Bible Commentaries

Christianity a Revelation

Ephesians 3:4-5

I. First of all, let us notice what is implied in this, when we say that Christianity is a revelation.

For one thing, there is implied a contrast. When we say that Christianity is a Ephesians 3:8

"The unsearchable riches." The inexorable wealth, ranging vein beyond vein, mine beyond mine, in land beyond land, in continent beyond continent! And, then, side by side with this immeasurable glory, the Apostle puts himself. "Unto me, who am less than the least of all saints, is this grace given!" What an arresting and daring conjunction! Let us turn our contemplation to one or two aspects of this "unsearchable" wealth.

I. The Lord Jesus Christ has created so exacting a conception of Himself in the minds of men that no ministry of man can satisfy it. No human ministry can express it. In all our best representations of the Lord there is always a missing something, an "unsearchable" something, which the most masterly figures cannot span.

II. But it is not only that our Saviour has created an exacting conception of Himself, He has also, by His "unsearchable riches," created an exacting ideal of human possibility. Every summit brings a new Ephesians 3:8

Christ gives us to possess not God only, but men also as our riches, the unsearchable riches which we have in Him.

—McLeod Campbell.

References.—III:8.—Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. xiii. No745 , and vol. xx. No1209. Bishop Westcott, Christian World Pulpit, vol. xlv. p360. F. E. Paget, Helps and Hindrances to the Christian Life, vol. i. p60. J. G. Rogers, Christian World Pulpit, vol. lxi. p398. III:8-11.—J. Clifford, Christian World Pulpit, vol. lviii. p209. III:9.—Expositor (4th Series), vol. i. p32. III:10.—Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. viii. No448 , and vol. xvi. No933. Expositor (4th Series), vol. i. pp138 , 153; ibid. vol. vi. p77. III:11.—Ibid. vol. i. p32. III:11 , 20.—Llewelyn Davies, The Purpose of God, p28. III:12.—W. P. Du Bose, The Gospel According to St. Paul, p143.

Patriotism and Intercession

Ephesians 3:14-19

All great missionary pioneers, founders, and leaders seem to come to a time in their lives when God's purposes and plans become unveiled to their vision, and, as in a moment, the future unfolds itself to their spiritual gaze. So it was with Noah after that great crisis in the world's history at the Flood. By faith, in the spirit of simple obedience and holy, farseeing awe, he had prepared the Ark and entered it with his family. He had passed reverently through the discipline of his strange retreat, and was ready, after his sacrifice of thanksgiving, for the vision of God's providential government and the future expansion of the race of man. So with Abraham, strong in the faith that boldly faces the unknown and "waits on the Lord to renew its strength". Step by step he approaches the crucial and unexpected trial of his belief. But the discipline of faith had prepared him. He offers his son in sacrifice, but stays his hand immediately at the Divine call. Then it is that the whole vision of the purpose of God in the family and tribal and national life of Israel opens before his mind. Think, too, of Moses and his training, all preparatory to that magnificent vision of God on Mount Sinai as a Moral Being having personal moral relations with mankind.

I. And St. Paul, the greatest of missionary pioneers, steeped in all the visions and hopes of Judaism, burning with zeal for its glorious Ephesians 3:14-19

I. The fact that God feels a deep love for men is one hard to contemplate, still harder to realise. Yet it is the starting-point of Christianity. It is the very core of the revelation of Jesus. The inspired declaration that "God is Love" ( 1 John 4:8; 1 John 4:16) has changed the temper and life of every man and every community which has come to believe that the statement is true. It has been a thousand times more potent to produce right living than had been the previous belief that God is power. Therefore love is more potent than law, and love is the essence of the Gospel. It is true that in the case of an earthly ruler affection may be thrown away upon unworthy subjects, and that legal compulsion alone will produce results. Nevertheless, Jesus insists that God Himself is so constituted that He can never rest content until He has won for Himself the love of all His creatures. Jesus uncovers the love of God for men, and allows it to work. It may work by sharp methods, for love can be "cruel to be kind". But, we are taught, the object which God sets before Himself is not to break a recalcitrant will, or compel a sullen obedience to His laws, but to draw all men to Himself. But the fact that God loves men, though it may gain a certain amount of assent in the abstract, becomes difficult to realise, and raises grave doubts in the human mind, when men reflect on what the statement involves.

