A Man in Christ

I wish in these papers not so much to dwell on the doctrine of the epistle to the Ephesians, as on the conduct to which this doctrine leads. If the teaching of the epistle unfolds the highest character of Christian standing, its exhortations enforce the highest character of Christian walk. But in the Spirit’s teaching these subjects are always combined. The rules laid down for the believer’s conduct are drawn from the exposition of the place in which he is set. While therefore we shall look more at the practical than at the doctrinal parts of the epistle, we must ascertain the believer’s standing as here revealed, in order to comprehend the nature and motives of the conduct afterward enjoined.
The epistle to the Ephesians, though of course owning Jesus as the eternal Son, looks at Him generally in another character. We read in Philippians 2:6-11 that He, though “in the form of God, thought it not an object of rapine [a thing to be grasped at] to be equal with God: but made Himself of no reputation, and took upon Him the form of a servant, and was made in the likeness of men: and being found in fashion as a man, He humbled Himself, and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross. Wherefore God also hath highly exalted Him, and given Him a name which is above every name: that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of things in heaven, and things in earth, and things under the earth; and that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.” Now here we have glory conferred upon Jesus, not in consequence of His being equal with God, but in consequence of His humbling Himself, being found in fashion as a man, and becoming obedient unto death. As God, all dominion and glory were His own; nor could anything be given Him. But as man, He had voluntarily emptied Himself, taking the lowest place, and bowing even to the power of death, in order to carry out God’s purposes of grace. God’s righteous response, then, to this obedience and devotedness was to exalt Him in the same character in which He had humbled Himself, giving to the man “Jesus” a name at which every knee should bow, and making every tongue to confess that He is Lord.
Now it is in this character that Jesus is generally presented in the epistle to the Ephesians. And this gives occasion to the unfolding of two great mysteries, till then hidden in the counsels of God from before the foundation of the world. The first of these is, that God will “gather together in one all things in Christ, both which are in heaven, and which are on earth” (Chapter 1:10). This is a vast expansion of the Messiah’s glories predicted in the Old Testament, and is the dignity which Jesus has acquired by His humiliation—the exalted “name” given Him because of His obedience “unto death, even the death of the cross.” The other mystery is, “that the Gentiles should be fellow-heirs, and of the same body, and partakers of God’s promise in Christ by the gospel” (Chapter 3:6). This shows the complete suspension of God’s earthly purposes while He is bringing in a new people. In this new people the distinction between Jew and Gentile entirely disappears, and the two are classed together on the same ground. The new people are not an earthly people; for though still in the world, they are “blessed with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places”—nay, are even made to “sit together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus.” Their distinguishing feature is, that they are seen and accepted “in Christ.”
The two mysteries are, then, the counsels of God, first concerning the full glory of the Lord Jesus, and next concerning the blessedness of the people who are thus closely associated with Him. The development of these two mysteries is the great object of the first half of the epistle. Hence it is not the sinner’s side of salvation, as in the epistle to the Romans, but God’s side, that is brought into prominence. In Romans the sinner is seen in his evil nature, and the cross is brought in for his deliverance. In Ephesians God’s eternal purposes are disclosed, and the object of redemption and the blessedness of the redeemed in connection with Christ set forth. The epistle to the Romans starts from man’s need to God’s grace; the epistle to the Ephesians starts from God’s grace to man’s need. The one shows how God can be righteous while He justifies and delivers the sinner; the other how the sinner’s need gives occasion to the display of God’s wisdom and grace. Hence in the Romans the sinner is regarded as alive in the flesh, and death is brought in as the means of his deliverance; while in the Ephesians the sinner is regarded as spiritually dead, dead in trespasses and sins, and the quickening power of God is shown in raising him out of this state, and setting him in the heavenly places in Christ.
The epistle begins therefore with thanksgivings for the standing which the believer now has in Christ. The question is not how far he comprehends or enjoys the privileges and blessings into which he is brought. In this there may be wide differences; in the privileges and blessings themselves there are none. The babe in Christ is in this respect on an equality with the young man and the father, for both are “in Christ,” and have the full blessedness of this standing. All believers are “blessed with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ;” have been “chosen in Him before the foundation of the world, that they should be holy and without blame before God in love;” have been “predestinated unto the adoption of children by Christ Jesus” unto God, “according to the good pleasure of His will;” and are, therefore, “to the praise of the glory of His grace, wherein He hath made us accepted in the Beloved” (Chapter 1:3-6). These are the privileges, though the very unequally-enjoyed privileges, of all believers as seen in Christ, just as the foundation on which everything rests, “redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of sins, according to the riches of God’s grace” (vs. 7), is the common portion of all saints. They are not future, but present privileges, and our possession of them arises from our having an acceptance in Him who has perfectly glorified God, and is now—not as the eternal Son of the Father, but in virtue of His work and obedience unto death—the object of God’s special delight and love. To speak of our being accepted, or of our being “in Christ,” when He is looked at in His divine nature, would be a grave error. But we are accepted, and are, as to our standing, “in Christ,” the risen glorified man at God’s right hand. In Romans believers are not spoken of as being “in Christ” until the eighth chapter, because there only do we arrive at the true Christian standing. In Ephesians this remarkable expression occurs at the very threshold, because all is here seen according to the counsels of God, and the full standing of the believer is therefore at once set forth.
