St. Paul's Epistle to the Ephesians: A Practical Exposition

by Charles Gore

DIVISION I. § 5. CHAPTER III.

Paul the apostle of catholicity.

Paul the apostle of catholicity

St. Paul has unfolded the dimensions of the revelation of God given in the catholic church. The interests of the whole of mankind and of the whole universe which it is to subserve—that is its breadth: the eternal and slowly realized intention of God of which it is the expression—that is its length: the spiritual elevation up to which it takes men—that is its height: the gulf of sin and misery from which it rescues them—that is its depth. And now he is about to press upon the Asiatic Christians the moral obligations which this great catholic brotherhood involves. He begins his exhortation and enforces it by reminding them of what he was enduring as a prisoner for Christ's sake—'For this cause (i.e. seeing that all this is true), I, Paul, the prisoner of Christ Jesus in behalf of you, the Gentiles.' But when he has thus made a beginning, he pauses to add weight to his appeal by emphasizing a personal but very important consideration. The particular truth of the catholicity of the Church had been in quite a special sense entrusted to him, Paul, personally, as apostle of the Gentiles. He assumes that they have heard of this, his special commission, and that it was the subject of a special revelation to himself[[1]]. Indeed the fact must have formed part of his teaching at Ephesus and throughout Asia, for his mind was full of it; he had contended for it against strong opposition in his epistle to the Galatians[[2]]; he had asserted it in his speech on the occasion of his being made a prisoner at Jerusalem: and he had quite recently explained it 'in brief compass' in the letter to the Colossians which was intended to have, in part at least, the same readers as his present epistle[[3]]. This special revelation then and accompanying commission justifies him in particular, and more than any of the other apostles, in pressing upon his converts the doctrine which forms the special topic of this epistle.

But to think of his special office as apostle of a catholic society, is to think also of its extraordinary difficulty.

The difficulty of catholicity

When we set ourselves in our own later age to rehabilitate the sense of church membership, we feel at once the strength of the forces against us; we realize how much the feeling of blood-kinship in the family counts for, or the wider kinship of national life, or the common interests of our professions or our classes, compared to the feeble sense of fellowship which comes from a church membership which is so largely conventional. Most assuredly we feel the difficulty of what we have in hand. But we cannot feel it more intensely than St. Paul felt the difficulty involved in the very idea of a human brotherhood in which national distinctions were obliterated. After all, the degree of unity impressed by the Roman Empire upon the different nations it embraced was superficial. On the whole it left men to walk in their own ways. In particular it did not succeed in breaking down the barriers of Jewish isolation. A society in which men should be neither Jews nor Gentiles, Greeks nor barbarians, bond nor free, but all should be welded into one manhood by the pressure of a common and constraining bond of brotherhood—a society in which even the savage and brutal Scythian should have equal fellowship with Greeks and Jews[[4]]—represented what had never yet been accomplished, and what the most sanguine might reasonably have thought impossible. The history of the Church, though not yet much more than thirty years old, had served already to emphasize the difficulty of the undertaking. We read the record of the first Jerusalem Church with its communism of love and sympathy, and it seems the perfect realization of the Christian spirit of brotherhood. So it was, but under comparatively easy conditions. For all that community were Jews with common traditions, sympathies, habits, ways of looking at things. They could behave as brethren, in the glow of their fresh enthusiasm at finding that the long-expected kingdom of Christ was now an actual fact, and its triumph to be immediately expected, without any real bridging of the gulfs which yawn between different sorts of men. That these gulfs still remained to be bridged soon appeared. It became manifest that Gentiles, 'sinners of the Gentiles,' had to be received into Christian brotherhood upon equal terms, and without their accepting the Jewish law and customs. The Council at Jerusalem attempted a compromise by requiring of the Gentile converts certain accommodations to Jewish manners. But the compromise did not avail to overcome the difficulty. St. Paul found the centre of opposition to the equal admission of the Gentiles in that very Church of Jerusalem which had been previously foremost in the race of love. In fact, the true difficulty of the law of brotherhood only then appeared when the obligation to fuse inveterate national distinctions began to be enforced. Then indeed flesh and blood rebelled. Without going any further than this single piece of Christian experience, there is every reason why St. John should warn Christians that the old commandment, 'ye shall love one another,' is constantly, with every change of circumstance, becoming 'a new commandment,' involving new difficulties, and challenging afresh the efforts of the human will[[5]]. The same difficulty, only in a less acute form, is in St. Paul's mind, and makes him measure and weigh his words, when he writes to Philemon to beg him to receive his former runaway slave, 'no longer as a slave, but as a brother beloved[[6]].'

