01.15. ESSAY NO. 15

ESSAY NO. 15 The second half of Ephesians is a long exhortation to move Christians to "walk worthily of" their eter­nal calling. Observe how this half of the book with its "therefores" leans back on the first half. Paul knows that after Christians appreciate "the glory of God’s grace" and "the unsearchable riches of Christ," exhorting will be effective. To lead saints into deeper understanding and appreciation of the goodness of God, as Ephesians does, is a far better way to keep dancing, drinking, fornication, and such like out of the church today than is melodramatic preaching and writing about these sins.

Belial and Mammon

"But fornication ... or covetousness, let it not be named among you . . . nor filthiness, nor foolish talk­ing or jesting" (Ephesians 5:3-4). The closely allied sins of fornication and covetousness, "the lust of prop­erty," grow out of trying to fulfill life by means of fleshly gratification. In the Bible and in life they are often found together. Milton describes Belial: "Than whom a Spirit more lewd fell not from heaven, or more gross to love vice for itself"; and Mammon: "The least erect Spirit that fell from heaven ... his looks . . . always downward bent, admiring . . . heav­en’s (golden) pavement." Both fornicators and covet­ous men are idolaters, "whose end is perdition, whose god is the belly . . . who mind earthly things" (Php 3:19). Idolatry is possible without images.

"Foolish talking"—senseless prating and frivolous chatter of dull men. "Jesting"—smutty jokes and wan­ton banter of clever men. Christ’s "idle word" suggests an idle boy sauntering about without direction and purpose. None of this indecency and aimlessness, bred and augmented by idleness and evil company, befit the earnestness and elevation of Christians, who must not "wound modesty.’’ How few the grains of gold in the sand that streams through our lips; how easy to throw our brains into neutral and let the tongue idle on. "Oft-times the best command of language is silence." This passage contains a warning against "empty words." Wicked men invent false reasons to justify "the works of the flesh." Knowing nothing of Chris­tian temperance and moderation, they say such nat­ural propensities as sex and the acquisition of wealth cannot be sinful; they argue, since Christians are under grace, not law, and since God’s grace is suf­ficient to cover all sins, they may continue to sin with impunity. But all such imposing on God’s good ness and turning his grace into lasciviousness, Paul blasts with: "Let no man deceive you with empty words; for because of these things (all moral filth) cometh the wrath of God upon the sons of disobedi­ence" (Ephesians 5:6).

Darkness Becomes Light The change that becoming a Christian makes in one’s life is again vividly portrayed. It is transition from darkness into light, without twilight. "Be not ye therefore partakers with them; for ye were once darkness, but now are light in the Lord: walk as children of the light (for the fruit of the light is in all goodness and righteousness and truth) . . . and have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of dark­ness, but rather even reprove them . . ." (Ephesians 5:7-17). When Christians come out of the darkness into the light and, exhibiting the triad, "all goodness and righteousness and truth (sincerity)," live clean lives, they need make little special effort to avoid compro­mising economical, social, or religious entanglements with those who remain in the darkness, for darkness cannot abide in light. The world, with its life "alienated from the life of God," has no use for Christians who challenge its way of life, and consequently will avoid them rather than the other way round.

Christians cannot be indolent and neutral, merely harmless, but, realizing that to kill time is to injure eternity, they wisely work and are aggressively posi­tive, "redeeming the time." They should never be un­employed nor triflingly employed. And as darkness is overcome by light in the physical realm, so moral dark­ness, made manifest and shown up in its true colors by the searchlight of Christianity, is recognized for what it is, and is overcome. This scripture character­izes saints and gives them their work and purpose in the world.

"Filled With the Spirit" From the time of ancient Troy, the inhabitants of Asia Minor had been a lighthearted, convivial race. To Ephesus, the capital of Asia Minor, Paul writes: "Be not drunken with wine . . . but be filled with the Spirit" (Ephesians 5:18). This sociable people, who had once found excitation and animation in wine and carnal fellowship, are now to find these things in the Holy Spirit and spiritual fellowship. As vegetation and ani­mals change with altitudes, so coming to Christ lifts men to higher levels where "old things are passed away; behold, they are become new" (2 Corinthians 5:17). From the fact that instead of "filled with the Spir­it," a companion verse, Colossians 3:16, has, "Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly," some have concluded that the Holy Spirit and the word of Christ are the same thing. Inasmuch as it is impossible for Chris­tians to be filled with the Spirit unless they are full of the word, too, the two expressions mean, practically, the same thing. It does not follow, however, that the Holy Spirit and his sword, which is his word (Ephesians 6:17) are identical any more than a soldier and his sword are identical. As a soldier supplements his sword with other weapons to do things a sword cannot do, so the Holy Spirit, for the same reason, supplements his sword.

Instead of teaching that the Holy Spirit and the word are the same, or even that the Spirit dwells in the word, Ephesians 3:16 teaches that the Spirit dwells in saints to strengthen them with power in the inward man. And Romans 8:26 says: "The Spirit himself maketh intercession for us with groanings that cannot be uttered." The manner of the Holy Spirit’s inward working transcends the power of language to describe, for it cannot be put into words at all. Be it known, however, that the Spirit never works in contradic­tion to, but always in conjunction with his written word. Do men live and die as Paul lived and died, un­less they believe a superhuman power that overcomes sin and death works within him? We miss too much when we forget that the power of Christianity, from Pentecost onward, comes to focus "in the power of the Holy Spirit," as he strengthens the inward man down to subconscious depths. The Bible is not God.