And now the apostle, having put us in possession of our present privileges “in Christ,” goes on to show how God in His grace “hath abounded toward us in all wisdom and prudence” (vs. 8), disclosing to us His own marvelous purposes concerning Christ. These purposes are not only concerning the earthly glories foretold by the Old Testament prophets, but also concerning the heavenly glories now first made known. Hence they are called a mystery; and we are told that God hath “made known unto us the mystery of His will, according to His good pleasure which He hath purposed in Himself; that in the dispensation of the fullness of times He might gather together in one all things in Christ, both which are in heaven, and which are on earth” (vss. 9, 10). The Christ, God’s anointed, was always predicted as the One who was to exercise sovereign authority on earth; but that the man Jesus should, by virtue of His obedience and humiliation, have this supreme dignity conferred upon Him in heaven as well as on earth, was a mystery now first revealed. Of course it is not Christ’s glory as God that is here spoken of, for that He had always and inalienably; but it is as the risen man, the One in whom we are accepted, that He is thus exalted and glorified. Hence believers have a share in this dominion; for in Him “also we have obtained an inheritance, being predestinated according to the pure pose of Him who worketh all things after the counsel of His own will; that we should be to the praise of His glory, who first trusted in Christ” (vss. 11, 12). And not only had the believing Jews, “who first trusted in Christ,” this inheritance, but the believing Gentiles had the same; for they also had trusted when they heard the gospel, and after they believed, “were sealed with that Holy Spirit of promise, which is the earnest of our inheritance until the redemption of the purchased possession” (vss. 13, 14).
The possession has been purchased by the cross, but has not yet been fully redeemed, has not yet passed into the hands of the purchaser. Hence Christ is waiting, seated at the Father’s right hand, until “the dispensation of the fullness of times,” when this gathering together of all things in Himself will take place. We, too, are waiting, often indeed with very feeble faith and hope, but still with no uncertainty as to the result; for God has sealed us with the Holy Spirit of promise, which is the pledge or earnest of our title till the time of redemption, when the possession will be entered upon and fully enjoyed.
The subject here is not the believer’s blessedness when he goes at death to be with Christ, nor even the richer blessedness he will know when the Lord comes to complete the work of redemption as to him, by giving him a body like His own, and taking him to the Father’s house. The redemption spoken of is not the redemption of the believer, but the redemption of the inheritance which the believer will receive together with Christ. The possession spoken of is not the possession of the joys and blessedness of the Father’s house, but the possession of that dominion which Christ will take, together with us as His joint-heirs, when all things are gathered together in Him.
Thus we have brought before us, in the opening of the epistle, our present privileges and our future possession “in Christ.” The apostle then prays that we may understand these things, and also “what is the exceeding greatness of His power to us-ward who believe, according to the working of His mighty power, which He wrought in Christ, when He raised Him from the dead, and set Him at His own right hand in the heavenly places, far above all principality, and power, and might, and dominion, and every name that is named, not only in this world, but also in that which is to come” (vss. 15-21). If our acceptance in the Beloved involves our receiving the same privileges and possessions that He receives, it is brought about through our being quickened by the same power by which He was quickened. We are not only one with Him in our blessings and prospects, but also in our life. The same power was exercised in the same way in quickening us as in quickening Him. God has wrought toward us “according to the working of His mighty power, which He wrought in Christ, when He raised Him from the dead;” for He “hath quickened us together with Christ” (Chapter 2:4, 5). He has also wrought according to the power which has set Christ “at His own right hand in the heavenly places;” for He “hath raised us up together, and made us sit together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus” (vs. 6).
