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LECTURES 
 
 EPISTLE TO THE EPHESIANS 
 
 BY THE 
 
 Rev. WILLIAM GRAHAM, D. D. 
 
 OF BONN, PRUSSIA 
 
 Author of " The Spirit of Love," " On Spiritualizing Scriptubb," " Thb 
 Jordan and thk Rhine," etc. 
 
 PHILADELPHIA 
 PRESBYTERIAN BOARD OF PUBLICATION 
 
 1334 CHESTNUT STREET 
 
rWBSTCOTT& 
 
 fin A 
 
INTRODUCTION. 
 
 It is with great satisfaction tliat this volume of Lectures on the 
 Epistle to the Ephesians is submitted to the American public. 
 Its readers will find that it is a book of no ordinary merit. The 
 characteristics by which it is specially marked are broad learning, 
 shown in results rather than by processes; a remarkable knowledge 
 of the Scriptures, by which light is made to concentrate upon the 
 text under consideration from a nmltitude of related passages ; and 
 an intense fervor, enlightened by a rare spiritual insight. It is 
 a book to be read, not hastily, but section by section, with atten- 
 tion and meditation, that its deep thoughts of things divine and 
 spiritual may be grasped and made our own. 
 
 Believing that its readers will be glad to know something of the 
 author of the book, we give a brief sketch of his life, now (a. d. 
 1883) in its seventy-third year. 
 
 William Graham is a native of Ireland, the son of a pious Pres- 
 byterian farmer of moderate means, the youngest of seven chil- 
 dren. His mother also set him an example of godly living ; so 
 that he had the inestimable advantages of a home in which God 
 was honored. He received the ordinary education of a farmer's son — 
 reading, writing and arithmetic — and helped also in the labors of the 
 farm until his fourteenth year. Then his mother's death changed 
 his position and awakened in him new sentiments. In the most sol- 
 emn manner, when about to die, she charged him to let no da> 
 pass without reading the word of God and engaging in prayer. 
 Tiiat he might be able to keep this charge, he formed the resolu- 
 tion of having the New Testament always with him, and for twenty 
 years and more it was as certainly in his pocket as was his pocket 
 in his coat. 
 
 It now b(>.came necessary that young Graham should choose a 
 profession. His first thoughts were for the ministry, but he had 
 no means. The course of preparation would be long and expen- 
 sive. A rich relative strongly advised him against the attempt, 
 on the ground that he could make no money there. He w'as hirn- 
 
 .3 
 
4 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 self a magistrate. " No," said he ; " go into tlie law ; I may be 
 able to assist you, and you are sure to succeed." So his brother 
 took him to the most successful attorney in Ballymena, to make 
 arrangements, if possible, for his entering into the profession of the 
 law. As they entered the lawyer's office they heard him cursing 
 his bailiffs so awfully for not selling a poor man's cow that they 
 were frightened and went away. From that moment his purpose 
 wa.s fixed, and he set himself, with the help of God, to bring it to 
 })ass. He borrowed an English grammar, and soon mastered it. 
 He then got an old Latin grammar, and speedily made some 
 acquaintance with the rudiments of that language. Being now 
 qualified for teaching in a country school, he secured a position 
 and taught during the day, reading Latin and Greek at night. In 
 this way he prepared himself for entering college, and continued to 
 support himself thus during his five years of study in the Royal 
 College, Belfast, and in the Assembly's Theological Hall connected 
 
 with it. 
 
 In the college classes the country lad stood high, in some of 
 them the highest, and in Hebrew he distanced all competitors, 
 reading twice as much as had ever before been read in this class. 
 Hebrew was, and still is, his favorite study. 
 
 Having passed his literary and theological examinations, Mr. 
 Graham was licensed to preach the gospel by the Presbytery of 
 Belfast, and was sent to Westport, in the West of Ireland, to re- 
 vive, if possible, a dilapidated congregation there. Here he 
 remained six months, when he was called to the parish of Dun- 
 donald, in a beautiful valley four miles from Belfast. Here Mr. 
 Graham was ordained, and then retired for a fortnight to a cave 
 on a bay on the northern shore of the county of Antrim, where 
 was a cottage. There, with his Bible and Greek Testament, 
 alone with God in prayer and meditation, he dedicated himself 
 anew to the service of the Lord Jesus Christ. 
 
 He spent in Dundonald seven happy, laborious and successful 
 vears. The congregation had lapsed into Arianism and indif- 
 ference and the church-building was almost in ruins, but the 
 young pastor was full of zeal and faith. On Sunday he preached 
 three times— twice in the church, and in the evening in the out- 
 skirts of the parish ; in summer in the open air, and in winter in 
 barns, school-houses and stores. He preached also often during 
 the week, and was systematic in family visitation. 
 
INTRODUCTION. 5 
 
 What was tlio result of these seven years of labor? The 
 scattered members returned ; strangers from a distance joined the 
 church ; the house was tilled to overflowing' ; divine life, like spring 
 after frost, burst forth in the various fbrnis of conviction, conver- 
 sion, prayer, praise, brotherly communion, missionary zeal and joy 
 in the Holy Ghost. A young and vigorous eldership led in prayei'- 
 meetings ; day-schools Avere established, and the central Sunday- 
 school was one of the most successful in the county. Two stations 
 where Mr. Graham preached regularly were organized into inde- 
 pendent congregations. The old, dilapidated church-edifice was 
 Torn down, and a new and comfortable church was built. 
 
 In 1842, Mr. Graham was chosen by the Presbyterian Church 
 of Ireland to open a mission for the Jews in the East. It was to 
 be a united mission of Scotch, Irish and American Presbyterians. 
 Arriving at Beirut, he met Dr. Wilson of Bombay, who had been 
 appointed by the Free Church of Scotland to join him in choosing 
 the seat of the mission. After examining the whole of Syria, they 
 fixed on Damascus. The commencing of a mission in a fanatical 
 Mohammedan city is accompanied with many and great difficulties, 
 but Mr. Graham, afterward joined by Mr. Robson (who was mur- 
 dered by the Mohammedans in the bloody massacre of 1861 ), 
 maintained his ground. x\fter twelve months of hard labor, he 
 began to preach in Arabic. On the Jews no impression was 
 made, but a number of believers were gathered out of the Orien- 
 tal (^reek Church and formed into a distinct community, and 
 other hap]iy results attended the labors of the missionaries. After 
 five years, the ill-health of his family and the death of four chil- 
 dren compelled Dr. Graham to leave Syria. 
 
 If the five years in Damascus were to Dr. Graham years of hard 
 and self-sacrificing labor, they were also years of delight. He 
 lived in the midst of Bible scenes. The forms of patriarchs, 
 prophets and a])ostles were passing like shadows before his eyes. 
 The language, the customs and the manners of the Bible lived 
 again to him in the life of the people. Passing through Palestine, 
 with reverence and awe he trod "those holy fields" consecrated 
 by the footsteps of incarnate love. The land as well as its people 
 was dear to him, so that he left Syria with great regret. 
 
 His next two years were spent in Ireland, preaching everywhere 
 in the churches, striving to awaken and extend the missionary 
 spirit among the people. Then he was sent to Hamburg to assi.st 
 
6 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 Dr. Craig in his mission in that city. In three months he began 
 to preach in German. Here he preached not only in houses and 
 chapels, but also in streets, fields and pleasure-gardens. In this 
 novel course he met many difficulties and dangers, and was at 
 length arrested by the magistrate and forbidden to preach in this 
 public way. 
 
 From Hamburg, Dr. Graham was sent to the South of Germany, 
 and fixed on the university-city of Bonn as the seat of a new mis- 
 sion. In all things spiritual the place was cold and dead. In- 
 tellect was supreme, whilst love was lying in the dust and faith 
 was timid and inoperative. Dr. Graham has labored in that field 
 tor more than thirty years with remarkable ingenuity and versa- 
 tility as well as zeal. It has been his custom to preach three 
 times every Sunday — twice in English, and once in German. On 
 Wednesday he conducts a Bible class. On Thursday comes his 
 weekly lecture, and on Friday a conversation-meeting in German. 
 He opened a Sunday-school, the first in' South Germany, and the 
 mother of many others. His large library was put freely at the 
 disposal of the public ; he lectured in the university, making his 
 linguistic and Oriental culture a means of reaching the students ; 
 he held in the coflTee-gardens social reunions which were closed with 
 religious services ; he used the mail for reaching those to whom he 
 had not access otherwise ; and, in short, he has followed the apostle 
 I'aul in making himself all things to all men for the one purpose 
 of saving sinners and strengthening saints. He still labors with 
 unabated zeal in Bonn. 
 
 Dr. Graham's life has been a blessing to many, of different tongues 
 and climes: may his printed words in this volume also be blessed to 
 many ! 
 
 John W. Dulles. 
 Philadelphia, February 20, 1883. 
 
AUTHOR'S PREFACE. 
 
 I HAD intended to write an introduction to this 
 noble Epistle embodying an historical account of the 
 literature connected with it from the apostolic age till 
 the present time, and had es^en collected some of the 
 materials necessary for such a purpose ; but then the 
 thought arose in my mind, Would such a work tend 
 more to the glory of God, or to show forth your own 
 learning and researcli ? Is it necessary for the expo- 
 sition of the Epistle? Would it repay the toil, and, 
 above all, would it interest the Christian reader ? In 
 seeking, as in the presence of the Lord, to answer these 
 questions, I came to the resolution to abandon the idea 
 of an historical introduction. I was anxious, also, to 
 make the book as cheap as possible, that it might 
 come into a wider circle of readers. As to the work 
 itself, I have little to say. That it has cost me much la- 
 bor and extensive reading I am most willing to confess. 
 In composing it I had with me and around me the prin- 
 cipal literary helps of both ancient and modern times. 
 I have used them all freely, and I think I may say the 
 
8 AUTHOR'S PREFACE. 
 
 reader will find in this Commentary almost everything 
 of importance contained in the Greek, Latin, English 
 and German languages on the criticism of our Epistle. 
 My aim was not, however, to give quotations and fill 
 my pages with the names of celebrated authors (which 
 is the easiest part of exposition), but to weave my own 
 studies and the studies of others — the literature of the 
 East and the West, of the Latins and the Greeks, of 
 the English and the Germans — into one harmonious 
 tissue of heavenly grace and beauty ; one, yet various ; 
 harmonious as the light, yet manifold as the bow in the 
 cloud. I have omitted no point of criticism, and yet 
 criticism is not the great object of the book. No ; my 
 object is to open up the infinite fullness of our living 
 Head to all weary souls, and unfold, as far as I see 
 them, the glories of the God-Man, in whom and for 
 whom I live and move and have my being. The 
 Epistle is admitted to be one of the richest, fullest 
 and noblest in the Bible ; and all its treasures of wis- 
 dom and knowledge, of exhortation and love, of duty 
 and faith, of the ho^^es of human nature and the mys- 
 teries of God, are valuable only as they centre in and 
 flow from the living person of the Son of God, the 
 Head of the Church and of the whole creation, to 
 whom it is the purpose of God's Spirit to draw us, and 
 in whom alone we find satisfaction and repose. I have 
 opened up very fully the believer's standing in tlie 
 Christ and the hopes and duties which naturally flow 
 from it, and in doing so I have rendered, I believe, a 
 
AUTHOR'S PREFACE » 
 
 good service to the present generation of the Church, 
 who are more occupied than they ought to be witli 
 material interests and worldly pleasures. Assurance 
 of salvation is nearly banished from our churches, the 
 doctrine of Christ's Headship is only faintly asserted, 
 the hope of the coming and kingdom of the Redeemer 
 is darkened, and, generally speaking, our Christianity 
 is not that happy, unhesitating, victorious power of God 
 in the soul which in the days of the apostles and our 
 martyred fathers shed over the believing Church sucli 
 brightness and glory. The cure for all this is our 
 realized standing in the risen Head. We died in his 
 death, we rose with him from the grave, and now, as 
 believers, we ai-e seated with him in the heavenly 
 places. We look, not up from earth to heaven, but, 
 according to our Epistle, we look down from heaven 
 to the earth. We are in Christ, and from his heaven- 
 ly throne we contemplate the vanities of this passing 
 world. I confess it, then, one main design of this work 
 is to enable thee to realize more clearly thy relations to 
 the Lord and E-edeemer of his Church. For this end 
 I have felt the Epistle very helpful to myself in taking 
 me out of the shallows of modern experience and the- 
 ological commonplaces into the deep, pure ocean of 
 divine grace and love. May God make it a blessing 
 to many ! And now to the Lord and Saviour of his 
 Church be glory and dominion for ever and ever. 
 Amen. 
 
LECTURES ON EPHESIANS. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 Paul, an apostle of Jesus Christ by the will of God, to the saints 
 which are at Ephesus, and to the faithful in Christ Jesus : Grace be 
 to you, and peace, from God our Father, and from the Lord Jesus 
 Christ. Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who 
 hath blessed us with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places, in Christ: 
 according as he hath chosen us in him before the foundation of the 
 world, that we should be holy and without blame before him in love : 
 having predestinated us unto the adoption of children by Jesus Christ 
 to himself, according to the good pleasure of his will, to the praise of 
 the glory of his grace, wherein he hath made us accepted in the 
 Beloved. — Ephesians i. 1-6. 
 
 We are now commencing one of the richest of the 
 Epistles — one in which the Holy Spirit unfolds much 
 of the purpose and love of God to the children of men. 
 We are here permitted to drink from the fountain-head 
 and refresh our souls from the waters of life. The 
 author is God ; the writer is a servant and an apostle 
 of God ; the subject is salvation ; the persons inter- 
 ested are the whole human race ; and, as to utterance 
 and lofty eloquence, there is no composition known 
 to man, in the Bible or out of it, containing more 
 ennobling doctrines and moralities, more earnestness, 
 variety and sublimity, than the Epistle to the Ephe- 
 sians. The Church of Christ has always felt it to 
 
 11 
 
12 GRAHAM ON EPHKSIAXS. 
 
 be a peculiar treasure, and it would be easy to cite 
 many testimonies to that effect from the writers of 
 both ancient and modern times. May our hearts 
 burn within us while we follow the loving, burning 
 thoughts of this master in Israel ! May our hopes 
 and feelings rise with the great theme when he tells 
 us of the riches of divine mercy, the dignity and glory 
 of the redeemed Church and the love of Christ which 
 passeth knowledge ! May we be enabled to say at 
 every fresh discovery of grace, " Speak, Lord, for thy 
 servant heareth " ! 
 
 Yes, it is our Father that speaks to us from heaven, 
 and we humbly and joyfully bend our ear to the 
 gracious voice. 
 
 I. The Apostleship of Paul. 
 
 The word " apostle " designates one sent from God, 
 and is a name of Christ himself (Heb. iii. 1). The 
 twelve whom Jesus chose and ordained (Matt, x.) to 
 be with him and to preach the gospel in his name are 
 by way of eminence called '^ the apostles ^ and they 
 well deserve that distinguishing title, for they laid 
 the foundations of the kingdom of God in the various 
 nations of the world. The name is, however, given t<3 
 several others in the New Testament — as, to Titus 
 (2 Cor. viii. 23), Epaphroditus (Phil. ii. 25), Andro- 
 nicus and Junius (Rom. xvi. 7), to Barnabas and Paul 
 (Acts xiv. 14; ix. 15, 20). Paul names himself an 
 apostle of Jesus Christ in many places (Col. i. 1 ; 
 1 Tim. i. 1 ; 2 Tim. i. 1, etc.). The twelve were called 
 by the Lord Jesus Christ himself when on earth ; they 
 were his intimate friends and companions ; he gavi' 
 them their powers, commission and qualifications; 
 
CHAPTER I. VERSES 1-6. 13 
 
 and to him they were in all things responsible. They 
 were to be his witnesses, and more especially the wit- 
 nesses of his resurrection ; and hence they must have 
 seen and known the Lord (1 Cor. ix. 1,2). 
 
 It was the appearance of Jesus on the plain of 
 Damascus which changed the fierce persecutor into 
 the apostle of the Gentiles (Acts ix. 3). This was 
 the turning-point of his marvelous history, and he 
 consulted not with flesh and blood. He had now seen 
 the Lord, and was in so far qualified to be his apostle. 
 No doubt the external sj^lendor which struck him to 
 the earth was a type of an inward light which irradi- 
 ated his mind and filled his heart with peace and joy. 
 Mede considers the conversion of Paul as a type of the 
 conversion of the Jewish nation and containing the 
 following typical points : First, he was converted by 
 the personal appearance of Christ, and so will the 
 whole nation be at the second advent ; second, his con- 
 version was a great blessing to the Gentiles, and he is 
 called the apostle of the Gentiles, and so the converted 
 nation of Israel will be like life from the dead to the 
 world — a new source of blessedness and grace to all 
 the nations of the earth. 
 
 But what was the apostolic office ? The apostles were 
 called and appointed directly by Christ as the eye- and 
 ear- witnesses of their Master. On this ground Matthias 
 was chosen in the room of Judas (Acts i. 24—26), and 
 Paul mentions, among the proofs of his apostleshij), that 
 he had seen the Lord (1 Cor. ix. 1) and heard the voice 
 of the Holy One (Acts xxii. 14) ; so that he could be 
 a witness unto all men of what he had seen and heard. 
 They were qualified by the Lord and authorized to heal 
 the sick, cleanse the lepers and raise the dead. In this 
 
14 GKAHAM ON EPHESIANS. 
 
 way the risen life of Jesus was manifested and dispensed 
 to the nations; and it is remarkable that all their works 
 were done in the name of the Lord Jesus, as his were 
 done in the name of the Father (Acts iii. 6 ; iv. 10 ; iii. 
 16). They were inspired by God (Gal. i. 11, 12; 2 
 Tim. iii. 16), and endowed with the wisdom, faithful- 
 ness and strength necessary for the founding of the 
 kingdom of God; but their chief and distinguishing 
 function, which they shared with none, was the j^ower 
 of conveying the Holy Ghost by the laying on of hands 
 (Acts vi. 6 ; viii. 16 ; xix. 6). These wonderful powers 
 were connected with the deepest humility and most 
 abundant sufferings (Matt. x. 17 ; Acts v. 17, 18 ; John 
 XV. 19 ; Acts xvi. 33 ; 2 Cor, iv. 10) ; so that the powers 
 of the Holy Spirit working in them thus mightily — 
 power over disease and Satan and death — brought 
 them nothing but the opposition and hatred of man- 
 kind. Love was returned with hatred ; patience, with 
 cruel mockery ; and their public labors, with scourging, 
 imprisonment and death. Such is the way love con- 
 quers the souls of men. It is out of suffering and death 
 that the triumphs of the gospel spread over the world ; 
 and this Epistle, so full of peace and love and heavenly 
 hope, was written from the dungeons of Rome. 
 
 II. The Saints at Ephesus. 
 
 He did not write to the Ephesians, but " to the saints 
 which are at Ephesus, and to the faithful in Christ 
 Jesus. ''^ 
 
 Saint, in both the sacred languages, signifies "clean," 
 ''pure," "without blemish" (Kom. xii. 1), and hence 
 it is beautifully applied to the faithful followers of the 
 Lamb who have escaped the pollution that is in the 
 
CHAPTER I. VERSES 1-6. 15 
 
 world through hist (Acts ix. 13, 22, 32, 41 ; xxvi. 10 ; 
 Kom. i. 7 ; viii. 27). Forasmuch, also, as the best and 
 the purest of everything in the old dispensation was 
 separated and set apart for the Lord, the word " holy " 
 became synonymous with " consecrated to God ;" and 
 in this respect also believers are saints : they have 
 given up the world; they have crucified the flesh 
 with its affections and lusts ; and in body, soul and 
 spirit they are dedicated to God. 
 
 These saints in Ephesus were a small part of the 
 population of that luxurious city, and in the hum and 
 bustle of a great capital they were little noticed, or 
 noticed only to be despised. Such was the judgment 
 of man, but the eye of God was uj^on them in their no- 
 ble contendings, and the heart of Christ was responsive 
 to their cries. Fallen and lost as we are, there is some- 
 thing within us, there are some remnants of the unfallen 
 glory, which can never be satisfied with shadows. We 
 long, if we knew how, to reach upward into the holiest 
 of all, that we may find tranquillity and satisfaction in 
 God. To such longing, thirsty souls the gospel comes 
 as life from the dead ; it puts them on the way of holi- 
 ness by giving them an object to fix and draw out their 
 affections, even Jesus Christ the Crucified ; and the 
 feeble lights and powers of nature are strengthened 
 and brightened by the gifts of the Holy Ghost. Now 
 that their strength is renewed, they may have some 
 hope of final and complete victory in wrestling with 
 the evils within and around them ; in the act of be- 
 lieving, their eyes have been opened to sin and right- 
 eousness; God and his creature man appear to them 
 in a new and more glorious light ; what satisfied them 
 formerly pleases them now no more ; for the long- 
 
16 GRAHAM ON EPHESIANS. 
 
 ing, living soul will seek its native skies and be tran- 
 quillized with nothing but the enjoyments of its God, 
 
 " And onward, still onward, arising, ascending 
 To the right hand of power and joy never ending." 
 
 The saint or believer in Christ has a different theory 
 of life from other men. Most men are practically ma- 
 terialists, having this world for their home and riches 
 for their god. 
 
 "Eat, drink and die! What can the rest avail us? 
 So said the royal sage Sardanapalus," 
 
 is the very spirit of the thoughtless, bustling world. 
 The saints at Ephesus had been led to see something 
 higher than this in the life of man and the destiny 
 that awaits him. Time was but the beginning of their 
 existence ; crowns of glory sparkled in the distance ; 
 God was their Father, Christ their Redeemer' and the 
 Holy Spirit their Sanctifier. Suffering and trial and 
 persecutions of all kinds were nothing compared with 
 the hopes that filled and sustained them. They had 
 their sorrows, no doubt, but he was the Man of sor- 
 rows; they might well tread the thorny path, when 
 their Master wore a crown of thorns. He was the 
 Holy One of God, and they were called to be saints, 
 lioly, pure and consecrated to him in all things. They 
 would share his fortunes, and in the life-boat with Jesus 
 commit themselves to the shoreless sea. They prefer- 
 red heaven to Asia Minor, and the temple of God above 
 to the temple of Diana, whom the Ephesians so fiercely 
 worshiped (Acts xix. 28). 
 
 Such were the saints in days of old, and such 
 should they be still — men whose character is holy, 
 whose home is hi the skies, and whose supreme desire. 
 
CHAPTER I. VERSES 1-6. 17 
 
 living or dying, is to glorify the name of the Lord Jesus 
 Christ. Are we such ? 
 
 The apostle adds ''and to the faithful in Christ 
 Jesus," which shows that the apostle was not interested 
 for the saints at Ephesus alone, but for all believers 
 universally. It is a truly catholic Epistle, and we 
 might say, with Coleridge, that almost every doctrine 
 of Christianity may be found in it. It is, therefore, a 
 treasure intended of the Lord for the special benefit 
 of the whole Church in all ages. 
 
 III. The Wish or Prayer. 
 
 Grace he to you, and peace, from God our Father, 
 and from the Lord Jesus Christ (ver. 2). 
 
 The apostle begins with grace and ends with grace 
 (Eph. vi. 24); and the themes which he so sublimely 
 discusses are all but the manifold forms of the same 
 principle, drops, showers, rills, rivers, from the ocean- 
 fullness of divine grace — grace in the heart of God, 
 which is election ; grace in the cross of Christ, which 
 is redemption ; grace in the office of the Holy Spirit, 
 which is sanctification ; grace in the Church militant, 
 which is obedience ; grace in the Church triumphant, 
 which is the reward of glory ; grace everywhere, and 
 grace for ever. 
 
 But what is this grace f It is the free favor and lov- 
 ing disposition of our heavenly Father, which disposes 
 him to bless and receive his fallen creatures. Trace 
 the word through all languages, and you are led, step 
 by step, onward and upward to the fountain of divine 
 benevolence. Fix your eye upon any one stream of the 
 royal beneficence of God, be it ever so small, or ever 
 so far removed from its source, or ever so dissimilar in 
 
 3 
 
18 GRAHAM ON P:PHESIANS. 
 
 form to its fellows, you will fiiul, if you follow it, tlmt 
 it brings you to the fountain of grace, the boundless 
 ocean of divine goodness and love. Grace, in the 
 Holy Scripture, is in every way connected with God. 
 The Father is the God of all grace (1 Pet. v. 10) ; 
 Jesus is the Author, Giver and Dispenser of grace 
 (Acts XV. 11 ; 2 Cor. viii. 9; Rom. xvi. 20; 1 Thess. 
 V. 28) ; and the Holy Spirit is called the Spirit of 
 grace (Heb. x. 29), who dispenses to the Church his 
 gifts and graces as he pleases (1 Cor. xii. 1-14). The 
 seat of the divine Majesty is the throne of grace (Heb. iv. 
 16) ; the gospel is called the word of his grace, and be- 
 lievers are the children of his grace. The first word the 
 voung believer utters is "grace," and the oldest dies 
 with the same word on his lips. It is this free grace 
 which makes God the sovereign Giver and man the 
 humble receiver ; it is this which lends to the gospel 
 its chief glory and renders speechless in the presence 
 of God those who reject it. It is this which roots out 
 the principles of pride and human merit and surrounds 
 the mercy of God with unparalleled splendor, which 
 annihilates the pretensions of a sacrificing priesthood 
 and opens up to believers visions of inexpressible 
 brightness and glory. The portals of heaven are 
 thrown open to mankind ; the river that flows from 
 the smitten rock is free for all that are thirsty ; and 
 an amnesty free as the air and wide as the world is 
 announced to the guiltiest rebels. This is grace. Je- 
 hovah makes no conditions with his creatures ; he took 
 no counsel witli men in forming the plan of redemp- 
 tion ; and the Sun of righteousness, like the sun of 
 nature, slieds his beams over us whether we will or 
 not. Incarnation, atonement, resurrection and medi- 
 
CHAPTER I. VERSES 1-6. 19 
 
 ation are but steps in the manifestation of his grace. 
 His acts are in keeping with his character, and neither 
 in creation nor in providence does the divine majesty 
 shine forth more gloriously than it does from the throne 
 of grace. 
 
 The apostle connects grace with peace: '^ Grace be 
 to you, and peace, from God our Father, and from the 
 Lord, Jesus Christ^ Peace is a lovely characteristic of 
 the gospel. Everything breathes peace and pardon to the 
 believer. Jehovah is called the God of peace (Rom. xv. 
 33 ; Phil. iv. 9; 1 Thess. v. 23 ; 2 Thess. iii. 16 ; Heb. xiii. 
 20). Jesus is called ''the Prince of peace" (Isa. ix. 6), 
 and peace is in every way associated with his character 
 and work. His name is the King of peace; angels 
 sang . over him in Bethlehem the song of peace ; his 
 gospel is the gospel of peace ; his kingdom is the king- 
 dom of righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy 
 Ghost. He himself came and preached jDcace to them 
 that were near and to them that were far off. His 
 blood is the seal of peace. In one sweet j)assage it is 
 said, " He is our peace ;" and the ministers of the gos- 
 pel are the messengers of peace. 
 
 But what does the word "peace" mean? It includes 
 peace with God, peace of conscience and peace with 
 our fellow-men ; it declares that the veil between you 
 and God is rent, and that you have free access to the 
 holiest of all ; it is the assurance to your trembling con- 
 science that the enmity is taken away and that God is 
 love. This is what we receive in believing — that which 
 Jesus promised, and which the world can neither give 
 nor take away. It is strong and perfect in proportion 
 as the eye rests on Christ ; it becomes weak and broken 
 in proportion as you love earthly things. In the assur- 
 
20 GRAHAM ON EPHESIANS. 
 
 ance of this peace we brave the storms of life, and in 
 the same tranquillizing conviction we fall asleep m 
 Jesus. Sin alone can disturb this calm and blissful 
 repose. It bids defiance to the rage of the persecutor, 
 and is never more radiant than when in pain and 
 torture it looks upward to the martyr's crown (Acts 
 
 vii. 60). 
 
 These two blessings of grace and peace are "Jroni 
 God our Father, and from the Lord Jesus Christ:' The 
 Socinian gloss which makes this sense " grace and peace 
 from God the Father of us and of the Lord Jesus 
 Christ " is forced and improbable ; nor would it answer 
 the purpose intended, for Christ is constantly repre- 
 sented in Scripture as the Author of grace and peace 
 (Acts XV. 11; 2 Cor. viii. 9; 1 Tim. i. 14). It is 
 therefore very manifest that Christ the Son is joined 
 with God the Father in this prayer of the apostle, and 
 both are represented as the fountain of spiritual bless- 
 ings. I do not think the passage teaches that grace is 
 to be referred specially to the Father and peace to the 
 Son, for other scriptures attribute these blessings indif- 
 ferently to both. The meaning is that grace and peace 
 flow equally from the Father and the Son ; they are 
 both equally the fountain of blessing. 
 
 We ought not to forget the deep meaning (^f that 
 name ''God our Father.'' Luther has observed that 
 the glory of the Scriptures stands in the pronouns. 
 Everything is personal and goes directly to the heart. 
 It is not God, but my God ; not Father, but m,y Father ; 
 not confession in the mass, but God be merciful to 7ne, 
 a sinner. This is living, saving, appro])riating faith, 
 as distinguished from a cold, dead, inoperative faith 
 which only makes men and devils tremble. Chalmers 
 
CHAPTER I. VERSES 1-6. 21 
 
 observes that a being of known power, but unknown 
 purpose, necessarily terrifies us ; and we add that the 
 power and the purj)ose are both made known in the 
 glorious name " God our Father." Here majesty and 
 love are united, and the thunderbolts of Omnipotence 
 are guided by a Father's hand. He is the great and 
 terrible God before whom the sinner trembles, but he 
 is, at the same time, the loving Father who invites the 
 returning prodigal to his arms. In his Godhead we 
 see the power that can, and in his paternity the disposi- 
 tion that will, protect us and bless us. He is our God 
 and Father, His power and his love are around us. 
 We are not creatures only, but children also, and 
 sharers of the heavenly inheritance. We can say not 
 only " God be merciful to me a sinner," but also " Our 
 Father which art in heaven." 
 
 Consider now for a moment the title of the Son of 
 God which stands opposed to the name " God our Fa- 
 ther" in our text — "the Lord Jesus Christ." 
 
 First. The name Lord is the highest in the Greek 
 language for denoting the underived and eternal King 
 and Creator of all things. Hence the Seventy use it 
 everywhere for the unutterable name "Jehovah;" some- 
 times for " Elohim," as Job xix. 21 ; xxxiii, 26 ; some- 
 times for "El," as Job v. 8 ; ix. 2; xii. 6; and some- 
 times for " Jail," as Ps. cxv. 17 ; cl. 6. This glorious 
 title is in our text, and in the New Testament gener- 
 ally, applied to Jesus Christ, the Saviour of the world. 
 He is emphatically and in the highest sense Kurios or 
 Lord (Mark xvi. 19, 20 ; Acts viii. 25 ; xix. 10 ; 2 Cor. 
 iii. 17; Eph. v. 10; Col. iii. 23; 2 Thess. iii. 1-5; 
 2 Tim. iv. 8). He is Lord; he is the Lord ; he is our 
 Lord (Eph. iii. 11; 1 Tim. i. 2 ; 2 Pet. i. 1); he is 
 
22 GRAHAM ON EPHESIANS. 
 
 Lord of all (Rom. x. 12) ; he is the Lord Jehovah (Ps 
 eii. 25), who created the universe (Heb. i. 10) ; aiic 
 believers are emphatically said to be " in the Lord "— 
 that is, united to him— in their earthly trials and in 
 their heavenly glory (Phil. iii. 1 ; 1 Cor. i. 31). Lord, 
 therefore, applied to Jesus, denotes all power, dominion 
 and authority over the Church and the creation. 
 
 Second. He is called Jesus, which is, in fact, the 
 Hebrew Jehoshua, "Jehovah the Saviour," so called 
 because he shall save his people from their sins (Matt. 
 i. 21). "Jesus" was a common personal name among 
 the Hebrews, and is applied to Joshua (Acts vii. 45 ; 
 Heb. iv. 8) and to Justus, the fellow-laborer with Paul 
 (Col. iv. 11). It is therefore the human name of the 
 Redeemer — the name which connects him with us — 
 and is for that very reason the sweetest of all his 
 names. It sounds sweet in a believer's ear. As " God 
 and Father " unites the ideas of power and love in the 
 Godhead, so " Lord Jesus " unites in the Mediator maj- 
 esty and condescension, lordly dominion and weep- 
 ing tenderness. He is the lion and the lamb, the 
 mightiest and the meanest, the sceptre-bearer of cre- 
 ation and the burden-bearer of a ruined world. All 
 contrarieties and diversities meet and are harmonized in 
 him. He is the possessor of all, and yet he has noth- 
 ing. He stills the tempests and raises the dead, and 
 yet he sits weary at the mouth of a well. He is the 
 Ancient of days and the Infant of Bethlehem. He is 
 the Son of God and the Son of the Virgin Mary. 
 
 These names, Lord and Jesus, taken from the most 
 distant and contradictory objects, are intended to show 
 that he is the great Unity or Head, in whom all things 
 in heaven and on the earth are to be gathered up (Eph. 
 
CHAPTER 1. VERSES 1-6. 23 
 
 i.), in whom all promises and threateniiigs should fiud 
 tlieir proper expression, in whom the mortal and the 
 immortal, the finite and the infinite, the conditioned 
 and the unconditioned, should meet and be reconciled. 
 This is the glory of the Redeemer, and it is in this 
 character the saints delight most to contemplate him. 
 The Lord has become Jesus, the Word was made flesh 
 and God has been manifested in our nature (1 Tim. 
 iii. 16). This is the sure foundation laid in Zion where 
 the weary soul finds a resting-place. The Church is 
 built on the person of Christ, the Rock of ages against 
 which the gates of hell shall not prevail. Here the 
 wanderer finds a home and the prodigal a Father. 
 Eternity alone can expound the love that is contained 
 in these two names — " Lord Jesus " — and, as for us 
 poor guilty sinners, we can only taste and see that he 
 is gracious. 
 
 But, third, he is also called in our text Christ, 
 which means " the Messiah," the anointed King of 
 Israel (John i. 41). This denotes his public, official 
 character as the Prophet, Priest and King of his 
 Church. All light centres in him as the anointed 
 Prophet and Revealer; all pardoning mercy, as the 
 atoning High Priest ; and all power and majesty, as 
 the victorious King. The three essential wants of oui 
 fallen nature are met and supplied in the Christ: our 
 ignorance is cured, our guilt forgiven and our chains 
 broken. He is the anointed One — the Prophet, Priest 
 and King. These three great orders of nobility meet 
 in him alone. The three lines of men — the prophets 
 with their lamps, the priests with their sacrifices, and 
 the kings with their royal splendor — have met in 
 Bethlehem, where the Anointed of God was born; 
 
21 GRAHAM ON EPHESIANS. 
 
 and all their lamps, altars and thrones were but types 
 and premonitions of his manifold fullness. He is the 
 Christ, and their anointing came from and pointed to 
 him alone. 
 
 Here we see the meaning of the name Lord Jesus 
 Christ. Lord denotes his Godhead; Jesus, his man- 
 hood; and Christ, both united in one Mediator, the 
 God-Man. Thus this glorious name, so often men- 
 tioned and so little thought of, is the very fountain 
 of God's fullness to the children of men, and the 
 foundation-stone on which the system of redemption 
 rests. 
 
 We come now to verse 3, which contains — 
 
 IV. The Doxology. 
 
 Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus 
 Chi'ist, who hath blessed us with all spiritual blessings 
 in heavenly places in Christ. This is the usual form 
 of the doxologies in Scripture, and, as there is a point 
 of criticism to be determined before they can be ex- 
 pounded, we shall examine a few of them particularly. 
 In the Hebrew, as in the Greek and the English, the 
 adjective always comes first (Gen. ix. 26 ; xxiv. 27 ; 
 Ex. xviii. 10 ; Ruth iv. 14 ; 1 Sam. xxv. 32, 39 ; 2 Sam. 
 xviii. 28 ; 1 Kings i. 48 ; v. 7 (in Heb. 21) ; viii. 15, 
 56 ; 1 Chron. xvi. 36 ; 2 Chron. ii. 12 (Heb. 11) ; vi. 4 ; 
 Ezra vii. 27 ; Ps. xxviii. 6 ; xxxi. 21 ; xli. 13 (Heb. 14) ; 
 Ixviii. 19 (Heb. 20) ; Ixxii. 18 ; Ixxxix. 52 (Heb. 53) ; 
 evi. 48 ; cxxiv. 6 ; cxxxv. 21 ; cxliv. 1 ; Zech. xi. 5 ; 
 Ezek. iii. 12). 
 
 Now, we observe, Jirst, in all these cases the adjec- 
 tive comes first in both the Hebrew and the Septuagint, 
 exactly as in the English. This seems to be the uni- 
 
CHAPTER I. VERSES 1-6. 25 
 
 versal law of these doxologies in both the Hebrew and 
 the Greek ; nor can any argument be based on Ps, Ixviii. 
 19, where in the Greek Septuagint the noun comes first 
 and the adjective follows, and that for the following 
 reasons : (1) The Greek is a false translation of the 
 Hebrew text; (2) in the Greek it is falsely jDunctu- 
 ated; (3) the adjective "blessed" occurs twice, while 
 it is found only once in the Hebrew ; (4) the adjective 
 is in the first instance placed after, and in the second 
 before, its subject; so that, if anything can be made 
 of the Greek text, the two forms must be translated 
 differently ; (5) I am persuaded that the Septuagint is in 
 this passage quite corrupt. For these reasons I refuse 
 to admit that the Septuagint of Ps. Ixviii. 19 is an exam- 
 ple of a doxology where the noun precedes the adjective. 
 
 But, second, we observe that when the verb to be is 
 used, then the noun comes before its adjective in both 
 the Hebrew and the Greek (1 Kings x. 9 ; 2 Chron. 
 ix. 8). In the New Testament the same law holds. 
 In 1 Pet. i. 3 there is no verb, and the adjective pre- 
 cedes the noun, as in our text ; so also in 2 Cor. i. 3 ; 
 Luke i. 6S ; whereas in Ps. cxiii. 2 ; Job i. 21 ; 2 Chron. 
 ix, 8 ; 1 Kings jl. 9 the verb to be is used in both the 
 Greek and the Hebrew, and therefore the adjective 
 stands at the end of the sentence. According to this 
 clear law of both the sacred languages, therefore, Rom. 
 ix. 5 can never be translated as a doxology. All the 
 learned labors of Socinians and rationalists are in vain 
 as to that text; and "God over all, blessed for ever" 
 must, in spite of all their efforts, be applied to the 
 divine nature of Christ. 
 
 But now what is the meaning of " the God and 
 Fathei' of our Lord Jesus Chrisf'' f 
 
 4 
 
26 GRAHAM ON EPHESIANS. 
 
 Bloomfield and many others take "Father" to be 
 expository of " God," and render the phrase, as our 
 translators have done in Rom. xv. 6, " God, even the 
 Father of our Lord Jesus Christ," which would 
 make the whole phrase " even the Father of our 
 Lord Jesus Christ " parenthetical, and the meaning 
 of the verse would be, " Blessed be God (I mean the 
 Father of our Lord Jesus Christ), who hath blessed 
 us with all spiritual blessings in Christ." But if Paul 
 meant to say, " Blessed be God, who is the Father 
 of our Lord Jesus Christ," or, which is the same 
 thing, " Blessed be God, the Father of our Lord Jesus 
 Christ," there is a direct and appropriate Greek form 
 which he would naturally have employed. Besides, in 
 such a translation the "and" seems superfluous. De 
 Wette, Kistemaker and others translate it " Gelobet set 
 Gott und der Vaier unsers Herrn Yesu Christi" as if 
 in the Greek the article belonged o Father and not to 
 God, as we could say in English, " Blessed be God and 
 the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ," which gives a 
 very different sense. Such also must have been the 
 mind of Theodoret, who explains the text thus : " He 
 is indeed our God, but he is the Father of our Lord." 
 Indeed, most of the Germans insist upon it that such 
 is the meaning of the passage. Harless thinks if both 
 nouns referred to the genitive, the Greek particle (re) 
 should have come before and Father, which hypercrit- 
 ical finesse is refuted by 1 Pet. ii. 25 and other similar 
 passages. But why all this labor and toil to avoid the 
 idea that the Father should be called the God of Christ? 
 Why not say with Theophylact, " He is both God and 
 Father of one and the same Christ — his God as respects 
 his human nature, and his Father in reference to his 
 
CHAPTEK I. VERSES 1-6. 27 
 
 divinity"? Surely, if Jesus Christ be really a wan, 
 the Father may be called his God. And does not Paul 
 explain his own meaning in the seventeenth verse, where 
 he distinctly calls the Father " the God of our Lord 
 Jesus Christ"? and does not Jesus on the cross cry, 
 " My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me ?" Is 
 he not the son of man, and as such a creature of God? 
 The glory of redeeming love is seen, not in the God- 
 head, but in the manhood, of Christ ; he might have 
 remained for ever in the bosom of the Father, but he 
 preferred, out of love, to assume the form of a servant 
 and be made in the likeness of men that he might mag- 
 nify the law which we had broken and expiate our guilt 
 on the cross. Hence, he is our brother and kinsman, 
 the head and leader of the glorious army of the mar- 
 tyrs ; and, though he is himself truly divine, he may 
 surely, as the incarnate One, call the Father his God. 
 Leaving now, therefore, these rough points of criticism, 
 let us sum up the substance of the third verse. 
 
 First. The apostle begins with blessing. Three times 
 in the one verse does he use the same word : God is the 
 blessed one who hath blessed us with all spiritual bless- 
 irigs in heavenly places. Our condition as fallen creat- 
 ures is cu7'sed ; the vengeance of a violated law is sus- 
 pended over us; and the original malady, sj^reading 
 like a poison through all the members of our race and 
 through all the fountains of our being, hath laid us 
 under the law of the curse ; so that death must feed 
 upon us, and sin and Satan have triumphed over us 
 because we are cursed. He that created alone can de- 
 liver, and hence the gospel is called the glorious gospel 
 of the blessed God ; and the effects of it are to remove 
 from our species, and from the earth their habitation, the 
 
28 GRAHAM ON EPHESIANS. 
 
 curse which a broken law has brought u^^on us. The 
 blessing of the Creator was pronounced over us at the 
 beginning (Gen. i. 28), and the stability of the new 
 creation stands only in the blessing of God (1 Pet. 
 i. 5). How beautiful and natural is this word of the 
 apostle, " Blessed be the God who has blessed us " ! 
 It is the language of nature as well as of grace. He 
 has removed the curse, and we will glorify his name ; 
 he has opened the gates of righteousness, and we will 
 praise him with the companies of the blessed. He is 
 the ocean-source from which all blessings flow, and the 
 ocean-home to which all holy and blessed creatures 
 must return with their songs of gratitude and praise. 
 He is the blessed God, because he is the universal 
 B lesser. Blessi7ig was the angel-song in Bethlehem, 
 and blessing was the last act of the Saviour as he as- 
 cended to the skies. The blessing of God pronounced 
 upon the first Adam filled the old creation with the 
 products of nature, and the blessing of God in the 
 second Adam is to fill the new creation with the prod- 
 ucts of grace. Jesus and his Church are the Adam 
 and Eve of a new world, and the holy command, 
 more obligatory in grace than in nature, is still upon 
 them : " Be fruitful and nmltiply, and replenish the 
 earth, and subdue it." 
 
 Second. The name of God is here contrasted with 
 the Old-Testament name, which is " the God of Abra- 
 ham, the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob " — a name 
 showing out, as some think, by way of type, the doc- 
 trine of Father, Son and Holy Ghost in their relations 
 to one another and to the creation ; but in this name 
 th(Te is no paternity. He is their God, and they are 
 his people — their Creator, King and Preserver, whom 
 
CHAPTER I. VERSES 1-6. 29 
 
 they are bound to worship and obey. But his name in 
 relation to the Gentile Church is " the God and Father 
 of our Lord Jesus Christ." He is our Father as he 
 was their God. Moses was the faithful servant over a 
 household of servants, and Christ is the faithful Son 
 over a household of sons (Heb. iii. 5, 6) . The Sonship 
 of Christ is manifold, and in every case the basis or 
 foundation of ours. He is the eternal Son, begotten 
 without a beginning, in whom the Father before all 
 worlds saw his own glorious image, and with whom he 
 could be delighted in the loneliness of eternity before 
 there was a creation to be blessed or a fallen race to be 
 loved and redeemed. Nor is this eternal generation 
 a barren speculation. It is this which dignifies our 
 families by showing us paternity and sonship in the 
 divine nature itself; it is this which dignifies reason, 
 speech, love and all the moral affections by showing 
 that they exist in God himself. The Unitarian God 
 could exercise no moral affections before creation. He 
 had nothing to love. He is dependent on his creatures 
 for the exercise of all the higher and nobler attributes 
 which we call social or moral. The creation of such 
 a being, if he created at all, would not be a great sys- 
 tem with variety and unity infinitely and harmoniously 
 blended, but a system of simple unity. It would not 
 be a harmony, but a monotone, or at best a melody. 
 But this doctrine of Sonship is threefold. Jesus is the 
 Son of God from eternity, and this is the basis of our 
 election in him before the worlds to the dignity of sons 
 (Eph. i. 4-6). He is the Son of God by generation of 
 the Holy Ghost (Luke i. 35), and this is the form and 
 fountain of our regeneration by the same Holy Spirit 
 of God. He is the Son of God by resurrection (Ps. ii. 
 
30 GRAHAM ON EPHESIANS. 
 
 7 ; comp. Acts xiii. 33), the first-born from the dead 
 and the beginning of the creation of God (Rev. i. 5 ; 
 1 Cor. XV. 20; CoL i. 18), and this is the basis of the 
 first resurrection, which is blessed and holy and belongs 
 only to the children of God (Luke xx. 36). Thus our 
 sonships by election, by regeneration and by resurrec- 
 tion find their antitypal forms in the development of 
 sonship in the jierson of Christ. The Sonship of 
 Christ, therefore, is no abstract, empty dogma, but a 
 great comprehensive verity which unfolds wonderfully 
 the relations and love of the Creator, and at the same 
 time gives inexpressible dignity and glory to the re- 
 deemed Church. Oh, most sweet and blessed chain of 
 love, which reaches from the throne of God to the 
 bleeding cross — fro n the Father of lights to the poor 
 children of men ! 
 
 Third. But what are those spiritual blessings with 
 which he has blessed us? These are the gifts and 
 graces and manifold operations of the Holy Spirit 
 (Rom. i. 11 ; XV. 29 ; 2 Cor. ix. 5 ; Gal. iii. 8, 9 ; Acts 
 iii. 16), and are in Christ as their centre and descend 
 to us from the heavenly regions or abodes. " The 
 heavenlies " may indeed refer to states, blessings, or 
 anything else, as well as to places, and expositors have 
 been divided on the question since the apostolic age. 
 Beza thinks we should give no decision on the subject ; 
 yet I feel persuaded that the idea of place is included 
 in the Greek form of exj^ression. (See Eph. i. 20 ; ii. 
 6 ; iii. 10 ; vi. 12.) John iii. 12 seems to me an ex- 
 ception, and not a key, to the other passages. These 
 heavenly abodes, then, are the mansions which Jesus 
 has gone to prepare for us in the house not made with 
 liands, eternal in the heavens. All our glories are con- 
 
CHAPTER I. VERSES 1-6. 31 
 
 centrated there. There are the golden harps, the crown.s 
 of righteousness and the white robes which are the 
 righteousness of saints. The j^ahns of victory grow 
 there, and endless hallelujahs to God and to the Lamb 
 resound through the celestial temple. There, too, are 
 the heroes of the faith who fought and conquered 
 through the blood of the Lamb — the holy apostles and 
 prophets and the glorious army of the martyrs, who 
 loved not their lives unto the death. Within that veil, 
 in the holiest of all, we shall contemplate without a 
 cloud the person of our Lord Jesus Christ, whom, not 
 having seen, we loved, and through him, in the person 
 of the Holy Ghost, we shall enter into fellowship with 
 the adorable Jehovah, ever ap2)roximating, and yet ever 
 at infinite distances from, the perfection of the all- 
 glorious God. 
 
 We should think often of these heavenly mansions. 
 Our friends are there, and beckon us to come; our 
 citizenship is there, from wlience we look for the Sav- 
 iour. This is the house not made with hands, eternal 
 in the heavens, where the glory of the Lord shines 
 forth in all its sj)lendor — the New Jerusalem of the 
 Apocalypse, where the holy and the good have their 
 dwelling-place with God for ever. There, too, are the 
 fountains of life and the rivers of pleasure of which 
 the Psalmist sings so sweetly ; there is the rest of which 
 the godly Baxter discourses so pleasantly, and the 
 heavenly Zion of which David in his Psalms and 
 Bunyan in his dreams have told us so much. There 
 is the restored paradise which Augustine in his famous 
 canticle Felix cceli quce prcesentem, etc., describes with 
 such magnificence. 
 
 But let us never forget that all the glories of the heav- 
 
32 GRAHAM ON EPHESIANS. 
 
 enly house, and all the blessings that flow to us from it, 
 are treasured up in Christ. He is the fountain-head of 
 blessing for the world ; and through him, as Mediator, 
 they are dispensed to the Church and to the world. 
 Owing to him we have a right to these blessings, and 
 through his mediation we are brought to share them. 
 The Greek word for our " in " has, therefore, three dif- 
 ferent significations in this one verse — " with," " in," 
 and " through." He has blessed us with all spiritual 
 blessings m heavenly places through Jesus Christ the 
 Redeemer. The Christ is always, according to the 
 doctrine of Paul, the centre of all the operations of 
 God. By him the works of creation, providence and 
 redemption have been accomplished according to the 
 will of the Father, and for him (see Col. i. 16) the 
 universe was created ; so that the apostolic formula in 
 Christ reveals to us the great doctrines of headship and 
 mediation. In him the great purpose of Jehovah to 
 create and redeem takes its root and finds its accom- 
 j^lishment ; so that he is called the Alpha and Omega, 
 the all-comprehending Head and Mediator, in whom 
 the fullness of God {pleroma) is manifested to the 
 creation (Col. i. 10; ii. 9; John i. 6). 
 
 V. Election. 
 
 The apostle now proceeds to enumerate some of the 
 spiritual blessings which our God and Father has re- 
 served for us in Christ: 
 
 According as he hath chosen ns in him before the 
 foundation of the ivorld, that we should be holy and 
 without blame before him in love (ver. 4). On this 
 note the following observations : 
 
 First. The elector is the Father, to whom it belonsrs 
 
CHAPTER I. VERSES 1-6. 33 
 
 to originate all things. The purpose of eternal love 
 flows directly from the divine JMind as its heavenly 
 source. He hath predestinated us to be conformed to 
 the image of his Son (Rom. viii. 29). It is he who 
 has chosen us from the beginning to salvation, through 
 sanctification of the Spirit and belief of the truth (2 
 Thess. ii. 13) ; and Peter assures us that we who be- 
 lieve are " elect according to the foreknowledge of God 
 the Father, through sanctification of the Spirit, unto 
 obedience and sprinkling of the blood of Christ " (1 
 Pet. i. 2). It is therefore clear that election is the 
 peculiar act or work or office of the Father, even as 
 sanctification and redemption are the works of the 
 Spirit and the Son. 
 
 Second. The person in whom the election is made is 
 the So7i. We are chosen in him as the divine Mediator 
 and predestinated Election-Head, in whom, by means 
 of our union with him, we find a supply for all our 
 wants, strength for our weakness, joy for our sorrow, 
 light for our darkness, and eternal life for our all- 
 sufficient portion at last. The little words in him 
 express much of the will and way of God toward us. 
 In Jesus we find the ground or cause of God's electing 
 and redeeming ; as Beza expresses it : " Through Christ 
 and Christ's foreseen merits " God manifests his grace 
 to us ; nor does the text give the least hint of the con- 
 dition which Chrysostom supplies — viz., " that we are 
 elected on account of foreseen faith and good works." 
 We were elected in him because he is our Surety and 
 had undertaken to redeem us by the sacrifice of the 
 cross. In him all believers are included. In the 
 divine purpose the elect and the Election-Head are 
 contemplated as one — one vine, one temple, one family. 
 
 5 
 
34 GRAHAM ON EPHESIANS. 
 
 The head and the member^;, the vine and the branches, 
 the bridegroom and the bride, the foundation and the 
 living stones, are never separated in the purpose of 
 God, forming, as they do, one great and magnificent 
 unity, very beautiful and glorious — perfect, too, when 
 the time of perfection comes, as the idea and purpose 
 of the Father. This is tke Church. Election is the 
 basis of the Church, as predestination is the basis of 
 a providence. 
 
 Third. As to the date of this election. It is before 
 the foundation of the world. (Comp. Matt. xiii. 35 ; 
 John xvii. 4 ; Luke xi. 50 ; Matt. xxv. 34 ; 1 Pet. i. 
 20.) This is the same as the expression " Before the 
 ages or worlds " (1 Cor. ii. 7). (Comp. Eph. iii. 9 ; Col. 
 i. 26 ; 2 Tim. i. 9 ; and Rom. xvi. 25.) This is the 
 ancient love of God to his people of which the Script- 
 ures are so full, and on which the believing soul 
 delights to dwell. His love is no impulsive feeling, 
 varying with the changes of the creature, but the 
 steady, irreversible purpose of his grace, based on the 
 life and death, the doing and dying, of the Mediator. 
 We measure the strength of an affection by its perma- 
 nency, and by the difficulties which it surmounts for 
 the sake of its object. This ancient affection of the 
 Godhead was placed upon his people before the birth 
 of time ; and in all the different ages and dispensations, 
 in the successive dynasties and kingdoms, in all the 
 events of providence as well as in the promises and 
 covenants of grace, we see the gradual unfolding of 
 that hidden love of his, until, in the person of the incar- 
 nate Redeemer, the difficulties were all surmounted and 
 the Father almighty and his prodigal son might meet. 
 This is the love which the soul delights to contemplate 
 
CHAPTER I. VERSES 1-6. 35 
 
 — an effective love ; a love that does not shrink back 
 from impediments ; a love worthy of God and neces- 
 sary for the safety and dignity of his redeemed 
 Church. 
 
 Fourth. The purpose of this election is very clearly 
 stated in one passage : " That we should be holy and 
 without blame before him in love^ Holy means " sep- 
 arated," "consecrated," "devoted" to God. He would 
 have a loving, devoted, holy people, and for this end 
 he elects them. They are chosen that they should be 
 holy and without blame before him in love. His pur- 
 pose in election is sanctification — that they should be 
 his in the fullest sense of the word, his husbandry, 
 his building, his temple, his living sacrifice, his fruit- 
 bearing vine. They live a devoted life which the 
 world cannot understand ; they are separated from all 
 other men in their hopes for the future life, and in 
 their conduct toward God in this. Without blame 
 means "spotless" (Heb. ix. 14), and is applied to the 
 Saviour himself as the spotless, perfect, sacrificial 
 Lamb (1 Pet. i. 19). (See Lev. i. 10; xxii. 19-23; 
 Eph. V. 27 ; Col. i. 22 ; Jude 24 ; Kev. xiv. 5.) Such 
 would be the character and life of the chosen people 
 of God, and in so far as they come short of this they 
 are destroying their own happiness and withholding 
 from God the projDcr returns of his love. 
 
 Election is not an arbitrary, indiscriminating act of 
 God in order simply to secure the final salvation of so 
 many and no more. No! it is rather the sweet and 
 loving purpose to prevent the ruin of all, and to secure 
 by his own efficacious grace the means of saving any — 
 viz., the faith which works by love and purifies the 
 heart. By their fruits ye shall know them. The elect 
 
36 GRAHAM ON EPHESIANS. 
 
 of God are the holy and blameless ones, of whom the 
 world is not worthy. Look not for the proofs of your 
 election to the hidden counsels of God, but to your 
 own visible life and conversation. 
 
 There is much meaning also in the phrase ''Before 
 him in love'' It is as much as to say, This holy and 
 blameless life is no fancy picture, but a reality, and 
 such a reality as can stand before him. If you wish 
 to fulfill the requirements of this verse as one of the 
 elect of God, your walk must be holy and blameless. 
 This is the high end of your election, and they are 
 deceivers and hypocrites who dare to speak of God's 
 electing love while they are caught and captivated 
 by the entanglements of the flesh and the world. 
 Holiness is the end of election, while happiness, peace 
 of conscience, and final glory itself, are subordinate 
 and subsidiary blessings. The holiness of the Church 
 is the earthly glory of God, and she glorifies him as 
 much in her struggles and triumphs here as in her 
 songs and hallelujahs above. 
 
 VI. Adoption. 
 
 Having predestinated us unto the adoption of children 
 by Jesus Christ to himself, according to the good pleasure 
 of his will, to the praise of the glory of his grace, 
 wherein he hath made us accepted in the Beloved (ver. 
 
 I have followed the common punctuation in the 
 fourth verse because the sense is good and we are 
 accustomed to the phrase " holy and without blame 
 before him in love." It is not to be denied, however, 
 that the weight of authorities and the natural con- 
 struction seem in favor of connecting in love with the 
 
CHAPTER I. VERSES 1-6. 37 
 
 lifth verse, thus : " Having predestinated us in love 
 to the adoption of children," etc. This construction 
 is strengthened by Eph. iii. 17, where, in the Greek, 
 in love precedes the participle. If any one wishes 
 to see this point formally argued, he should consult 
 Stier. I deem the decision of little importance, and, 
 therefore, proceed with the exposition. 
 
 First. Wherein does the predestination of the fifth 
 verse differ from the election of the fourth? " Election " 
 only, and always, refers to the Church; "predestination" 
 refers to the Church and the world and the whole uni- 
 verse. It is a general, all-embracing principle. He 
 elected us that we should be holy, and to accomplish 
 this he predestined us to the adoption of sons. Elec- 
 tion is a mere passive preference of some rather than 
 others, while predestination is active, and includes the 
 ideas of ordering, defining and controlling all things 
 according to a settled purpose or plan. Election is the 
 foundation of a Church, and predestination is the basis 
 of providence. Election implies choice, predestination 
 does not. The Church is both predestinated and 
 elected, but there are many things ordained when 
 there is no election (Acts iv. 28). In the Church, 
 Jehovah is manifested as the God of electing grace and 
 love ; while in all history and providence, among the 
 nations of the earth and in the different provinces of 
 creation, he is ever present as the presiding, overruling 
 and predestinating God. Prophecy and promise have 
 mainly to do with the Church and the Church's Head ; 
 and without a controlling, predestinating Deity the 
 fulfillment of the prophecies and the promises is nei- 
 ther possible nor conceivable. 
 
 Second. But what is this adoption to which we are 
 
Sg GRAHAM ON EPHESIANS. 
 
 predestinated? It is the very first of the privileges 
 which Paul ascribes to the Jewish nation : " To whom 
 pertaineth the adoption, and the glory, and the cov- 
 enants, and the giving of the law and the promises; 
 whose are the fathers, and of whom as concerning the 
 flesh Christ came, who is over all, God blessed for ever " 
 (Rom. ix. 4, 5). In a wide sense, the Jews were 
 nationally the children of God, and the principle of 
 adoption was in their polity, for the Son of God, the 
 Messiah, was the hope of the nation. Th^y were God's 
 peculiar people (Deut. xiv. 2), in whom the seeds of 
 righteousness were sown which afterward were to fruc- 
 tify and fill the face of the world with fruit. But the 
 adoption is the peculiar privilege and glory of the New- 
 Testament Church, in which the incorruptible seed 
 remains, because they are born of God. They have 
 all become the children of God by faith in Christ 
 Jesus (Gal. iii. 26) ; they are born, not of blood, nor 
 of the will of flesh, nor of the will of man, but of 
 God (John i. 13) ; by the baptism of water and the 
 baptism of the Holy Ghost they are made partakers 
 of the visible and invisible family of God — the king- 
 dom of grace and the kingdom of glory. In the act 
 of believing they become members of the household 
 of faith and heirs according to the promises. God 
 stands to them in the relation of a father ; the law 
 threatens them no more, for their Surety has borne 
 its penalty; the Spirit that crieth "Abba, Father," 
 in their hearts has sealed them unto the day of re- 
 demption (Rom. viii. 15, 2o ; Gal. iv. 5) ; and they 
 are enabled with a well-grounded confidence to anti- 
 cipate the heavenly inheritance. 
 
 Third. This adoption into the family of God is by 
 
CHAPTER I. VERSES 1-6. 39 
 
 or through Jesus Christ. The Son is the medium of 
 our becoming sons ; nor is there any regeneration save 
 through the Spirit which he gives. The work of Christ 
 in our nature, his active and passive obedience — or, as 
 the old divines expressed it, his doing and his dying — 
 are the legal and formal grounds on which the Father- 
 proceeds in admitting members into his family and dis- 
 pensing the spirit of adoption. Under the covert of 
 mediation has the kingdom of grace been administered 
 from the beginning, and the one Mediator is the Lord 
 Jesus Christ, the Lamb slain from the foundation of 
 the world. God has ordained us to the adoption of 
 children through Jesus Christ, and in this special act 
 we see the principle according to which the whole king- 
 dom of grace is administered. Through him, God and 
 man are brought together. He is the God-Man and 
 the Man-God. On earth we behold him as God man- 
 ifested in the flesh, doing the works and speaking the 
 words and manifesting the character of God. To see 
 him was to see the Father (John xiv. 9), and in him 
 was the great Father's heart opened to mankind. He 
 was, in one word, Emmanuel, Ood with us (Matt. i. 23). 
 We follow him from Olivet to the heavens, and we see 
 him there in a new and quite different character. He is 
 now the Man-God, Man with God, glorified and on the 
 throne of universal dominion. He is the glorified head 
 of the redeemed race, the forerunner and model man to 
 whose likeness all the rest are to be conformed — the 
 first-fruits of them that slept, and the specimen to the 
 angels and the universe of what manhood is predesti- 
 nated to be. The angels behold humanity in the form 
 of God as we beheld Godhead in the form of a servant 
 (Phil. ii. 6, 7) ; and this wonderful double relationship 
 
iO GRAHAM ON EPHESIANS. 
 
 is expressed by the word " through," which refers, as 
 all mediation must do, to both sides or parties. God 
 reaches us through Christ, and through Christ we have 
 access to God ; the power, glory, majesty and love of 
 God enter into him in the measure of Godhead, and 
 reach us tempered and softened into the measures of 
 manhood, such as we are able to receive. On the other 
 hand, our prayers and supplications are by the interces- 
 sion of Christ glorified into a divine incense worthy 
 of the acceptance of the Deity. 
 
 Fourth. The two words unto himself \\2iNe occasioned 
 the commentators some trouble, and their sentiments 
 are very various. But surely, looked at simply, the 
 most common understanding can see no difficulty in 
 this idea : " God has predestinated us unto the adop- 
 tion of children to or for himself." Is it not a script- 
 ural idea that the Church is the peculiar treasure and 
 property of God — that he has taken it from among 
 the nations, redeemed it for himself, and preserves 
 it as his own purchased possession for ever? (See 
 Ex. xix. ; Deut. xiv. 2 ; Ps. cxxxv. 4 ; Tit. ii. 14.) 
 I believe the accusative with the preposition is precise- 
 ly the same in meaning as the dative of advantage or 
 disadvantage. This grammatical principle is proved in 
 the following passages: Matt. v. 13; John vi. 9; Acts 
 ii. 22 ; Rom. xi. 36 ; 1 Cor. viii. 6 (here the words to 
 us are the dative, and the following to him the accusa- 
 tive with the preposition) ; Rom. xv. 26 ; xvi. 6 ; 2 Cor. 
 viii. 6; Gal. iv. 11 ; Eph. iii. 2. God, therefore, ha.s 
 dignified and honored the Church exceedingly by the 
 two little words for himself, for he thereby claims her 
 as his own peculiar treasure, elected, redeemed and en- 
 dowed with the giftii of the Spirit for the express pur- 
 
CHAPTER I. VERSES 1-6. 41 
 
 pose of showing forth his glory. His name is upon 
 her ; his spirit is within her ; and her ceaseless task is 
 to show forth his praise. Nor do I know a more 
 healthy state of mind than that in which we feel our- 
 selves to be his and not our own, bought with the price 
 of his precious blood, and therefore bound to glorify 
 God in our bodies and spirits, which are his. 
 
 Fifth. Note here, also, that this predestination and 
 adoption are according to the good pleasure of his will. 
 This is the mode and the measure of his working. The 
 creature is not reckoned in the administration of his 
 gifts ; his own bounty and grace, not our wishes, deter- 
 mine the outflowing of his beneficence. We can find 
 no higher, nobler origin for 'redemption than the good 
 pleasure of God. It was his will to spare, and he 
 spared us ; it is his good pleasure to give the kingdom 
 to his little flock, and they shall get it (Luke xii. 32). 
 (Comp. 1 Cor. i. 21 ; Col. i. 20.) This is the self- 
 limiting and self-determining will of God, called here 
 his good pleasure, according to which all his purposes 
 are formed and executed. Bengel says : " Beyond this 
 good pleasure of God we are not to inquire either in the 
 works of creation or our own salvation ;" nor has Gro- 
 tius any exegetical right to give the text this turn : 
 "God will execute his decrees if men do what they 
 ought." More scriptural are the words of St. Jerome : 
 '' This is his divine decree, that those who believe 
 might have power to become the sons of God." Here, 
 as in all Holy Scripture, Jehovah is all and in all. All 
 that papists and others have taught about human merit 
 and supererogation and perfect holiness in flesh before 
 the resurrection is false and unscriptural ; nor can such 
 doctors have any very deep views of either the holiness 
 
42 GRAHAM ON EPHESIANS. 
 
 of God or the sinfulness of man. Oh no ! When we 
 see even our best actions in the light of the love and 
 holiness of God, we cry out involuntarily, with the 
 good old monk Celanus, 
 
 " Rex tremendae majestatis, 
 Qui salvandos salvas gratis 
 Salva me, foiis pietatis !" * 
 
 Sixth. We see here the purpose in which all his 
 working, before time and in time, ends — " that we 
 might be to the praise of the glory of his grace, where- 
 in he hath made us accepted in the Beloved " (ver. 6). 
 The phrase glory of his grace is a Hebraism which 
 our translators have rendered literally, but which 
 means "his glorious grace." (For similar forms, see 
 Col. i. 27 ; 2 Thess. i, 9.) The purpose of electing and 
 redeeming love is to form from among the sinners of 
 mankind a people to the praise and glory of God. 
 Christ hath received us (Rom. xv. 7), and therefore 
 with one mouth let us glorify God, even the Father of 
 our Lord Jesus Christ ; and all the promises are in him 
 yea and amen, unto the glory of God by us (2 Cor. i. 
 20). The glorious grace of God shines forth in the 
 struggling, wrestling Church more than anywhere else 
 in the creation ; for it is there put to the severest tests, 
 and, like the rainbow in clouds and storms, it is en- 
 hanced by the contrast. As sure and so far as God is 
 the Ruler and the Governor of the world, the great end 
 of every creature must be his glory ; and, as grace is 
 the form in which his glory has shone forth most 
 brightly on this earth, the highest aim of the redeemed 
 
 * " King of tremendous majesty, 
 
 Who savest gratis those who are to be saved, 
 Save me, thou Fount of piety !" 
 
CHAPTEK I. VERSES 1-6. 43 
 
 creature in all states and conditions of being should 
 ever be " to the praise of his glorious grace." We are 
 to shine, but the light is from him ; and all the fruits 
 of the tree of life are produced by his good Spirit (Gal. 
 V. 22). It is always and everywhere grace, and nothing 
 but free grace, in our pilgrimage to the heavenly city — 
 grace in Egypt to break our chains, grace in the wilder- 
 ness to give us manna from the skies and water from 
 the rock, and grace brightening into glory as we pass 
 over the Jordan into the Promised Land. Be ours, 
 then, the noble office to show forth the praises of Him 
 who hath called us out of darkness into his marvelous 
 light — to let our light so shine before men that others, 
 seeing our good works, may glorify our Father which is 
 in heaven. 
 
 This charis — "grace" — is the deep ocean in the heart 
 of God from which all promises and covenants of mercy 
 proceed ; from which the divine Redeemer himself pro- 
 ceeded (John iii. 16) when he came forth to bless us ; 
 and from which must j)roceed, both in eternity and in 
 time, everything whereby the fallen creation is glorified 
 and blest. 
 
 The apostle adds : ^^It is by this grace, too, he hath 
 made us accepted in the Beloved^ Jesus, the beloved 
 Son of God, is also the Beloved of our souls ; yea, he 
 is the chief among ten thousand and altogether lovely. 
 The purpose of the Father's love takes effect in him. 
 In the Beloved shows the circle in which grace works, 
 and is, at the same time, the true characteristic of the 
 accepted ones. They are beloved in the Beloved, 
 anointed in the Christ, built upon him as the founda- 
 tion-stone and crucified with him when he died, hi 
 hi7n shows the bond of union which unites them to one 
 
44 GRAHAM ON EPHESIANS. 
 
 another by uniting them to the living Head from whose 
 love neither death nor life, nor things present, nor things 
 to come, shall ever be able to separate them (Kom. viii. 
 38, 39). They possess the residue of the Spirit, because 
 they are in him ; they are justified, sanctified and shall 
 be eternally glorified, because they are in him. They 
 have power over the flesh to crucify it, over the world 
 to despise it, over Satan to resist and conquer him, be- 
 cause they are accepted in the Beloved. Sin has lost 
 its power over them, the law of God does not threaten 
 them, the worm of conscience does not sting them any 
 more, but love eternal draws them upward toward 
 heaven, and the Holy Ghost seals them unto the day 
 of redemption, and they shall never perish, nor shall 
 any pluck them out of the Father's hand ; for he has 
 made them accepted in the Beloved. 
 