(1) The sense of one's own individual insignificance in the universe of Existence—this thought presents one difficulty. That God should entertain affection towards humanity as a whole does not seem unreasonable, but we cannot realise the fact that God has a distinct and separate love for each single human soul which has ever lived. Yet, if this be not the truth, then His love for men becomes a mere phrase not worth contending about.

(2) Another difficulty is the fact of human unloveliness. Men, taking them as a whole, are not very lovable. Comparatively few inspire real affection. Alas! it is but too true that those who come personally into contact with multitudes, and have to deal with them officially or commercially, come to have a sort of contempt for humanity; they see too much of the foibles and petty faults of character to feel any general sentiment of affection; they have discovered the unloveliness of men.

(3) There is one other difficulty, and that the most formidable—the fact of human suffering.

If it be true that God loves His children, why does He leave them to suffer so? This has been the dark mystery of the ages; it is the difficulty with many still. It has led men to atheism. It has led them to attribute to God the qualities of the devil. It has driven them, in frantic despair, to curse God and die. It has led others to grovel before God as abject slaves before an Oriental despot. It has led others, again, to throw their children into the flames and the waters as propitiatory sacrifices to angry deities. It has led many among us to think of a Law, instead of a Person, as the Centre of things—has this apparent Divine indifference to the cries of human agony.

II. Now St. Paul looks these facts squarely in the face, and yet bursts out in praise of the goodness and lovingkindness of God. Why does he do so? What new light has he upon the "painful riddle of life"? He is not hazarding a mere opinion; it is not a conclusion thought out or discovered by any method common among men. Jesus had said not long before that any one who saw Him would see the Father. Now many beheld Him, but comparatively few recognised Him for what He was. In this minority was St Paul. (The Apostle Paul claimed for Himself an equal authority with the other Apostles, because he had seen the Lord, not in a mere vision, but "objectively"—after His Ascension—in glory). This sight of God in the Person of Jesus Christ changed his estimate of his fellowmen by changing his notion about God. It set all the facts of life with which he was familiar in a new light. They remained the same, but they no longer meant the same. As he learned from the Master what is the real disposition of God towards men—that all men are the sons of God, and that God has a personal interest in each individual soul, because of this relationship—this kindled in him that "enthusiasm of humanity" which is the great mark of Christianity. Real love for men is only possible in the Presence of God. So absolute is the Christian conviction of God's lovingkindness that from it he educes an explanation of human pain, and he does it clearly: "My Hebrews 12:5-11). The Apostle's assertion amounts to this—that the ills which assault men, and sometimes take the zest out of living, are no meaningless accidents, nor purposeless agonies caused by the crampings of a soulless "law," but that they are the smartings from the stripes of a rod laid on reluctantly, but intentionally by a Father. It is true that we see many an ill which we find it hard to account for on this theory; that we see sufferings which teach no lesson to the victim, because they do not leave the victim alive to learn, so terrible and swift are they. Nevertheless, while the theory of suffering must remain in some cases partly shrouded in mystery, as a trial of our faith, no other theories of life bring the same intellectual relief and moral uplifting as does the great Christian doctrine that God is love, and that He is slowly bringing His children by this mysterious discipline, among other things, into a recognition of their relationship to Him.

—S. D. M"Connell.

References.—III:14-19. H. S. Holland, Christian World Pulpit, vol. lviii. p216. A. M. Fairbairn, ibid. vol. lviii. p19.

God's Family

Ephesians 3:15

There are many illustrations used in Holy Scripture to set forth the relationship in which the people of God stand to each other and to Him, but the most expressive of these is taken from domestic life. It is the one presented in our text, and under its familiar imagery the Church of God is described as one great family, the members of which are bound to each other by the possession of one common life, the distinction of one common name, and the union with the same parental head. It is a family, the members of which, though sundered by time and space, and divided into two great sections, the one in heaven and the other here on earth, are all bound together in one blessed bond, and linked to each other by special sympathies, and are looking forward to dwell together in one happy and eternal home.