All this is most beautiful. We, poor helpless sinners, had no spiritual life whatever; “were dead in trespasses and sins.” Jesus in grace put Himself in our stead under God’s judgment, and died “the just for the unjust.” Thus we are fully delivered—not only freed from the righteous judgment of God, but, as shown in the Romans, “dead with Christ,” “crucified with Him,” our old sinful nature regarded as dead and buried with Him. The epistle to the Ephesians begins at this point of our history. It takes Christ up in death, and shows how God’s power “raised Him from the dead;” it takes us up as “dead in trespasses and sins,” and shows how the same power which raised Christ has quickened us. Thus in Romans we are delivered from the old nature by the cross of Christ; in Ephesians we are quickened in the new nature together with Christ. And this is something much more than new birth. It is a new birth, or a new life, of a peculiar character, conferred by the same power which raised Christ from the dead, so that we are not only quickened with Him, but are identified with Him—the risen and glorified One at God’s right hand. And so close is this identification, that, though still on earth, we are even now spoken of as seated together “in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus.”
The closing words of the first chapter show the character of this identification in a very striking way. There we are told, concerning Christ, that God “hath put all things under His feet, and gave Him to be the Head over all things to the church, which is His body, the fullness of Him that filleth all in all” (vss. 22, 23). This is the first time the church is named in the epistle, and a most marvelous revelation it is as to its character. From it we learn that when Christ takes the dominion over all things, according to God’s purpose, He will take it, not alone, but in conjunction with the church. It is not Christ that will reign merely, but Christ and the church; the church being so inseparably united with Him that it is said to be His “fullness” or completion—as much one with Himself as the body is one with the head. Hence Christ is not complete, in the character in which He will take the headship over all things, until the church, His body, is complete also. Until the last member has been added, Christ waits; for until then His body has not received its “fullness,” and the Head cannot take the dominion apart from the whole body.
It is perhaps unnecessary to repeat, though most important to remember, that this union, with all its blessed consequences, is not with Christ as the eternal Son, the Word who “was God,” but with Christ as the risen glorified Man. As God, there could be no union with Him. Nor again, as born into this world, could we be united with Him, or He with us. Until the corn of wheat had fallen into the ground and died, it must abide alone; but having died, it could bring forth much fruit. In His sinless life He was the spotless and obedient One, the revealer of the Father, but alone. In the death in which “He was made sin,” He was our Substitute and Savior; but there too He was all alone. In resurrection He became the head of a new creation, and it is by new creation that we are now “in Him;” for “if any man be in Christ, it is a new creation” (2 Cor. 5:17). Union with Christ is always spoken of in this connection: “He is the Head of the body, the church, who is the beginning, the first-born from the dead” (Col. 1:18). It is after He has been on the “horns of the unicorns” that He says, “I will declare thy name unto My brethren” (Psa. 22:21,22; Heb. 2:9-12). Not till after His resurrection does He use the words, “Go to My brethren,” or associate the disciples with Himself by speaking of “My Father, and your Father; My God, and your God” (John 20:17). So, too, it is by our being conformed to the image of the risen One that He becomes “the first-born among many brethren” (Rom. 8:29).
Such then is God’s grace towards us, who were once walking “according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air.... fulfilling the desires of the flesh.... children of wrath” (Eph. 2:2,3). Grace has delivered us from this lost state, quickened us together with Christ, made us members of His body, given us His own acceptance before God, and associated us as fellow-heirs in His universal dominion. Surely this is worthy of God! He has thus wrought for His own glory, “that in the ages to come He might show the exceeding riches of His grace in His kindness toward us through Christ Jesus” (vs. 7). All is of grace. Works can have no place here, nor the boastings of man. But is God indifferent to good works? Nay; “for we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them” (vss. 8-10). As to our standing, good works have no place; for we are God’s workmanship. But this very fact demands that good works should follow as a result. We are not created by good works, but we are created unto them.
T. B. B.
A Man in Christ
In our last paper we saw the privileges of the believer as associated with the risen Christ in new life, in present blessing, and in future dominion and glory. This is the portion of the individual Christian; and in the scriptures then before us only a brief, though very blessed, reference was made to the character of the church. The part we now come to is, however, more concerned with the church than with the individual Christian. In the passage already looked at, the church was shown as the body of Christ— “the fullness of Him that filleth all in all.” But the passage we are now to examine regards it in another aspect, bringing out its exceptional nature, its wide departure from all God’s previously pursued or previously announced plans. In former times God had called a people into special relationship with Himself. This people was “the commonwealth of Israel,” and to it belonged the knowledge of God, the birth of the Messiah, the covenants of promise, and the outward mark of circumcision. In Old Testament history, they had been His favored, though rebellious, people. In Old Testament prophecies, they were the center of all His dealings. The glories of the Messiah were to be displayed in their midst, and no promise of blessing was made to the Gentiles save through them.
