effort (See Ephesians 2:8-9). Is not spurning a gift an insult to the giver? Sinners are justified by God’s graces as the procuring cause plus their faith as the condition on which this cause functions. Man’s being justified on this con­tingency does not militate against God’s grace. In fact, justification "is of faith that it may be accord­ing to grace" (Romans 4:16). On any other ground, it could not be "the free gift" of grace. Faith and grace are correlatives, implying each other, whereas merit and grace are antipodes, mutually exclusive. Even Christians are warned that to mix the two is to fall "away from grace" (Galatians 5:4). Human merit and gospel grace are so contradictory everywhere that ei­ther disallows the other.

After Paul writes "not of (meritorious) works," he names another kind of works that is essential: "For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Je­sus for good works, which God afore ordained that we should walk in them" (Ephesians 2:10). It was in God’s original plan to deliver men by his free grace from Satan for his own service. They are not saved by, but unto good works; they must be "zealous of good works" (Titus 2:14). The failure to distinguish be­tween meritorious and Christian works has led to the inexcusable error that there is an inconsistency be­tween Paul and James. James said, "Faith apart from works is dead" (James 2:26), meaning that faith in Christ which does not work for him is a dead faith. More inclusive Paul, who agrees perfectly with James about this fruit of faith, adds the basic truth that works apart from faith in Christ are dead, too. In this fuller teaching, he speaks of a kind of works utterly different from James’ kind, a kind that deals with, not the fruit, but the root of faith. Not a shad­ow of inconsistency exists between the apostles.

Creation of the Church

Christians in Ephesus and all Asia Minor, the first readers of the book of Ephesians, were mostly Gen­tile converts from heathenism. Using the wretched, hopeless state of heathendom as a background, Paul comes, in the last half of the second chapter, to the thesis of the book—namely, the one, organic, univer­sal church. His teaching is that God’s covenant through Moses, which favored Jews above Gentiles, being provisional and having served its purpose in the divine economy, has been superseded, according to God’s eternal purpose, by the better Christian cove­nant, which, abolishing the distinction between Jew and Gentile, creates "of the two, one new man, so making peace; . . . for through him (Christ) we both have access to one Spirit unto the Father" (See Ephesians 2:11-12). Paul having in the first chapter presented the church under the figure of a human body of which Christ is head, here presents it as a temple of which Christ is "chief cornerstone," and in which God dwells. The magnificent temple of Diana, one of the wonders of the ancient world, which stood in their city, would make this figure very realistic and im­pressive to the Ephesians. In this scripture, Christ is the maker and preacher of twofold peace. First, he reconciles men to God; second, he reconciles men to men. Christians are all "one new man," somewhat as Norman and Saxon, after striving vainly to conquer each other three cen­turies in Britain, finally coalesced into one new peo­ple, the English. Since neither Norman nor Saxon conquered the other, but both as such ceased to be, never again could there be feuds between them. Like­wise, Jew and Gentile "fitly framed and knit together" in Christ became "one new man," each saint fused with every other saint into an organism sharing the life of Christ, "a habitation of God in the Spirit"— something never seen among men before. God’s cre­ating of Jew and Gentile, with all their fanatic racial pride and exclusiveness, one harmonious church is the masterpiece of his redeeming wisdom, power, and grace. As there was better reason for two churches in Paul’s day than there has ever been since, at no time since has there been a reason for two. Every race, culture, and civilization, in God’s wonderful spir­itual alchemy, may be "one new man," one body, one building, one church.