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

by Charles Gore

This Epistle to the Ephesians, viewed as a whole and from the point of view of a sympathetic intelligence, has a remarkable unity, and a unity progressively developed. Thus, first of all, the apostle opened the imagination of his hearers or readers to consider the place which the catholic church holds in the divine counsels for the universe, in the realization of the human ideal, and in the work of redemption from sin (chap. i and ii). Then he proceeded to justify and explain his own activity in the cause of catholicity, and made them feel at once the glory and the profound difficulty of the ideal of unity in diversity which it involves (chap. iii). It follows naturally and logically that he should set the Church before them as an actually existing organization, and bid them study it exactly and note the grounds of its unity and the common end to which its different elements or members are meant to minister; and this is what he actually does in the fourth chapter (1-16). Viewed, however, as a matter of grammatical structure, it is probable that this passage forms another digression—the real necessity of the argument acting as an overmastering motive which pulls contrary to the immediate grammatical purpose of the writer. Thus he had begun, at the beginning of chapter iii, to pass from the doctrinal exposition which is involved in his opening chapters to practical exhortation. The Asiatic members of the catholic church are to be exhorted to live up to their calling: to turn their backs deliberately on their old heathen habits, and to conform themselves entirely to the principles of their new state. To this exhortation he actually and finally attains at chapter iv. 17. The intervening passage (a chapter and a half) is occupied, first, with the digression which we have just considered at length, about St. Paul's mission to the Gentiles and the difficulty of its realization, and with the great prayer which that topic suggests (chap. iii); secondly, with another digression on the character of the unity of the Church. This is, I say, probably the case grammatically. For 'I, Paul, the prisoner of Jesus Christ for you Gentiles' (iii. 1) is almost unmistakably intended to introduce a moral appeal to which his imprisonment for the sake of those to whom he writes adds weight and force[[1]]. It is taken up, after a digression, in iv. i, 'I, therefore, the prisoner of the Lord, beseech you to walk worthily'; but the appeal there begun yields anew to the necessity of further exposition, and only reaches its free expression in iv. 17, 'This therefore I say and testify in the Lord'; after which point we have moral exhortation and little else.

Now, therefore, we are to occupy ourselves with what is grammatically a second digression, but logically and really a most necessary step in the exposition of St. Paul's thoughts—the subject of the unity of the church catholic, its nature and obligations. Conscious of the profound difficulty of welding naturally antagonistic elements, such as Jews and Gentiles, slaves and free men, into one catholic fellowship, St. Paul appeals to the Asiatic churches with all the force which he can command as a prisoner on their account, to 'walk' as their catholic calling involves; that is, to exhibit all those moral qualities which are necessary to maintain peace under difficult circumstance—a modest estimate of oneself (humility or 'lowliness'), a mildness in mutual relations ('meekness'), an habitual refusal to pass quick judgements on what one cannot but condemn or dislike ('longsuffering'), a deliberate forbearance one of another based on love. They are to accept one another as brethren, with the rights of brethren. And the reason why they should exhibit these qualities is not far to seek: they actually share one common supernatural life—the imparted life of the Spirit—and they are, therefore, to make it their deliberate object to preserve this actual spiritual unity in its appropriate outward expression, that is in harmonious fellowship,—'giving diligence to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace.'

The unity of the church

But at this point the idea of the unity of the Church is felt to need fuller exposition. In what sense are Christians one? They are one as one body or organization, made up no doubt of a multitude of differing individual members, but all bound into one, under Christ for their head, by the fact that the one Spirit, which is Christ's supreme gift, is imparted to the whole organization and every member of it: and this common corporate life, where the elements are so different, is made possible by the one hope reaching forward into an eternal world, which was set before them all when they received their call into the body of Christ. This should be enough to annihilate lower and shorter-lived differences. 'There is one body[[2]] and one spirit even as ye are called in one hope of your calling.' It follows from this that there is another threefold unity. For the existence of the common head involves a common allegiance to Him as Lord, an allegiance which is justified by what He is believed to be by all Christians; an allegiance, further, which is more than an outward fealty, being cemented by an actual incorporation into His life which takes place through the speaking symbol of the laver of regeneration[[3]]. 'One Lord, one faith, one baptism.' But once more. This common union with and under Christ in the Spirit, is not anything less than union with the one and only God and Father, who is over all as the one head (even 'the head of Christ is God'), through all as the pervading presence, in all as the active life, 'one God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all things.' Thus their unity is the deepest and most ultimate conceivable: it has a width and range from which no one can be excluded: while it has a closeness and cogency like the unity of blood.