But God was now performing a work entirely distinct from anything recorded in Old Testament narrative, or predicted in Old Testament prophecies. The apostle therefore calls upon the Ephesian believers, who were of Gentile origin, to remember that they had no title such as the Jews might claim, not having one of those marks, which the Jews possessed, of relationship with God. They had been “in time past Gentiles in the flesh, who are called uncircumcision by that which is called the circumcision in the flesh made by hands.” Moreover, they were at that time “without Christ, being aliens from the commonwealth of Israel, and strangers from the covenants of promise, having no hope, and without God in the world” (Chapter 2:11,12). But though the Gentiles had no title founded on covenant, promise, or national connection, God was now bringing them in by His own sovereign grace. The Jews, who had a direct interest in the Messiah, had rejected Him and shed His blood. This had caused them, as a nation, to be set aside, and had ended, until their restoration, all those purposes to which the covenants and promises referred. God had therefore turned, as it were, to another object. “The blood of Christ,” which caused the national rejection of the Jews, was made the means of bringing people nigh. But in this sovereign and wonderful action of grace, God was no longer confined within the channels traced out by prophecy. All the prophetic blessings were postponed, because the nation in whom they centered was rejected. A new class of blessings, richer, higher, and with no restriction of nation or class, was thus brought in.
Hence the apostle says, “Now in Christ Jesus ye who sometimes were far off are made nigh by the blood of Christ” (vs. 13). Thus Gentile believers were brought nigh by that very blood, the shedding of which caused the rejection of the Jews and the postponement of their national blessings. And not only was the blessing entirely different from what they as Gentiles could have enjoyed, if the covenants of promise to Israel had then been fulfilled. It was of a far higher order than even the Jew Himself could have enjoyed under those covenants. For these Gentiles were now brought nigh “in Christ Jesus,” which is a standing never spoken of in Old Testament prophecy. In this wondrous place the believing Jew and the believing Gentile were blended together, all earthly distinctions disappearing in the new character of blessing, into which both were now introduced. Christ not only had made peace for them, but was their peace, and had “made both one,” having “broken down the middle wall of partition,” and “having abolished in His flesh the enmity, even the law of commandments contained in ordinances; for to make in Himself of twain one new man, so making peace” (vss. 14, 15).
This passage conclusively shows that Christianity is not the fulfillment of Old Testament prophecy, but something brought in while this awaits its fulfillment. In the fulfillment of the prophecies, the Jew will receive the place of pre-eminence which the covenants of promise assign him, and his blessings will be of a national character. The blessings here named are not national, but individual, and require the setting aside of all national distinctions for their accomplishment. Moreover, the passage speaks of both Jew and Gentile being made in Christ into “one new man.” Understood literally, this could have no meaning; but understood figuratively, its sense is at once clear and beautiful. The church is the body of Christ; and the church and Christ are the “one new man” here spoken of. Language such as this is wholly foreign to the old prophets. It implies a nearness of relationship which the Old Testament never contemplates, and which indeed would be entirely inconsistent with the character in which the Messiah will be known by His earthly people.
But this nearness of relationship is the blessed portion of the believer, without distinction of Jew or Gentile; for Christ’s object was, “that He might reconcile both unto God in one body by the cross, having slain the enmity thereby” (vs. 16). The cross has not only obtained for us forgiveness of sins. It has ended up our standing in the flesh. As “ dead with Christ,” earthly and fleshly distinctions cease; and in the new creation, that is, in Christ Himself, there is neither Jew nor Gentile, circumcision nor uncircumcision. By the cross we are dead, and the enmities of the flesh are slain with us. Thus both Jew and Gentile are reconciled “unto God in one body.” This body is, of course, the body of Christ, the church, which stands therefore entirely outside all earthly distinctions or covenant relationships. Hence peace can now be preached alike, says the apostle, “to you which were afar off, and to them that were nigh” (vs. 17); for those that were nigh having forfeited their claim, and those that were afar off never having had any claim, both are now dealt with on the same footing of sovereign grace. They are brought, not into the position which as a nation the Jews had lost by their rejection of the Christ, but into an entirely new position; “for through Him we both have access by one Spirit unto the Father” (vs. 18). Jehovah is the name and character in which Israel will yet know God. But under the new order of things introduced by grace, the believer, whether Jew or Gentile, knows God as Father.