CHAPTER II. 
 
 In whom we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of 
 sins, according to the riches of his grace ; wherein he hath abounded 
 toward us in all wisdom and prudence ; having made known unto us the 
 mystery of his will, according to his good pleasure which he hath pur- 
 posed 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 ; even in him : in whom also we have 
 obtained an inheritance, being predestinated according to the purpose 
 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. In 
 whom ye also trusted, after that ye heard the word of truth, the gospel 
 of your salvation ; in whom also after that ye believed, ye were sealed 
 with that Holy Spirit of promise, which is the earnest of our inheritance 
 until the redemption of the purchased possession, unto the praise of 
 his glory. — Ephesians i. 7-14. 
 
 The apostle now proceeds to a new and equally 
 glorious theme. He has told us of the Church and 
 the eternal grace and love which have been manifested 
 to her and to all men in these last times ; of the names 
 and relations of the Father and the Son, both to each 
 other and to us ; so that the sinner may have confidence 
 in the power and the love of an all- ruling yet sin- 
 pardoning God. He has told us of the election of the 
 Father as the fountain of divine mercy, of the adoption 
 and high destinies of the family of (iod ; and he now 
 opens a new page in the book of life by bringing 
 prominently before us, in the seventh verse, 
 
 46 
 
46 GRAHAM ON EPHESIANS. 
 
 I. The Doctrine of Redemption. 
 
 In whom we have redemption through his blood, the 
 forgiveness of sins, according to the riches of his grace. 
 
 First. The first great idea of the text is contained 
 in the words in whom — namely, in the Beloved — where- 
 by we learn that the person of Christ is the only and 
 everlasting source of human salvation. There is noth- 
 ing ideal, nothing shadowy or mythical, in the revela- 
 tions contained in the New Testament. A personal 
 God created and rules the world ; a personal, voluntary, 
 self-emptying Redeemer (Phil. ii. 7) is presented to 
 our faith and hope in every page ; and the indwelling 
 Spirit pervades the new creature with the fullness 
 and blessedness of a divine personal presence. We 
 are not shadows, and shadows cannot satisfy us. 
 We are persons — viz., spirits now dwelling in flesh 
 and blood, with the painful and lacerating convictions 
 which attach to rebels against the majesty of Heaven. 
 Nor is it possible — such is our nature — that the soul 
 of man, struggling and wrestling with its evil con- 
 ditions, but still conscious of its work and destiny, 
 should ever find rest and satisfaction save in the fel- 
 lowship and fullness of a personal God. 
 
 Sin is no trifle, as we may see from the ruins it has 
 wrought. Death is a sad and terrible reality before 
 which we tremble exceedingly, and which, like a cleav- 
 ing curse, follows us everywhere and turns the beautiful 
 world into a field of blood. Satan, the head of the 
 fallen, and the first mover of sedition, loses nothing of 
 his power and malignity as he gains more cunning from 
 experience. He is still the roaring lion, seeking whom 
 he may devour (1 Pet. v. 8). Such being the state of 
 
CHAPTER I. VERSES 7-14. 47 
 
 things, it becomes instantly manifest that deliverance 
 can never be obtained by doctrines or systems of doc- 
 trines, however holy and true they may be. No, 
 never ! The law of the Eternal is broken, and power 
 almighty holds us in chains. God the immutable is 
 not a man that he should lie, but the righteous ruler 
 of a universe in which the universal law is obedience. 
 It is not a new doctrine which we need, but a new work 
 — a work which can in some way consistently with the 
 character of God avert the punishment which threatens 
 us, fortify with fresh sanctions the law which we had 
 broken, and, reconciling justice with mercy, open up 
 the fountains of grace to mankind. All this we have 
 in the Beloved. In his person we have all that the 
 heart can desire. Pie has indeed revealed to us much 
 of the nature and character of the Father, but not so 
 much in the way of teaching as in his life. " He that 
 hath seen me hath seen the Father ;" and most cer- 
 tainly the main object of the Son of God, in the flesh, 
 was not to teach, but to do, and to die as the law-fulfill- 
 ing righteousness and sin-atoning propitiation for his 
 people. His doctrines drew their importance from his 
 work, and his work from the dignity of his person. 
 Abstract notions are not faith. Our minds may be 
 filled with true and beautiful systems of theology, while 
 yet the divine fire of faith has never been kindled, and 
 the reason is that the person of the Redeemer is not the 
 centre of our religion. Not in doctrines, but in the 
 Beloved, does the soul find its rest and home ; not in 
 the crucifixion of Christ do we glory, but in Christ 
 Jesus and him crucified ; not in the creeds of the first 
 ages, or of all ages, do we find the object of faith, but 
 in the incarnate Redeemer himself, to whom all creeds 
 
48 GRAHAM ON EPHESIANS. 
 
 and all ages and all Scripture bear witness, without 
 whose living personal presence all formularies and the- 
 ologies are but empty nomenclature — beautiful, it may 
 be, but useless as the casket when the jewel is gone or 
 as the temple when the god of the temple is no longer 
 there. This, then, is the idea with which the apostle 
 commences our passage. The Beloved of our souls is 
 presented to our faith as the Fount from which mercy 
 flows, the Treasury of the Father's fullness to tlie 
 creation, and the life-giving Head of the Church. 
 
 Second. The next truth contained in our text is in 
 the words we have. It is not we " may have " or we 
 " shall have," but tve have — that is, we do really possess 
 the blessings mentioned in the text. In him connects 
 the person of the Redeemer with the original purpose 
 of Jehovah in election, and we have connects all 
 believers with him as the recipients of his manifold 
 fullness, and we shall see afterward that the economy 
 of the future ages (ver. 10) is to be headed up in him 
 also ; so that all things that pertain to the Church or 
 the creation, the past, the present and the future, with 
 all their varieties and infirmities, are harmonized in 
 him — are summed up and recapitulated in Jesus Christ 
 the Beloved. But, setting aside for a moment the two 
 extremes — the past and the future — let us attend to the 
 vinculum which unites them : we have. Luther uttered 
 a strong truth in these words : " Wer Christum hat, der 
 hat alles ; wer Christum nicht hat, der hat gar nichts " 
 (" He that has Christ has all tilings, and he that has 
 not Christ has nothing"). This witness is true. Faith 
 in the Lord Jesus makes us partakers of his merits ; so 
 that, being united to him in love, washed from sin in 
 his blood and arrayed in the robe of his righteousness, 
 
CHAPTER I. VERSES 7-14. 49 
 
 we can say, not in presumption, but in lowliest humil- 
 ity, " Christ is ours ;" we have redemption through his 
 blood — the forgiveness of sins ; we are one with him, 
 and neither death nor life shall separate us from his 
 love. 
 
 Third. But what is this redemption f How does 
 the Scripture speak of it? What blessings does it 
 confer on the believer ? " Redemption " signifies the 
 " buying back of slaves," and necessarily presupposes 
 the condition of bondage (Rom. i. 28 ; Eph. ii. 3-5) . 
 These texts show us very clearly that the wrath of God 
 rests uj^on the transgressor, and that his law demands 
 punishment. Nor was this all. The ruler and god 
 of this world had brought us under his dominion (Acts 
 xxvi. 18; Eph. iv. 18; 2 Cor. vi. 14). This is the 
 condition of the sinner. He is alienated from the life 
 of God by reason of the ignorance that is in him, nor 
 can any efforts of his own remove the burdens of the 
 €urse. The world before the Flood groaned under the 
 load till God and the earth could bear it no longer, and 
 the flood came and swept them all away. Nor did the 
 awful warning work any effectual cure, for the waters 
 were hardly subsided when, from the fathers of the 
 new world, the corrupting plague broke forth again in 
 streams deep and black as hell. The nations l)ecame 
 corrupt, and even the separated people to whom the 
 Lord revealed his wonders, and upon whom he has 
 showered so many blessings, became apostate; so that 
 when Jesus came among them, Jerusalem, the city of 
 God, had become a synagogue of Satan. 
 
 Such was our race, and hence the necessity of re- 
 demption. If there be a holy God in heaven, it was 
 impossible that he could delight in such a world as 
 
50 GRAHAM ON EPHESIANS. 
 
 ours. Nor was it merely the effects of our own doings 
 which impeded every free movement and entangled us 
 more and more at every step ; there was also that for- 
 eign bondage, referred to already, which made it neces- 
 sary that the Son of God should be manifested in the 
 flesh, that he might destroy the works of the devil 
 (1 John iii. 8; Heb. ii. 14; John xvi. 11). Sin was 
 our bondage, and Satan the slaveholder, who, knowing 
 well that we had sinned, thought we were his for ever, 
 saying in his heart, " They have sinned, and they are 
 mine ; for the law of the unchangeable God is against 
 them, and the soul that sinneth, it shall die." Thus 
 Satan, strengthening himself in the holiness of God 
 and the unchangeability of his law, thought that the 
 kingdom of darkness would be perpetual and univer- 
 sal ; for he knew not the counsels of God nor the depth 
 of divine compassion. He dreamed not that the law 
 could be vindicated and the holiness of God doubly 
 honored, and at the same time mercy in richest munif- 
 icence proclaimed to the sinner. He knew not that it 
 was the purpose of God from the beginning to thwart 
 all his malignant devices ; so that darkness should make 
 way for the light of life, sin for holiness, the serpent 
 for the Serpent-bruiser, and out of death itself, the 
 master-work of Satan, there was to arise a kingdom 
 of life and immortality. Now, the way in which a 
 divine purpose is accomplished is not by a violation 
 of duty or a stroke of the thunderbolt, but in the way 
 of moral fitness and progressive development ; so that 
 righteousness might be seen voluntarily abandoning 
 corruption and triumphing over it, love conquering 
 hatred, and God glorified in the hearty obedience of 
 a willing people. 
 
CHAPTER I. VERSES 7-14. 51 
 
 Here comes in the action of our text. The seed 
 sown in Paradise begins to ripen ; the hope which ani- 
 mated the Jewish nation, and through them was in part 
 disseminated among the Gentiles, begins to brighten 
 more and more. The line has been defined, the tribe 
 and the family distinctly named, the character of the 
 coming Deliverer, and his very name, announced. His 
 birthplace is to be Bethlehem; a virgin is to be his 
 mother ; the time approaches ; old Simeon shall live to 
 see him ; and now he is come — the babe in the manger, 
 the promised Deliverer in whom the j^urpose of love 
 is to attain its full and final development. This, says 
 Paul, is the Saviour of the world, in whom we have 
 redemption through his blood. His blood is the ran- 
 som which he pays for us (1 Cor. vi. 20 ; vii. 23 ; Matt. 
 XX. 28 ; Mark x. 45 ; 1 Tim. ii. 6 ; Tit. ii. 14), that the 
 claims of the law may be satisfied and the power of the 
 slaveholder broken. Hence the apostle adds the expos- 
 itory words "the forgiveness of sins." The apostle 
 teaches the same doctrine in more general terms when 
 he says, " Without shedding of blood there is no remis- 
 sion of sins" (Heb. ix. 22). The first blessing, there- 
 fore, connected with redemption is the forgiveness of 
 our sins. This is, indeed, what we most needed, and 
 it is the gift which glorifies God most of all. He does 
 not appear so glorious on the throne of creation as on 
 the throne of grace. Nothing but forgiveness can still 
 our inquietudes or make us look with tranquillity to the 
 judgment-day. Here, then, is the fountain opened in 
 the house of David for sin and for uncleanness, to which 
 the poorest and the vilest are invited to come. Here, 
 around the Man of sorrows — bleeding, dying and con- 
 quering in death — we take our place ; nor will we re- 
 
52 GRAHAM ON EPHESIANS. 
 
 move our gaze from the cross and the Crucified till 
 our eyes fill with tears and our hearts overflow with 
 love. 
 
 Fourth. Let us now mention, briefly, various partic- 
 ulars connected with this redemption, in order that we 
 may obtain, if it be possible, a comprehensive view of 
 the plan and intention of God in it and in us. 
 
 (1) The person is the Lord Jesus Christ, and there 
 is no other name given among men whereby we can be 
 saved. His blood alone can wash away our sins ; and 
 the reason is that he is the Son of God, he is the ap- 
 pointed I^amb, and there is no other sacrifice for sin. 
 In him is life, and the life is the light of men. All 
 the methods of obtaining pardon and quieting the con- 
 science by means of human merit are simply devices 
 of the devil. We have redemption in his blood, even 
 the forgiveness of our sins, according to the riches of 
 his grace. 
 
 (2) Redemption is twofold — redemption by ^^ri!<^e and 
 redemption by power, corresponding to his coming in 
 the flesh and his coming in glory. We have the one, 
 and we wait for the other. The price is paid and the 
 pardon sealed, but the inheritance is not yet clear, nor 
 the usurper cast out, nor the last enemy destroyed. But 
 eTesus is coming again, and the enemy shall be shut up for 
 a thousand years and the whole world filled with the 
 glory of God. This is redemption by power, called also 
 the redemption of the body (Rom. viii.), for wliich we 
 are to wait and pray patiently. Here again we see 
 how everything is connected with the person of Christ 
 and finds its importance and value in liim. The two 
 comings of Christ, the cross and the crown, are the two 
 centres of all Christian truth, the poles in the Script- 
 
CHAPTER I. VERSES 7-14. 53 
 
 lire firmament around which the stars of promise and 
 prophecy revolve. 
 
 (3) The importance of the doctrine of redemption is 
 seen in many ways. We see it in the frequency with 
 which it is mentioned in the ScrijDtures, where the cross 
 is the great attraction in which the Church of God, with 
 the apostle of the Gentiles, rejoices to glory. It is seen 
 in the various names of the Kedeemer which refer to 
 him as the propitiatory sacrifice for the sins of the 
 world ; in the offices which he sustains as Mediator ; 
 in the innumerable types, figures and allusions of 
 Scripture which find their force and significancy in 
 his redemption. It is seen in the dignity of the Per- 
 son that died, in the number and value of the souls he 
 has saved, in the wretchedness of the state in which he 
 found them, and in the holiness, blessedness and glory 
 to which he has lifted them up. The Author of it is 
 great, the end of it is great, and the means by which it 
 is accomplished are great and wonderful. Behold the 
 nations that are still in ignorance, brutality and bar- 
 barism — the nations that know not his name — and 
 think what he has done for us. Ask the angels who 
 accompanied him upon earth and at Bethelehem or the 
 grave : they will tell you the importance of redeeming 
 love ; ask the Church of the first-born who are written 
 in heaven what they think of the person and work of 
 the Redeemer, and they answer with the new song, 
 " Thou art worthy to take the book, and to open the 
 seals thereof: for thou wast slain, and hast redeemed 
 us to God by thy blood out of every kindred, and 
 tongue, and people, and nation ; and hast made us 
 unto our God kings and priests: and we shall reign 
 on the earth" (Rev. v. 9, 10); or ask a fallen spirit 
 
54 GRAHAM ON EPHESIANS. 
 
 whose day of grace is past, and he may be able to tell 
 you the importance of redeeming love. Oh, my broth- 
 er, this love is presented to thee now. For thee the 
 U'reat Victim died. Oh, was there ever love like this 
 love ? was there ever condescension like this ? O my 
 God and Father, is all this really true and all for me f 
 Thou hast, then, indeed thought of me, and my sins 
 were there when the Saviour died. Help me, then, 
 great God, to say, " From this day, and for evermore, 
 I give myself to thee, to thee — to thee alone ! Thou 
 art my God, and it is and shall be my great end to 
 please and love thee." 
 
 (4) The basis on which the doctrine of redemption 
 rests is found in the nature and constitution of man. 
 It is often asked by skeptics and others, " Is it possible 
 that a righteous one should suffer for the sins of the 
 world ? Is it just that the righteous should suffer for 
 the guilty?" Answer: "It is possible and right and 
 iu harmony with the whole history of nature and 
 Providence." 
 
 Consider the following facts : The race of man was 
 created in a unity ; men did not arise all at once by the 
 fiat of the Creator in their distinct personalities like the 
 angels : we were created in a representative head. This 
 is a fact which cannot be doubted or denied. It is a 
 fact, too, that we all fell in the fall of this head, and 
 the curse of sin and death flows over us all since that 
 fatal day. It is a fact that the nations and kingdoms 
 of the world are blessed or cursed in the providence of 
 God on the same principle of " the many in the one." 
 In Shem a whole race was blest ; in Ham a whole race 
 was cursed ; and Gen. xvi. 12 is the characteristic of 
 the Ishmaelites unto this day. The Jewish nation were 
 
CHAPTER I. VERSES 7-14. 55 
 
 chosen in Abraham, and the one holy people was taken 
 to be the means of blessing to all the Gentiles. It is so 
 in all our relations of life, and we can no more alter it 
 than we can raise the dead. A whole family is blest in 
 a good father or cursed in a bad one ; and so it is with 
 pastors and churches, with kings and nations. Now, if 
 you lay all these facts together, you will find that when 
 God ordained grace and salvation to the many through 
 the life and death of the one, he was acting out the 
 very principles according to which he created and 
 governs the human race. As to the innocent suffer- 
 ing for the guilty, the fact is too common to require any 
 consideration here. 
 
 (5) As to the fullness of the redemption made by 
 Christ, we have the words of the text to assure us that 
 it is " according to the riches of his graced He does 
 not measure his gifts by either our wishes or our wants, 
 but, having opened up the fountains of his mercy, he 
 will show to the angels and the whole creation how 
 high, how beautiful, how glorious, his grace can make 
 us. He is rich in mercy. The power which garnished 
 the heavens and the love which gave his Son to die 
 are united in " the riches of his grace." This is the 
 only measure which a sovereign God could give. His 
 own spontaneous bounty is the rule of his conduct in 
 l^lessing his creatures. This is reiterated and strength- 
 ened in the eighth verse : " Wherein he hath abounded 
 toward us in all wisdom and prudence." 
 
 The word wherein is a Greek genitive by a rule called 
 attraction, and refers, undoubtedly, to " grace," but the 
 form it stands for is not so easily determined. If we 
 take the verb " abound " in its natural, intransitive 
 meaning (John vi. 12; Phil. iv. 12, 18; Luke xv. 
 
56 GRAHAM ON EPHESIANS. 
 
 17), we must take the pronoun in the nominative case, 
 as Jerome did: ^^ Qucb superabundavit in nobis'' ("Ac- 
 cording to the riches of his grace which abounded in 
 us ") ; and so also Luther translates : " Welche uns 
 reichlich wiederfahren ist.'' De Wette and others take 
 the verb in its active sense (see 1 Ti;ess. iii. 12 ; 
 iv. 1) and the pronoun in the accusative, thus : " Welche 
 er uberschwenglich gemacht ' (" Which grace he has 
 made exceeding abundant toward us ") ; while Cal- 
 vin, our translators and others take the pronoun to 
 be for a dative, and translate : " Wherein or in which 
 he has abounded toward us in all wisdom and pru- 
 dence ;" and it might lie argued, as others have done, 
 that there is no attraction in the case, for the Greek 
 verb may govern a genitive, as is proved by Luke xv. 
 17. All these varieties make no essential difference in 
 the sense. Those who connect the words " in all wis- 
 dom and prudence " with " having made known," in 
 the ninth verse, pervert the entire meaning of the pas- 
 sage ; for the apostle is not speaking of the modes of 
 making known the divine will, but of the superabound- 
 ing grace of God. The meaning is, "In the redemp- 
 tion through the blood of Christ, God has manifested 
 supreme wisdom and prudence." Harless and Olshausen 
 indeed assert that the phrase " in all wisdom and pru- 
 dence " can never be applied to God, and consequently 
 they change the entire sentence and supply what they 
 deem requisite to complete the sense. But is this in- 
 terpretation ? It is very like making Scripture. But 
 why can we not say that God has manifested all wis- 
 dom and prudence in the redemption of the world 
 through Christ? All wisdom is supreme wisdom 
 {summa sapientia), and it has surely been manifested 
 
CHAPTER I. VERSES 7-14. 57 
 
 more fully in the system of redemption than anywhere 
 else. Is it not through the redeemed Church that Je- 
 hovah intends to make known his manifold wisdom to 
 the angels and principalities of heaven itself? (Eph. 
 iii. 10.) That prudence may be referred to God is clear 
 from Isa. xi. 2 ; Jer. x. 12 ; Prov. iii. 19 ; 1 Kings iii. 
 28. The passage therefore teaches that the wisdom and 
 the prudence of God were in the highest and noblest 
 manner displayed in the work of redemj^tion, nor will 
 any one to whom the cross is dear find much difficulty 
 in receiving; this truth. 
 
 II. The Dispensation of the Fullness of Times. 
 
 Having 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 ; even in 
 him : in whom also we have obtained an iiiheritance, be- 
 ing predestinated, according to the purpose of him who 
 worheth all things after the counsel of his own will : that 
 we should be to the praise of his glory, who first trusted 
 in Chi'ist. In whom ye also trusted, after that ye heard 
 the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation : in whom 
 also after that ye believed, ye were sealed with that holy 
 Spirit of promise, which is the earnest of our inheritance 
 until the redernption of the purchased possession, unto 
 the praise of his glory (i. 9-14). 
 
 This is the subject of our passage from the ninth to 
 the fourteenth verse, and we are now to set ourselves 
 with all diligence to contemplate this plan which God 
 has devitsed for the establishing and heading up the 
 creation in Christ. 
 
58 GRAHAM ON EPHESIANS. 
 
 First. Having made hnown the mystery of his ivill. 
 There are some things which we can know about God 
 without any divine revelation, and these are not revealed 
 to us in the Scriptures ; they are taken for granted as 
 already known (Rom, i. 2 ; Gen. i. 1). His eternal power 
 and Godhead are written on the works of his hands — 
 on the earth and the sea ; on the sun, moon and stars ; 
 and on the whole creation — so that idolatry and panthe- 
 ism are without excuse ; and every intelligent being is 
 bound from the visible universe to recognize and adore 
 Him who 
 
 " Warms in the sun, refreshes in the breeze, 
 Glows in the stars and blossoms in the trees, 
 Lives through all life, extends through all extent. 
 Spreads undivided, operates unspent." 
 
 But, while nature teaches clearly the fact that creative 
 power exists, how little does it teach us of the nature and 
 of the attributes of God ! We look up to the starry sky 
 and tremble before the power of the Creator, but, as 
 touching our own state and condition, we can learn 
 nothing of his will, his disposition toward us; and 
 therefore, the more sublime our conceptions of his power 
 and majesty, the more overwhelming must be our terror 
 and suspicion. When the power is manifest and the 
 purpose unknown, we cannot feel repose. . We seek a 
 loving heart that can be interested in us ; else the 
 thunderbolts of divine Power may either fly at random, 
 or perhaps they may be directed against us. Nature 
 reveals the Creator and the Bible the Father, and both 
 books are necessary to illustrate the character of Je- 
 hovah. He has made known the mystery of his will 
 in the Scriptures generally, but more especially in his 
 Son Jesus Christ. 
 
CHAPTER I. VERSKS 7-14. 59 
 
 Second. This revelation is " accoi'ding to his good 
 pleasure, which he hath jyurposed in hiuise/f before the 
 world began y The works of creation and providence, 
 taken in tlieir widest sense, are but the outward and 
 visible manifestation of the all-comprehending purpose 
 of God ; but the form which this purpose takes in 
 regard to the Church and the Church's Head is eudo- 
 kia — the good pleasure of God, the purpose of love, 
 the fullness of Jehovah's mercy to mankind. 
 
 The word vvliich we render pmyose has two significa- 
 tions in Scripture. It means " exhibition," and is ap- 
 plied to the show-bread (comp. LXX. and Heb. text, Ex. 
 XXXV. 13 ; xxxix. 36 ; 1 Kings vii. 48 ; 2 Chron. iv. 19) 
 which was placed in order before the Lord uj)on the 
 table in the holy place. So Jesus Christ is the true 
 temple of God, in which the ages and dispensations of 
 the Church and the world are arranged and exhibited 
 in outward reality. In him the whole system of prov- 
 idence, from the beginning, is harmoniously arrayed, 
 like the twelve cakes on the holy table. The seeds of 
 life, which ii the form of promise and revelation were 
 sown into oar world at different times, take root and 
 flourish in him; and, as nature does nothing by fits 
 and starts, so grace also, in the development of its 
 strength and majesty, moves onward through the ages 
 in an orderly and gradual manner, manifesting as it is 
 needed more and more of the fullness of Christ. But 
 the word denotes more frequently, as in our text, the 
 purpose from which all future arrangements and devel- 
 opments flow (Rom. viii. 28; ix. 11; Eph. iii. 11; 
 2 Tim. i. 9). Our text tells us this purpose was formed 
 ill the mind of God himself — that is, God the Father 
 a.s distinguished from the Son. Now, it is remarkable 
 
GO GRAHAM ON EPHESIANS. 
 
 that the election (that part of the purpose that relates 
 to the Church, Eph. i. 4 ; 2 Tim. i. 9) is referred to the 
 Son, and not to the Father ; and this only shows that 
 the purpose of God — so far as it refers to the Church, 
 so far as it carries in it the seeds of grace — can never 
 be contemplated apart from the Redeemer, through 
 vvhom alone, as Mediator, the divine mercy flows. 
 
 Third. The design of this plan or purpose is " that 
 in the dispensation of the fullness of times'^ (Greek " the 
 times ") " he anight gather together in one all things in 
 Ch7'ist, both which are iri heaven and which are on the 
 earth, even in him.^' The word translated dis2:)ensation 
 is economy, a Greek word which signifies " the law of 
 the house," and means the plan which a father lays 
 down for the management of his household — the house- 
 law ; and the apostle assures us that God is Econoiiie, 
 or Householder; that Jesus Christ, his Son, is the 
 Head or Steward, under whom it is his jDleasure to 
 gather together all things which are in heaven and 
 in earth. The Church Fathers, probably from this 
 passage, apply the word " economy " to the incarnation 
 of Christ, because that was the great fact which brought 
 him into union with the family of God, and is, indeed, 
 the most central truth in the system of grace and the 
 one which gives character and importance to all the 
 rest. The first truth taught, therefore, is this : " God 
 has a great family, and he now wishes to make known 
 the law of his house ;" his eternal purpose had respect 
 to this economy ; as its end, the fullness of the times 
 is to be subordinated to this fatherly design. The 
 word pleroma, whether you take it as " fullness " or 
 "complement," designates the whole series of ages 
 during which the Father remains working among the 
 
CHAPTER I. VERSES 7-14. 61 
 
 nations to subdue them to Christ (Ps. ex.). Jesus 
 Christ is the Head, in whom all things are to be 
 recapitulated and established. The neuter all things 
 is not used here, as some think, for the masculine " all 
 persons," as if the Headship of Christ referred only to 
 the Church ; for the word of God assures us that all 
 l^ower in heaven and in earth is given him ; and in 
 Eph. i. 22 he is declared to be Head over all things 
 to the Church, which is his body — the fullness of 
 him that filleth all in all. He is the Head of the 
 body and the Head over all. The Church is united 
 to the risen King with bands of love which nothing 
 can sever (E-om. viii. 35), and the whole created uni- 
 verse is subjected to his control. The temple of cre- 
 ation is broken and dilapidated by the fall ; sin has 
 marred its beauty and rent it to its foundations ; and 
 the office of Christ, as the Head of the Church and 
 the universe, is to reorganize what was decomposed and 
 re-collect the scattered fragments — as Beza expresses 
 it, " Summatim recolligere, partes dissectas et divukas in 
 unwn corpus conjimgere.'' This is the purpose of the 
 Lord, and it gives importance to the work and medi- 
 ation of Christ. He is the Head and Restorer in 
 whom the divine purpose shall be revealed and 
 perfected. 
 
 It is true, indeed, that at present we see but little of 
 the fullness of this purpose revealed ; but we see every- 
 thing in preparation for its speedy accomplishment. 
 The law of the Creator has been vindicated, so that, 
 without any violation of royal rights, mercy can be 
 extended to the rebellious race; the union between 
 the Creator and the creatui-e has been formed in the 
 person of the incarnate Bon, so that a living mediating 
 
62 GRAHAM ON EPHE81AXS. 
 
 Head between .Jehovah and his creatures has been 
 actually established in the heavens. The proclama- 
 tion of the gospel, through the mediation of the Re- 
 deemer, has resulted in the calling and sanctification 
 of the Gentile Church ; and when the number of his 
 elect shall be completed, the day of God shall reveal 
 more and more of his wondrous purpose of love, into 
 whose various parts, as the great drama is being trans- 
 acted on the theatre of this world, the holy angels 
 desire to look, and to learn the manifold wisdom of 
 God. 
 
 The fullness of the times can by no means be limited 
 to the present dispensation. On the contrary, the 
 gathering together of all things in the Christ has 
 respect mainly to the times of the restitution of all 
 things at the advent of the Lord, called also the times 
 of refreshing (Acts iii. 19, 20, where whe7i should be 
 translated " that " or " in order that ") which are to 
 fill every heart with joy and the whole earth with the 
 glory of the Lord. Then the creation, now groaning 
 and longing for the Deliverer (Rom. viii. 19-24), shall, 
 under the manifested Headship of the Mediator, be 
 brought into the glorious liberty of the children of 
 God. What further steps there may be in the prog- 
 ress of the divine purpose after the coming of Christ 
 and the resurrection of the saints, after the millennial 
 ages and the final judgment and through the ages of 
 eternity, we know not; but we say with the godly 
 Toplady, " The more the better." Yes, the ages shall 
 show us more and more of the love of God as they 
 roll on ; and the one living Head of the Church and 
 of the universe shall for ever and ever draw us on- 
 ward and upward into nearer and closer fellowship 
 
CHAPTER 1. VERSES 7-14. 63 
 
 with God, into the deeper and more comprehensive 
 knowledge of his wisdom, into ever-brighter visions of 
 his beatific glory. 
 
 We proceed now to sum up \hQ facts connected with 
 this dispensation of the fullness of the times, that we 
 may have them before us at one view. 
 
 (1) This purpose of pure and eternal love springs 
 from the spontaneous mercy of God, who before the 
 foundation of the world determined to redeem, re-estab- 
 lish and glorify his creature man (Eph. i. 4 ; Rom. viii. 
 28 ; 2 Thess. ii. 13 ; 2 Tim. i. 9 ; 1 Pet. i. 2 ; ii. 9, etc.). 
 
 (2) This purpose of electing love was by the Father 
 purposed in the Christ (Eph. i. 4 ; 1 Pet. i. 2), and in 
 him the means are to be found for executing and per- 
 fecting it ; so that grace to the sinner is evermore con- 
 nected with the person of the Redeemer, whether in 
 the purpose, the means or the final fruition. God in 
 Christ is the sinner's God, and the only refuge for him 
 is the throne of grace. 
 
 (3) There appear to be various forms or degrees of 
 the Headship of Christ. He is Head of the Church 
 (Eph. V. 23 ; iv. 15 ; Col. i. 18) ; he is Head of the 
 human race, the second Adam, in whom all shall be 
 made alive (1 Cor. xi. 3 ; xv. 22) ; he is the Head 
 of all authority and power, the Prince of the kings 
 of the earth, to whom they are bound to do homage 
 (Rev. i. 5) ; he is Head over the angels and principal- 
 ities of heaven (1 Pet. iii. 22). In a more general 
 sense still he is Head over all things, visible and in- 
 visible, the heavenly and the earthly, the whole created 
 universe (Eph. i. 10, 20, 21, 22; 1 Cor. xv. 27). 
 
 (4) From this passage Calvin drew the conclusion 
 that the death of Christ confirmed the unfallen angels 
 
64 GRAHAM ON EPHESIANS. 
 
 in their estate of holiness. Before the redemption- 
 work of the Saviour was completed the angels were 
 not out of the region of danger {extra -per iculum), but 
 the Headship of the risen Saviour has perfectly estab- 
 lished their union with God and made their glorious 
 state infallibly secure: '' Primum ut perfecte et solide 
 adhereant Deo, delude ut perpetumn datum retineantr 
 Grotius says there were formerly factions among the 
 aneels which the work of Christ removed: ^^Antea 
 inter angelos factiones erant — ea siistulit Christusy 
 These are speculations which are foreign to the pas- 
 sage and cannot be proved from the word of God. 
 Others, looking at this text in another light, seem anx- 
 ious to draw from it the conclusion that all mankind, 
 and even the fallen angels, shall finally be saved. This 
 opinion is, indeed, extensively entertained in Germany, 
 but it is entirely contrary to the letter and spirit of the 
 New Testament. Augustine speculated from one pas- 
 sage that the elect from among men were to make up 
 the number and occupy the place of the fallen angels. 
 Bengel and others make the gathering together of all 
 things to consist in tlie restoring, tli rough the Head- 
 ship of Christ, the harmony between angels and men 
 which sin had broken. This is indeed a truth of much 
 importance, and contained in the passage, but it does 
 not exhaust it. All these difficulties are removed by 
 taking the all things in their native sense as denoting 
 the universe, and not intelligent beings merely. In 
 this view the passage is in substance the same as Matt, 
 xviii. 18. The universal Headsliip is for the purpose 
 of revealing by and to the creation the unlimited au- 
 thority witli which He is invested. 
 
 (5) Let us, before leaving this magnificent passage, 
 
CHAPTER I. VERSES 7-14. 65 
 
 refresh our hearts and brighten our hopes by contem- 
 plating the Headship of Christ in its relations to our- 
 selves. He, then, is passed into the heavens as our 
 Forerunner and Head who erewhile atoned for our 
 guilt on the accursed tree. He is gone to the right 
 hand of God in our immortalized and glorified human- 
 ity, far above principality and power and every name 
 that is named, not only in this world, but also in that 
 which is to come. What virtues and capacities must 
 be in the nature of man, when it is capable of such 
 enlargement and glorification ! W^ at sin must be, 
 which has brought us into Satan's rule and the cor- 
 ruption of the grave ! And oh, what must the grace 
 of God be, whicli has stooped so low that it might 
 reach us an 1 then lift us to such heights o':' glory? 
 Our nature is enthroned on the dominion of the uni- 
 verse ; our human nature, in the person of the God- 
 Man, is shown to be the royal form of created being — 
 the regnant and dominant race whom it delighted the 
 heavenly King to hon(n". Verily, here is a hope set 
 before us, my brother, w! ich may well make the eye 
 brighten and the heart leap. Oh, here is the dignity 
 of human nature in its true and eternal importance — 
 a dignity which philosophers little dreamed of; so 
 high, so ennobling, so inconceivable, so like the glo- 
 rious God who devised it, so worthy of the redeeming 
 love which procured it, so demonstrative of the failure 
 of all Satan's rage and malevolence against us, of the 
 reversal of the curse, of the abolition of deat •, of the 
 triumph of righteousness, of the irreversible purpose 
 and progress of Jehovah's love to mankind. I am far, 
 therefore, from subscribing to the opinion of C lirysos- 
 tom, who says, " God has appointed one Head He has 
 
66 GRAHAM ON EPHESIANS. 
 
 given one sovereignty in Jesus Christ over angels and 
 men. As man, he is Head of the human race; as 
 God the Word, he is Head of the angels." For, first, 
 there is more in the ta panla (all things) of our text 
 than the two races of men and angels ; and, secondly, 
 it is utterly unscriptural to separate the natures of 
 Christ and say the divine rules over the angels and 
 the human over mankind. No ; the one person of the 
 Christ, the one God-Man Mediator, rules over both, 
 over all, and is the one undivided, all-sustaining, all- 
 uniting, all-comprehending Head of the whole universe. 
 We recognize our own nature in this living Head, and 
 feel that we have a Friend above who knows our frame 
 and remembers that we are dust. Here is the dignity 
 and the destiny of man. Look to the stable and the 
 cross and the grave, and believe in the humiliation of 
 the Son of God. Look to the right hand of the Majesty 
 on high, and behold the exaltation of the Son of man. 
 Ye weeping saints, ye dying martyrs, look up stead- 
 fastly into heaven like Stephen, and in the glory of the 
 heavenly throne behold the form of the Son of man. 
 Here, here, is the bright high home of the redeemed 
 Church. Here, here, in the circle of the throne (Rev. 
 v. 11), in the presence of Him who loved us, with 
 him for ever, and like him in every faculty of the 
 mind and in every fibre of the body, we shall know 
 more than did Baxter of the saint's everlasting rest. 
 The apostle adds, for the sake of emphasis, and to 
 serve as a connection with the next verse, even in him. 
 All things in him — even in him. His person is the 
 centre of the apostle's thoughts and hopes, and it 
 should be the centre of ours too. Of him all nature 
 and grace should testify, and does to the ear of reason 
 
CHAPTER I. VERSES 7-14. 67 
 
 and the heart of love. We feel him in the life of our 
 renewed nature ; we see him in the sun, moon and stars, 
 and in the light of the circumambient air. The lamb 
 and the lion testify of him ; the vine with its pendent 
 clusters, the rose of Sharon and the lily-of-the-valley 
 are monitors to point our thoughts to him. Our life 
 is hid with him in God, and when He who is our life 
 shall appear, then shall we also appear with him in 
 glory (Col. iii. 1-5). We labor in him, and our weak- 
 ness becomes strong through the union ; we die in him 
 when our work is done, and in him we find our ever- 
 lasting crown. It is a holy habit of mind to contem- 
 plate all things in him ; to read every lesson which 
 nature teaches in the light of his love ; to find him 
 ever present, ever near, in all that can befall us in 
 both eternity and time. 
 
 We come now to the eleventh and twelfth verses, 
 which reveal to us — 
 
 III. The Inheritance. 
 
 Li whom also we have obtained an inheritance, being 
 predestinated according to the purpose of him who work- 
 eth all things after the counsel of his own ivill : that 
 we should be to the praise of his glory, who first trust- 
 ed in Christ (ver. 11, 12). 
 
 In whom also ive have obtained an inheritance. The 
 Greek verb here contains a reference to the possessions 
 of the children of Israel, which were divided to them 
 by lot ; and hence many of the ancients, and De Wette 
 among the moderns, render it thus: "In whom we 
 were chosen, being predestinated according to his 
 purpose." But this gives only a frigid meaning, and, 
 besides, another and more proper word is used for the 
 
68 GRAHAM ON EPHESIANS. 
 
 election in verse 4. It may, indeed, very well include 
 the idea of both the mode of the election and the pos- 
 session ; and, consequently, Bloomfield renders it thus • 
 " Through whom also we have allotted to us this pos- 
 session." The principal idea, however, is the inherit- 
 ance, and not the ynode of obtaining it; and hence 
 Luther, Meyer and Harless have rendered it exactly 
 as our translators have done : "In whom we have 
 obtained an inheritance." The text, therefore, is sub- 
 stantially the same as Col. i. 12; Acts xx. 32; xxvi. 
 18; Rom. viii. 17, and carries the mind away to the 
 blessedness reserved for the righteous. 
 
 The Israelites in their bondage looked for an earth- 
 ly Canaan, and we too are marching from lilgypt to 
 Canaan — to an inheritance incorruptible and un defiled 
 and that fadeth not away. Hope is an essential part of 
 our being, and the form which the future blessings of 
 the new covenant take is that of an inheritance. In 
 Egypt the Israelites hoped for deliverance, and God de- 
 livered them ; in the wilderness they looked for a settled 
 resting-place, and G.)d broui;ht them finally over the 
 Jordan into the Promised Land. But did they then 
 cease to hope ? No ; there were in them from the be- 
 ginning the seeds of a better and more enduring in- 
 heritance, and the nation was filled and its whole wor- 
 ship and ritual interpenetrated with the hopes of a 
 coming Messias, who wa^ to make an end of sin and 
 bring in everlasting righteousness. And now that 
 Moses has laid off the veil, and the Christian Church 
 is surrounded with the splendors of a brighter light 
 and a better covenant, is there nothing left to hope for ? 
 Yes, very much. The whole creation is groaning and 
 travailing in pain together until now ; and we who have 
 
CHAPTER I. VERSES 7-14. 69 
 
 received the first-fruits of the Spirit are waiting for the 
 adoption, which is the redemption of the body, which 
 is the resurrection from the dead, which is the coming 
 of Christ, which is the blessed hope which purifies us 
 even as he is pure (Rom. viii. 19-24 ; 1 John iii. 
 2, 3). 
 
 Nor can we argue against the futurity of the inherit- 
 ance from the aorist form of the verb — we have obtained 
 an inheritance — for such is the language of Scripture 
 generally, and such must ever be the language of faith, 
 which overlooks all distinctions of time and space and 
 seeks to appropriate as much as possible the realities of 
 the future. Thus the believer is crucified with Christ, 
 buried with him by baptism into death, raised with him 
 to a new life and seated with him in heavenly places. 
 We have all when we have Christ. We have the crown, 
 for it is laid up for us in heaven (2 Tim. iv. 8) ; it is 
 really ours, and we shall get possession of it when the 
 King comes (1 Pet. v. 4). The inheritance is GUI'S, 
 but it is reserved in the skies for us until the appearing 
 of Jesus Christ (1 Pet. i. 7). Besides, we may be said 
 to have obtained, because Jesus, our Head and Fore- 
 runner, has obtained it for us. He is the First-Born of 
 the family, the First-Fruits of the harvest ; and as surely 
 as he has entered into his glory, so surely shall all his 
 redeemed people follow him. We are joint-heirs with 
 Christ ; and he, having triumphed over our enemies and 
 broken down the barriers of sin and death that ob- 
 structed us, has entered in our name into the common 
 inheritance of all the saints. He has obtained it for 
 them, and in the proper time he shall put them into 
 the actual possession of it. We have also a first-fruits 
 of this inheritance in the eiFusion of the Holy Spirit, 
 
70 GRAHAM ON EPHESIANS. 
 
 which is the earnest of our inheritance until the re- 
 demption of the purchased possession (Eph. i. 14). 
 
 But the more important question for the believer is, 
 " What is the inheritance which we expect ? We know 
 he has died, and sin is no more ; we know he is risen, 
 and death is no more ; we know that he is ascended, 
 and the Holy Ghost, the Comforter, abides with us for 
 ever. What more has he procured for us ?" llie in- 
 heritance ! But who shall describe the glories of the 
 redeemed Church when they are all gathered home 
 into the many-mansioned house of their Father in 
 heaven ? 
 
 First. We may learn something of this inheritance 
 from its names in the Holy Scripture. They are prom- 
 ised a kingdom in which they shall be kings and 
 priests unto God for ever and ever (Rev. i. 6). It is 
 called heaven, the dwelling-place of God, where they 
 shall have the fullness of joy at his right hand and 
 rivers of pleasure for evermore. It is called the city 
 of God, the New Jerusalem, where the saints are the 
 citizens, Jesus being the King and love the law. The 
 Scripture delineations of the New Jerusalem are ex- 
 tremely beautiful and altogether different from the 
 paradise of the Moslems (Heb. xi. 10 ; xii. 22 ; Rev. 
 iii. 12; xxi. 1-27). Augustine has incorporated all 
 these into his fine Latin hymn on the glories of par- 
 adise, and old David Dixon has done the same in 
 English in his immortal canticle beginning with the 
 words 
 
 " O mother dear, Jerusalem." 
 
 It is called our Father's house — the place where the 
 family meet and where the family treasures are kept. 
 It is the upper sanctuary or holiest of all, where they 
 
CHAPTER I. VERSES 7-14. 71 
 
 need no candle, neither light of the sun, but the Lord 
 God and the Lamb are the light thereof. It is called 
 the believer's cup or portion, the heavenly reward and 
 the crown of glory that fadeth not away. It is called 
 joy, the highest name for the blessedness of the right- 
 eous, and they are taken into it by the Lord himself 
 (Matt. XXV. 21). It is the rest of the satisfied soul in 
 God, of which Richard Baxter has written so well (2 
 Thess. i. 7 ; Heb. iv. 1-5). It is the true paradise of 
 God, of which Eden was but a type. It is called glory 
 (Heb. ii. 10), eternal glory (1 Pet. v. 10), inasmuch as 
 the ineffable effulgence of Godhead fills the place. 
 These are some of the names given to the inheritance 
 of the saints, and surely they are well calculated to fill 
 us with the purest and the most ennobling hopes. 
 
 Second. But what are the enjoyments of our heavenly 
 home ? These, we may well suppose, are spiritual. The 
 carnal mind, which is enmity against God, has no place 
 there, and the thousand cares and evil influences which 
 distract or irritate the mind on earth are all removed 
 from that better land. The rose blooms there without 
 the thorns, and the holiness and the love which were 
 here blighted by ungenial climes flourish there in the 
 freshness and vigor of immortality. The heart of the 
 redeemed will expand and expatiate in the ocean-full- 
 ness of divine love. He who redeemed them is in the 
 midst of them, and will lead them to the fountains of 
 living waters. New views of his redeeming love, new 
 and fresh visions of his adorable person, fresh and ever- 
 deeper disclosures of the mercy which pitied and the 
 power which glorified them, shall break forth upon 
 tlieir enraptured minds ; they shall praise, love and 
 adore him for ever in his holy temple. 
 
72 GRAHAM ON EPHESIANS. 
 
 Their intellectual faculties will be enlarged and puri- 
 fied. Before them shall lie the whole circle of creation, 
 the system of Providence and the character and attri- 
 butes of God. His wisdom, love and power they shall 
 be able to trace in the mysteries of nature and provi- 
 dence, which are now hid from human eyes. Newton 
 has by this time left his Prmcipia far behind him, and 
 Milton could publish a new and improved edition of 
 Paradise Regained. The enjoyments of the mind must 
 make up a great part of the blessedness of heaven. The 
 freed and expanded reason will no doubt delight in 
 tracing the laws of the material universe and the su- 
 preme wisdom which ordained them, the rise and 
 progress of the various kingdoms and empires, nations 
 and races, which constitute the dominion of God ; in 
 tracing the wisdom, love and goodness of the Creator in 
 every department of being, from the insect on earth to 
 the seraph before the throne. Oh what a field for the 
 intellect ! what fruits of wisdom and knowledge to be 
 gathered by the imaginative mind! 
 
 Nor are we to forget the enjoyments of the body, 
 which will then be in perfect harmony with the 
 volitions of the mind. Jesus has taken our body 
 into heaven, immortal and glorified, and we are to 
 be raised from the dead in the likeness of his glory. 
 The soul is not the man, but a part of the man, and 
 can never be perfect till united with the perfected 
 body on the morning of the resurrection. They were 
 made for each other, and their separation by death is 
 the most frightful, unnatural and diabolical thing in the 
 universe, save sin, which is its cause. Shall there be 
 710 music to charm the ear in the sanctuary above ? or 
 shall the redeemed delight in the beauty of nature 
 
CHAPTER I. VERSES 7-14. 73 
 
 no more ? No, verily ; but the ear shall be made per- 
 fect, and there shall be perfect music to fill it, and 
 the eye shall enlarge its vision, and the whole body, 
 with all its senses and sympathies, shall be made 
 worthy of its place and destiny — worthy of creative 
 wisdom and redeeming love. 
 
 Then what enjoyments must flow from out fellowship 
 with God and the E-edeemer, through the Holy Ghost, 
 the Comforter, with the angels of light and the Church 
 of the first-born ! Ah me ! how the weary heart longs 
 sometimes for all this ! how earthly glory grows dim 
 when we think of it ! how the poor soul in such seasons 
 gets eagle-glances of her destiny before the time and all 
 but love and life fade from her enraptured vision ! 
 
 Third. It is very important to observe the force of 
 the two little words, in ivhom, which connect the in- 
 heritance with Christ. Take in to be synonymous 
 with " through " — which it often is (Matt. xvii. 21 ; 
 Gal. iii. 11 ; 2 Tim. ii. 10) — and the meaning is 
 " through Jesus we obtain the inheritance ;" or take 
 it, as is still more natural, to denote " unity," " locality," 
 "oneness," and the sense is still more sublime. Our 
 inheritance is in him; we seek no fountain but his 
 love, no excellency save in his person, no hope save 
 in his promises, no glory save that of being with him 
 and like him for ever (1 John iii. 1-5). He is our 
 inheritance. We can say with still greater fervor and 
 fullness than the venerable Psalmist, "Whom have 
 I in heaven but tliee ? and there is none upon earth 
 that I desire beside thee" (Ps. Ixxiii. 25). To the 
 mind of the apostle everything good and noble and 
 beautiful is so only by its union with Christ, its being 
 from him or leading to him. 
 
 10 
 
74 GEAHAM ON EPHESIANS. 
 
 Fourth, This inheritance is obtained by those " who 
 are predestinated according to the purpose of him who 
 worheth all things after the counsel of his own will" 
 (ver. 11). The apostle here returns to the eternal 
 purpose of God, of which he had spoken in the fourth 
 verse. He sees the original cause of human salvation 
 in the free sovereign will of God, and he loses no op- 
 portunity of rejDeating and insisting upon this hum- 
 bling doctrine of free grace. We had forfeited all ; 
 and if deliverance be possible, it must flow from the 
 divine mercy. 
 
 Fifth. But this inheritance is to work a certain end 
 and disposition in us, ' that we should he to the praise 
 of his gloryT The glory of God is the final cause 
 of the whole dispensation, and all things in nature 
 and grace must contribute to that end. 
 
 The we in the twelfth verse is opposed to the ye in 
 the thirteenth, and a contrast is clearly intended ; but 
 who the parties are is not so easily made out. Some 
 take the we to be the Jews and tlie ye the Gentiles, 
 thus : " We, the Jewish nation, hoped in Christ from the 
 beginning ; we were the first in whom the promise of 
 deliverance took root, and God has given us the inher- 
 itance, that we should be to the praise of his glory ; 
 and now ye. Gentiles, have also been brought to believe 
 in him by the preaching of the gospel." This exposi- 
 tion is improbable. Others expound it thus : " We, 
 the first Jewish Christians, are to the praise of his 
 glory ; we were the first to acknowledge him as the 
 Messiah, the Son of God. The apostles were all 
 Jews; the early Christian Church was mainly made 
 uj) of Jewish converts. We trusted in Christ before 
 you Gentiles, and now ye also are brought to the faith 
 
CHAPTER I. VERSES 7-14. 76 
 
 by the word of the gospel." Here the two parties are 
 the Jewish and the Gentile converts, and this, I believe, 
 is the meaning of the passage. De Wette, on the 
 other hand, denies that there is any reference to 
 Jewish or Gentile Christians in the passage, and so 
 do many others. According to Harless and Olshausen, 
 the phrase " to the praise of his glory,'' instead of being 
 the end to which all points, is a mere parenthetical 
 explanatory clause, and the sentence is made to give 
 this sense : " We were predestinated to be those who 
 (to the praise of his glory) first trusted in Christ," 
 making the purpose of verse 12 terminate in the call- 
 ing and endowment of the Jewish Church. But, in 
 the first place, this gives a weak and insufficient final 
 cause for the eternal purpose of God ; and, secondly, 
 " to the praise of his glory,'' in verse 14 and verse 6, 
 has nothing of the nature of an explanatory clause, 
 and it is arbitrary to make it such here. Besides, it 
 seems quite foreign to the purpose of the apostle in 
 this chapter to refer, and in such terms, to the peculiar 
 j)rivileges of the Jewish nation. I believe the sentence 
 ends with verse 12, and in verse 13 a new sentence 
 and a new subject begin, comprehending the thirteenth 
 and fourteenth verses. 
 
 The connection of the passage is difficult, and the 
 train of thought so broken that, without violence to 
 the words, it is not easy to make out a clear, consistent 
 meaning. Grotius indeed asserts that the apostle is 
 so full of his great theme that he pays no attention 
 to grammatical construction : "Apostoli minutas illas 
 eonstructionis regulas non curabant {itaque genera casus, 
 pronomena scepe commutahaat !) verhorwn incuriosi, 
 quum tantcB res mentem ambirent." If this were so 
 
76 GRAHAM ON EPHESIANS. 
 
 to any considerable extent, the word of God would 
 certainly be unintelligible, and the idea of inspiration 
 would be preposterous. 
 
 The train of thought in the mind of the apostle was 
 probably something like the following : " Jesus is the 
 universal Head (ver. 10), and the whole creation is re- 
 established and recapitulated in him. In him also we 
 (the early apostolic Church) have obtained our inherit- 
 ance (ver. 11). In this universal Headship he has not 
 forgotten his believing people, but has ordained them 
 to be to the praise of his glory ; and, following the 
 law of his universal kingdom, he has honored most 
 those who loved and labored most, even those Jewish 
 Christians who before all others believed in him and 
 followed him." Now, this is a great fact, and the 
 history of the Church confirms it. Salvation is of 
 the Jews ; the twelve apostles were all Jews ; all the 
 books of the New Testament were written by Jews ; 
 all inspiration is from them ; and the churches of the 
 risen Saviour were all founded by the twelve apostles 
 of the Lamb. Surely these facts make the twelfth 
 verse clear and intelligible. Jesus was the Foundation- 
 stone of the temple, and he was a Jew, and it pleased 
 him to have the course next him JewB also. This is 
 a great honor, and it is given them because they first 
 trusted in Christ ; and many, with Sir Isaac Newton 
 and Joseph Mede, believe that the last course before 
 the top-stone will be Jew8 also; so that, as those who 
 first believed after his coming in flesh were Jews, those 
 who shall last believe before his coming in glory will 
 be Jews also. Be this as it may, the twelfth verse 
 seems to teach that the Jewish believers have a peculiar 
 honor, and this honor is because they/>-6'^ believed in 
 
CHAPTER I. VERSES 7-14. 77 
 
 Christ. This is very naturaL The Moslems honor 
 " the companions of the prophet " above all others, 
 and Ali, the first believer, became the hero and 
 demigod of the nation. We, with better reason, refer 
 to the early apostolic C'hurch as the mother and 
 mistress of all churches ; and on the whole earth 
 there has never been any society so noble, so vigor- 
 ous, so full of life and fearless in the hour of danger, 
 so firm and triumphant in persecution and death, as 
 that heroic band. They were to the praise of his 
 glory. They followed Christ first and closest and 
 farthest. This was their highest honor. So is it 
 always : faith brings honor, and strong faith, in evil 
 times, brings si^ecial honor. God does not respect 
 the pomps and splendors of the world. He infinite- 
 ly magnifies the moral over the natural by the call- 
 ing and endowments of the apostolic Church. He 
 shows thereby clearly to all men that faith, holiness, 
 purity, are the characteristics of the Church and peo- 
 ple which he delighteth to honor. Be it ours to follow 
 this heroic band ! Be their faith, their fortitude, their 
 victory, ours ! Their life was battle, their death was 
 victory, their reward was glory. Trust ! trust ! trust 
 the Lord for his promised aid, and keep the apos- 
 tolic Church still before you ! Jesus is the same yes- 
 terday and to-day and for ever. All things are yours, 
 and ye are Christ's, and Christ is God's. 
 
 But we come now to the thirteenth and fourteenth 
 verses, which tell us of — 
 
 IV. The Sealing of the Spirit. 
 In whom ye also ti'usted, after that ye heard the word, 
 of truth, the gospel of your salvation : in whom ako 
 
78 GRAHAM ON EPHESIANB. 
 
 after that ye believed, ye were sealed loith that holy 
 Spirit of promise, which is the earnest of our inherit- 
 ance until the redemption of the purchased possession, 
 unto the |j?'a/5e of his glory (ver. 13, 14). 
 
 In whom ye also. The word trusted is supplied by 
 Beza, our translators and others, and this makes good 
 sense and gives the spirit of the passage. Meyer sup- 
 plies the substantive verb, and reads, " In whom ye 
 are," building upon all the passages in which the be- 
 lievers are said to be in Christ. He stands alone in 
 this, so far as I know. Very many translators sup- 
 ply the words from the eleventh verse, and read thus : 
 " In whom ye also have obtained an inheritance." I 
 believe all such additions are unnecessary, and that 
 the second vn ivhom (which can never, after the man- 
 ner of the Hebrew, mean " inasmuch as," as Morus 
 thought) is a repetition of the first, to make the mean- 
 ing clearer, after the first member of the sentence had 
 been given. The whole sentence runs thus : " In whom 
 ye also, after that you heard the word of truth, the gos- 
 pel of your salvation (I say), in whom also, after that 
 ye believed, ye were sealed with the Holy Spirit of 
 promise." The second in whom, like the first, refers 
 to Christ, in whom the Jewish Christians first trusted 
 (v. 12). But, leaving these small points of criticism 
 (their name is Legion), let us attend to the substance 
 of the apostolic utterance. 
 
 First. The names which the apostle gives the gospel 
 are important. It is the gospel of your salvation, be- 
 cause it is the only means revealed to man of escaping 
 the wrath to come ; it is also called the word of truth, 
 because all its statements, promises and prophecies are 
 true and faithful, like God, its Author. A great man 
 
CHAPTER I. VERSES 7-14. 79 
 
 has uttered a great truth in saying, " It has God for its 
 Author, salvation for its end, and truth, without mix- 
 ture of error, for its contents." It is the power of God 
 unto salvation to every one that believeth (Rom. i. 16), 
 and none that rested upon its promises were ever put 
 to shame. Salvation and truth are necessarily con- 
 nected together in the mind of the apostle, and we 
 should never seek to dissever them. Eri'or can never 
 sanctify us or fit us for meeting God. The j^rayer of 
 our heavenly Master is, " Sanctify them by thy truth, 
 thy word is truth." His own name, like that of his 
 gospel is " the Truth,^' and the enemy whose works he 
 came to destroy is '' the liar from the beginning who 
 abode not in the truth." Stand fast, then, for the 
 truth, as your fathers did ; and for which, too, some 
 of them died at the stake. They held by the gospel 
 and rejected the superstitious additions and command- 
 ments of men. Do you the same. There is an infi- 
 delity which rejects all, and there is a superstition 
 that swallows down all : reject them both and hold 
 by the Bible, as your fathers did. 
 
 Second. The first d/uty on hearing the gospel is faith, 
 and until this is established no future blessing can be 
 expected. This is necessary, not because the giving of 
 the gifts is connected with faith, but because the receiv- 
 ing of them is. The fountain may be opened for us in 
 the wilderness, but we may neither feel our need of 
 it nor believe that it is there ; we may refuse to look 
 though the serpent be lifted up. Faith is the organ 
 which connects us with God and Christ and the real- 
 ities of eternity. Till faith comes the gospel is a dead 
 letter, a theory merely. Its heat does not warm us, 
 its light does not shine into our hearts, its voice of 
 
80 GKAHAM ON EPHESIANS. 
 
 mercy falls on a cold ear. The Ephesians believed 
 the gospel when they heard it — viz., a few scattered, 
 despised people in the great city of Ephesus did so ; for 
 the multitudes of that luxurious capital were too much 
 1)ent on the pleasures of the world to think of Calvary 
 or the forgiveness of sins or the resurrection of the 
 dead and judgment to come. The carnal mind was, and 
 is, enmity against God ; and if any man love the world, 
 the love of the Father is not in him. These are terri- 
 ble sayings, though men heed them but little. When 
 faith comes, it alters all things. It places us in a new 
 and entirely different position. A new scene of sur- 
 passing beauty begins to dawn when the spirit is in 
 the semi-slumber of awakening consciousness ; it dis- 
 cerns — indistinctly, it may be, like Paul when smitten 
 to the earth near Damascus — in the luminous future the 
 form of the Son of man, still as tender and as loving 
 as when he died ; new and fresh hopes bud and fructify 
 in the soul as we apprehend more and more clearly 
 the nature of the gospel, and faith, strengthened and 
 enlarged by exercise, becomes the dominant principle 
 of our lives. We live by faith. The life that comes 
 from the smitten rock flows into us and returns again 
 to its source in the forms of thanksgiving and praise. 
 Jesus is now the home of our hearts ; all our affections 
 naturally centre in him. The seeds of life are sown 
 in our hearts, and the office of the Comforter is to 
 water and fructify them. Heaven is begun and the 
 first principles of the kingdom of God are established 
 within us. Now we have an anchor to hold us in the 
 storms ; we have a great, noble end in view, and all 
 things are subsidiary to it. Joy and sorrow, wealth 
 and poverty, the changes of fortune, life and death. 
 
CHAPTER I. VERSES 7-14. 81 
 
 are mere accidents which our Master, for our good, 
 dis])enses as he pleases; but the living principle 
 which animates our entire life is that, whether ab- 
 sent or present, we may be accepted of Him (2 Cor. 
 V.9). 
 
 Third. Let us now contemplate the sealing, which 
 comes before us in these words : '^ After that ye believed, 
 ye tvere sealed with that holy Spirit of jtromiser The 
 progress of the divine purpose in the soul is the follow- 
 ing : The election, the hearing of the word, faith, bap- 
 tism, and, finally, the sealing of the Spirit (Acts ii. 
 37-39 ; viii. 12, 15, 17 ; xix. 5-7). (Comp. Tit. iii. 5 ; 
 Gal. iii. 2.) The only example of the sealing of the 
 Spirit before baptism is Acts x. 44,* and is given, prob- 
 ably, to show that God is not bound to ordinances, but 
 works when and where and in whom he pleases. The 
 Holy Spirit works indeed in giving faith (Acts xvi. 14) ; 
 yet this gracious o^^eration is only preliminary and sub- 
 sidiary to the sealing. This, in the apostolic times, 
 was often accompanied with signs and wonders and 
 the gift of tongues, as we see in the Acts of the Apos- 
 tles (ii. 4 ; viii. 15 ; xix. 5, Q). I do not say that these 
 signs are necessary at all times to the sealing of the 
 Spirit, for they ceased since the apostolic age, and even 
 then the inward fruits of righteousness, the love of 
 God and the Saviour, which the Spirit works in the 
 heart — the righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy 
 Ghost — were the real sealing, and much more import- 
 ant essentially than the power to cast out devils, raise 
 the dead or speak with tongues. We may say, in gen- 
 eral, love is nobler than power — the permanent fruit 
 of the Spirit in the Church — a nobler seal than the 
 
 * When Peter preached Christ to Cornelius and his f^iend^^. 
 11 
 
82 GRAHAM ON EPHESIANS. 
 
 manifestations of Sinai or the miracles of the primi- 
 tive Church. 
 
 But what is this seal ? A seal is a signet or a signet- 
 ring used by kings and others for various important 
 ends, some of which we shall now mention. (1) A seal 
 was attached to letters to give them the royal authority ; 
 and so the Church is the epistle of Christ, known and 
 read of all men (2 Cor. iii. 3). The gifts and graces of 
 the Holy Spirit are the seal of God upon this epistle 
 of his mercy, where the nations of the world and the 
 angels of heaven may read his manifold wisdom (Eph. 
 iii. 10). (2) A seal is used to secure the possession of 
 property (E,om. xv. 28) and to show that it belongs to 
 a particular master, and no other. It has his seal. 
 Jesus Christ has purchased his people with his own 
 precious blood, and the sealing of the Spirit is the mark 
 that they belong to him. They are safe, for they are 
 sealed with his seal, and they shall never perish, nor 
 shall any pluck them out of his hand. (3) As the 
 seal is the conclusion of the letter or the agreement, so 
 it signifies often the last, the e7id, the perfection ; thus 
 the Moslems call Mohammed the seal of the prophets 
 — viz., the last and most glorious of them. In this re- 
 spect, also, the sealing of the Spirit is full of meaning. 
 He is the last of the heavenly witnesses, and to blas- 
 pheme him is certain destruction. The Father has 
 manifested his love to us in the gift of his Son ; on the 
 cross, in the great atonement, the Son has manifested 
 his love and grace to the children of men. If we reject 
 this double testimony of grace, there is still another 
 voice to call us to God, even the Holy Spirit, who in 
 the divine economy comes after the Son as the last and 
 ever-abiding Comforter of the Church. He is the last 
 
CHAPTER I. VERSES 7-14. 83 
 
 gieat gift of God, the seal of the living God upon the 
 vessels fitted for the Master's use. What the Father 
 originates and the Son carries on tlie Holy Spirit per- 
 fects. The Father elects, the Son redeems, the Holy 
 Spirit sanctifies, seals and glorifies the Church. (See 
 Ezek. xxviii. 12; Dan. ix. 2, in Heb.) These may be 
 taken as illustrating the work of the Spirit in sealing 
 us unto the day of redemption. 
 
 The text plainly teaches that the sealing is something 
 different from the Spirit's work in producing faith ; for 
 it is said, ^^ After that ye believed, ye were sealed with that 
 holy Spirit of promise.'" We see the sealing of the 
 Spirit, therefore, in the growth of the divine life in the 
 soul, in the ripening of the fruits of righteousness, in 
 the full assurance of faith and the growing conformity 
 to the image of God. There are various steps or de- 
 grees in the inner kingdom of righteousness, peace and 
 joy in the Holy Ghost. We hear the word, which is 
 the first step ; we believe it, which is the second ; by 
 baptism we are incorporated with the body of Christ, 
 and that is another ; the sealing of the Spirit now ripens 
 us for the heavenly garner ; then death brings us an- 
 other step nearer the destiny that awaits us ; then 
 comes the advent, which is the resurrection from the 
 dead and gives us the final blessedness in all its full- 
 ness and glory. 
 
 Fourth. He is called in our text " that holy Spirit of 
 promise." The Land of Promise means the Promised 
 Land ; the receiving of the promise of the Spirit (Acts ii. 
 33) means receiving the effusion of the promised Spirit, 
 and so we are to interpret here ; the promise is taken 
 for the thing promised. (Comp. Gal. iii. 14.) We are, 
 therefore, thrown back upon the Old Testament, where 
 
84 GRAHAM ON EPHESIANS. 
 
 the Holy Spirit is proms d to mankind (Jwelii. 28-32 ; 
 Isa. xliii. 3; Eze -:. xxx x. 2i) ; Zech, xii, 10). He is 
 indeed called, in Acts i. 4, the promise of the Father, 
 because it was the pur2:)ose of the Father to give him 
 to the faithful. Thus the Jewish nation were the de- 
 pository of two great promises which in the fullness of 
 time were made over to the Gentiles — the j)romise of 
 redemj)tion through the Son, and the promise of sanc- 
 tification through the. Spirit, of God. 
 
 But, it may be asked, to whom is this promise given? 
 It is to thee, brother, and to me ; to all that are weary 
 and heavy-laden — yea, to all that are ignorant and re- 
 bellious (Ps. Ixviii. 18 ; Acts ii. 4, 33). Read also Luke 
 xi. 5-13, and see how good and how tender, how loving 
 and how earnest, is thy heavenly Father. How full 
 and free his grace ! Ask ! seek ! knock ! and your 
 Father shall give you his Holy Spirit. His love is 
 free, and the water of life is without money and with- 
 out price. The two great promises of the Old Testa- 
 ment are fulfilled : the L'lmb is slain, and the Com- 
 forter is come. The veil is rent in the cross, and the 
 Church is sanctified and sealed by the Comforter. 
 
 Fifth. For the eaimest of the inheritance (ver. 14) 
 see 2 Cor. i. 22 ; v. 5, where, as in our text, it is con- 
 nected with the Holy Spirit. The word here used for 
 earnest is the Hebrew arahon, which means a pledge 
 (Gen. xxxviii. 17-20) given to make sure all that is 
 23romised. This, then, is the mind of God in the seal- 
 ing of the Spirit and in the Pentecostal effusion — viz., 
 to give the redeemed Cliurch a foretaste and pledge of 
 the future inheritance. The which here should be ren- 
 dered " who," as it necessarily refers to the Holy Spirit. 
 Nor is the Greek masculine to be accounted for simply 
 
CHAPTER I. VERJ^ES 7-14. 85 
 
 by the rule called attraction, but the apostle prefers the 
 sense to the mere form. The Holy Spirit is masculine, 
 though the woi'd in Greek is neuter ; and the apostle 
 makes the pronoun agree with the person rather than 
 with the form. Luther does the same very often in his 
 translation. Weib, " wife," " woman," is a word of the 
 neuter gender ; yet Luther follows the sense, and con- 
 nects it with feminine relations and pronouns. But 
 this passage teaches clearly that the inheritance shall 
 consist mainly in Christian joy, in likeness to the Sav- 
 iour and in communion with the Holy Ghost. The 
 earnest must be of the same kind as the inheritance 
 which it secures for us ; the first-fruits must be of the 
 same nature as the harvest ; and the whole family must 
 resemble the First-Born. The Comforter is the pledge 
 and the foretaste of future glory ; and therefore this 
 whole dispensation, called the dispensation of the 
 Spirit, is but preparatory to that which is perfect and 
 perpetual. A universal Pentecost would not be the 
 promised inheritance, but only a foretaste and first- 
 fruit of it. 
 
 Sixth. Hence the earnest is " until the redemption of 
 the purchased possession^ This possession is no other 
 than the Church which he has purchased with his 
 blood, and which is yet to be redeemed from the 
 power of the enemy and the corruption of the grave. 
 There is a redemption by py^ice by the dying Lamb of 
 God, which is past, and we are indeed redeemed ; 
 there is a redemption by power by the King and the 
 Judge, which is future, and we wait for the adoption, 
 which is the resurrection of the body. This is the 
 coming of Christ in glory and majesty for which we 
 long and pray constantly, for which, too, the saints in 
 
86 GRAHAM ON EPHESIANS. 
 
 heaven wait patiently, and for which the whole fallen 
 creation groaneth and travaileth together in pain until 
 now (Rom. viii.). This is the redemption mentioned 
 in our text, when the purchased possession shall be re- 
 deemed from the power of the devil, from the contagion 
 of sin and the dominion of the grave. U7itil shows 
 how long the earnest is to continue, and unto shows 
 that the redemption of the purchased possession itself 
 is for the praise of the glory of God. What we look 
 for is the final redemption, and this redemption is to be 
 for the praise of the glory of God. His glory is the 
 end of creation, providence and redemption. For this 
 all things were created, are redeemed and are to be 
 headed up in Christ. * 
 
 Seventh. Better will it be, in conclusion, to survey 
 once more the glorious theme on which the apostle 
 dwells with such delight. There is more valuable 
 matter, more substantial truth, contained in our pas- 
 sage (ver. 7-14) than in all the literature of the Greeks 
 and Komans from the earliest times — than in all the 
 secular historians of the world. The subject is high 
 and the range of thought exceedingly extensive, for he 
 discourses of reconciliation with God, the atonement of 
 Christ and the gathering together all things in heaven 
 and on the earth under one glorious Head. The be- 
 liever, too, is remembered in this all-comprehending 
 theme as the sealed of the Holy Spirit, for whom the 
 everlasting inheritance is prepared. The Spirit is him- 
 self the pledge of that inheritance ; and we may well 
 
 * This subject ends with the fourteenth verse; and if any one wishes 
 to see the endless diversities of opinion that prevail concerning " the 
 purchased possession," he may consult the German commentators, where 
 he may get full satisfaction. 
 