And we cannot but pause and ask, in view of all the moral discipline for men of various kinds which St. Paul sees to be involved in the simple obligation to belong to one Christian body[[7]],—what would have been his feelings if he had heard of the doctrine which cuts at the root of all this discipline by declaring that religion is only concerned with the relation of the soul to God, and that Christians may combine as they please in as many religious bodies as suits their varying tastes?

This difficulty in the very idea of a catholic brotherhood of men explains the extraordinary earnestness with which St. Paul proceeds to emphasize that indeed this, and nothing less than this, is the divine mystery (or 'secret'), which, held back from all eternity in the mind of God, was only now being disclosed through Christ's consecrated messengers, and specially through St. Paul himself, the apostle of the Gentiles. The incredible nature of the idea clogs St. Paul's language, and almost makes shipwreck of his grammar. All the depth of Christian doctrine is necessary as background to recommend and justify this otherwise entirely 'supernatural' ideal—this marvellous climax of the workings and revelations of God. The spectacle of a catholic brotherhood, with all that it promises of universal unity beyond itself, is a lesson even to the angels of what the manifold wisdom of God can conceive and accomplish.

We have got into a habit of talking about the 'brotherhood of man' as if it was an easy and obvious truth. All our experience of our English relations with races of a different colour to our own, nay, all our experience of class divisions at home, might have served to check this easy-going sort of language. If we will consent to pause and reflect on the actual difficulty of behaving or feeling as brethren should behave and feel towards men of other races and of other educations and habits than our own, we may be more inclined to believe that it is only through some fundamental eradication of selfishness and inherent narrowness that it can be made possible; only when we begin to live from some centre greater than ourselves. And that is the moral meaning of the constant doctrine of the New Testament, that only through being reconciled to God can we be reconciled to one another—only in Christ that men can permanently and satisfactorily learn to love one another, when racial and educational and personal antipathies make for separation and not for unity.

Now perhaps we are in a position to read with greater intelligence what St. Paul wrote about 'the dispensation of the divine mystery,' i.e. 'the stewardship of the divine secret,' of the brotherhood of all men in Christ or the catholicity of the Church, which had been committed to him by the 'revelation' which followed his conversion to Christ[[8]].

The doctrine of the brotherhood of men is in fact as much a peculiarly Christian doctrine as that of divine sonship, and both alike are, in the New Testament language, represented as realized only within the community of the baptized. The facts of New Testament language compel us to say and to recognize this[[9]]. But we are bound to recognize also that they are truths which, when they are heard, are welcomed by the natural conscience everywhere. For as all men are 'God's offspring[[10]],' by the very fact of their creation as men, so they are fitted to receive the privilege of sonship: and as they are 'made of one[[11]],' so they are fitted to realize the privilege of brotherhood. It is but to say the same thing in other words, if we insist that Christians are the elect body, to realize and express among men an idea of human nature which is the only true idea, and which, overlaid and forgotten as it may have been, has never ceased to stir in man's heart and conscience everywhere. The elect are elected for no other purpose than to make manifest what all men are capable of becoming, and, if they will obey God, are destined to become.