(To be continued)
T. B. B.
A Man in Christ
The result is that old distinctions altogether vanish. “Now therefore ye” (the Gentile believers) “are no more strangers and foreigners, but fellow-citizens with the saints” (that is, believers generally, whether Jewish or Gentile) “and of the household of God; and are built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ Himself being the chief corner-stone” (vss. 19, 20). Both Jewish and Gentile believers are transplanted from their old ground and placed in entirely different soil. They are “fellow-citizens,” but not of an earthly country; for “our citizenship is in heaven.” They are of the “household of God”—a closer relationship than the Jew will enjoy when his national blessings reach their highest point. They are built into a new and wonderful structure, of which “Jesus Christ Himself” is the chief corner-stone, and “the apostles and prophets” the foundation course.
In the next chapter we read that the mystery of the church was in other ages “not made known unto the sons of men, as it is now revealed unto His holy apostles and prophets by the Spirit” (Chapter 3:5). This shows that the prophets here spoken of in connection with the apostles were not the Old Testament prophets. In the times of the Old Testament prophets the mystery was not made known. To the prophets here named, as well as to the apostles, the mystery was made known. In this epistle “prophets” are only named three times, and each time in connection with apostles.” Both apostles and prophets are spoken of as gifts of an ascended Christ. The prophets therefore here mentioned as forming part of the foundation on which we are built are not the Old Testament prophets, but the prophets to whom this mystery was now first imparted.
But the figure of our oneness with Christ is still strikingly continued; for after speaking of Him as “the chief corner-stone,” the Spirit adds, “In whom all the building fitly framed together groweth unto an holy temple in the Lord: in whom ye also are builded together for an habitation of God through the Spirit” (vss. 21-22). Strictly speaking, it is not correct to say that a building grows, or that the various materials added are built together, in the cornerstone. But this very departure from strict accuracy only shows with greater vividness the prominence in which the Spirit seeks to set the thought of our standing “in Christ.” In another epistle Paul writes, that “as the body is one, and hath many members, and all the members of that one body, being many, are one body: so also is Christ” (1 Cor. 41:12). Here the church is the body, and Christ is the head; but the two are looked upon as so identified that the body itself, as well as the head, is spoken of as “Christ.” It is the same blending together of Christ and the church that we find in the passage before us. Christ is the corner-stone, and believers are the rest of the building; but so bound up are they with each other that the whole is spoken of as in Him, and is said to be builded together in Him “for an habitation of God through the Spirit.”
This is God’s building, consisting only of real believers, who are built together in Christ, and form, as thus constructed, a suitable dwelling-place for Himself. It must be carefully distinguished from the building raised by man on the same foundation—a building in which all sorts of worthless material are brought in, and which will therefore be tried by fire. A confusion between these two buildings has been the source of very much and very lamentable error.
Thus we have two remarkable figures of the church, in both of which its oneness with Christ is very strikingly set forth. Considered as a body, it is the body of Christ—a thing necessary, as it were, to His own completeness. Considered as a temple, a dwelling-place for God, it is “builded together” in Christ, He Himself being the chief cornerstone, all believers being reared upon this foundation, and the whole growing up to completeness in Him.
To Paul was specially entrusted this truth concerning the new thing which God was bringing in. For this cause he was a prisoner of Jesus Christ for the Gentiles, having had given to him “a dispensation of the grace of God” towards them. He had received “by revelation” a mystery—or secret purpose of God—not disclosed in past times, “that the Gentiles should be fellow-heirs, and of the same body, and partakers of His promise in Christ by the gospel” (Chapter 3:1-6). That the Gentiles should be “fellow-heirs” with the Jews was a new thing, not only in fact, but in the revealed purposes of God. Still more marvelous was it that they should be “of the same body;” for this was something which neither Jew nor Gentile had ever heard of. They were made “fellow-heirs” with each other by being made fellow-heirs with Christ; they were made “of the same body” with each other by being made members of the body of Christ. It was thus that the Gentiles became “partakers of God’s promise in Christ by the gospel.” According to covenants and prophecy, Christ was the special hope of Israel. But the promises of blessing in Christ went far beyond Israel, and were wide enough to embrace God’s present work, in which Jew and Gentile are blended together, as well as that work to which the covenants and prophecies of the Old Testament look forward.