CHAPTER I. VERSES 7-14. 87 
 
 cry with Saint Jerome, " Si aiThabo tantus, quanta erit 
 possessio /" (" If the earnest be such, what shall the 
 possession be ?") Does it not, tlien, give us some in- 
 sight into the depth of God's love to us when we see 
 him electing, redeeming and glorifying us in such a 
 divine and wonderful manner? Jesus Christ is the 
 Head of the Church and the creation, and through 
 him every needy creature may come to the fountains of 
 God — the fountains of mercy, which sin had sealed, 
 but which, in Jesus, are now opened to the thirsty 
 world. Brother-man, this is a great truth. Here is 
 life and peace and joy for you and for me. Here is a 
 foundation on which you need not fear to rest for the 
 future, a lifeboat that can bear you over the sea of 
 death into the city of your God. There is redemp- 
 tion in his blood, even the forgiveness of sins ; and 
 it is held out freely to thee, my brother, and to me. 
 His Spirit says, " Come," and whosoever will, let 
 him come and take of the water of life freely. 
 
 " O God, whose wondrous name is Love, 
 Whose hands have fashioned us anew, 
 
 Before thy face now stands the Lamb 
 Whom sinful man once pierced and slew. 
 
 Thine own dear Son thou didst not spare : 
 
 How shalt thou cease for us to care? 
 
 " Thou art the potter, we the clay ; 
 
 Thy will be ours, thy truth our light, 
 Thy love the fountain of our joy, 
 
 Thine arm a safeguard day and night, 
 Till thou shalt wipe our tears away 
 And Jesus bring eternal day !" 
 
CHAPTER III. 
 
 Wherefore I also, after I heard of your faith in the Lord Jesus, and 
 love unto all the saints, cease not to give thanks for you, making men- 
 tion of you in my prayers ; that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the 
 Father of glory, may give unto you the spirit of wisdom and revelation 
 in the knowledge of him : the eyes of your understanding being enlight- 
 ened ; that ye may know what is the hope of his calling, and what the 
 riches of the glory of his inheritance in the saints, and what is the 
 exceeding greatness of his power to usward 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 : and 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. — Ephesians i. 
 15-23. 
 
 The apostle, in the first part of our chapter, gives 
 us the salutation and introduction, and now, in the 
 fifteenth and following verses, we have his prayer. 
 
 This was his customary method (Phil. i. 3; Rom. 
 i. 8 ; 1 Cor. i. 4 ; Col. i. 3 ; 1 Thess. i. 2 ; 2 Thess. i. 3), 
 and the practice is well worthy of imitation. Prayer 
 sweetens the relations of human life, and is in itself 
 infinitely desirable altogether apart from the blessings 
 which it draws down from heaven. It opens the heart 
 when it is shut up and hardened, while it disposes us 
 to mildness, forgiveness and brotherly love. We need 
 guidance in everything, and hence we should begin 
 everything with prayer. Wherever the spirit of 
 
CHAPTER I. VERSES 15-23. 89 
 
 prayer abounds we may expect peace and all the 
 fruits of the Holy Spirit. The whole Bible is per- 
 vaded with the deepest, lowliest spirit of prayer, and 
 in this it is distinguished from other books. We 
 breathe there a heavenly atmosphere, and feel ourselves 
 at every turn brought into contact with God. 
 
 Head the following examples, that your mind and 
 heart may be tranquillized with the spirit of prayer : 
 The prayers of Jesus, John xi. 41 ; xvii. 1, etc. ; of 
 Zacharias, Luke i. 13 ; of Amos, Amos vii. 2-5 ; of 
 Esther, Esth. iv. 16 ; of Nehemiah, Neh. ix. 5 ; of 
 Ezra, Ezra ix. 6 ; of Asa, 2 Chron. xiv. 11 ; of Jonah, 
 Jonah ii. 1, etc. ; of Daniel, Dan. ix. 3 ; of Manasseh, 
 2 Chron. xxxiii. 12 ; of Hezekiah, 2 Kings xix. 15 ; 
 of Solomon, 1 Kings viii. 22 ; of David, 2 Sam. vii. 
 18, and the Psalms generally ; of Hannah, 1 Sam. 
 i. 10 ; of Samson, Judg. xvi. 28 ; of Moses, Ex. xxxii. 
 12 ; of Jacob, Gen. xxxii. 9. 
 
 These examples may help us also as to the expres- 
 sions which we ought to use in prayer, as they are the 
 best directory for the form and manner of approaching 
 God. 
 
 The whole of this fine passage, frfim verse 15 to the 
 end of the chapter, is the apostle's prayer for the Ephe- 
 sian church. Let us attend to its various parts. 
 
 I. The Two Heavenly Gifts. 
 
 Wherefore I also, after I heai^d of your faith in the 
 Lord Jesus, and love unto all the saints (ver. 15). 
 
 It has been argued by some that the expression 
 ^^ After I heard,^^ or " Having heard," proves that the 
 apostle was unacquainted with those to whom he wrote, 
 and consequently that he could not have addressed his 
 
 12 
 
90 GKAHAM ON EPHESIANS. 
 
 Epistle to the Epliesians, who were personally known te 
 him. But (1) there is nothing to prevent us from 
 hearing of the faith and love of those we know, and the 
 fact that we know them only increases our interest in 
 their improved condition. The church at Ephesus, 
 since he left them, may have got large additions to 
 their numbers, may have received more abundantly 
 the gifts of the Holy Spirit, may have been growing 
 in favor with God and man ; and the apostle's hearing 
 thereof is sufficient cause for thankfulness. But (2) 
 we might with better reason take a peculiar meaning 
 out of the verb to hear, and say in this passage it 
 means to "know by experience," and that therefore 
 the text expressly asserts that Paul was well acquainted 
 with those to whom he wrote. That the Greek verb 
 to hear has this signification is manifest to every dili- 
 gent reader of the Bible. Our translators rightly ren- 
 der it in this sense (1 Cor. xiv. 2) : " No man unde7'- 
 standeth him." So it must be understood in Gen. xi. 
 7 (in the Septuagint) and many others, such as Gen. 
 xlii. 23; Matt. ii. 3, 22; v. 21; xi. 2; Matt. v. 27; 
 Dent, xxviii. 49 ; 2 Kings xviii. 26 ; Jer. v. 15 ; Ezek. 
 iii. 6. The Hebrew verb has the same application. Gen. 
 xi. 7 ; xli. 15 ; xlii. 2. There is nothing, therefore, in 
 the verse in any way inconsistent with the opinion 
 that Paul directed his Epistle to the Ephesians. But, 
 leaving these opinions, let us turn to the contents of 
 our passage. 
 
 First. Faith is the first gift of God which he men- 
 tions in their praise, and truly in many respects it 
 deserves the first place in our letters, in our hearts and 
 in our lives. 
 
 (1) What is faiths It is a holy resting upon the 
 
CHAPTER I. VERSES 15-23. 91 
 
 word and promise of God as true and faithful, so that 
 the natural consequence is peace of conscience and 
 spiritual joy ; it is a taking of God at his word, with- 
 out any ifs or buts, without qualifications or conditions, 
 without asking why or wherefore, or any other save 
 the single question, " What, Lord, what wilt thou have 
 me to do?" We convince ourselves by reason and 
 testimony that God is the speaker, and from that 
 moment /a^^A takes all that is given, hears all that is 
 uttered, believes every word spoken, without a moment's 
 hesitation. It is not so much the hand that receives as 
 the receiving itself; not the feet, but the coming to 
 Christ; not the eye that looks, but the looking to 
 Jesus, the Author and Finisher of our faith. 
 
 (2) Their faith was in the Lord Jesus Christ. De 
 Wette, indeed, asserts (on Rom. iii. 25) : "3fa7i kann 
 nicht TZiOTic. tv sag en — und ganz unerhoert ist ruareoecv iv 
 TO) alfiarc,'^ etc. ; that is, De Wette asserts that we can- 
 not, according to the principles of the Greek language, 
 say we believe iti Ghi'ist, we have faith in Christ ; and 
 to speak of believing in the blood of Christ is an 
 unheard-of absurdity. This is surely a great mistake 
 of the distinguished critic, if, indeed, it be not something 
 worse. The verb to believe is followed by a dative^ 
 Mark xvi. 13 ; John v. 46 ; Acts viii. 12 ; to believe upon 
 with a dative, Luke xxiv. 25, with an accusative, Rom. 
 iv. 24 ; to believe on, followed by an accusative, John 
 xiv. 1 ; 1 Pet. i. 21 ; to believe in, followed by a dative, 
 which De Wette denies, Mark i. 15 ; Gal. iii. 26 ; 
 1 Tim. iii. 13 ; and the same form is found in both 
 the Hebrew and the Arabic language ( Jer. xii. 6 ; Ps. 
 Ixxviii. 22). In these languages, as in our own, they 
 can use all these various forms : " I believe in Christ," 
 
92 GRAHAM ON EPHESIANS. 
 
 " I believe on Christ," " I believe upon Christ," " I 
 believe Christ," and " I believe many things about 
 Christ." I assert the same of all languages on the 
 face of the earth. But De Wette's theology here, as 
 in other passages, moulds his criticism (especially on 
 Kom. ix. 5) and shakes our confidence in his impar- 
 tiality. When, therefore, Paul in our text says he 
 " heard of your faith in the Lord Jesus," he is speak- 
 ing perfectly good Greek and following a very exten- 
 sive analogy or usage in the New Testament. Jesus 
 is the great object of faith in the New Testament. His 
 glorious person is the Rock on which our faith rests, 
 the Sun of righteousness for our eyes, the Refuge-City 
 into which we run, the Gift given us by almighty God, 
 which we receive by the hand of faith. Our faith 
 glories in all his names, titles, offices and attributes 
 as the Head of the Church, the Redeemer of the world, 
 the Mediator, Advocate and Judge (Acts xx. 21 ; xxvi. 
 18 ; Col. ii. 5 ; Gal. iii. 26) ; in Christ (Eph. i. 15 ; 
 Coh i. 4; 1 Tim. i. 14 ; iii. 13 ; 2 Tim. i. 13; iii. 15; 
 also, with a genitive, James ii. 1 ; Eph. iv. 13). This 
 remarkable form, " The faith which belongs to you," 
 occurs in certain other passages, and has the same 
 signification as "your faith." [See the Greek form 
 of expression in Acts xvii. 28 ; xviii. 15 ; xxvi. 3.] 
 The best Greek writers sometimes use the same form 
 (Thucyd. 6, 16). We should naturally have expected 
 that the article would have been repeated after faith, 
 as it is after love in the second clause of the verse ; but 
 the language admits such varieties. 
 
 Second. Now comes the next great gift for whicli 
 the apostle praises them — love, brotherly love, love to 
 all the saints. It has its fountain in the love of God 
 
CHAPTER I. VERSES 15-23. 93 
 
 as the Father of the whole redeemed family. His 
 love to us produces corresponding love to him, and in 
 loving the common Father we necessarily love one 
 another. The bonds, indeed, which bind the saints 
 together are very many and very strong. They are 
 members of the same family, redeemed with the same 
 precious blood and filled with the same quickening 
 Spirit. They have the same friends and the same ene- 
 mies, the same hopes and the same fears, the same prom- 
 ises of good things to come and the same living Head 
 in heaven. How full and deep and strong should be 
 their love to one another ! The words of our text 
 are instructive : " Love to all the saints." Ye have 
 no exceptions and no preferences, no suspicions and 
 no base, calculating, sectarian spirit of complaint to 
 embroil and embitter all. Be done with your nar- 
 row-mindedness, my brother, and with all your dwarf- 
 ish, sectarian bigotry, and let your heart expand lov- 
 ingly over the whole family of God. All saints, from 
 Abel to the end — the redeemed Church of Christ, the 
 monuments of divine mercy, the habitation of God 
 through the Spirit, the heirs of the heavenly inherit- 
 ance, the whole great congregation of the faithful in 
 all ages and nations, — all saints : that is the circle of 
 your love. Not these saints and those saints who are 
 modeled nationally or ecclesiastically to your taste, but 
 all who believe on the name of the Son of God, what- 
 ever their language or creed, whatever their country 
 or color. These are our brethren, and we shall meet 
 them in heaven. With these we cast in our lot for 
 time and for eternity ; and, whatever be their failings 
 and imperfections, we will love them all. In the stir- 
 ring words of Wesley's hymn : 
 
94 GEAHAM ON EPHESIANS. 
 
 " One family, we dwell in him, 
 One Church above, beneath, 
 Though now divided by the stream — 
 The narrow stream — of death. 
 
 " One army of the living God, 
 To his command we bow ; 
 Part of the host have crossed the flood, 
 And part are crossing now." 
 
 These two capital virtues, faith and love, are the first 
 work of the Spirit in the hearts of believers. In other 
 passages Jiope is added (Col. i. 4, 5; 1 Thess. i. o). 
 The first reaches over the boundaries of the visible 
 and fixes its eye on the unseen home — God the Re- 
 deemer, the glorious kingdom, the communion of 
 saints, the eternal reward ; the second flows from the 
 smitten heart like the streams from the rock in the 
 wilderness, encircling all saints with its dewy influ- 
 ences ; and hope opens the vista of the future and 
 presents to the longing eye the kingdom and coming 
 of the Lord Jesus Christ, the resurrection of the saints 
 and the crowns of glory. Where these three gifts 
 abound the Church is in a healthy, vigorous condi- 
 tion, and in j^roportion as they increase and multiply 
 we come nearer to the glories of the apostolic ages. 
 
 11. Thanksgiving and Intercession. 
 
 Cease not to give thanks for you, making mention of 
 you in my prayers (ver. 16). 
 
 There is no place where our remembrance is S(j 
 much worth as at the throne of grace, for there the 
 selfishness, worldliness and sectarianism of our nature 
 fall off from us and our affections become more pure 
 and blessed ; our prayers and intercessions for one an- 
 other unite us more and more with all saints in tlie 
 
CHAPTER I. VERSES 15-23. 95 
 
 unity of the Spirit ; while, at the same time, they 
 draw down from our Father in heaven the blessings 
 of his grace. Paul could say, " I have heard of your 
 faith and love, dear brethren, in the Lord Jesus, and 
 therefore I cea^e not to give thanks for you, making 
 mention of you in my prayers^ His first feeling is to 
 give thanks for them. They had errors, no doubt, and 
 were far from being perfect, as his prayer for them 
 teaches, but he will first give thanks for what they 
 have received. He recognizes the good work of the 
 Spirit, and then hopes for an increase of it. This is 
 the way to increase our own trust and confidence in 
 the Lord, and at the same time to widen the channels 
 of divine love. How sweet and tender is this spirit 
 of love! We see the same in its greatest perfection 
 in the person of the Redeemer. He begins with praise 
 wherever the least praise is possible, that he may win 
 himself a way into the hearts of men. In the epistles 
 to the seven churches (Rev. ii. and iii.) he always be- 
 gins with commendation — though in these churches 
 there were errors of all kinds — and thus sweetly in- 
 troduces himself to the evils he would remove by some 
 tender word, such as, " Nevertheless I have somewhat 
 against thee." 
 
 Prayer, generally speaking, is the life of a Christian 
 Church, and when it takes the forms of thanksgiving 
 and intercession it is peculiarly blessed and attractive. 
 The Head in heaven is the living, everlasting Inter- 
 cessor for the whole Church ; and the members of his 
 body, filled with his Spirit, abound in intercessions and 
 prayers for one another, and for the unbelieving world. 
 This spirit of love proceeds from all and animates all. 
 The father prays for the son, and the son for the fa- 
 
96 GKAHAM ON EPHESIANS. 
 
 ther ; the mother for the daughter, and the daughter fo? 
 the mother ; the pastor is much in prayer and inter- 
 cession for his beloved flock, and they never fail t(> 
 remember him before the throne of grace. In the 
 silence of the heart, in the secrecy of the closet, in 
 social meetings for prayer, in the morning and eveii- 
 ing sacrifice of the family and in the public ministid- 
 tions of the sanctuary, there arises the constant incense 
 of praise and thanksgiving and intercession for rela- 
 tives and friends, for sick and afflicted ones, for rulers 
 and governors, for the whole Christian Church and 
 for the whole heathen world. 
 
 Let us imbibe this spirit of intercessory prayei and 
 seek to grow up into closer and deeper fellowship with 
 God. Prayer moves the hand that moves the world. 
 Thy tender, trembling voice of fervent prayer rises 
 above the loudest thunder, pierces the clouds and the 
 heavens and reaches the ear of God. It draws down 
 l)lessings on thyself and on thy brethren and tempers 
 thy soul with the communion of saints. Rejoice ever- 
 more ; pray without ceasing ; let the same mind be in 
 thee which was also in Jesus, the Redeemer and the 
 Intercessor. 
 
 III. The Substance of the Prayer. 
 
 That the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father 
 of glory, may give unto you the spirit of wisdom and 
 revelation in the /mow ledge of him : the eyes of your 
 ■understanding being enlighte7ied ; that ye may know 
 xvhat is the hope of his calling, and what the riches of 
 the glory of his inheritance in the saints, and what is 
 the exceeding greatness of his power to us-ward, who be- 
 
CHAPTER I. VERSES 15-23. 97 
 
 lieve, according to the worhing of his mighty power, 
 which he ivr ought in Christ (ver. 17-20). 
 
 After having stated the causes for thanksgiving and 
 special intercession in regard to the church at Ephesus, 
 the apostle now, as his custom was, pours forth the full- 
 ness of his heart in sweetest prayer to God for them 
 all. This beautiful supplication extends from the 
 seventeenth verse to the nineteenth. Let us attend 
 to the particulars contained in it. 
 
 First. The names of God. We have first here the 
 name " ^Ae God of our Lord Jesus Christ'' — a form 
 which occurs nowhere else in the Scriptures ; but 
 " the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ " does 
 often occur; and, as we have discussed this name 
 already (Eph. i. 3), we must refer you to what we 
 have said above. 
 
 In what sense, then, is the Father of glory called the 
 God of our Lord Jesus Christ ? I have often enough 
 shown that " Lord Jesus Christ " is the mediatorial 
 name of the Redeemer, and surely, as the sent One, 
 the promised Messiah, the Mediator, or, in one word, 
 the God-Man, the Father may properly be called his 
 God. Even in the passage (Heb. i.) where the writer 
 formally demonstrates his Godhead, names him God 
 and Creator of the universe, yet in the same breath he 
 says, " God, even thy God, hath anointed thee with the 
 oil of gladness above thy fellows ;" and Jesus himself 
 says, " I ascend to my God and your God " (John xx. 
 17) ; and on the cross his bitter cry was, " My God, my 
 God, why hast thou forsaken me?" (Matt, xxvii. 46). 
 I see no difficulty in these passages, nor do I seek by 
 any effort to explain them away. They teach that Jesus 
 Christ was a creature, and I believe it ; that God was 
 
 13 
 
98 GRAHAM ON EPHESIANS. 
 
 his God in the truest, fullest sense of the word, and I 
 believe it. That the blessed Son of God came thus low 
 to seek and to save the lost is not to be denied or ex- 
 plained away, but gloried in and defended unto the 
 death. This text should never have been quoted on 
 the Homo-ousian controversy, and I detest the ortho- 
 dox efforts to get rid of its natural meaning, as I de- 
 test the Arian perversions of John i. 1 ; Rom. ix. 5 
 and other passages that refer to the divinity of Christ. 
 It is 2. fact that the eternal Son emptied himself of his 
 glory and took upon himself the form of a servant 
 (Phil, ii.) that he might depend on the Father, which 
 we had failed to do ; that he might live to the Father, 
 receive all from the Father, never seek his own glory, 
 but the Father's, and finally die on the cross to vindi- 
 cate the Father's violated law and thus open the foun- 
 tains of mercy to mankind. Admit this, and there is 
 no difficulty any more in the Scripture delineations of 
 the person of Christ. He is the Son of God and the 
 Son of man ; the Creator of the universe and the babe 
 of Bethlehem ; the Man of faith, prayer and perfect 
 love to God, and yet the Object of the adorations of 
 angels and men. He is God over all (Rom. ix. 5), 
 and yet the Father is his God ; all extremes meet and 
 are reconciled in his wonderful person. If this doctrine 
 of the God-Man be rejected, the Scripture becomes in- 
 explicable, and man has no Redeemer. " Father of 
 glory " may either mean " the glorious Father," accord- 
 ing to a well-known Hebraism, or it may, more nat- 
 urally, signify the author and possessor of glory ; and so 
 we take it here — the fountain, source and possessor of 
 glory. Glory among both Hebrews and Greeks signi- 
 fies the grace, majesty and beauty of the royal state ; 
 
CHAPTEK I. VERSES 15-23. 99 
 
 the radiance, splendor and inapproachable light of the 
 heavenly throne (Ex. xxiv. 16 ; xl. 34 ; Isa. vi. 3 ; Ezek. 
 i. 28). Jehovah is the centre and fountain of all the 
 excellence, majesty and glory of the universe. Even 
 so Jesus is called the Lord of glory. (See Ps. xxix. 
 3 ; Acts vii. 2 ; Ps. xxiv. 7 ; Heb. ix. 5.) Glory is thus 
 the highest biblical expression for all excellence, and 
 especially for the external splendor connected with the 
 throne of God and the divine presence. 
 
 Second. The spirit of wisdom. Some think that be- 
 cause the apostle uses here spirit without the Greek 
 article he cannot mean the Holy Spirit, the Sanctifier, 
 but the disposition of the believer's mind. Such a 
 principle, however, cannot be established from the 
 doctrine of the Greek article, nor from the usage of 
 the New Testament. (See Luke iv. 1 ; Acts x. 38 ; 
 Luke iv. 18 ; Matt. xii. 28, where pneuma without the 
 article denotes the Holy Spirit, the Comforter.) The 
 article is not intended to denote personality, but to give 
 emphasis to the word to which it is joined ; and that it 
 does not always do. The prayer of the apostle is that 
 the Father of glory would shed down upon the Ephe- 
 sians the gifts of the Holy Ghost, or rather the Holy 
 Ghost himself, to fill them with all spiritual blessings 
 (Rom. xii. 6 ; 1 Cor. xii. 4, 9, 28, 30, 31 ; 1 Pet. iv. 
 10, etc.). He is called the spirit of wisdom, grace, 
 glory, etc., because he is the Author of these blessings. 
 He it is that gives wisdom to the simple and an under- 
 standing heart to them that fear the Lord. His nature 
 is divine ; his name is emphatically " the Holy One ;" 
 his place is the bosom of the Church ; and his office, in 
 the absence of Christ, is to sanctify and comfort be- 
 lievers (John xvi. 14). He reveals to us the Saviour's 
 
100 GRAHAM ON EPHESIANS. 
 
 love and disposes our hearts to receive it. This verse, 
 then, teaches us that we need two gifts — ivisdom and 
 knowledge; and these the Holy Spirit gives. It in- 
 sists, too, upon the fact that it is not the knowledge of 
 nature or the arts of life or the demonstrations of sci- 
 ence, but the knowledge of Jesus Chrisi, which we need, 
 and we are assured that the Holy Spirit will reveal to 
 the saints, according to their need, more and more of 
 the fullness of their divine Master. 
 
 Third. The enlightening of the eyes of the under- 
 standing is the next petition of the apostle. Instead 
 of understanding, most of the best manuscripts and 
 authorities read " the eyes of your hearth This is 
 evidently the correct reading, and it has been received 
 into the text by the soundest critics of modern times. 
 (Comp. Rom. i. '21 ; 2 Cor. iv. 6 ; Rom. ii. 15 ; 1 John 
 iii. 20, 21.) Bengel, Meyer and others take "the en- 
 lightened eyes " to be the accusative absolute, and our 
 translators seem to have done the same ; but surely the 
 natural and simple construction is to govern it by give 
 — that he would give to your heart enlightened eyes. 
 The meaning is little different from the common read- 
 ing, inasmuch as heart denotes not only the will and 
 the affections, but also the reflective and thinking faculty 
 (Matt. xiii. 15 ; Mark vi. 52 ; John xii. 40 ; Rom. i. 
 21; 2 Pet. i. 19). In the Hebrew it has the same 
 signification (Isa. vi. 10 ; Job xii. 3). This enlighten- 
 ing of the eyes of the heart is expository of the work 
 of the spirit of wisdom mentioned in the former verse. 
 The meaning is : If you have received the s])irit of 
 wisdom in revealing to you the knowledge of Christ, 
 his presence will be felt in opening the eyes of your 
 heart. He opens up the excellences of the Redeemer, 
 
CHAPTER I. VERSES 15-23. 101 
 
 and he opens your heart to contemplate them with de- 
 light. He removes every impediment out of the way, 
 that the Saviour and the sinner may meet — that our 
 weakness and wickedness and wants, our obstinacy, 
 blindness and vanity, may be met and removed by a 
 gracious and all-sufficient Saviour. The Spirit gives 
 us light from the beams of the Sun of righteousness 
 and inflames our hearts with the fiery baptism of love 
 to God and man. The work of the Holy Ghost is the 
 very life and soul of the Christian Church. Where 
 his person and offices are denied or not believed in, 
 you have the silence and solitude of death, as among 
 Rationalists, Socinians and Arians. Where his person 
 is recognized, but his personal working denied or not 
 understood or restricted to a certain class, as bishoj^s, or 
 tied down absolutely to certain acts, as baptism, con- 
 firmation, etc., there you have the reign of rites and 
 forms, the oppression of a grinding ritualism, like that 
 which oppresses the Oriental and the papal churches. 
 Where, on the other hand, his work is altogether de- 
 tached from the word of God and the ordinances, and 
 his person and offices firmly believed in, then you have 
 the spirit of sectarianism, Quakerism, Fifth-Monarchy 
 Men and all sorts of pretenders to inspiration and new 
 revelations. 
 
 On this deep subject we venture the following ob- 
 servations for the guidance and satisfaction of pious, 
 inquiring minds : 
 
 (1) The ordinances appointed by Christ are the 
 legitimate and ordinary channels of the waters of life. 
 In them the Lord has promised his Spirit, and to neg- 
 lect them, while yet we seek the presence of the Com- 
 forter, is presumption. The Bible is the revelation 
 
102 GRAHAM ON EPHESIANS. 
 
 of God, the Spirit is the enUghtener of the heart, an<l 
 the means of grace are intended of the Lord to realize 
 in the Church the office of the one and the truth of 
 the other. 
 
 (2) It is the right and privilege of all the mem- 
 bers of Christ to ask their heavenly Father for the 
 gifts of the Holy Spirit to guide, comfort and enlight- 
 en them. No word or ordinance of man should keep 
 them from that sacred duty. He is the promise of 
 the Father and the gift of the ascended Son and the 
 Church's Comforter, to abide with them for ever. 
 Nor can you remain long in doubt of his gracious 
 operation if you are really in earnest with God about 
 the state of your souls. You will find the word and 
 the ordinances and the promises becoming daily more 
 and more dear to you ; the affections of the heart more 
 and more drawn out toward the Eedeemer, who de- 
 serves a thousand times more than we can give ; the 
 conscience more and more tender in respect to the 
 guilt and the enormity of sin ; the eye of the heart 
 and the mind more and more directed to the cross ; 
 the hope of future glory will become brighter, and the 
 whole life, as you near the better land, will become 
 radiant with peace and love and joy. 
 
 (3) It seems to be the duty of pastors to bring the 
 doctrines connected with the person and offices of the 
 Holy Spirit often before the Church. This arises from 
 the work he has promised to perform and the prom- 
 inence which is given to his agency in the Bible. In 
 the New Testament especially he is everywhere pre- 
 sented as the quickener, the enlightener, the comforter 
 and the life of all that believe. He may be resisted, 
 quenched, grieved, blasphemed ; and hence the import- 
 
CHAPTER I. VERSES 15-23. 103 
 
 ance of being rightly instructed regarding our duties 
 and relations to him. The position which the Spirit 
 occupies in the present dispensation shows that the 
 Church stands related to him in a special and won- 
 derful manner. The Father's place is the throne, the 
 direct object and end of worship ; the Son is at the 
 right hand or before the throne, as the one High 
 Priest and Mediator; and the place which the Spirit 
 occupies is the Church, which is the temple of his 
 presence and the holy place where he condescends to 
 dwell. He awakens within us all holy desires, and 
 these ascend, through the Mediator, to the Father. 
 Thus everything connected with the actual endow- 
 ment and sanctification of the Church belongs to the 
 Holy Spirit. He directs our eyes to the Sun of right- 
 eousness ; he opens in our hearts the streams of refresh- 
 ing which make glad the city of God ; he relaxes the 
 grasp of the destroyer and dissolves the enchantment 
 which sin and the world have thrown over us; he 
 brings light into our darkness, and life and peace and 
 joy into the cold region of sin and death. In our 
 text he is the Enlightener. 
 
 Fourth. And this light is to lead us to know what is- 
 the hope of his calling. This is the genitive of the 
 efficient cause, and signifies the hope which God's call- 
 ing causes. (See Col. i. 23.) The word what does not 
 express the object of the hope {res sperata), but the 
 quality and nature of it — what kind of a hope it is, 
 how great, how excellent, how glorious. Kothing but 
 the teaching of the Spirit can give you an idea of 
 the majesty and excellence of the things hoped for. 
 "Calling" has much signification in the New Testa- 
 ment, and teaches us not a litt.e of the grace and 
 
104 GRAHAM ON EPHESIANS. 
 
 goodness of God. We observe tliat his calling is 
 God's act (Rom. xi. 29; Phil. iii. 14), by which he 
 arrests the sinner in his path to ruin and awakens in 
 him the new life and the new hopes of the gospel. It 
 is the high calling of God (Phil. iii. 14), because of 
 the heights of glory to which it leads ; it is a holy 
 calling (2 Tim. i. 9), because it brings us to the foun- 
 tain of love in Jesus Christ and clothes us with the 
 white robes which are the righteousness of saints; it 
 is a heavenly calling (Heb. iii. 1), because the voice 
 comes from heaven and leads us to heaven. We are 
 to make our calling and election sure (2 Pet. i. 10) 
 by a hearty and diligent use of the means of grace 
 which our heavenly Father has put within our reach. 
 This is what the old divines termed effectual calling, to 
 distinguish it from the mere outward call of the gospel, 
 which so many hear without profit. As it is written, 
 many are called, but few are chosen (Matt. xx. 16). 
 How great and glorious this hope must be we may 
 gather from the dignity of Him who calls us — God ; 
 from the infinite mercy of Him through whom we are 
 called — Jesus the Mediator ; from the work, office and 
 person of Him who opens our hearts to obey the call 
 — the holy Spirit of God ; from the distress and mis- 
 ery and ruin from which it turns us away ; and from 
 the inheritance of heavenly glory with God to which 
 it finally leads us. 
 
 Fifth. And that ye may know what is the riches 
 of the glory of his inheritance iii the saints. This is 
 much stronger than " what is the glorious riches of 
 his inheritance," though the meaning is substantially 
 the same. All attempts of certain cold critics to 
 separate his inheritance from the saints are vain, as 
 
CHAPTER I. VERSES 15-23. 105 
 
 if the idea of God's having his inheritance in the 
 saints were a strange or unscriptural one (Deut. xxxii. 
 9; 1 Sam. X. 1; Ps. Ixxviii. 71). On the contrary, 
 we have seen (ver. 14) that the Church of Jesus is 
 his purchased possession. He makes a full exchange 
 with us, and, as we say, in the fullness of love, " The 
 Lord is our portion and inheritance," so he says, " My 
 inheritance is in the saints. They are my chosen, re- 
 deemed portion, on whom I have expended the riches 
 of my grace, and on whom I mean to expend all the 
 riches of my glory." This is the natural meaning of 
 the passage, and it suits well the glowing descriptions 
 of the Church's calling and destiny which we find in 
 this Epistle. 
 
 His inheritance in the sai7its may be taken in the 
 sense of " the inheritance which he has purposed for 
 the saints " — viz., to be distributed among them in the 
 day of his appearing. Here, then, once more the eye 
 of hope is turned to the inheritance, and the loving 
 heart is kept expanding under the impulse of such 
 transcendent promises. Ponder well these words, 
 " The riches of the glory of God's inheritance is in 
 the saints," and say, " Can it really be possible ? Can 
 such words come from the Creator of the worlds? 
 Can even divine love condescend so far?" Oh, my 
 brother, yes, it is even so ; and are not such deline- 
 ations of the future in keeping with and worthy of 
 the wonders of the past? Think of Nazareth and 
 Bethlehem and Calvary and the incarnate God re- 
 deeming a world, and you will see how the everlast- 
 ing delights of God may be settled and exhausted in 
 the elected, redeemed, sanctified and glorified Church. 
 These saints are the Lord's peculiar people, his jewels, 
 
 14 
 
106 GRAHAM ON EPHESIANS. 
 
 liis treasure hid in the field, his purchased possession 
 and his goodly heritage. His delights are in the 
 saints ; his love fills their hearts, and in his presence 
 they shall have rivers of pleasure for evermore. He 
 is theirs, and they are his. He has loved and chosen 
 them, and they have loved and chosen him. Their 
 misery and wretchedness he shared and appropriated 
 in the days of his humiliation, and they shall be 
 covered with the robe of his righteousness and crowned 
 with the garlands of victory in the day of his royal 
 glory. 
 
 Sixth. As the climax to this wonderful manifestation 
 of Jehovah's kindness to the saints, the apostle men- 
 tions his working in the Christ to raise him from the 
 dead and set him on the heavenly throne far above all 
 dominion and power ; and he asserts that the same 
 power is working in them that believe, and shall 
 finally make them like their Master and bring them 
 to him. 
 
 There is a divine power in the Church. It may be 
 more or less manifested in this place or in that, in this 
 particular age or in that, but the energy of God which 
 raised Jesus from the dead is in all believers, and 
 shall remain with them and never leave them till 
 they are enthroned with him in glory (Col. ii. 12). 
 This is the guarantee for the Church's perpetuity 
 till the promises of God come to nothing and the 
 Kock of ages breaks in pieces (Matt. xvi. 18). This 
 was the endowment of Pentecost, the last best gift 
 of the risen Redeemer, to remain with the Church 
 for ever ; and this outfit for her journey has never 
 been withdrawn, but remains in her still, and must 
 remain in her while there is need for a Quickener 
 
CHAPTER I. VER8ES 15-23. 107 
 
 to quicken and a Comforter to comfort the children 
 of men. 
 
 In the days of the apostles this indwelling energy 
 broke forth in all kinds of wonderful acts of power 
 and love, which gave the ministrations of the primitive 
 Church such irresistible efficacy, which clothed the 
 apostolic testimony with celestial authority and car- 
 ried conviction with the force and rapidity of light- 
 ning into the minds of men. The life which the 
 Saviour poured out on the cross was not resumed 
 from the grave, but another kind of life (1 Cor. xv. 
 42-^6), over which death hath no dominion (Rom. vi. 
 9), and of which the presence and the power of the 
 Holy Spirit in the Church are the foretaste and the 
 pledge (Eph. i. 14; iv. 30; 2 Cor. i. 22.). The mirac- 
 ulous manifestations of the Holy Spirit in the person 
 of Christ during his earthly ministry were ante-res- 
 urrection foretastes of the plenitude of power which he 
 entered into at the Ascension ; and, in like manner, all 
 the inworking of the Quickener in the Church, be it in 
 the form of love or of faith or of miraculous power, is 
 the bond which unites her to the glorified Head, the 
 foretaste and pledge of her resurrection glory (Rom. 
 viii. 11). 
 
 Every word in this nineteenth verse is emphatic and 
 burns with apostolic fervor : "And what is the exceeding 
 greatness of his power to us-ward who believe, according 
 to the working of his mighty power. ^' Faith is the gift 
 of God, and the believer is brought under the same 
 mighty power which raised and glorified the Mediator. 
 Why is it, then, that we are so weak and timorous in 
 fighting the good fight of faith? Why does the 
 world charm us and the flesh master us and the 
 
108 GRAHAM ON EPHESIANS. 
 
 tempter triumph over us so often ? It is because of 
 the weakness of faith. We do not draw from the 
 supplies which grace has provided for us, nor rest for 
 strength and victory on our heavenly Master's hand. 
 Ages of indifference and infidelity have made us weak, 
 and the pretensions of the papists to heavenly gifts and 
 miraculous manifestations of the Holy Ghost, while 
 their kingdom is the kingdom of the beast and their 
 morality the lowest in Europe, have made many averse 
 to the whole spiritual and sujoernatural element in the 
 Christian system. Thus, Christianity has become 
 a mode rather than a life; a civilization rather than 
 a revelation ; a development of the natural law of 
 order and beauty rather than an indwelling of the 
 Holy Ghost. The way to break this delusion is to 
 look up to the throne of the Redeemer, from which 
 he dispenses the gifts of his mercy and power. The 
 one Spirit dwells in the Head and the members, and 
 the power of the Conqueror at the right hand of God 
 is yours to make you conquerors, and more than con- 
 querors, through Him that loved you. The Church is 
 his body, united to him by the two bands of a common 
 nature and a common Spirit. His life is in her. It 
 was the mighty power of God mentioned in our text 
 which wrought in him by the Holy Spirit ; which led, 
 sustained and comforted him ; which enabled him to 
 bear the cross and despise the shame ; which quickened 
 his body in the grave, fitted him for the glory of the 
 heavens, and finally elevated him into universal 
 dominion. So is it with the Church : the same 
 power, the same life of God, dwells in her, though 
 not in the same measure; it guides her, fills her, 
 crucifies her, comforts her, and finally glorifies her. 
 
CHAPTER I. VERSES 15-23. 109 
 
 IV. The Resurrection of Christ. 
 
 When he raised him from the dead (ver. 20). 
 
 In considering the doctrine of the resurrection of 
 Christ, we may direct our attention to the following 
 facts : 
 
 First. The wages of sin is death. He must there- 
 fore die in our nature and by a solemn act of power 
 and love cancel on the cross the guilt of his jieople. 
 His death is the ransom, and his resurrection is the 
 proof that it is paid. The fact of atonement is demon- 
 strated by his resurrection. 
 
 Second. Resurrection is the foundation of the Chris- 
 tian system. The Church commences specially with 
 the resurrection of Christ, and is built uj^oii his living, 
 life-giving person. We were crucified with him, and 
 in his resurrection we are raised with him to a new 
 and immortal life. The fallen life flowed from the 
 first Adam, immortality comes from the second ; up to 
 resurrection he was the Jew, fulfilling the Jewish law, 
 embodying the spirit of the Old Testament and mani- 
 festing what a Jew ought to be ; from resurrection he 
 is the centre of new life, immortal and glorious, the 
 Head of the Church and the dispenser of the Holy 
 Ghost. Resurrection is the hinge. Up to that he is 
 the Receiver, and from that the Giver ; up to that the 
 Anointed, and from that the anointing One ; up to that 
 the atoning Lamb, and from that the interceding High 
 Priest in heaven ; up to that he is the Burden-Bearer, 
 and from that the Sceptre-Bearer, of creation ; up to 
 that he is the weary Man of sorrows, the patient, 
 hidden, sin-bearing Lamb, and from that the all-sus- 
 taining, all-filling, life-quickening God. Hence resur- 
 
110 GRAHAM ON EPHESIANS. 
 
 rection is not to be considered as an abstract dogrma, 
 a proposition to be received or doubted or denied 
 according to the amount of evidence. It is the gran<l 
 centre of life, and sheds its influence in and over 
 the whole character of the believer. We are united 
 with the risen One, the Conqueror at the right hand 
 of God, and hence our strength, our joyful confi- 
 dence and our victory over all things. The impreg- 
 nable fact of his resurrection is the basis on which 
 the New-Testament Church rests (1 Cor. xv. 17; Rom. 
 iv. 25). 
 
 Third. He did not rise from the dead as a singly 
 solitary man, but as the sent One of God, the Mes- 
 siah of the Scriptures, the first-fruits of them that 
 slept ; not of the race, but of the family ; the first 
 ripe sheaf of the harvest; the head pledge and im- 
 age of those who shall I'ise from the dead in the 
 morning of the first resurrection (Rev. xx. 5, 6 ; Luke 
 XIV. 14, 15; XX. 35, 36; Matt. xxii. 30). He is the 
 first-fruits of the harvest, the first-born of the family 
 and the first man who really rose from the dead. The 
 others were specimens rather of death postponed than 
 of resurrection. He rose in immortal life and vigor ; 
 death hath no more dominion over him (Rom. vi. 9). 
 Hence our position is in him, members of the risen 
 Conqueror, and we are by faith enabled to look down 
 on all earthly things as past or passing beneath our 
 feet, while we fix the eye steadily on the heavenly 
 things which Jesus has prepared for his j^eople (John 
 iii. 12). 
 
 Fourth. He rose publicly. He might have risen 
 privately, and the efficacy of his atoning death would 
 have remained untouched. In that case there would 
 
CHAPTER I. VERSES 15-23. HI 
 
 have been pa^'don, but no proof of pardon ; and if in- 
 spired men had testified that he rose from the dead 
 and went to heaven, we would have believed it. But 
 such was not the will of God. He appeared at least 
 eleven times after his resurrection, and in every pos- 
 sible way removed the doubts of his disciples. He 
 did not appear to the body of the Jews, l)ut to those 
 who were capable of identifying him. Nothing is 
 more deceptive than the testimonies of great public 
 bodies. Some cannot see well ; others are far off, and 
 have not the means of close inspection ; some are talk- 
 ing with their neighbors in the press and crowd, and 
 many of them must have only a general and indistinct 
 knowledge of the person. Hence doubts could easily 
 arise in honest minds ; and, while there might be a 
 general persuasion that the appearance was real, there 
 would be wanting that feeling of interest in the person, 
 of reverence and love for his character, which alone can 
 make men suffer for their testimony's sake. How dif- 
 ferent was it with Jesus ! He appeared to men and 
 women, to learned men and ignorant men, in houses 
 and in the open air ; he walked with them, ate with 
 them, breathed upon them, rebuked them, caused them 
 to handle and see him. And who were these men ? 
 Those upon the whole earth who knew him best ; the 
 men who had most to gain by a falsehood, and all 
 things — property, good name and life itself — to lose 
 by asserting his resurrection. Yet they did so till 
 their death. They sealed their testimony with their 
 blood. There is no historical fact on record so strong- 
 ly certified as is the resurrection of Christ. 
 
 Fifth. It is asserted in the j^assage that God raised 
 him from the dead (Acts ii. 24) ; by the great power 
 
112 GRAHAM ON EPHESIANS. 
 
 of God (Rom. vi. 4), called the glory of the Father, 
 he was raised from the dead. (Comp. Rom. viii. 11 ; 
 1 Cor. vi. 15; 2 Cor. xiii. 4). In this way the Cre- 
 ator set his seal upon the life, doctrine and character 
 of Christ. He fulfilled his divine mission in the re- 
 demption of man ; he revealed the true character of 
 the invisible God ; his life was holy ; his words were 
 truth; his example was perfect and his death the 
 expiation of sin ; and all this is sealed and con- 
 firmed by the great act of God in raising him from 
 the dead. 
 
 Sixth. Yet, the Son of God being divine, resurrec- 
 tion is also his own act. He raised himself (John ii. 
 19; Matt. xxvi. 61; Mark xiv. 58). He had power 
 to lay down his life and take it again. His incarna- 
 tion, life, death and resurrection were parts of one sys- 
 tem of voluntary love over which he at all times exer- 
 cised complete self-disposing power. This view of his 
 resurrection presents him to the Church as the head 
 and fountain out of which flow power and life and all 
 the manifold fullness of God. He is the manifesta- 
 tion of God in the flesh, proved to be human in that 
 he died, and coequal with the Father in that he raised 
 himself from the dead. Hence the Church always 
 contemplates him as the Life. 
 
 Seventh. But, as the Godhead is one, it may fairly 
 be conceived that, whatever be the special offices of 
 the divine Persons, they all concurred, in some way or 
 other, in every divine act. It is therefore true that 
 the body of Christ was quickened by the Spirit (1 Pet. 
 iii. 18; Rom. i. 4; viii. 11). Thus we arrive at the 
 truth that the one act is attributed to each of the three 
 Persons. This shows the working of the Trinity in 
 
CHAPTER I. VERSES 15-23. 113 
 
 the administration of the kingdom of grace. So in 
 the incarnation. The Father prejmred the body (Heb. 
 X. 5); the Son assumed it (Heb. ii. 16). How? By 
 the Holy Ghost (Luke i. 35). The Father begins, 
 the Son carries on, the work, and the Spirit completes 
 it. So the Church, which is the body mystical : the 
 Father draws its members to Christ, the Son's deatli 
 and righteousness are made over to them, and the 
 Spirit finishes the work by preparing them for heav- 
 en. The Father wills, elects, predestinates; the Son, 
 the Mediator, executes ; and the Holy Spirit perfects 
 every work of God. The Son in every work has the 
 middle place, and hence his name "Mediator" (1 Tim. 
 ii. 5; Heb. viii. 6; ix. 15; xii. 24). The unity of the 
 Mediator is as essential a truth as is the unity of God 
 (ITim. ii. 5). 
 
 Yet, though all the Persons of the Godhead are 
 engaged in the various works and acts of God, there 
 is a prominence given to each Person in certain works. 
 Thus, creation is more especially the Father's work, as 
 being the first work or act possible, the Son and the 
 Spirit concurring and assisting ; redemption is the spe- 
 cial work of the Son, the Father and the Spirit con- 
 curring and assisting ; sanctification is the special work 
 of the Holy Spirit, the Father and the Son acting a 
 subsidiary part in it. 
 
 V. His Exaltation. 
 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 (ver. 
 20, 21). 
 
 15 
 
114 GRAHAM ON EPHESTANS. 
 
 On this striking passage we have the following ob- 
 servations to make : 
 
 First. Think of the fact that the weak mortal man, 
 the kinsman Redeemer whom we despised, from whom 
 we hid our faces, is elevated to the highest dominion 
 and sits at the right hand of God. The verb is used 
 for the participle (as Bloomfield thinks) to strengthen 
 the assertion of his glorious elevation. 
 
 The hand or the right hand is used in Scripture and 
 in the East with wide and varied significations. (1) 
 Hand means the executive part of a man, and " the hand 
 of God " expresses the instrument by which he mani- 
 teits himself in chastisements, as Ex. ix. 3 ; Deut. ii. 
 15 ; Judg. ii. 15 ; Job xxiii. 2 ; or in mercy and bless- 
 ing, as 2 Chron. xxx. 12 ; Ezek. ix. 2 ; or in inspiring 
 the prophets, as Ezek. i. 3 ; iii. 14, 22 ; xxxvii. 1 ; 2 
 Kings iii. 15. In these scriptures hand is the instru- 
 ment. Hence Jesus is called the arm of the Lord (Isa. 
 liii. ; comp. Gal. i. 16), the revealer of Jehovah's hid- 
 den purpose. All that is known of the power, love, 
 grace and goodness of God is known only in him — 
 the arm of love with the golden sceptre in the day of 
 grace ; the arm of power with the iron rod (Ps. ii.) in 
 the day of judgment. (2) Right hand denotes Xkv^ place 
 of honor ; o.nd so Jesus has entered into the glory, 
 honor and majesty which were prepared for the Head 
 and the members from the beginning. He is the Ruler 
 of the universe (see Matt. xxvi. 64 ; Mark xii. 36 ; xiv. 
 62 ; xvi. 19 ; Luke xx. 42 ; Acts ii. 34 ; vii. 55, b^ ; 
 Heb. i. 2 ; Ps. ii. 7) ; his dominion as Son (Ps. ex.) ; 
 his rule as Lord and King. The right hand is the 
 hand oi acceptance and fellowship (Gal. ii. 9). To give 
 the right hand of fellowship is an intelligible expression 
 
CHAPTER I. VERvSES 15-23. 115 
 
 in all languages (uEneid, vii. 266), and Jesus at the 
 right hand of God is thus the accepted j^erson and in 
 the place of acceptance. God accepts us through the 
 Man of his right hand, Jesus the Mediator. We dis- 
 tribute our gifts with the right hand ; and so Jesus in 
 the heavens at the right hand, and himself the right 
 hand, of God dispenses to the Church and the crea- 
 tion all the treasures of Jehovah's bounty. 
 
 Second. But what is the meaning of in the heavenly 
 places? It may mean the heavenly conditions or the 
 heavenly abodes — the abodes above the lieavenly spheres, 
 the supercelestial habitations. The word heavenly seems 
 to be the highest possible. It is given to the Father 
 (Matt, xviii. 35) . The " heavenly things " are opposed to 
 •' the earthly," and include all that pertains to the king- 
 dom and to the glory of God. Jesus is in these abodes. 
 He is in the house not made with hands — the many- 
 mansioned house of the great Father whose love and 
 beneficence are over all. Fancy fails us in contemplat- 
 ing these abodes. They are so bright and glorious that 
 our feeble thought cannot comprehend their splendors. 
 But, as they are the dwelling-place of God, they must 
 correspond to his glory ; and Jesus, the glorified Ke- 
 deemer, is in the midst of the throne, to lead his people 
 to fountains of living water ; and there are the heroes 
 of the faith, the prophets, the apostles and the martyrs. 
 In those heavenly abodes, too, we shall meet the in- 
 numerable companies of the angels, the seraphim and 
 the cherubim of glory ; and there shall be no sin nor 
 death nor separation any more. Oh, blessed house ! 
 Oh, blessed hope for wearied souls ! Come, Lord Jesus, 
 come quickly ! 
 
 Third. But his is a universal dominion, all created 
 
116 GEAHAM ON EPHESIANS. 
 
 things being subject to his sway. '' He is exalted 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." The 
 language is most emphatic, and seems laboring to find 
 words to express the majesty of Christ. He is raised 
 far above all principality — that is, far above all the 
 princes and rulers of heaven, the abstract being put for 
 the concrete, as is not unusual. The word arehe (" prin- 
 cipality ") is applied to civil rulers (Luke xii. 11 ; Tit. 
 iii. 1), as is the Hebrew rosh (Micah iii.) to the rulers 
 of darkness (1 Cor. xv. 24; Eph. vi. 12) and to the 
 rulers of the heavenly kingdom (Eph. i. 21 ; iii. 10 ; 
 Col. ii. 10). This reveals the threefold character and 
 rule of Christ — over the earth in grace, over tlie heav- 
 ens in glory, and over the region of woe in judgment 
 and justice. 
 
 (1) He is above -aW principality, wherever found. It 
 is sweet here to think of his manhood. Is he, in this 
 supereminent, inconceivable glory, still a man ? Is he 
 still Jesus of Nazareth, whose heart is love ? Is that 
 he, far above all heavens, who loved me and gave him- 
 self for me? Is that my nature, my human nature, 
 that is insphered in such supercelestial glory ? Oh. 
 wonderful is redeeming love ! God is love ! 
 
 (2) Far above -aW. power — that is, authority ; all au- 
 thority in heaven and earth is given to him (Matt, 
 xxviii. 18). This is delegated authority, and presents- 
 Jesus as Man-Mediator, ruling over the creation ; tlu 
 Head of the Church and the universe : the universal 
 Bishop and the universal King, in whose person reside 
 ail the fountains of royal and priestly power (Rev. i. 
 ()). The word is applied to the angels (Eph. i. 21 ; iii. 
 
CHAPTER I. VERSES 15-23. 117 
 
 10; Col. i. 16; ii. 10; 1 Pet. iii. 22), to the demons 
 (Eph. vi. 12; Col. ii. 15; Eph. ii. 2), and to civil 
 magistrates, showing also the triple crown of Christ — 
 his authority over heaven, earth and hell. This is the 
 authority which the man of sin usurps. 
 
 (3) He is far above all might. The Greek word is the 
 origin of our term dynamics, and seems to denote inherent 
 strength, capacity and ability; but it is very variously 
 applied in the New Testament. It denotes the almighty 
 energy of God in creating and sustaining the world 
 (Matt. xxii. 29; Mark xii. 24; Luke i. 35; v. 17; 
 Rom. i. 20; ix. 17; 1 Cor. vi. 14; 2 Cor. iv. 7, etc.). 
 It is often joined with glory, and seems to denote om- 
 nipotent majesty (Matt. xxiv. 30; Luke xxi. 27). It 
 is used, also, like the two former, to denote rulers of 
 all kinds (Rom. viii. 38; 1 Cor. xv. 24; Eph. i. 21; 
 1 Pet. iii. 22). This word represents the rulers of the 
 world as mere power-possessors, the mighty ones who 
 execute the divine will, and Jesus is far above them all. 
 These heavenly and earthly rulers may have, and very 
 probably have, very extensive rule and authority under 
 the sovereignty of God, yet they are all but shadows 
 of the mighty One, the Son, the Heir, the First-Born 
 of the creation, the appointed Mediator and Judge. He 
 unites all glories in his person, and all extremes and 
 varieties are in him harmonized. 
 
 (4) He is far above all dominion or lordshi/p, the ab- 
 stract here also for the concrete. The meaning is, 
 There are many possessors or lords in the dominions of 
 God, but Jesus is the true, original Kurios, Lord and 
 Possessor, to whom all belongs. He is the King of 
 kings and the Lord of lords. He is the Lord of all 
 (Rom. X. 12 ; ix. 15 ; 1 Cor. xv. 25 ; Heb. ii. 8 ; viii. 
 
118 GRAHAM ON EPHESIANS. 
 
 1, etc.). The idea is the same as the stronger phrase 
 " God over all," which is applied to hini in Rom. ix. 5. 
 " Lordship " implies possession, so Jesus (Kom. x. 9) ; 
 authority, so Jesus (Matt, xxviii. 18) ; state, attendance, 
 court, so Jesus (1 Pet. iii. 22). 
 
 (5) But the apostle adds, ^'Far above every name 
 that is named, not only in tin's world, but also in thai 
 which is to come;'''' on which we remark that nami 
 means " renown " or " glory," as the phrase " men of 
 name," which we rightly render " men of renown " 
 (Gen. vi. 4 ; comp. Num. xvi. 2 ; 1 Chron, v. 24) ; and 
 the ignoble are called " sons of those without a name " 
 (Job xxx. 8). The Hebrews say, as we do, "He has 
 made himself a name" (Gen. xi. 4; Jer. xxxii. 20), 
 and to acquire a name (2 Sam. vii. 23). The Lord 
 promised to make them a praise and a name (Zeph. iii. 
 19), and gloriously-beautiful tents are tents of name. 
 In this sense Jesus is elevated far above every nam^ 
 in the universe. He is the most celebrated Man on 
 the earth. He is the most glorious Creature in the 
 heavens. I say creature, for the passage is to be in- 
 terpreted of his human nature. It is, then, a great fact 
 that the nature of man in the person of the Christ is 
 endowed with universal and everlasting dominion over 
 all things. That the form of speech, " heaven and 
 earth," means the universe needs no proof. Glorious 
 truth, worthy of the interference of the Son of God ! 
 The highest becomes the lowest that the lowest may be- 
 come the highest. The God-Man on earth is the Man- 
 God in heaven. Abounding sin has yielded to super- 
 abounding grace. The sin-stained and death-possessed 
 manhood has been raised in the Head and Forerunner 
 to peerless heights of glory. All transgressions and 
 
CHAPTER I. VERSI':S 15-23. 119 
 
 shortcomings are obliterated and forgotten in the im- 
 maculate perfection of the Advocate and Mediator. 
 
 Oh what love is in the heart of God! What 
 heights of glory are before us, my brother and com- 
 panion in tribulation ! How dear should every being 
 in the form of man be to us ! That form was assumed 
 by the Son of God ; that form is on the throne of 
 heaven ; that form, so low and debased as we often 
 see it, is the royal form of creature-being, full of 
 divine and endless cajDacities. 
 
 But we must stay our hand in these anticipations of 
 man's destined dominion over all things, and turn to 
 the following words of our text, which contains — 
 
 VI. The Headship of Christ. 
 
 And 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 fllleth all in all 
 (ver. 22, 23). 
 
 He hath put all things under his feet. This is the 
 fulfillment of the ancient prophecies (Ps. ex. and ii. 
 and viii.) which announced the coming of the Messiah. 
 This Headship embraces all orders and ranks and con- 
 ditions of angels and men, and is therefore strictly and 
 properly universal (Heb. ii. 7; Col. i. 18, 24). The 
 working of God in the boundless universe is man- 
 ifested through the Head and Mediator, in whom 
 alone Creator and creature can meet. This heading- 
 up of all things in the Christ is the end of God's 
 purpose of blessing to the creation (Eph. i. 10). He 
 is the connecting-link that binds it in faithful service 
 to God, the Unit and Head in whom all its depart- 
 ments, varieties and orders of being are sustained and 
 
120 GRAHAM ON EPHESIANS. 
 
 harmonized. Then, again, we must contemplate this 
 Headship as the reivard of his humiliation, whose 
 incredible depth is best seen in the way of contrast 
 by the dignity and glory to which he is now exalted. 
 It is not, however, merely personal ; Jesus is the 
 Head, and his reward draws with it the exaltation 
 and glory of the members also. Then, again, in this 
 passage we discern a twofold headship. He is the 
 Head of and the Head over — the Head of the Church 
 and the Head over all things to the Church, which 
 is his body, the fullness of him that filleth all in 
 all. The Church is his body and the world is his 
 dominion. 
 
 We may analyze the doctrine of Headship still 
 further by the following division : (1) He is King 
 of the Jews, the Son of Abraham, and Head of the 
 Hebrew race. (2) He is Husband, Head, King and 
 Redeemer of the Church (1 Cor. xi. 3 ; xii. 27 ; Eph. 
 i. 22; iv. 15; v. 23; Col. i. 18; ii. 10, 19). (3) As 
 Son of man and second Adam he is Head and Lord 
 of the human race (1 Cor. xi. 3; xv. 22). As Medi- 
 ator and Lord after his ascension he is Head over the 
 angels (1 Pet. iii. 22; Rom. viii. 28). They are all 
 his ministering spirits, sent forth to minister to the 
 heirs of salvation (Heb. i. 14). (4) He is Head over 
 all created beings, the universal Head and Sustain- 
 er, in whom it has pleased the Father that all full- 
 ness should dwell. 
 
 VII. Practical Lessons. 
 We have thus done our best to grasp and illustrate 
 the magnificent theme contained in our text. We 
 have surveyed a wide and fruitful field ; and if we 
 
CHAPTER I. VERSES 15-23. 121 
 
 gather no fruit, it must be our own fault. We may 
 want the eyes to see it or the taste to relish it, but the 
 fruit is there in plentiful abundance. 
 
 (1) We may conclude with much probability that 
 there are various orders of angels, and various ranks 
 and degrees in the celestial hierarchies. The earthly 
 is but a type of the heavenly in this respect. We 
 cannot make out the exact degrees, but there is 
 evidence that ranks and degrees exist. 
 
 (2) We see from the whole passage the value of the 
 human family in the sight of God. We see, too, in 
 a burning light, both the nature of sin and the nature 
 of holiness — his estimate of them both. Why all this 
 working in the Son ? Why such an expensive machin- 
 ery? That you might live; that you might obtain 
 redemption and an everlasting kingdom. Hence sin 
 can be no trifle. It is best seen in the light of the 
 cross. 
 
 (3) We see Jesus, our Elder Brother, exalted to the 
 right hand of God. He is our Friend, our Fore- 
 runner, our Head. Is this not joy for you and me as 
 we hear the thunder of Sinai over our heads ? Ought 
 not the heart to leap with joy at the thought of meet- 
 ing him, seeing him, being with him and like him for 
 ever ? Remember that word : " We know that when 
 he shall appear, we shall be like him ; for we shall 
 see him as he is" (1 John iii. 2, 3, 4). 
 
 16 
 
CHAPTER IV. 
 
 And you hatb lie quickened, who were dead in trespasses and sins ; 
 wherein in time past ye walked according to the course of this world, 
 according to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that now 
 worketh in the children of disobedience: among whom also we all 
 had our conversation in times past in the lusts of our flesh, fulfilling 
 the desires of the flesh and of the mind ; and were by nature the 
 children of wrath, even as others. But God, who is rich in mercy, for 
 his great love wherewith he loved us, even when we were dead in sins, 
 hath quickened us together with Christ (by grace ye are saved) ; and 
 hath raised us up together, and made us sit together in heavenly 
 places in Christ Jesus; that in the ages to come he might show the 
 exceeding riches of his grace in his kindness toward us through 
 Christ Jesus. For by grace are ye saved through faith ; and that not 
 of yourselves: it is the gift of God: not of works, lest any man should 
 boast. For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto 
 good works, which God hath before ordained that we should walk in 
 them. — Ephesians ii. 1-10. 
 
 In this passage we have two great contrasted ideas — 
 the character of man and the character of Ood ; and 
 these are so placed, like light and shade in a picture, 
 that they serve mutually to complete and illustrate 
 each other. 
 
 The ancient commentators connected the first verse 
 closely with the last of the preceding chapter, and 
 thus gave the meaning "And you hath he filled who 
 were dead in trespasses and sins," which is indeed the 
 simplest and easiest construction and brings out a 
 beautiful and sublime truth : God has filled you with 
 himself; his love, his grace, his gifts, his Holy Spirit, 
 
 122 
 
CHAPTER II. VERSES 1-10. 123 
 
 are in you ; ye are complete (filled) in him (Col. ii. 
 10) ; 3 e are filled with all the fullness of God (Eph. 
 iii. 19). 
 
 Yet I cannot believe that Paul intended this in our 
 text. Because (1) the contrast is not between an 
 empty and a full vessel, but between a dead and a 
 living man, and therefore our translators have well 
 supplied the word " quickened," from the fifth verse : 
 ^'you hath he quickened.'' He does not quicken the 
 hungry and fill the dead, but he fills the hungry and 
 quickens the dead. The Scripture speaks of filling 
 the valleys (Luke iii. 5) ; of filling up the measure of 
 dn (Matt, xxiii. 30-32) ; of filling a house (Acts ii. 2 ; 
 John xii. 3) ; of filling a city with doctrine (Acts v. 
 28) ; and many other similar examples occur in the 
 Scripture. On the other hand, the usage of "quicken" 
 is equally appropriate and distinctive. The dead cre- 
 ation draws its life from God, and hence " he quicken- 
 eth all things " (1 Tim. vi. 13) ; he quickeneth the 
 spiritually dead (John vi. 63) and the literally dead 
 (Rom. iv. 17; viii. 11 ; 1 Cor. xv. 22; 1 Pet. iii. 18). 
 From all which we conclude that the dead, in our 
 verse, is more naturally connected with the "quick- 
 ened " of ii. 5 than the " filling " of i. 23. But (2) 
 Col. ii. 13 is an exactly parallel passage, and Paul 
 there uses the word " quickened ;" so that it is natural 
 to conclude that here also the same striking image 
 was in his mind. But, leaving this point of verbal 
 criticism, let us attend to the solemn statements of the 
 apostle. 
 
 First. Ye tvere dead in trespasses and sins. Those 
 who, following Bom. vi. 11, would translate these 
 words " dead to trespasses and sins " (by the rite of 
 
124 GKAHAM ON EPHESIANvS. 
 
 bH})tism), forget the very subject of which Paul is 
 speaking, and that the turning-point in the passage is 
 verse 4. The meaning is as clear as a sunbeam, and 
 it is this : " Ye were dead in or by means of sin." No 
 other interpretation is possible. This is very solemn : 
 " Ye were dead^ 
 
 The frightful presence of death is manifested in 
 many ways. The dead have no motion; they cannot 
 come to God ; they are helpless as was Lazarus till the 
 voice of Jesus reached him ; grace alone can quicken 
 the dead soul. The dead have no sensation ; they are 
 past feeling ; all the fountains of passion and emotion 
 are sealed (Eph. iv. 19) ; so that before they can love 
 God or hate sin they must get a new life. The dead 
 have no enjoyment; food satisfies, beauty pleases and 
 music charms no more. It is even so. Sin has per- 
 verted the moral sense and shut up the heart against 
 the enjoyment of God himself His character and his 
 love please us no more. All the wonders of grace, as 
 well as the excellences of the divine character which 
 the cross reveals, fall upon us like sunbeams on the 
 eyes of the dead. Lastly, the dead have no restorative 
 'power. Life — that mysterious, incomprehensible prin- 
 ciple which, though ever present with us and filling 
 all things, eludes research and bafiles reason — has a 
 wonderful restorative power. Indeed, life is a sort of 
 miracle, for it reverses, suspends and modifies most of 
 the laws of nature. In every plant, in every livinj< 
 creature, you see life assimilating and incorporating 
 most heterogeneous elements, counteracting the law 
 of gravity, nullifying the most potent chemical agencias 
 and resisting the mechanical laws. The dead are desti- 
 tute of all these mysterious powers; they remain a„« 
 
CHAPTER II. VERSES 1-10. 125 
 
 they are, or they become more and more corrupt. 
 There is no healing process going on in the dead soul 
 by which, in the course of nature, it can become pure 
 and healthy and happy in the enjoyment of God. It 
 must first be made alive before it can exhibit the 
 symptoms of life. This is the first assertion of the 
 apostle : "Ye were dead.'' 
 
 This fearful sentence is universal, and has continued 
 ruling over us since the beginning of the world. We 
 may imagine, therefore, what the enormity of apostasy 
 must be in the sight of God, when one transgression 
 has produced such fearful and universal ruin ; we 
 may conceive how awful the derangement in the moral 
 and physical world must be, when it required the inter- 
 ference of incarnate Love to repair it ; and we may 
 rejoice in the hope of that transcendent glory which 
 is to be the result of a redemption so stupendous. " To 
 be dead in sins," says Bloomfield, " is to be entirely 
 enslaved to sin, as a dead body is to the power of death, 
 and to be as incai^able of rising from it to a spiritual 
 life as a corpse is of being restored to natural life." 
 Error, trespass or lapse is to be distinguished from sin, 
 which includes the more deliberate and habitual acts 
 of disobedience to God. It is applied to the first 
 transgression (Rom. v. 17) ; it is the Hebrew sin of 
 ignorance (Ps. xix. 13) for which the cities of refuge 
 were provided. There is no doubt, however, but in the 
 New Testament the word is often used for sin in general 
 (Rom. iv. 25; v. 15, 16, 20; 2 Cor. v. 19; Eph. i. 7; 
 Col. ii. 13). The meaning, then, is that we are dead 
 from two causes — the ignorance which we inherit from 
 the fall, and the law of sin in the members which leads 
 us to active rebellion against God. 
 
12G GRAHAM ON EPHESIANS. 
 
 Second. Wherein in time past ye walked. (1) On 
 which observe that the natural evil life called the law 
 of sin and death cannot be hid, but bursts forth in 
 acts of all kinds like an overflowing fountain. They 
 walked in them ; they had pleasure in unrighteousness 
 and followed the idolatries and delusions of heathen- 
 ism with greediness. Their walk was not with God, 
 who loves life and purity, but in the ways of iniquity, 
 which can lead only to death. This is the first asser- 
 tion of the apostle. Sin is an active operative princi- 
 ple ; we walk in it and are pleased with it. (2) It was 
 A walk " according to the course of this world " — 
 according to the age (aeov) of this world, the present 
 dispensation of evil, when death reigns and Satan rages 
 and all things are laboring under the bondage of cor- 
 ruption (Gal. i. 4). This course or age of the world 
 is under the direction of Satan, its ruler and god 
 (2 Cor. iv. 4; Eph. vi. 12), and is to end only at the 
 coming of the Lord (Matt. xiii. 39). It is opposed 
 to the world to come, and is therefore called the day 
 of man (1 Cor. iv. 3, Greek text), because it is in all 
 things contrary to the world to come, which is called 
 the day of God. The course of this world is exactly 
 the Zeitgeist of the Germans, and may well be rendered 
 " the spirit of the times." He that walks according to 
 this spirit is, says the apostle, dead in trespasses and 
 sins. Brethren, judge yourselves, that ye may not be 
 judged. The spirit of the world is evil. 
 
 Third. But Paul asserts here that the life and the 
 walk of the unregenerate are guided and governed by 
 the devil, who is here called " the prince of the power 
 of the air," where the abstract power is put for the con- 
 crete "powerful hosts," as it is often pnoudi among 
 
CHAPTER II. VERSES 1-10. 127 
 
 ourselves. Theophylact expounds the passage by call- 
 ing Satan the prince of the powerful spirits who dwell 
 in the air. It was a common opinion among both 
 heathen and Jews that the air was full of spirits 
 (Diogenes, lib. viii. 221) whb were called demons, and 
 whose evil influence extended to the human race ; and 
 the Jews teach (Pirke Avoth), "A teora usque adjirma- 
 mentum omriia esse plena turmis et prmfectis " — viz., 
 " From the earth to the firmament, all things are filled 
 with multitudes of spirits and their rulers." Ignatius, in 
 his epistle to the Ephesians, expounds it of the warfare 
 of the earthly and aerial spirits. The Holy Scriptures 
 give no sanction to the dreams of the Rabbins or the 
 less excusable dreams of some of the Fathers concern- 
 ing angels, demons, magic and the warriors of the air. 
 Yet we may gather the following facts from the word 
 of God without treading on the boundaries of con- 
 jecture. 
 
 (1) There are two kingdoms — the kingdom of light 
 and the kingdom of darkness — upon the earth ; these 
 have existed since the fall, and will continue more or 
 less mingled together till the coming of Christ, when 
 the separation shall take place, and the righteous and 
 the wicked shall be gathered into the two poles of light 
 and of darkness called heaven and hell. 
 
