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

by Charles Gore

DIVISION II. CHAPTERS IV. 17-VI. 24.

Doctrine and conduct.

Doctrine and conduct

Here the apostle, with a final 'therefore,' resuming the 'therefore' of IV. i, passes without further delay to the entirely practical portion of the epistle.

These 'therefores' are characteristic of St. Paul. They indicate his deep sense of the vital and necessary connexion between the Christian mode of living and the doctrines of Christian belief. Christian belief is a mould fashioning human conduct by a constant and uniform pressure into a characteristic type, or a set of forces urging it along certain lines of movement. Thus when some point of Christian belief has been expounded there follows a 'therefore' indicating the inevitable moral consequence of such belief where it is intelligently and voluntarily held. Of course the consequence does not follow of mechanical necessity. The doctrine acts by an appeal to the will. 'I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God'—so St. Paul makes his appeal to the Romans, when he had given them his great exposition of the doctrines of grace and justification[[1]]. When he has expounded the doctrine of the resurrection to the Corinthians[[2]], he concludes—'Therefore, my beloved brethren, be ye stedfast,' &c. The doctrine of the Epistle to the Colossians leads to two conclusions: 'mortify therefore' and 'put on therefore, as God's elect, holy and beloved, a heart of compassion[[3]].' The Epistle to the Hebrews contains similar moral appeals based on dogmatic statements. 'Therefore let us give the more earnest heed.' 'Having therefore, brethren, boldness by the blood of Jesus, let us draw near with a true heart.' 'Therefore let us lay aside every weight[[4]].' These 'therefores,' I say, indicate a fundamental characteristic of Christianity: it is a manner of living based upon a disclosure of divine truth about God and His will, about man's nature and his sin, about God's redemptive action and its methods and intentions.

Among ourselves to-day we hear frequently enough disparaging reference to theological doctrine whether as a subject for study or for definite instruction. Theological dogmas are alluded to as things remote from the ordinary concerns of men and associated with the jarring interests of different religious bodies or of their clergy, with 'denominationalism' or 'sacerdotalism[[5]].' This idea has been due in great measure no doubt to faults in theologians and priests. But it is none the less absurd, when it is seriously considered. If those whose lives have given the most shining examples of practical Christianity in all ages were cross-questioned, it would be found that the overwhelming majority would, in all simplicity, attribute what was good in their life to their definite beliefs. Indeed, it is self evident that it must have a practically vast effect on a man's conduct whether, for instance, he really believes that his own and other men's lives, after some seventy years of probation in this world, pass under divine judgement, only to enter into new and eternal conditions where they will inevitably reap the fruits of their previous careers. It must make a vital difference whether he believes that the world is the expression of blind force or of the will of a living, loving, God; whether or no he believes that God personally cares for each individual: whether or no he believes that God's interest in the world was such as to move Him to redeem it, by the sacrifice of Himself, from the tyranny of sin: whether he believes in divine forgiveness and God's indwelling by His Spirit: whether he believes in a divine brotherhood and divine means of grace in a household of God in the world. In fact, if the practical ethics of India and China, or the Turkish Empire and Morocco, are considered side by side with those of Christian Europe, it is impossible to resist the conviction that men's behaviour depends in the long run on what they believe about God.

This obvious conclusion is, in part, veiled from our eyes by two facts. One is that logic works slowly in human life. Take a transverse section of humanity at any particular moment, and it appears a mass of inconsistencies. It might almost suggest that there is no connexion at all between belief and practice. But the same appearance is not presented by human life in its long reaches. There you see how, in the slow result, an alteration of belief involves an alteration of practice. Thus to take an example: at present our social conscience about the obligations of marriage, or about personal purity, or about suicide, unsatisfactory as it may appear to be to an earnest Christian, is still saturated with Christian sentiment which is the result of a prolonged impression left by Christian doctrine. If the doctrine were to pass out of the minds of Englishmen in general, after a generation or two there would be a weakening or destruction of the corresponding sentiment, and an abolition of what is at present an obstacle to the reign of sensual or selfish desires. But it takes some generations for the effect of any weakening of belief to make itself felt.

There is another fact which veils from the eyes of people in general the real connexion between morals and doctrine. It is that it is largely mediate or indirect. The moral standard of the 'average man' is, unconsciously, kept up by the morals of the best men and women. For social opinion is with the majority the force which mainly influences their practice, and social opinion depends largely on leaders. 'It is when the best men cease trying that the world sinks back like lead.' Let anything happen which should silence the moral effort of the best individuals, and disaster would be imminent. But this is exactly what would be the result if the best men and women were to cease to be Christian believers. It is the highest level of our common life that would be depressed. The result all round would be indirect, but it would be widespread and disastrous.

I do not mean, or think, that this weakening of religious belief in the best men and women is occurring. I only instance its morally certain results to make apparent how the general bearing of religious beliefs on social practice is, in one way, veiled by its indirectness.

But to St. Paul all this is self-evident. He sees quite clearly that Christianity is to be a new life, a new social and ethical manifestation in the world, because Christians believe that God has made plain to them in Jesus Christ His character, nature, and redemptive purposes, and has given, by His Spirit, a practical power to their wills to correspond with the truth revealed to their intelligences and hearts.

So he proceeds from his exposition of the great doctrines of the Church of the Redemption to its practical moral consequences.

[[1]] Rom. xii. 1.

[[2]] 1 Cor. xv. 58.

[[3]] Col. iii. 5, 12.

[[4]] Heb. ii. 1; x. 19; xii. 1.

[[5]] An interesting expression of this sort of feeling is to be found in George Crabbe's poem, The Library. On the whole we must have improved since his day in our perception of the connexion of Christian doctrine with Christian practice.