Paul therefore had before him two objects. As a servant of the gospel he had “this grace given,” to “preach among the Gentiles the unsearchable riches of Christ” (vss. 7, 8). And as the one to whom the mystery was revealed, he was “to make all men see what is the dispensation of the mystery, which from the beginning of the world hath been hid in God, who created all things, to the intent that now unto the principalities and powers in heavenly places might be known by the church the manifold wisdom of God, according to the eternal purpose which He purposed in Christ Jesus our Lord” (vss. 9-11). This is a wonderful passage. God, as creator of all things, had shown His wisdom. But there was a still more marvelous display which this wisdom was to receive, a display contemplated in God’s counsels from all eternity, but now first brought to light. When all His earthly purposes seemed to be frustrated, when Satan seemed to have succeeded, God’s manifold wisdom displays itself by turning this very apparent defeat into the crowning victory of His grace. The great seeming triumph which Satan achieved at the cross, the temporary setting aside of all the revealed purposes of blessing and glory through Christ, only gave occasion for God to put a higher glory on Christ, and to introduce a richer and more unrestricted blessing than any before revealed. Thus the manifold character of God’s wisdom shows itself, and not only to men, but to the principalities and powers in heavenly places. “The morning stars sang together, and all the sons of God shouted for joy” when they beheld His wisdom in creating the world; but they see its manifold nature and its brightest display in His ways concerning the church.
This leads the apostle to a very remarkable prayer, which closes the third chapter. In the prayer which concludes the first chapter, Christ is looked upon as man, as the One who was raised from the dead. The prayer is, therefore, addressed to “the God of our Lord Jesus Christ.” In the prayer of the third chapter, the subject is not our standing in Christ, but Christ dwelling in our hearts. Christ is looked upon, not as the man raised from the dead, but as the One who accomplishes the purposes of God, and manifests His love. It is more as the Son revealing the Father, than as the man glorifying God and glorified by Him, that He is here presented before us. The prayer is therefore addressed, not to “the God,” but to “the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ” (vs. 14). While the earlier prayer, moreover, is, that we may understand God’s purposes and power, this carries us into a still higher region. The apostle prays that we may, according to the riches of God’s glory, “be strengthened with might by His Spirit in the inner man; that Christ may dwell in your hearts by faith; that ye, being rooted and grounded in love, may be able to comprehend with all saints what is the breadth, and length, and depth, and height; and to know the love of Christ, which passeth knowledge, that ye might be filled to all the fullness of God” (vss. 16-19).
Here we have the indwelling of the Holy Ghost as the source of strength, and that “according to the riches of God’s glory;” Christ taking His abode in our hearts by faith; the soul, “rooted and grounded in love,” able to enter into the vastness of God’s ways; “the breadth, and length, and depth, and height” of those purposes which His grace has formed for His own glory, as well as for our blessing; and, finally, ourselves taught to know, not indeed in its extent—for in this it passes knowledge—but in its nature, the wondrous love of Christ Himself, that we may “be filled to all the fullness of God.” This last expression is beautiful in its very indefiniteness. That we can be filled to God’s fullness is, of course, impossible; but this is, as it were, the measure in which God is willing to supply, and the only limit of the Holy Ghost’s desire for us. Full as we may be, there is still infinitely more beyond; so that there is no limit to what is placed at our command.
And then, after bringing out all God’s wonderful purposes, His power and His grace; after showing His manifold wisdom, as displayed in the church, the apostle concludes by an outburst of praise to Him. “Now,” he says, “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 glory in the church by Christ Jesus throughout all ages, world without end. Amen” (vss. 20, 21). It is surely meet that He who has displayed His wisdom and grace in calling the church should throughout eternity derive glory from it. Such is the apostle’s desire, and such should be the desire of every believer brought into this marvelous place. It will be fulfilled in the ages to come; but just in proportion as our hearts enter into the spirit of this prayer will it be their desire that, as far as may be, it should be fulfilled now.
(Continued from page 153)
T. B. B.
A Man in Christ
We have seen in the first three chapters of the epistle the believer’s standing in Christ, and God’s thoughts about the church. The practical teaching which follows is divided into four classes, according to the believer’s relationship with the church (ch. 4:1-16), the world (4:17-5: 21), the family (5:21-6:9), and the powers of darkness (6:10-17). We shall see how, in each of these positions, the rule of conduct given him corresponds with his standing as shown in the earlier part of the epistle.