 (2) The fallen spirits or demons headed up in Satan, 
 the prince of darkness, form a kind of diabolical king- 
 dom, whose object is to seduce the human race from 
 their allegiance and to propagate the principles of de- 
 ceit and wickedness. Satan is their prince, either be- 
 cause he seduced them at the beginning or because he 
 is the mightiest and the wisest, to whom, willingly or 
 by compulsion, they yield some sort of obedience. 
 
128 GRAHAM ON EPHESIANS. 
 
 (3) Though imprisoned in chains under darkness 
 (Jude 6), they have, by the permission of God, a certain 
 reach and compass of activity ; so that they can interfere 
 in the affairs of men to accomplish their diabolical pur- 
 poses. I suppose that in the passages where Satan and 
 devil are mentioned (there is only one devil) he is to be 
 contemplated, not as a single individual, but as the 
 prince or head of the demons, and that his agency is 
 to be taken as the consummated villany of them all. 
 In him, roaring round us like a lion (1 Pet. v. 8), we 
 have all the accusations which a broken law, a guilty 
 conscience and a dreaded judgment-day can bring 
 against us ; in him we see embodied the principles of 
 ajDostasy and the ever-deepening hatred to God and 
 godliness which sin leaves in the heart of the fallen 
 creature. 
 
 But w^hat do we know of his agency? We know 
 very much about it, and in the same way that we know 
 anything of the agency of God — viz., from the Holy 
 Scriptures. We know that Satan and his demons are 
 in every way the enemies of God (Matt. iv. 1, 5, 6 ; xiii. 
 39; XXV. 41; Luke iv. 2-13; viii. 12; John xiii. 2; 
 Acts X. 38; Eph. iv. 27 ; vi. 11 ; 1 Tim. iii. 6, 7 ; 2 
 Tim. ii. 26 ; Heb. ii. 14 ; James iv. 7 ; 1 Pet. v. 8 ; 
 Jude 9 ; Rev. ii. 10) ; they are authors of moral and 
 spiritual and physical evils (1 Tim. iv. 1 ; James ii. 19 ; 
 Eph. vi. 12) ; they entered into the bodies of men, de- 
 ranging the mind and darkening the understanding 
 (Luke iv. 33, 34, 35 ; viii. 27 ; Matt. xvii. 18 ; Mark 
 vii. 29). By divine authority, Jesus in the name of 
 God, and the apostles in the name of Jesus, cast them 
 out (Matt. vii. 22 ; ix. 34 ; x. 8 ; xii. 24-28 ; Mark i. 
 34, 39 ; iii. 15, 22 ; vi. 13 ; vii. 26 ; ix. 38, etc.). They 
 
CHAPTER II. VERSES 1-10. 129 
 
 used the organs of men, spoke with the tongues of men, 
 and so identified themselves with the human conscious- 
 ness and will that neither the possessed nor the beholder 
 could distino-uish between the human and the diabolic. 
 This is clear from the passages already referred to. We 
 have the same mystery in the operations of the Spirit 
 of God ; the believer is led, guided and taught by the 
 Holy Ghost, yet no man can positively distinguish the 
 operations of the Spirit from those of the sanctified 
 mind. In this case the human and the divine, in 
 the other the human and the diabolical, are, so far 
 as we are concerned, inextricably blended together. In 
 the one we are rewarded, in the other punished, for the 
 work of another in us. The mystery is the same, and 
 the responsibility remains equally in both cases. It 
 seems that, as death and sin are the elements in which 
 these wicked sj)irits delight, so they frequent the scenes 
 of desolation and drive their victims to the tombs (Matt, 
 xii. 43; viii. 28; Mark v. 2; Luke viii. 27). (Comp. 
 Baruch iv. 35, " she shall be inhabited of devils for a 
 long time," and Isa. xiii. 21 and xxiv., where our satyrs — 
 Luther's '' FeldteufeV and De Wette's " WaldteufeV'—\^ 
 in the Septuagint translated " demons.") These demons 
 are represented as doing great works of evil, signs and 
 miracles for the purposes of evil (John x. 21 ; Kev. xvi. 
 14). (Comp. 2 Thess. ii. 9; Rev. xiii. 13; xix. 20.) 
 The whole image-worship, idolatry and oracles of the 
 heathen were their work (1 Cor. x. 20, 21 ; Acts xvi. 
 16 (Greek text, " Apollo ") ; Deut. xxxii. 17 ; Lev. 
 xvii. 7 ; Ps. cvi. 37; xci. 6, Septuagint). Such are the 
 works of the spirit of darkness, represented in our text 
 as the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that now 
 worketh in the children of disobedience. 
 
 17 
 
130 GRAHAM ON EPHESIANS. 
 
 Fourth. Disobedience seems here to be personified 
 and represented as the mother of Satan's household, in 
 which, as the father of lies, he works his deeds of dark- 
 ness : " The spirit that nmv worketh in the children of 
 disobedience.'" The Greek genitive is here put for the 
 accusative by anacolouthon. Similar anomalies are not 
 infrequent in the New Testament, and indeed in most 
 writers. (See Acts xx. 3 ; xix. 34 ; xxiii. 30 ; John vi. 
 20 ; Gal. ii. 6 ; Winer's Grammar, 440.) Bloomfield 
 thinks the preposition according to involves the sense 
 of a genitive in the thought, and therefore the writer 
 followed the sense rather than the grammatical con- 
 struction. Those who would govern spirit by acoi^, 
 " age " or " course," weaken the reasoning of the apos- 
 tle, and must, like Macknight, interpret " the spirit that 
 now worketh in the children of disobedience " of an 
 evil disposition of the mind. This destroys the force 
 and beauty of the passage in which the prince of the 
 power of the air and the spirit that now worketh in the 
 children of disobedience are set in apposition to each 
 other. His sphere of working, his circle of operation, 
 is in the children of disobedience. Obey ! To hear 
 and to obey is the law of the universe, from the high- 
 est to the lowest orders of being. When the Creator 
 speaks, the will of the creature sinks into his, and rea- 
 son's highest exercise is instant submission. It is fear- 
 ful to think of disobeying God. It is also fearful to 
 think that there is no neutral ground here. If God 
 does not work in us, the devil does. The temple does 
 not remain empty ; the soul is too noble a creature to 
 be neglected. Lord, have mercy upon us, miserable 
 sinners ! My brother-man, are you an obedient son 
 — a new creature in Christ Jesus? Or are you stil]. 
 
CHAPTER II. VERSES 1-10. 131 
 
 like the Ephesians, a slave of Satan ? Even so there is 
 hope for you in the mercy of God, for the apostle says — 
 
 Fifth. Among whom also ive all had our conversation. 
 Among whom might well be translated " In which," 
 referring to trespasses and sins ; but the present trans- 
 lation is better and stronger. There is a beautiful 
 change of person here which is full of significance to 
 the interpreter and to the believer. The " ye " is 
 changed for we, in order to show the universality of 
 sin, and also that the writer claimed to be nothing 
 better by nature than the heathen idolaters. We are 
 all in the same condition ; we are all alike sinful be- 
 fore God. The word among, indeed, should not be 
 taken in a local sense, as denoting that the Jews lived 
 and sinned among the Gentiles, but rather in the signi- 
 fication of "after the example of," as in Heb. iv. 11. 
 The conclusion is that both are by nature equally 
 guilty and need equally the redemption of Christ. 
 
 Conversation does not mean " talking ;" there is no in- 
 stance where it has this signification in the English 
 Bible. It means, as the Greek original does, " de- 
 portment," " conduct," " character," as in the following 
 passages : 2 Cor. i. 12 ; Gal. i. 13 ; Eph. ii. 3 ; iv. 22 ; 
 1 Tim. iv. 12; Heb. xiii. 5, 7; James iii. 13; 1 Pet. 
 i. 15, 18 ; ii. 12 ; iii. 1, 2, 16 ; 2 Pet. ii. 7 ; iii. 11. In 
 Phil. i. 27 conversation signifies " citizenship ;" so that 
 to have a good conversation is to act worthy of the 
 New Jerusalem, to which grace has called you. But 
 this former conduct or conversation of theirs was " in 
 the lusts of the flesh." This refers (1) to carnal or 
 sensual appetites, in which the heathen world was 
 sunk, and Paul asserts in the text that the Jews were 
 the same (Rom. vi. 12 ; vii. 8, 9 ; 1 Tim. iv. 9 ; and 
 
132 GRAHAM ON EPHESIANS. 
 
 many others). This implies and includes luxury, the 
 pleasures of the table, drunkenness and all such for- 
 bidden pleasures. (2) These fleshly desires are seen 
 most perfectly in the systems of false worship adopted 
 by the heathen world in general. Baalim was the em- 
 bodiment of lewdness ; Buddhism is the embodiment 
 of the dogma of priestly rule ; so is Hindooism and 
 so are other forms of religion. The Greeks and the 
 Komans deified nature and the dead. Popery is a 
 religion of sacraments. The flesh is the teeming foun- 
 tain of vileness from which all these and similar sys- 
 tems flow ; the 'picture, the image, the idol, the oracle, 
 are the four head-forms or developments of false wor- 
 ship, and they all come from the flesh. (3) Fleah is 
 always contrasted with sjnrit, and in general denotes 
 alienation from God. The law of the flesh is sin ; the 
 works of the flesh are evil ; the carnal mind is enmity 
 against God (Rom. viii. 6, 7) ; to walk after the flesh 
 is ungodliness ; to be in the flesh is not to know or 
 please God. Jesus Christ crucified it, and he gives 
 us the principle and power of doing the same. His 
 worship is pure ; there is nothing carnal in it ; its 
 principle is grace, and it means the law of love. The 
 hope which it insj^ires is immortality, and its end is 
 the glory of God. Then, again, it is said, " They 
 fulfilled the desires of the flesh and of the mind,'' 
 literally yielding themselves to the current of the cor- 
 rupt and deceitful lusts of the flesh — to all the stormy 
 passions of the mind, as anger, wrath, envy, hatred, 
 malice, ambition, and such-like enormities. The intel- 
 lectual faculties and the active powers of man are all 
 deranged by the fall ; the whole man, mind and body, is 
 under the bondage of corruption ; for says the apostle — 
 
CHAPTEK II. VERSES 1-10. 133 
 
 Sixth. We were by nature the children of wrath, even 
 as others. This is a Hebrew form of expression which 
 cannot be mistaken. (See Isa. Ivii. 4 ; Deut. xxv. 2 ; 
 2 Kings xiv. 14.) Deut. xxv. 2 is exactly illustrative 
 of our text, for the Hebrew, " son of strokes," is ren- 
 dered, both in the Septuagint and in our translation, 
 " worthy of blows." This mode of expression is very 
 common in Scripture. The son of possession is the 
 heir (Gen. xv. 2) ; the son of oil means rich, fat, 
 fertile (Isa. v. 1) ; the sons of the lightning are flames 
 of fire or sparks (Job v. 7) [some translate this passage 
 " swift-flying birds of prey "] ; arrows are the sons of 
 the bow (Job xli. 20) ; the morning star is the son of 
 the dawn (Isa. xiv. 12). In the New Testament be- 
 lievers are children of light, children of wisdom, chil- 
 dren of God, etc. On the other hand. Antichrist is 
 the son of perdition (2 Thess. ii. 3) ; his followers, the . 
 children of the curse (2 Pet. ii. 14). Wicked men 
 are the children of the devil (1 John iii. 10). Fallen 
 men are the children of wrath (Eph. ii. 3). To be 
 a child of wrath, then, is to be deserving the wrath 
 of God. This is the terrible sentence of the apostle. 
 All men are under wrath. They have forfeited their 
 creation-standing, and the curse of a broken law 
 rests on them. The same dark thunder-cloud of wrath 
 is suspended over both Jew and Gentile, for they are 
 all children of wrath, not by practice only, but also 
 by nature. This is the hereditary taint which, like 
 a subtle poison, has spread itself through the diseased 
 body of mankind since the fall — which is, indeed, 
 partly cured by the gospel, and shall be finally eradi- 
 cated at the resurrection. The great law of Jehovah, 
 that like «Kall produce like, runs its course, and the 
 
134 GRAHAM ON EPHESIANS. 
 
 descendants of the fallen must remain fallen and leave 
 fallen successors behind them until it shall please the 
 Creator to alter the constitution of the human race. 
 Nor does it serve any good purpose to torture the 
 text, like a saint writhing under the hands of papal 
 inquisitors, by the most improved methods of textual 
 and verbal criticism. Nature will remain nature after 
 ignorance and unbelief have done their utmost to per- 
 vert the meaning of the text. By nature, then — that 
 is, by the law of their birth and generation — all men 
 are children of wrath. What ! the whole race ? Yes, 
 the whole race, without any exception, save One ; and 
 if you think this conclusion fearful, then flee to the 
 refuge which God has provided in his Son Jesus Christ 
 our Lord. He is the way and the truth and the life. 
 Come to the cross ; you are safe there. He delivers 
 from the wrath to come. You are no worse than 
 others. We are all descendants of the same common 
 father, and share his fortunes. We sinned in him and 
 fell with him. The streams are not sweeter than the 
 fountain that sent them forth. Yea, they rather settle 
 into stagnant pools of unendurable pollution. The 
 Flood, indeed, washed away the memorials of our guilt, 
 but the very ark bore within it the fountain of vileness. 
 which poured forth its bitter waters before the deluge 
 had fully subsided. Thus the tree remains corrupt, 
 and the fountain remains bitter, and the viper-blood 
 retains the venom of the serpent, to the last ; and there 
 is no way of escape for you or for me, or for any, save 
 in the eternal mercy which has 0})ened a door of hope 
 in the redemption of Jesus Christ. For — 
 
 Seventh. God who is rich in mercy, for the great 
 love wherewith he loved us, etc. (ver. 4). Here the 
 
CHAPTER II. VERSES 1-10. 135 
 
 apostle leaves the character of man and leads us to 
 contemplate the character of God. We have seen the 
 creature, and we are now to see the Creator. The 
 depths of sin and apostasy are to be met in the depths 
 of divine mercy ; so that the fall and the recovery, the 
 disease and the remedy, the malignity of Satan and the 
 benevolence of God, are parts of the apostolic picture. 
 But is the turning-point in the sentence : " Ye were, 
 but God is ;" ye were children of wrath, but God is 
 rich in mercy. Let us, then, with joyous hearts con- 
 template for a little the riches of God as unfolded in 
 his word. 
 
 Mercy is the aspect of God which the sinner first 
 and most needs. While we are condemned criminals it 
 is vain to speculate on crowns or coronets or heavenly 
 mansions. The guilt must be removed, the condem- 
 nation obliterated, in the first place; and to comfort 
 fallen sinners Paul announces that God is rich in 
 mercy. Who dwells in the cloudy sky? Shall 
 he receive or reject the penitent? Dare I approach 
 his awful throne, all wretched and guilty as I am? 
 The apostle answers. He is rich in mercy. 
 
 But let us contemplate the riches of God a little 
 more generally, and see how his bounty meets and 
 supplies all our wants. 
 
 (1) We are creatures who have lost all, have noth- 
 ing and need much ; and to meet this God is rich in 
 goodness (E-om. ii. 4) . He is good — that is, he is God ; 
 for the name " God '' is derived from his goodness. He 
 is the Good One — the fountain from which all good gifts 
 flow. The earth and the heavens, the laws of the 
 moral and physical worlds, are conceived and estab- 
 lished out of pure goodness. His fullness overflows, 
 
136 GRAHAM ON EPHESIANS. 
 
 and worlds and boundless systems of worlds arise to 
 manifest and enjoy liis goodness. 
 
 (2) Are we impotent and incapable of procuring the 
 divine favor? Then, says Paul, he is rich in grace 
 (Eph. ii. 7), which is the same nearly as "the rich in 
 mercy " of my text. You need no merit, you require 
 no preparation, in coming to God. He is rich in 
 grace, and grace excludes the very idea of merit and 
 the works of the law altogether. Do not wait to get 
 new clothes or to put on clean ones. Come to 
 God at once, 
 
 " Just as you are, without one plea 
 But that the Saviour died for thee." 
 
 Come, and he will give you the new robes, the new 
 name, the new hope, the new heart. He will make all 
 things new. 
 
 (3) But wherein is this riches of mercy seen? It 
 is seen in the degradation and ruin from which it 
 delivers us ; it is seen in the glory and blessedness 
 to which we are raised ; it is seen in the number 
 and heinousness of the sins which it forgives ; and it is 
 seen in the greatness of the number of the saved. The 
 scheme of mercy embraces all the ages of the world 
 and all the nations of the earth, and the glorious issue 
 will be the myriads of the heavenly companies around 
 the throne (Rev. v. 9-11 ; xiv. 1-3). We believe that all 
 children dying in infancy are saved through this mercy, 
 and this makes at once nearly one-third of the human 
 race. We may hope also that many of the heathen who 
 have never heard, and therefore have never rejected, the 
 gospel may be allowed to share the riches of his mercy. 
 Then we must also remember that in the millennial ages 
 
CHAPTEK II. VERSES 1-10. 137 
 
 the whole earth shall be filled with the knowledge of 
 the Lord as the waters cover the sea ; so that we may 
 well believe that, taking the race of man as a whole, 
 the lost may bear some such proportion to the saved as 
 the convicts and criminals do to the peaceable in- 
 habitants in a well-ordered state. He is rich in 
 mercy. 
 
 (4) But there is still another aspect of the human 
 character which the riches of God meets. We lono; 
 for power, for fame, for glory and immortality. We 
 would be great, and the aspiration is not in itself 
 wrong, but it is often misdirected. We find ourselves 
 in this world bounded on every side by insurmount- 
 able barriers, baffling all our efforts of knowledge and 
 of power. But are we satisfied ? No, no ! The soul 
 longs for complete knowledge, pines for the possession 
 of power, seeks to wing her flight through the spark- 
 ling stars and circumambient worlds up to the empyrean 
 throne itself, from whence proceed such manifestations 
 of wisdom, beauty and strength. And God meets this 
 longing of the soul by that other word, "the riches of 
 his glory" (Phil. iv. 19). He is rich in goodness, he 
 is rich in grace, he is rich in mercy, and he is rich in 
 glory. Here honorable ambition may expand itself; and 
 the soul, enlarged and purified by the Spirit of God, 
 may drink deeply and more deeply for ever, may ascend 
 higher and higher for ever, may approach for ever and 
 for evermore, in love, wisdom, knowledge and power, the 
 character of Him who loved us and whom we love, who 
 was born in a stable and executed on a cross, who is 
 God over all and blessed for ever, the Redeemer of our 
 souls and the Judge of the world. He is rich in glory. 
 Glorious hope for our longing souls ! Come on, then, 
 
 18 
 
138 GEAHAM ON EPHESIANS. 
 
 brother ! Be of good cheer : great thmgs are before 
 us. We shall get behind the scenes yet, and contem- 
 plate wisdom, power and strength in their unapparent 
 fountains, and perhaps hold unutterable communion 
 with the Infinite himself. This is something for those 
 who were children of wrath. But this is the way of 
 God. His path is in the deep waters, and his mercy, 
 like the bow in the cloud, never seems so glorious as 
 when shining over a stormy and deserted world. 
 
 (5) Mercy is nearly allied to pain or misery, and 
 the ideas are in most languages connected. It is not 
 impossible that the Greek eleos, " mercy," may come 
 from the Hebrew chil, " to be in pain," as the English 
 word is from misericordia, the " pain of the heart," 
 the sorrow which goodness feels at the sight of wretch- 
 edness and woe. It is this feeling (if we may apply 
 it so) in the heart of our heavenly Father which is 
 the fountain of redemption. (See Luke i. 50, 78.) 
 It is applied to Christ (Jude 21). The word, how- 
 ever, though properly signifying "mercy," is applied 
 in the Scriptures in a much wider sense, and some- 
 times expresses the ideas of piety, goodness and relig- 
 ion in general (Matt. ix. 13; xii. 7). The Greek 
 phrase to do mercy with — that is, to show mercy to 
 any one (Luke i. 72 ; x. 37 ; James ii. 13) — is the ex- 
 act translation of a similar construction in Hebrew 
 (Gen. XX. 13; 1 Sam. xv. 6). But let us now pro- 
 ceed to the next clause, which is — 
 
 Eighth. For his great love wherewith he loved us. 
 Mercy, then, flows to us through love. Love is the 
 fountain, and mercy is one of the streams that flow 
 from it. This love of God is twofold, according to 
 the objects on which it rests, and may be called the 
 
CHAPTER II. VERSES 1-10. 139 
 
 love of pity and the love of complacency ; for certainly 
 the feeling with which he loved and loves the world, 
 fallen and wretched and rebellious, must be altogether 
 different from the love which he bears to the Church 
 which he has redeemed and purified, and ornamented 
 as a bride adorned for her husband. His love of pity 
 leads him to relieve the wretched ; his love of com- 
 placency is attracted by the pure and the beautiful. 
 The love of pity is the fountain of redemption ; the 
 love of complacency is the fountain of glory. The 
 love of pity is general, and has no limit save the cir- 
 cumference of misery ; the love of complacency moves 
 in a smaller circle, and rests only on the holy and the 
 good. Pity goes out into the highways and hedges to 
 relieve its objects, and complacency draws them to 
 itself to enjoy them. Incarnation shows love coming 
 to relieve, and ascension shows love drawing up its object 
 to glorify and enjoy it. The incarnate God standing on 
 our earth is the expression of Jehovah's pity for man- 
 kind. The Son of man glorified in the' Father's throne 
 is the type and expression of his love to the Church. 
 This is the Scripture doctrine of a universal, and yet 
 a special, love of God. The Methodists dwell on the 
 love of compassion for all, and the Calvinists on his 
 love of complacency to the Church. They are not 
 inconsistent. Love is associated with God in many 
 ways in the Holy Scriptures, and each seems to bring 
 to light lovelier and brighter views of his character. 
 (1) He is the God of love — the very Source and 
 Fountain from which all love flows. It dwelt eternally 
 in him, and he is the Author of whatever streams of it 
 may be found in us and the other creatures. This is a 
 very attractive view of God, and teaches us to praise 
 
140 GRAHAM ON EPHESIANS. 
 
 him for the gift of a tender and loving heart. (See 2 
 Cor. xiii. 11.) Ood is love (1 John iv. 8). He identi- 
 fies it with himself, and claims love as the true and ex- 
 pressive token of his presence. In his nature, in the 
 glorious attributes of his majesty, in the creation of the 
 boundless universe, and still more especially in the 
 cross of Christ, he is love. The signs and tokens of 
 love are four : {a) We think of those whom we love. 
 Love begins in the heart and leads away the thought-s 
 over seas, rivers, mountains, and all kinds of impedi- 
 ments, to its object. Such is the love of God. Its 
 dwelling-place is his own bosom, and before all worlds 
 his delights were with the sons of men. (b) Love seeks 
 fellowship with its object, and God visited us in the 
 person of his Son that he might woo our fond hearts 
 from the world to himself, (c) True love willingly 
 suffers for its object if need be, and the affection which 
 abides not this test is not genuine. God cannot suffer, 
 but his incarnate Son did, and all the fountains of the 
 great deep of divine sorrow were broken up on the 
 cross, (d) Lastly, love seeks to exalt its object ; and so 
 God, having taken our nature into union with his own, 
 exalted and glorified the Son of man, our Elder Brother 
 ind Head, with his own right hand, in heavenly places, 
 far above all principality and power. 
 
 (2) The form love of God is used by the Greeks and 
 by us, and by all nations, in both an active and a passive 
 sense — that is, the love which he bears to us (Rom. v, 
 5 ; Eph. ii. 4) and the love which we bear to him (Luke 
 xi. 42; John v. 42 ; 1 John ii. 5). In our text it is 
 active. It is the love wherewith he loved us — that 
 boundless love which ever flows and never ebbs in 
 the heart of God. 
 
CHAPTEK II. VERSES 1-10. 141 
 
 (3) The apostle calls it great much — abundant, mani- 
 fold love. We see this greatness in the character and 
 majesty of the Giver, in the fullness and worth of the 
 gift, in the greatness of the obstacles which it had to 
 yurmount before it could reach us, and in the glorious 
 end which it had in view — the redemption of a world. 
 His love to us was indeed great. Follow his Son from 
 Bethlehem to the tomb, from the tomb to the depths of 
 Hades, and from thence to the right hand of God, and 
 say, "What brought him through such spheres?" and 
 the answer is, Love — his love to thee. He would show 
 us what his Father is and how truly great his love can 
 be. He would silence thy fears, brother, by revealing 
 to thy heart a God of love. As our great poet says, 
 
 " Love without end, and without measure grace." 
 
 (4) This love is enhanced still more by its being ex- 
 ercised toward us when we were dead in trespasses and 
 sins. We were dead when he quickened us, unloving 
 when he loved us, and lying in our blood when he said, 
 " Live !" He begins the work of grace in the soul. If 
 we love him, it is because he first loved us ; if we choose 
 him freely as our portion, it is because he chose us in 
 his Son before the foundation of the world (Eph. 
 i. 4)- 
 
 Ninth. Even when we were dead in sins, hath quick- 
 ened us together with Christ {by grace ye are saved) ; 
 and hath raised us up together, and made us sit together 
 in heavenly places in Christ Jesus : that in the ages to 
 come he might show the exceeding riches of his grace in 
 his kindness toward us through Christ Jesus (ver. 
 
 5-7). 
 
 The believer^ s union with Christ. This truth, in the 
 
142 GRAHAM ON EPHESIANS. 
 
 hands of the apostle, becomes the centre of a system of 
 divine operations in Christ and in the Church. Jesus 
 Christ is not contemplated as an individual man, but 
 as the federal Head and Sustainer of the body — the 
 Husband from whose side the New-Testament bride was 
 taken, the Foundation-Stone on which the temple rests, 
 the second Adam and Lord from heaven, in whom the 
 destinies of the human family are summed up and un- 
 folded. Hence the apostle refers to this union, the mani- 
 fold works of the Holy Spirit in converting, quickening 
 and glorifying the Church. 
 
 (1) He hath quickened us together ivith Christ. The 
 translation is quite literal, and the doctrine clear and 
 beautiful. To quicken together with occurs only in our 
 text and in Colossians (ii. 13), where it is followed by 
 with (sun), and the meaning explained by the words 
 " having forgiven you all trespasses ;" and in our text 
 it is explained by the parenthetical clause " by grace ye 
 are saved." This quickening is the spiritual resurrec- 
 tion of the soul from the state of sin and death as the 
 prelude and pledge of the literal resurrection at the 
 coming of the Lord. But how is our quickening by the 
 Holy Spirit connected with the resurrection of Christ? 
 I answer. The believer is, in the word and in the divine 
 Mind, always contemplated in union with his Head and 
 Kedeemer. He was chosen in him (Eph. i. 4) : so we 
 are crucified with him (Gal. ii. 20) ; we are buried with 
 him by baptism unto death (E-om. vi. 4). Our text 
 says we are quickened with him in his resurrection, and 
 we have ascended with him from Mount Olivet to the 
 heavenly places. What passed upon the Head passed 
 upon the members ; and all the members of his body 
 are, in the purpose of the Father and in their own 
 
CHAPTER II. VERSES 1-10. 143 
 
 unconquerable faith, identified with the dying, rising 
 and glorified One. He took their place ; he bore their 
 burden ; he expiated their guilt. Hence we reckon our- 
 selves dead indeed unto sin, but alive unto God through 
 Jesus Christ our Lord. In all our trials and tempta- 
 tions we draw comfort and strength and assurance of 
 victory from the death and resurrection of our victori- 
 ous Head. We say to sin, death and the devil, when 
 they come to tempt us, " What have we to do with you? 
 We are dead already ; we have risen with Jesus ; the 
 law has been kept for us, and Satan, the accuser, has 
 been cast out." This is our answer to all our enemies. 
 This is the strength and victory of faith. 
 
 (2) Consider your position as believers, and mark the 
 power of faith and the consequences that flow from it. 
 You are not only quickened, but raised up and seated 
 with him in the heavenly places. This does not mean 
 merely that you are baptized and made members of the 
 visible Church, or that you are believers in the ortho- 
 dox faith — though these are doubtless great blessings — 
 for regeneration itself is an " earthly " thing (John iii. 
 12). The heavenly things are those connected with the 
 kingdom of heaven, and the heavenly places are the 
 mansions which Jesus has gone to prepare. Faith 
 measures no distances of space or time, but, fixing the 
 eye steadily, like Stephen, on the Conqueror and Elder 
 Brother, reasons thus in the heart of the believer : " In 
 him I have died to sin ; in him I have escaped from 
 the power of Satan by resurrection ; in him I have as- 
 cended to the heavenly mansions. I am complete in 
 him. My heart, my home, my treasure, are all in 
 heaven. My Lord, my Love, my Life, is there also. 
 Faith shall soon be changed into sight, and I shall 
 
144 GRAHAM ON EPHESIANS. 
 
 see him as he is, and be with him and like him for 
 ever." 
 
 (3) The seventh verse shows the purpose which God 
 had in view in these acts of love and power — to man- 
 ifest the riches of his grace. The great end is self- 
 manifestation. He will exhibit to the world of angels 
 and of men as much as may be needful and as they can 
 bear of his fullness. He still remains the unknown, 
 the unutterable, the unapproachable, God ; but such 
 radiance as we can bear breaks forth from the Fount 
 of glory. God has quickened us and raised us up with 
 Christ, says the apostle, to teach the future ages the 
 riches of his grace. Fishermen and tent-makers shall 
 now fish for men and build up the spiritual temple of 
 God. The weak are made strong, the poor are made 
 rich, the ignorant are made wise, by grace. Grace 
 shall make despised Galileans and Nazarenes more ex- 
 cellent and honorable than princes, more noble in their 
 deportment than kings, more steadfast in purpose and 
 more fearless in danger than the legions of the Caesars. 
 Here is love which is stronger than death ; here is 
 patience which persecution cannot conquer ; here is a 
 purely moral force — the force of victorious grace — 
 which wins its way to the stern heart of the persecutor 
 and plants the cross on the throne of the Caesars. He 
 will show all ages and generations what grace can make 
 us do and suffer for his sake, what strength and beauty 
 and meekness, what heroism and moral constancy, lie 
 sleeping in the human mind, ready to be awakened by 
 the hand of grace. None should despair of becoming 
 or doing anything when grace has made us, the apostles, 
 what we are. But we should not limit the us, in verse 
 7, to the apostles. It embraces the whole Church and 
 
CHAPTER II. VERSES 1-10. 145 
 
 the whole period of the Church's history, and is in- 
 tended to show us the plan of the ages (Eph. iii. 11) 
 which he has purposed in the Clirist for the unfolding 
 of his manifold wisdom by the Church in the sight of 
 men and angels and the whole universe. The election, 
 the redemption, the Headship of Christ, the quickening 
 and building up of a Church, the advent and work of 
 the Spirit, the intercession of Christ in heaven, his 
 coming again, the resurrection of the righteous and 
 the everlasting: kingdom are but parts of the eternal 
 purpose of the Father for manifesting the riches of 
 his grace. This grace, too, is given out of mere kind- 
 ness or goodness, and, like every other gift, comes 
 through Christ Jesus. 
 
 What a view this gives us of God ! How grace 
 abounds over sin ! What a view of the worth and 
 dignity of man ! The fallen race lifted up in Jesus 
 to the heights of glory and made the medium for 
 manifesting God to the whole creation for ever ! We 
 can hardly believe it. Faith staggers at the riches 
 of God's grace, and even the eye of hope recoils from 
 such peerless honor and glory. 
 
 Tentk. For by grace are ye saved through faith ; 
 and that not of yourselves : it is the gift of God ; not 
 of works, lest any man should boast. For we are his 
 workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works, 
 which God hath before ordained that we should walk 
 in them (ver, 8-10). 
 
 Salvation by grace. " By grace are ye saved." This 
 is the glorious assurance which faith in the divine tes- 
 timony brings into the heart. It is an ever-continu- 
 ing enjoyment and an ever-dawning hope, by which 
 the two kingdoms, the j^resent and the future, the vis- 
 
 19 
 
146 GRAHAM ON EPHESIANS. 
 
 ible and the invisible, are brought to meet. Ye are 
 saved. The apostle says nothing of a salvable condi- 
 tion in which grace gives us some help in the way of 
 saving ourselves. He speaks the language of faith 
 universally, which has its function specially in its ap- 
 propriating power ; we are dead, we are risen, we have 
 ascended with our Lord, we are saved. We will not 
 doubt the goodness and the faithfulness of God. He 
 has begun and he will finish the work. His promises 
 are yea and ameri in Christ Jesus, and we are enabled 
 and warranted to say with joyful confidence, " We are 
 saved y 
 
 ^^For by grace are ye saved." Every word is em- 
 phatic here, and for is full of deep significance. It 
 carries us back to the wonderful works just mentioned. 
 Are ye astonished at these glories — Jesus at the right 
 hand of God, the Church quickened, the overflowing 
 riches of God's grace, the assurance of the believer? 
 Then remember it is all by grace ; and when the God 
 of grace works, he works in a manner worthy of him- 
 self These blissful tidings are worthy of all accep- 
 tation, for grace is the fountain of them all. 
 
 This salvation by grace is directly opposed to sal- 
 vation by works, and characterizes the gospel as dis- 
 tinguished from all other forms of religion. Here 
 pardoning mercy is proclaimed from on high, and all 
 sinners are invited to accept it without money and 
 without price. It is opposed to the mixtures of the 
 papists, by which the merits of the Redeemer are rep- 
 resented as a standing capital to supplement the defi- 
 ciencies of the saints; it is opposed to sacramental 
 religion in general, by which the external acts of cer- 
 tain ecclesiastical functionaries pass over the child, the 
 
CHAPTER II. VEKSES 1-10. 147 
 
 boy and the man, until finally, in the article of death, 
 by anointing or confession, he is transmitted to the 
 other world as formally as a package by the railway, 
 w^hile the conversion of the soul and personal faith 
 may have nothing to do in the matter. We are not 
 so saved, says Paul, for we are saved by grace. This 
 salvation by grace, however, is received through faith. 
 Faith is the hand that receives the gift, the eye that 
 sees God's riches, the ear that hears his voice. With- 
 out this the soul must remain within the limits which 
 the law of sin and death has assigned her ; her ener- 
 gies are cramped and fearfully misdirected, her eye 
 and ear sealed against the heavenly message and all 
 her inner fountains tainted with the poison of sin. 
 Faith opens the prison and admits the light, while a 
 new principle of life vivifies all within, and new and 
 immortal hopes break through the clouds without. 
 Hence the solemn assertion of the Scripture that with- 
 out faith it is impossible to please God. This very 
 faith, too, Paul adds, is the gift of God. Theophylact 
 says here, "■ Not faith, but salvation through faith, is 
 the gift of God ;" and many have followed the same 
 judgment. Most Arminians, indeed, argue that the 
 Greek neuter pronoun for "that" cannot refer to faith, 
 which is feminine. But, in the first place, the Greeks 
 may and do use this pronoun, as we use the word "that" 
 and the Germans das, in reference to all genders, hav- 
 ing the word thirig understood. Thus in Phil. i. 28 
 this same neuter refers to a feminine antecedent; in 
 Eph. vi. 8 the same neuter pronoun has no neuter 
 antecedent; to which add Gal. iii. 17; iv. 19. The 
 same usage is frequent among the best classical writers ; 
 so that there is no grammatical objection to the asser- 
 
148 GRAHAM ON EPHESIANS. 
 
 tion that faith is the gift of God. But, secondly, 
 Paul has told us already, in verses 4, 5, 6, that sal- 
 vation is in every conceivable way from God, and it 
 is not easy to suppose that he repeats the same in 
 verse 8 ; whereas the sense is beautiful and rises to 
 a noble climax when we interpret the words in their 
 natural order, thus : Your new life is a gift ; your posi- 
 tion as risen with Christ is a gift ; the object on whom 
 you believe, the Son of God, is a gift ; and the faith 
 by which ye receive it is also a gift. All is grace ; 
 the salvation and the faith are alike from him ; and 
 hence the apostle adds, " Not of works, lest any man 
 should boast. For we are his workmanship, created 
 in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath 
 before ordained that we should walk in them." 
 
CHAPTER V. 
 
 Wherefore remember, that ye being in time past Gentiles in the 
 flesh, who are called Uncircumcision by that which is called the Cir- 
 cumcision in the flesh made by hands; that at that time ye were 
 without Christ, being aliens from the commonwealth of Israel, and 
 strangers from the covenants of promise, having no hope, and with- 
 out God in the world: but now in Christ Jesus ye who sometimes 
 were far oflf are made nigh by the blood of Christ. For he is our 
 peace, who hath made both one, and hath broken down the middle 
 wall of partition between us ; 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; and that he 
 might reconcile both unto God in one body by the cross, having 
 slain the enmity thereby: and came and preached peace to you which 
 were afar off, and to them that were nigh. For through him" we both 
 have access by one Spirit unto the Father. Now therefore ye are no 
 more strangers and foreigners, but fellow-citizens with the saints, 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; 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. — Ephesians ii. 11-22. 
 
 The apostle has already brought to the notice of his 
 readers the character of God and the fullness of his 
 grace, and now, to enhance this fullness still more, by 
 way of contrast he reminds them of what tliey were 
 (ver. 11). 
 
 First. Ye were Gentiles — that is, ye belonged to the 
 idolatrous world, which was entirely ignorant of the 
 true God. " Jews " and " Gentiles " are, therefore, 
 everywhere used to designate the human race — those 
 
 149 
 
150 GEAHAM ON EPHESIANS. 
 
 who worship the living God and those who worship 
 idols (Matt. iv. 15; x. 5; Mark x. 33; Acts iv. 27; 
 E,om. ii. 14). In the Old Testament the Jews, the 
 people and all the rest of mankind, are goim or eth- 
 ricks (Isa. xlii. 6 ; Dent. xxvi. 18, 19; xxxii. 43). Such 
 eases as Acts x. 22 ; xxvi. 4 are exceptional, and only 
 confirm the general rule. In Acts xxvi. 17 the writer 
 returns to the natural and common distinction of the 
 people and the Gentiles. Thus, in our Epistle, Paul, 
 the Jew, is a prisoner for you Gentiles (iii. 1) ; the 
 Gentiles are made fellow-heirs with the Jewish Church 
 (iii. 6) ; the Ephesian converts are not to walk, as 
 other Gentiles, in the vanity of their minds (iv. 17). 
 Thus this radical distinction is kept up through the 
 entire Scripture, and is intended, no doubt, to typify 
 the sheep and the goats, the wheat and the tares, the 
 children of God and the children of the wicked one. 
 Ye were Gentiles, idolaters, degraded and sunk in 
 superstition, with all manner of defilement, when grace 
 found you out and directed you to the holy and mer- 
 ciful God. Ye were under the curse, but ye are now 
 partakers of the blessing ; ye were dead, but are now 
 alive ; ye belonged to the prince of darkness, but now 
 ye are members of Christ and heirs of the kingdom 
 of God. 
 
 Second. Ye were in the flesh. What does that mean? 
 It means natural generation or descent. Ye were shut 
 out by your very birth from the blessings of the Jewish 
 covenant ; or the contrast may be, " Ye were Gentiles 
 in the flesh, but ye are now Gentiles in the spirit," To 
 be in the flesh, to walk after the flesh, to do the will of 
 the flesh, are descriptions of the natural state of man, 
 in which it is impossible to please God (Rom. viii. 1-4, 
 
CHAPTER II. VERSES 11-22. 151 
 
 etc. ; vii. 5, 18, 25 ; Gal. v. 13 ; Col. ii. 11 ; 2 Pet. ii. 
 10, 18; 1 John ii. 16). Hence the necessity of the 
 Holy Spirit to purify the ruined temple and rebuild 
 it in beauty and strength for the service of God. Ye 
 are, therefore, no longer in the flesh, but in the Spirit ; 
 old things have passed away and all things have 
 become new. The world has lost its beauty, its power, 
 its attractiveness. The flesh is crucified in Christ, 
 and the soul, like a new-created star, takes its place 
 in the system which moves around the Sun of right- 
 eousness. 
 
 Third. The twofold circumcision. The Jews con- 
 temptuously called the Gentiles " the Uncircumcision," 
 the abstract being put for the concrete, as is not unfre- 
 quently done (Eph. i. 21). This contempt and scorn, 
 says the apostle, is false in principle; besides, it is 
 usually resorted to by those who are the circumcision 
 made by hands — the mere nominal Jews, who observe 
 a vain formalism and place all their hopes on ritual 
 observances. They are not the true circumcision which 
 the Lord recognized, but a sect in whom the circum- 
 cision of the heart made without hands has no place. 
 They, like many in all ages, retain the shell and reject 
 the kernel, substituting law for life and glorying in dis- 
 tinctions which prove their own apostasy and shame. 
 They are not the true circumcision at all, but the 
 concision, and have no real pretensions to the Israel 
 of God (Phil. iii. 2). This is the constant tendency 
 of the human mind, and it proves — if other proofs 
 were wanting — how deeply we have fallen from God. 
 Judaism, according to the intention of the Founder, 
 was a noble structure, a luminous dome, through which 
 at many points heavenly light broke forth upon the 
 
152 GRAHAM ON EPHESIANS. 
 
 people ; but in the hands of sectaries and rabbis it 
 became the Procrustes-bed on wliich tiie faith and the 
 hope of the nation were offered up. The papacy is at 
 the present time httle better. The homage of the heart 
 is inconsistent with an imperative system of ritualism. 
 
 Fourth. Ye were without Christ. This twelfth verse 
 shows us fully, according to the apostle, the state of 
 the heathen in the sight of God. They have no fellow- 
 ship with the Mediator, and no knowledge of the hopes 
 and glories which his name inspires. Jesus Christ is 
 the only deliverer who can break their chains, and 
 they know him not; their bondage is grinding and 
 their superstition degrading, and he alone can break 
 their chains. This is the statement of our text, and 
 history confirms its truth. Is there among the records 
 of time any one nation which by culture has from the 
 native powers of man attained to the knowledge of one 
 living God and to the dignity of intelligent worshipers 
 without revelation ? No ! There may be found in hea- 
 then nations civilization and science and patriotism, 
 and many of both the sterner and the more refined 
 virtues which adorn humanity, but without Christ 
 there is no divine knowledge, no pure worship, no 
 certain hopes of immortality. Greece, Rome, India, 
 with their various systems of pantheism, demon-worship 
 and polytheism, clearly show the bent of the human 
 mind. Yet being without Christ is not the worst con- 
 ceivable condition of man : there remains the still 
 more fearful enormity of rejecting him ; and this 
 latter seems to be the predicted evil which is to draw 
 down the judgments of the second advent (2 Thess. ii. 
 l-lo ; Jude 16). It is fearful to think of those who 
 are without Christ, and who, having the means of 
 
CHAPTER II. VERSES 11-22. 153 
 
 knowing him, prefer voluntary ignorance to the life 
 and hope which he brings ; more fearful still to see 
 individuals and nations voluntarily throwing off the 
 gospel yoke and with murderous hostility to the doc- 
 trines of grace rushing into either the extravagance 
 of superstition or the hopelessness of unbelief. 
 
 Fifth. Ye were aliens from the commonwealth of 
 Israel. Politeia — " polity," " citizenshiiD," " common- 
 wealth " — carries the mind at once to the idea of a 
 city and society and social duties (Phil. iii. 20 ; Acts 
 xxii. 28; Eph. ii. 12). There arose in the midst of 
 the Jewish economy the idea of a city as the j^roper 
 home and resting-place for the soul. No longer wan- 
 dering like Abraham, or in bondage like his descend- 
 ants in Egypt, or passing through the wilderness in 
 tents, but settled in their own land, free from the yoke 
 of bondage and rejoicing in the Holy City, where God, 
 their Lawgiver and King, dwelt, — it was natural that 
 Jerusalem should occupy a prominent place in the 
 feelings and the sympathies of the nation. Besides, 
 grace is essentially diffusive and man is essentially 
 social ; and hence, to suit the characteristics of both, 
 the promises often take the form of a city of habita- 
 tion or a kingdom of rest and peace. Abraham looked 
 for a city (Heb. xi. 10), and we look for our citizen- 
 ship at the coming of the Lord (Phil. iii. 20), when, 
 along with the glorious companies of the redeemed, 
 we shall come to Mount Zion, the city of the living 
 God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to an innumerable 
 company of angels, to the general assembly and church 
 of the first-born which are written in heaven (Heb. 
 xii. 22, 23). And finally, when the storms of this 
 sinful world are over, the Holy City, the New Jerusa- 
 
 20 
 
154 GEAHAM ON EPHESIANS. 
 
 lem, descends from heaven prepared as a bride adorned 
 for her husband, and the long-promised kingdom of 
 glory begins. These are bright hopes and gracious 
 promises, and they seem very naturally to assume the 
 form of a city. There, God is the King; Jesus the 
 Redeemer is before the throne; the Holy Spirit fills 
 every heart with joy ; the citizens are all the redeemed ; 
 and holy communion with God and with one another 
 transfuses ecstasy through all hearts. 
 
 Is not such a heaven worth seeking, worth longing 
 for, living for — dying for if need be? This is the 
 birthright of the sons of God. This is the citizenship 
 which dates from Calvary and is sealed with blood. 
 This is the commonwealth from which the Ephesians 
 in their state of nature were shut out, and from which 
 all unbelievers are, and ever must be, shut out. Lord, 
 I believe ! help thou mine unbelief. 
 
 Sixth. Strangers to the covenant of promise. We 
 may observe here that God, from the beginning, has 
 been manifesting himself in the way and form of a 
 covenant, which does not mean a bargain entered into 
 between God and his creatures, but a statement of the 
 divine method of procedure and a promise of accept- 
 ance or obedience on the part of the people. We 
 mention some of the most remarkable of these cov- 
 enant transactions. 
 
 (1) God established his covenant with Abraham 
 and the patriarchs, in which he took them into rela- 
 tions of friendship and peace with himself, promising 
 to be their God and Defender and claiming from them 
 a hearty obedience. The outward sign of the cove- 
 nant was circumcision, and hence it is called " the cov- 
 enant of circumcision" (Acts vii. 8). This was the 
 
CHAPTEK II. VERSES 11-22. 155 
 
 germ of the whole Jewish economy, and from it the 
 civil and religious polity of the nation took its form 
 and development (Gen. xv. 1-18 ; xvii. 1-19 ; Luke i. 
 72, 73; Acts iii. 25; Gal. iii. 17). The Abrahamic 
 covenant was renewed to Moses when the people had 
 arrived at Mount Sinai, and, being emancipated from 
 slavery, were capable of receiving and enjoying a free 
 legal constitution. This solemn tiansaction between 
 God and the Hebrew nation, in the midst of awful 
 manifestations of divine power, took the form of a 
 comprehensive law, to which the people vowed per- 
 petual obedience (Ex. xix. 8). Hence the Ten Com- 
 mandments are called "the words of the covenant" 
 by way of eminence, as being the most essential part 
 of it, and of the whole law ; the tables on which they 
 were written are the "tables of the covenant" (Deut. 
 ix. 9) ; the whole law is called " the book of the cov- 
 enant" (Ex. xxiv. 7); Moses is the mediator of it (Gal. 
 iii. 19). The Sabbath was the special sign of this na- 
 tional covenant (Ex. xxxi. 12-18), and all the hopes 
 and fears, the promises and threatenings, which form- 
 ed the character of the nation flow naturally from it. 
 This was the old covenant, the dispensation of law, in 
 which the veiled Israelite beheld the veiled Moses, and 
 is contrasted with the new covenant, in which we all, 
 with unveiled face beholding in the unveiled face of 
 Christ, as in a mirror, the glory of the Lord, are 
 changed into the same image, from glory to glory, as 
 by the Spirit of the Lord (2 Cor. iii. 14-18). The 
 old covenant was national, federative and legal ; the 
 new is individual, personal and gracious. The con- 
 dition of the former was obedience; the condition of 
 the latter is faith. Do and live was the law of Moses ; 
 
156 GRAHAM ON EPHESIANS. 
 
 Believe and live is the gospel of Christ. These various 
 dispensations are called covenants of promise because 
 of the promises contained in them. The heathen of 
 Ephesus were strangers to these promises. They knew 
 not how the bow in the cloud protects the earth from 
 a deluge for ever (Gen. ix. 13), nor how the sacrifices 
 of the nations, Jews and Gentiles, pointed to the great 
 Sufferer for the expiation of sin. They were shut out 
 from the immortal hopes of the gospel, and the prom- 
 ises of grace and forgiveness, like stars in the night, 
 shone not upon them. 
 
 (2) The Hebrew word for covenant signifies " cutting," 
 and conveys an allusion to the manner of making oaths 
 and covenants in ancient times. This was done by the 
 contracting parties meeting, sacrificing an animal, cut- 
 ting it into two parts, passing between them, sprinkling 
 the blood upon themselves and imprecating similar de- 
 struction on the breaker of the covenant (Gen. xv. 9 ; 
 Jer. xxxiv. 18, 19). This practice gave rise to the ex- 
 pression, so often found in Scripture and elsewhere, " to 
 cut the covenant," which means to contract or confirm 
 the covenant. The Greeks use the same form, and the 
 Latin foedus, " covenant," is derived from a term ex- 
 pressive of the filth and pollution of the bloody victims. 
 When the contracting parties passed between the pieces 
 of the victim they said, "Lei it not be so done to we." 
 The same custom is alluded to in the Hebrew word for 
 " to swear," which is derived from the number seven, 
 because seven lambs were to be sacrificed on the mak- 
 ing of solemn covenants (Gen. xxi. 28). The aucient 
 Arabs confirmed their covenants and oaths, not by cut- 
 ting up sacrificial victims, but by cutting their own flesh 
 and using imprecations over human blood (Herod., iii. 
 
CHAPTER II. VERSES 11-22. 157 
 
 8). The same custom of confirming oaths and cove- 
 nants by shedding blood prevailed among almost all 
 nations — among the Chaldeans (Ephrem. Syr. on Gen. 
 XV. 19) ; among the Greeks (Plut., Qucest. c. Ill) ; 
 among the Armenians (Tacit., Annal, 12, 47) ; among 
 the Lydians (Herod., i. 74) ; among the Scythians 
 (Herod., iv. 70). These customs took their rise, no 
 doubt, from the universal prevalence of sacrifice, and 
 point darkly but prophetically to the covenant God of 
 the Bible and the atoning Sacrifice of Calvary. They 
 all say to the ear of reason and of faith, " Behold the 
 Lamb of God that taketh away the sin of the world." 
 How awful is this truth ! All covenants pointed to this 
 one ; all dying victims, to the cross of Christ ; all 
 agreements, to the reconciliation between God and 
 man ; all shedding of blood, to the great atonement 
 for the sin of the world (Heb. ix. 22). 
 
 Seventh. They had no hope — " not having hope," as 
 the Greek reads. This is the state of those who know 
 not God. They behold not the objects of hope ; they 
 are not brightened by the radiance of the promises. 
 How, then, could they be filled with the anticipations 
 of hope ? Hope dawns in the soul and expands more 
 and more with the entrance and increase of the knowl- 
 edge of God (John xvii. 3). It is closely connected 
 with the sister-graces faith and charity (1 Cor. xiii. 13) 
 and completes the circle in which the believing soul 
 moves. Faith grasps the cross and rests upon it as 
 upon a rock. Hope, beaming, radiant hope, anticipates 
 the crown. Love, the life of our hearts, the atmosphere 
 of our lungs, fills up the space between these extremes 
 and unites us with Him whose name and whose nature 
 are love. We are no longer without hope ; our God is 
 
158 GEAHAM ON EPHESIANS. 
 
 the God of hope (Jer. xiv. 8) ; the hojDe of righteous- 
 ness nerves our hands to fight the good fight of faith 
 (Gal. V. 5) ; the hope of glory beams down upon us 
 from the heavenly throne, saying, " Be thou faithful 
 unto death, and I will give thee a crown of life." We 
 live rejoicing in hope (Rom. xii. 12) ; over the sleeping 
 saints we sorrow not as those who have no hope (1 
 Thess. iv. 13) ; and, like the illustrious Howard, we 
 feel that the best motto for our tombs is "Christus 
 mea spes'^ ("Christ is my hope"). 
 
 Oh, sweet, mild, gentle visitant! May thy heavenly 
 light burn brighter and brighter till the morning star 
 of hope blends into the radiance of the Sun of right- 
 eousness ! Be ever present in our trials like the rain- 
 bow in the storm, and in the last struggles of our mortal 
 life gild the unknown wastes of eternity with thy tran- 
 quillizing beams. 
 
 Eighth. They were without God i?i the world. They 
 were atheists — not deniers and rejecters of God, but 
 living without any real knowledge of him. l^aul here 
 refutes and casts back upon the heathen their own 
 accusation against the Christians. They called the 
 first Christians atheists because they rejected polythe- 
 ism and confined their worship to the one immortal 
 and self-existent Creator (Justin Mar., Apol. ii. b^); 
 hence the whole force and vehemence of the popular 
 rage fell upon the martyrs and confessors of the faith 
 as scandalous and sacrilegious despisers of the estab- 
 lished religion and the national gods. The Christians 
 called the heathen atheists because they did not wor- 
 ship the one living and true God, but many imaginary 
 and false ones who by nature were no gods (Gal. iv. 8), 
 and changed the glory of the incorruptible God into 
 
CHAPTER II. VERSES 11-22. 159 
 
 images (Rom. i. 23), as the papists do at present, chang- 
 ing the truth of God into a lie and serving the 
 creature more than (or along with) the Creator, who 
 is blessed for ever (Rom. i. 25 ; Isa. xliv. 20 ; Jer. 
 iii. 23; xiii. 25 ; xvi. 19). They were carried away 
 unto dumb idols (1 Cor. xii. 2), and only at their con- 
 version did they begin to serve the living and true 
 God and to wait for his Son from heaven (1 Thess. i. 
 9). From these statements it follows that, in the Chris- 
 tian sense, they are atheists who, like the Samaritans, join 
 idols with the true God in their worship, for the whole 
 force of the reasoning in Rom. i. 20-30 is based on 
 the fact that the character of the true God is known, 
 or at least knowable, from his works ; but yet, not- 
 withstanding this, the heathen world worshiped the 
 creature moi'e than the Creator. If this constitutes 
 atheism, it will not be easy to defend the Mariolatry of 
 the Church of Rome from the heavy accusation. The 
 words in the world are emphatic, and seem to say, 
 Without God in the midst of God's world ; the Work- 
 er not recognized in the midst of his works ; the Cre- 
 ator and the creature confounded in their minds, and 
 the glory of the incorruptible God turned into a lying 
 vanity. 
 
 Ninth. But ye are made nigh. This is the turning- 
 point of the sentence, and now we are to contemplate 
 what they are. They are no longer Gentiles in the 
 flesh, but Jews in the spirit ; they are the real true cir- 
 cumcision not made with hands — the circumcision of the 
 heart and spirit which God recognizes and of which 
 he approves; they have Christ, and realize the strong 
 words of Luther, " Wer Christum hat, der hat alles^' 
 ("He that has Christ has everything"). All things 
 
160 GRAHAM ON EPHESIANS. 
 
 are his. They are partakers of the commonwealth of 
 the Israel of God ; they share the blessings of the cov- 
 enants of promise; they rejoice in hope, and their life 
 is a walk of fellowship with God. So much may we 
 gather from the text by way of contrast. But the 
 apostle assures us they are no longer far off, but made 
 nigh by the blood of the cross. Note here — 
 
 (1) Sin has made an impassable gulf between the 
 holy God and the transgressor. Law, justice and the 
 immutability of the Creator stand in the way to pre- 
 vent communion between them. Nay, the very safety 
 and stability of the moral universe require that the 
 character of the Sin-Forgiver should not degenerate 
 into that of the sin-indulger, otherwise the very foun- 
 dations would be removed, and light and darkness, sin 
 and righteousness, heaven and hell, God and Satan, be 
 (as in the heathen world they are) inextricably blended 
 together. If the stream of mercy flow at all, it nmst 
 flow from beneath the altar of justice ; if the rainbow 
 of grace is to protect us from the deluge of wrath, 
 it must shine through the storms of an angry sky. 
 Hence, when the angels sinned, they were cast out of 
 heaven (Jude 6) ; when Adam sinned, God left the 
 Garden of Eden ; and when the Jews became apos- 
 tate, their beautiful house was left desolate. Thus 
 the angels that fell, and the human family, and the 
 Jews after the day of Pentecost (which they rejected), 
 become /ar off. Sin, therefore, has erected between us 
 and God the barrier which Jesus Christ the Mediator 
 is here represented as removing by his death. 
 
 (2) This principle of separation, the idea of holi- 
 ness and purity, was rigidly kept up in the Old Tes- 
 tament, and served as the basis on which right views 
 
CHAPTER 11. VERSES 11-22. 161 
 
 of the doctrine of communion with God should rest. 
 They were his people and had the liberty of access 
 to him ; the heathen were idolaters and outcasts. The 
 Jews were near and the Gentiles were far off; the 
 land was Emmanuel's land, the nation his special pos- 
 session : his laws guided their conduct ; his temple 
 was in the midst of them ; his fatherly voice resolved 
 tlieir doubts (Isa. xxxiii. 22). They were a people 
 near to him (Ps. cxlviii. 14; Lev. x. 3; Ps. Ixv. 4), 
 and no other people could rejoice in having God so 
 near to them (Dent. iv. 7). 
 
 Thus we have in the call of Abraham and the sep- 
 aration of a nation for the special work of God, with 
 whom God couUl dwell, the first rudimental principles 
 of the incarnation by which God and the race are 
 for ever united. God was with the unfollen Adam, 
 was with the Jewish people, is with the angels in 
 heaven ; but he is become flesh (John i. 14) and dwells 
 in Christ as his chosen temple (2 Cor. v. 19). Thus 
 the land, the people, the temple, the sacrifices, the 
 feasts, directed the mind of the Jewish worshiper to 
 the glories of a better dispensation. 
 
 Tenth. But how were they made nigh? By the 
 Mood of Chrid. The atonement is the great fact of 
 the Bible, and Scripture and history alike bear wit- 
 ness to it. 
 
 (1) The universal practice of sacrifice points to the 
 atonement of Christ and shows out the moral senti- 
 ment of the nations in the dark but distinct conscious- 
 ness that expiation is necessary before the sinner can 
 approach God. Their terrors, their victims, their su- 
 perstitions, all 23oint in the same direction, and even 
 the dictum of Lucretius the mocker — that ^^ fear mahes 
 
 21 
 
162 GRAHAM ON EPHESIANS. 
 
 the gods''^ {Timor facU deos) — is based on the con- 
 sciousness of guilt and the necessity of mediation. 
 
 (2) The whole Jewish economy is based upon the 
 principle of sacrifice, and is to be looked upon as a 
 providential preparation for the gospel in which the 
 sacrifice of the cross holds such a conspicuous place, 
 and both Testaments unite in declaring that without 
 shedding of blood there is no remission of sins (Heb. 
 ix. 22 ; Ex. xxiv. 8 ; Matt. xxvi. 28) . Hence the 
 spirit of the Old Testament is realized in the New- 
 Testament Victim offered up upon the cross for the 
 sin of the world. Hence the blood of Christ is pre- 
 sented to our faith as the vindication of Jehovah's love 
 and the refuge in which our souls may safely wait the 
 issues of eternity. If we have access to God, it is 
 through the blood of the cross ; there is no other 
 name given among men by which we can be saved 
 but the name of Jesus. (See Rom. iii. 25 ; v. 9 ; Eph. 
 i. 17; Cob i. 14; Heb. ix. 12-14; x. 19 ; 1 Pet. i. 2-19; 
 1 John i. 7; Rev. i. 5.) In this great doctrine of atone- 
 ment, which is the very same as the eternal mercy of 
 God, the Jew and the Gentile are equally interested, 
 and through it have an equal right, being penitent, to 
 draw near to the presence of God. Blessed truth ! 
 Let us come ! Let us all come ! Why stay afar off, 
 when the way is open and the King invites? Draw 
 near to God ! The cross is the way, the Crucified is 
 the Mediator, the salvation of our souls is the end. 
 Then come, brother, for the time is short, and tempta- 
 tions are strong, and the force of habit increases daily, 
 and the command of God is, *' To-day, if ye will hear 
 his voice ;" "Noiv is the accepted time, now is the day 
 of salvation." 
 
CHAPTER II. VERSES 11-22. 163 
 
 Eleventh. He is our peace (ver. 14). Peace is here 
 put for " peace-maker," and presents Jesus to our minds 
 and hearts as the Prince of peace — the Sar-shalom of 
 Isa, ix. We were enemies of God by wicked works, 
 but be has reconciled us ; we, Jews and Gentiles, hated 
 one another with moral antipathy, but he has made us 
 one body, one temj^le of God in the Spirit (Eph. iii. 6) ; 
 our conscience was disquieted, and he has given us 
 peace with God. Thus we owe to him a threefold 
 peace — peace within, peace wdth our brethren of man- 
 kind and i3eace with heaven. He is our peace. His 
 name is the Prince of peace ; his birth is the song of 
 peace ; his gospel is the kingdom of peace ; in his life 
 on earth he came and j)i'eached peace ; his death on 
 the cross was the seal of peace ; and the last blessing 
 he bequeathed from Mount Olivet was the blessing of 
 peace. Now the veil of the temple is rent and tlie 
 middle wall of partition taken down ; no nation, as 
 such, has any special claim to be the people of God, 
 and no impediment stands in the way of the sinner's 
 approach to God. This is the value of the cross, 
 this is its inestimable worth in the sight of God — 
 that the greatest, vilest sinner on earth is as free to 
 approach God through the blood of Christ as are the 
 anfallen angels before the throne. The unfallen 
 draw near without a mediator, the sinner approaches 
 in the way of mediation, and both are accepted by 
 God. If the sinner is condemned, he is self-con- 
 demned ; no barrier save unbelief stands between 
 him and God, and every hour he remains unbelieving 
 only adds to his guilt. My brother, this is indeed 
 a serious matter. Is Jesus Christ your peace? Can 
 you enter eternity wdth the sure conviction, " He is 
 
164 GKAHAM ON EPHESIANS. 
 
 my peace ;" I see in God my Fiither, and in heaven 
 my home? 
 
 Twelfth. The same subject is continued in verses 15, 
 16 and 17, but it assumes a somewhat different form, 
 which may conveniently be called The one new man 
 in Christ Jesus. Let us ask, then, first, What is the 
 enmity which he has abolished? As peace is taken 
 for the cause of peace, so here enmity is put for the 
 cause or occasion of enmity, and this, the a])ostle says, 
 was the law of commandments contained in ordinances. 
 These ordinances are called dogmas because they were 
 2wsiti've prescriptions, not founded on necessity or 
 the nature of things, but on the will of the author, 
 and consequently liable to be changed at his pleasure. 
 Hence the edicts of princes are dogmas (Luke ii. 1 ; 
 Acts xvii. 7) ; the decrees of the apostles concerning 
 the eating of blood and things strangled are called 
 dogmas (Acts xvi. 4) ; and submitting to the yoke 
 of arbitrary human ordinances is called dogmatizing 
 (Col. ii. 20). These are the carnal ordinances imposed 
 upon the Jews till the time of reformation (Heb. ix. 
 10), and these form the cause of the implacable enmity 
 between them and the Gentile world. The Persians 
 considered the Jews as a strange nice whose laws were 
 diverse from those of all other peojile, and neither 
 did they keep the king's laws (Esth. iii. 8). What the 
 Romans thought of them we may learn from Tacitus, 
 Hist. V. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, of which the following is a 
 brief synopsis : 
 
 "The origin of the Jewish nation is unknown. 
 Some think them originally Cretans, and name them 
 Idseans or Jud?eans from Mount Ida ; others make 
 them a colony of Egyptians, led out by Hierosolymus 
 
CHAPTER II. VERSES 11-22. 165 
 
 and Jiula; some deem them Assyrians, and others 
 derive them from the ancient Solymans of Homer, 
 and thus account for the name of their chief city, 
 Hierosolyma or Jerusalem. One thing, however, is 
 certain — that the gods plagued the miserable race with 
 all kinds of loathsome diseases until they were finally 
 banished out of Egypt, when Moses, in their despair, 
 encouraged the sinking multitude, and after seven 
 days' journey they took possession of the country 
 where they built their city. Moses gave them laws 
 contrary to all mortals ; so that whatever the Romans 
 held sacred they held profane. They worship the ass 
 in their temple ; they despise Jupiter Amnion ; they 
 rest the seventh day, and every seventh year is devoted 
 to sluggish inactivity ; their rites are vile and abom- 
 inable, and their very depravity is made a source of 
 glory and emolument ; so that the scum and refuse 
 of the nations flock to Jerusalem and enrich the state 
 with gifts and offerings. The Jews are obstinate, 
 inflexible and uncharitable ; they circumcise their 
 children, despise the gods, have no intercourse with 
 strangers, are lascivious and j^rofligate among them- 
 selves, never kill their children, despise death, believe 
 in a future state, and, neglecting the worship of the 
 nations, acknowledge one God only, whom they con- 
 template with the mind's eye as the great governing 
 Mind that directs and guides the whole frame of nature, 
 eternal, infinite and neither capable of change nor 
 subject to decay." Such is the testimony of Tacitus. 
 The Jews, on their jDart, contemplated the Gentiles as 
 outcasts and idolaters, with whom they were to have 
 no intercourse (Acts x. 28). There was, indeed, a 
 fierce mortal enmity between them, and Jesus removed 
 
166 GRAHAM ON EPHESIANS. 
 
 the cause of this by abolishing the exclusive and tem- 
 porary ordinances of the Jews. He was to make an 
 end of sin and sacrificial offerings (Dan. ix. 24) ; hence 
 his death ended the shadowy ritual and brought in 
 the dispensation of liberty and life. 
 
 But how has he abolished the enmity ? Answer : 
 In his flesh. In here, and in many other places, has, 
 in both Greek and English, the same signification as 
 through (Col. i. 16 ; Matt. vi. 7 ; 1 Cor. xv. 18 ; Rom. 
 iii. 25; 2- Tim. ii. 9). The meaning is clearly this: 
 By means of the flesh, through the assumption of 
 human nature, he has slain the enmity and reconciled 
 the Jew and the Gentile in one body, the Church, 
 which is the habitation of God in the Spirit. Some 
 refer the words in his flesh to the incarnation (1 John 
 iv. 2, 3 ; Rom. ix. 5 ; i. 3) ; others, to the crucifixion 
 (Col. i. 22; 1 Pet. iii. 18). Nor is there anything 
 to hinder either application ; indeed, the latter seems 
 to have been in the mind of the apostle (ver. 16), but 
 in itself the word flesh, or in the flesh, denotes simply 
 his humanity. The doctrine then is this : The Lord 
 Jesus, the Son of God, has abolished the enmity 
 between Jew and Gentile by removing its cause, which 
 is the Jewish ritual; and this he has done through 
 the human nature which he assumed, in which we 
 see the perfect holiness which the law ecjmmanded, the 
 vindication of violated justice to which all the offer- 
 ings pointed, and the resurrection of the body and 
 eternal life which formed the hope of mankind from 
 the beginning of the world. We see here, as every- 
 where in Scripture, the value of the human nature of 
 Christ in the system of faith. It is in him what God, 
 intended it to be; the plan and purpose of God is 
 
CHAPTER II. VERSE8 11-22. 167 
 
 realized and completed in him ; and human nature, 
 hueh as we have it, such as it is found among the 
 nations, with all its wants and weaknesses and affections 
 (sin only excepted, Heb. iv. lo ; vii. 26), has been made 
 the instrument of revealing Jehovah's love to us ami 
 lifting us up into fellowship with himself. Oh, won- 
 drous act of love and grace ! Who shall measure hi.>- 
 descent? Who shall conceive the height of oui 
 elevation ? The Son of God is in our flesh — is invested 
 with our humanity that we might for ever be with 
 Christ in God (Col. iii. 3). Was there ever such a 
 change? Oh, never, never, never! No love. Lord 
 Jesus, like thine ! no name, no peace, no glory, no 
 grace, like thine ! May light please the eye and 
 music the ear and friendship the heart no more 
 the day I cease to prize thee above all earthly things ! 
 Observe the end of this abolishing of the enmity — 
 viz., that he might create the two into one new man in 
 himself, so making peace. The two mentioned here are 
 the Jews and the Gentiles ; they are united in him, in 
 his person, through his means, under him as the uni- 
 versal Head, and formed into a new man — one living 
 vine, one spiritual house, one glorious temple — for the 
 praise and worship of almighty God. A 7ieiv Man — 
 the Head, the Redeemer, the God-Man, a new thing 
 in the earth. The members are renewed by the Holy 
 Ghost ; there is a new heart, a new name, a new nature ; 
 new hopes fill them, new powers sustain them. Their 
 city is the New Jerusalem ; they exj^ect a new earth 
 under them, a new heaven above them, a new and im- 
 mortal life within them. All things are become new. 
 Both are reconciled to God in one body by the cross, 
 and the door of divine mercy is oj)ened to the whole 
 
168 GRAHAM ON EPHESIANS. 
 
 human race. This is the subst nee also of the seven- 
 teenth verse : not personally, indeed, but by the apostles, 
 he preached peace to them that were far off and them 
 that were nigh. Moses is now unveiled, and a greater 
 than Moses unfolds to all men the mild lineaments of 
 universal love. 
 
