Chapter 14. Holy Results of Heavenly Blessing: The Christian's Watchfulness, Temperance, and Song

Chapter 14.
Holy Results of Heavenly Blessing: The Christian’s Watchfulness, Temperance, and Song Ephesians 5:15-21

"The first said to him, Thy sins be forgiven thee; the second stripped him of his rags, and clothed him with change of raiment; the third also set a mark upon his forehead, and gave him a roll, with a seal upon it, which he bade him look on as he ran, and that he should give it in at the celestial gate. Then Christian gave three leaps for joy, and went on singing."
—Pilgrim’s Progress THE Ephesians have learnt much now of the details of the holy life, and the last words which they (and we) have heard about it have pointed the thought full upon an element in it which is vital to its health—holy action, holy service. The believer, "light in the Lord," is to shed the light which he receives. There is to be a warm hearth-fire in his own soul’s chamber, and a lamp fed with heaven’s own sunshine is to hang from its ceiling. But it is also to be a radiant point in the dark world, finding way for its searching beneficent brightness through the windows of the soul, from the beacon-tower of the life, The range of penetration may be vast, or it may be very small. It may command a great region of the earth, or many regions; it may fill an age of time, it may affect all the ages; such was the range of St Paul’s radiation, for example. Or it may light up one small neighbourhood, one poor home, the visitors to one sick-room; it may be limited in time by only a fragment of the disciple’s one short life; such was no doubt the range of radiation for many an Asian saint then, as it is for many an English saint now. But the point is that there is intended to be radiation outward where there is light within. The Master’s service is to be the dear object of the redeemed life. The sacred light is given indeed for the being’s own bliss, rich and large; but it is never given to terminate there. And they best meet the Master’s will who most willingly and most continually so keep the windows clear that the light within may radiate around, for conviction, and for gladness, just as freely and as far as may be.

Happy they who, by His grace, so serve Him. Do we not know such lives? They "cannot be hid"—not because they advertize themselves; that is the very last thing they do. But it is unmistakable that they are enjoying a great light within, and it "will out." Such (to keep close to our own time, and to no very extended circle) were William Pennefather, Arthur Blackwood, Frances Havergal. Such was that great light-bearer so recently called from us, D. L. Moody. Such are cherished names still among us, known to thousands who owe them more than they can ever tell, for the light brought by them into the thick darkness of worldliness, sin, doubt, and fear. But there have been, and there are, countless others whom no Christian history will ever name, but who live in transfigured hearts on which they have shone. Their "record is on high." The Apostle comes now to a few more lines of general caution and precept, before he approaches his final topic, the Christian Home. He has to appeal again for a grave remembrance that the "walk in the light" is no mere promenade, smooth and easy, but a march, resolved and full of purpose, cautious against the enemy, watchful for opportunity for the King, self-controlled in every habit, and possible only (if it is to be a reality) in the power of the eternal Spirit. It is to be a walk, onward and onward, of holy and habitual praise, of fellowship in spiritual help, and of a mutual submission which means forgetfulness of self in the recollection of others, in the Lord.

Ephesians 5:15. See therefore, with eyes spiritually open to the path and its environment, that you walk (it is the seventh time that this pregnant word has been written) accurately; recollecting the importance of detail, fully aware that life is made up of steps and incidents, and that nothing in it lies outside the claims of God. Spend watchful thought upon duty and opportunity; think nothing trivial in such matters as use of time, manner of act and speech, consistency in common things; not as unwise men, blind to the import and occasions of the passing day, and the relation of time to eternity, but as wise men, with that holy wisdom which comes of heart-concord with the will of God, and with a watchful use of thought and of every faculty for its ends. As you walk, make all you can of the events of life, to use them for Him;