I. Relationship with God.—It is only through that relationship that they can have communion with each other. To be united to each other they must first be united to Him. Just as in a family it is the possession of a common life, derived from the same parental source, which constitutes the bond of union, so in the family of God it is the spiritual life, derived from Him, which forms the basis of communion. St. John puts this beyond question when he says, "That which we have seen and heard declare we unto you, that ye also may have fellowship with us, and truly our fellowship is with the Father, and with His Son Jesus Christ" (1St. John 1:3). In another place he testifies that this fellowship of Christians with God as their common Father is through faith in His dear Son; for "as many as received Him to them gave He power to become the Sons of God, even to them that believe in His name" (St. John 1:12). Elsewhere we are clearly taught that the impartation of this Divine life is wrought through the Holy Spirit, "for as many as are led by the Spirit of God, they are the sons of God," and the contrast is very solemn—"If any man have not the Spirit of Christ he is none of His" ( Romans 8:9; Romans 8:14). All true believers, then, are members of this family, and in that respect are designated "saints"—not only on account of their separation from the rest of the world, and the holy service to which they are called, but on account of the Divine life of which they are partakers.

II. The Ideal of the Christian Church.—To us who are not gifted with omniscience or discerning of spirits, the visible Church is the body of those who profess His truth, are baptised into His name, and observe His ordinances; but all who belong to it do not necessarily belong to that spiritual communion to which properly the name of Saints belongs. A visible Church with its external ordinances and terms of communion Ephesians 3:15

The name of the Church in the text I have selected is "the family". There are many names for the Church in the Bible; the family represents perhaps the sweetest.

I. What is the Church?—When the Church began, it was a family, with the love of a family, the cohesion of a family, the economy of a family, and very soon there came the quarrels that so often happen in a family. Yet a family that sometimes has moments of discord still is full of love. St. Paul calls the Church a brotherhood; it is the development of the idea of the family, for the Church, increasing in ever-widening circles, has names corresponding to that increase. The brotherhood is a wider term than family, it is a uniting of certain people from many families. And, as the Church grows, you find another name for the family in the Epistle to the Hebrews. It is now more than a family, more than a brotherhood; it has become a city, with all the complications of a city, all the varied interest of a city, with its business, its pleasure, and sometimes its vices. But the Church is more than a family, more than a brotherhood, more than a city; it is a commonwealth, and that is the name I like the best The commonwealth. Every member of it is bound to kill selfishness, to work for the good of the community. "What is best for the people?" is the question of the Church, and the individual must always make his own interest subservient to the good of the whole community. But the Church is more than a family, more than a brotherhood, more than a city, more than a commonwealth; it becomes in the Bible a nation, a collection of nations, until the idea of the Catholic Church is the world converted.

II. The Foundation of the Church.—What is the Church founded on? What have we got? Now notice. We have a Person—Jesus Christ; we have a Book—this Bible; we have an Institution—the Church of God. A Person, a Book, an Institution—the world killed the Person, Jesus Christ, yet today He is alive and more at work than ever; the world tries to kill the Book, yet here it is in your pulpit today as strong as ever; the world has tried to kill the Church, yet, after two thousand years, it is getting larger than ever. Why do they not kill the Book, Why do they not kill the Church? Because they cannot Institutions that are not wanted, die. The Church lives because it is wanted. You want it, you know that Your home wants it That boy of yours in business wants it; that girl of yours, who is just getting married, she wants it The poor children in the slums, they want it The institution is wanted. The Church lives because it is wanted. The immortal part of man wants the Church, and so the Divine foundation fits the Divine need in Ephesians 3:16

Who would not desire to possess a strength as invincible as that which was the secret of St. Paul's faith and hope and life? There is an inner and there is an outer man in every one of us. There is an inner and there is an outer life in the nation, in the family, and in the individual. In the nation the inner life is not always recognised, even by its own people, until some grave necessity sets the heart of the nation beating and throbbing, and the people are roused by a common feeling hitherto unsuspected.

I wish to point out four of the great characteristics that ought to mark the inner life of our nation.