For this cause I Paul, the prisoner of Christ Jesus in behalf of you Gentiles,—if so be that ye have heard of the dispensation of that grace of God which was given me to you-ward; how that by revelation was made known unto me the mystery, as I wrote afore in few words, whereby, when ye read, ye can perceive my understanding in the mystery of Christ; which in other generations was not made known unto the sons of men, as it hath now been revealed unto his holy apostles and prophets in the Spirit; to wit, that the Gentiles are fellow-heirs, and fellow-members of the body, and fellow-partakers of the promise in Christ Jesus through the gospel, whereof I was made a minister, according to the gift of that grace of God which was given me according to the working of his power. Unto me, who am less than the least of all saints, was this grace given, to preach unto the Gentiles the unsearchable riches of Christ; and to make all men see what is the dispensation of the mystery which from all ages hath been hid in God who created all things; to the intent that now unto the principalities and the powers in the heavenly places might be made known through the church the manifold wisdom of God, according to the eternal purpose which he purposed in Christ Jesus our Lord: in whom we have boldness and access in confidence through our faith in him. Wherefore I ask that ye faint not at my tribulations for you, which are your glory.

There are a few points in this passage which still require explanation.

Paul the apostle of catholicity

1. What is St. Paul referring to when he says 'As I wrote afore in few words whereby, when ye read[[12]], ye can perceive my understanding in the mystery of Christ' or (if I may venture to retranslate it) 'as I wrote before in brief, by comparison with which, as ye read, ye can perceive my understanding in the secret of the Christ'? It is generally supposed that he is referring to the verses in the first chapter of this epistle (i. 9, 10, &c.), in which he speaks of the 'mystery' or 'secret' of the divine will now disclosed. But his point appears to be rather that he had elsewhere written in brief about his own special commission to preach the Gentile gospel; and the more probable reference seems to be to the Epistle to the Colossians which was written almost simultaneously with this epistle, probably just previously, and was intended to be read at some at least, if not all, of the same churches as this circular epistle, that is to say at Laodicea and Colossae at least, and probabfxly more widely. In that epistle (i. 25 ff.) he had really dwelt on his special commission in almost the same terms as here, and comparison with what he said there would indeed assist those he was now addressing to understand his knowledge in the 'revealed secret of the Christ.'

2. How can St. Paul, who insists continually that he is one of the apostles, call them, without self-complacency, God's holy apostles? The answer to this is that 'holiness' means 'consecration.' Any one is 'holy' or a 'saint' (the same word) who is consecrated to God in any special way. Such consecration lays upon him an obligation to moral goodness, which is what we mean by holiness, but it precedes the fulfilment of the obligation. All Christians are holy (or 'saints') because they are Christians, all apostles because they are apostles. As for St. Paul's personal estimate of himself as an individual, we have it just below. In view of his past sins, when he was 'kicking against the pricks,' and, albeit in ignorance, persecuting the Church, he calls himself 'less than the least of all the holy.'

3. St. Paul conceives his function to be to 'make men see,' or 'bring into the light' a long hidden secret of God now in part disclosed to the apostles, and to be by them disclosed to the world—in part, for its contents are still 'unsearchable' in their depth and in the 'manifoldness' of divine wisdom which they imply. But what is disclosed is no afterthought of God. It is an eternal purpose; and it is all of a piece with the original idea of creation: it is a 'secret ... hidden in God who created all things.' Redemption in fact interprets to angels and men what God's purpose in creation originally was. To minister to this disclosure is enough for any man. It makes all St. Paul's tribulations only such as it is worth while to bear; and the Gentiles, in their turn, should find their glory in his tribulations as an evidence of how much he thought it worth while to suffer in what is their cause no less truly than his.