Ephesians 5:16. buying up the opportunity, as it evermore occurs, "buying it out" ἐξαγοραζόμενοι from alien ownership, from the mere use of self, securing it for your Master at the expense of self-denying watchfulness.[1] Do this, remembering that you will need to do it if you are to be really serviceable to Him; it will not do to let things drift, as if circumstances would take care of themselves, and automatically serve the Lord’s servant; because the days are evil; the "days" of your human life in a sinful world do not lend themselves to holy uses where the man who lives them does not watch for opportunities. This precept is for all time. No doubt there were special conditions in Asia at that date which may have led St Paul to write it down with a heart centred upon peculiar and acute difficulties. In many respects the "days" at Ephesus were "evil" as they are not now, at least for those of us whose lot is cast in lands which bear the Christian name, and are full on their surface of the Christian tradition. But then, to the age, as to the day, "sufficient is the evil thereof." We have our characteristic obstacles, here and now, to the active doing of the Master’s work, and to the silent diffusion of His light; among them is the Christian tradition itself, where it exists along with spiritual death in men’s wills and afifections. So now, as distinctively as then, "the days are evil" for the full Christian enterprise. And the "evil" must be reckoned with, now as ever, by the merchants of the King, "seeking goodly pearls"; they must be on the watch, and "buy up the opportunity" at a real cost.

We may be sure on the other hand that St Paul does not mean, for in the wisdom of the Spirit he could not mean, that we are enjoined to force occasions for our witness or appeal. The imagery of purchase looks just the other way; it points to a lawful acquisition, though at a real cost. We have need to ask as earnestly for wisdom as for courage and persistency in life and work for Christ. But then, that thought is not to be the miserable excuse for a contented silence. Rather, it is to be our deep motive for such a close personal walk with God, such a readiness, through the prayer of faith, to spend and be spent for Him, such a maintained consciousness that His holy service is our true raison d’étre as Christians, that when the opportunity is ready for us we shall be ready for it. More than half the price of the "purchase" will thus be paid by our own secret watching and prayer over our own unhindered communion with God.

"To usefulness and power There is no royal road; The strength for holy service Is intercourse with God."

Ephesians 5:17. On this account, because you have such a work to do in such a field, do not become (γίνεσθε) foolish, mindless, witless, as regards duty and its conditions; do not "become" such, by a permitted habit of forgetfulness, deepening till it fixes; but understand (συνίετε) what is the will of the Lord; with that understanding, that intuitive perception, which can be got only in the way of spiritual Wakefulness and watching, while the disciple does indeed use "sanctified common sense," yet takes care that it is "sanctified," by nearness to God and real accord with His will. Then, and only then, will you be humbly sure that this or that circumstance is the signal of His purpose and His call.

Ephesians 5:18. And do not intoxicate yourselves with wine, in which, as if lying hidden in that dangerous vehicle, is riot, "dissoluteness" (ἀσωτία), the miserable licence which bursts the bonds of conscience with dreadful ease, and breaks up the whole moral order.

It is not apparent at first what brings in this grave precept here. Bengel strikingly remarks that St Paul "fitly follows up a warning against impurity with a warning against intemperance"; words which every worker for God among the "lapsed" will verify from experience. And has not many a worker known something, in personal experiences of temptation, of the awful relation between the one evil and the other? But St Paul has not been dealing so explicitly with impurity in just the last few sentences as to give an obvious place to Bengel’s note. I would venture to suggest rather that at this moment in the Epistle there already rose on his mind the subject of the Fulness of the Spirit, as the profound requisite to a life of light and of light-giving power; "the Spirit’s calm excess"[2] was present to him; and this suggested, while he was still occupied with the warning side of truth, this brief, imperative word upon that "excess" which comes not from heaven but hell. So brought in, and indeed whatever was the precise suggesting reason, it stands here related to every foregoing appeal; for the "riot" which lurks in the cup of the drunkard annihilates equally, so far as it prevails, every bond of duty. All experience tells us that it tends to obliterate the very faculty to speak the truth; it can harden the heart, however affectionate by nature, against the nearest, the dearest, the most pathetically dependent; it can let loose the tongue to speak all sorts of evil; it can fan the spark of lust into a furnace. "It biteth like a serpent, and stingeth like an adder" ( Proverbs 23:32), at the very heart of virtue.