The apostle describes himself as a “prisoner in the Lord.” This is an interesting circumstance, and throws much light on the Lord’s present ways. Although, as Peter told the Jews, “God hath made that same Jesus, whom ye have crucified, both Lord and Christ,” yet His lordship is so far from being recognized by the world that His most faithful servant and ambassador is now a prisoner in the hands of the world’s ruling power. This could not have been if the kingdom in its proper or prophetic form had been established. In that day Christ will cast out His enemies, and exalt His faithful followers. Now, however, tribulation and rejection are the portion which God’s people are told to expect. This does not at all interfere with the lordship of Christ. David was as much God’s anointed king when he hid in the cave of Adullam as when he reigned on the throne in Zion; but in the one case his dignity was discerned only by faith, in the other by sight. So with the great Antitype. Christ’s lordship exists now as much as it will when He comes to reign over the earth. But it is now only seen by the eye of faith; and the world may go on despising Him and rejecting His people without calling down immediate judgment. Jesus has taken in grace the position of a dependent and obedient man; and He retains His position as man, though glorified at the right hand of God. He waits till the world shall be given Him by His Father. Till then, vengeance belongeth unto God, and Jesus, like David, leaves His case in God’s hands. His followers are called upon to share His patience and rejection; and hence the foremost apostle is now nothing in the eyes of the world but an obscure prisoner in a Roman jail.
He begins his exhortation in the fourth chapter with the word “therefore.” This word really resumes the sentence commenced in the first verse of the third chapter, and interrupted by the long and wonderful parenthesis of which that chapter consists. It refers, therefore, to what has been said before in chapter 2, that is, to the calling of the Gentiles and Jews into one “new man,” the breaking down of the middle wall of partition between them, and the building of them both into “an holy temple in the Lord,” of which Jesus Christ Himself was the chief corner-stone, the apostles and prophets the foundation course, and believers the materials, “builded together for an habitation of God through the Spirit.” And this call was from a condition of deadness in trespasses and sins, a state of distance and alienation from God, to which no promises and no covenant relationships attached; so that all was of simple grace, the believer having no claim to any portion of the blessing he receives in Christ.
Such, then, being the character of the saints’ standing, the apostle beseeches them “that ye walk worthy of the vocation wherewith ye are called” (Chapter 4:1). But what walk is worthy of a vocation in which all is of simple grace? The most humbling thing in the world is the reception of boundless and undeserved favor; and the first point therefore which the Spirit urges on believers as worthy of their calling is that they should walk “with all lowliness and meekness, with long-suffering, forbearing one another in love.” (vs. 2) Nothing is more becoming in a believer than “lowliness and meekness,” but perhaps there is nothing more misunderstood. In too many instances these beautiful Christian graces are transformed, through the craft of Satan, into doubts dishonoring to God and destructive of the believer’s peace. Now God never calls it lowliness and meekness to doubt the truth of His word, or the efficacy of Christ’s work. On the contrary, He counts it pride and presumption. The simple childlike faith which bows to the word He has spoken, which says, “Let God be true, but every man a liar,” alone pleases and honors Him. Abraham was commended, not because he questioned God’s truth, but because he trusted it, and even “against hope believed in hope;” not because he doubted whether God would fulfill His word, but because he was “fully persuaded that, what He had promised, He was able also to perform.” And what was the effect? Did it puff him up? Just the contrary. Because he was “strong in faith” he gave “glory to God.” The very fact that there was no power in himself only magnified God’s grace. And so it must be with the believer. The more fully we lay hold of what grace has done for us, the more completely are we abased in God’s presence. That we, sinners and enemies, should be chosen by God to be fellow-heirs with Christ, should be predestined to be conformed to the image of His Son, can, if really apprehended by faith, only fill us with wonder and praise. Where is the room for boasting when all is so clearly of God? None are so meek and lowly as the crowned elders who fall down and worship in heaven; and the larger our grasp of God’s purposes towards us, the deeper our lowliness and meekness will be. So far, then, from being founded on doubts as to the blessings we have received, these graces are the proper fruits of faith, and are always proportioned to the degree in which the blessings are apprehended by the soul.
There is, however, another mistake on which we would touch while speaking of lowliness and meekness. If it is not true lowliness, but Satan’s counterfeit of lowliness, to doubt our standing in Christ, neither is it true lowliness for one to shrink from taking the place, or exercising the gift, which God has bestowed upon him in the church. There is a time to speak as well as a time to be silent; and while nothing is more unbecoming than that forwardness and ostentation of gift which seems to have brought disorder into the meetings of the assembly at Corinth; yet, on the other hand, it is quite possible to quench the Spirit, and thus hinder blessing, under the false impression that silence is a display of lowliness and meekness. If God has bestowed a gift, He means it to be used; and to plead lowliness and meekness as a reason for not using it is merely to cloak our unfaithfulness under a pretentious name. So as to prayer, or the giving out of a hymn, if anyone has it laid on his heart by the Spirit thus to take part in an assembly, is it lowliness and meekness to remain silent? Is it not rather the vanity that shrinks from the criticism of others, or seeks their applause by a feigned modesty? No doubt there is need of spiritual discernment as to when and how to take part; but this will be given where it is sought. It was becoming in Barnabas, when traveling with a more gifted brother, to let Paul be the chief speaker. But would it have been becoming in Paul to decline exercising the gift which he had received, on the plea of showing “all lowliness and meekness” in the presence of Barnabas, who was his elder? It was becoming in Elihu to stand aside in the colloquy between Job and his old friends; but would it have been becoming in him, when they had failed to convince Job, and when the truth was taught him by the Spirit, to remain silent and refuse to utter it? These, no doubt, are very far from ordinary examples, but they serve to show the difference between true lowliness and meekness, and that which, though so easily mistaken for it, is in fact nothing more than the indulgence of the sloth or timidity of the natural heart in opposition to the leadings of the Spirit of God.