 Thirteenth. We come now to the eighteenth verse, 
 which tells of our access to God and contains a short 
 notice of the Holy Trinity and the relations of the 
 divine Persons to the worshipers. The following are 
 the chief points for the expusitor : 
 
 (1) We both have access to the Father. The Father 
 is the Person to whom we come as the projDer rest and 
 liome of the prodigal. He is the great King to whose 
 presence we are introduced, and his position is upon the 
 throne. The conversion of the soul by grace, the ordi- 
 nances of the gosi^el in general and the various opera- 
 tions of the Son and Spirit are all intended to bring us 
 to him. He is called Father in reference to Jesus Christ 
 because of the relation which subsisted, before the world 
 was, between the Father and the Son ; or, as Athanasius 
 expresses it, " The Son is of the Father, without begin- 
 ning and eternally begotten." This relation of Father 
 and Son in the Godhead is the glory of our family sys- 
 tem on earth and gives force and significancy to a mul- 
 titude of Scripture passages. First. The absolute way 
 in which he is called the Father of our Lord Jesus 
 Christ precludes the possibility of a mere figurative son- 
 ship, and hence he is called God the Father (1 Cor. 
 viii. 6). It is said emphatically that the Father loveth 
 the Son (John iii. 35) ; no man knoweth the Son but the 
 Father. These and all similar expressions seem utterly 
 inconsistent with an unreal figurative sonship. Second. 
 
CHAPTER II. VERSES 11-22. 169 
 
 The phrase Son of God in the New Testament denotes 
 deity. This necessarily follows, indeed, from the nature 
 of the case, if the sonship be a reality, for sonship is 
 based on a community of nature between the Father 
 and the Son. Adam begat a son in his image ; the 
 father was limited, mortal, sinful, had a beginning, and 
 Cain was like his father in all these respects ; but, had 
 the son been boundless, immortal, holy and eternal, he 
 would not have been in the image and likeness of his 
 father. Even so, if God, who is without a beginning, 
 had a son who had a beginning, it would be as unnat- 
 ural as if Adam, who had a beginning, had a son with- 
 out a beginning. The son of a boundless, glorious, 
 immortal and eternal being must, if he resemble his 
 father, possess these attributes. This the Jews under- 
 stood well and acted upon ; for they took up stones to 
 stone him because he made himself the Son of God, 
 and he was finally condemned and executed because he 
 confessed that he was the Son of the blessed God (Matt, 
 xxvi. 63 ; Mark xiv. 61). Add to this that he is em- 
 phatically called the Son, the beloved Son, the only 
 begotten Son, who alone knows and reveals the Father 
 (John i. 14, 18; iii. 16, 18; 1 John iv. 9). He is the 
 First-Begotten and Heir of the creation, by whom the 
 universe was created and is sustained (Col. i. 15, 16, 17). 
 He is the Son before incarnation (Ps. xlv. 6, 7 ; Heb. 
 i. 6). He was not sent to become a son, but the only- 
 besotten of the Father was sent to become a servant 
 (Phil. ii. 7), and the great love of the Father consists 
 in the giving up of his well-beloved Son. 
 
 (2) Our access to the Father is through him — that is, 
 the Mediator. Through is the proper word for medi- 
 ation, and shows forth the person and the work of the 
 
 22 
 
170 GRAHAM ON EPHESIANS. 
 
 Saviour. This is God's appointed way of acc-eas to 
 himself. In Christ we come ; through Clirist we come ; 
 ill the name of Christ we come ; for Christ's sake we ask 
 the Father to accept and bless us. These are various 
 modes of expression, but they all denote mediation and 
 are peculiar to the Son. Our prayers and our praises 
 ascend to the Father through the Son and by the one 
 Spirit who originates and directs them. The position 
 of the Father is the throne; the Son, as Mediator, 
 stands before the throne or at the right hand of God ; 
 the Holy Spirit dwells in the Church as his temple, and 
 by him all good desires and heavenly aspirations are 
 generated. In the same way, every good gift comes 
 from the Father through the Son, and is brought into 
 the life and experience of t!;e believer by the Holy 
 Ghost. Thus the Spirit works m us, the Son for us, 
 and the Father is the end and object of all working 
 whatsoever. The Father's love is the jjege or fountain- 
 head of fullness for the needy creation, and through the 
 Son, the Mediator, this fullness flows forth in streams 
 of blessing in every direction ; while the Holy Ghost, 
 the Comforter and Quickener, prepares the soil for the 
 seed and fructifies the vineyard with the streams of re- 
 freshing that make glad the city of God. This is in- 
 deed grace ! This is the means of grace ! The Church 
 of Jesus is surrounded with all kinds of heavenly influ- 
 ences. She moves in one perpetual circle of manifold, 
 ever-varying, all-comprehending love, whose centre, 
 circumference and fullness is God the Father, from 
 whom all proceeds and to whom all returns ; the Son 
 the Mediator, the God-Man on earth and the Man- 
 God in heaven, through whom the Godhead conde- 
 scends to bless ; and the Holy Spirit the Indweller, who 
 
CHAPTER II. VERSES 11-22. 171 
 
 consecrates the temple and awakens and sustains tlie 
 fervor of the worshipers. This glorious God is ours, 
 this God of boundless love. You live, move and 
 breathe in him, brother ; and though, like the prodigal, 
 you may have been in the far country, he seeks to 
 give you the name and the place and the honors of a 
 son. Do you know him ? He is your Father. Ap- 
 proach, and you will find him love ! 
 
 Fourteenth. The holy temple. This is the substance 
 of verses 19-22. This fine figure and other similar 
 ones are the basis of the idea which Augustine incor- 
 porated in the name of his most profound and popu- 
 lar work The City of God. The words " strangers " 
 and "foreigners" are opposed to "fellow-citizens" and 
 " household," and refer to what they were in the state 
 of nature. They were strangers and foreigners, but 
 they are so no more. They are now denizens of the 
 Holy City and members of the family of God. The 
 j)artition-wall is taken down, the distinction between 
 "the people" and "the Gentiles," so far as it refers to 
 religious privileges, is removed, and all believers are 
 fellow-citizens in the heavenly polity or New-Jerusa- 
 lem citizenship (Phil. iii. 20), of which Canaan, Jeru- 
 salem and the whole Jewish economy were but the 
 types. City and house are the great ideas of the 
 jjassage, and they show the twofold relations of the 
 Church to God. Grace has made us a nation, a holy 
 city, whose God is the Lord, whose only king and 
 ruler is Jehovah. We are fellow-citizens with the 
 saints in light, but this relation, however honorable, 
 is external and national, the relation between a city 
 and its king, and hence he adds the name " household 
 of Godr Ye are not only his people, but his fam- 
 
172 GEAHAM ON EPHESIANS. 
 
 ily ; ye not only dwell in his city, but ye live in his 
 house. He is your God as the chosen people, and your 
 Father as the redeemed family. The God of Abra- 
 ham is the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, 
 and hence Jews were the servants and Christians are 
 the sons of God (Heb. iii. 1-7), and Jew and Gentile 
 are swallowed up in the name believer. 
 
 (2) Consider further your privileges in this passage, 
 and stand fast for the rights which God has given 
 you. Ye are built upon the foundation of apostles 
 and prophets, Jesus Christ being the chief corner-stone. 
 Apostles are put before prophets because the office is 
 more honorable — not because they are first in order 
 of time, but first in order of rank and dignity. The 
 apostles of the New and the prophets of the Old Tes- 
 tament are the foundations of the living temple of 
 God. They are the authorized and commissioned 
 teachers of mankind, by whom the will of God in 
 things pertaining to salvation has been made known 
 to the world. All that we really know of God and 
 the divine character we owe to them. Without rev- 
 elation no nation ever attained to the belief even of 
 the divine unity, much less to that of the Trinity, me- 
 diation, redemption, final judgment and everlasting life. 
 They would be wise men and philosophers in our times 
 who presume to slight the apostles and the prophets, and 
 yet but for them they would still have been sacrificing 
 to even a less reputable god than Mercury. The foun- 
 dation-stone bears the weight of the temple, the corner- 
 stone unites its various parts and the top-stone com- 
 pletes it. Jesus is related to his Church in various 
 ways, and every name and office only serves to bring 
 to view more of his fullness. The apostles and proph- 
 
CHAPTER II. VERSES 11-22. 173 
 
 ets are the external visible foundations ; he is the real, 
 invisible, immovable Foundation (1 Cor. iii. 11), the 
 Rock of ages on whom alone the hopes of the fallen 
 race can rest. His person is the centre of all relations, 
 near or remote, by which the Church and the creation 
 are brought into various degrees of fellowship with God. 
 As the Son of God he is the foundation, upbearing and 
 sustaining the whole building ; as God-Man, Mediator, 
 he is the chief corner-stone, which unites the different 
 parts ; and as the Son of man, the highest and head 
 of the worshipers, he is the top-stone, which completes 
 and consolidates the whole temple of God. 
 
 This, then, is the idea of a Church. It is a congre- 
 gation of faithful men, a number of believers associated 
 in the ordinances of the gosj)el, growing together into 
 a holy temple in the Lord. God dwells in them as his 
 house ; is seen, manifested and worshiped in them as 
 his temple ; makes over to them, as his family, all the 
 divine promises ; and finally glorifies them in his 
 heavenly kingdom. These are the elect, chosen before 
 the foundation of the world ; the redeemed, the called, 
 the faithful servants who hide not their talents in the 
 earth ; the branches of the vine, the trees of his plant- 
 ing, the members of his household, the stones of his 
 temple, the heirs of his purchased possession, the wit- 
 nesses of his grace and the expectants of his glory. 
 
 My brother, are you a stone in this temple ? Are you 
 so fitted into some place that the strength of the build- 
 ing is yours, to enable you to resist the storms ? Then 
 walk in love as Christ also hath loved you and given him- 
 self an offering and a sacrifice to God for a sweet-smell- 
 ing savor (Eph. v. 2). Do not forgot where your treas- 
 ure is, even in heaven, au<l there let your heart be also. 
 
CHAPTEE VI. 
 
 For this cause I Paul, the prisoner of Jesus Christ for you Gentiles, 
 if ye have heard of the dispensation of the grace of God which is 
 given me to you-ward: how that by revelation he made known unto 
 me the mystery (as I wrote afore in few words, whereby, when ye 
 read, ye may understand my knowledge in the mystery of Christ) ; 
 which in other ages was not made known unto the sons of men, as it 
 is now revealed unto his holy apostles and prophets by the Spirit ; that 
 the Gentiles should be fellow-heirs, and of the same body, and par- 
 takers of his promise in Christ by the gospel: whereof I was made 
 a minister, according to the gift of the grace of God given unto me 
 by the effectual working of his .power. Unto me, who am less than 
 the least of all saints, is this grace given, that I should preach among 
 the Gentiles the unsearchable riches of Christ; and to make all men 
 see what is the fellowship of the mystery, which from the beginning 
 of the world hath been hid in God, who created all things by Jesus 
 Christ; to the intent that now unto the principalities and powers in 
 heavenly places might be known by the church the manifold wisdom of 
 God. — Ephesians iii. 1-10. 
 
 We have now surveyed the proportions of the 
 heavenly temple where God dwells, composed alike 
 of Jews and of Gentiles whom the Spirit of life has 
 quickened by faith and drawn together by one common 
 hope. This is my doctrine, and for this purpose I am 
 called (says Paul), even to proclaim to the Gentiles 
 the grace and compassion of God, that they, as well 
 as the Jews, may be incorporated into the body of 
 Christ, built up into the one Temple and engrafted 
 into the one living, life-giving Vine. There is no 
 difference any more : the veil is removed, the partition- 
 
 174 
 
CHAPTER III. VERSES 1-10. 175 
 
 wall is broken down, and in the whole world the stream 
 of Jehovah's love finds no impediment save unbelief, 
 which shuts against it the human heart. The time is 
 come for forming a new community, which, rising out 
 of the ruins of all former kingdoms, and pervaded 
 with new and immortal principles, shall open the 
 gates of righteousness to all nations and shall p(;ople the 
 heavenly paradise with saints and heroes and martyrs 
 from regions now filled witli idolatry and spiritual 
 death. I announce to all sinners a Saviour ; to all 
 outcasts from God and righteousness, a home ; and to 
 all prodigals, a welcoming Father. I am the apostle 
 of the Gentiles, specially commissioned from God to 
 break down all national distinctions and publish the 
 free and full mercy of God to all mankind. This is 
 the cause of the Jewish wrath which pursues me to 
 the uttermost and seems to be satisfied with nothing 
 less than my death. Hence — 
 
 First. My imprisonment (ver. 1). I am for this 
 very reason a prisoner of Christ. I follow the ancient 
 commentators in supplying the words " I am," as being 
 the simplest way of completing the sense. I preach 
 equal privileges for Jews and Gentiles, and therefore 
 I am now a prisoner. If we connect " for this cause," 
 in verse 1, with the same phrase in verse 14, making 
 all between a parenthesis, we have a very different 
 meaning, and supply the ellipsis thus : For this caase 
 I Paul, the prisoner of Jesus Christ, bow my knees for 
 the sake of you Gentiles, etc. In this latter case the 
 passage is much weakened as a proof of his love. " I 
 am in prison, and even in prison I pray for you," is, 
 indeed, kind and brotherly, but not such an evidence 
 of love as " I preach the love of God to you Gentiles, 
 
176 GKAHAM ON EPHESIANS. 
 
 and therefore I am in bonds." The proof of my love 
 to you Gentiles is my prison, not my prayers. For 
 you I braved the fui^y of the people (Acts xxii. 22 ; 
 XXV. 11, 12; xxvi. 17) ; for you I had to appeal unto 
 Caesar, and for your sake I am now in the prisons of 
 Home. It was the love of Christ, indeed, which con- 
 strained me (2 Cor. v. 14) to testify his grace to those 
 for whom he died. This is indeed the law of the 
 Church founded on grace, and in another sense the 
 law of the race founded on nature and the unity of 
 mankind. 
 
 The Socinian cavil against the atonement is best met 
 here. Is it rioht that one man should suffer for 
 
 o 
 
 another? We answer, It is the law of the race, and 
 you can no more get rid of it than you can get rid of 
 growth or pain or death. We were created in Adam ; 
 we fell in Adam ; we were saved in Noah ; the curse 
 on Ishmael and Canaan descended and still rests upon 
 their descendants (Gen. xxi. 9, 10; ix. 25) ; the Jews 
 are dispersed through the world for their fathers' sins ; 
 the child comes w^eeping and shivering into conditions 
 which it did not choose and could not avoid ; the friend 
 suffers for the friend, the father for the son, the son for 
 the father. The pilot leads us upon the rock, and we 
 all perish ; the father wastes and the son starves ; the 
 tyrant brings evil upon a whole nation ; the patriot, 
 blessing. All these show plainly enough that the 
 Lord deals with us in the way of headship, and 
 that for blessing or for cursing he treats the many in 
 the one. Atonement is no strange thing in the world ; 
 the atonement of Jesus Christ is, indeed, the wonder 
 and joy of the universe, but the principles on which 
 it rests are as old as is the world itself. Hence Paul's 
 
CHAPTER HI. VERSES 1-10. 177 
 
 being a prisoner for the sake of the Gentiles is as 
 just a ground for the Socinian objection already men- 
 tioned as that Christ died for the ungodly (Rom. v. 
 6.) (Comp. Rom. ix. 3 ; xiv. 15 ; 2 Cor. v. 14, 15 ; 
 Rom. viii. 32.) 
 
 Christ's sufferings were indeed expiatory, because he 
 was the Son of God, having power to lay down his 
 life and power to take it up again. In this he stands 
 alone ; but, in so far as he was the righteous One con- 
 tending against the ungodliness of man, he was only 
 the suffering Head of the martyred Church, whose 
 highest glory is to i e persecuted for righteousness' 
 sake. 
 
 Second. The second verse announces the dispensatioit 
 of grace — "{/' ye have heard of the dispefisation of (he 
 grace of God'' — on which we have the following ob- 
 servations to make. 
 
 If here might very well be read " since," as in Col. 
 i. 23 ; Gal. iii. 4 ; 2 Cor. v. 2, where the thing spoken 
 of is not doubtful, but taken for granted. The con- 
 nection is this : " You know, then, dear brethren, that 
 I am the Lord's prisoner for your sake, since, or for- 
 asmuch as, you know the cause of it in my miraculous 
 conversion and my being called to the apostolic office. 
 For your sakes, too, I have received this grace of God, 
 that I should be the econome or steward of the heav- 
 enly house." Here it is the grace, in Col. i. 25 it is the 
 dispensation, which is given ; and the meaning is near- 
 ly the same. The office and the qualification are both 
 from God. What is this economy or dispensation? 
 It is the " law of the house," the principle and mode 
 of housekeeping — the ^'' Hanshaltvng Gotten,'' accord- 
 ing to the Germans. The idea is beautiful. The 
 
 23 
 
178 GRAHAM ON EPHESIANS. 
 
 house, the household, the father, the family, are the 
 holiest things on earth. There all sorts of varieties 
 and diversities meet in unity — rule and obedience, re- 
 wards and punishments, hopes and fears. There are 
 varieties of ages, sexes, characters, conditions, temper- 
 aments, etc., and the scheme of disciplining and ruling 
 the whole is economy, the house-law or dispensation, 
 and the person to whom this is committed is the econ- 
 omist of the house, as was Joseph (Gen. xxxix. 4), or 
 the heir, as was Eliezer (Gen. xv. 2; xxiv. 2). Hence 
 it is easily applied to civil offices (1 Cor. iv. 2; Rom. 
 xvi. 23) and to the ministers of religion (1 Cor. iv. 1 ; 
 Tit. i. 7 ; 1 Pet. iv. 10) . Let us now apply these prin- 
 ciples to the passages in wdiich it occurs in a religious 
 sense. 
 
 (1) Our text (Ej^h. iii. 2) assures us that the apos- 
 tolic office is a dispensation of the grace of God for 
 the Gentile world. Keep the idea of the household 
 law before the mind, and the exposition will become 
 easy and natural, thus : " Ye have heard that God is 
 forming his house, his living temple ; and the law of 
 the heavenly architecture is that Jews and Gentiles, 
 rich and poor, good and bad, should be built up and 
 cemented together by faith and love under one Head, 
 Jesus Christ. This I am commissioned to proclaim 
 to the world, and this is the dispensation of grace which 
 is given me for your sakes." The house is one ; one 
 Father, one Elder Brother, one family, law, faith, to 
 the exclusion of all national or ceremonial distinction. 
 
 (2) The dispensation of the fidlness of the times 
 (Eph. i. 10) reveals the purpose of Jehovah in the 
 Christ, and carries the mind upward and onward t-o 
 the perfected happiness of the creation and the re- 
 
CHAPTER III. VERSES 1-10. 179 
 
 vealed glory of God. This housekeeping, the scheme 
 of paternal government under which the Lord is bring- 
 ing the Church, extends to all nations, generations and 
 ages, and is to embrace, under the great Steward of 
 God, all earthly and heavenly things. The seeds are 
 now being deposited which shall ripen into a harvest 
 of glory ; grace, love, faith, suffering, self-denial, and 
 all the fruits of the Spirit, are but the initiatory pro- 
 cesses in the household economy of God, which is to 
 unite and establish for ever in one glorious, unchange- 
 able union the Creator and the creation, the unfallen 
 and the redeemed, the visible and the invisible, the ma- 
 terial and the immaterial worlds. This is a great econ- 
 omy, a glorious family law, wdiich, like the law of 
 nature, but still more enduring, embraces all varieties 
 and extremes and gives beauty and consistency to the 
 operations of God in all nations and ages. Does not 
 the heart leap and the eye sparkle when we think of 
 this immortal hope ? We are parts of this system ; 
 we are members of this family ; we find our place in 
 the economy of God. 
 
 (3) In 1 Tim. i. 4 we have the remarkable expression 
 The dispensation of God, which is by faith. Luther, our 
 translators and others, following the Vulgate, must have 
 read oikodomia instead of oikonomia, or, as there is the 
 difference of but one letter, they may have mistaken the 
 one for the other. Hence we have edification instead 
 u:)f " dispensation " in the English text, which makes, 
 indeed, good sense, but is without authority and to be 
 rejected. The contrast is between the fables, genealogies 
 and endless questions of the Jewish rabbis and the 
 diWixve scheme of salvation by faith. Wean men's minds 
 away from foolish speculations concerning ritualism, 
 
180 GRAHAM ON EPHESIANS. 
 
 succession and outward formalities ; let higher objects 
 occupy your attention : God has unfolded the plan of 
 salvation by faith, and this, for you and for all, is the 
 one thing needful. Here superstition is contrasted with 
 faith, formalism with Christianity ; priests and priestly 
 dresses, holy times, places and garments, with all the 
 foolish questions to which they give rise, are gone for 
 ever. The time of a nobler dispensation is come, in 
 which God has become the householder, his Son the 
 steward, his Spirit the indwelling life of the family, 
 and faith the law which gathers and binds them to- 
 gether. Not the Church, but Christ ; not the " do- 
 and-live" system, but the economy of God, which is 
 by faith. 
 
 Third. We have in the third verse a reference to the 
 conversion of the a2)0stle, to which we now turn your 
 attention for a little while : ^''If ye have heard of the dis- 
 pensation of the grace of God which is given me to 
 you-ward : how that by revelation he made known unto 
 me the mystery'''' (ver. 2, 3). I take the word revelation 
 as designating the visible appearance of Jesus Christ 
 near Damascus, and all the future progressive manifes- 
 tations of divine truth in the soul of the apostle. The 
 visible glory was probably the commencement of the 
 work of grace, the starting-point to which all future 
 revelations are to be traced. In this sense I under- 
 stand Gal. i. 16 : " It pleased God to reveal his Son in 
 me, that I might preach him among the heathen." The 
 outward preceded the inward revelation, or perhaps the}; 
 took place at the same moment of time. The natural 
 eye and the spiritual were both enlightened by the same 
 celestial glory. It is manifest that revelation, as applied 
 to Christ in the New Testament, does not mean his 
 
CHAPTER III. VERSES 1-10. 181 
 
 communicating the knowledge of God, but the unveil- 
 ing of his own person. Hence it is often ajjplied to his 
 second coming (1 Cor. i. 7 ; 2 Thess. i. 7 ; 1 Pet. i. 7 ; 
 iv. 13; Rev. i. 1) as the unveiling of his glory and 
 majesty before the nations of the earth. He is now 
 within the veil, but, like the high priest of old, he is 
 coming forth from the holiest of all to bless the people. 
 This is the order of the divine procedure — first the 
 natural, and then the spiritual; first the visible, and 
 then the invisible. Hence the first man is of the 
 earth earthy ; the second man is the Lord from 
 heaven. The old creation precedes the new ; the Jew- 
 ish economy, the Christian ; the incarnation, the advent 
 of the Holy Spirit. 
 
 But why did God thus reveal his Son to Paul ? An- 
 swer : The visible glorious appearance of Christ to the 
 murderer near Damascus (Acts ix. 3, etc.) shows not 
 only the ineffable compassion of God, but is at the same 
 time one of the most striking testimonies to the truth 
 of Christianity. That one fact proves the death, resur- 
 rection and glorification of Christ, and it annihilates 
 gnosticism, pantheism and an impersonal, ideal medi- 
 ator. Paul repeatedly refers to it (Acts xxii. 6, etc.). 
 All the labors of his life, as all his sufferings for Christ's 
 sake, are based upon tlie irreversible conviction that 
 Jesus the Redeemer met him and sj^ake with him at 
 Damascus. Besides, Paul was the apostle of the Gen- 
 tiles, and, as Mede has well proved, was the fit type of 
 what Sir Isaac Newton calls the second apostleship, 
 when the Jews shall become the heralds of the cross 
 and the missionaries of the world (Isa. Ixvi. 19). Paul 
 was converted by the personal appearing of Christ, and 
 then sent to enlighten the Gentiles ; so the whole Jew- 
 
182 GRAHAM ON EPHESIANS. 
 
 isli nation will be converted at the second coming of 
 Christ (Rom. xi. 26), and then made the means of life 
 and benediction to all the nations of the world (Rom. 
 xi. 15). Therefore the Jews exist still ; their sins have 
 not been able to break the chain of love which holds 
 them together for some great purpose in the latter day. 
 Hence they are ever dying, but cannot die ; ever per- 
 secuted, scattered, dispersed, hated, like the salamander 
 they emerge out of the fires, as full of hatred and of 
 proud defiance as before. They reject the mystery 
 which God revealed to their kinsman Paul — that 
 Jews and Gentiles should constitute the same body 
 and be partakers of the same promises in Christ by 
 the gospel (Eph. iii. 3-6) . The purpose must be great 
 and strong which thus, contrary to all human reason 
 and experience, preserves them a distinct and separate 
 people. 
 
 But observe what we owe to the conversion of Paul, 
 to the appearance of Christ at Damascus, and learn 
 how the results illustrate and justify the miraculous 
 event. 
 
 (1) In the life and labors of Paul we have one main 
 proof of the truth of Christianity. Is it credible that 
 Paul could leave all that is dearest to men in this world, 
 suffer for the name of Christ beyond human endurance, 
 and finally die the martyr's death for the sake of the 
 Son of God? It is credible only on the supposition 
 that Jesus Christ met him — that is, that Christianity is 
 true. We have not so strong evidence that Alexander 
 passed the Granicus, or that Wellington died at Wal- 
 mer Castle, or that Napoleon met the czar of Russia on 
 the raft at Tilsit, as that Jesus Christ appeared to Paul 
 at Damascus. If the life, labors and death of Paul do 
 
CHAPTER III. VERSES 1-10. 183 
 
 not prove the reality of his conversion by Jesus Christ, 
 human evidence can prove nothing. 
 
 (2) To the event we owe his fourteen E]3istles. Tiiese 
 are the noblest treasures of the Christian Church, and 
 (inspiration apart) for beauty, sublimity and truth sur- 
 pass immeasurably all the monuments of the Greeks 
 and the Romans. They are as different from any four- 
 teen letters of Cicero as is the sun from a Roman light- 
 house. We meet God in them ; the sky is bright and 
 serene, and the air always breathes of heaven. No 
 earthly music fills the full-orbed heart from which the 
 notes fall into the sinner's ear. I add — 
 
 (3) The apostle Paul has influenced the world more 
 than an}^ other man that ever existed, except the Son 
 of man himself, Jesus Christ our Lord. He practi- 
 cally opened the kingdom of heaven to the Gentiles ; 
 the whole Church is mainly built upon the foundations 
 which he laid, and interpenetrated with the doctrines 
 which he taught. Lay all these together, and you will 
 see the importance of Christ's appearance on the way 
 to Damascus. 
 
 But we come now to the fourth, fifth and sixth verses, 
 which give us — 
 
 Fourth. The mystery of Christ. Mystery, in the New 
 Testament, does not mean something which we are 
 l)Ound to conceal, but, on the contrary, something 
 which we are bound to make known. The mysteries 
 of the gospel are in no respect the counterpart of the 
 ancient heathen mysteries. It has, indeed, never yet 
 been proved that the unity of God, the perfection of 
 his nature and the doctrine of a future life with him 
 were contained in these impure rites ; and even if they 
 were, they could be of little use to mankind, seeing the 
 
184 GKAHAM ON EPHESIANS. 
 
 initiated were bound by the most fearful oaths not 
 to divulge them. The mysteries of the gospel are the 
 great truths of Christianity, hitherto imperfectly known 
 or altogether unknown, but now revealed by the Saviour 
 and his apostles, and by the commandment of the ever- 
 lasting God to be made known unto all nations for the 
 obedience of faith. (Comp. 1 Cor. xiii. 2 ; xiv. 2 ; xv. 
 51.) We are not to conceal, but to make known, the 
 doctrines of the gospel ; we are saved by faith, not by 
 the incantation of priestly performers; and hence we 
 preach the atonement without reserve and proclaim 
 universally the justifying righteousness of the Re- 
 deemer. 
 
 (1) The mystery of Christ seems to refer primarily 
 to his person as the God-Man, in whom all the fullness 
 of the Godhead substantially dwells (Col. ii. 9) ; hence 
 it is written, " Great is the mystery of godliness : God 
 was manifest in the flesh, justified in the Spirit, seen of 
 angels, preached unto the Gentiles, believed on in the 
 world, received up into glory" (1 Tim. iii. 16). This 
 wonderful mystery of godliness is no longer hidden, 
 but revealed in the incarnation of the Son of God ; the 
 sea of divine grace and love has burst over its ancient 
 bounds, and purifying streams from the smitten rock 
 flow freely and for ever into all thirsty hearts. It is 
 a mystery — not because it should be concealed, not 
 because it cannot be known, but because its depth and 
 height, its length and breadth of boundless, bottomless, 
 immeasurable love to man, surpass all human under- 
 standing. The Word was made- flesh. The living 
 and the dead, the immortal and the mortal, met in 
 his person. The glories of the incorruptible Godhead 
 were united to the weaknesses and the wants of our 
 
CHAPTER III. VERSES 1-10. 185 
 
 nature ; so that power divine is brought to our help 
 igainst the enemy and all the attributes of Deity are 
 engaged in our defence. How was this union effected ? 
 By the power of the Holy Ghost. This I know, and I 
 seek to know no more. Nor is the doctrine of the in- 
 carnation peculiar in this respect. Nature is just as 
 mysterious as grace. We know as much of the person 
 of God the Son, the Redeemer of the world, as of God 
 the Father, the Creator of the world. The new crea- 
 tion is not more mysterious than the old, resurrection 
 than death, the doctrine of the Trinity than the 
 existence of sin in the dominions of God. In fact, 
 we know the modes of nothing, and should mainly seek 
 to make ourselves acquainted with the great realities 
 which lie before us in the kingdoms of nature and of 
 grace. 
 
 (2) Arising out of the mystery of godliness, God 
 manifest in the flesh, is the mystery of the New-Testa- 
 ment Church to which the apostle specially refers in 
 our text (Eph. iii. 3-6). The Head is one with God, 
 and we are one with the Head. The hypostatical 
 union is the basis of the mystical union. The Head 
 and the members of the body personal and of the 
 body mystical must pass through the same varieties of 
 condition and be filled with the same mysterious prin- 
 ciples. He is indeed the God-Man, w^hich no other 
 can be — God with us on earth, and man with God in 
 heaven. But the believer is chosen in him, crucified 
 with him, buried with him in the grave, quickened 
 with him in the resurrection and seated with him in 
 the heavenly places. All this is mystery, but it is the 
 mystery of grace and love. Love unites ; sin separates. 
 God and man united, Jews and Gentiles united, the 
 
 24 
 
18.6 GKAHAM ON EPHP^SIANS. 
 
 Church and the Church's Head united, the heavens 
 and the earth united (Eph. i. 10), in one centre of 
 unity, Jesus Christ the Mediator, — this is the work 
 of love, the mystery of the incarnate God working in 
 the Head and the members, and preaching glory to 
 God in the highest and on earth peace and good-will 
 to man. 
 
 (3) From this union between believers and Christ 
 arises another mystery, which is " Christ in you the hope 
 of glory" (Col. i. 27). This is the gospel mystery of 
 sanctification, on which Marschale has written so well. 
 This is the end of the other two, so far as this world 
 is concerned, for the incarnation and the Headship 
 of Christ are only the appointed means for vindicating 
 the righteousness of God and communicating to believers 
 the gifts of the Holy Ghost. The union between the 
 two natures in Christ was formed by the Spirit (Luke 
 i. 35), and the union between the Head and the mem- 
 bers is formed and kept up by the same Spirit. He 
 was generated and we are regenerated by the same 
 Spirit ; he received the Holy Ghost in baptism, and so 
 do we ; after the resurrection he received the Spirit in 
 a fuller and more glorious manner (Acts ii. 33 ; Ps. 
 Ixviii. 18), and we expect also the fullness of all 
 spiritual blessings in the resurrection of the just. This 
 is sanctification — " Christ in you the hope of glory ;" 
 Christ filling you with his Spirit and forming a living 
 temple for God to dwell in ; the vessels of his mercy, 
 the trees of his planting, the bearers of his cross and 
 the heirs of his glory. 
 
 Gather now into one these three magnificent and 
 all-comprehending truths — Jesus the incarnate God, 
 Jesus the living Head and Jesus dwelling in the 
 
CHAFrER III. VERSES 1-10. 187 
 
 Church by his Spirit, the hope of glory — and you 
 may form some feeble conception of the mystery of 
 Christ of which the apostle boasts that he knows so 
 much (E23li. iii. 4), hidden, indeed, in other ages, but 
 now revealed unto the holy apostles and prophets by 
 the Spirit. 
 
 Fifth. But let us contemplate for a moment the 
 Gentile Church in verse 6: ''That the Gentiles should 
 he fellow-heirs, and of the same body, and partakers 
 of his promise in Christ by the gospel." We do not 
 mean here to imitate those who, like Palmer and 
 his cosuperstitionists, idolize antiquity and church 
 traditions. The place for such men is Rome or Jeru- 
 salem, where they can surround themselves with eccle- 
 siastical fables, miracles and traditions like a spider's 
 web. The New-Testament Church and the Bible 
 Christian require no such helps. The noble simplicity 
 of the Church, as seen in the records of the apostolic 
 ages, is to the Christian heart more attractive tlian the 
 false glare of a pompous ritual and a worldly hierarchy. 
 We observe, then — 
 
 (1) That the Gentiles are to share the inheritance 
 of the Jews ; they are to be fellow-heirs. The Jews 
 remain in their ancient privileges, and the Gentiles are 
 to be grafted in among them. Salvation is of the 
 Jews. The root that bears up the branches is the Jew 
 (Rom. xi. 18) ; and if some of the branches have 
 fallen through unbelief, the j^rivileges and the prosj^ects 
 of the nation remain still to the remnant, according to 
 the election of grace (Rom. xi. 5). But what were the 
 Jewish privileges ? Paul observes (Rom. ix. 4, 5) : 
 " To them pertaineth the adoption, and the glory, and 
 the covenants, and the giving of the law, and the ser- 
 
188 GRAHAM ON EPHESIANS. 
 
 ^ice of God, and the promises ; whose are the fathers, 
 ind of whom as concerning the flesh Christ came, who 
 IS over all, God blessed for ever." These glories we 
 share, and in the act of believing on the Son of God 
 oecome entitled to them all. We are made the chil- 
 iren of God by faith in Christ Jesus (Gal. iii. 26). 
 •'The glory" is the Shekinah, the symbol of God's 
 glorious presence, which resided in the family of Seth 
 till the Flood, and afterward appeared occasionally to 
 Moses, Joshua, Samuel and others, until finally it 
 dwelt amono; the children of Israel from the erection 
 of the tabernacle to the destruction of the temple, 
 taking up its abode over the ark of the covenant and 
 called by the Septuagint "the glory of the Lord."* 
 
 All this was, no doubt, a picture or type of Him who 
 is the true tabernacle (John i. 14, Greek) of the wilder- 
 ness and the temple of the Promised Land. We have 
 this glory still more than the Jews, for we have the 
 presence of the Comforter to abide with us for ever. 
 Thus all the ancient Jewish blessings have become 
 ours, and remain ours for ever on the single condition 
 of faith. He that believetli on the Son hath life. 
 Thus the Christian system is the development of prin- 
 ciples which lay hidden in Judaism. Moses unveiled 
 is Christ, and the Old and the New Testament can be 
 no more separated than can the body and the spirit in 
 a living man. 
 
 We occupy a higher position than did the Jews ; we 
 are farther on in the journey, and have around us a 
 much wider prospect. Their national hopes were main- 
 ly earthly, and ours are mainly heavenly. They were 
 a nation of ser\ants under Moses, the faithful servant 
 
 * Blooinfield. 
 
CHAPTER III. VERSES 1-10. 189 
 
 of God, and we are sons under the Headship of Jesus, 
 the Son of God (Heb. iii. 5, 6). The law which gen- 
 dereth to bondage united them ; the spirit of love and 
 liberty is our bond of union. Jehovah was their God ; 
 he is our Father. The Church is founded on the per- 
 son of the 7'isen Christ, united with him as the Con- 
 queror at the right hand of God and filled with the 
 powers and hopes of immortality. We see sin, holi- 
 ness and truth with his eyes ; we contemplate the earth 
 from the position of his glory in heaven (Eph. ii. 6). 
 His Spirit transfuses and fills all hearts, and lifts us up 
 into fellowship with God. God was with the Jews, and 
 this was their glory ; God was in Christ, reconciling the 
 world to himself, not imputing to men their trespasses, 
 and this is our glory. Heavenly-mindedness, union 
 with the Son of God by faith, the hope of his coming 
 and kingdom, of being with him and like him in his 
 glory, of reigning with him after we have suffered 
 with him, — these are the heavenly things which we 
 are entreated to seek, which distinguish the religion of 
 Christ from all others and gild the redeemed Church, 
 even in the midst of much earthliness and corruption, 
 with hues of celestial beauty. 
 
 (2) Jews and Gentiles are of the same body, and, as 
 believers on the Son of God, stand on the same level. 
 This does not annihilate the national distinctions be- 
 tween Israel and the Gentiles, for of tlie distinctions 
 and their results in future ages the Scriptures are full. 
 Israel shall be restored and converted and highly hon- 
 ored among, if not above, the nations of the earth. 
 But now there is no nationality in the Church of 
 God : succession, descent, circumcision in the flesh 
 and all such worldly bonds are relaxed in the seal of 
 
190 GRAHAM ON EPHESIANS. 
 
 faith — in the union of the believing soul with God in 
 Christ. It is no longer life flowing through a nation, 
 but life flowing in a body, its free and natural organ. 
 Observe that the Head of this body is the God-Man, 
 Jesus Christ the Mediator (Eph. v. 23 ; 1 Cor. xi. o ; 
 Eph. i. 22; iv. 15; v. 23; Coh i. 18; ii. 10, 19). 
 These passages sufficiently demonstrate that Jesus is 
 the Head of the Church, that he is the only Head of 
 the Church, and that one of the blasphemies of Anti- 
 christ is that he claims to be the head of the Church 
 and to sit in the temple of God (2 Thess. ii. 4). But, 
 leaving this blasphemer to settle his account with God, 
 let us consider the functions of the Head. First, then, 
 we receive nourishment by the Head ; so the whole 
 Church lives and increases by the heavenly manna min- 
 istered according to her need by the glorified Head in 
 heaven. Her wants are all supj)lied from the living 
 fount of glory in the heavens, from which she drinks, 
 in the person of her Head, the streams of refreshing 
 that make glad the city of God. Secondly, all utter- 
 ance is through the Head. The wants of the members 
 of the body can be made known only through the 
 head ; so our wants are made known through Jesus, 
 the Redeemer and spiritual Head. We have no other 
 way of getting the ear of God but through the mouth 
 of Christ, no other name but his in which we can ap- 
 proach God. He is the way, the truth and the life, 
 and the one Mediator between God and men. There 
 is a close union between the head and the members. 
 So it is with the Church and her risen Head ; there is 
 a union — not visible, indeed, but real and vital — be- 
 tween Christ and all believers. He was not, and is 
 not, the private, but the public, Man, the official 
 
CHAPTER III. VERSES 1-10. 191 
 
 Christ, who in our name and nature died for our sins, 
 rose for our justification and now intercedes for us in 
 heaven. He is at the right hand of God in our na- 
 ture; pure, glorious and immortalized, our frail and 
 corruptible humanity shines forth in him with more 
 than its pristine excellence and beauty. He is our 
 Brother and Head — our glorified Brother and immor- 
 talized Head ; his strength, victory and glory are all 
 ours — all made ours by faith, which unites us to him 
 as the Bedeemer and Head of the body which is the 
 Church, the fullness of Him that filleth all in all. 
 
 The body, as a name or symbol of the Church, is 
 very striking and significant. He is the Head, and 
 they are the members ; so that, taken together, they 
 make up the colossal man, the anointed mystical 
 Christ. They are united to God and Christ and 
 one another by the indwelling of the one Spirit, the 
 Quickener and Comforter. There are in this body 
 all varieties of fortune and condition, of tribes, lan- 
 guages and colors, in all stages of civilization and 
 mental culture ; some of them are triumjjhant above, 
 ot'.ers are fighting the good fight of faith here below; 
 there are children, young men and fathers ; there are 
 infinite varieties of trials and temptations, fightings and 
 fears, mountains of difiiculty and valleys of humilia- 
 tion, yet there is a strong hidden life pervading them 
 all and moulding them all into the one perfect and 
 glorious image in which the beauty and majesty of 
 our nature is to be consummated for ever. They 
 keep gazing upon him, and are changed into the 
 same image from glory to glory. They are one with 
 Him who loved them in faith and hope and charily. 
 They have the same enemies, the same friends, the 
 
192 GEAHAM ON EPHESIANS. 
 
 same hopes and fears. A secret sympathy pervade? 
 them all like an electric fluid — the love of Christ 
 (2 Cor. V. 14), whic i obliterates all nationalities, 
 smooths all asjoerities, reduces all to the same level 
 of guilt and forgiveness before God, and, like compa- 
 nies ascending the different sides of a mountain, brings 
 them nearer to each other as they approach the end of 
 their journey in heaven. This is the Church of Christ, 
 and all other descriptions — papacy, episcopacy, pres- 
 bytery — are not the boundaries of the unsearchable 
 love of Christ. His election and his grace are free, 
 and it is only ignorance or superstition which dares 
 to circumscribe his mercy. 
 
 (3) They are partakers of his promise in Christ by 
 the gospel. This promise was a Jewish hope. He 
 was to be the seed of the woman — a Man ; the seed of 
 Abraham — a Jew ; the son of David — a King; ; the 
 son of a virgin — a holy Child. But, though Abra- 
 ham and the Jewish nation were to be the centre of 
 the divine manifestations, the effects of them were to 
 flow freely out to all, " that the blessing of Abraham 
 might come on the Gentiles through Jesus, that we 
 might receive the Spirit through faith" (Gal. iii. 14). 
 Hence the apostle says the Gentiles are partakers — or 
 rather joint-partakers — of his promise in Christ by 
 the gospel. The Jews are the root, the seed, the cen- 
 tre of blessing ; Gentiles must come to their light and 
 kings to the brightness of their glory. This explains 
 the difference between "of faith" and "through faith" 
 (Rom. iii. 20). The Jews are justified out of the faith 
 that belongs to their race and nation ; the Gentiles, 
 through a faith which is foreign to them. The same 
 distinction runs through Ps. Ixvii. and Isa. xi. and 
 
CHAPTER III. VERSES 1-10. 193 
 
 many other scriptures. So the ensign is of the people, 
 but the Gentiles seek it (Isa. xi. 10) ; so Israel shall 
 blossom and fill the face of the world with fruit (Isa. 
 xxvii. 6) ; so receiving of the rejected nation shall be 
 life from the dead (Rom. xi. 15) ; so the gospel was to 
 be preached to all nations, beginning at Jerusalem 
 (Luke xxiv. 47). Let us, then, receive the promise 
 of God in Christ, and in so doing we become the true 
 Jews (Phil. iii. 3), denizens of the New Jerusalem 
 which is above, which is free, which is the mother 
 of us all. 
 
 Sixth. The apostolic mimstry. Come, now, and let 
 us leave for a moment the great subjects which concern 
 the whole Church and turn to individual grace in the 
 apostle Paul. The history of the whole is reacted and 
 reproduced in the various parts. A sanctified soul di- 
 lated is the Church ; the whole Church abridged is a 
 believer. So it is in nature. The race is Adam ex- 
 panded, and all the varieties of history have their germs 
 and principles in each individual. In the ministry of 
 the apostle we have the type and example of all true 
 ministry. 
 
 (1) He says (ver. 7), "Whereof I was made a min- 
 ister, accor<ling to the gift of the grace of God given 
 unto me by the effectual working of his power." The 
 Greek here for minister is deacon, which denotes in the 
 word both official service of a particular kind and ser- 
 vice in general. As a rule, the higher office includes 
 the lower. Paul was an apostle, an elder, a bishop and 
 a deacon, though bishoj^s, elders and deacons were not 
 apostles. Paul as an apostle was sent of God ; as bishop, 
 the overseer of the Church ; as elder, a wise, experi- 
 enced man, like Peter (1 Pet. v. 1) a witness of the 
 
 25 
 
194 GRAHAM ON EPHESIANS. 
 
 sufferings of Christ; and as deacon, the simple ser- 
 vant or minister. The word seems to imply earnest, 
 dangerous, hasty service — a service which leads one 
 through dust, like the swift messengers of a king. 
 This, then, is the assertion of Paul : I am a min- 
 ister of the gospel, or of God (1 Cor. iii. 5 ; 2 Cor. 
 iii. 6; vi. 4; 1 Thess. iii. 2), or of Christ (2 Cor. xi. 
 23; Eph. vi. 21; Col. i. 7; iv. 7), or of the Church 
 (Col. i. 25). These expressions are not contradictory, 
 but most harmonious. They are the various sides of 
 the same subject : This, then, is my service for God, for 
 the gospel of God, for the Son of God, for the Church 
 of God. I live in and for this ministry ; I have neither 
 time, wish nor heart for anything else. Love — the love 
 of Christ — constrains me (2 Cor. v. 14), that I can glory 
 only in the cross, and write only of the Crucified, and 
 live and labor and die only for him. This is the min- 
 istry which I have received from him — sometimes mi- 
 raculous, sometimes apostolical, sometimes episcopal, 
 sometimes presbyterial, and sometimes as a daily la- 
 borer in the gospel-field (2 Cor. vi. 4). This is the 
 noble, reasonable service which can be rendered to him, 
 alike in sorrow and in joy, among friends and enemies, 
 in the temple of Jerusalem, in the perils of the deep, 
 in the dungeons of Rome, in the household of Caesar. 
 (2) But we note that Paul was made a minister. It 
 was not by his own will or attainments that he arrived 
 at the high honor of laboring and suffering for Jesus 
 Christ. It was the choice of God, and not his own 
 choice (Gal. i. 15, 16) : God's eternal love, without 
 merit or deserving on my part, but according to the 
 gift of his grace, made me what I am by the effectual 
 working of his power. So it is still, and should be, 
 
CHAPTER III. VERSES 1-10. 195 
 
 with every minister of the gospel. He receives the 
 heavenly call, and consults no more with flesh and 
 blood. He knows neither the ambition nor the hy- 
 pocrisy of the nolo episcopari of after- times, but, at- 
 tributing all to the grace of God, faces without fear the 
 perils of an unknown and tempestuous course. Paul's 
 start." ng-point was simply grace; and grace followed him 
 like the stream in the wilderness, from Damascus, where 
 he first began to live, to Kome, where he finally received 
 the martyr's crown ; and all his Epistles, whatever the 
 occasion and however various, breathe only and always 
 the healthful spirit of free grace. This is, indeed, the 
 main difference between the gospel and other systems 
 of religion, whether they be apostasies, as Judaism and 
 the papacy, or impostures, as Hinduism and Islam. 
 Merit characterizes the one, grace the other. 
 
 We come now to — 
 
 Seventh. The unsearchable riches of Christ (ver. 8). 
 You cannot fail to notice the wonderful contrasts, va- 
 rieties and excellences of the person of Christ. The 
 Psalms contemplate him as the poor man crying to the 
 Lord for help ; the Gospels describe him as the public 
 preacher, the homeless sufferer. If riches consist in 
 houses, lands, money, friends and worldly considera- 
 tion, he was poor indeed, for he had none of these. 
 Though the Heir of the house of David, he was born 
 in a stable ; no train of courtly ministers welcomed into 
 life the Child of so many prophecies and the Harbinger 
 of such immortal hopes. Shepherds, star-directed sages 
 and angelic hosts might be attracted to the birthplace 
 of the Prince of life, but the great world slept on and 
 knew not the day of its visitation. His birth, his life 
 and his death were all equally inconsistent with the 
 
196 GRAHAM ON EPHESIANS. 
 
 general estimate of wealth : " Ye know the grace of 
 our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, yel 
 for your sakes he became poor, that ye through hi;- 
 poverty might be rich" (2 Cor. viii. 9). 
 
 But what are the riches mentioned in Scrij^ture ! 
 These are manifold, such as the riches of his goodness 
 which means the riches of one disposed to bless us anc 
 do us good ; here, indeed, the riches of Christ are un- 
 searchable. The fountain was ever full, alike in the 
 Father's bosom and on the accursed tree, the ocean- 
 fountain of his good-will to men. Then there are the 
 riches of his grace (Eph. ii. 7), which is nothing but 
 goodness brought into action, and here, too, the riches of 
 Christ are unseareliable. We read of the riches of his 
 mercy, the riches of his wisdom, the riches of his glory ; 
 and in all these respects Jesus Christ is presented to the 
 believer, in Scripture, as the all-sufficient portion of 
 the soul, presenting ever- varied and new delights and 
 satisfying its enlarging faculties with all the fullness 
 of God. 
 
 We may realize something of the unsearchable riches 
 of Christ by glancing at his character, his work and his 
 dominion. 
 
 (1) His character. He appears before the Jewish 
 nation as the promised Messiah and Deliverer, and 
 his claims are rejected by the great majority of his 
 countrymen. Yet his doctrine is clear and uniform, 
 and his teaching elicits from his enemies the confession. 
 " Never man spake like this man.'' As a Teacher he is 
 the only one among mankind who laid the foundation? 
 of a purely moral and spiritual kingdom. In every 
 word and in every act you meet the deep, broad lines 
 of perfect human sympathy and love ; yet he is sur- 
 
CHAPTER III. VERSES 1-10. 197 
 
 rounded with an awe which prevents all familiarity 
 and makes even the most intimate of his disciples 
 afraid to approach him. Nor is this marvelous. We 
 know and feel that he is human, but we suspect that 
 he is something more. Then there is not only love 
 and sympathy and human w^eakuess, but also the 
 power of holiness, goodness and truth. The light 
 is too bright for us. He w^eeps, indeed, with us, and 
 perfectly shares all our joys and sorrows ; but even 
 in so doing there is something peculiar and striking. 
 He makes no mistakes, as we do ; his words are with- 
 out hesitancy, and his actions without effort ; he has no 
 counselors or advisers through whom he arrives at 
 right conclusions. He is never out of place ; among 
 the Jewish doctors in the temple, in the house of 
 Joseph and Mary his mother, among the multitudes 
 on the mount, at a marriage-feast, at the grave of 
 Lazarus, in the judgment-hall and on the bleeding 
 cross his character appears equally beautiful. Nothing 
 is distant that should be near, nothing forgotten that 
 should be remembered, and nothing attempted that is 
 not performed. He speaks, and it is done ; he works 
 and is not weary; and all that we must admire in him 
 of the human and tender seems to flow from a foun- 
 tain that is divine and inexhaustible. How rich is the 
 character of Christ! Oh how full of all tender and 
 holy associations ! How varied, and yet how simple ! 
 What names and offices and attributes centre in him 
 and are all united there! Here the eye finds the 
 centre of moral beauty, and the heart the home of 
 all that can attract and tranquillize it. He is my 
 Prophet, Priest and King, from whom alone my 
 spirit obtains knowledge, pardon and power. In 
 
198 GRAHAM ON EPHESIANS. 
 
 him we have all the hidden treasures of wisdom and 
 knowledge, the well-spring of all earthly and celestial 
 joys. The vast and the little, the awful and the 
 attractive, meet in his person in wonderful harmony 
 and beauty. He is mortal, yet the Author of life 
 and immortality to us all ; he dies, and in dying he 
 conquers and slays by being slain. He ennobled our 
 nature and showed to the angels and the universe 
 what virtues it was capable of, what varieties of con- 
 dition it could sustain and appropriate, from the sta- 
 ble of Bethlehem to the throne of God. He is, in one 
 word, Emmanuel, God with us. Such is his character, 
 and surely the riches of it are unsearchable. 
 
 (2) Only a few words on the riches of his work, for 
 the theme is so vast that we cannot enter upon it par- 
 ticularly. We would offer only a few hints to help us 
 to understand something of his unsearchable riches. 
 His work includes his active and his passive obedience, 
 his doing and his dying, his perfect fulfilling of the 
 law and his perfect atonement on the cross. This is 
 the justifying righteousness of Christ which is imputed 
 to the sinner in the act of believing. How rich in 
 blessing his work in our nature has been no mortal 
 tongue can tell. It has removed the barriers between 
 us and God, so that mercy may flow freely without 
 sacrificing justice. The Sin-Forgiver is separated from 
 the sin-indulger, and the righteousness of the inflex- 
 ible law vindicated and magnified, even in the fullest 
 proclamations of his pardoning love. For you it has 
 opened the kingdom of heaven. The span of his life 
 and the few hours of his death have perfected a work 
 which extends its blessings from the fall to the end of 
 time; from the hill of Calvary flows the fountain 
 
CHAPTER III. VERSES 1-10. 199 
 
 which is to fertilize all lands and refresh the whole 
 heritage of God w^hen it is weary. The merit of one 
 person is such that it covers and cancels the guilt of 
 millions. The moral beauty of one marred form 
 (Isa. liii. 1-6) hides from the eye of justice the apos- 
 tasy of a world. All ages are interested in the few 
 hours of the cross ; the hopes of all cluster around 
 the Man of sorrows; and ustice and mercy, time 
 and eternity, the past, the present and the future, 
 the glory of God and the salvation of man, are all 
 internally and essentially connected with the riches of 
 his work. The hell from which he delivers, the king- 
 dom of heaven which he opens to believers, the depth 
 of his humiliation, the height of his exaltation in our 
 nature, the vindicated law of the Judge and the mercy 
 of the forgiving Father, — all tell of his riches, 
 the unsearchable riches of his work for sinful man. 
 But search thine own heart, brother, and tell me 
 what it says of unsearchable riches. Has love found 
 no echo there — his dying love ? Can you say. The love 
 of Christ constraineth us ? Is all this mighty work of 
 God only a name for thee ? Or hast thou in very deed 
 apprehended with Paul the unsearchable riches of 
 Christ? The issues of eternity are at stake, and the 
 Lord thy Kedeemer calls thee. Come ! Be done with 
 excuses, and cast in thy lot with the Saviour and the 
 saints. He is, and can be, more to thee than all the 
 world besides. He lives and loves thee still. 
 
 " Come, ye weary sinners, come, 
 
 All who groan beneath your load ; 
 
 Jesus calls his wanderers home : 
 Hasten to your pardoning God. 
 
 Come, ye guilty souls oppressed, 
 Answer to the Saviour's call : 
 
200 GRAHAM ON EPHESIANS. 
 
 ' Come, and I will give yoii rest ; 
 Come, and I will save you all.' " 
 
 (3) His dominion. Jesus Christ is the Lord and 
 Redeemer of the human soul. When the temple has 
 been purified and garnished with the fruits of right- 
 eousness, it becomes the choice residence of the Lord. 
 From the inner shrine of the soul he rules the whole 
 faculties, thoughts and actions of the man, and imparts 
 to the newly-awakened powers of life and activity 
 within him fresh zeal, energy and distinctness. He 
 expels the idols (1 Thess. i. 9), and, having purified 
 the temple, makes it the blessed seat and throne of his 
 own pure love. Here we find all the rich treasures of 
 his grace in manifold use and exercise ; so that the 
 living, conscious, rejoicing soul finds enlargement and 
 fruitfulness, beauty, contentment and strength, in sub- 
 mission to his authority (2 Cor. v. 14). Here we have 
 the beginning of his unsearchable riches, the seed which 
 shall swell out and fructify until faith shall be lost 
 in sight and the weeping seed-time (Ps. cxxvi. 6) be 
 changed into a harvest of glory. 
 
 But consider his riches as the Head of the Church — 
 the Ruler, not of one soul, but of many, the King and 
 Governor of all believers. Sit with me upon the hill 
 of Nazareth or the Mount of Olives and contemplate 
 the unsearchable riches of His love who, erewhile the 
 weak and weary Man, the sin-bearing Lamb, is now 
 the Sceptre-Bearer of creation, before whom all the 
 hosts of heaven sing and worship and adore. The 
 stream seemed weak and shallow at the beginning, but 
 it flowed on age after age, deepening and widening as 
 it ran, until nation after nation drank of its waters ; 
 and it flows on still, and must continue to flow until 
 
CHAPTER III. VERSES 1-10. 201 
 
 the whole earth be turned into the garden of the Lord. 
 This is the reign of grace, his kingdom of righteous- 
 ness and peace and joy in the Holy Ghost, and its 
 riches are unsearchable. From the Father's throne 
 where he sits he governs his Church as he jDleases, and 
 sheds through all her members in the cycling ages the 
 pulsations of his own ineffable and immortal life; so 
 that in the Head and the members there is one heart 
 and one spirit, one will to glorify God, one victory 
 over sin, Satan and the world, and one great office to 
 present the riches of divine grace to a ruined world. 
 The Church, the race, the angels, the material universe, 
 are all under the control of the God-Man (Eph. i. 21, 
 22), and the unknown power of the Deity before which 
 we tremble is guided by the known love of our God 
 and Father in Christ Jesus. This is the glory of his 
 dominion, and is at the same time the glory of the 
 human race. He guides all with a human hand, and 
 man has been manifested as the royal and dominant 
 race which through the ages of eternity shall stand 
 nearest Jehovah's throne, which, no new creation dis- 
 placing or succeeding, shall, in the person of the ador- 
 able Redeemer, remain for ever at the head of creation 
 — ^the finite that approaches most nearly to the glory 
 and the majesty of the infinite God. Truly in his 
 person, in his work and in his dominion we see the 
 unsearchable riches of Christ. 
 
 Eighth. Faith's estimate. But, while the riches of 
 Christ are exalted, man is to be humbled ; and this can 
 be done only by the Spirit of God. " Unto me, who 
 am less than the least of all saints, is this grace given, 
 that I should preach among the Gentiles the unsearch- 
 able riches of Christ." " Less than the least." Such 
 
 26 
 
202 GRAHAM ON EPHESIANS. 
 
 irregular forms are not defects, but beauties, and arise 
 from the necessity of the case. (See 3 John 4, where 
 we have a double comparative.) The Germans use 
 the form mehrere, from mehr, and the Greeks, in both 
 former and later times, used similar exceptionable forms. 
 (Sext. Emp., ix. 406; ApolL Rhod., iii. 187. See 
 Buttmann, i. 279, and Winer, Gram. %b.) When we 
 meet with such expressions we have only to say, " Man 
 was not made for language, but language for man." 
 Paul remembers in Greece what he was by nature 
 (1 Tim. i. 13) and how he wasted and persecuted the 
 Church of God. True faith humbles us and makes 
 us feel every sin as a stain upon our white robes and 
 a wounding of our Father's honor. He considers him- 
 self less than the least of all saints. He was late in 
 entering the Church of Christ ; he had spent much of 
 his time and zeal in the service of fanaticism and false- 
 hood ; and, worse than all, he had persecuted and wasted 
 the Church of God. He is now, indeed, making up 
 for his former error and ignorance by preaching among 
 the Gentiles the unsearchable riches of Christ. 
 
 Ninth. Teaching, the ChurcKs duty. She must labor 
 in the same field with the apostles and follow the direc- 
 tion and guiding of her Head. What was the apos- 
 tle's aim ? To make all men see — that is, to teach all 
 men the fellowship of — the mystery which from the 
 beginning of the world hath been hid in God, who 
 created all things by Jesus Christ. That is the duty 
 of the Church. She is the teacher, the educator, the 
 civilizer, the regenerator of the nations. Our text in 
 this ninth verse reads fellowship : "A^id to make all men 
 see what is the fellowship of the mystery, which from 
 the beginning of the world hath been hid in God, who 
 
CHAPTER III. VERSES 1-10. 203 
 
 KYixated all things by Jesus Christ." But the better read- 
 ing is " dispensation." (See Bengel, Wetstein, Math- 
 aer, Grusbach, Bloomfield and Tischendorf.) Paul 
 would teach all men to know something of the dis- 
 pensation of the hidden mystery, and he asserts it was 
 hidden in God from the beginning of the world. This 
 ninth verse, then, teaches the following facts and truths : 
 
 (1) It is a great thing to be a preacher of the gospel; 
 
 (2) Paul was the preacher and apostle of the Gentiles ; 
 
 (3) The union of the Jews and Gentiles in one body 
 is a great mystery ; (4) This mystery was hidden in 
 God from the beginning of the world ; (5) God cre- 
 ated the world through the agency of Jesus Christ. 
 These things the Church is to teach. Her duty is to 
 teach all men, to make all men see the glories of the 
 economy of grace. Not to sacrifice, as the papists 
 assert, is the apostolic ministry appointed, but to 
 teach all men the mysteries of the gospel of Christ. 
 Every w^ord here negatives the idea of a sacrificing 
 priesthood and a religion of symbols and sacraments. 
 The gospel is phos — a diffusing, sin-dispelling light — 
 and by its very nature must shine if it exists at all. 
 It is as easy to conceive of the sun without light, or 
 of fire without heat, as of the gospel without an ex- 
 pansive and assimilating force. The seed, however 
 secretly sown, will make its appearance in all the forms 
 of buds, leaves, greenness and manifold fruitfulness. 
 Hence, as the star which shines no more is a fallen 
 star, so the Church which is not a missionary Church 
 is dead and wants the first great sign of apostolicity — 
 the very sign, indeed, which made the early Church 
 the wonder and the glory of the world. 
 
 We may add, here, it is the direct command of God 
 
204 GRAHAM ON EPHESIANS. 
 
 that we should send the gospel to the nations and teach 
 them the present economy of his grace (Matt, xxviii. 
 19, 20 ; Mark xvi. 15 ; Luke xxiv. 47 ; Acts ii. 38, 39 ; 
 Rom. X. 18 ; Col. i. 23. (See, especially, the fine pas- 
 sage, Rom. XV. 25, 26.) Those who think otherwise 
 are acting as heathen and deceiving their neighbors 
 with a false name. 
 
 Tenth. But what are they to teach ? Answer : The 
 dispensation of the mystery of God. The apostle re- 
 turns to this subject, and we follow him gladly, fully per- 
 suaded that God is wiser than men and that our noblest 
 place is simply to learn. Observe, then, on the word 
 mystery (which occurs Matt. xiii. 11 ; Mark iv. 11 ; 
 Luke viii. 10 ; Rom. xi. 25 ; xvi. 25 ; 1 Cor. ii. 7 ; iv. 
 1 ; xiii. 2 ; xv. 51 ; Eph. i. 9 ; iii. 3, 4, 9 ; v. 32 ; vi. 
 19 ; Col. i. 26, 27 ; ii. 2 ; iv. 3 ; 2 Thess. ii. 7 ; 1 Tim. 
 iii. 9; Rev. i. 20; x. 7 ; xvii. 5-7), that it is not some- 
 thing in its own nature inexplicable, for nothing is or 
 can be so. God understands everything. All mys- 
 teries in nature and in grace are in themselves clear, 
 consistent and intelligible, though our faculties may 
 not be able to comprehend them. Nor is it something 
 like the heathen mysteries, which we should conceal, 
 which, like the Puseyite atonement, we should preach 
 with reserve — a mystic incantation like charms of 
 pagans and papists, which may be safely committed 
 only to the initiated few. No; it is something that 
 may be known and should be proclaimed to the world 
 (Mark iii. 14 ; Rom. xvi. 25 ; 1 Cor. iv. 1 ; xiii. 2 ; 
 Eph. iii. 3 ; vi. 19) ; it is something that was long con- 
 cealed, but is now made manifest through the mercy 
 of God (Eph. vi. 19 ; Col. i. 26) ; something that we 
 can partially understand even here, but is to be fully 
 
CHAPTER III. VERSES 1-10. 205 
 
 realized in the light of the heavenly throne. It was 
 '' hidden in God." While the mystery remains hidden, 
 he is God; when it is revealed, he is Father. We 
 know his power, but not his purpose, and therefore we 
 tremble before him. His purpose, revealed, tranquil- 
 lizes us ; for, though it does not diminish the power of 
 the Deity, it shows that the thunderbolts are guided by 
 a Father's hand. God and Father — viz., nature and 
 grace ; the mystery hidden and the mystery revealed \ 
 almighty power and eternal mercy — are united and 
 harmonized in Jesus Christ our Lord, who is the 
 central Person and sustaining Head of this dispensa- 
 tion of manifested mystery. 
 
 I have already expounded economy, or " dispensa- 
 tion," and need not here refer to it particularly. It is 
 the plan or purpose of Jehovah's love for the redemp- 
 tion and benediction of his creatures, laid before the 
 worlds (Eph. i. 4) in Christ, hidden from the ages (it 
 is folly to think of the Gnostic seons here) in the bosom 
 of God, but gradually and slowly unfolding itself in the 
 cycles of time like a seed of life in the form of promise 
 and hope, until, in the Babe of Bethlehem, in the great 
 Teacher of Galilee, in the dying Lamb, in the rising- 
 King and Conqueror of sin, death and Satan, it received, 
 and is receiving, its full and final development. 
 
 Eleventh. Who created all things by Jesus Christ 
 (ver. 9). This teaches that Jesus was the delegated 
 agent of God in the creation of the world, and is the 
 same in substance as Heb. i. 2 and 1 Cor. viii. 6, where 
 the phrase " of whom " denotes the Father as the source 
 of being, or, as the Greeks express it, the " fount of 
 deity," and the phrase " through whom " the Son as 
 the one eternal medium between God and the creation. 
 
206 GRAHAM ON EPHESIANS. 
 
 These and other scriptures clearly enough teach that He 
 who came forth in the Father's name to save us by his 
 cross went forth erewhile in the Father's might to cre- 
 ate the universe, and shall come forth once more in 
 the glory of the Father as the Judge of quick and dead. 
 In him the will of the Deity takes form and effect, even 
 as in the Holy Ghost every work and way of God is 
 finished and perfected. But if " through " be distinc- 
 tive of the Son in his whole official character as the 
 Kevealer of God, whether in creation, redemption or 
 judgment, we are not to suppose that it denotes any 
 natural or necessary inferiority. Other words are used, 
 and, indeed, every form of expression is applied to him 
 which can designate the Creator of the universe ; all 
 things were created in him and through him and for 
 him (Col. i. 16). He is the upholder, the instrumental 
 and the final cause of all things (John i. 3). It is 
 therefore the doctrine of the New Testament that the 
 Son of God is truly and properly the Creator, and 
 consequently the true and eternal Son, in whom dwell- 
 eth all the fullness of the Godhead bodily. 
 
 But what is the nature of the creation mentioned in 
 the text ? All the Socinians and Rationalists of former 
 times maintained that the all things must refer to the 
 new creation, and not to the physical world ; but, since 
 it is found that the words " through Jesus Christ " are 
 not genuine (Bengel, Mill, Griesbach, Binck, Bloomfield, 
 etc.), they are unanimous that "all things" refers to the 
 visible creation. De Wette, indeed, says very candidly 
 that there is no necessity for spiritualizing the creation, 
 seeing the words "through Jesus Christ" are not genuine. 
 Thus our opinions guide our principles of interpretation. 
 It is true, indeed, that Calvin and other orthodox inter- 
 
CHAPTER III. VERSES 1-10. 207 
 
 preters expounded the passage as referring to the moral 
 creation, but without any just or necessary reason. 
 When criticism leaves the natural sense of words, it 
 becomes a nuisance instead of a benefit to the Church 
 and to the world. It is impeded by no obstacles, sticks 
 at no absurdities and trembles before no blasphemies. 
 I heard one of the leading minds of Germany, a pro- 
 fessor of theology, assert with all gravity, in an as- 
 sembly of divines and professors, that Paul nowhere 
 teaches the pre-existence of Christ, and he set himself 
 vigorously to expound Col. i. 16 according to this the- 
 ory. It was, however, tough work, and reminded me 
 of Robert Hall's allusion to an ass eating thistles. 
 
 But let us now turn to the tenth verse and contem- 
 plate for a little — 
 
 Twelfth. The manifold wisdom of God. The wisdom 
 of God is the divine skill, prudence and foreknowledge 
 which are peculiar to the Deity, and is here, evidently, 
 to be taken in its largest signification (Rom. xi. 33 ; 1 
 Cor. i. 1, 21, 24 ; Col. ii. 3 ; Rev. v. 12 ; vii. 12). It is 
 applied to the wonderful manifestations of God in the 
 person of Jesus Christ (Matt. xi. 19 ; Luke vii. 35 ; xi. 
 49). (Comp. Matt, xxiii. 34, where Jesus appropriates 
 the wisdom of God (Luke xi. 49) to himself.) Thus 
 the whole plan for the salvation of the Church, and the 
 execution of it in the Head and in the members, is char- 
 acterized by being manifold or multifarious. The Greek 
 word occurs nowhere else in the New Testament, but it 
 belongs to that class of compounds which any Greek 
 speaker or writer could form as the occasion required ; '^ 
 very variegated, many-colored ; a wisdom which bears 
 examination and at every turn unfolds new beauties. 
 
 * Ruckhert, 
 
208 GKAHAM ON EPHESIANS. 
 
 How manifold as applied to the different states, ages 
 and dispensations of the Church and the world ! as ap- 
 plied to the means which t' e Spirit uses in the conver- 
 sion and edification of the Church ! as to the trials, 
 sufferings and temptations out of which the Church 
 emerges fair as the sun, clear as the moon and terrible 
 as an army with banners ! Lo k at the divine plan in 
 all its parts and consequences, as far as feeble human 
 minds can understand it, and say, is not the wisdom of 
 Cod manifold ? The ancient purpose itself in the bosom 
 of God ; the manifestation of it in the Christ in time ; 
 the means of applying its blessings to the souls of men ; 
 tlie way in which the law is vindicated, while the law- 
 breaker is spared ; the cross of Christ kindling in human 
 hearts a flesh-crucifying, world-conquering, death-defy- 
 ing love ; the clear immortal hope beyond the grave ; 
 the coming and kingdom of the Son of man ; the prom- 
 ises, prophecies and threatenings of both the law and 
 the gospel, — all these are manifestations of the mani- 
 fold wisdom of God. Is not this a firm ground to stand 
 on ? Here, brother, is the Rock of ages, on which you 
 can rest with safety. Here you have infinite power to 
 defend you, the manifold wisdom of God to guide you 
 in all things, and eternal love to transform you into the 
 divine image. 
 
 But this manifold wisdom of God is made known by 
 the Church to the powers and principalities in the 
 heavenly abodes: "To the intent that now unto the 
 j)7'incipalities and powers in heavenly places might be 
 knoivn by the Church the manifold wisdom of God^ 
 These are the angels who inhabit the heavenly house. 
 (See Eph. i. 21 ; iii. 10 ; Col. ii. 10.) (Comp. 1 Cor. 
 xiv. 24 ; Eph. vi. 12 ; Col. i. 1(> ; ii. 15 ; llom. viii. 38.) 
 
