Ver. 13. Till we all come.—Suggestive of standing opposite to something towards which we have been toiling. Can one think without a tremor of joy, of the moment when he will find himself in perfect correspondence with the Divine Archetype? In the unity of the faith.—The world has seen many attempts to bring about uniformity of creed, after the manner of Procrustes, by stretching or chopping. “The unity of the faith” is a very different thing, and much to be desired. The knowledge of the Son of God.—Lit. the complete knowledge. Unto a full-grown man.—As above intimated, a child does not become a man by means of the rack. The significance of the word “man” here is as great as when we bid some one who has lost his self-respect to “be a man.”

Ver. 14. That we henceforth be no more children.—In what respects his readers are not to be children the apostle makes plain, viz. in helplessness and credulity. Tossed to and fro.—With no more power of resistance than a cork on the waves. By the sleight of men and cunning craftiness.—As some poor simpleton, who thinks himself capable, falls a victim to card-sharpers, so unstable souls fall victims to those who say with Falstaff, “If the young dace be a bite for the old pike, I see no reason in the law of nature but I may snap at him.”

Ver. 15. But speaking the truth in love.—If it be possible to make the medicine palatable without destroying its efficacy—to capsule the bitter pill—its chances are so much the greater of doing good. The A.V. margin gives “being sincere,” and the R.V. “dealing truly,” the different renderings indicating the difficulty of finding an English equivalent.

Ver. 16. Fitly joined together and compacted.—R.V. “fitly framed and knit together.” Bengel suggests that the first expression means the fitting together, and the second the fastening together. Meyer, denying this, says the distinction is that the former corresponds to the figure, the latter to the thing represented. The grammar, like the physiology, of this verse is difficult. Are we to read, “The whole body . . . maketh increase of the body”? Apparently we must, for the body “builds itself up in love.”

Ver. 17. That ye henceforth walk not as other Gentiles walk.—In this and the two following verses we have again the lurid picture of ch. ii. 2, 3: “in the vanity of their mind.”

“The creature is their sole delight,
Their happiness the things of earth.”

Ver. 18. Having the understanding darkened.—Remembering our Lord’s saying about the single eye and the fully illuminated body we might say, “If the understanding—by which all light should come—be darkened ‘how great is that darkness’!” Because of the blindness.—R.V. “hardness.” The word describes the hard skin formed by constant rubbing, as the horny hand of a blacksmith.

Ver. 19. Who being past feeling.—Having lost the “ache” which should always attend a violation of law. An ancient commentator uses the now familiar word “anæsthetes” to explain the phrase. Having given themselves over.—“Given” represents a word which often connotes an act of treason—and “themselves” is emphatic—“the most tremendous sacrifice ever laid on the altar of sin” (Beet). To lasciviousness.—“St. Paul stamps upon it the burning word ἀσέλγεια like a brand on the harlot’s brow” (Findlay). To work all uncleanness with greediness.—R.V. margin, “to make a trade of all uncleanness with covetousness.” Their “sins not accidental, but a trade”; and a trade at which they work with a “desire of having more.”

Ver. 20. No not so.—As differently as possible. The same mode of speech which led St. Paul to say to the Galatians, “Shall I praise you? . . . I praise you not.”—i.e. “I blame you highly.”

Ver. 21. If so be that ye have heard Him.—The emphasis is on “Him”—“assuming, that is, that it is He, and no other.”