I. No One ought to Forget that in whatever Position he has to Live he ought to be dominated by such a sense of responsibility that he never forgets that the people around him will judge not only his religion but will judge his nationality by the example and evidence which they have in him.

II. The Love of Duty must ever characterise every individual among us. It is well known that when Napoleon wrote his despatches he never forgot to mention the glory that he said attached to the achievements of his troops; it is equally well known that when the Duke of Wellington wrote his despatches he never mentioned the word glory, but he never failed to call attention to the duty which his men performed.

III. There must be Sympathy with those over whom we have any Authority and those among whom our lot is cast. If India is maintained for long as our great trust and the sphere of our beneficent rule, it will be due not only to the excellence of the rule but to the exhibition of the spirit of sympathy. And that which is true of that nation you may depend upon it is characteristic and true of all those over whom England has any rule.

IV. There must be Self-sacrifice.—We may thank God for the noble examples given of self-sacrifice by our troops, by our blue-jackets, by men who have done signal and noble service to the Empire. Whether standing, like Lord Cromer, almost alone in Egypt; whether standing like those great Viceroys of India who have maintained our rule and been loyal for our crown; whether it be the lonely hearts or whether it be in the most active spheres of operation; it has been by self-sacrifice, by not seeking their own but by seeking the good of others, that the name and the fame have been obtained.

It is the inner life of the family which begets the inner life of the nation.

References.—III:16.—A. Maclaren, Expositions of Holy Scripture— Ephesians 3:17

There is no religion in the whole world, except the religion of the Gospel, that hints even at such an idea as this—God, Christ, in my own self. It is the most wonderful and unexpected thought in the whole inspiration of God. The question that starts in our minds is this—"is this promise to be accepted, to be fulfilled, in anything like its literal meaning"? The answer is this—It is a personal and real fact. Jesus Christ dwells in our hearts and rules them, if we are children of God by faith. In proportion as simple faith takes hold of the living Christ, He becomes a real Person and a real Life. If we approach Jesus Christ critically, He will look another way; if we approach Jesus Christ doubtfully, He will look the other way, too; if we approach Jesus Christ sympathetically, the Holy Spirit will help us to know, and to see, and to feel that He is the Friend of our life.

I. The thought of Christ dwelling in our heart ought not to be a very difficult one for people like ourselves to grasp its conception. Let us think of an analogy. A widowed mother, with no child but one single boy. This boy, as he grows up, becomes increasingly dear to her heart. As he grows up, to her great sorrow he is overwhelmed with a passionate love of the sea. For years and years that poor lonely widowed soul never hears of him, and wonders whether he is living or dead. She never will leave his name out of her prayers. Is it very difficult for you to understand what is meant when it is said of such a person, "Her boy dwells in her heart?" Is it more difficult to think of Jesus Christ as the object of religious love dwelling in our hearts also?

II. But then Jesus dwells in our hearts in a much more real way than this. Jesus Christ in the believer's heart not only as the object of his affection, but as the very life of his soul. You know, perhaps, the process of grafting, by which a little twig, with no root, is grafted into a tree till it becomes part of the tree, and the life of the tree flows into the twig, and the life of the tree becomes that of the twig. Is it difficult for you, with that analogy, to realise the conception of one person dwelling in another person's heart as the power of that person's soul and life? So the believer appropriates the life of Jesus, and the conception of Christ dwelling in your heart as the life of your soul is not a very difficult one for you to understand.

III. Another question arises to one to ask and to answer, which is this, How does Jesus Christ get admission into our hearts in such a way that He may be said to dwell in them? Is that a very difficult question to answer? Is it necessary even to ask the question? How does anybody get admission into our houses so as to dwell in them or to stay in them? By our consent, not otherwise, by no other way. How does Jesus Christ get admission into men's hearts so as to rule and dwell in them? The answer is the same, by men's consent, not otherwise, and in no other way possible or conceivable.

Jesus Christ gains admission to our hearts by our own consent, but how does He enter? What is the opening through which, when you have invited your friends to your house, or given them permission to come, they enter? It is the door, and there must be some similar opening through which Jesus Christ enters the heart. What is the opening? What is the means? The opening, the means is this: it is our faith, our simple acceptance of the Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ as the sinner's substitute and the believer's Light.