I have no purpose here to discuss the grave problem of "total abstinence." For many long years, in view of the terrific ravages of intemperance in English life, and wishing to contribute the atom of a personal experience and example on the other side, I have "totally abstained," till the very reminiscence of any "self-denial" in the matter has faded away. But I have never dared to lay down my rule for others, or to think those who take another course to be therefore unfaithful to their Lord. I cannot forget, nor elaborately explain away, the frequent allusions in Scripture to a certain use of wine; remembering however that God has suffered local and temporal conditions to affect the surface of His holy Scripture, so that it is lawful to qualify such allusions, in their bearing upon English life, by the thought that "drink" was not the curse in the East then which it is with us now. But I cannot forget also that this same tolerant Scripture, with its ample recognition of the genial side of human life, contains some of the most urgent warnings that can be written against the horror of intoxication, conveyed sometimes in language which the most intolerant of total abstainers could not surpass. One such I have quoted just above in part; let me recite the whole ( Proverbs 23:31-35, R.V.): "Look not thou upon the wine when it is red, when it giveth its colour in the cup, when it goeth down smoothly: at the last it biteth like a serpent, and stingeth like an adder. Thine eyes shall behold strange things, and thine heart shall utter froward things. Yea, thou shall be as he that lieth down in the midst of the sea, or as he that lieth upon the top of a mast. They have stricken me, shalt thou say, and I was not hurt; they have beaten me, and I felt it not: when shall I awake? I will seek it yet again." This was written in the East, where the plague of intemperance is not as it is with us of the North. Awful is the caution which it conveys to us, for whom indeed, in this matter, "the days are evil."

Ephesians 5:18. But "be filled, with a fulness habitual, normal,[3] always supplied and always received, in the Spirit.[4] Let the Holy One, your Sealer and Sanctifier, so surround and possess you that you shall be as it were vessels immersed in His pure flood; and then, yielding your hearts without reserve to Him, you shall be vessels not only immersed but open; "in Him," and "filled" in Him," as He, continually welcomed, continually occupies and hallows all parts of your nature, all departments of your life.

Let us remember well that this great clause is not a teaching merely but a precept. As distinctly as it is enjoined upon us not to be intoxicated with wine, so is it enjoined upon us to seek, in earnest, "fulness in the Spirit." May nothing blind us to the fact and the significance of that precept; no, not the unwise and perhaps even fanatical things which have been sometimes heard in the Church in connexion with the sacred Fulness. We may be very sure that the command means nothing which shall "unhinge" the Christian’s life, and cast it loose from the noblest sanity and the most steadfast order. As a fact, we find it here imbedded amongst precepts laying down the great laws of self-control, and it comes just before the special directions which the Apostle gives for the quiet sanctities of the Christian home. It must be a thing, whatever it is, full of all that is just, true, lovely, and of good report; full of virtue and of praise ( Php 4:8). But then, all the while, it is a thing supernatural. It is a state of man wholly unattainable by training, by reasoning, by human wish and will. It is nothing less than—God in command and control of man’s whole life, flowing everywhere into it, that He may flow fully and freely out of it in effects around.

"O Thou from whom all holy desires do proceed," give us the great gift of the desire, ever deeper, for "fulness in the Spirit"; that we may with joy lay claim to the mighty, benignant gift. For Thou hast promised "Thy Holy Spirit to them that ask Thee." It is the unspeakably vital requisite to the full blessing of the soul. It is that which the Church needs with a need that cannot be uttered.