CHAPTER III. VERSES 1-10. 209 
 
 Christ himself is Arche, the head and origin of all 
 authority and power (Col. i. 16-18), and these pow- 
 ers and principalities of heaven are the messengers 
 and supporters of his throne. One would think this 
 verse plainly enough teaches the doctrine of angels ; 
 but no : the German Saddueees can see no angels in 
 this or in any other passage of Scripture. Zeger 
 makes them earthly rulers ; Schoetten, Jewish rabbis ; 
 and Till, heathen priests. Anything you like but an- 
 gels ! O ye materialists, ye swinish brood of Epicu- 
 rus ! But ye are learned and wise! Go herd with 
 your brother-brutes in your filthy sty, and grunt, as 
 ye have no voice for singing. Beauty, majesty and 
 glory have no charms for you. Life, immortality, 
 future glory, the golden harps, the songs of the sera- 
 phim, can draw no sympathy from your dull, stupid 
 affections. Your hearts are only muscles, your souls 
 configurations of the brain ; four lusty limbs, with a 
 voracious stomach between them, make up your idea 
 of man. Death is the end of the journey, and anni- 
 hilation the hope of the species : 
 
 '"Eat, drink and die! What can the rest avail us?' 
 So said the royfil sage Sardanapalus." 
 
 But how is this wisdom of God made known to the 
 angels by the Church? Be it remembered that the 
 Church is the theatre on which the o-reat drama of 
 life and death is being transacted, the battle-field 
 where the two opposing kingdoms come into contact, 
 where the struggle between sin and righteousness is to 
 be finally decided, and consequently the mirror in 
 which the angels behold the struggles and the tri- 
 umphs of redeeming love. They followed the Be- 
 ar 
 
210 GRAHAM ON EPHESIANS. 
 
 deemer to Nazareth (Matt. i. 20), to the wilderness 
 (Matt. iv. 11), to the Garden of Gethsemane (Luke 
 xxii. 43), to the grave (Matt, xxviii. 2), to the Mount 
 of Olives, and from thence to the heavenly throne 
 (Acts i. 10); and they shall come with him when he 
 returns as King and Ju 'ge (2 Thess. i. 7). Do not 
 the angels take a deep interest in the affairs of the 
 Church ? (See Luke xv. 7 ; 1 Cor. xi. 10 ; Heb. i. 14 ; 
 1 Pet. i. 12.) In order, however, to see more clearly 
 iiow the Church manifests the wisdom of God to the 
 heavenly hosts, let us consider for a moment — 
 
 The Nature and Ministry of Angels. 
 
 1. We may learn much from their names. The 
 common name is " angels," which denotes that they 
 are the messengers of God and heralds of the great 
 King. The word, in both Hebrew and Greek, is ap- 
 plied in a great variety of ways, but always including 
 the idea of service or message-bearing. It may denote 
 priests, prophets, men in the service of God (Hag. i. 
 lo ; Mai. ii. 7; iii. 1; 1 Kings v. 5), a whole nation 
 (Isa. xlii. 19), Christian pastors (Rev. ii. 1, 8, 12, 18), 
 the elements of nature (probably) (Ps. civ. 4). 
 
 They are called saints (Mark viii, 38 ; Luke ix. 26 ; 
 Acts x. 22 ; Rev. xiv. 10 ; and perhaps Job v. 1 ; xv. 
 lo). 
 
 They are also called sons of God (Job i. 6 ; ii. 1 ; 
 xxxviii. 7). 
 
 In Ps. viii. 6 and Heb. ii. 7 they are probably called 
 elohim or gods. 
 
 They are called seraphim or burners (Isa. vi. 2), and 
 ehe7'ubim, strong ones, bearers, supporters (Ps. xviii. 
 1] ; xcix. 1 ; Ixxx. 1 ; 2 Sam. xxii. 11). 
 
CHAPTER III. VP:RSES 1-10. 211 
 
 They are the watchers, probably, of Dan. iv. 113, 
 and 
 
 The thrones and principalities of the New Testa- 
 ment, as we have ah^eady seen. 
 
 From these names we can conceive something of the 
 nature of these glorious beings, and we shall give our- 
 selves no trouble about the Jewish, heathen and popish 
 traditions concerning them. 
 
 2. There are various qualities that are attribute'd 
 to them in the Holy Scrij^ture, such as that they are 
 not corporeal beings, but spirits (Heb. i. 14) ; they are 
 invisible (Col. i. 16), and to become cognizant to our 
 senses must appear (Luke i. 11, 22; Matt. ii. 13, 19; 
 Gen. xviii. 2) ; they are mighty angels of might (Greek) 
 (2 Thess. i..7 ; see 2 Pet. ii. 11 ; Matt. xxvi. 53) ; they 
 are holy (Acts x. 22 ; Rev. xiv. 10) ; they are rational, 
 wise and benevolent beings, as their various offices and 
 occupations show ; they are very numerous (Dan. vii. 
 10; Ps. Ixviii. 17; 2 Kings vi. 16; Jude 14; Rev. v. 
 10; and other places). 
 
 3. As to their offices and employments, take the fol- 
 lowing brief synopsis of the Scripture doctrines con- 
 cerning angels: (1) They glorify the most high God 
 in the heavenly temple (Rev. v. 11) along with the 
 redeemed Church (Rev. v. 9, 10). (2) They are 
 guardians of nations (Ex. xiv. 19 ; xxiii. 20 ; xxxiii. 
 2 ; Num. xx. 16 ; Josh. v. 13 ; Isa. Ixiii. 9 [some inter- 
 pret these of Christ] ; more fully in Dan. x. 5, 16, 20 ; 
 and in Dan. xii. 1, etc.). Michael is the guardian and 
 defender of the Jewish nation. (Corap. Jude 9.) 
 (3) They guard and protect individuals (Heb. i. 14 ; 
 Ps. xxxiv. 7; Gen. xxxii. 1, 2; Ps. xci. 11; Zech. iii. 
 5, 6, 7, 8). (4) They execute the justice of God on 
 
212 GEAHAM ON EPHESIANS. 
 
 men and nations, as Sennacherib (2 Kings xix. 35) ; 
 as Herod (Acts xii. 23) ; the deliverance of Daniel 
 (Dan. vi. 27 ; comp. iii. 28) ; the destruction of Jeru- 
 salem (2 Sam. xxiv, 16, 17) ; Nebuchadnezzar was 
 deposed by the decree of the watchers (Dan. iv. 13-17) ; 
 they are (probably) present in churches (1 Cor. xi. 10). 
 (5) They shall be present and take part in the judg- 
 ment of the great day (Matt. xxiv. 30, 31 ; xiii. 41 ; 
 I'Cor. XV. 52; 1 Thess. iv. 16). 
 
 Let these remarks suffice for the present on the 
 nature and the offices of the angels, and say, are these 
 great and glorious beings indifferent spectators when 
 tlie wonders of redeeming love are being accomplished 
 before their eyes ? But what do they see there ? They 
 see God's estimate of man, the value of the human soul, 
 the price which divine love paid for it, the hatred of 
 Jehovah against sin, and the absolute necessity of holi- 
 ness as the law which binds the universe to God. In 
 all these things the Church is their teacher. They get 
 new views of grace, of God, of divine love, of provi- 
 dence, of the eternal decrees and of the manifold 
 wisdom of the Creator and Redeemer in all his works. 
 They see jierfect justice in all its flaming lineaments 
 sweetly embracing the most tender and forgiving love, 
 the Creator and the Redeemer 07ie, the sin-avenging 
 Jjawgiver blotting out transgression, while justice, 
 untarnished and immutable, retains all its inviolable 
 sanctions. They see the purpose of Jehovah ripening 
 into maturity as the ages roll on ; and, seeing as they 
 do the man Christ Jesus, our Brother and Redeemer, 
 throned in glory above them, they look down upon us 
 in our world of tempests and trials with eyes of com- 
 passion, while they anticipate with delight the time 
 
CHAPTER III. VERSES 1-10. 213 
 
 which shall reunite the Head and the members and 
 complete .the glorious company of the redeemed. 
 
 " Then shall the harps and choirs above 
 Dwell on his vast, his wondrous, love; 
 Divine the notes and sweet the strain: 
 
 ' Worthy the Lamb that once was slain !' 
 
 " With them we gladly, humbly join 
 In praise so joyful, so divine; 
 No more of sin shall we complain. 
 But sing, 'The Lamb that once was slain I'" 
 
CHAPTER VII. 
 
 According to the eternal purpose which he purposed in Christ Jesus 
 our Lord : in whom we have boldness and access with confidence by 
 the faith of him. Wherefore I desire that ye faint not at my trib- 
 ulations for you, which is your glory. For this cause I bow my knees 
 unto the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, of whom the whole family 
 in heaven and earth is named, that he would grant you, according to 
 the riches of his glory, to 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 with all the fullness of God. Now unto him that is 
 able to do exceeding abundantly above all that we ask or think, accord- 
 ing to the power that worketh in us, unto him be glory in the Church 
 by Christ Jesus throughout all ages, world with end. Amen. — Ephe- 
 SIANS iii. 11-21. 
 
 We have considered at some length the varied and 
 extensive jfield into which the apostle led us in the 
 foregoing verses. His own nothingness contrasts finely 
 with the majesty of grace. He is full of the theme of 
 love, and seems at a loss for words to express the riches 
 of Christ. The calling of the Gentiles, the office of 
 the ministry, the nothingness of man, the unsearchable 
 riches of Christ, the mystery of God's love, the cre- 
 ation of the world through Christ and the manifold 
 wisdom of God in the Church, — all pass in rapid suc- 
 cession before the mind and leave us bewildered with 
 the variety and beauty of the picture. It presents 
 many tints, but they are all of heaven ; many rays of 
 
 214 
 
CHAPTER III. VERSES 11-21. 215 
 
 various colors, but they all centre in or emanate from 
 the Sun of righteousness ; many streamlets to refresh 
 weary hearts, but they all return again to their own 
 eternal ocean-home, the "pleroma (Col. ii. 9 ; comp. 
 John i. 16 ; Col. i. 19) or fullness of divine nature. 
 This leads to the eleventh verse, which stands in 
 closest connection with the tenth and contains the 
 doctrine of the — 
 
 I. Prothesis or Purpose of God. 
 
 According to the eternal purpose which he puiposed 
 in Chr'ist Jesus our Lord. 
 
 This eleventh verse depends on the verb " made 
 known," in verse tenth, and the meaning is this : The 
 manifold wisdom of God is made known by the Church 
 to the angels, according to the eternal purpose which 
 he purposed in Christ Jesus our Lord. It was made 
 known in the way and order which God preferred. 
 Man had nothing to do with the forming or the mode 
 of executing it. 
 
 The Greek form may be translated literally " the 
 plan of the ages," or the eternal purpose, as in our 
 Bible, and this, notwithstanding Macknight's objec- 
 tion, is the natural and most obvious rendering. The 
 plural genitive of the noun is, by a very common con- 
 struction in all languages, the same as the cognate 
 adjective, and expresses here the same thought as 
 " before the foundation of the world " (Eph. i. 4 ; 1 Pet. 
 i. 20). This work of divine love in the person of the 
 Gt)d-Man was no subsidiary or after thought in the 
 divine mind, but rather the great central one around 
 which all the others revolve. Hence the " Lamb slain 
 from the foundation of the world." The purpose was 
 
2J6 GKAHAM ON EPHESIANS. 
 
 made, the divine plan contained the necessary pro- 
 visions, and the falling world fell into the arms of 
 the slain Lamb. 
 
 I cannot help thinking that they deprive themselves 
 of much comfort who refuse to contemplate the antiq- 
 uity or eternity of Jehovah's purpose of love. Is it 
 not worthy of God, is it not ennobling to man, that 
 the Creator should think of us so early ? Is not the 
 strength of an affection proved by the length of its 
 continuance and the obstacles which it surmounts? 
 Why are those who seek to enlarge his love in one 
 direction most anxious to diminish it in another? 
 They admit the universality, but not the eternity, of 
 his love; and thus what you gain on the one hand 
 you lose on the other. 
 
 But, as I said before, many translate "the plan of 
 the ages" in the sense of a final cause, and refer it to 
 the Headship of Christ as its end (Eph. i. 10, 21 ; ii. 
 15; 1 Cor. iii. 22, 23; xi. 3). That the words will 
 readily bear this interpretation is manifest, and the 
 sense is noble and striking. God arranged all the ages 
 and dispensations of the world in and for Jesus Christ 
 his Son as the life-giving Head of the creation, in whom, 
 like a centre of unity, the heavens and tiie earth, the 
 visible and the invisible, the mortal and the immortal, 
 should find their happiness, their strength and their 
 fellowship with God. The various ages are but the 
 developing of one great plan which embraces and 
 unites them all. The various dispensations, such as 
 the Adamic, patriarchal, Jewish and Christian, are but 
 the opening of the great book of life, the unveiling of 
 the glorious person of Emmanuel, in whom and for 
 whom (the Greek ev has this meaning in such passages 
 
CHAPTER III. VERSES 11-21. 217 
 
 as Matt. vi. 7 ; Rom. iii. 25 ; 1 Cor. xv. 18 ; Eph. iii. 
 13 ; iv. 1 ; 2 Tim. ii. 9 ; 2 Pet. i. 1 ; ii. 3) they were 
 all ordained. All the developments of divine mercy, 
 from the promise in paradise unto the birth of Christ, 
 are but parts of this all-comjorehending jjlan of the 
 ages, which embraces all nations and generations, and 
 shall be most gloriously manifested in the coming and 
 kingdom of Christ, when the groaning creation shall 
 be at rest and all things be subjected to the holy will 
 of God (Rom. viii. 18, 23). 
 
 The word prothesis^ " plan," is applied to the loaves 
 of bread arranged in order before the Lord by the 
 high priest — bread of presentation, or, as the Hebrew 
 has it, "bread of faces" (Ex. xxv. 30; xxxix. 36; 
 1 Kings vii. 48 ; 2 Chron. iv. 19 ; comp. Matt. xii. 4 ; 
 Luke vi. 4) ; called also presentation of bread (2 Chron. 
 xiii. 11; Lev. xxiv. 5; Ex. xxv. 30). The meaning 
 is nearly the same. The high priest orders and ar- 
 ranges the twelve cakes of bread before the Lord in 
 the temple, and the Lord of the temple arranges in 
 like manner, and with equal ease, the various ages of 
 the world for the coming and manifestation of his Son 
 Jesus Christ. God is the ruler, the orderer, the pre- 
 destinator, in his own world, and his Son is the end of 
 his working. The King makes the marriage-supper for 
 his Son (Matt. xxii. 2). There is no chance here. 
 Eternal wisdom ordains and almighty power executes 
 the decrees of God, and the final cause is the glory of 
 the Redeemer (Ps. ex.). 
 
 Some, not willing to admit the 23re-existence of 
 Christ, render the passage thus : "According to his 
 eternal purpose which he accomplished in his Son 
 Jesus Christ." This is admissible. (See Matt. xxi. 
 
 28 
 
218 GRAHAM ON EPHESIANS. 
 
 ol ; John vi. 38 ; comp. John viii. 34 ; 2 Cor. xi. 7 ; 
 Luke hi. 19 ; Mark xv. 7 ; Rev. xxi. 15.) The con- 
 text, however, renders the former meaning probable. 
 It is concerning the forming, not the execution, of the 
 plan he is speaking. (See also Mark iii. 6 ; xv. 1.) 
 Both applications of the word are realized in Christ. 
 The purpose was formed in him as the Son and Medi- 
 ator ; it was intended /or him as the end or final cause ; 
 and it was accomplished through him as the instrument 
 (Col. i. 17). 
 
 We come now to the twelfth verse, which shows us 
 the way of — 
 
 II. Access to God. 
 
 In whom we have boldness and access with confidence 
 by the faith of him. 
 
 It is, then, a fact, brother, that the way to God, which 
 sin had barred, is reopened in the redemption of Jesus 
 Christ. In him we have access to the holiest of all, 
 for the great offering is accepted and divine justice 
 satisfied. It is a fact that any sinner, even the vilest, 
 may, humbly relying on the merits of Christ, approach 
 the throne of the most high God with acceptance. The 
 angels that never sinned have not freer access to God 
 than have we when we come through the appointed 
 Mediator. Sin is removed through the blood of the 
 cross ; heaven is opened to all believers by the Ascen- 
 sion ; and, with an open door and a heart full of par- 
 doning mercy, the Father invites the prodigals to 
 return. 
 
 " Burdened with a world of grief, 
 Burdened with a sinful load, 
 Burdened with this unbelief, 
 
 Burdened with the wrath of God, — 
 
CHAPTER III. VERSES 11-21. 219 
 
 Come, ye guilty souls oppressed, 
 Answer to the Saviour's call: 
 ' Come, and I will give you rest ; 
 Come, and I will save you all.' " 
 
 (1) Observe what it cost him to make this free 
 proclamation to sinners. The violated law must be 
 vindicated in order that God, in dispensing his par- 
 doning mercy, might not be taken for a sin-indulger. 
 Part of the angels and the whole human race had 
 fallen. Indiscriminate mercy might seem to relax the 
 law of holiness and sanction the sinner in his course 
 of rebellion. Hence the awful sacrifice of his own 
 Son, by which the righteousness of God was vindi- 
 cated in the way of boundless mercy to mankind. 
 
 "To thee, thou bleeding Lamb, to thee, 
 For pardon, peace and life we flee ; 
 The shelter of thy cross we claim. 
 Thy righteousness alone we name ; 
 Low at thy feet we suppliant fall, 
 Our Lord, our Saviour and our all." 
 
 (2) This access is hy the faith of him, which is the 
 same as the faith on him (Phil. iii. 9 ; Rom. iii. 22) . 
 He that hath the Son hath life. Faith is the medium 
 by which we receive his blessings and rest upon him 
 for salvation. Without faith it is impossible to please 
 God. Faith is not the admission into the mind of a 
 certain amount of truth respecting the person and the 
 work of the Son of God, but a holy, confident, joyful 
 resting upon him as the Mediator and Redeemer. He 
 loved me and gave himself for me, and the echo of my 
 spirit is, I love him and give myself up to and for him. 
 That is faith. By this faith we see him, hear his voice 
 and feel his presence in all things. He is the resting- 
 
220 GRAHAM ON EPHESIANS. 
 
 place and home of faith, where its deepest sorrows and 
 loftiest flights ever lead it, and where alone the weary 
 yet faithful soul can weep its fears away in the sun- 
 shine of his love. Seek this faith from God — for it is 
 his gift — and he will not send thee empty away. Be in 
 earnest in this matter, for the stake is great and the time 
 in which to win it may possibly be short. Read the 
 following passages with the eye on God, and be not 
 faithless, but believing : Rom. v. 1-3 ; Eph. ii. 14 ; John 
 X. 9; xiv. 6; Heb. x."l9; Phil. i. 14; 1 Thess. iii. 3. 
 
 (3) In Jesus Christ we have boldness in our ap- 
 proaches to the throne of grace. The Greek word 
 parresia is variously translated. Meyer gives it, 
 libertatem dicendi ; Luther, Freudigkeit ; Riickhert, 
 Freimidigkeit im Eeden ; Macknight, liberty of speech; 
 Doddridge, freedom of speech ; the Vulgate, fiduciam ; 
 Beza, libertatem ; Castellio, audaciam ; Darby, Frei- 
 midigkeit ; Kistemacker, Vertraulichkeit ; De Wette, 
 Zuversicht — so, also, Bockel ; Van Ess, Freudiges 
 Vertrauen ; Harwood, undaunted freedom; Martin, 
 hardiesse ; De Sacy, la liber te. The word is found 
 in the following passages : Mark viii. 32 ; John vii. 4, 
 13, 26 ; X. 24 ; xi. 14, 54 ; xvi. 25, 29 ; xviii. 20 ; Acts 
 ii. 29 ; iv. 13, 29, 31 ; xxviii. 31 ; 2 Cor. iii. 12 ; vii. 
 4; Eph. iii. 12 ; vi. 19; Phil. i. 20; Col. ii. 15; 1 Tim. 
 iii. 13; Philem. 8; Heb. iii. 6; iv. 16; x. 19, 35; 
 1 John ii. 28; iii. 21; iv. 17; v. 14. The word 
 parresia is, therefore, found thirty-one times in the 
 New Testament ; in our translation it is rendered four 
 times " plainly ;" six times, " openly ;" once, " freely ;" 
 once, "plainness of speech;" once, "boldness of speech;" 
 once, " bold ;" once, " boldly ;" eight times, " boldness ;" 
 five times, " confidence." In all the other translations 
 
CHAPTEK III. VERSES 11-21. 221 
 
 there is about the same variety. The first and sim- 
 ple meaning of the word is free liberty to speak, and 
 hence the natural secondary one, boldness, which, after 
 all, I think the best for the passage we are expounding. 
 The believer on the Son of God may approach his 
 heavenly Father with boldness. His person is accepted 
 in the Beloved, and his humble petitions will not be 
 refused ; he is no longer the slave, to tremble before 
 the Lord and Judge, but the son, rejoicing in the con- 
 fidence of a Father's love. He has free access and full 
 liberty to make his requests known to God. The 
 distinction of nations is abolished in the death of 
 Christ, and Jews and Gentiles, as believers, have the 
 right to speak to God. Such is the value he sets on 
 the way of access that they who come by it are wel- 
 come. Most blessed privilege ! Let us use it. Let 
 us abound in prayer, like Daniel, David and the 
 apostles of our Lord. 
 
 " With boldness, therefore, at the throne 
 Let us make all our sorrows known, 
 And ask the aids of heavenly power 
 To help us in the evil hour." 
 
 Dr. Chalmers had a store of pithy proverbs which 
 he used as household words ; one of them was, " A 
 man of prayer is a man of power." The old divines 
 remark that Moses' face shone when he came down 
 from the mount of prayer. The good Dr. Doddridge, 
 when under any provocation, was in the habit of 
 repeating the Lord's Prayer before he replied, in order 
 that his mind might be settled and his words well 
 ordered. Our boldness at the throne of grace is far 
 removed from presumption, and must necessarily be 
 
222 GRAHAM ON EPHESIANS. 
 
 based on and measured by our conformity to the divine 
 image. The bokiness of the hypocrite, like his hope, 
 shall perish ; but when there is real earnestness of 
 soul and a thirsting after God, there seems to be no 
 limit to the nearness and fellowship and holy boldness 
 which he may and can vouchsafe to his saints. 
 
 But we come now to the thirteenth verse, which con- 
 tains the principle of — 
 
 III. Acceptable Suffering. 
 
 Wherefore I desire that ye faint not at my tribula- 
 tions for you, ivhich is your glory. 
 
 The tvherefore is, in this connection, very important, 
 and carries us into the divine purpose : Seeing, then, 
 that we are parts of the great plan of God for the 
 glorifying of his Son, we should bear one another's 
 burdens : wherefore I desire that ye faint not, etc. 
 This clause may be translated, " Therefore I pray that 
 I may not faint under my afflictions for you ;" and so 
 it is in the Syriac, Bengel, Semler, Scholz and others, 
 but there are weighty reasons against it. (1) The sup- 
 plying of you is justified by 2 Cor. v. 20 ; vi. 1 ; x. 2 ; 
 Heb. xiii. 19. (2) It is more like the noble, self- 
 denying spirit of Paul to suppose that his mind was 
 occupied with their state rather than his own. (3) The 
 great mass of translators and expositors have so under- 
 stood it, and the objections of Riickhert and Meyer to 
 the use of the Greek en in the sense of " at," " concern- 
 ing" (see 2 Cor. ii. 17; Eph. iii. 6; Col. i. 27, etc.), 
 are of no moment. The meaning, then, is this : Ye 
 are engaged in the great battle which our Captain is 
 waging against the powers of darkness ; I, your leader 
 under him, am cast into prison and can guide you no 
 
CHAPTER III. VERSES 11-21. 223 
 
 more ; but stand fast, and faint not in the conflict [so 
 Beza] like cowards and traitors ; yield not a foot to 
 the foe on account of my afflictions, which are, indeed, 
 your glory. 
 
 From this we draw the following conclusions : 
 
 (1) It is a fact that we not only all suffer, but that 
 we all suffer with and for one another. Suftering is, 
 since the entrance of sin, the law of our race, and 
 suffering for one another is the consequence of the 
 unity of the race. We were created in one, and head- 
 ship has been, and is, the great characteristic of the 
 providence of God toward man from the beginning. 
 He created, he redeemed, he blesses and he curses the 
 many in the one. This unity of the human race lays 
 the foundation for atonement, which realizes in grace 
 what is seen every day in nature — the innoce7it suffer- 
 ing for the guilty. 
 
 (2) Paul often, as here, boasts in his sufferings and 
 glories in the firmness of faith which trium])hs over 
 them (2 Cor. vi. 4, 10; Rom. viii: 35), and Peter 
 teaches us to distinguish between suffering for our own 
 faults and suffering for the sake of Jesus Christ (1 Pet. 
 ii. 20). We must suffer, inasmuch as we have sinned. 
 We may bring upon ourselves much unnecessary suffer- 
 ing by our own imprudence and sins, and a.s witness- 
 bearers for the Lord we may be called upon, without 
 any fault of our own, to bear reproach and contumely, 
 and death itself, for the sake of our divine Master. 
 This is the suffering which glorifies God ; this is the 
 suffering in which Paul gloried and out of which 
 so many martyrs have won their heavenly crowns 
 (1 Pet, V. 4). We do not our own will, but the will 
 of God ; bear not our own cross, but the cross of 
 
224 GRAHAM ON EPHESIANS. 
 
 Christ ; the repro ichcs of them that reproach him fall 
 upon us (Ps. Ixix. 9 ; Rom. xv..3). We suffer not for 
 our own faults, but for righteousness' sake, like the 
 apostles and the martyrs, and in so doing we have 
 reason to glory, for the Scrij^ture assures us that if we 
 share his cross we shall also share his crown ; if we 
 suffer with him, we shall also reign with him ; if we be 
 witnesses of the sufferings of Christ, we shall also be 
 partakers of the glory that shall be revealed (1 Pet. v. 
 1 ; 2 Tim. ii. 12;" Rom. viii. 17; 1 Pet. iv. 13). Yes, 
 and when we have labored and suffered patiently to 
 the last hour of our life, and laid down at his feet all 
 that we have to give, even the unreserved heart, we 
 can only lament that we have nothing better to give. 
 
 " Were the whole reahn of nature mine, 
 That were an offering far too small : 
 Love so amazing, so divine, 
 Demands my heart, my life, my all." 
 
 There remains to be considered in this verse only the 
 phrase which is your glory. What was their glory? 
 Beza refers the which to Paul's not fainting in the 
 battle, but this has many difficulties and gives a weak 
 conclusion. The relative must in sense refer to Paul's 
 afflictions, however it may be attracted grammatically 
 to the following explanatory noun. This construction 
 is found in the classics and is common in the New Tes- 
 tament (Mark xv. 16 ; Gal. iii. K) ; Eph. i. 14 ; 1 Tim. 
 iii. 15; Phil. i. 28). The other construction is used 
 in Eph. i. 23 ; vi. 17 ; 1 Cor. iv. 17. But what does 
 the sentence mean, " My afflictions are your glory " ? 
 It means. You have no need to be ashamed of my 
 bonds ; my dungeon is more honorable than a palace ; 
 
CHAPTER III. VERSES 11-21. 22o 
 
 I suffer for the name of Christ in extending the gospel 
 to you Gentiles as freely as to the Jews. I am suffer- 
 ing, not because I am an evil-doer, but because I obey 
 God. It is not my glory only, but yours. You show 
 the advantages of it by being brought to the fold of the 
 Saviour. Thus we see that the Christian heart is not 
 selfish, and Paul's was overflowing with love and phil- 
 anthropy. Indeed, where there is love in this world 
 there must be sorrow ; and sorrow, on the other hand, 
 looses the chords of love that it may swell out to its 
 own proper dimensions in the i-enewed soul. We met 
 our Lord, and his beauty dravys us after him ; and 
 hence the origin of the Church's persecutions. It was 
 that meeting on the way to Damascus which pierced 
 the soul of the apostle and made him count all things 
 but loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ, 
 which brought him into trials and sorrows of all kinds 
 — into strange lands and perilous seas, into a life of 
 misery and a death of shame, and finally into his 
 Father's house in heaven. 
 
 IV. The Doctrlne of Prayer. 
 
 For this cause I how my knees unto the Father of our 
 Lord Jesus Christ (ver. 14). 
 
 The phrase for this cause has been referred to the 
 first verse, to the eighth and to the whole passage. 
 There is, however, no necessity for making difficulties 
 and seeking out remote antecedents when the precedino 
 verse affords the following connection : I am afraid of 
 your fainting, and for this cause I pray for you. To 
 " bow the knees " is the sign of adoration, and the phrase 
 is used with the dative of the person and the accusative of 
 the thing (Rom. xi.4 ; xiv. 11) ; is, however, followed by 
 
 29 
 
226 GRAHAM ON EPHESIANS. 
 
 in ("at") (Phil. ii. 10), and in our tex^, by unto, with an 
 accusative of the person instead of the dative with- 
 out any preposition. The same variety of form, both 
 with and without prepositions, is found also in the 
 Hebrew. (See 1 Kings xix. 18 ; Isa. xlv. 23 ; Ps. 
 xxii. 30 ; Ixxii. 9.) 
 
 This bowing of the knee, says Calvin, "A sigrio rem 
 denotat,'' expresses the thing by a sign, and Chrysostom 
 says, " It manifested the fervent desire of the apostle." 
 It is, indeed, the most solemn form of divine worship 
 and well suited the prisoner in Rome, who could see in 
 the Creator of the universe the Father of our Lord 
 Jesus Christ. Tischendorf and others reject the words 
 " of the Lord Jesus Christ," and read the passage thus : 
 " For this cause I bow my knees unto the Father, of 
 whom the whole family in heaven and earth is named." 
 But the mass of authorities seem to be in favor of the 
 words (De Wette), and one cannot see any good reason 
 for adding them had they not been in the original text; 
 nor does the addition bring out any new doctrine, for 
 most certainly the whole Scripture represents God as 
 the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. Here, then, the 
 apostle consoles himself in his prison by appealing to 
 the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ ; not Father only, 
 but the Father of the incarnate Son, who loved us and 
 died for our sins. This name un"tes them both in the 
 faith and the love of the apostle : the Sender and the 
 sent One, the Giver and the Gift, are alike in the 
 heart of tlie faithful servant. (See Rom. xv. 6 ; 
 2 Cor. i. 3 ; Col. i. 3, where the same name or style 
 is used.) 
 
 Having thus analyzed the passage, let us now consider 
 the subject contained in it — prayer. 
 
CHAPTER III. VERSES 11-21. 227 
 
 First. What is p7'aye7' f 
 
 It is the cry of weakness to Him that can save ; tlie 
 sigh of distracted hearts to Him who can relieve them. 
 It is ve^y natural to pray. The weak, the miserable, 
 the wretched, the ignorant and the sinful turn their 
 eyes to God, the Source of strength and wisdom and 
 honor and glory and blessing. This is prayer. It is 
 the first and best sign of a believing and gracious state. 
 " Behold, he prayeth," was testimony enough that the 
 old murderous heart had passed or was passing away. 
 It is also the best measure of our progress in tht^ 
 life of holiness and love ; he that abides in fellowship 
 with God is likely to be above the concerns of this 
 fleeting world. The saints, martyrs and apostles praye<l 
 much, and so must we if we follow their example. 
 
 Second. Why is prayer necessary f 
 
 Because we have so many wants which can be su}>- 
 plied in no other way. If humanity consisted only of 
 four lusty limbs and an omnivorous appetite, we might 
 feel satisfied without the ideas of God, a future life and 
 the salvation o'i the soul. But it is not so ; we are not 
 only material, but also sjDiritual and immortal, beings, 
 and the soul, with its boundless desires and necessities, 
 seems satisfied with nothing less than the fullness of God. 
 Prayer opens up this fullness to the enlarging spirit, an<l 
 with ever-increasing love and knowledge and reverence 
 we hope in this way to approach in some measure the Un- 
 approachable, and to drink more dee^dy from the foun- 
 tain of his love. God commands us to pray. He knows 
 what suits us best, and his word abounds with exhorta- 
 tions and encouragements to prayer. To the soul that 
 knows itself, and seeks to know God, prayer is abso- 
 hitely necessary. The dangers of our pilgrimage, the 
 
228 GEAHAM ON EPHESIANS. 
 
 attacks of our spiritual enemies, the seductions of sin, 
 the world and the flesh, show us the necessity of 
 prayer, by which alone we can meet and conquer them. 
 Besides, there are seasons — such as convictions of sin, 
 strong bodily pain and the agonies of death — when 
 every other source of comfort is vain. No human hand 
 can help ; He that created alone can deliver, and the 
 hand that can help must reach beyond the grave. 
 Hence, as Christians, our life, our whole life, is one 
 moving censer of holy incense to God. Our new birth 
 was in prayer, our death is in prayer, and all between 
 is a service of love and obedience consecrated to God 
 by prayer : 
 
 " Prayer is the Christian's vital breath, 
 The Chi'istian's native air ; 
 His watcliword at the gates of death, 
 He enters heaven by prayer." 
 
 Third. How should we pray f 
 
 (1) In the name of Jesus Christ the Mediator (John 
 xiv. 13; XV. 16; xvi. 23; Eph. v. 20; Heb. xiii. 15; 
 1 Pet. ii. 5) . His life is our example ; his death, our 
 redemption ; his righteousness, our refuge in the day 
 of judgment. The doctrine of his sole mediation is 
 one of the clearest and fullest in the Bible ; so that the 
 many mediators of modern idolaters are without ex- 
 cuse. The oneness of the mediation stands on the 
 same foundation as the unity of God (1 Tim. ii. 5). 
 There is no other mediator, nor any other name in 
 heaven or on the earth, whereby we can be saved. He 
 is not the mediating Head of a host of mediators, 
 male and female, as the papists dream, reducing the 
 lioly gospel to a system of human merit and heathen- 
 
CHAPTER III. VERSES 11-21. 229 
 
 ish superstition. Pray in his name, and you shall be 
 heard, for he is the way to the Father and the door 
 of the sheepfold — the only Advocate and Mediator re- 
 vealed to us in the word of God. 
 
 (2) There should be a right preparation for prayer 
 (Ps. Ixvi. 18 ; cxlv. 18 ; Prov. xv. 8, 29 ; xxviii. 9 ; 
 Isa. i. 15 ; xxix. 18 ; lix. 2 ; Mark vii. 6 ; xi. 25 ; 
 John ix. 31 ; 1 Tim. ii. 8 ; James i. 6 ; iv. 3). 
 
 (3) We should pray fervently (Ps. lix. 1 7 ; Luke vi. 
 12; xi. 8; xviii. 1; Rom. xii. 12; Eph. vi. 18). 
 
 (4) We should pray frequently (Ps. Iv. 17 ; Ixxxvi. 
 3 ; cxix. 164 ; Dan. vi. 10 ; Luke ii. 37 ; xviii. 1 ; xxi. 
 36 ; Acts X. 2 ; 1 Thess. iii. 10 ; v. 17 ; 1 Tim. v. 5 ; 
 2 Tim. i. 3; 1 Pet. iv. 7). 
 
 (5) We should pray without ostentation (Matt. vi. 
 6; Luke xviii. 11). 
 
 (6) We should pray for all ranks, classes and con- 
 ditions of men (Eph. vi. 18; 1 Tim. ii. 1). 
 
 (7) We should pray with the firm assurance that 
 we shall be heard (James i. 6 ; Mark xi. 24 ; 1 Tim. 
 ii. 8). 
 
 It need hardly be added that our prayers must be 
 limited to the things that are agreeable to the will of 
 God. His will is our rule in this as in all things, and 
 his Spirit is promised to help our infirmities (Rom. 
 viii. 26) and guide us into all truth (John xvi. 13). 
 Fourth. What are the kinds of prayer f 
 Our prayers may be mental, like Hannah's (1 Sam. 
 i. 13), where there is no voice, but only the pour- 
 ing out of the heart before the Lord. Or they 
 may be short ejaculatory petitions uttered when we 
 find opportunity during the avocations of the day to 
 keep us mindful of Him in whom we live, move and 
 
230 GRAHAM ON EPHESIANS. 
 
 have our being. Or they may be pi'ivate, in our own 
 chamber, with no eye to see us and no ear to hear us 
 but God's (Dan. yi. 10 ; Matt. vi. 6 ; xiv, 23 ; Luke vi. 
 12; Acts X. 9, 30). Or they may be in the family, 
 when the members of the household meet for the morn- 
 ing and the evening sacrifice of prayer, thanksgiving 
 and praise. Or they may be in the social circle — the 
 prayer-meeting, where several families and friends meet 
 for edification, prayer and praise. Or, finally, they 
 may be in the church, the public congregation of the 
 faithful, where thousands engage in the solemn acts 
 of public worship. There we feel ourselves joined to 
 the body of Christ, the whole Church of the living 
 God, in all ages and in all nations. As distinguished 
 from the popish, this is the catholic Church into which 
 we were baptized, in the fellowship with which we de- 
 sire to live and die. Let us use these various kinds 
 of prayer as our circumstances require, " not forsak- 
 ing the assembling of ourselves together as the man- 
 ner of some is ; but exhorting one another ; and so 
 much the more as ye see the day approaching" (Heb. 
 X. 25). 
 
 Fifth. Examples of prayer. 
 
 These are numerous in the Holy Scriptures, from 
 which we quote only the following : Abraham's ser- 
 vant (Gen. xxiv. 12), Jacob (Gen. xxxii. 9), Moses 
 (Ex. xxxii. 11, 31 ; Deut. iii. 23), Samson (Judg. xvi. 
 28), Hannah (1 Sam. i. 10), David (2 Sam. vii. 18), 
 Solomon (1 Kings viii. 22), Hezekiah (2 Kings xix. 
 15), Manasseh (2 Chron. xxxiii. 12), Daniel (Dan. ix. 
 3), Jonah (Jon. ii. 1), Habakkuk (Hab. iii. 1), Asa 
 (2 Chron. xiv. 11, 12), Jehoshaphat (2 Chron. xx. 6), 
 Ezra (Ezra ix. 6), the Levites (Neh. ix. 5), Esther 
 
CHAPTER III. VEKSES 11-21. 231 
 
 (Esth. iv. 16), Amos (Amos vii. 2—5), Zacharias (Luke 
 i. 13), the Lord's Prayer (Matt. vi. 9), that in his 
 agony (Matt. xxvi. 39), that for his Church (John 
 xvii. 1, etc.), Cornelius (Acts x. 1). These, with other 
 similar examples, will teach us in what way we should 
 approach the mercy-seat on high. 
 
 Sixth. Are there no examples of prayer for others f 
 Yes, many. Abraham prayed for Abimelech (Gen. 
 XX. 17) ; Jacob, for his wife (Gen. xxv. 21) ; Moses, 
 for the people (Ex. xxxii. 11 ; xxxiii. 12) ; Moses, for 
 Miriam (Num. xii. 13) ; Samuel, for the people (1 Sam. 
 xii. 2, 3) ; the church, for Peter (Acts xii. 5) ; Stephen, 
 for his murderers (Acts vii. 60) ; Jesus, for his enemies 
 (Luke xxiii. 34) ; the church, for Paul (Eom. xv. 30) ; 
 Paul, for the Jews (Rom. x. 1) ; Paul, for the Church 
 (2 Cor. i. 11 ; Eph. i. 16 ; vi. 18 ; Col. iv. 3 ; 1 Thess. 
 i. 2; 2 Thess. iii. 1 ; Heb. xiii. 18). We should pray 
 for our enemies (Matt. v. 44). These examples may 
 help us in the practice of intercessory prayer. 
 
 Seventh. As to the posture of the body, we have no 
 rule in Holy Scripture, and we should make no re- 
 striction upon Christian liberty. The Germans sit 
 at prayer, both in their families and in their churches. 
 and yet they take the Lord's Supper standing, for which 
 no authority can be given. For private, family and 
 social worship kneeling seems to be the most proper 
 and convenient mode (Eph. iii. 14). In the temple 
 and synagogue service the Jews stood at prayer (1 Kings 
 viii. 22), yet before the end Solomon knelt (ver. 54). Is 
 there a distinction to betaken between jjraying and bless- 
 ing (ver. 55)? (Luke xviii. 11). The English kneel 
 (if, indeed, that bend downward can so be called), 
 the Scotch stand and the Teutonic nations sit at 
 
232 GRAHAM ON EPHESIANS. 
 
 prayer. When the papists come before altars and im- 
 ages for prayer they kneel, and the Greeks prostrate 
 themselves on the earth. The poi^e sits at the Lord's 
 Supper to show that he can dispense with the ordi- 
 nances of God, but commands his followers to kneel. 
 He does right and commands you to do wrong, and 
 you must obey on pain of damnation. He sits, as 
 Christ did, and you must kneel because he bids you. 
 
 Eighth. In times of trial, suffering or public dan- 
 ger we should abound in prayer that the Church might 
 be kept faithful, that the name of the Lord Jesus might 
 be glorified, and that the Lord would be pleased, for 
 his Son's sake, to guide the affairs of the nations and 
 sanctify the dispensations of his providence to the 
 glory of his name and the welfare of his people. 
 Hence, to the God of heaven Paul bowed his knees 
 in the dungeons of Rome and Daniel made his sup- 
 plication. Suffering leads to prayer, and hence the 
 times of persecution have been, in some respects, blessed 
 times for the Church. 
 
 And now, O God, give me, and all that fear thy 
 name, the spirit of prayer and supplication ! Give us 
 the faith that works by love and purifies the heart! 
 May we live in fellowship with thee here, and finally 
 obtain thy kingdom and glory through Jesus Christ 
 our Lord ! Amen. 
 
 V. The Whole Family of God. 
 
 Of whom, the whole family in heaven and earth is 
 named (ver. 15). 
 
 The apostle consoles himself in the loneliness of 
 his prison with the great [jriuciples of the economy of 
 grace, which it was the aim of his life to proclaim to 
 
CHAPTER III. VERSES 11-21. 233 
 
 every creature. His spirit was free. The eternal pur- 
 pose of God contains in it, said Paul, many such 
 sorrows and disappointments as mine. Still, I am 
 not without great consolations. I am part of his great 
 plan ; I have access to his throne of grace through 
 Christ ; I am set for an example to others, and I can 
 look up to the Creator as the Father of our Lord Jesus 
 Christ, of whom the whole family in heaven and earth 
 is named. 
 
 Who gives his name to the family ? The fifteenth 
 verse is ambiguous, in both Greek and English. To 
 whom are we to refer the phrase of whom f The 
 nearest antecedent is the Lord Jesus Christ, and to 
 him many commentators, as Calvin, Beza, Zanchius, 
 Rhenferd, etc., refer it. In this case the meaning will 
 be that the Lord Jesus Christ has given the name 
 " Christian," and all which the name covers, to the one 
 family of God. I am of opinion, however, that even 
 if the words "our Lord Jesus Christ" should turn out 
 to be genuine (Tischendorf rejects them), we should 
 refer the of whom to the Father, and that for the 
 following reasons : It is the Father that gives the 
 name to the family generally, and hence the 'patria 
 seems naturally to refer to the pater, the family to the 
 father. It is the Father to whom the apostle bows 
 his knees, and so he is the principal person in the 
 verse. The words " of our Lord Jesus Christ " may 
 be omitted and the sense remain complete. The 
 meaning is that the whole family is related to the 
 Father by name ; the heavenly and the earthly mem- 
 bers have in this respect the same privilege. Most 
 of the German commentators take patria in the sense 
 of " race," and interpret the passage thus : " Every 
 
 30 
 
2.U GRAHAM ON EPHESIANS. 
 
 kind of created being derives its origin out of God 
 the Father, and bears his name as Creator ;" and 
 many can see no reference whatever to tlie children 
 of God in the passage (Harless, Riickhert, etc.). 
 But surely the word patria naturally means " family," 
 and not " race ;" and it may be so translated in every 
 passage where it occurs in the New Testament (Luke 
 ii. 4 ; Acts iii. 25; Eph. iii. 15). Herodotus uses it in 
 the same sense (ii. 143 ; iii. 75). It is the beth-ab (" pa- 
 ternal house ") of the Hebrews (Ex. vi. 25 ; Num. i. 
 18). There is, therefore, a great propriety, so far as 
 the word itself is concerned, and so far as respects its 
 use in Scripture, in translating it by the word family. 
 
 But we now come to the important question, " Is 
 pasa here to be rendered ' every ' or the whole f 
 That the Greek pas, not followed by a substantive 
 with the article, is generally taken in a partitive 
 sense seems to be an understood fact, and therefore 
 the simplest and most natural translation here would 
 be " every family ;" but when it is said that izaaa Karpia 
 cannot fairly be rendered the whole family, I deny the 
 assertion, and can show from the New Testament many 
 examples where it may be so translated, and some where 
 it must. (See Matt. xii. 31 ; Acts ii. 36 ; x. 14 ; 1 Cor. 
 i. 29 ; XV. 39 ; 2 Cor. x. 6 ; Eph. iv. 31 ; v. 3, 5 ; vi. 
 18; Phil. i. 20; 2 Tim. ii. 2; and others.) I hold, 
 therefore, that the common English translation, the 
 whole family, is a proper one, and, the whole passage 
 considered, perhaps the best that can be given. 
 
 Let us now leave the dry region of verbal criticism 
 and contemplate for a moment the whole family of God. 
 We observe, then, that the family is one, though divided 
 into two parts. Some have passed over the Jordan and 
 
CHAPTEK III. VEKSES 11-21. 235 
 
 enjoy the glories of the New Jerusalem and the prom- 
 ised land ; they have conquered and received their 
 crown ; they lived and died in faith, and their robes 
 are made white in the blood of the Lamb. They 
 know the reality of the divine love which centres in the 
 person of the Kedeemer, on earth hidden, veiled in the 
 vestments of our mortal nature, but now radiating in 
 the splendor of resurrection glory. His presence fills 
 all hearts with joy ; angels, saints, cherubim and 
 seraphim are around his throne ; the unfallen and 
 the redeemed are alike sharers of his beneficence. 
 They are in the kingdom of glory — no hunger, no 
 thirst, no weariness, no weakness, no wants ; no more 
 sins to lament over, no more temptations to resist, no 
 more enemies to overcome. There is no more death, 
 and sorrow and sighing have fled away. The long- 
 alienated are now reconciled ; the long-divided have 
 at last met in their Father's house. This is heaven, 
 and this is the believer's home. But we are still in the 
 flesh. They are triumphing with their King, and we 
 are fighting his battles. They are in Canaan, and we 
 are in the wilderness. We have the manna, the guid- 
 ing pillar and the frail tabernacles ; they, the corn and 
 the wine and the fixed temple of the New Jerusalem. 
 We are following in their train, and our faith is quick- 
 ened and strengthened by the cloud of witnesses with 
 which we are surrounded. 
 
 Stand fast, brother! Do not yield. Thou art not 
 alone in the fight. Jesus is with thee. The apostles 
 and prophets in heaven are before thee. The glori- 
 ous army of the martyrs sees thee. The eye that 
 met Stephen's in his trials is upon thee. And oh, 
 consider the reward ! Life, purity, holiness, the fellow- 
 
236 GRAHAM ON EPHESIANS. 
 
 ship of eternal love, the presence of the Son of God, 
 unutterable nearness to God himself, enlarged and 
 perpetually increasing knowledge, — these are before 
 thee ; and are they not worth struggling for ? Perish 
 the sins that would deprive me of this hope, be they 
 the dearest, sweetest, that ever deceived man ! Shall 
 I listen to the world or heed its siren voice, when Jesus 
 calls me to follow him? Shall I hesitate between a 
 few years and eternity? Shall I yield to influences 
 which must degrade me rather than to the hopes that 
 can make me a man, a conqueror and an heir of heav- 
 en? Never! By God's help I will take my lot with the 
 saints and follow the Lamb whithersoever he goeth. 
 
 Take the following notes as to the members of this 
 family. 
 
 (1) They are all one. They have one God and 
 Father, one Lord and Saviour, one faith, one baptism 
 and one hope of their calling. They have all the same 
 enemies, the same friends, the same temptations and the 
 same joys. They all enter the family in the same way, 
 and they all enjoy the same everlasting inheritance. 
 
 (2) There are great varieties in the family. Some 
 are in heaven, and others upon the earth; some are 
 militant, and others are triumphant; some are weak, 
 and others are strong in faith, giving glory to God. 
 All are soldiers of \ the cross, but there is a great 
 difference between raw recruits and accomplished war- 
 riors — those who are entering upon and those who 
 are triumphing over the difiiculties of the campaign. 
 The varieties of different ages, nations, political and 
 ecclesiastical names and institutions, have tinged their 
 character with many hues, but the head and the heart, 
 fJae faith, hope and charity, are all the same. 
 
CHAPTER III. VERSES 11-21. 237 
 
 (3) They have many names and many symbols which 
 express something of their nature and office. They are 
 the elect, chosen in Christ before the foundation of 
 the world; they are tlie redeemed Church, washed in 
 his blood from all defilement ; they are believers, con- 
 verts, new creatures, with a new name upon them, a 
 new heart within them, a new heaven above them and 
 a new earth beneath their feet. All things are become 
 new. They are his people, his fold, his bride, his 
 temple, his house, the trees of his j^lanting, the work 
 of his hands that he may be glorified. He is the 
 Head, and they are the body ; he is the Vine, and 
 they are the branches ; he is the Foundation, and 
 they are the living stones. All this is expressive of the 
 nature of the family and their relations to the Saviour. 
 
 But let us now consider — 
 
 VI. The Contents of the Apostle's Prayer. 
 
 That he would grant you, according to the riches of 
 his glory, to 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 knmvledge, that 
 ye might be filled ivith all the fullness of God (ver. 
 16-19). 
 
 The first thing he prays for is strength — that they 
 should " be strengthened with might by his Spirit in the 
 inner man^ (See in the Septuagint, 2 Sam. x. 12 ; 2 
 Chron. xxi. 4 ; 2 Kings xv. 19 ; and in our translation. 
 Col. i. 11.) 
 
 We need strength ; we have in ourselves no power to 
 
238 GRAHAM ON EPHESIANS. 
 
 resisi the current of evil in the world. We need to be 
 mightily strengthened by the power of the Holy Ghost 
 — his own Spirit, the Comforter. (Comp. Eph. vi. 10 
 and Col. i. 11.) Paul would have the Ephesians s^roTi^^, 
 and his first petition is to that eftect ; and it may well 
 teach us where the source of our victories is to be found. 
 Jehovah is the strength of his people, and, like every 
 other gift, his power to help is ministered unto the 
 saints and registered in their hearts by the Holy Spirit. 
 He dwells in us ; the Church is his sanctuary and his 
 throne. The Father is enthroned in heaven, and Jesus 
 is at the right hand of God, and the Holy Ghost the 
 Comforter, the life and the giver of life, dwells in, quick- 
 ens and sanctifies the redeemed Church of Christ. 
 
 This heavenly strength is for, or in reference to (e^c), 
 the inner man. It is no physical or material force by 
 which the Church is to smite down tyrants and per- 
 secutors. On the contrary, all history teaches that in 
 proportion as the Church acquires worldly succor and 
 political greatness she loses this sin-resisting, victorious 
 power of God in the inner man. This inner man is 
 opposed to the outward man (2 Cor. iv. 16), to the old 
 man (Rom. vi. 6; Eph. iv. 22; Col. iii. 9), to the body 
 of this death (Rom. vii. 24), to the law of sin in 
 the members (Rom. vii. 23), and to the carnal mind 
 (Rom. viii. 6). It is not the mind, nous, mens, but the 
 law of the mind. It is not the soul as distinguished 
 from the body, nor the reasonable faculties as distin- 
 guished from the sensual and emotional, but the spir- 
 itual nature, the new life, the new heart which grace 
 gives ; the new man, the new creature which the Spirit 
 of God creates in us to resist and conquer the old. 
 This is the warfare which sin introduced into the world. 
 
CHAPTER III. VERSES 11 21. 239 
 
 This explains the two souls which Socrates said were 
 within him. The Platonists used similar language (see 
 Fritsche on E-om. vii. 23, Meyer, Riickhert, etc.) ; and, 
 I may add, similar language must be used wherever and 
 so long as the mixed nature of man continues. There 
 is always, and there must be, the inward struggle — 
 more or less earnest, indeed, as God is more or less 
 clearly revealed ; and therefore to say, as many Ger- 
 mans do, that Paul proceeds on Platonic principles, is 
 unnecessary ; and with Riickhert we may call it " eine 
 ungereimte Behauptung'^ ("an absurd assertion"). This 
 warfare is the very root and ground of our present state 
 of being, and gives form and substance to the whole 
 plan of redemption — gives, also, occasion for and direc- 
 tion to our prayers. No sin, and there could be no 
 sacrifice ; no fall, no redemption ; no warfare in the 
 soul, in society, in the world, and there could be no 
 peace through the blood of the cross. 
 
 But Paul prays for strength in the inner man, not 
 according to his or their wishes, but according to the 
 riches of the Father^ s glory. This is the ocean from 
 which the soul draws her supplies. " Glory " [doxa] 
 is the highest form of expression in the New Testa- 
 ment for the pomp, splendor and majesty of the heav- 
 enly King (Matt. xix. 28 ; xxiv. 30 ; Luke ix. 26 ; xxi. 
 27; Tit. ii. 13), for the ineffable, unapproachable bril- 
 liancy in which Jehovah dwells (the Shekinah of the 
 Rabbins) (2 Thess. i. 9 ; 2 Pet. i. 17 ; Rev. xv. 8 ; xxi. 
 11) ; it is the Cabod of the Hebrews, the Megd of the 
 Arabs, the Herrlichkeit of the Germans — in fact, the 
 highest delineation of the character of God known 
 to man, his glory. This is the fountain from which the 
 believer draws his strength. His glory, the riches of 
 
240 GEAHAM ON EPHESIANS. 
 
 his glory, are at your service, O reader, to give you 
 courage in the hour of triaL Be not afraid of sin, 
 death or the devil, the persecutions of Antichrist and 
 all the hosts of hell. The riches of the glory of God 
 are your strength. Sing a verse of the immortal strain 
 of Luther which roused Germany against the pope 
 and shook the heresiarch upon his throne : 
 
 " Ein' feste Burg ist unser Gott, 
 Eiii Gute Wehr und Waffeii; 
 Er hilft uns frei aus aller Noth 
 Die uns jetzt hat betroffen." 
 
 Or if you are unable for this flight of faith, then I 
 know nothing among human compositions better than 
 the immortal ode of Horace on the " Virtuous Man " 
 (iii. 3). One thing is certain — ^that if you only trust 
 him God has made provision for your triumph over 
 all the trials which can possibly overtake you ; not, in- 
 deed, a worldly kind of victory, but strength in the 
 inner man to make you nobly live, and, if need be, 
 heroically die, for the cause of God and righteous- 
 ness. 
 
 (2) Then he prays for the indwelling of Christ (ver. 
 17), which (notwithstanding the objections of Meyer) I 
 take to be something different from the strengthening 
 through the Spirit. The prayer is that Christ may 
 dwell in your hearts by faith. The faithful, believing 
 heart is, according to Scripture, the temple of God, or 
 lather all believers together are the temple, and indi- 
 vidually considered they are the living stones. He built, 
 ornamented and will be worshiped in it. It is this iden 
 which is wrought out with such subtility and beauty in 
 Howe's Living Temple, one of the deepest and most 
 
CHAPTER III. VERSES 11-21. 241 
 
 masterly pieces of theology in the world. He is the 
 foundation-stone upbearing, the corner-stone uniting 
 and the top-stone completing this living temple of God, 
 As Son of God, he is the foundation-stone ; as Son of 
 man, the highest of the finite, he is the top-stone ; and 
 as the God-Man, he is the corner-stone which unites all 
 together. (On this indwelling in the heart as in a 
 temple, see Eph. ii. 21, 22; John xiv. 23.) 
 
 The Greek construction in our text is the same as 
 James iv. 5 ; Col. ii. 9 ; and the phrase in your hearts 
 seems to take for granted that the opposition to the in- 
 dwelling Lord is to be found in the will. " Ye tvill not 
 come unto me, that ye might have life," says Christ ; 
 " Because I have called, and ye have refused, therefore 
 I will laugh at your calamity, and mock when your fear 
 cometh ;" "The fool hath said in his heart, There is no 
 God." Hence the Lord makes his people willing in 
 the day of his jwwer (Ps. ex.). Christ's throne is in 
 the heart ; he reigns Lord of the affections, and lift'< 
 over its troubled waters his peaceful hand. His rule 
 is the dominion of love, and the rod of his power the 
 golden sceptre of mercy. Jehovah dwelt in the temple 
 of Jerusalem, and Jesus, the Lord and Head of his 
 Church, dwells in the temple of redeemed and sanc- 
 tified humanity. 
 
 The apostle adds, in our text, the important words 
 through faith. He dwells in the heart through faith. 
 This is the creature-side of the subject. Ye are not 
 stocks or stones, but living, reasonable men, and there- 
 fore ye have something to do in the matter. The tem- 
 ple must voluntarily receive its Lord ; otherwise, he 
 cannot, and will not, enter. Except ye believe, ye 
 shall not be established. He who believeth not the 
 
 31 
 
242 GRAHAM ON EPHESIANS. 
 
 testimony of God can never belong to the living tem- 
 ple. He is without the fold, and knows nothing of 
 the good Shepherd's love. Without faith it is impossi- 
 ble to please God (Heb. xi. 6). Nor does the work of 
 Jesus Christ in our nature ensure the salvation of any 
 but believers ; yea, it rather darkens their prospects 
 and deepens their condemnation (Heb. x. 29). Be- 
 lieve, then, brother, believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, 
 and thou shalt be saved. In the act of believing you 
 receive the Saviour, and the power and the fullness 
 of his presence in your soul are in proportion to your 
 faith. 
 
 (3) But this prayer of the apostle includes also 
 knowledge: '"''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, ivhich passeth knowledge, that 
 ye might be filled with all the fullness of GodT There 
 is knowledge for you ! That is a prayer which no 
 uninspired man could have originated. Let us for 
 a moment contemplate its principal points. Beza, 
 Luther and Macknight put "and" before this clause 
 of the seventeenth verse, but the sense is good with- 
 out it, and reverence for the holy word should keep 
 us from either adding to or taking away from it. 
 
 The being rooted and grounded in love is a beauti- 
 ful and sul)lime thought, uniting the ideas of vine and 
 temple, and thereby, notwithstanding the dictum of 
 the satirist (Horace, Ars Poetica,4), enhancing the 
 grandeur of the conception. Love — the eternal love 
 of God to man — is the foundation on which the tem- 
 ple rests and the deep subsoil out of which the vine 
 grows. This is your safety. Rest on the foundation. 
 
CHAPTER III. VERSES 11-21. 24:3 
 
 abide in the Vine, for only in so doing are you sale 
 (John XV. 6). The connection between being rooted 
 and grounded in love and the capacity of comprehend- 
 ing the love of Christ is clear and beautiful, though 
 De Wette cannot easily see it ; indeed, it is not easy 
 for a Rationalist or a Unitarian to understand any- 
 thing about the love of Christ. Nevertheless, it seems 
 reasonable that being near Christ, that remaining in 
 the Vine and trusting on the Rock of Ages, that hav- 
 ing daily, hourly fellowship with him, that bearing 
 his cross, leaning on his hand and dr'.nking from the 
 fountains of his grace, might help us not a little in the 
 comprehension of his love. He that loves can com- 
 prehend love ; he that bears the cross can explain the 
 mortification of the flesh ; and be assured that the 
 more firmly our faith rests on him and the more deep- 
 ly we grow into the living Vine, the more fully shall 
 we be able to comprehend the dimensions of his love. 
 From the depths you will rise to the heights ; from 
 the purpose of the Father and the work of the Son 
 and the Spirit, to the inheritance, the crown and the 
 everlasting glory. 
 
 With all saints gives us the idea of the entire Church ; 
 there is no special reference to either apostles or angels. 
 The meaning is, You belong to the saints of God, and 
 one of their privileges is to comprehend the love of 
 Christ ; you stand not alone in the battle ; before, be- 
 hind and all around you are the saints ; and my prayer 
 is that, like them and in company with them, you may 
 be able to comjirehend what is the breadth and length 
 and depth and height of the love of Christ. Perhaps 
 the apostle had in his mind the sublime delineation of 
 Job (xi. 8) as he uttered these burning words. They 
 
244 GEAHAM ON EPHESIANS. 
 
 refer, not to the temple of the Church (though possibly 
 suggested by it), but to the immeasurable love of Christ. 
 There apj)ears to be something more in the word 
 " know " than in comprehend. He j)rays that they 
 may comprehend the love of Christ, and then, as some- 
 thing better and higher, that they may know it. This 
 refers to the saving, experimental knowledge of Christ 
 in the soul of which the Scripture speaks so often. It 
 is eternal life to know the Father and the Son (John 
 xiv.), and the operations of the Father and the Spirit 
 are to reveal the glories of the Son (Ps. ex. ; Gal. i. 
 16). To know the real character and love of Christ 
 is salvation.* They that know thy name shall put 
 their trust in thee. It is impossible to know God, or 
 tlie love of God, in the person of his Son, without loving 
 him. The j)hrase love of Christ means the love which 
 Christ bears to us, not the love which we bear to him, 
 and therefore Luther's Christum lieb haben is false. 
 (Comp. Gal. ii. 20; Horn. v. 6.) Jerome seems to 
 make the genitive governed by the substantive instead 
 of by the adjective, which brings out no adequate con- 
 clusion to the apostle's sentence : That ye might know 
 the supereminent love of tlie knowledge of Christ. No ; 
 it is a love that passes knowledge. Some have found 
 inconsistency and contradiction in these words. Mis- 
 erable critics, and more miserable criticism ! The 
 apostle Paul, who for the sake of his Master suffered 
 the loss of all things, does not choose to speak of the 
 person, cross, love and life of his Redeemer as German 
 philologists speak of a particle or geologists of a prim- 
 itive rock. His soul is lifted upon the wings of faith 
 
 * Dr. Carson has written a noble little work called The Knowledge of 
 Jesus the Best of the Sciences. 
 
CIIAPTEU HI. VERSES 11-21. 245 
 
 and hope and his heart is overflowing with love. He 
 has tasted that the Lord is gracious, and would lead 
 you to fathom the unfathomable, to measure the bound- 
 less, to know and comprehend the incomprehensible, 
 love of Christ. He would dwell on the same won- 
 drous theme, leaving little critics and faultfinders to 
 their cold and uninteresting occupation. 
 
 " Thou hidden love of God— whose height, 
 Whose depth unfathom'd, no man knows — 
 
 I see from far thy beauteous light, 
 And inly sigh for thy repose. 
 
 My heart is pained, nor can it be 
 
 At rest till it find rest in thee." 
 
 (4) This most ancient and cleaving love of the Lord 
 Jesus Christ confounds all our reasonings, works in 
 new, strange ways and produces unheard-of results. 
 It jDasses knowledge that he could stoop so low and 
 that he could raise us so high. The tremendous sacri- 
 fice of the cross surpasses all human comprehension, 
 while, at the same time, it throws floods of light on 
 the character of God, the nature of sin and the value 
 of the human soul. If you are amazed at the humil- 
 iation of the Son of God, be equally amazed at the 
 exaltation of the Son of man. Your nature, brother- 
 man, is on the throne of the Creator in heaven, and 
 you, as a believer, are promised a share in the king- 
 dom of his glory (Matt. xix. 28; Luke xxii. 30; 1 Cor. 
 vi. 2; 2 Tim. ii. 12; Rev. ii. 26, 27; iii. 21). We 
 shall be with him, we shall be eternally in him, we 
 shall be like him in his resurrection glory and majesty 
 (Phil. iii. 21 ; 1 Cor. XV. 43 ; CoL iii. 4 ; 1 John iii. 2). 
 This is indeed a great hope, and may well swallow up 
 all our earthly cares. 
 
246 GRAHAM ON EPHESIANS. 
 
 Then, again, there was nothing in us to attract his 
 love. We were sinners, and the law cried for vengeance ; 
 the sword of justice was made bare to smite ; Satan, 
 the adversary, roared for his prey ; and death deemed 
 his dominion universal and everlasting, — when, lo ! 
 the pardoning love of Christ overflowed our world, 
 and all the devices of the enemy are confounded. 
 He loved us because he loved us, and this passeth 
 knowledge. 
 
 The mode, too, in which he manifested his love 
 j)asses knowledge. The union of the divine and human 
 natures, the mysterious bloody sacrifice of the cross, 
 the constitution and offices of the Mediator, exhibit, 
 a.s Bishop Sanderson beautifully expresses it, "such a 
 height and depth and length and breadth in every 
 part as naught but an infinite understanding can 
 fathom. So God loved the world, but how much that 
 so containeth no tongue can tell or wit of man can 
 reach. It is a love incomprehensible. It swalloweth 
 up the sense and understanding of men and angels ; 
 fitter to be admired and adored in silence than blem- 
 ished with any of our weak expressions." 
 
 (5) Then the conclusion of the prayer is remark- 
 able : "That ye might be filled with all tJie fullness of 
 God." Pleroma, or " fullness," is here the essential 
 word, and it requires our diligent consideration. The 
 fullness of the Gentiles (Rom. xi. 25) is the multitude 
 or complement of the heathen nations ; the Church, 
 of which Jesus is the Head, is the pleroma or fullness 
 of Him that filleth all in all (Eph. i. 23) ; and the full- 
 ness of God denotes the attributes, majesty and glory 
 which make up the completeness and blessedness of his 
 nature. Believers are to be filled with (sfc ; " with " 
 
CHAPTER III. VERSES 11-21. 247 
 
 admissible, Rom. xvi. 6 ; Acts xix. 3 ; 2 Pet. i. 17) all 
 the fullness of (iocl — " mit allerlei Gottesfulle,'^ as 
 Luther has it ; or rather to or unto the entire fullness 
 of God, as De Wette has it — '"' zur yanzen F'ldle Gottes ;" 
 viz., filled up until our character corresponds with his, 
 ever approaching to, yet ever at infinite distances from, 
 the infinite, ineffable God. It is the same, I take it, as 
 *' the grace for grace " of John i. 16, which we receive 
 out of the fullness of Christ. The ere, " unto," shows 
 the end and purpose of God in our glorification. The 
 divine image is the terminus to which we shall be for 
 ever approaching, and which shall yet stand for ever 
 infinitely beyond and above all created glory and 
 perfection ; there will still remain room for the prayer 
 " that ye may be filled unto all the fullness of God." 
 Filled with his endless love, pervaded with the resur- 
 rection life of Christ, unutterable communion with 
 God, members of the glorified Mediator and nearest 
 to the heavenly throne (Rev. v.), there shall yet 
 remain above and beneath and around us endless 
 heights and depths in the fullness of God which it 
 shall be our business in eternity to explore. All is 
 in progress, and all tending to perfection. One only 
 remains the same — God, the lioly, the perfect, the 
 immutable God, around whom the vast all revolves, 
 to whom it all approaches. 
 
 The soul loses itself in these thoughts. The heart 
 cannot endure such all-comprehending vastness, and 
 must take refuge in the divine assurance "that we 
 shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is." We 
 share the fullness of his grace as the pledge that we 
 shall share t e fullness of his glory; perfect likeness 
 to the burden-bearing Lamb here, and perfect likeness 
 
^48 GKAHAM ON EPHESIANS. 
 
 to the sceptre-bearing Lord hereafter, is the highest 
 perfection of which our nature is capable ; it is to be 
 filled with all the fullness of God. 
 
 VII. The Doxology. 
 
 Now unto him that is able to do exceeding abundantly 
 above all that we ask or think, accordijig to the power 
 that ivorketh in us, unto him be glory in the Church by 
 Christ Jesus throughout all ages, world without end. 
 Ame7i (ver. 20, 21). 
 
 The doxology is directed to him that is able to do 
 exceeding abundantly above all that we ask — viz., God; 
 God the Father, who, through Jesus Christ the 
 Mediator, is to be glorified and adored by the whole 
 creation. Paul is fond of doxologies, and uses them 
 often both in the end and in the middle of his dis- 
 course. (See Rom. xvi. 25 ; Phil. iv. 20 ; Jude 24, 
 25; 1 Tim. i. 17; vi. 16.) These are ascriptions of 
 praise and honor offered up to God, or to God the 
 Father, or to God through Jesus the Mediator (see 
 Heb. xiii. 21 ; Eph. iii. 21 ; comp. Col. iii. 17 ; Rom. 
 vii. 25), or to Christ directly (Rev. i. 6; 2 Tim. iv. 18; 
 Rev. V. 12). The angel host on the occasion of the 
 birth of Jesus Christ, at Bethlehem, broke out into 
 the sublime doxology (Luke ii. 14), "Glory to God 
 in the highest, and on earth peace, good-will toward 
 men ;" and when the redemption-work is completed 
 and the ransomed are gathered home, their sublime 
 anthems around the throne will be to Him that loved 
 them and washed them from their sins in his own 
 blood (Rev. v. 9-12) : 
 
 "'Worthy the Lamb that died,' they cry, 
 'To be exalted thus;' 
 
CHAPTER in. VERSES 11-21. 249 
 
 'Worthy the Lamb,' our hearts rej^ly, 
 ' For he was slain for us.' " 
 
 It is not so much prayer as solemn adoration and 
 praise ; it is like the bursting forth of a stream too 
 strong for its banks ; the full heart overflows in these 
 holy gushes of pious feeling and praise to God. I do 
 not like the practice brought into every-day life, as it 
 tends to make the great name of God too familiar ; nor 
 ought we to abominate anything more than the popish 
 practice of appealing to Mary, the saints and the an- 
 gels of God. This is flat, stupid idolatry, for which 
 there is no warrant in the Holy Scriptures. We offer 
 up our doxologies in the firm faith and assurance that 
 he is able and willing to do more than we can ask or 
 think (Rom. iv. 21 ; 1 Thess. v. 24). He is God, and 
 can — he is our Father, and will — fulfill our desires and 
 supply all our need according to his riches in glory by 
 Christ Jesus. 
 