It is the beginning of everything that is good to let Jesus into the heart. You cannot go far wrong when you do that. It only requires a little faith just to open the door. He will bring the Light with Him, pardon, strength for service, and hope, and glory.

The way to keep Christ is the way in which we get Him to come. He keeps in our hearts by continual acts of faith on the part of believers. That is the sum and substance of Christianity, of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, Christ in the soul of the child of God.

References.—III:17.—C. Brown, God and Ephesians 3:17-19 (R.V.)

The true man desires to know, to understand, to apprehend. Paul was a man who wanted to know —to know the highest things. He made it his business in life, next to knowing for himself, to make others know, to be their teacher. At the same time, he was willing to know from others. Paul's desire for these Ephesians was that they might be strong to apprehend with all saints the love of Christ in its breadth, and length, and height, and depth: that Ephesians 3:18

The love of Christ is the love of God. What we find in the heart of Christ, in His character, in His words and actions, is to be regarded as a revelation of the Invisible God. That indeed is the whole significance of Christ's manifestation—"He that hath seen Me hath seen the Father". This manifestation was made, we may believe, because apart from it we were incapable of gazing into the heart of God. The aspect of things speaks with sufficient clearness of Law, of Intelligence, of Power working to an end; but it can hardly be said to bear on it the legend of love. Apart from Christ it is open to any man to maintain that God is an unknown Force, inexorable, indifferent to human suffering, regardless of human life, a concatenation of awful uniformities which move like a car of juggernaut over prostrate human beings to some unknown goal. Remembering, then, this incontestable fact, we shall examine with eager interest the evidences of the Love of Christ, and seek to know it, though it passes knowledge.

I. First of all there is the human life of Jesus, as it is recorded in the Gospels. However fragmentary the reports, however difficult the attempt may be to harmonise them into a consistent record of facts, or a harmonious combination of features, there can be no question that the records give us an unexampled impression of a heart of love. Not only is the love of Christ indisputable, in the Gospel narrative; but it stands out as a passion of a new type. Compare it with the love of which Plato's Symposium treats, that love, not wholly free from sensual passion, and when free from sensual passion, losing itself in a cold intellectual atmosphere.

II. But the impression of His love, made by the course of His earthly life, is wrought to an extraordinary fulness and intensity by the cross. Whenever the cross is allowed to give its own witness, undisturbed by imperfect theories and dogmas, whenever Christ is evidently crucified before the eyes of men, a great appeal proceeds from the unique spectacle.

III. And yet, when we have made all allowance for the portrait of love, unexampled and affecting in the story of Christ's life and death, can we say that these historic facts fully explain the language of the text? Surely not. This passion which echoes in the language of Paul and Ephesians 3:19

These words form the conclusion of St. Paul's prayer on behalf of the Ephesian Church. It is a very wonderful, one might almost say a very awful prayer. And what St. Paul prayed for on behalf of his Ephesian converts, that we too ought to seek for ourselves.

I. St. Paul takes for granted that a Real Christian is a Man who has been Made Over Again, and not merely a man of this world who is a little more moral, or a little more decent, or a little more outwardly attentive to his religious duties than other men of the world. Quite the contrary. According to this mighty prayer, the Christian is one upon whom all the powers of the Godhead have been brought to bear, so as to make him what may be termed a Divine Ephesians 3:20

Luther said: "No one believes how great is the force and efficacy of prayer, unless he has learned it from experience. It is a great thing when anyone feels a mighty need and then can lay hold on prayer. I know this, that as often as I have prayed with earnestness—with real earnestness—I have without doubt been abundantly answered, and have obtained more than I asked. Our Lord God may sometimes have delayed, but yet He heard me."

—E. Kroker, Luther's Tischreden (1903), p338 , No646.

References.—III:20.—W. F. Shaw, Sermon-Sketches for the Christian Year, p87. III:20 , 21.—Bishop Gore, Christian World Pulpit, vol. xlix. p273. Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. xxi. No1266. A. Maclaren, Expositions of Holy Scripture— Ephesians , p180. III:21.—Expositor (6th Series), vol. vii. p278.