St. Paul's second prayer

Here, as in the first chapter, the consideration of the glory, and consequently the difficulty, of the gospel which St. Paul has to deliver leads him off—just at the point where he seems to be resuming the uncompleted sentence with which he began—into a prayer that the Asiatic Christians may have strength given them to apprehend the wealth of their spiritual position and opportunity. He invokes God as the universal 'father (pater) from whom every family (patria)—every company of men knit together by common relation to one father—is named,' because this has direct reference to his purpose. All men recognize family, or blood relations and obligations. St. Paul reminds them that every conceivable society on earth or in heaven which is bound by the ties of a common fatherhood, derives its 'name' and therefore its significance from a larger relationship, an all-embracing relationship of which these lower ones are but shadows—the relationship to the one Father: and he calls upon the one Father to strengthen men to transcend all narrownesses of family or blood, and rise to realize their position in the great family, the great brotherhood under the one Father. To do this a strengthening of the inner man, or inner life, by the divine Spirit is indeed needed. Christ must be not only possessed by Christians, but realized. He must dwell in their hearts by the realizing power of an active personal faith. Where this is so—where faith is vigorous—there life must be rooted and founded on love. Christian faith involves love. For it is faith in a Father and His Son and His Spirit; and love, and nothing but love, is the gift of the Father in the Son by the Spirit. This love then will strengthen them, in the fellowship of the saints or consecrated ones altogether, to apprehend God's work and purpose in all its dimensions—breadth and length and depth and height—and to know Christ's love (which yet passes knowledge and remains unknowable), and to find their whole being, not as separate individuals, but as one body praying and working and thinking together, expanded to take in the fulness of what God is, the full complement of the divine life. To be thus enlightened and enlarged is what St. Paul understands by being a 'good catholic': that is what he prays all these Asiatic Christians may become.

And his prayer passes into a doxology—an ascription of glory to God because He is able to realize even what passes our power to conceive or to ask for; and that without doing more for us than He has already pledged Himself to do and actually begun to accomplish in us. And this glory he would have eternally ascribed to God in the Church which lives by His life; and also (where alone God can never fail of His full rights) in Him in whom alone God's life is perfectly realized, and worship perfectly rendered Him under conditions of manhood, in Jesus the Christ.

For this cause I bow my knees unto the Father, from whom every family in heaven and on earth is named, that he would grant you, according to the riches of his glory, that ye may be strengthened with power through his Spirit in the inward man; that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith; to the end that ye, being rooted and grounded in love, may be strong to apprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ which passeth knowledge, that ye may be filled unto all the fulness of God. Now unto him that is able to do exceeding abundantly above all that we ask or think, according to the power that worketh in us, unto him be the glory in the church and in Christ Jesus unto all generations for ever and ever. Amen.

St. Augustine, with his eye on the imperfections of the Church, speaks[[13]] of 'the glory of love ... alive but yet frost-bound. The root is alive, but the branches are almost dry. There is a heart alive within, and within are leaves and fruits; but they are waiting for a summer.' That is surely what we feel. The world cries out for brotherhood. We are perpetually explaining that brotherhood can only become actual, in the long run, where men know themselves to be, and in fact are, sons of God. We are continually pointing out that external legislative social reforms can only effect good where there exists, to respond to them and to use them, some strength and purity of inward character: that outward reforms without moral redemption would effect evil rather than good. All this is true and it is necessary to explain it. But the convincing demonstration begins at that point where Christianity makes man feel, and see in fact, that it contains in itself the remedy for social evils, because it has the spirit of love: where the Church is so actually presented as that men should feel and know that this is a true human brotherhood. It is the social, human, brotherly power of the Church which is what is at the present moment best calculated to win the consciences and convince the intellects of men. But this actual living spirit of self-sacrificing love—this spirit of real brotherhood—how 'frost-bound' it is! How large the area of the Church, how many its institutions, where it is not (to say the least) the most obvious thing represented! In fact, social reform, and that the most thorough and the most permanent, requires nothing more than that professing Christians should be better Christians, Christians who really believe what St. Paul and St. John say about the love of the brethren. Come then, O breath of the divine Spirit, and breathe upon these bones of the Christian Church, that they may live!