 The language of this noble doxology is exceedingly 
 emphatic in the English translation, and still more so. 
 in the Greek; so that critics have been confounded 
 by the apostle's efforts to express the j^ower of God 
 in the way of a magnificent pleonasm, thus : God is 
 able to do what we ask; he is able to do what we 
 think; he is able to do more than we can ask or think; 
 he is able to do abundantly more than we can ask or 
 think; he is able to do exceeding abundantly more 
 than we can ask or think.* All this variety, without 
 doubt, has its meaning and is surely intended to give 
 the saints full confidence in the divine assistance and 
 strength. He would have us to rest in his love. He 
 
 * On the Greek construction I recommend Greenfield's critical note 
 on the passage as the best and clearest I have seen. 
 32 
 
250 GRAHAM ON EPHESIANS. 
 
 would banish from our minds the fear which hath 
 torment, and fill us with an assurance of his presence 
 and power which no earthly trials can shake. There- 
 fore this sublime pleonasm. 
 
 All this is according to the power which worketh i7i 
 lis — viz., the indwelling of the Holy Spirit (Eph. i. 
 19; iii. 16), by which we are raised to a new life and 
 made conquerors over our spiritual enemies, which is the 
 pledge and assurance that he can and will do exceed- 
 ing abundantly above all we can ask or think. Thus 
 the believer has within him an inworking, flesh-cruci- 
 fying power of God, even the Holy Ghost, the power 
 of the Highest (Luke i. 35), whose presence in the 
 Church is the assurance and proof that the Head is 
 risen, and that all the promises shall in due time be 
 accomplished. The enlargement of the Church, the 
 overthrow of Antichrist, the binding of Satan, the 
 advent of the Son of man, the millennial kingdom and 
 glory, shall all be accomplished by the power of God ; 
 nor will this require anything more than a develop- 
 ment of the immortal powers which reside in the 
 present Church. The beginning is already made, 
 and the end will surely come. 
 
 Unto him be glory in the Church by Christ Jesus 
 throughout all ages, world without end. Amen (ver. 21). 
 This is the most common, and perhaps the best, trans- 
 lation. The Greek text will bear without violence the 
 following translations, which the reader may choose 
 from as he pleases : "To him be glory in the Church 
 in Christ Jesus," and this is quite literal ; " To him 
 be glory in the Church through Christ Jesus;" "To 
 him be glory in the Church which is in Christ Jesus ;" 
 " To him be glory by the Church for Christ Jesus." 
 
CHAPTER III. VERSES 11-21. 251 
 
 That the Greek ev, " in," often signifies the same as oca, 
 " through " (with a genitive) , is proved by Matt. ix. 34 
 Acts iv. 9 ; 1 Cor. xv. 22 ; Gal. iii. 8 ; Acts iii. 25 
 Heb. i. 1 ; 1 John v. 11. I take it in this sense 
 " Glory be to God in the Church through Jesus 
 Christ." The place of his glory is the Church, and 
 the person through whom he receives it is Christ, 
 and the time it continues is throughout all ages, 
 world without end. 
 
CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 I therefore, the prisoner of the Lord, beseech you that ye walk worthy 
 of the vocation wherewith ye are called, with all lowliness and meek- 
 ness, with long-suffering, forbearing one another in love ; endeavoring 
 to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace. There is one body, 
 and one Spirit, even as ye are called in one hope of your calling ; one 
 Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all, who is above 
 all, and through all, and in you all. But unto every one of us is given 
 grace according to the measure of the gift of Christ. Wherefore he 
 saith. When he ascended up on high, he led captivity captive, and gave 
 gifts unto men. (Now that he ascended, what is it but that he also de- 
 scended first into the lower parts of the earth? He that descended is 
 the same also that ascended up far above all heavens, that he might fill 
 all things.) And he gave some, apostles; and some, prophets; and 
 some, evangelists; and some, pastors and teachers; for the perfecting 
 of the saints, for the work of the ministry, for the edifying of the body 
 of Christ : till we all come in the unity of the faith, and of the knowl- 
 edge of the Son of God, unto a perfect man, unto the measure of the 
 stature of the fullness of Christ: that we henceforth be no more children, 
 tossed to and fro, and carried about with every wind of doctrine, by the 
 sleight of men, and cunning craftiness, whereby they lie in wait to de- 
 ceive; but speaking the truth in love, may grow up into him in all 
 things, which is the head, even Christ: from whom the whole body 
 fitly joined together and compacted by that which every joint sup- 
 plieth, according to the effectual working in the measure of every 
 part, maketh increase of the body unto the edifying of itself in love. 
 — Ephesians iv. 1-16. 
 
 This chapter commences the more practical part of 
 the Epistle, and with great tact leads us from the doc- 
 trines to the duties — not, indeed, as if the division be- 
 tween doctrinal and practical was marked and distinct, 
 so that only doctrines could be found here and only du- 
 ties there. This is never the case in the writings of the 
 
 262 
 
CHAPTEK IV. VERSES 1-16. 253 
 
 New Testament, and in this, as in all things, we may 
 easily trace the wisdom of God. We do not find, as in 
 confessions of faith and articles of religion, one chapter 
 on God, and another on the state of man ; one on the 
 Trinity, and another on the divine unity ; one on faith, 
 and another on works, etc. In the Bible doctrine is 
 never separated from life, faith from practice. The 
 divine motives are always made the ground on which 
 the believer's holy living rests. Thus the incarnation 
 of the Son of God is the motive and example of hu- 
 mility (Phil. ii. 5-8) ; his exaltation is the motive to 
 heavenly-mindedness (Col. iii. 1-6) ; his coming in 
 glory is the motive to prayer, watchfulness and many 
 other Christian duties (1 Pet. iv. 1-8, 13 ; 2 Pet. i. 11 ; 
 iii. 10) ; and so we may say of all the doctrines of the 
 gospel. They occur in the Scriptures where they are 
 required for the comfort, warning or encouragement of 
 the saints. Nevertheless, the latter parts of Paul's 
 Epistles are generally the more practical, and the 
 former the more doctrinal. 
 
 This gives force to the therefore of the first verse : 
 Seeing that such is the glorious purpose of God in 
 the saints (iii. 10, 11), and that such are the immeas- 
 urable dimensions of his love (iii. 17, 18), therefore I, 
 the prisoner in the Lord, beseech you that ye walk 
 worthy of the vocation wherewith you are called. 
 
 Many connect the words In the Lord with beseech, 
 and translate thus : " I, the prisoner, beseech you in the 
 Lord," and refer to 1 Thess. iv. 1 and Eph. iv. 17 as 
 examples of similar construction ; but the great majority 
 of interpreters connect prisoner with iri the Lord, as 
 our translation does, and as its position in the text 
 seems to require. Thus we have the brother in the 
 
254 GRAHAM ON EPHESIANS. 
 
 Lord (Phil. i. 14), a man in Christ (2 Cor. xii. 2), fel- 
 low-servant in the Lord (Col. iv. 7), and many other 
 similar expressions in the New Testament. (See 1 
 Thess. V. 12 ; Eph. v. 8.) In the Lord is connected 
 with verbs in the following passages : Rom. xvi. 2, 22 ; 
 1 Cor. i. 31 ; vii. 39 ; Eph. iv. 17 ; vi. 1 ; Phil. ii. 19 ; 
 iii. 1; Col. iii. 18; iv. 17; 1 Thess. iii. 9 ; iv. 1 ; 2 
 Thess. iii. 4. 
 
 What,- then, is the meaning of the phrase "prisoner 
 in the Lord " ? Our translators take it in the sense of a 
 genitive, and render it the 'prisoner of the Lord. Bloom- 
 field says en is put for the Greek dia, " through," with 
 a genitive, in this signification, in the cause of : I am a 
 prisoner in the Lord's cause ; but that great author only 
 gives us examples where dla, " through," with a gen- 
 itive, signifies in the cause of On the contrary, most 
 interpreters, from Chrysostom to the present time, take 
 it in the sense of dia with an accusative, in the sense / 
 am a prisoner for the Lord's sake ; and those who take 
 in the Lord for a genitive connect it with beseech, thus : 
 " I, the prisoner, beseech you by the Lord," etc. I con- 
 fess I can, in this passage, see no difference between 
 in the Lord and for the Lordh sake (De Wette thinks 
 he does), or I may add the genitive, of the Lord. In 
 Greek, as in English, the three forms are essentially the 
 same: I am, the prisoner in the Lord, I am, the prisoner 
 of the Lord and / am a prisoner for the Lords sake. 
 The meaning in all cases is this : I suffer as a Christian, 
 and not as a man ; I am imprisoned for declaring the 
 truth of Christ, and not for any crime against the laws 
 of my country. Hence, the fine Greek phrase for 
 Christians is ''those in Christ " (Gal. i. 22; 2 Cor. xii. 
 2; 1 Pet. V. 14; and others). I believe, indeed, that 
 
CHAPTEK IV. VERSES 1-16. 255 
 
 the phrase in the Lord has often a far deej^er meaning 
 than either through the Lord or for the Lord's sake 
 (Winer, Gram. 333), and therefore the life in God is 
 much more than the life for God ; but I do not admit 
 the conclusion of some grammarians that the Greek en 
 with a dative has never the sense of dia with either a 
 genitive or an accusative. 
 
 From all this, then, we understand something of 
 the deep' signification of being in Christ or walking 
 in Christ or living in God — of being branches of the 
 Vine, stones of the Temple and having our life hid- 
 den with Christ in God (Col. iii. 1-6). These all 
 denote union with him by faith and relate to the 
 oneness which grace has effected between the believ- 
 ing soul and God. This living, indissoluble union is 
 more necessary, and also more apparent, in times of 
 persecution, when the Church, like Paul, is called upon 
 to follow her Lord to the prison, the inquisition or the 
 stake. Then it is a great matter to be not merely the 
 prisoner, but the prisoner of the Lord. This is the 
 ground of Paul's exhortation : I am the Lord's apos- 
 tle, called by himself, proved by suffering, by patience, 
 by signs and wonders (2 Cor. xii. 12; Rom. xv. 19), 
 and now his prisoner ; and so, as such, I exhort you to 
 walk worthy of the vocation wherewith you are called. 
 
 Let us now take up the different parts of this apos- 
 tolic exhortation, giving a word or two upon each. 
 
 I. The Vocation or Calling. 
 / beseech you that ye walk worthy of the vocation 
 wherewith ye are called, with all lowliness and meek- 
 ness, with long-suffering, forbearing one another in 
 love (ver. 1, 2). 
 
256 GEAHAM ON E?1£ESIANS. 
 
 What is the klesis, " vocation" or " calling," of wliicli 
 the Scripture speaks so often? Take the folloAving 
 hints : 
 
 It is the calling of God (liom. xi. 29 ; Phil. iii. 14 ; 
 comp. 2 Thess. i. 11 ; 2 Tim. i. 9 ; Heb. iii. 1 ; 2 Pet. 
 i. 10; Eph. i. 18), because it is God himself who calls 
 us from darkness to light, and from the kingdom of 
 Satan into the kingdom of his dear Son. It is a high 
 calling (Phil. iii. 14), for the prize attached to it is eter- 
 nal life. It is a holy calling (2 Tim. i. 9), because the 
 end and purpose of it (at least on earth) is holiness — 
 viz., the restoration of the image of God in the soul. 
 It is a heavenly calling (Heb. iii. 1), for it comes from 
 and draws us to heaven. 
 
 The hope of our calling (Eph. iv. 4) is the hope 
 which those called by God to serve him may cherish. 
 It belongs to the brethren alone and proceeds entirely 
 from God (1 Cor. i. 26). This is what our fathers 
 termed effectual calling, an 1 it occupies a prominent 
 place in all our systems of the dogy. The doctrine is 
 based upon or takes for granted the following princi- 
 ples : (1) That the human race is fallen and needs to 
 be restored to God ; (2) That even tJiis fallen and re- 
 deemed race cannot of itself return to God, but needs 
 the assistance of a divine call; (o) That the election and 
 the calling are coextensive ; (4) That therefore the sal- 
 vation of the Church is, in its origin, means and end, 
 to be ascribed to the pure and sovereign will of God. 
 
 Our walk should be worthy of this vocation. There 
 ought to be some relation between our conduct and our 
 hopes, between our character and the promised reward. 
 If his love has opened u[) to us glorious and immor- 
 tal hopes, should not our service correspond to them ? 
 
CHAPTER IV. VERSES 1-16. 257 
 
 Worthy of bis calling ? It is a great, high, noble prin- 
 ciple. It is a rule of life which lifts us from the dust 
 and gives us the position, hopes and fears of immor- 
 tal creatures. The devout old dreamer states, in his 
 Grace Abounding, that often after his conversion be 
 found it as difficult to draw his heart and affections 
 from heaven and heavenly things as formerly it was 
 to get them there. If we can judge of Rutherford by 
 his letters, we may believe that, in prison or out of it, 
 his heart was in constant fellowship with God, his life 
 hidden with Christ in God. Dr. Dwight says there is 
 no limit to the attainments in the divine life ; so that 
 we may be always pressing onward and upward in our 
 approaches to God. To have a great and noble aim is 
 a guarantee against mean and dishonorable conduct, 
 and certainly the first requisite of holy living is the 
 high and controlling hoj^e of our calling. We are his, 
 we live in him, we are going to him, we shall see him 
 as he is and be like liim in his glory. These hopes 
 fill and satisfy the soul, while they guide our efforts 
 into the honorable paths of holiness and virtue. The 
 Orientals say, " The servant of a king is a king," to 
 express the idea that greatness is expansive ; and the 
 Scripture assures us that by beholding the Son of God 
 we are changed into his image from glory to glory 
 (2 Cor. iii. 18 ; 1 John iii. 3, 4).* 
 
 * The genitive of attraction in the ahove verse is resolved variously 
 by philologists. De Wette says it is put for the accusative, and Winer 
 for the dative [Oram. |24). On this remarkable principle of construc- 
 tion, see the following passages: Luke ii. 20 ; John ii. 22; Acts iii. 21, 
 25; X. 39; vii. 17; xx. 10; James ii. 5 ; 1 Pet. iv. 11 : John xv. 20; 
 xxi. 10 ; Luke v. 9 ; Eph. ii. 5 ; Matt, xviii. 19 ; 2 Cor. i. 4 ; Tit. iii. 6 ; 
 Rev. xviii. 5, 6. (Comp. the Septuagint, Zech. iii. 11.) For the his- 
 tory of the principle of attraction and its occurrence in classical au- 
 thors, see Buttmann, Bernhardy, Winer and Stuart. 
 
258 GRAHAM ON EPHESIANS. 
 
 Observe, now, how the apostle defines this worthy- 
 walk according to our calling : " With all lowliness and 
 meekness, with long-svffering , forbearing one another 
 in love."" Loidiness is the same as "lowliness of mind" 
 (Phil. ii. 3) ; " humbleness of mind " (Col. iii. 12) ; 
 " humility " (1 Pet. v. 5 ; Col. ii. 18, 28) ; in a bad 
 sense, "humility of mind" (Acts xx. 19). It is 
 opposed to " vainglory " (Phil. ii. 3 ; comp. Gal. v. 26) 
 and "the minding high things" (Rom. xii. 16). The 
 word, therefore, denotes the Christian duty of thinking 
 modestly of ourselves, whatever be our character, gifts 
 or attainments, and it is applied only to men or to sin- 
 ners (I mean the Greek word), and never to God or to 
 Christ, in the Holy Scriptures. Sleekness is no attri- 
 bute of God ; the word is only once applied to Christ 
 (2 Cor. X. 1), and in all other cases to men (1 Cor. 
 iv. 21; Gal. V. 23; vi. 1; Eph. iv. 2 ; Col. iii. 12; 1 Tim. 
 vi. 11 ; 2 Tim. ii. 25 ; Tit. iii. 2). Meekness shows the 
 mode of a Christian's walk, whether in suifering or in 
 active service for Christ. This is the kind, gentle, 
 loving spirit which seeks to do difficult duties and 
 rough work without giving offence, which bears all and 
 suffers all like a lamb, without reproaches or murmur- 
 ings. It is easily distinguished from loivliness, as well 
 as from the following long-suffering. This latter attri- 
 bute refers to the noble position of a person who has 
 just cause for anger, but is not angry. It approaches 
 forgiveness, but yet is quite distinct. God is long-suf- 
 fering to the world ; he forgives only the believer on 
 his Bon. He is long-suffering (Rom. ii. 4 ; ix. 22 ; 
 1 Pet. iii. 20). So is applied the Hebrew phrase 
 "long of countenance" (Prov. xxv. 15; Jer. xv. 15). 
 God bears with his sinful creatures in the way of 
 
CHAPTER IV. VERSES 1-16. 259 
 
 long-imffering love, and thereby gives them time for 
 repentance. So, says Paul, ye should walk worthy 
 of his calling in this respect also. Be like God in 
 your long-suffering, and treat your fellow-creatures 
 as he treats you. 
 
 It is not difficult to judge of our standing as Chris- 
 tians by these characteristics. Have you proud thoughts 
 of yourself? Are you wounding the spirit of meekness 
 in your daily life? Are you wrathful, hasty, proud, 
 overbearing ? Then either you have never been called 
 ' f God or you are walking unworthy of your vocation. 
 
 II. The Unity of the Spirit. 
 We come now to the unity of the Spirit (ver. 3), 
 w^hich we are endeavoring to keep. This is the unity 
 which the Holy Spirit works in the members of Christ. 
 He draws them all to the cross as their centre, and while 
 they behold the divine Sufferer he softens their hearts 
 into streams of tender love and fills them all with the 
 same unquenchable desire to forsake all and follow him. 
 The whole inner man is revolutionized, the whole heart 
 touched and conquered, and a sublime, overpowering, 
 new affection has laid an arrest upon all the processes 
 of the soul's evil conditions. There is unity of aim, 
 there is unity of object, there is unity in self-sacri- 
 Scing love : 
 
 " Were the whole realm of nature mine, 
 That were an offering far too small : 
 Love so amazing, so divine, 
 
 Demands my heart, my life, my all." 
 
 This unity of the Spirit is not, as some think, the 
 unity of the Church, for that comes afterward, under 
 
260 GRAHAM ON EPHESIANS. 
 
 the one body ; nor is it the unity of the person of the 
 Holy Ghost. It is rather the oneness of heart and 
 feeling which the Spirit works in all believers, what- 
 ever be their position, color or country. The Holy 
 Ghost is the common Spirit of the Father and the Son, 
 possessed by both, sent by both and bearing witness to 
 both (John xiv. 16, 26; xv. 26; xvi. 7, 14). Thus the 
 Father and the Son are one, for they possess a com- 
 mon spirit ; and in the same manner many persons 
 on earth may be one when they all possass the same 
 spirit. This explains the solemn prayer of Christ 
 (John xvii. 21) : " That they all may be one, as thou. 
 Father, art in me, and I in thee, that they all may be 
 one in us." 
 
 We are to keep this unity in the bond of peace. 
 Bengel says : " Vinculum, quo pax retinetur, est ipse 
 amor''^ ("The bond of peace is love"). It may be so, 
 but many commentators take the bond of peace to be 
 peace itself, as the means of preserving unity. We 
 should imbibe a peaceful, conciliating spirit, and this 
 will be the best means of promoting and extending 
 unity. As much as in you lies, live peaceably with 
 all men. Jesus is the Prince of peace ; his kingdom is 
 a kingdom of righteousness and peace and joy in the 
 Holy Ghost, He came and preached peace ; his life 
 was the example of peace ; his death was the seal of 
 peace ; he is our peace ; his birth gave us the song of 
 peace ; on Olivet he gave us the legacy of peace ; and 
 his ascension to the right hand of God is the proof 
 that peace is concluded between God and man. Avoid 
 all divisions and sectarian feelings ; keep the unity of 
 the Spirit in the bond of peace. The other view, 
 which makes love the bond of peace, is clearer, and 
 
CHAPTER IV. VERSES 1-16. 261 
 
 seems to be supported by Col. iii. 14, where love is 
 said to be the bond of perfectness. It is no doubt al- 
 lowable, however, with Luther, De Wette, Campbell 
 and others, to translate " through the bond of peace," 
 which has the great advantage of being unambiguous. 
 On the whole, the two interpretations nearly meet, for 
 the quiet, peaceable spirit which binds all together 
 (Ovid, Met. i. 25 ; see Greenfield and Wetstein) is not 
 very different from the charity which edifieth (1 Cor. 
 viii. 1) or the love which covers a multitude of sins. 
 
 III. There is One Body. 
 Body is no doubt used here as the proper designation 
 for the Church of Christ, which is spiritually as much 
 one as is the human body naturally: the members are 
 many, the body is one (Rom. xii. 5). (See 1 Cor. x. 
 17 ; xii. 13, 27 ; Eph. i. 23 ; ii. 16 ; Col. ii. 17.) So 
 the Church is compared to the vine, the bride, the 
 temple, the garden, the house, etc., all denoting the 
 various relations between Jesus and his Church, and all 
 containing the great idea of unity. She requires the 
 care of the Husbandman ; he must plant, prune and 
 fructify all the various members ; and hence the rela- 
 tion : " I am the vine, and ye are the branches." She 
 is the bride, the second Eve for the second Adam, taken 
 out of his bleeding side and destined to share with him 
 the dominion of the new paradisiacal earth (Rev. v. 
 10; xxi. 1, 27; 2 Pet. iii. 13; Isa. Ixv. 17; Ixvi. 22). 
 He has taken our nature, sarx, " flesh " (John i. 14) ; 
 soma, " a body " (Heb. x. 5) ; flesh and blood (Heb. ii. 
 14) ; a soul (Acts ii. 27 ; Ps. xvi. 10) ; spirit, jmeuma 
 (Luke xxiii. 46). All these show the reality of the in- 
 carnation and lay the foundation for the expressive sym- 
 
262 GRAHAM ON EPHESIANS. 
 
 bol of his Church, "one body." There is one body, 
 the Church, which is the fulhiess of Him that filleth all 
 in all. But, you say, what is the unity of this body ? 
 I answer. The Church throughout the whole world is 
 one in its origin, from Jesus Christ and his apostles ; 
 one in holding the true saving doctrines of grace ; one 
 in having regular ordinances and a gosj)el ministry ; 
 one as to essential inward life, though very varied as 
 to time, place, circumstances and external form. 
 Hence we may draw the following conclusions : 
 (1) That the Church of Jesus Christ is not limited to 
 any age or nation, nor necessarily defined by any system 
 of ritualism or external form of government. There may 
 })e, and always have been, different forms of organization 
 in the various branches of the Church — some more, 
 others less, perfect — but these varieties are not more 
 than may be, and are, found in the members of the 
 same body, while yet the whole is pervaded by the 
 same life — the very same immortal, imperishable life, 
 though often not in the same force and fullness in all 
 the members. Nor does this exclude corrupt churches 
 from the communion of the faithful. The papacy, or 
 the Komish Church, for example, is not unlike the body 
 of Job, smitten by the devil with sore boils from the 
 sole of the foot unto the crown, and the manifest duty 
 of the pope and the cardinals is to take a potsherd and 
 scrape themselves and sit down among the ashes (Job 
 ii. 7, 8). Nor are the churches of j-.ngland, l^cotland 
 and Germany without certain warts and wrinkles which 
 require to be rubbed off in the j^rocess of purification. 
 There is life in all of them, and hence true believers, 
 saints, martyrs and men in whom the apostolic ages 
 might have gloried have been found in them all. These 
 
CHAPTER IV. VERSES 1-16. 263 
 
 scattered saints, and not the outward corporations, form 
 the true holy catholic and apostolic Church of Christ 
 founded upon the Eoek of ages, redeemed by the 
 sacrifice of the cross and full of the hopes of life 
 and immortality. This is the congregation of faithful 
 men, the Church of the living God, against which the 
 gates of hell shall not prevail, nor the counsels of the 
 ungodly prosper. 
 
 (2) It is the duty of Christians to cherish the spirit 
 of unity and join together in the public exercises of 
 religion. (See the following scriptures : Heb. x. 25 ; 
 1 Pet. iii. 8 ; Phil. ii. 2 ; i. 27 ; iii. 16 ; John xiii. 34 ; 
 xvii. 20-22.) We ought to look upon ourselves as 
 members of the one glorious Church of God from the 
 beginning — the body of Christ — members of that im- 
 mortal corporation which is chartered against destruc- 
 tion by the promises of Jehovah. This is our safety 
 and our strength. We are not alone in our pilgrim- 
 age, but march on toward eternity surrounded by all the 
 great and good upon the earth and preceded by proph- 
 ets, apostles and the glorious army of the martyrs. 
 Hence the divisive, separating spirit is a mark of the 
 flesh (Jude 19), while being separated and put out of 
 the synagogue for righteousness' sake is a sign of bless- 
 ing (Luke vi. 22). 
 
 (3) Hence schism is a great sin and ought to be 
 avoided by Christians. By schism I mean voluntary 
 separation from a true branch of the Church of Christ. 
 In the New Testament schism is never used in the ec- 
 clesiastical sense of separation from the Church, but of 
 divisions and factions in it. In Matt. ix. 16 it is a 
 " rent ;" in all other passages it is rendered " division," 
 except 1 Cor. xii. 25, where it might also be rendered 
 
264 GRAHAM ON EPHESIANS. 
 
 " division." Thus the moderates and the evangelicals 
 in the Church of Scotland were schismatics, and in the 
 English Church, the Calvinists, Arminians and papists ; 
 the Broad Church, the Low Church, the High Church 
 and the high and dry are all the schismata of the prim- 
 itive Church. /Schism has no necessary connection with 
 religious opinions. Any kind of division in the Church 
 is schism. Heresy is used, in most cases, in the same 
 sense ; thus " heresies," in 1 Cor. xi. 19, is equivalent to 
 "schism" in verse 18; in Gal. v. 20 heresies are reck- 
 oned among the works of the flesh ; in 2 Pet. ii. 1 we 
 have the only clear, distinct example in the New Testa- 
 ment of the word heresy being applied to false doctrines. 
 Some denied the Lord that bought them, and that is 
 called a damnable heresy. It was this text, no doubt, 
 which finally determined the ecclesiastical application 
 of the word to its present ecclesiastical usage. Thus, 
 contrary to the common habit of both classical and 
 New-Testament Greek, schism came to denote sects and 
 heresy false doctrines. The word heresies was the com- 
 mon name for the different philosophical sects, as the 
 Stoics, the Epicureans, the lonians, etc. (Epictet., ii. 19; 
 Diodor. Sic, 2, 29). Just so the scribes, the Phari- 
 sees, the Sadducees, the Essenes, the Christians (Acts 
 xxviii. 22), were so many heresies in the Jewish 
 Church. In the same way the different orders in the 
 popish apostasy, the Jesuits, the Carmelites, the Fran- 
 ciscans, etc., are classes of well-regulated heretics ; the 
 Whigs, Tories, Puseyites and evangelicals are all here- 
 tics in the ordinary Scripture sense of the word. In 
 the Church there should be nothing of this. Believers 
 should be all of one mind in the Lord. (See 1 Cor. i. 
 10; Bom. xvi. 17, 18; 1 Cor. v. 11 ; Heb. xiii. 17 ; 1 
 
CHAPTER IV. VEESES 1-16. 265 
 
 John ii. 19, 20.) The Fathers of the first ages pour 
 forth the whole vehemence of their invective against 
 separation from the visible Church ; the English divines 
 follow in their footsteps (Palmer, Church. \.4i5), and the 
 Dissenters, such as Baxter and Owen, maintain the 
 same principles. Baxter {Cure of Church Division) 
 says, "He that is out of the Church is without the 
 teaching, the holy worship, the prayers and the dis- 
 cipline of the Church, and is out of the way where the 
 Spirit doth come, and out of the society which Christ 
 is specially related to, for he is the Saviour of the body ; 
 and if we leave his hospital, we cannot exj^ect the j^res- 
 ence and help of the Physician. jSTor will he be a 
 pilot to them who forsake his ship, nor a captain to 
 them who separate from his army. Out of this ark 
 there is nothing but a deluge and no place of rest or 
 safety for the soul." Calvin uses still stronger language, 
 and it would be easy to multiply such quotations from 
 the Reformers to almost any extent. 
 
 (4) The causes of separation from a Church must be 
 sought in many directions. The Reformers, in general, 
 did not separate from the churches which they sought 
 to reform. Luther was excomnmnicated ; the Puritans 
 were expelled by severe and cruel decrees concerning 
 things indifferent ; the English and German nations are 
 not schismatics in not submitting to the iniquitous de- 
 crees of the Council of Trent. Generally speaking, 
 the various sects and parties in the Christian Church 
 have arisen from the same cause — opj^ression, or, in 
 some cases, church discipline. They must indeed be 
 very serious which can justify a man in voluntarily 
 separating from the Church in which Providence has 
 placed him. Of course no man should conceal the 
 
266 GRAHAM ON EPHESIANS. 
 
 truth, be the consequences what they my. If I were 
 a priest in the Church of Rome and believed in the 
 doctrines of free grace, I would not leave that commu- 
 nion. I would tell my case to the bishop, show him the 
 grounds of my faith and state my determination to abide 
 by them. If I gained him for the truth, well ; if not, 
 I would have done my duty ; but at all hazards I would 
 preach the gospel to the people of my charge, and if 
 he then separated me from my jDCople it would be per- 
 secution for righteousness' sake and I might expect the 
 Lord's blessing : " Blessed are } e, when men shall hate 
 you, and separate you from their company, and shall re- 
 proach you, and cast out your name as evil, for the Son 
 of man's sake. Rejoice ye in that day, and leap for 
 joy : for, behold, your reward is great in heaven " 
 (Luke vi. 22, 23). On the other hand, hear what Jude 
 says of the mockers of the last days : " These be they 
 who separate themselves, sensual, not having the Spirit" 
 (Jude 19). So great is the difference between separat- 
 ing and being separated. The first is a sign of carnality, 
 and the second has great reward in heaven. If, indeed, 
 the pastors of a Church have become false teachers and 
 lying prophets, you are not bound to hear them. No 
 man is, or can be, bound to hear error, and in that case 
 separation is not schism. 
 
 (5) It is manifest that the various original churches 
 which sprang up after the resurrection of Christ and 
 the outpouring of the Spirit had not all the same rites, 
 forms and ceremonies. There was, therefore, no abso- 
 lute unity as to the mode of public worship. The 
 Scripture does not hint, much less assert, that the 
 whole Church of God is to be and remain for ever 
 under the guidance of one visible and infallible head 
 
CHAPTER IV. VERSES 1-16. 267 
 
 whose dwelling-place is to be Rome, the centre of 
 heathen and Christian superstition. Christendom, ac- 
 cording to the New Testament, is not to consist of one 
 universal, world-embracing monarchy with Rome for 
 its centre and the pope for its head, but of many 
 various and differently constructed monarchies and 
 republics, all dwelling in peace and harmony under 
 the one sovereign and universal Head in heaven. The 
 twelve apostles founded the churches of the primitive 
 ages, and no one church sought or claimed any suprem- 
 acy over the rest. Their rivalry was that of love and 
 good works, of apostolic earnestness and unconquerable 
 zeal. They were all sister-churches, equal, beautiful, 
 shining like stars in the right hand of Him who walks 
 in the midst of the seven golden candlesticks (Rev. i. 
 13). The outward pressure of ] ersecution and the 
 promises of their risen Master kept them in unity of 
 faith and love. They found it necessary to keep near 
 their Lord, and in being so they were near one another. 
 (6) There is, in my opinion, as much unity in the 
 Church of Christ now as ever there was since the apos- 
 tolic age. This may seem a strange assertion, but it is 
 nevertheless true. Consider, first of all, we have no so 
 violent, so various and so monstrously erroneous sects as 
 existed in the early ages of the Church. Again, in the 
 dark, barbarous ages ignorance and stupidity prevent- 
 ed the nations from being able to exercise any reason- 
 ble, intelligible faith at all ; but when there was thought, 
 there was variety in the same proportion, and much in 
 the same way, as at the present t:me. Under the gos- 
 pel system there were, and there are, all varieties of 
 opinion. The different orders held different doctrines. 
 No two Protestant churches ever hated each other so 
 
268 GRAHAM ON EPHESIANS. 
 
 violently as did the Jesuits and the Jansenists, the Au- 
 gustinians and the Dominicans. Popes excommuni- 
 cated popes ; councils, councils ; nations, nations ; Ari- 
 ans, Socinians and Pelagians found refuge under the 
 skirts of the imperial harlot (Ilev. xvii. 5). The mod- 
 ern German Catholics were all within her ; France was 
 lying quietly in her capacious bosom ; while the philos- 
 ophers and encyclopaedists were filling the minds of 
 the masses with the deadliest infidel poison. I know 
 some devout Roman Catholics who do not believe in a 
 future state ; and, in general, it may be held as a truth 
 that the virulence of error and heresy increases in pro- 
 portion to the necessity of silence and concealment. As 
 there is more moral feeling, so is there probably more 
 unity of faith, in England than in Italy. It is well 
 known that the Jesuits often maintained very free 
 opinions on the most sacred subjects ; and for Roman 
 Catholics in general there seems to be absolutely ne- 
 cessary no article of faith but the headship of the pope. 
 Admit this, and hold what you like besides. The pope 
 offered to consecrate the English Liturgy and receive 
 the Reformed Protestant Church of England into his 
 paternal embrace if he were only recognized as the 
 head of the Church. On the same principle, he has 
 received all the sects of the East, who still hold their 
 own doctrines and follow their own ritual. I repeat 
 it, then, there is as much unity now in the popish 
 Church as ever there was ; and the Protestant churches 
 of England, Scotland, France, Germany, Sweden and 
 America are as united in faith and love and brotherly 
 affection as were the churches of the second, third and 
 fourth centuries. 
 
CHAPTER IV. VERSES 1-16. 269 
 
 IV. One Spirit. 
 There is one body and one Spirit, says the apostle — 
 viz., the Holy Ghost, the Sanctifier and Comforter. 
 The body is one, with many members ; so the Spirit 
 that forms and quickens them is also one. The unity 
 of God, the unity of the Mediator, the unity of the 
 Spirit and the unity of the Church all stand upon the 
 same foundation in the word of God — one God, one 
 Mediator, one Lifegiver and one body, the Church. 
 We have here to do with the one Spirit. This is the 
 Spirit of God (Gen. i. 2 ; Matt. iii. 16) ; the Spirit of 
 the Father (Matt. x. 20) ; the Spirit of Jehovah (Gen. 
 vi. 3) ; the Spirit of Christ (E,om. viii. 9 ; Gal. iv. 6 ; 
 Phil. i. 19) ; the Spirit of adoption, who fills us with 
 love to God and makes us cry, "Abba, Father" (Gal. 
 iv. 4-7 ; 2 Tim. i. 7) ; the Spirit of grace, who leads 
 us to Emmanuel (Heb. x. 29; ii. 3, 4; vi. 4, 5 ; Rom. 
 xii. 6 ; 1 Cor. xii. 13) ; the Spirit of verity, to lead us 
 into all truth (John xiv. 17; xv. 26; xvi. 13); the 
 Spirit of promise, because he was promised to the 
 fathers and poured out upon the Church after the 
 ascension of Christ (Eph. i. 13 ; Acts i. 4 ; ii. 33 ; 
 Joel ii. 28; Luke xxiv. 49). He is eternal (Heb. ix. 
 14), holy (Rom. i. 4), omnipresent (Ps. cxxxix. 7), om- 
 niscient (1 Cor. ii. 10). He spake by the prophets 
 (Neh. ix. 30; Acts vii. 51; 1 Pet. i. 11 ; 2 Pet. i. 
 21) ; he is the Author of miracles and all supernat- 
 ural gifts in the Church (Matt. xii. 28 ; Rom. xv. 19 ; 
 Acts ii. 4-14; Heb. ii. 4 ; 1 Cor. xii. 3-12). If Jesus 
 be the image of God for the eye, the Holy Ghost is the 
 Linguist to utter forth in all languages the wonderful 
 works of God. He is, in fact, described in Scripture 
 
270 GRAHAM ON EPHESIANS. 
 
 with the names, attributes and perfections of God. The 
 constant faith of the whole Church, in all nations and 
 in all ages, has been in the Father, the Son and the 
 Holy Ghost as the one true and eternal God, the 
 Creator, Redeemer and Governor of the world. 
 There is one Spirit and — 
 
 V. One Hope of youk Calling. 
 
 We have already spoken of the calling (ver. 1), and 
 now we have only to consider the hope which belongs 
 to it. But what is the meaning of being called in one 
 hope of your calling ? 
 
 The Greek preposition bv, which is the origin of our 
 " in," and in many cases answers to it, is thus explained 
 by Bengel : " It denotes indolem rei, the nature of the 
 thing referred to." Thus we are called in peace, in 
 holiness, in the hope of our calling. Macknight gives 
 it seventeen different meanings, with abundant proofs 
 for each, and our translators have given it nearly as 
 many. I need not refer to passages. Perhaps the best 
 translation in this verse is unto : " Ye are called by 
 the gospel unto the one great hope of your calling in 
 Christ Jesus ;" and in this sense I take it. 
 
 What, then, is this hope, this one hope, unto which 
 we are called ? I answer thus : God, who knows what 
 is in man, has suited his world and his word to our 
 material and spiritual conditions. We are creatures of 
 hope as well as of sense and memory. The future, dis- 
 tant and near, as seen in the divine word, presents to the 
 eye of man a thousand varieties of things hoped for, like 
 innumerable stars, some dimmer, some brighter, shining 
 through the darkness of a cloudy sky. We have tlie 
 hope of the resurrection — the resurrection of the just, 
 
CHAPTER IV. VERSES 1-16. 271 
 
 the first resurrection, which seems to be the privilege 
 of the saints, and therefore a ho})e (xicts xxviii. 20 ; 1 
 Cor. XV. 23) ; they that are Christ's (Luke xx. 36) ; the 
 sons of God (Kev. xx. 5). (Comp. 1 Thess. iv. 14; 
 Kom. viii. 23; Luke xiv. 14.) AVe have the hope of 
 righteousness (Gah v. 5) wlien the work is done ; the 
 hope of the gospel (Col. i. 23) ; the hope of glory (Col. 
 i. 27) to strengthen our fainting spirits. It is a hidden 
 hope, laid up for us in heaven — a hope that shall never 
 make ashamed ; the hope of being with and like Christ 
 in his glorious kingdom for ever. AH these aspirations 
 and varieties seem to be united in the one great hope 
 which has animated the Church from the beginning — 
 the hope of the coming and kingdom of Jesus Christ, 
 which is therefore called, by way of eminence, the 
 blessed hope (Tit. ii. 13). I think, therefore, that this 
 is the one hope of our calling and includes all the 
 others. The Jews had the coming of Christ in the 
 flesh as their great national hope, and we Christians 
 look for his coming in glory as the substance of things 
 hoped for. This is the ho] e of the New Testament as 
 distinguished from that of the Old, and the Gospels 
 and Epistles are full of it. It animated the early 
 Christians in their faithful contendings, it is embod- 
 ied in the Lord's Prayer, it is the cry of the widowed 
 Church and the groaning creation : Come, Lord Jesus, 
 come quickly ! It is therefore the one hope ; and, as 
 we are called to a kingdom, to be kings and priests 
 unto God and our Father, it is the one hope of our 
 calling. That great event is connected with many 
 others, to which it gives character and significance, 
 as it is closely connected with all the feelings of the 
 mind — the hopes and fears, the duties and neglects 
 
272 GEAHAM ON EPHESIANS. 
 
 of duty, of which our Christian experience is made 
 up. 
 
 The cross and the crown, the coming of Christ in the 
 fiesh and his coming in glory, being the historical and 
 the prophetical, and so the proper food for memory and 
 hope, are the two centres of the divine word and the 
 divine administration around which all the systems of 
 grace and providence revolve. There is one faith in the 
 dying Lamb, and one hope in the coming King. We 
 behold the cross, and with tears of penitence the chains 
 of sin dissolve in divine mercy ; while at the same mo- 
 ment our humble but immortal hopes begin to cluster 
 around the coming King of glory, without whom we can- 
 not do any longer, whom it will be our delight to glorify 
 and adore in the sanctuary above, when faith and hope 
 shall be swallowed up in the fruition of eternal love. 
 
 VI. The Lordship op" Jesus. 
 
 We come now to the lordship of Je.sus : there is one 
 Lord. Here we remark — 
 
 (1) That the title Lord (in Greek, Kopcoc:), when taken 
 in a solemn religious sense, always denotes the one liv- 
 ing and eternal God, the Creator and Ruler of the 
 world (Matt. i. 22 ; Luke i. 6, 28 ; Acts vii. 33 ; Heb. 
 viii. 2, 10 ; James iv. 15) ; nor does the absence of the 
 article alter the sense in the least degree (Matt, xxvii. 
 10 ; Mark xiii. 20 ; Luke i. 58 ; Acts vii. 49 ; Rom. iv. 
 8 ; Heb. vii. 21 ; 1 Pet. i. 25). In the Septuagint it is 
 used throughout for the great unutterable name " Je- 
 hovah," the highest and holiest known to the Hebrew 
 nation. This is the common name of Jesus in the New 
 Testament, and seems naturally to identify him with the 
 God of Israel. It is applied to him with and without 
 
CHAPTER IV. VERSES 1-16. 273 
 
 tlie article in its highest and most unqualified accepta- 
 tion (Eph. i. 22 ; Rom. x. 12 ; ix. 5 ; 2 Cor. iii. 16, 17, 
 18 ; Eph. V. 10 ; Col. iii. 23 ; 2 Thess. iii. 1, 5 ; 2 Tim. 
 iv. 8 ; James v. 7), and consequently presents him to 
 our faith as the object of our veneration and love. He 
 is our Lord. He is one with the Father, and along with 
 him the proper object of religious worship. The Church 
 worships him (1 Cor. i. 2) ; Stephen, when dying and 
 full of the Holy Ghost, adored him (Acts vii. 59, 60) ; 
 the hosts of heaven — holy angels and redeemed men — 
 worship him (Rev. v. 11-14) with songs of praise: 
 
 " ' Worthy the Lamb thnt died,' they cry, 
 'To be exalted thus;' 
 ' Worthy the Lamb,' let us reply, 
 ' For he was slain for us.' " 
 
 Lordship denotes three things — possession, power and 
 glory — and they all meet in him. We are his ; the 
 world, the sun, moon and stars, the created universe, is 
 his property (Col. i. 16). All power in heaven and on 
 earth is in his hand, and he is surrounded by the pomp 
 and majesty of the heavenly throne. He is Lord of all 
 (Acts X. 36). 
 
 (2) But how is he the one Lord f Answer : He is 
 not the only Lord, in opposition to the Father or the 
 Holy S})irit, for tliese are also in Scripture called I^ord, 
 and to the three divine Persons all names and attributes 
 equally belong.* But he is the one Lord, owing to his 
 special relations to the Church and in opposition to the 
 various false religions of the world. There are many 
 systems of worship, many rulers of the darkness of 
 this world, but to us there is ojie Lord Jesus Christ, 
 
 * Horrp Solitaricp i. 7. 
 35 
 
274 GRAHAM ON EPHESIANS. 
 
 and his authority is all in all. There is no other name 
 but his given under heaven whereby we can be saved ; 
 he is the one living Head of the Church, and the only 
 Mediator between God and man. There is salvation in 
 no other ; he alone died for us, and he is the only Ad- 
 vocate and Mediator at the right hand of God ; and 
 hence we can say with Paul, " There is one Lord " — 
 one from the first of time to the last ; for in creation, 
 in providence and in redemption he is the Lord, the 
 Worker, the Mediator, the Agent of Jehovah in bring- 
 ing his purposes into outward form and re ility. He is 
 the Lord, the one Lord, Head and Executor of the cov- 
 enants with Adam, Noah, Abraham and Moses, as well 
 as of the new covenant which is called by his name. In 
 all time, in all space, in all manifestations of the Deity, 
 of every kind and degree, he is the one Lord, the 
 Word, the Worker, the Revealer, through whom the 
 ineffable Jehovah reveals to the universe something of 
 his glory. 
 
 (3) But we may surely ask, in passing. What is the 
 nature of his lordship f How does his rule affect us ? 
 Is he actually ruling now ? We must limit our answer 
 to such questions altogether to the Scripture. Reason 
 and imagination do not reach these themes. We see 
 something of the nature of his rule in the great prin- 
 ciple of his Headship. He is the Church's Head (Eph. 
 iv. 13-16). He is the Head of the human race, the 
 second Adam (1 Cor. xi. 3). The angels are made sub- 
 ject to him (1 Pet. iii. 22). He is Head and Ruler 
 over the whole universe (Eph. i. 22), and that not 
 simply as God, but as God-Man and Mediator (Matt, 
 xxvii. 18) ; so that the nature of man is glorified be- 
 yond all conception, and the divine idea of making 
 
CHAPTER IV. VERSES 1-16. 275 
 
 man the royal family of heaven, the regnant form of 
 creature-being, is coming into actual accomplishment. 
 Here is dignity for you, O brother-man ! Look up 
 to the throne of God. The angels are round about it, 
 but your nature is on it. Why talk of the dignity of 
 man and point us to Neuton and Milton and Locke, 
 to the Alexanders, the Caesars, and such-like conquer- 
 ors and heroes ? Honor to the brave, wherever they 
 are! But let us open the eye of faith and contem- 
 plate humanity in its full-orbed glory as it is predes- 
 tinated to be, in the person of Jesus Christ. I do not 
 wonder that many should be inclined to doubt the 
 doctrines of incarnation, atonement and headship, for 
 they are altogether unlike what men would originate. 
 They are too large, too deep, too big, for our dwarfisli 
 conceptions. We are of the earth, earthy ; these are 
 of heaven, heavenly. God himself in my nature ! 
 Humanity taken up into Godhead and made the me- 
 dium of the Creator's working ! It is no mere escape 
 from damnation. Not only is sin expiated and Satan 
 foiled and the gates of hell closed, but I am carried 
 away into the glories of the skies, into the throne of 
 the universe, into the very bosom of God. The low- 
 est has become the highest, the receiver has become 
 the giver, the Burden-Bearer the Sceptre- Bearer, the 
 lowly Man of sorrows the life-quickening God. In 
 Jesus I share all this. In his birth I was born, in his 
 death I have died, in his grave I was buried, in his 
 resurrection I rose, in his ascension I ascended, and in 
 his advent I shall come with him. This is the power 
 of faith. Not as a single isolated individual, but as 
 the Head and Representative of his Church, and of 
 humanity generally, did he live, die and rise again, 
 
276 GRAHAM ON EPHESIANS. 
 
 and therefore all his victories and all his ojlories art- 
 ours by faith, and we shall surely, when the time comes, 
 share the splendors of his reign. This is the true dig- 
 nity of manhood ; this is the glory of the human race. 
 Jesus is Lord, he is the Lord of heaven and earth, 
 and yet he is my brother. Keep this steadily in view, 
 and all the noise made by Renan, Schenkel and the 
 English Epicurean crew will appear nothing better 
 than the grunting of the Gadarene swine in their race 
 
 to the deep. 
 
 VII. One Faith. 
 
 One and the same faith. The Jews and the Gentiles 
 are united in one faith and formed into the one Church 
 of God ; we were formerly divided, but now we are 
 united. Thei-e is proclaimed a new principle of union 
 which is to heal all divisions and unite all nations, and 
 that principle is faith. The bond and the free are to 
 meet, the slave and his master, the conquered and the 
 conqueror, the black man and the white man, the red 
 man and the nuilatto ; all tongues and nations and races 
 are to be built up into the great tem})le of God, and 
 the cement that unites them all is faith. They are 
 to be one vine, and faith is the sap that vivifies it; 
 they are to be one body, and the blood that circulates 
 through all its members is faith ; they are to be one 
 house, a habitation of God through the Spirit, and 
 faith is the medium of their adoption, as it is written : 
 " Ye are all the children of God by faith in Christ 
 Jesus." Then, again, the great objects of our faith 
 are the same, and the hopes which it produces in all 
 nations and ages are essentially one. The subtle dis- 
 tinctions and forms of words which in after-ages di- 
 vided and distracted the Church were unneeded and 
 
CHvPTER IV. VERSES 1-16. 277 
 
 unknown. The early Christians drank the refreshing 
 streams at the fountain-head, and were not, like us, 
 overwhelmed with the bitter waters of division and 
 formality. They loved Him who was their all, even 
 Jesus, and in the fellowship of his love they felt 
 themselves one in faith and hope and charity. 
 
 Faith is not the assent of the mind to a form of 
 sound words, however true and beautiful, but the 
 resting of the soul upon the work and person of 
 Christ. The firm defenders of an orthodox creed 
 may be unbelievers, knowing nothing of the faith 
 whose forms they defend. Many, on the other hand, 
 have a firm, victorious faith who have no forms at 
 all. " I cannot argue for him, but I can die for him," 
 said a poor woman whom Dr. Chalmers had thought 
 too ignorant to be admitted to the Lord's Supper. 
 
 There may also be oneness of faith in the midst of 
 a great variety of sentiments and opinions, and there 
 may be an utter absence of faith in the midst of 
 stringent and ritual uniformity. In all the Protestant 
 churches and nations there is substantial unity of 
 faith, as was before observed, even if we take faith 
 in the sense of symbolical credos or external dogmat- 
 ical articles. They all admit the doctrines of the 
 three oecumenical councils, and most of them have 
 embodied the three creeds in the constitution of the 
 national churches. Even the papists have not been 
 able to corrupt and pervert these noble monuments 
 of antiquity. These three creeds, the Apostles' (so 
 called), the Nicene and the Athanasian, are, with 
 few exceptions, the received symbolical faith of Chris- 
 tendom, and some of the nations and churches which 
 do not formally admit them are the most resolute 
 
278 GRAHAM ON EPHESIANS. 
 
 defenders of their general doctrines. Read these 
 venerable documents, and you have the objective 
 faith of the Christian world. So that, notwithstand- 
 ing all our divisions, national and ecclesiastical, three 
 liundred millions of the human race can, with the 
 apostle, say. We have one faith. 
 
 Thus we can say the fountain of our faith is one — the 
 Bible ; the agent of our faith is one — the Holy Spirit ; 
 and the great principles of the three creeds are admitted 
 and defended by all Christians. 
 
 VIII. One Baptism. 
 One baptism also belongs to these celebrated unities 
 of the apostle. This is the holy rite by which we are 
 admitted into the Church of Christ, and it remains the 
 same in substance among all Christians as it was at the 
 beginning ; for the papists themselves admit their addi- 
 tions to be mainly useful in clothing the simple rite 
 with greater majesty and splendor. The form is given 
 in the New Testament, and cannot be altered without 
 vitiating the whole institution. It must be in the 
 name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost, 
 otherwise it is not Christian baptism ; thus the doctrine 
 of the Holy Trinity is embodied in the initiatory rite 
 of the Christian Church, and thereby shows that the 
 starting-point of the believer is grace. He goes forth 
 from the separating waters as a son, bearing the 
 Father's name; as a redeemed creature, bearing the 
 cross of his Master ; as an anointed one, having the 
 ])romise of the Spirit to strengthen and comfort him 
 in fighting the good fight of faith. But does baptism, 
 then, confer grace ? Undoubtedly ; what else is it for ? 
 All the ordinances of Christ are channels of grace and 
 
CHAPTER IV. VERSES 1-lG. 279 
 
 blessing to those who jiroperly use them. All Chris- 
 tians are agreed that the greatest blessings are connected 
 with it- — viz., the forgiveness of sins and the ingrafting 
 into the body of Christ ; while many, speculating on 
 the mode and seeking to tie down the efficacy and 
 working of the Spirit of God to tiiiie and place and 
 person, would reduce this most blessed ordinance into 
 an opus operatum, or magical charm, which takes effect 
 only in the hands of certain privileged conjurors ; yet, 
 notwithstanding the importance of the ordinance of 
 baptism, grace and salvation are not so inseparably 
 annexed unto it as that no person can be regenerated 
 or saved without it, or that all that are baptized are 
 undoubtedly regenerated. There is one baptism ; and 
 the English, the Scotch and the Germans are as well 
 baptized and show as many fruits of the Spirit as 
 Spain, Italy and Austria. The presumption of papists 
 and apostolical successionists is intolerable. " By their 
 fruits ye shall know them ;" and we will not take their 
 thorns and thistles for the fig tree and the vine. 
 
 IX. One God and Father of All. 
 
 One God and Father of all, who is above all, and 
 through all, and in you all (ver. 6). 
 
 Here in Greek, as in English, the absence of one 
 before the second noun, Father, shows that it belongs 
 to and qualifies the first, and the meaning is. There is 
 One who is God and Father of us all. God and 
 Father belong to the same person. It is the same con- 
 struction as that of the Greek article in similar cases. 
 When two nouns are connected by and, the first having 
 the article and the second not, you are to refer both 
 nouns to the same person (Col. ii. 2 ; 1 Pet. i. 3 ; 2 Pet 
 
280 GRAHAM ON EPHESIANS. 
 
 i. 2 ; Jude 4 ; Eph. i. 3 ; Gal. i. 4 ; Eph. v. 5; 2 Thess. 
 i. 12; Tit. ii. 13). 
 
 The ideas connected with God and Father — power 
 and love — are here beautifully joined in the same per- 
 son. Deity and paternity are united and manifested 
 in Him whom we adore as God. Majesty is softened 
 with tenderness, and the splendors of the divinity are 
 tempered by the condescensions of paternal love. This 
 principle is indeed wonderfully exemplified in all God's 
 dealings with the human race since the beginning of the 
 world. The entire Jewish theocracy was the clothing 
 of the splendors of the present Kuler under the forms 
 of a carnal ritualism. Whenever, in the Old Testament, 
 the glory of the Lord appears, two things take place : 
 the sinful creature is laid in the dust, and then a word 
 of comfort comes from the excellent glory. Power is 
 tempered with grace ; the majesty of Jehovah, with the 
 human-heartedness of the Father. Thus it was with 
 Isaiah (vi. 5-9) ; Ezekiel fell prostrate (iii. 23) ; Daniel 
 fainted and was sick certain days (viii. 17—27) ; John 
 the beloved fell down as dead before the glory of his 
 Master (Rev. i. 17) ; and even the fierce murderer of 
 the saints (Acts ix. 4, 5) was overwhelmed by the 
 manifested glory. It is a source of comfort to remark 
 that in these and all such cases there is ever some word 
 or act of kindness on the part of God to raise up and 
 strengthen his trembling creatures. It is the realizing 
 of the name God and Father. He claims from us 
 fear and confidence, and these feelings are awakened 
 and united by the majesty of God and the tenderness 
 of a father. This is indeed the princi])le of incar- 
 nation. The awful glory of the incorruptible God 
 is tempered, softened, humanized, in the person of 
 
CHAPTER IV. VERSES 1-16. 281 
 
 Christ. A human eye weeps, but the tears flow from 
 the fountain of Godhead love ; a human victim bleeds, 
 but the rent veil of flesh discloses beyond it the ocean 
 of eternal mercy. We connect in the life of Jesus 
 Christ the history of a man with the character, faith- 
 fulness and compassion of God ; the human and the 
 divine are united, and from the cradle to the tomb his 
 life is the manifestation of the name God and Father. 
 
 He is above all — that is. the one Ruler and Lord, 
 whose power extends over all persons and things ; the 
 Kino; and Governor of the universe. There is no ne- 
 cessity for limiting the all here, and the phrase " who 
 is over all " is the characteristic of the supreme God, 
 and is identical with pantokrator, the omnipotent, the 
 almighty God (2 Cor. vi. 18 : Rev. i. 8 ; iv. 8 ; xi. 17 ; 
 XV. 8; xvi. 7; xix. 6, 15). It is aj^plied to Christ 
 (Rom. ix. 5), with several additions to strengthen its 
 meaning. He, like the great Father, is over all and, 
 it is added, " God blessed for ever " — viz., he is the 
 supreme God. 
 
 Most of the ancient and many of the modern com- 
 mentators see in the prepositions above, through and in 
 the relations of the Persons of the Trinity to the creat- 
 ure. God is over all as the Father, sheds his grace and 
 strength through all by Jesus Christ the Son, the 
 Mediator, and dwells in all as the life and sustainer 
 by the Holy Ghost. This agrees well with the rela- 
 tive positions of the three divine Persons in reference 
 to the creation and to one another : the Father is on 
 the throne ; the Son, or Mediator, is at the right hand 
 of the throne ; and the Holy Spirit dwells in the 
 Church.' Even De Wette admits a reference to the 
 Trinity in this passage, though he is far from explain- 
 
 36 
 
282 GRAHAM ON EPHESIANS. 
 
 iiig it in an orthodox sense. Some take you as limit- 
 ing the whole sentence to believers, thus : " There is 
 one God and Father, who is above you all and through 
 you all and in you all." This is true, but it is not the 
 whole truth of the passage. There is no reason why 
 the Greek plural all should necessarily be masculine 
 in the three cases where it occurs in the verse. 
 
 These are the seven celebrated unities, and in the 
 hand of the apostle they are arranged into a picture 
 of exquisite beauty. To one blessed unity we are 
 urged — the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace ; 
 and as examj)les of the principle of unity seven others 
 are added, which embrace the most vital points of the 
 Christian faith. There is, perhaps, something in the 
 order of arrangement — Church, Spirit, Lord God — 
 intended to show the progress from the outward and 
 visible to the fountain of the invisible and incompre- 
 hensible God. The Spirit leads the believer to Christ 
 the Mediator, who brings him to the Father, where 
 the expanding and satisfied soul rejoices in the fullness 
 of God. God the Father is the end, the Son the 
 Mediator is the way, and the Holy Spirit the Com- 
 forter is the all-pervading life. The glorious Being 
 called God and Father is the End, the Telos to which 
 Church and creation are approaching, as he is also 
 the Pege, the fountain from which all creation flows. 
 
 X. Jesus the Sovereign Giver. 
 
 But u7ito every one of us is grace given according to 
 the measure of the gift of Christ (ver. 7). This unfolds 
 the idea that Jesus is the sovereign Giver, o it of whose 
 fullness we receive grace for grace. His gifts, accord- 
 ing to this verse, are not to be measured by our deserv- 
 
CHAPTER IV. VERSES 1-16. 283 
 
 iiigs or our prayers, or even by our necessities, or by 
 anything in us, but according to his own benevolence. 
 
 Grace, in this place, is not "function" or "office," 
 though such a sense is admissible (Rom. xii. 3 ; xv, 
 15 ; 1 Cor. iii. 10 ; Gal. ii. 9 ; Eph. iii. 2, 8 ; 2 Tim. 
 ii. 1 ; Rom. i. 5) , but the favor, kindness and good 
 pleasure of God, which like a fountain sends forth its 
 streams in all directions. It is the grace which has its 
 fount or source in God, by which the ^reat Father was 
 disposed to give the Son — by which the Son, though 
 rich, for our sakes became poor, that we through his 
 poverty might be rich (2 Cor. viii. 9). 
 
 Grace is opposed to merit, and is . ttributed in Script- 
 ure equally to the Father, to the Son and to the Holy 
 Ghost. Above twenty times does the p rase " grace of 
 God " occur in the New Testament ; eight times we read 
 of the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ ; and the Holy 
 Ghost is called by the name " Spirit of grace" (Heb. x. 
 29). This is the aspect in which we delight to con- 
 template God. He is seated on a throne of grace ; the 
 Holy Scripture is the word of his grace; the Son of 
 God is the gift of his grace ; his Spirit works the fruits 
 of his grace in the hearts and the lives of believers. 
 From the Father as the Fountain-Head, through the 
 Son as Mediator, and by the Holy Spirit, the Regen- 
 erator, the Comforter, is the gift of his grace manifested 
 to the members of the body of Christ. This shuts out 
 jealousy by shutting out merit, and makes all the mem- 
 bers dependent on the Head alone. 
 
 XI. The Ascension of Christ. 
 Wherefore he saith, When he asce7ided up on high, he 
 led captivity captive, and gave gifts unto men. [Now 
 
284 GRAHAM ON EPHESIANS. 
 
 that he ascended, whd is it but that he also descended 
 first into the lower parts of the earth f He that de- 
 scended is the same also that ascended up far above all 
 heavens, that he might fill all th'ngs) (ver. 8-10). 
 
 ■ This great act of the mighty power of God opened 
 the heavens and gave us the hope of entering into the 
 house not made with hands. This was predicted in the 
 Psalms (Ixviii. 18) and shadowed forth in the institu- 
 tion of the Aaronic priesthood. " Wherefore he saith," 
 or " the Scripture saith," or " the Lord saith " (Gah iii. 
 16 ; V. 14 ; 1 Cor. vi. 16 ; James iv. 6 ; Acts xiii. 35 ; 
 Heb. X. 5 ; 2 Cor. vi. 7), ''When he ascended up 
 on high, he led captivity captive, and gave gifts unto 
 men." 
 
 Here we observe — 
 
 (1) That all the forms of quotation go on the prin- 
 ciple that the Lord is the Author of the sacred Script- 
 ures. They are the word of God, and the Bible is as 
 much God's book as the universe is God's work. He 
 is as much the Author of the Bible as John Bunyan is 
 the author of the Pilgrim's Progress, and therefore, ac- 
 cording to the testimony of the apostle, it must be given 
 by divine inspiration. 
 
 (2) The words of the psalm are not quoted literally, 
 but according to the sense. The phrase " Thou hast 
 received gifts," as applied to Christ at his glorification, 
 could mean only that he received for the purpose of 
 distribution, and hence the apostle quotes them in this 
 sense : " He gave gifts to men." This Hebrew phrase 
 may be rendered either "Thou hast received gifts in 
 the human nature," or "Thou hast received gifts for 
 the sake of man." (See Gen. xviii. 28 ; 2 Kings xiv. 
 6.) The apostle uses the words in the sense of the 
 
CHAPTER IV. VERSES 1-16. 285 
 
 purpose for which the gifts were received, and there 
 is no contradiction between the psalmist and the apos- 
 tle. Thus the difficulties of this quotation vanish when 
 we examine them closely, and the Old and the New 
 Testament are in complete harmony. 
 
 Rosenmiiller expounds Ps. xviii. and never mentions 
 the name of Christ ; and the neologists in general see 
 no Messiah in the Old Testament. To these, indeed, 
 Eph. iv. 8, if they had any modesty, would present a 
 formidable obstacle. Paul asserts the psalm belongs to 
 Christ, and they assert he is mistaken and that he has 
 perverted (De Wette) and destroyed its meaning. They 
 assert that lamarom. (" on high ") means the heights of 
 Mount Zion, and Paul says it means heaven. Which 
 is right ? (See the Scripture usage of the w^ord : Ps. 
 vii. 7 ; xviii. 16 ; xciii. 4 ; cii. 19 ; Jer. xxv. 30 ; Isa. 
 xxxvii. 23. These j^assages connect the word with the 
 heavenly mansions, and justify the application of the 
 apostle.) But, leaving the subtleties of perverted or 
 perverting criticism, let us ask — 
 
 (3) What is there taught in the passage ? We have, 
 first of all, the glorious truth that Jesus Christ, our 
 Kinsman-Pedeemer, has entered, in our name and na- 
 ture, into the holiest of all, there to appear in the pres- 
 ence of God for us. We have an Advocate with the 
 Father, Jesus Christ the righteous, which, though of 
 little value to tlie rationalists, is useful to us who be- 
 lieve in a personal God, the sinfulness of man and a 
 future judgment. He is our Forerunner, and there is 
 not one step of the weary way which he has not conse- 
 crated with his labors, his tears and his blood ; not one 
 burden which he has not borne ; not one enemy whom 
 he has not conquered ; not one temptation l)efore which 
 
286 GRAHAM ON EPHESIANS. 
 
 we fall which he did not resist ; not one pang of mor- 
 tal anguish which he did not endure ; and now, as the 
 Victor and royal Prince, he dispenses his favors to his 
 subject people. He has led cajDtivity captive — that is, 
 as I understand it, he has led the captivator captive 
 (Judg. V. 12) and spoiled the principalities and powers 
 (Col. ii. 15) which led us into the bondage of sin and 
 death. All our enemies are overthrown ; sin, death and 
 Satan, our conquerors, are led captive by him ; and the 
 immortal Victor has taken his seat at the right hand 
 of the Majesty on high. But then, secondly, he has 
 received gifts for men — yea, even for the rebellious, that 
 the Lord God might dwell among them (Ps. ixviii. 18). 
 Observe the three Persons of the Holy Trinity in this 
 verse — the Father, who gives the gifts ; Jesus, who re- 
 ceives them ; and the dispensing of the gifts is that the 
 Lord God (viz., the Holy Ghost, John xiv. 17 ; 1 John 
 ii. 27; Acts ii. 33) might dwell among them : the Giver, 
 the Mediator and the Gift — ^the Father, the Son and the 
 Holy Spirit. It is, then, the doctrine of our text that 
 Jesus, the ascended Mediator, has gifts for men — yea,, 
 for the rebellious. It is surely a sweet and pleasant 
 doctrine that we may supply all our needs out of a 
 Brother's fullness and tell all our sorrows into a 
 Brother's ear. We know each other. In the wastes 
 of the infinite unknown, in the solitudes of the un- 
 fathomable eternity, there is one attracting point, one 
 converging centre, where human hearts can find sym- 
 pathy and a home. 
 
 " When I rise to worlds unknown, 
 See thee on thy judgment-throne, 
 Rock of ages, cleft for me, 
 Let me hide myself in thee." 
 
CHAPTER IV. VERSES 1-16. 287 
 
 But let US dwell a little longer on this delightful 
 theme, for surely, as sinful, needy creatures, these gifts 
 are exactly what we need. He has gifts for men. The 
 charismata, or gifts of the Holy Ghost, are treasured 
 up in him ; in him dwelleth all the fullness of the 
 Godhead bodily, and he is the head of all principality 
 and power for the very purpose of satisfying, govern- 
 ing and blessing the creation. Come, then ; ask and 
 receive, that your joy may be full. 
 
 But He that ascended is the same who descended first 
 into the lower parts of the earth ; and the question to 
 be asked and answered is this : '' What are these lower 
 parts of the earth ?" Possibly it means the womb of 
 the Virgin Mary (Ps. cxxxix. 15), possibly the grave 
 (Ps. ]xiii. 9 ; Isa. x]iv. 23), for the words may be ap- 
 plied to both. Many of the ancients and most of the 
 papists refer it to the descent into hell mentioned in the 
 creed, and expound it of the lower world, the invisible 
 world. Hades or |erlia|s of purgatory. There is noth- 
 ing of this, howevei", in the text, and the opinion, since 
 the days of Bishop Pearson, has been exploded. The 
 Greek word for parts is probably a mere gloss, and is 
 wanting in many manuscripts. Tischendorf rejects it. 
 The contrast is between heaven and earth, not between 
 the higher and the lower parts of the earth ; and the 
 genitive, of the earth, is the genitive of explanation, 
 thus : He descended into the lower regions of the earth 
 — the lower earthly regions as contrasted with the heav- 
 enly throne and glory. This world is the scene of his 
 birth, life, death and resurrection. He left his glory 
 and came to this lower world, and, having finished his 
 work of redemption, he ascended up far above all heav- 
 ens that he might fill all things. He is the same glori- 
 
288 GKAHAM ON EPHESIANS. 
 
 ous Being in all these conditions, and gathers around 
 him at every step of the divine procedure the sym- 
 ])athies and destinies of the temporal and eternal 
 worlds. He is exalted far above all heavens. The 
 Scripture seems to exhaust language in describing the 
 glory and majesty of the risen and ascended Lord 
 (1 Tim. iii. 16 ; Heb. iv. 14 ; vii. 26 ; viii. 1 ; ix. 24 ; 
 Eph. i. 21). 
 
 This mighty ac of God includes in itself and draws 
 after it many important doctrines and consequences 
 which throw a flood of light on the progress and 
 character of the divine administration. Man is shown 
 to be the ruling creature in the dominions of God, for 
 the Son of man, the Forerunner and Heir, is by the 
 power and will of the supreme God placed on the 
 throne of creation. It follows as a necessary conse- 
 quence that redemption is a wondrous work ; that 
 sin, which redemption expunges, is indeed very sinful ; 
 that love eternal guides the ways of Providence, even 
 when darkness fills the sky and tempests desolate the 
 world ; and that the worth of the human soul and the 
 dignity of man, as well as the destiny that awaits him, 
 are exceedingly high and glorious. All this flows 
 from the great fact of facts that the Son of man is 
 on the throne of God : *' that he might fill all things " 
 — fill the vast universe with his presence, his holiness, 
 his gifts and his glory. Ta panta or to pan — "the 
 all," the whole universe — is the structure or temple 
 into which the risen Redeemer has ascended that he 
 might breathe into it the vigor and beauty of his own 
 immortal life. The idea is wonderful and worthy of 
 the conception of God. The universe is to be estab- 
 lished and headed up (Eph. i. 10), governed and 
 
CHAPTER IV. VERSES 1-16. 289 
 
 guided through eternity, hy the will and power and 
 wisdom of the God-Man. The creation and the 
 Creator are united in one Head. 
 
 Or are we, with Bloomfield, to take the neuter, " all 
 things," for the masculine, " all persons " ? Then the 
 purpose of the ascension is to fill all the offices of the 
 Church, as well as all the members of his body, with 
 the gifts and graces of the Holy Spirit according to his 
 will. Or if, with St. Bernard, we take the verb in the 
 sense of " to fulfill " (Mark i. 15 ; Matt. ii. 17 ; Acts 
 xiii. 27 ; John xii. 38) , then the Son of man is ascended 
 to fulfill all the prophecies and promises which remain 
 to be accom^ished. 
 