“Lowliness and meekness,” then, are the first things pressed upon us by the Spirit of God as worthy of the vocation wherewith we are called. But closely associated with these, and indeed necessarily flowing out of them, are other graces mentioned in the same verse “long-suffering, forbearing one another in love.” The man who is prompt to resent injuries and assert rights is the man who has a high opinion of himself. If he sees himself in the nothingness to which grace reduces him, patience under injury, and forbearance towards those who have wronged him, will be the result. But still more will this be the case with those with whom he is made one in Christ. How can the man who is conscious of the grace that has remitted the ten thousand talents seize his brother by the throat and claim the hundred pence due to himself? If there is any sense of the love with which we are loved, and loved in spite of our coldness and deadness, our ingratitude and provocations—if there is any apprehension of the grace which bought us, and which still bears with us in all our perverseness and folly—long-suffering will be a comparatively easy thing, and forbearance in love will commend itself as suited to the state of one whose own failures and sins are continually calling for the forbearing love of our blessed Lord.
The key to the whole verse is “love.” This is the nature of God Himself, and grace, which is the form love takes when directed towards sinners, is just the very thing which the Son manifested when He came to reveal the Father. For “the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us, (and we beheld His glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father,) full of grace and truth” (John 1:14). The long-suffering and forbearance here spoken of are not the results of a naturally placable and generous disposition, nor of the training which reason and philosophy may give. They have a higher source. They are the outflow of divine love, dwelling in the heart, and shaping the ways in conformity with the mind and walk of the blessed Lord. In Him alone we see all these graces perfectly displayed. Unwearied in devotion, whether to God or to man, “having loved His own which were in the world, He loved them unto the end.” How beautifully, too, does the same appear in the ways of His servant who, in writing to the Corinthians, could say, “I will very gladly spend and be spent for you; though the more abundantly I love you, the less I be loved.”
Yet here again, Satan has been busy in setting up an imitation of Christian love which is too easily accepted for the original. To talk of Christian love while there is allowance of evil is to suppose Christian love in which Christ is dishonored. Forbearance and forgiveness towards those who commit evil is surely a very different thing from connivance at the evil itself. Where did love manifest itself in forgiveness so marvelously as at the cross? and where was God’s intolerance of evil so fearfully displayed? The blessed Lord’s present dealings with us are expressly for the purpose of cleansing us from defilement by the washing of water; for He cannot endure that the least stain should rest upon His beloved people. So, too, the Father’s chastening is directed just to this point, “that we might be partakers of His holiness.” Under the Levitical economy an Israelite was told, “Thou shalt not hate thy brother in thine heart: thou shalt in any wise rebuke thy neighbor, and not suffer sin upon him” (Lev. 19:17). So, too, if one believer has been injured by another, he is to go to him and “tell him his fault,” not with a view of getting redress for himself, but because “if he shall hear thee, thou hast gained thy brother.” In extreme cases, the discipline of the church must be called into action, and the offender put out as a “wicked person;” but even here the motive is love, and the object to be sought is, “that the spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord Jesus” (1 Cor. 5:5).
Nothing therefore can be less in accordance with the love here spoken of than that sort of good fellowship with believers which refuses to disturb their conscience when they are acting in a way to dishonor the Lord. True Christian love must give Christ the first place, and where the fellowship of believers is preferred to the honor of Christ, the “love in the Spirit” spoken of by the apostle has really been surrendered to the instincts of natural affection. On the other hand, if we are called to show the Lord’s faithfulness in dealing with evil, we are called to show His gentleness too. How many a rebuke has missed its point altogether, because the manner in which it was delivered savored rather of the natural legality of the human heart than of the tenderness of Christ. May we be much in His own presence, that His ways may be more perfectly reflected in our walk. This is the only transforming power. Just so far as we are “with open face beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord, are” we “changed into the same image from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of the Lord.”
T. B. B.