We must not forget meanwhile that the thought of this Fulness is here connected, in a special degree, with that of the joy of the Lord and its expression. As the miserable exhilaration of the drunkard comes out in the song of "riot," so the "calm excess" of the man "filled in the Spirit" will come out in song too. It will come out always in the song of the life, the melody and harmony of a character and conduct gladdened by the blessed Presence. But it will tend often too to come out in the song of the lips, and above all when Christians, thus "filled," meet together before their Lord. So in close connexion, he proceeds;

Ephesians 5:19. Talking one to another[5]in psalms, and hymns, and spiritual odes; in every variety of sacred song, the Psalms of the elder Church, the rhythmic praises or meditations of the Church of the Gospel,[6] anything, everything, that offers itself as a true vehicle for this precious exercise, "the song of the Lord"; singing and making music,[7]with your heart, to the Lord. Not that the hymnody was to be only internal, "in the heart"; or how would they thus "talk to one another"? Voice and perhaps instrument too were to be fully audible;

"No voice exempt, no voice but well could join Melodious part; such concord is [from] heaven!"
But all was to be internal also. The sounds were but to express the praising souls. And all this was to be done, not as "music-worship," (God forbid,) but as worship full of music, paid to the remembered, adored, loved, present Lord. Such singing—and no other—is audible upon the Throne;

"that God’s own ear Listens delighted."

Such singing—and no other—is a sure means of grace to singers and to listeners; the Holy Ghost is in it.

Ephesians 5:20. Giving thanks always over all things; for everything has His love in it, upon or below the surface; "all things work together for good "for His people; in the Name of our Lord Jesus Christ, resting on Him, using Him, as Mediator and Advocate; to our (τῷ) God and Father, "ours" in Him.

We have seen already (ch. 13) the deep connexion between thankfulness and holiness. Here the sweet subject well recurs, in this passage where the fulness of the Spirit is seen to issue in the sacrifice of song. And now, in deep and beautiful connexion, comes one last word, in which the souls so happy in their Lord, so full of His praise, are found happy in their relations with each other, in a self-forgetting mutual loyalty:

Ephesians 5:21. Subjecting yourselves to one another, in God’s fear. For nothing so withers pride as pure thanksgiving.

Happy in God, with a joy full of worshipping "fear" to grieve the all-blessing Love, the disciples yield, without an effort, each to the other’s claim upon his help and kindness; loved, and loving; blessed, and blessing.

^[1]"The same phrase occurs (Aramaic and Greek)Daniel 2:8: ’I knew of a certainty that ye wouldbuy the time’; where the meaning plainly is, ’that ye would get your desired opportunityat the expense ofa subterfuge.’... InColossians 4:5the special thought is of opportunities in intercourse with ’them that are without.’" (Note in theCambridge Bible.)—Here surely it is the same. The thought of seizing occasions to let in "the light" upon "the darkness," that it may become "light," is still in view.

^[2]
"Læti bibamus sobriam
Ebrietatem Spiritûs."
 St Ambrose(Splendor paternæ Gloriæ).

^[3]The verbπληροῦσθεis in the present tense, and thus gives the thought of continuance.

^[4]I do not hesitate to supply the definite article,"theSpirit" (so R.V. text). So above,Ephesians 1:17,Ephesians 2:22. The context assuredly demands it, for we need a word which shall be an antithesis to the "wine" of the previous clause. It would be no antithesis if we rendered here (as R.V. margin), "be filled in spirit," i.e. in the sphere or receptacle of your human spirits; without specification ofthe thing which was to fill them.

^[5]Ἑαυτοῖς: lit."to yourselves."See the noteon the same word and idiom, above,Ephesians 4:32.

^[6]It seems out of place too elaborately to analyse and classify. The Apostle evidently means here to emphasize variety and comprehension, not to instruct as to classes of composition.—Some details are given in the note here in theCambridge Bible.

^[7]Ψάλλοντες: properly, the word should refer to instrumental music. And so it may; strings or pipe would often accompany the Christian hymn.