And outside the area of nominal Christianity how 'frost-bound' our evangelizing love. Surely the Church of England, as part of the expansive British nation, has an apostleship to the nations comparable to St. Paul's. Yet missionary zeal, as directed towards the natives of India, or Japan, or Africa, is a very restricted thing; noticeably restricted it must be confessed among those who most love the name of Catholic: and almost non-existent in the great majority of those who are yet members of the national Church. But it cannot be too deeply felt that to St. Paul the reconciliation of men with God is inseparable from the reconciliation of man with man. The atonement with God that is not an atonement among men he would not own. A peace with God that leaves us content that Hindoos and Japanese and Africans should not be of our religion is a false peace. A Christian who is not really in heart and will a missionary is not a Christian at all. Missionary effort is not a speciality of a few Christians, though, like every other part of Christian life, it has its special organs. It is an essential, never to be forgotten, part of all true Christian living, and thinking, and praying.

The missionary obligation of the Church depends, no doubt, chiefly on the command of Christ, 'Go ye and make disciples of all the nations.' But it is made intelligible when we realize that Christianity is really a catholic religion, and that only in proportion as its catholicity becomes a reality is its true power and richness exhibited. Each new race which is introduced into the Church not only itself receives the blessings of our religion, but reacts upon it to bring out new and unsuspected aspects and beauties of its truth and influence. It has been so when Greeks, and Latins, and Teutons, and Kelts, and Slavs have each in turn been brought into the growing circle of believers. How impoverished was the exhibition of Christianity which the Jewish Christians were capable of giving by themselves! How much of the treasures of wisdom and power which lie hid in Christ awaited the Greek intellect, and the Roman spirit of government, and the Teutonic individuality, and the temper and character of the Kelt and the Slav, before they could leap into light! And can we doubt that now again not only would Indians, and Japanese, and Africans, and Chinamen be the better for Christianity, but that Christianity would be unspeakably also the richer for their adhesion—for the gifts which the subtlety of India, and the grace of Japan, and the silent patience of China are capable of bringing into the city of God.

Come, then, O breath of the divine Spirit, and breathe upon the dead bones of the Christian churches that forget that they are evangelists of the nations, that they may live and stand upon their feet, an exceeding great army, an army with banners.

[[1]] Acts xxii. 17-21. 'While I prayed in the temple, I fell into a trance, and saw him saying unto me, Make haste, and get thee quickly out of Jerusalem.... Depart: for I will send thee forth far hence unto the Gentiles.'

[[2]] Gal. i. 15. 'It was the good pleasure of God, who separated me, even from my mother's womb, and called me through his grace, to reveal his Son in me, that I might preach him among the Gentiles.'

[[3]] Col. i. 24-29; iv. 3, 4.

[[4]] Col. iii. 11.

[[5]] 1 John ii. 7, 8.

[[6]] Phil. 16.

[[7]] Eph. iv. 1-3.

[[8]] Acts xxii. 21; xxvi. 17, 18.

[[9]] Thus the limitation of the term 'brotherhood' to Christians is implied in 1 Pet. ii. 17, 'Honour all men. Love the brotherhood;' and in 2 Pet. i. 7, 'In your love of the brethren supply love' (i.e. in the narrower and closer circle of believers, learn the wider and all embracing attitude towards men as men); and in 1 Cor. v. 11, 'Any man that is named a brother.' The word brother is throughout the New Testament used of Christians only, except where, in the Acts, it is used by Jews of Jews. Our Lord's language about brotherhood applies to the circle of the disciples, except Matt. xxv. 40, 'One of these my brethren,' i.e. the wretched.

[[10]] Acts xvii. 28.

[[11]] Acts xvii. 26.

[[12]] Dr. Hort thinks 'read' is a technical word for reading the Scriptures, and that this reading of the Old Testament Scriptures is to enable them to appreciate St. Paul's 'understanding in the secret of the Christ.' But I doubt if so technical a use of 'read' can be made out.

[[13]] In Epist. Joan, ad Parth. v. 10.