To realize what this unity is and may be, involves on our part a continual looking out of ourselves, out of all individual, social and national differences, up to the common source of all the gifts of all Christians. Whatever each one possesses is simply the gift of the divine bounty or grace, given to him by a definite act of bestowal, varying merely in kind and degree according to the sovereign will of Christ the Lord, the only giver; and it is therefore to be used in His service and for His ends. The Psalmist had sung of the divine king of Israel mounting as an earthly conqueror unto his sanctuary throne in Zion after making captives and receiving gifts from among his enemies without exception.

'Thou hast gone up into the heights,
Thou hast led captives captive;
Thou hast received gifts among men, yea from the rebellious also[[4]].'

It stands to reason that to St. Paul's mind this conception is realized nowhere but in Christ. Its application to Christ is in fact assumed—'therefore,' i.e. with a view to Christ, 'he' or rather 'it,' the Scripture 'saith'—and the passage is given free interpretation, and, more than this, free modification, on the basis of this assumption. For (1) the ascension of the conquering king is spoken of as the result of a previous descent to the 'lower regions of this earth of ours[[5]].' No man, as St. John says, hath ascended up to heaven but He that came down from heaven. The person who 'beggared himself' to come down to our earth and who subsequently mounted into the divine glory is one and the same person, Christ the incarnate Son; and He thus descended and re-ascended in order that He might, through the atonement wrought by Him in the flesh and through the exaltation which rewarded it, restore to the universe that unity of which sin and rebellion had robbed it, and 'fill all things' once again with the divine bounty and presence[[6]].

(2) The sense of the psalm is—possibly not without Jewish precedent[[7]]—altered in expression so that, instead of the conqueror receiving gifts from men, his conquered enemies, we have him represented as 'giving gifts to men.' This modification, whether original in St. Paul or accepted by him, is no doubt due to the fact that his mind is full of the idea of Christ as conquering only to bless, receiving homage only to be enabled to bestow on them who offer it the fulness of the divine bounty. And the 'captives' of Christ, to St. Paul's mind, are no doubt not men, but the hosts of Satan reduced to impotence. The exalted Christ, then, is the source of all gifts in His Church, and He bestows on men various endowments in such a way as to maintain among them a necessary relation. 'No member of the body of Christ is endued with such perfection as to be able, without the assistance of others, to supply his own necessities. A certain proportion is allotted to each, and it is only by communicating with others that all enjoy what is sufficient for maintaining their respective places in the body[[8]].' This is the principle of mutual dependence, the fundamental principle of corporate life. Thus 'He gave some as apostles, some prophets,' others in other varying capacities to fulfil varying functions; the principle of the bestowal being the same throughout. Each 'gifted' individual becomes himself a gift to the Church. He is 'gifted' not for his own sake but for the Church's sake—'with a view to the perfecting of the saints,' or 'the complete equipment of the consecrated body,' for the manifold 'work of ministry' entrusted to it; or to look at the matter from a rather different point of view, 'for the purpose of completing the structure of the body of Christ'—that living company of men in whom Christ expresses Himself and through whom He acts upon the world. And that structure is not complete till all together attain what is impossible to any isolated Christian individual, the unity not only of a common faith, but also of a common knowledge of what is revealed in the Son of God; or, in other words, to the full-grown manhood; which, once again, means that complete developement in which the fulness of the Christ—all the complete array of His attributes and qualities—finds harmonious exhibition over again in His people, His body.

But the possibility of this completeness on the part of the Church as a whole, depends on the stability of the individual members in the common faith. Thus it is Christ's purpose that His members should cease to be as children, stirred up like the waves of the sea, or carried about like feathers, by every wind of false teaching. There is, it must be remembered, a kingdom of deception, an organized attempt to seduce souls, of which wicked men make themselves the instruments. In view of this hostile kingdom of error, the Christians must abide in the truth revealed to them in love, and so grow up into the completed life of Christ. For He is the head, and in Him they are the body. And the body is a unit of many parts fitted and held together in one life by a supply from the head, which circulates through every joint, and for the full and unimpeded communication of which each several limb must do its proper work, so that the whole body may grow into completed life in that mutual coherence which is Christian love.