 XII. The New-Testament Ministers. 
 
 And he gave some, apostles ; and some, propJiets ; and 
 some, evangelists; and some, pastors and teachers; for 
 the perfecting of the saints, for the work of the min- 
 istry, for the edifyiyig of the body of Chi^ist (ver. 11, 
 
 12). 
 
 Jesus Christ is here again, and indeed I may say 
 e.ery where, contemplated as the fullness of God {ple- 
 roma, John i. 16 ; Eph. iii. 19 ; i. 23 ; Col. i. 19 ; ii. 9) ; 
 all gifts and graces, offices and office-bearers, flow from 
 him. He is the Revealer of the great Father's love to 
 his children ; and for this purpose he has in both his 
 heavenly and earthly estate, but especially in the 
 former, full and sovereign control over everything 
 which directly or indirectly concerns his purchased 
 possession. He gave gifts to men ; he dispenses the 
 ordinary and extraordinary gifts of the Holy Ghost 
 according to his will (Acts ii. 33). He is the ruler in 
 his own house, under whose hand the order of the 
 
 37 
 
290 GRAHAM ON EPHESIANS. 
 
 household [econonuj) pr )C(3eds. This same divine action 
 is attributed to God (1 Cor. xii. 28; 2 Cor. iii. 6), and 
 yet the Holy Ghost is the Author and Giver of all the 
 gifts and endowments of the Church (1 Cor. xii. 1-11). 
 8o that the three Persons of the Godhead are in every 
 possible way connected wdth the forming and perfecting 
 of the body of Christ. 
 
 ^' He gave some, apost/es" — viz., he appointed some to be 
 apostles ; he separated and ordained them to be apostles. 
 (See John vii. 19 ; Gal. iii. 21 ; Acts vii. 8 ; John vi. 
 22.) So the Hebrews use give for " appoint " or 
 "ordain" (Josh. xxiv. 26). (Comp. the wider use of 
 "give," Ezra ix. 11; see also Num. xxv. 12; Gen. 
 xvii. 2 ; Lev. xxvi. 1, where the Sej)tuagint has " place " 
 for the Hebrew " give.") These apostles, so given, 
 consecrated and sent by him, formed the noblest 
 institute the world ever saw. They were in the strict 
 sense of the term sent ones — the apostles of Christ. 
 And he was the Apostle of God : he saw and bore 
 witness for God ; they saw and bore witness for Christ. 
 He called them, named them, endow^ed them, and 
 then sent them forth as his heralds and ambassadors 
 to announce the kingdom of heaven to all nations. 
 They were, on the whole, poor, illiterate, uneducated 
 men, fishermen and tentmakers ; yet he made them 
 such instruments of truth and wisdom that from their 
 lips nations might learn righteousness and senators 
 and kings wisdom. They changed the face of the 
 world, and by the power of truth and patience and 
 courage unto death they laid the foundations of a moral 
 kingdom of righteousness and peace and joy in the 
 Holy Ghost. Their letters differ as much from those 
 of Cicero as the kingdom of heaven differs from the 
 
CHAPTER IV. VERSES 1-16. 291 
 
 Koman empire. Truth and wisdom shine forth in 
 their writings, while their conduct, their mode of life, 
 their disregard of danger and death in their path of 
 duty, their calmness in moments of perplexity, their 
 noble bearing on all occasions, reveal a clearness of 
 judgment and a certainty of conviction which astonish 
 and attract the heart. They are the poorest and most 
 miserable of men (1 Cor. iv. 13), and yet heavenly 
 treasures are dispensed by their hands ; they are in 
 want of the common necessaries of life, while yet they 
 go about })reaching glad tidings to every creature, 
 healing the sick, raising the dead to life again and 
 communicating the gifts of the Holy Spirit by " the 
 laying on of their hands." You see no oddities about 
 these men, though they are altogether peculiar. Their 
 holiness burns with a bright, steady light, and their 
 path is ever the golden medium of well-balanced 
 minds. They are to be found neither in the cell of 
 the anchorite nor on the pillar of Simeon. All that 
 which most attracts vulgar minds has passed away, 
 and in all their poverty, meanness of origin and 
 calling they stand forth before the eye and the admi- 
 ration of mankind as the purest patriots, the most 
 accomplished teachers, the most patient sufferers, the 
 most triumphant conquerors in a moral sense, the most 
 faithful preachers of the cross, the most fearless ambas- 
 sadors and the most glorious martyrs which the world 
 ever saw. 
 
 Had they any successors ? In the strict sense of 
 the word, none. They had seen the Lord ; they had 
 touched and handled his risen body. He had breathed 
 into them the Holy Spirit, given them their commission 
 visibly and audibly, and they were actually enabled 
 
292 GRAHAM ON EPHESIANS. 
 
 to work miracles and communicate the Holy Ghoi^t 
 When their pretended successors do these things, we 
 shall listen to their claims. Will any reasonable man 
 believe there is more of the Holy Ghost in Italy than 
 in England or in Scotland? Certainly ignorance, 
 tyranny, falsehood, lying wonders, sweating statues, 
 image-worship, Mariolatry, are no signs of the special 
 presence of the divine Spirit ! 
 
 But "Ae gave some, prophets^ On prophets and 
 prophecy, see Luke i. 76 ; iv. 24 ; xiii. 33 ; Matt. xvi. 
 4 ; John vii. 52 ; also 2 Pet. i. 20, 21 ; Rev. i. 3 ; xix. 
 10; xxii. 7, 10; 1 Tim. i. 18; iv 14. 
 
 The noblest, tliough not the greatest, function of the 
 prophet is to foretell future events ; hence the prophets 
 of the Old Testament unfolded the destiny of the na- 
 tion and announced the time, the character, the birth, 
 life, death and kingdom, of the coming Deliverer. 
 Jesus is the Prophet of God, the last, best and fullest 
 Revealer of the invisible Jehovah, and the Church 
 which is founded on him has a prophetic as well as 
 an historic aspect. The future is as certain and as 
 nearly related to us as the past, and to feed the fac- 
 ulty of hope God has given prophecy. We can as 
 little cease to hope as cease to remember ; and, while 
 the apostle testifies to a risen Saviour and redemption 
 finished, the prophetic cry, ''Behold, he cometh!" directs 
 the eye to the purchased inheritance and the kingdom 
 of glory. There may be prophecy and inspiration with- 
 out the foretelling of future events ; and, indeed, the 
 greater part of the prophetic office might he exercised 
 without it. The office is, however, named and charac- 
 terized by the nobler functions of it. Those, therefore, 
 who possessed an abundance of the gifts of the Holy 
 
CHAPTEK IV. VERSES 1-16. 293 
 
 Ghost, and uttered the mind of God most clearly in 
 warning, entreaty, prayer and praise, may be styled 
 prophets in the New Testament. They are filled with 
 the SjDirit, walk in the Spirit, speak in the Spirit — not 
 the well-arranged utterances of human wisdom, but 
 words of divine love as they flow from the Foun tain- 
 Head ; and the indwelling Quickener may at any 
 moment open the eye of faith to visions of the most 
 distant future. 
 
 '^^He gave some, evangelists^ These were the mis- 
 sionaries of the apostolic Church. Their office was 
 to preach ; their field was the world, and their mes- 
 sage to the nations was a kingdom of righteousness 
 and peace and joy in the Holy Ghost. This office 
 shows the aspect which the Church bears to heathen- 
 ism, and holds up to view the duty of sending the 
 gospel to the heathen nations. We are built upon 
 apostolic doctrines, guided by prophetic hopes and 
 urged on by evangelistic labors into all the regions 
 of the world. While the Church of the Redeemer 
 continues in a sound, healthy condition the divine 
 life within her must ever be impelling some of her 
 members " to w atch in all things, endure difficulties, 
 do the work of an evangelist and make full proof of 
 the ministry" among the benighted heathen. These 
 are the pioneers of the host to break up the way for 
 settled pastors and teachers — heralds to prepare the 
 way for the kingdom, as John the Baptist prepared 
 the way for the King himself. These are the safety- 
 valves for the Church's overflowing fullness, the golden 
 pipes to conduct the oil of the sanctuary into all lands. 
 
 "Shall we whose souls are lighted 
 With wisdom from on high — 
 
294 GRAHAM ON EPHESIANS. 
 
 Shall we to men benighted 
 
 The lamp of life deny? 
 Salvation, oh, salvation ! 
 
 The joyful sound proclaim, 
 Till each remotest nation 
 
 Has learned Messiah's name." 
 
 We may always judge of the vigor of a Church by 
 the amount of her evangelistic labors. These are 
 streams that flow from the fount of grace within her. 
 Oh how delightful to see the Church stretching out her 
 arms to embrace in the fold of Christ the whole family 
 of man ! Go forth, ye swift messengers, ye evangelists 
 of peace and love ! Go forth from the camp with the 
 cheers of the witnessing army, and in the name of God 
 and his Anointed do battle for the King of glory ! Go 
 forth, go forth ! Scale the mountains, swim the rivers, 
 navigate the seas, breast the storms, and let the voice 
 of divine love encircle the globe ! Love is unconquer- 
 able, love conquers all things ; God is love, and ye are 
 tlie messengers of God. Go, and the God of peace go 
 with you ! 
 
 "i/e; gave some, pastors and teachers." The article 
 here is not repeated before teachers, and therefore, by 
 the doctrine of the Greek article, the pastors and teach- 
 ers form but one class ; both words adjectival, and be- 
 long to some. (As examples of this rule, see 2 Cor. i. 
 3 ; xi. 31 ; Eph. i. 3 ; 1 Thess. i. 3 ; Col. i. 3 ; Rev. i. 
 6 ; 1 Pet. ii. 25.) This principle seems to be very gen- 
 eral in the New Testament, and we do not seek to dis- 
 turb it, though the seeming exceptions are very nu- 
 ]iierous. We take, then, these two words, pastors and 
 teachers, as belonging to the one class, called elsewhere 
 bishops or elders, and in that case the pastor or shep- 
 herd character would describe their external public 
 
CHAPTER IV. VERSES 1-16. 295 
 
 office as guides and governors of the Cliiirch, while 
 " teacher " or " doctor " would denote their relations 
 to the Church as the preachei-s and maintainers of 
 sound doctrine (Haiiess). Calvin, however, and Beza 
 saw no such distinction, nor did they recognize the law 
 of the Greek article in this passage. All these offices 
 in the primitive Church were filled with the gifts and 
 graces of the risen Christ. They were the channels 
 between the exalted Son of man and his suffering mem- 
 bers on earth. They were all varieties of the charismata 
 (Rom. xii. G, 7 ; 1 Cor. xii. 4, 7, 28 ; 1 Pet. iv. 10) or 
 spiritual gifts with which the apostolical Church was 
 endowed for the perfecting of the saints, for the work 
 of the ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ. 
 This is the end of all the ministries of the Spirit. 
 Churches and church offices are the means appointed 
 by God for the diffusion of light and truth among the 
 heathen and filling the earth with the testimony of his 
 love. His purpose is not the salvation of all men, but 
 the salvation of the Church which is his body, the full- 
 ness of Him that filleth all in all. His ascension to the 
 throne of heaven and the effusion of his quickening 
 Spirit, as well as his incarnation and death on the 
 cross, are intended to perfect the saints, to qualify and 
 uphold a spiritual ministry and to edify the body of 
 Christ. The Church, the body, is the principal thing, 
 and all else is subordinate and subsidiary. Its edifica- 
 tion is the great work and purpose of God on earth, 
 for the accomplishing of which pastors and teachers, 
 apostles, prophets, evangelists, and all other offices and 
 ministries, have been appointed of the Lord. 
 
296 GRAHAM ON EPHESIANS. 
 
 XIII. The Time and the Purpose. 
 
 Till we all come in the unity of the faith, and of the 
 knowledge of the Son of God, unto a perfect man, unto 
 the measure of the stature of the fullness of Ch7'ist : thai 
 we hcTiceforth be no more children, tossed to and fro, and 
 carried about with every wi7id of doctrine, by the sleight 
 of men, and cunning craftiness, whei'eby they lie in wait 
 to deceive ; but speaking the truth in love, may grow up 
 into him in all things, which is the head, even Christ : 
 from whom the whole body fitly joined together and, com- 
 pacted by that which every joint supplieth, according to 
 the effectual working in the measure of every part, mak- 
 eth increase of the body unto the edfying of itself in love 
 (ver. 13-16). 
 
 All this outfitting of the Church and church offices 
 refers clearly to a preparatory state, and not to the rest 
 which the Lord hath promised his people. The manna 
 in the wilderness, the water from the rock, the cloud of 
 jrlorv and the tabernacle were true si2;ns of the unsettled 
 and wandering condition of the children of Israel ; the 
 rest was beyond the Jordan ; they had much to hope 
 for even under the direct and visible leading of Jeho- 
 vah. With them, as with us, there was an until, 
 and when they entered the Promised Land there was 
 also an until — a hope set before them, even the coming 
 of the promised Deliverer, the King of righteousness, 
 the Shiloh, to whom the gathering of the nations should 
 be ; and we too, upon whom the ends of the earth have 
 come, we who have seen the wonders of redeeming love 
 and the person and work of the Messiah — we have our 
 until. We wait for his second coming, as the Jews did 
 for his first. Memory dwells on the cross with its par- 
 
CHAPTEK IV. VERSES 1-16. 297 
 
 douing love, and hope anticipates the crown of glory ; 
 our nature, like Janus, has two faces. We are far from 
 satisfied with our present state, and, indeed, it is prob- 
 lematical whether we shall ever be satisfied : 
 
 " Hope springs eternal in the human breast: 
 Man never is, but always to be, blest." 
 
 Does there, then, remain an until in the heavens? 
 By all means, there does ; and this faculty, as I judge, 
 does not show the weakness, but the glory, of our na- 
 ture, inasmuch as the boundless and inefi'able God is the 
 great and only end of our longings — full and perfect 
 conformity to his image ; and I see no reason why this 
 moulding of character and enlargement of faculties 
 should not go on for ever, 
 
 " And onward, still onward, arising, ascending. 
 To the right hand of power and joy never ending." 
 
 (1) The unity of the faith is what we are to be 
 brought to : " Till we all come to the unity of the 
 faithr 
 
 There were different opinions among the early Chris- 
 tians, as there are at present among us, but then, as 
 now, the working of the one Spirit tends to bring about 
 unity. There is at present an approximation to this 
 unity of faith, though it is, indeed, very far from being 
 fully realized, nor is it likely to be so while the papists 
 retain their un-catholic and un-Ghristian principles. 
 Let us rejoice, however, that the principles of the three 
 creeds — the Apostles', the Nicene and the Athanasian 
 — are confessed by nearly the whole of Ghristendom. 
 These great principles are the central points of the 
 Christian system, and it is consolatory to hear them 
 repeated in all the languages of the world. 
 
 38 
 
298 GRAHAM ON EPHESIANS. 
 
 But what is this unity ? It does not consist in all 
 Christians thinking alike. This is impossible, and the 
 first Christian churches were as different from one an- 
 other in their forms and ceremonies as the present 
 churches are, if not more so, and they had no visible 
 earthly head to unite them externally. Charles V. 
 spent his life in attempting to make the Germans 
 think alike, and then died in his cell sighing over 
 his folly, seeing he could not make two watches gc 
 alike. This is not the unity here spoken of. Force 
 cannot give unity of faith, however it may give unity 
 of form. We must come into this unity, and cannot 
 be driven into it. 
 
 Nor is this unity a unity of outward visible organ- 
 ization, in which one form of government must neces- 
 sarily prevail, but rather the unity of faithful, loving 
 hearts, where one common spirit leads them all to the 
 same throne of grace. There may be many folds and 
 yet but one flock (John x. 16. For the seco7id " fold," 
 read "flock"). There maybe great unity in respect 
 of dogmas where there is no faith at all, and conse- 
 quently no unity of faith. I may believe much about 
 a person, and not believe on him. To believe on the 
 Lord Jesus Christ is to put our trust in him, and this 
 we may do without knowing much of dogmatic the- 
 ology ; and those who know it well may possibly be 
 without saving faith. (For the Scripture delineations 
 of pistis ("faith"), see 1 Cor. xv. 14, 19; Kom i. 
 17; iii. 22, 25, 26; ix. 30, 32; x. 6 ; Gal. ii. 16, 20; 
 iii. 2-24; v. 6; Eph. ii. 8; iii. 12; Phil. iii. 9.) This 
 faith of which Paul makes so much of is not a form 
 sound words, nor a vinculum between ideas and real- 
 ities, nor a bare assent to the truth of the Bible, nor a 
 
CHAPTER IV. VERSES 1-16. 299 
 
 holding earnestly what you do hold, whether true or 
 false (Carlylism), nor an exaggerated view of the be- 
 nevolence of God (Broad Church), nor simple, abso- 
 lute assurance of salvation (first Reformers), but a 
 holy, joyful, conscious resting of the soul on Christ 
 and his finished work ; and I maintain that as the 
 divine life of the soul it may breathe and burn in all 
 the sects and churches of the Reformation as freely 
 and as fully as it did in the apostolic ages. The mem- 
 bers of Christ have the unity of the faith, however 
 divided by time and place and external forms. The 
 Spirit's work is to make believers one by directing 
 them all to the one centre — Christ ; by setting before 
 them all the one aim — his glory ; by arraying them 
 all against one enemy — sin ; and by animating them 
 all with one hope — that of his coming and kingdom. 
 (2) But we are to come, secondly, into the unity of 
 the knowledge of the Son of God. This knowledge is 
 therefore something higher and more difficult to attain 
 than the unity of faith. Faith is, indeed, very simple, 
 and is therefore the fit and common bond to unite the 
 soul with Jesus. It is the blood in the body, it is the 
 sap in the vine, it is the cement in the living temple 
 of God. Some are learned, and some are ignorant ; 
 some are babes, and some are fathers ; but they all 
 have faith, and by it they are all united to the Con- 
 queror in heaven. But the knowledge of the Son of 
 God — ^that is indeed a fountain of infinite depth and 
 fullness ; and the effort of the Holy Spirit in his ordi- 
 nances and offices is to lead us more and more into it ; 
 to reveal more and more of the glories of his charac- 
 ter ; to open more and more the doors of our hearts 
 that we may receive and comprehend more and more 
 
300 GRAHAM ON EPHESIANS. 
 
 of his love; to unfold to the Church here and here- 
 after, as her brightening eye and enlarging heart can 
 bear it, the treasures of wisdom and of knowledge, of 
 truth and goodness and mercy, which the Father has 
 secured to his children in Jesus Christ, the Son of his 
 love. This knowledge is too high for me : I cannot 
 attain to it ; but my dim eye can see facts and forms 
 of boundless significance and beauty in the incarna- 
 tion, the atonement, ascension and advent, of Christ. 
 I can admire, long after and adore the person of the 
 Son of God, containing, as it does, all mysteries, rec- 
 onciling, as it does, all diversities, and uniting, as it 
 does, for ever and ever, the Creator and his creation ; 
 but no man nor angel can ever comprehend the oceans 
 of tenderness and mercy which lie in and beyond these 
 outward manifestations of his grace. 
 
 But what is the meaning of the phrase " the Son of 
 Qod^'^l This, in the Greek, may have four varieties, 
 arisino; from the use or the omission of the article. 
 Both nouns may be articulated, as here ; both may be 
 unarticulated ; the first may be articulated, and the 
 second not; the second may be articulated, and the 
 first not. Three of these forms are found in the New 
 Testament, and two are found very often. All these 
 are essentially of the same significance and point to 
 the divinity of his nature. He is the Son, the Son of 
 God, the well-beloved Son, the only-begotten Son — 
 names and forms which indicate his divine nature. 
 Son of man, he is truly man ; son of Abraham, he is 
 truly a Jew ; son of David, he is truly royal ; and Son 
 of God, he is truly divine. The son in all cases has 
 the nature of his father (Matt, xi. 27 ; Luke x. 22 ; 
 John i, 14; x. 33-36), and hence he is compared. 
 
CHAPTER IV. VERSES 1-16. 301 
 
 contrasted and united with the Father in all possible 
 ways (Matt, xxviii. 19 ; Mark xiii. 32 ; John v. 26 ; 
 1 John i. 3 ; ii. 22 ; iv. 14 ; 2 John 3). We may dis- 
 cover three forms or degrees in his Sonship. His eter- 
 nal Sonship is the basis of election, his Sonship by the 
 Holy Ghost (Luke i. 35) is the basis of regeneration, 
 and his Sonship from the grave (Rev. i. 5 ; Col. i. 18, 
 etc.) is the form and fountain-head of the first resur- 
 rection. All this is in keeping with the value set upon 
 the title " Son of God " in the Holy Scriptures. 
 
 (3) We are to come '' imto a perfect man, unto the 
 measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ^ The 
 Church is here compared to the human body, which 
 proceeds from the first germ of life through many 
 stages into the full-grown man. We are not to lay 
 again the first principles, but go on to perfection 
 (Heb. vi. 1). Our Master will have us men in knowl- 
 edge, in labor and in love, and cliildren only in 
 malice and wickedness (1 Cor. ii. 6; iii. 1). We ought 
 not to be contented with anything less than perfection 
 — even the perfection of C'hrist; for, however far we 
 may be from attaining it, our actual progress must 
 keep pace with our efforts to follow the perfect One. 
 
 This perfection is further explained by the words 
 " unto the measure of the stature of the fullness of 
 Christ." The word for stature, as is well known, means 
 "full age" (John ix. 21; Heb. xi. 11; Luke ii. 52) 
 and " full stature " (Matt. vi. 27 ; Luke xii. 25 ; xix. 
 3). The Reformers generally translate, as w^e do, 
 " stature," and the modern commentators mostly prefer 
 " age." The difference is inconsiderable, and in either 
 case the sense is good. He will have the Church of 
 ftill age and of full size. The measure of the fullness 
 
302 GRAHAM ON EPHESIANS. 
 
 {pleroma) I take to be the treasures of grace which 
 God has laid up for us in the Christ. We are to come 
 to a size and a maturity in our Christian life worthy 
 of the gracious fullness of Christ. This is the noble 
 effort of the Christian mind, ever to walk worthy of 
 the gospel of Christ. He thinks not of how much 
 sin and weakness and worldly-mindedness he may 
 retain without being shut out of heaven, but of how 
 much purity, holiness and heavenly-mindedness he 
 can enjoy on earth. The fullness of Christ, which is 
 the whole fullness of the Godhead bodily, is at his dis- 
 posal to assist him in trials, strengthen him in tempta- 
 tions and make him victorious over all his enemies. 
 The one bright image of his Lord and Master is ever 
 before him, and he presses forward along the mark for 
 the prize of his high calling. How great is this full- 
 ness of Christ! Grace, love, compassion, condescen- 
 sion, mercy and divine power, honor, righteousness 
 and eternal glory, are treasured up in him in infinite 
 abundance for all the wants of his people. Then yield 
 to the enemy no more. Bear the burdens of the devil 
 no longer. Be men — men of age and stature — and 
 show the Church and the world what grace can make 
 you. Saints are around you, martyrs are above like a 
 cloud, and Jesus is before you to lead you on. Let us 
 remember the measure of the stature of the fullness of 
 Christ, and press forward in our Christian course, 
 
 " That to perfection's sacred height 
 We nearer still may rise, 
 And all we do, and all we say, 
 Be pleasing in his eyes." 
 
 (4) Now, then, being thus equipped, we ;ire able 
 (in the fourteenth verse) to contemplate Christian 
 
CHAPTER IV. VERSES 1-16. 303 
 
 steadfastness. Our food is no longer milk, our pleas- 
 ures are no longer childish (1 Cor. xiii. 11), the tutors 
 and governors have done with us, and we stand forth 
 in the cause of Christ as fearless soldiers of the cross — 
 no longer babes, infants, children, tossed to and fro 
 and carried about with every wind of doctrine. The 
 figure is beautiful and very expressive. If it w^ere 
 found in Homer, Virgil or Longiims, there Avould 
 have been notes and dissertations upon it. See the 
 unstable, restless billows of the sea ! how they rise and 
 fall and swell and surge over the rocks ! They are 
 ever on the move ; you cannot calculate on them. 
 Such is a child ; all things are new to it, and the 
 childish fancy changes like the waves and the winds. 
 (See Isa. xxviii. 9 ; Matt. xi. 7 ; 1 Cor. xiv. 20 ; Heb. 
 xiii. 9.) In this respect ye must be children no more ; 
 ye are no more like the changeable waves, but the 
 firm rock that resists them. Jesus is the Rock of 
 ages, and ye, being built upon him, share his strength 
 and steadfastness. Your prayers, your faith and your 
 hopes must partake of the certainty and firmness of 
 unchangeable truth, for he that wavereth is like a wave 
 of the sea and need not expect the blessing of the Lord 
 (James i. 6). We admire the firmness of the ancient 
 Romans, but how much more admirable is the firmness 
 of honest, intelligent Christian men in the full and 
 fearless assertion of the doctrine of Christ, especially 
 when it is the firmness of unresisting love bearing up 
 against, and even in suffering and death triumphing 
 over, the cruelty and wrath of the persecutor ! This 
 inflexible firmness of the Christian consciousness it is 
 which in the apostolic ages triumphed over heathenism 
 and planted the banner of the cross on the imperial 
 
304 GRAHAM ON EPHESIANS. 
 
 throne; which in the days of our venerated fathers 
 pulled down the immense fabric of papal superstition 
 in Britain and won for it and the world the principle 
 of religious liberty ; which then and now, and for ever, 
 must awaken and sustain the hostility of a sin-loving 
 and God-forgetting world. There are deceivers abroad 
 (says the apostle), who with the trickery and cunning of 
 gamesters * lay their plans to seduce you from the sim- 
 plicity of Christ. Such existed in the primitive times, 
 and such exist still — men of corrupt minds who delight 
 to seduce the innocent, and who forget or disbelieve 
 that there is a God that judgeth in the earth. Stand 
 fast, therefore, against these corrupters, and show them 
 that if in malice ye are children, yet in steadfastness 
 ye are men. 
 
 (5) Speaking the truth in love. The Greek verb 
 here has been variously translated. Jerome has 
 '^^ Doing the truth in love f Beza, ''''Carrying yourselves 
 in charity f Lutlier, "'Genuine in love f De Wette, 
 "0/ the truth, studious in love f Osterwald and Mar- 
 tin, "Following the truth in love ;" Desacy, ''''Practicing 
 the truth in love^ Those who wish to see more vari- 
 eties of exposition or translation may consult Harless. 
 (See Gal. iv. 16 ; comp. the Septuagint, Gen. xlii. 16 ; 
 Isa. xliv. 26.) 
 
 Speaking the truth in love, acting out the truth in 
 love, is opposed to the changing principles of falsehood, 
 which make men as unstable as the waves of the sea. 
 If church-officers be in the mind of the apostle, then 
 truth is the object and the end of their ministrations ; 
 if the members of the church, then, too, truth is the 
 
 * Kubeia, " a game at dice." The root is the Arabic Caab, wheuce 
 " cube," and the " Caaba " of the BeituUah in Mecca. 
 
CHAPTER IV. VERSES 1-16. 305 
 
 pearl of great price, for which they are to sell all that 
 they have that they may purchase. This speaking 
 the truth in love is the means of their edification — that 
 is, their growing up into him in all things which is the 
 Head, even Christ. But remember that this speaking, 
 or acting out, the truth must be in love ; otherwise, the 
 effect is entirely lost. Truth spoken in bitterness 
 works no conviction in the conscience. Charity edi- 
 fieth. Truth spoken in love is the balm to soothe 
 broken hearts ; it is the oil of the good Samaritan to 
 calm the troubled waters of the wounded spirit. This 
 is the sap of the vine, the cement that binds together 
 the stones of the living temple, the truth spoken in 
 love. God is the God of truth ; Jesus is the way, the 
 truth and the life ; the Bible is the word of truth, and 
 everything in Scripture tends to magnify and enhance 
 the value of truth. Be this, then, the principle of 
 your walk and conversation among men — to speak 
 the truth in love ; and, doing so, we may be sure that 
 we shall grow up into the fellowship of the risen Head. 
 
 (6) We com" now to the sixteenth verse, which un- 
 folds the principle of the Head and the body, already 
 mentioned largely in our chapter, but ever recurring 
 in the writings of Paul. Christ is the Head, and be- 
 lievers are the members of his body (1 Cor. xi. 3 ; xii. 
 27; Eph. i. 22; iv. 15; v. 23; Col. i. 18; ii. 10, 19). 
 
 The obvious truths contained in this figure are the 
 following : 
 
 First. That there is complete and absolute distinction 
 between the Church and the world ; they are, in time 
 and in eternity, as distinct from each other as any two 
 corporations can be. 
 
 Secondly. The visible churches of Christendom are 
 
 39 
 
300 GRAHAM ON EPHESIANS. 
 
 not the body of Christ ; they contain the members of 
 it, but the vast mass of baptized unbelievers cannot, ex- 
 cept in a very wide sense, be said to belong to the body 
 of Christ. 
 
 Thirdly. We become members of Christ by faith in 
 his name, ?.nd this union is the great truth expressed 
 by the various terms " conversion," " repentance," " new 
 nature," " new birth," " new life," etc. 
 
 Fourthly. We are strong in faith, warm in our affec- 
 tions, pure, peaceful and holy, in proportion as we 
 realize our position and standing as members of our 
 risen Head. Conscious communion with him and 
 through him is the source of a serene and joyful 
 Christian walk. 
 
 Fifthly. This is a growing union ; the relations be- 
 tween the soul and the Saviour become closer as we 
 know and enjoy more of his love. The more we drink 
 from the ocean of his fullness, the more we desire to 
 drink. His love in us is at first only a spark, but, be- 
 ing nourished and fed with oil from the sanctuary, it 
 becomes a flame which nothing can extinguish. 
 
 May we realize the dignity and responsibility of our 
 position ! We are joined with the Conqueror at the 
 right hand of God. Let us tread this earth lightly, 
 knowing that our heart and our treasure and our 
 home are in heaven. 
 
 " The Saviour lives, no more to die ; 
 He lives, the Lord enthroned on high ; 
 He lives, triumphant o'er the grave; 
 He lives eternally to save. 
 He lives to still his; ])eople's fears ; 
 He lives to wipe away their tears; 
 He lives their mansions to prepare; 
 He lives to bring them safely there." 
 
CHAPTEK IX. 
 
 This I say therefore, and testify in the Lord, that ye henceforth walk 
 not as other Gentiles walk, in the vanity of their mind, having the un- 
 derstanding darkened, being alienated from the life of God through the 
 ignorance that is in them, because of the blindness of their heart: who 
 being past feeling have given themselves over unto lasciviousness, to 
 work all uncleanness with greediness. But ye have not so learned 
 Christ; if so be that ye have heard him, and have been taught by him, 
 as the truth is in Jesus : that ye put off concerning the former conver- 
 sation the old man, which is corrupt according to the deceitful lusts ; 
 and be renewed in the spirit of your mind ; and that ye put on the new 
 man, which after God is created in righteousness and true holiness. 
 Wherefore putting away lying, speak every man truth with his neigh- 
 bor : for we are members one of another. Be ye angry and sin not : let 
 not the sun go down upon your wrath : neither give place to the devil. 
 Let him that stole steal no more : but rather let him labor, working with 
 his hands the thing which is good, that he may have to give to him that 
 needeth. Let no corrupt communication proceed out of your mouth, 
 but that which is good to the use of edifying, that it may minister grace 
 unto the hearers. And grieve not the Holy Spirit of God, whereby ye 
 are sealed unto the day of redemption. Let all bitterness, and wrath, 
 and anger, and clamor, and evil-speaking, be put away from you, with 
 all malice : and be ye kind one to another, tenderhearted, forgiving one 
 another, even as God for Christ's sake hath forgiven you. — Ephesians 
 iv. 17-32. 
 
 This fine passage refers to two parties and delineates 
 the character and duties which belong to them respect- 
 ively, the Gentiles and the believing Church — the state 
 of heathenism and the state of Christianity ; in other 
 words, what the Ephesians had been and what grace 
 had made them — our condition by nature and our gos- 
 
 3(17 
 
308 GRAHAM ON EPHESIANS. 
 
 pel state. The first we find described in ver.-es 17-19, 
 and to it we must first turn our attention. 
 
 I. The Walk of the Gentiles — Nature. 
 
 This I say therefore, a7id testify in the Lord, that ye 
 henceforth walk not as other Gentiles walk, in the vanity 
 of their mind, having the understanding darkened, be- 
 ing alienated from the life of God through the ignorance 
 that is in them, because of the blindness of their heart : 
 who being past feeling have given themselves over unto 
 lasciviousness, to work all imcleanness with greediness 
 (ver. 17-19). 
 
 It is melancholy to look abroad uj)on the fair and 
 beautiful world which God pronounced very good and 
 find poison in the plants, disease and death in the at- 
 mosphere, the elemen s of combustion and confusion 
 slumbering in the earth, and the whole form and come- 
 liness of nature sullied by the defilement of sin. It is 
 still more melancholy to contemplate the history of man^ 
 the king and lord, as well as the minister and inter- 
 preter, of Nature — a history not of beautiful and lov- 
 ing obedience to God, but of misery, confusion, moral 
 degradation and death. Almost every page of history 
 is reddened with the blood of battles, defeats and vic- 
 tories. Gigantic forms of evil rise si^ontaneously in the 
 different nations out of the human heart, and shed their 
 corrupting seeds over the polluted soul which produced 
 them. The simple instincts of our moral nature be- 
 come perverted and the distinctions between good and 
 evil, right and wrong, are confounded under the influ- 
 ence of evil habits and triumphant crime. Religion 
 degenerates into idolatry, and the erect and noble form 
 of man is seen bowing down to the work of his own 
 
CHAPTER IV. VERSES 17-3*^ 309 
 
 hands. The thoughtful who are capable of contemplat- 
 ing the frame of Nature and the regularity of her laws 
 become pantheists and altogether reject the idea of a 
 living, personal God. The ignorant multitudes, how- 
 ever, feeling their weakness, trembling for the future 
 and knowing that they must die, will have gods ; their 
 nature is religious, and the corrupt heart will produce 
 gods like themselves. "'Timor fecit deos " (" Fear made 
 the gods "), said the old heathen scoffer ; and it is cer- 
 tainly true that polytheism, in all its ramifications, is 
 the counterpart and exponent of the moral condition 
 of the nations. The worship and the worshipers cor- 
 respond to each other as face answers to face in a glass. 
 The descending scale from God to Nature is an histor- 
 ical fact connecting Adam with his fallen posterity ; the 
 ascent from Nature U23 to Nature's God is a metaphys- 
 ical fiction proved historically to be false by all the re- 
 ligions of heathenism. The only vinculum between a 
 holy God and the fallen creation is revelation. The 
 conception of such a character as that of the Son of 
 God is as much above us as is the creation of the 
 world. In the midst of this system of fallen man- 
 hood, which for ages sent forth as from a teeming 
 fountain its corrupt streams, Christianity, a seed of 
 life in Judaism, bursts forth in the Lord and his 
 apostles into full maturity and vigor. Now the con- 
 test begins in earnest, and the warfare between light 
 and darkness must envelop all the nations of the 
 world. "This I testify in the Lord" (a solemn as- 
 severation), says Paul, "that ye walk not as other 
 Gentiles walk." 
 
 First. In the vanity of their mi7id. This is the first 
 indictment against heathenism. It is vain, empty, 
 
310 GRAHAM ON EPHESIANS. 
 
 fruitless. There is nothing substantial, immortal, 
 eternal, in it. The vanities are the idols (Acts xiv. 
 15) which the nations worship instead of God, who 
 made the heavens and the earth, and the vain conver- 
 sation (1 Pet. i. 18) is the idolatrous walk which we 
 received by tradition from our fathers. So the He- 
 brews used vanities for the false gods of the heathen 
 ( Jer. viii. 19 ; x. 8 ; xiv. 22 ; Eccl. v. 6 ; Deut. xxxii. 
 21 ; 1 Kings xvi. 13; Ps. xxxi. 7 [in Hebrew]. They 
 made their idols, they worshiped them and they ex- 
 pected blessings from them. All this is folly and 
 vanity. God alone is the object of our adoration, 
 and he alone can hear and answer our prayers. 
 The oracles, the idols, the images, which the nations 
 venerate are lying vanities and cannot protect their 
 votaries in the time of danger. They walk in the 
 vanity of their mind ; they have no true notions of 
 the nature, majesty and perfections of God; and, know- 
 ing nothing really greater than themselves, they are be- 
 come vainly puffed up and inflated. Give them the 
 knowledge of the true God and they see their insig- 
 nificance at once. 
 
 Second. Having the understanding darkened. Go 
 into any heathen country and realize this picture. 
 You find no truth, no love of truth, in the land ; so 
 that in courts it is nearly impossible to get at the truth. 
 Lying is not considered criminal, and truth-telling is 
 unnecessary when it ceases to be useful. The under- 
 standing is darkened ; the fountains of life are cor- 
 rupted in their very source, and all the foundations of 
 rectitude and morality are destroyed. The presence 
 of a personal, powerful, all-seeing God is wanted, and 
 no fictions of the mind can supply its place. 
 
CHAPTER IV. VERSP>i 17-32. 311 
 
 Third. Alienated from the life of God through the 
 ignorance that is in them, because of the blindness of 
 their heart. What is the life of God f Some say it 
 is a life according to the will of God ; Calvin makes it 
 regeneration ; and Olshausen, the life which every creat- 
 ure has while it remains in communion with God. I 
 understand it to be simply the life w^liich God gives, 
 which seems the simplest and most natural meaning of 
 this genitive. " Life," in Scripture, signifies happiness, 
 glory, the beatific enjoyment of Jehovah in his king- 
 dom (Matt. xix. 16, 17 ; John iii. 15, 16) ; and these he 
 graciously promises to share with his saints. From all 
 this they are alienated through the ignorance that is 
 in them. It is life eternal to know the true God and 
 Jesus Christ whom he has sent (John xvii. 3). This 
 life is in Jesus Christ our Redeemer ; and till the Gen- 
 tiles receive him they remain in death, and the wrath 
 of God abideth upon them (John iii. 36). What a 
 motive for the missions of the Church ! 
 
 "Hark! what mean those lamentations 
 Rolling sadly through the sky ? 
 'Tis the cry of heathen nations : 
 'Come and help us ere we die.' 
 
 " Christians, hear their sad complaining ; 
 Listen to their dying cry ; 
 And, the love of Christ consti'aining, 
 Join to help them ere they die." 
 
 This is not the cry of earnest convicted sinners longing 
 to be delivered from the burden of transgression, but 
 the dumb, stupid cry of millions who feel little or 
 nothing of their wretchedness and alienation from God. 
 Fourth. Blindness, or rather hardness, is the thicken- 
 ing or hardening of the skin till it becomes callous ; 
 
il2 GRAHAM ON EPHESIANS. 
 
 and so, says the apostle, the Gentiles have turned into 
 the hardness and insensibility of stone the heart which 
 God made to love and serve him. The moral sense is 
 extinguished ; so that they can recognize neither their 
 own necessities nor the claims which God has upon 
 them. This is an awful characteristic of the heathen 
 world, and calls upon us to send them the gospel of 
 Him who is eternal love. 
 
 "Shall we whose souls are lighted 
 With wisdom from on high — 
 Shall we to men benighted 
 The lamp of life deny?" 
 
 Oh no, never! These darkened, blinded nations 
 have upon us a thousand claims which we should seek 
 to meet before we stand at the judgment-seat of Christ. 
 
 Fifth. Being past feeling have given themselves over 
 unto lasciviousness (ver. 19) . The Greek word for " being 
 past feeling " signifies to grieve out — to have done with 
 grieving over one's actions, so that all sense of shame 
 is lost. This is a fearful trait of character, and with 
 unerring skill marks the polytheism of the heathen. 
 Read their literature and observe how deeply immoral 
 the best and the purest of their writers were. Look 
 at the monuments of the Greeks and Romans in gen- 
 eral, look at the ruins of Herculaneum and Pompeii, 
 and think how scandalous and shameless the public 
 manners of the nation must have been. Or enter a 
 heathen temple in India where the gods are to be wor- 
 shiped, and at the present hour you behold the abom- 
 inations of Venus, Baal and Astarte. Shame is one 
 of the first feelings of childhood, as well as one of the 
 strongest of our manhood ; and when we have become 
 
CHAPTER IV. VP:ESES 17-32. 313 
 
 able to extinguish it, our condition is morally hope- 
 less. The beautiful and the good can attract us no 
 more. Hence the natural consequence was the next 
 step in the climax — viz., they gave " themselves over 
 unto lasciviousness, to work all uncleanness with greed- 
 iness." A fearful picture, truly ! Every word is em- 
 phatic and shows the dominion which sinful habit 
 had acquired over them. It was their own act ; they 
 gave themselves over to it. They gloried and rejoiced 
 in working all uncleanness with greediness. Sin is a 
 fearful master ; it increases its dominion over us with 
 all the rapidity of a burning fire. Every indulgence 
 enlarges the appetite and makes repentance more im- 
 probable and more difficult. Such were the Gentiles 
 as Paul saw them, and as he described them with a 
 master's hand. Hence the necessity of a divine rev- 
 elation to teach and of a divine Deliverer to redeem. 
 Blessed be God, the fullness of the times came, and 
 the seed of a woman became the Serpent-Bruiser. The 
 Daystar has arisen to chase away the darkness and the 
 dangers of the night. 
 
 Sixth. It may be objected to the apostle's description 
 of heathenism that it is exaggerated, and even contrary 
 to the innate principles of human virtue and rectitude. 
 But the proper answer to this is: (1) It is yet to be 
 proved that there are innate principles of virtue in 
 man — I admit innate capacities only — and till ihis is 
 done we may hold by the words of Paul in this matter ; 
 (2) I have mentioned already that the literature and 
 the monuments of the heathen, ancient and modern, 
 are remarkably corrupt and abominable ; (3) I add 
 that their wise men and philosophers taught sentiments 
 of the grossest impiety and vileness ; so that, as Origen 
 
 40 
 
314 GRAHAM ON EPHESIANS. 
 
 says, " In committing adultery and whoredom tliey 
 did not think themselves violating good manners." 
 Among the refined and civilized Greeks theft was dis- 
 honorable only when the thief had not sufficient adroit- 
 ness to conceal it. The great philosopher of Athens 
 taught Aspasia the arts of seduction. The wise men 
 of heathenism had hardly any perception of the beauty 
 of truth. Whitby collects some of their maxims on 
 this subject. Menander lays down the rule that "a lie 
 is better than a hurtful truth ;" Proclus asserts that 
 " good is better than truth ;" Darius, in Herodotus, 
 teaches, "When telling a lie is profitable, tell it." 
 Plato allows you to lie as much as you please, if you 
 do it at the proper time ; for, as Maximus Tyrius 
 asserts, " there is nothing decorous in truth save when 
 it is profitable, and sometimes a lie is profitable and 
 truth is injurious to men." These specimens will be 
 sufficient to justify the apostle in his awful denun- 
 ciations of the crimes and corruptions of the heathen 
 world. 
 
 But come now, an 1 from verse 20 onward let us 
 contemplate — 
 
 II. The Duties and the Virtues of the New- 
 Testament Church. 
 
 But ye have not so learned Christ ; if so be that ye 
 have heard him, and have heen taught by him, as the 
 truth is ill Jesus (ver. 20, 21). 
 
 First. Ye have not so learned Christ. Ye have 
 received him as the source of all goodness, purity and 
 truth, in whom there is grace for the humble, strength 
 for the weak and mercy for every guilty creature. 
 Here Jesus Christ is presented as the great object of 
 
CHAFrER IV. VERSES 17-32. 315 
 
 the believer's study, and truly the theme is a high and 
 wonderful one. Think of a Mediator between the 
 holy, infinite God and his weak, sinful creatures — his 
 qualifications, his offices and his mighty acts ; think 
 of him in all the varieties of person and character, 
 as the Son of God and the son of man, the King and 
 the subject, the Sceptre-Bearer and the burden-bearer, 
 in whom, from the beginning, all the prophecies and 
 promises centre, and in whom now, through his incar- 
 nation, crucifixion and ascension, they are fulfilled and 
 for evermore made sure to his believing people. This 
 is no subject for cold speculation. No ; we behold in 
 him the medium and the measure of Jehovah's love, 
 and are drawn to him by a thousand cords of admi- 
 ration and gratitude. 
 
 " O verbum incarnatum, 
 Rerum principium, 
 Pro vie humiliatum, 
 Velut mancipium," * 
 
 The more we know of him, the less are we likely to 
 be puffed up with other knowledge. All knowledge is 
 in itself good and elevating, but in Christ alone it 
 becomes a holy, sanctifying principle, casting down 
 pride and all lofty imaginations. Hence the apostle 
 speaks not so much of knowing and being taught 
 the truth generally, but — 
 
 Second. The truth as it is i7i Jesus. Here is the 
 great difference between a person and a thing — between 
 a holy, living reality and a cold, beautiful abstraction. 
 We connect everything with the loving person of our 
 Kinsman-Redeemer, and find its value infinitely en- 
 
 * " Incarnate Word, creation's primal Fount, 
 For me thou didst assume a servant's form." 
 
316 GRAHAM ON EPHESIANS. 
 
 hanced thereby. Every utterance is sweet because he 
 speaks ; every gift noble and attractive, because he 
 gives ; every precept, doctrine and warning effectual, 
 because he is the Teacher. He teaches as one having 
 authority, and not as the scribes. We know that he 
 loves ; that in his descent from the throne to the 
 manger, the cross and the grave he has given the 
 most wonderful proofs of his love; and hence the 
 words and truths which from others would have been 
 ineffectual to penetrate our hearts with the authority 
 of God. It is no longer an idea or a theory or a 
 doctrine, but a person, a holy, loving, redeeming 
 Brother, in whom we see all truth, holiness and beauty 
 realized and manifested. 
 
 "O Lord, our Lord, and spoiler of our foes, 
 There is no light but thine ; with thee all beauty glows." 
 
 III. What we are to Put Off. 
 
 That ye put off concerning the former conversation 
 the old man, ivhich is corrupt according to the deceitful 
 lusts (ver. 22). 
 
 Hence, being taught the truth as it is in Jesus, ye are 
 to put off the old man, which is corrupt according to 
 the deceitful lusts. Who is this " old man " ? The 
 old man means the old Adam in us, as distinguished 
 from Christ, the second Adam, formed in our hearts 
 the hope of glory. There is a vinculum that connects 
 us with the fall — the old man ; and there is a connect- 
 ing-link which unites us with the Redeemer — the new 
 man which is created in righteousness and true holi- 
 ness. These are the twins, like Jacob and Esau, 
 struggling in the heart of every man ; these are the 
 two laws which war against each other so fiercely 
 
CHAPTEK IV. VERSES 17-32. 317 
 
 (Rom, vii. 23) in the very bosom of the Church, the 
 inward types of the two kingdoms — the Cains and the 
 Abels, the Sauls and the Davids, the Judases and the 
 Johns — which have been in mortal conflict since the 
 beginning of the world, and which must continue to 
 be so until the coming of the Lord, when the kingdom 
 and the dominion, and the greatness of the kingdom 
 under the whole heaven, shall be given to the people 
 of the saints of the Most High, whose kingdom is an 
 everlasting kingdom, and all dominions shall serve 
 and obey him (Dan. vii. 27). 
 
 The nature of the old man is clearly defined in 
 Scripture, and, taken in connection with its contrasts 
 and accompaniments, teaches us much important truth. 
 Thus the old man is to be put ofl' and the new man 
 put on ; he is corruptible, and therefore to be crucified, 
 or rather we who believe are baptized into the faith 
 that he is crucified with Christ on the cross, and that 
 the new man should henceforth be our only concern. 
 This is nearly the same as the oukvard man, in whom 
 the seeds of the flesh find their nourishment and 
 growth, whom it is oui- duty to resist and weaken day 
 by day until the new creature, the inner man, be pre- 
 pared in beauty and holiness for entering into the 
 kingdom of the Lord. 
 
 How may we know the old man when we meet him ? 
 The twenty-second verse gives us two marks of him : 
 he is connected with our former conversation when we 
 lived in unregeneracy, and he is corrupt according to 
 the deceitful lusts. These make his presence known, 
 and, indeed, one great part of the work of grace in the 
 heart is to resist and conquer his devices. There must 
 be a constant putting oft' while we are in the flesh, 
 
318 GRAHAM ON EPHESIANS. 
 
 a constant watching unto prayer, a continual resisting 
 of indwelling corruption, that the temple of our hearts 
 may be kept pure and entire for our dear Lord and 
 Saviour Jesus Christ. 
 
 "Oh for a heart to praise my God, 
 
 A heart from sin set free ; 
 A heart that's sprinkled with tlie blood 
 
 So freely shed for me; 
 A heart resigned, submissive, meek, 
 
 My blessed Saviour's throne, 
 Where only Christ is heard to speak, 
 
 Where Jesus reigns alone." 
 
 IV. The Renewal : What we are to Put On. 
 
 And be renewed in the spirit of your mind ; and that 
 ye put on the new man, which after God. is created in 
 righteousness and true holiness (ver. 23, 24). 
 
 Christianity is not a system of negation. Every- 
 thing is clear, definite and personal — positive duties 
 commanded, positive sins named and forbidden, positive 
 doctrines to be tauglit, and positive real persons to 1 e 
 loved or hated, as the case may be. Even so it is not 
 enough that we die to sin : we must also live to right- 
 eousness. Death is only the preparation for life, and 
 the loathsome passage of the grave leads to Mount 
 Olivet and from thence to the heavenly throne. Put 
 off the old and put on the new ; resist sin, cleave unto 
 righteousness ; cease to do evil, learn to do well. Sin 
 must be dethroned from the heart that grace may enter 
 in and reign. Wash before you dress ; scourge out ihe 
 buyers and the sellers from the temple that the rightful 
 Lord may there receive homage. The ancient fabric 
 must come down, the sin-defiled structure must l>e 
 leveled to the dust, before there can be laid the four.- 
 
CHAPTER IV. VEESES 17 32. 319 
 
 dations of grace on which the new and beautiful temple 
 must stand. Death and defilement have penetrated into 
 the recesses of our moral nature ; so that we require to 
 be renewed in the very spirit of our mind. 
 
 This is a word of deep meaning, and we should con- 
 sider it well. Not only the nous — the entire structure 
 of the mind — is disordered and sullied, but the pneuma 
 — the very spirit of the mind, the will and the affec- 
 tions, the guiding, controlling faculties of our being — 
 are lying in ruinous disorder and require to be re- 
 newed. It is ever so. The deeper we search into the 
 inner spirit of the natural mind, the more we find of 
 chaos and night, of emptiness and rebellion against the 
 will of God. The slime of the serpent has stained the 
 fair material creation, and his poison has corrupted the 
 fountains of our life into pools of vileness deep and 
 black as hell. We need regeneration ; the very spirit 
 of our mind needs to );e renewed. 
 
 This being done, then, by the good Spirit of God, we 
 are to put on the new man, which, after God (in con- 
 formity to the will of God), is created in righteousness 
 and true holiness, or, according to the Hebrew-Greek 
 form, is created in the righteousness and holiness of 
 truth. There is an apparent righteousness and holiness 
 which is not based on truth, but on falsehood, and can 
 never be acceptable to the God of holiness and truth. 
 His nature is holy, his work is perfect and his word is 
 true. He requires truth in the hidden parts, and can 
 never be satisfied with the outward appearance of de- 
 votion, in which not truth, but error, is the ruling 
 principle. 
 
 With regard to the new man we observe : (1) That 
 it is entirely the work of the Holy Spirit, and can never 
 
:^20 GEAHAM ON EPHESIANS. 
 
 be accomplished by the mere will of the creature (John 
 i. 13). He who in the material creation at the begin- 
 nino; breathed order and life into the chaotic mass must 
 breathe into and vitalize our souls. He enters into the 
 ruins which sin and death have made and brings forth 
 the new man — not holding of Adam, but of Christ ; 
 not the perfect man of creation, but the perfect man of 
 regeneration — on whom, glorified and immortalized in 
 the kingdom of heaven, all the lineaments of the char- 
 acter of Christ shall be eternally inscribed. (2) New 
 is the character of the dispensation. We have the new 
 covenant with better promises ; a new heart with its no- 
 bler aspirations ; a new name written upon us ; a new 
 nature created within us ; a new heaven above us ; a 
 new earth beneath our feet ; and a New Jerusalem be- 
 fore us as we march through the wilderness. Old 
 things have passed away ; behold, all things have be- 
 come new. 
 
 So the apostle tells us to put on the new man ; we are 
 united to Christ by faith, and he is the second Adam, 
 the Lord from heaven, who sitteth on the throne to 
 make all things new. Be it, then, our high aim to 
 walk in newness of life worthy of Him who haa 
 called us from darkness into his marvelous light. 
 
 " Oh, may thy Spirit seal our souls 
 
 And mould them to thy will, 
 That our weak hearts no more may stray, 
 
 But keep thy precepts still. 
 Till to perfection's sacred height 
 
 We nearer still may rise, 
 And all we think, and all we do, 
 
 Be pleasing in thine eyes " 
 
CHAPTER IV. VERSES 17-32. 321 
 
 V. Lying. 
 
 Wherefore putting away lying, speak every man truth 
 with his neighbor : for we are memhers one of another 
 (ver. 25). 
 
 There are various kinds of lies, which differ from one 
 another in moral enormity and vileness. (1) There are 
 metaphysical lies, which are nearly the same as mis- 
 takes, as when you see a man coming in the distance 
 and assert he is such a one, when, on approaching, he 
 is found to be another. Such lies, however blame- 
 worthy, are quite different from voluntary, malignant 
 lies. (2) There are lies of a blacker character, which 
 may be called lies of jesting and humor. This vile 
 habit leads naturally to still more criminal lies. (3) 
 There are lies arising from profit, shame, ambition, 
 where the liar wishes to defend himself or to escape 
 some deserved punishment or to gain some advantage. 
 (4) The intentional, malignant lie, by which we seek 
 to deceive our fellow-men or to blacken their character. 
 This is the climax of the liar's malignity, and very 
 often he proceeds from one grade to another in this 
 accumulating process of falsehood. The apostle says, 
 ''''Put aivay lying " — viz., all kinds of lying — and speak 
 truth every one with his neighbor. 
 
 Wherein lies the evil of lying ? We observe (1) that 
 a lie is the nearest thing possible to suicide, being 
 a denial of the personality which God has given us 
 and calculated to reduce the order of God's creation to 
 confusion. (2) It is contrary to the nature and use of 
 language, and to the purpose of God himself in giving 
 us the organs of speech. (3) It makes men like devils 
 and destroys all confidence in human society. Two 
 
 41 
 
322 GKAIIAM ON EPHESIANS. 
 
 men give each other the lie, and you have a duel ; one 
 mob gives another the lie, and tliere is a riot ; two na- 
 tions give each other the lie, and you have war ; our 
 race gave God the lie in paradise, and we have the fall 
 — the heaven and the earth in conflict with each other. 
 Such are the effects of a lie. (4) We add that tlie liar 
 is shut out from the kingdom of heaven by the author- 
 ity of God, being by both nature and practice unfitted 
 for the heavenly home. All truth and all righteous- 
 ness are destroyed by lying; and hence it is the 
 mark and sign-manual of the devil, wdio first brought 
 disorder and confusion into the universe. 
 
 But are there no lies of necessity f Are there no 
 examples where lies are justifiable ? May we not fol- 
 low the example of the midwives (Ex. i. 18) ; of E,a- 
 hab (Josh. ii. 4) ; of Michal (1 Sam. xix. 16, 17) ; of 
 David (1 Sam. xx. 6) ; of Hushai (2 Sam. xvi. 17, 18) ; 
 of Elisha (2 Kings vi. 19) ? No ; these are not to be 
 followed, but avoided, inasmuch as God gave us in his 
 word the faults as well as the virtues of his saints. 
 Augustine {contra mendacium), speaking of the mid- 
 wives, says, ^'Benefecit Us Deus, non quia mentitce 
 sunt, sed quia in homines Dei misericordes fuerunt ; 
 non est itaque in els remunerata fallacia, sed benevo- 
 lentia ; benignitas mentis, non iniquitas mentientis — 
 that is, " God rewarded the midwives, not for their 
 lying, but for their kindness to his people. Here, then, 
 there is no reward given to falsehood, but to gener- 
 osity ; the reward is given to the kindness of the heart, 
 and not to the iniquity of the liar." So we say of the 
 others ; and we utterly deny that the word of God or 
 right reason can ever be made to justify what are called 
 lies of necessity. Besides, how can we know when 
 
CHAPTER IV. VERSES 17-32. 323 
 
 there is such a necessity ? Cannot God deliver us ? Or 
 may it not be better that we should not be delivered ? 
 Do we really believe in God and in providence? Or 
 are these mere names, and therefore are we left to take 
 care of ourselves ? His glory and our own good may, 
 perhaps, require the very thing we wish to avoid. The 
 moment we seek to violate the laws of the creation, 
 mental or moral, we are seeking after another God ! 
 The ^'Mea fraus omnis'' ("The fraud is mine") of 
 Virgil {vEneid ix. 427) is not a case in point; nor, 
 indeed, is such a case conceivable, whatever the casuists 
 of Rome and the Jesuits may say to the contrary. 
 
 See, on the other hand, what ruin and what desolation 
 have been brought about by lies (Gen. iii. 1,2; xxxix. 
 14 ; 1 Kings xxi. 13 ; 2 Kings v. 22 ; Esth. iii. 8 ; 
 Matt. xxvi. 70; xxviii. 13; Acts v. 3; Tit. i. 12, etc.) 
 from the beginning of the world. God is the God of 
 truth ; Jesus is the way, the truth and the life. We 
 fell by the liar, and we are restored by the Truth- 
 Bringer. The lie is the great divider between heart 
 and heart, between man and his fellow, between God 
 and his creatures. Truth is the healer of all breaches, 
 the blood of the body, the cement of the temple of 
 God. It may be opposed and ojDpressed and seem- 
 ingly extinguished, but out of the blood and the ashes 
 of the martyrs it will again rise with greater force and 
 beauty than before. ''Magna est Veritas et prcevalebit " 
 ("Great is the truth, and it shall prevail"). Nothing 
 is more admirable than an honest, sincere, truth-speak- 
 ing tongue. 
 
 Speak every man truth with his neighbor. The 
 truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, is 
 one of the best characteristics of the Christian con- 
 
324 GEAHAM ON EPHESIANS. 
 
 "versation. The reason is, " For we are members one 
 of another " — that is, we all belong to the same body 
 of Christ, to the sanie human family, to the same uni- 
 verse of God ; and the life that pervades it all is truth, 
 the circulating medium in the celestial corporation. 
 In speaking lies you vitiate the blood by the infusion 
 of a poisonous foreign element, and as it flows through 
 the whole it will weaken the whole. A hint, an innu- 
 endo, uttered in the privacy of the tea-table, may ruin 
 the character at the distance of thousands of miles. 
 We are wonderfully knit together in the widespread- 
 ing, entangled, many-colored web-work of humanity ; 
 and the great bond of union is the truth, is the true 
 One, in whom, as a centre, all that is truthful and 
 beautiful and serene finds its resting-place and its 
 home. Let us speak truth one with another, for we 
 are members one of another. We were all created in 
 one man — Adam ; we fell and were smitten to death 
 in one man ; we were all in the ark with Noah when 
 the waters covered the world ; we were all redeemed in 
 one Man — the Lord from heaven. The race is one, 
 and must bear one another's 1 urdens ; the Church is 
 one, and the members suffer and rejoice with one an- 
 other. This mutual membership is the law of crea- 
 tion, the law of providence and the law of love. A 
 whole nation was cursed in Ham, a whole nation blest 
 in Shem ; a world destroyed in Adam, a new creation 
 redeemed in Christ. So in our families, in our churches 
 and in the kingdoms of the nations the great moral 
 law of brotherhood is mutual membership, and truth 
 ' — the truth spoken in love — is the healthful, purify- 
 ing medium which purges off the baser materials and 
 gives stability and beauty to them all. 
 
CHAPTER IV. VERSES 17-32. 325 
 
 "Quid est Veritas r ("What is truth?") said 
 Pilate, but would not wait for an answer. Transpose 
 these letters, and you have the answer : ''^st mi' qui 
 adest'^ {" It is the man who is present "). Yes, broth- 
 er, he is the truth — the Man who is present ; the ever- 
 watchful, faithful Friend who loved us and died for 
 our sins on the tree. He is the Truth, and our con- 
 versation should be of Him who, like truth, is the same 
 yesterday, to-day and for ever. 
 
 VI. Anger. 
 
 Be ye angry, and sin not : let not the sun go down 
 upon your wrath (ver. 26). 
 
 This may be taken as a command to be angry with 
 that with which God is angry ; to be indignant against 
 that unholy thing whicli he hates ; to be of the same 
 mind with God. This is the very highest idea we can 
 entertain of holiness. We should look upon sin and 
 righteousness, the Church and the world, time and 
 eternity, with his eyes ; we should enter into his mind 
 and be fully satisfied with the justice and excellence of 
 all that he does — his acts of love to the believer and his 
 fearful judgments upon the finally impenitent. 
 
 It is better, however, to take it as a permissive imper- 
 ative, thus : " It is allowable to be angry, but settled 
 hatred is forbidden ; let not the sun go down upon 
 your wrath." The sentence is probably taken from 
 Ps. iv. 4 (Sej^tuagint), where we find the words of our 
 text. Our translators have given it, " Stand in awe, 
 and sin not " — viz., stand in awe, in order that ye sin 
 not — a sense which the Hebrew may well bear, but 
 which the Greek hardly can. I think the meaning 
 is this : Anger is allowable, but it is dangerous and 
 
326 GRAHAM ON EPHESIANS. 
 
 difficult to control. Jesus looked round about on them 
 with anger, being grieved for the hardness of their 
 hearts (Mark iii. 5). God is angry with the wicked 
 every day. You too may be angry ; and if ye be so, take 
 care that ye sin not, and, above all, do not cherish the 
 principle of settled hatred and malignity. Be recon- 
 ciled before ye sleep. The disciples of Pythagoras, 
 when they had been angry, shook hands and embraced 
 before the going down of the sun. Every evening is to 
 remind us of death, and every morning of the resur- 
 rection of the dead. Reconciled with all our enemies 
 and filled with the forgiving spirit of our Master, we 
 can offer up the evening sacrifice of prayer and praise, 
 lifting up holy hands without wrath or doubting 
 (1 Tim. ii. 8). The spirit of the exhortation is the 
 sweet, tranquillizing breath of forgiving love. We 
 would imitate our heavenly Father, who is long-suffer- 
 ing, slow to anger and abundant in goodness and truth. 
 Charity, which is love, not only believes all things and 
 hopes all things, but also bears all things. This sweet- 
 ness of life and character is the main ornament of our 
 families, and far more impoitunt to our comfort and 
 well-being than clear-eyed wisdom or commanding 
 authority. The spirit of bitterness and complaint can 
 out of the thousand littles of life which love can pass 
 hj or forgive work a pandemonium where only devils 
 and devils' servants can feel at home. 
 
 Seek, then, brother, to have the mind of Christ, the 
 sweet, all-enduring, all-forgiving spirit which was 
 manifested in his active life and in his last dying 
 prayer : " Father, forgive them, for they know not 
 what they do." How nobly Stephen died (Acts vii. 
 54-60) breathing this spirit of love ! Nature, with 
 
CHAPTER IV. VERSES 17-32. 327 
 
 all her beauties, has nothing like this — so calm, so 
 
 patient, so Godlike. May we ever cherish the spirit 
 of forgiving love ! 
 We come now to — 
 
 VII. DiABOLUS THE DeVIL. 
 
 Neither give place to the devil (ver. 27). 
 
 We observe here that in the mind of the apostle 
 anger is connected with the agency of Satan. It is 
 when the passions are excited and the reason is thrown 
 off its guard that Satan is most likely to succeed in his 
 temptations. He tempted Adam through the appetite, 
 and it was when Jesus was alone and hungry that the 
 tempter came to him in the wilderness of Judea. The 
 Jews have a proverb that " Whosoever yields to anger 
 is under the dominion of the fiends." The Romans 
 called anger a fit of madness ; and we may well believe 
 that Satan, rejoicing in ruin and seeking to drive his 
 victims to the tombs (Matt. viii. 28), wishes nothing- 
 more ardently than to overthrow the stability and the 
 harmony of the human mind. 
 
 Some moderns translate this, " Neither give place to 
 the adversary," which is tame and unlike the apostolic 
 sentiment. Nothing can be more manifest than that 
 the Scriptures everywhere recognize the presence of a 
 powerful, personal, malignant being, the enemy of God 
 and his saints, the first sinner, the chief and lord of 
 a kingdom of wickedness and death (Eph. iv. 27 ; vi. 
 11 ; 1 Tim. iii. 6, 7 ; 2 Tim. ii. 26 ; Heb. ii. 14 ; James 
 iv. 7 ; 1 Pet. v. 8 ; 1 John iii. 8, etc.). He that can 
 make up 1 is mind to philosophize a personal devil 
 out of Scripture and out of the creation will not long- 
 hold by the doctrine of a personal Jehovah independ- 
 
328 GRAHAM ON EPHESIANS. 
 
 ent of the creation, the self-existent origin of all 
 things. All will become confused in the order and ob- 
 jects of thought, and a dim, dreary, indistinct form of 
 pantheistic abstraction will take the place of a holy, 
 living, eternal God in whom the weary find rest, the 
 persecuted an avenger and the sorrow-stricken world 
 the hope of everlasting life. So, on the other hand, 
 evil will lose its enormity when dissevered from per- 
 sonal agency; the fine feeling and edge of the con- 
 science will become blunted, until, in the end, every- 
 thing that exists — the good and the bad, the noblest 
 virtues and the foulest crimes — will be reduced to the 
 irresponsibility of a fatal necessity. No man is more 
 like to the devil than he who denies his existence. He 
 thinks himself free and victorious, while the coils of 
 the old serpent are around him in the embrace of 
 death. To the believer on the Son of God his power 
 is broken (1 John v. 18) and his fiery darts are 
 quenched on the shield of faith. Nevertheless, while 
 in this world we are subject to his temptations, though 
 with the sure confidence in our heavenly Father that 
 with the trial there shall also be a way of escape. 
 Greater is He that is in you than he that is in the 
 world. Without the permission of God and the con- 
 sent of our own will Satan cannot touch us (Luke xxii. 
 32; Job i.). Hence, Augustine says, '^ Oonsentientes 
 tenet, non invitos cogit " ('' Satan rules us by means 
 of the will ; he cannot force those who refuse him 
 admission "),* and (on Matt. iv. 6) ^^Persuadere potest, 
 prcecipitare non potest " (" He can persuade, but he 
 cannot force, us to sin "). He knocks, and may knock 
 loudly, but till you open he cannot enter. It is awful 
 
 * Ser. 32, 0pp. v. 114. 
 
CHAPTER IV. VERSES 17-32. 329 
 
 to think that any creature should make room in the 
 heart for the evil one, and yet we must be liable to 
 this danger or the Holy Spirit would never have 
 written for our learning the words, " Neither give 
 place to the devil." 
 
 How, then, dear brother, can we most effectually 
 resist him? 
 
 (1) Think of the promises of your heavenly Father, 
 the purpose of his eternal love, the perfect and glori- 
 ous attributes of his nature, all of which are engaged 
 in your behalf. 
 
 (2) Think of the person of the Lord Jesus Christ 
 and the wondrous work which he has done, and is still 
 doing, for you ; follow him in his descent from the 
 throne of heaven to the stable, the cross and the tomb 
 for thee, and read the inexpressible depths of compas- 
 sion which brought him so. For thee — for thee, my 
 brother, and for me — did he taste the bitterness and 
 overcome the sharpness of death. Then see him, the 
 Conqueror at the right hand of God, disjDcnsing the 
 gifts of the Holy Spirit as he pleases, adored by the 
 angels and ruling in our glorified nature over the 
 boundless universe. These thoughts will strengthen 
 your resolutions to resist the devil, 
 
 (3) Prayer should be your defence in the hour of 
 trial ; without prayer the soul feels herself divorced 
 from the fount of purity and strength, a withered 
 leaf broken off from the tree of life, a loose stone de- 
 tached from the temple of God, a homeless, aimless 
 wreck on the ocean of eternity. Take refuge in God ; 
 fall down before his footstool in the humility of a sin- 
 convicted rebel, yet in the confidence of an accepted 
 child ; and be assured that his grace will be sufficient 
 
 42 
 
'i30 GRAHAM ON EPHESIANS. 
 
 for you and his strength be made perfect in your 
 weakness. 
 
 (4) Then think, finally, on the cruelty, malignity 
 and final destiny of the devil. He is the enemy of 
 God and mankind ; his work is sin ; his habitation 
 for a thousand years is the bottomless pit, and then 
 the lake of fire for ever and ever. 
 
 Give no place to the devil. He is the enemy, the 
 destroyer, the old serpent, whom the Son of God was 
 manifested in our nature to cast out and destroy. 
 
 VIII. The Thief. 
 
 Let him that stole steal no more, but rather let him 
 labor, iiwrking with his hands the thing which is good, 
 that he may have to give to him that needeth (ver. 28). 
 
 Jerome thus translates: " Qui furabatur jam non fu- 
 retur f and Luther, our translators and many others 
 have followed him, though without doubt the natural 
 translation is "the thief:" Let the thief thieve no 
 more, etc. That the present participle may be used 
 in conjunction with imperfectly past action is manifest 
 from many examples (Acts vii. 18, 26 ; xvii. 5 ; Heb. 
 xi. 22 ; Luke v. 8) , and the present particii^le of the 
 substantive verb is often, especially in John, connected 
 with the imperfect, of which John xi. 25 is a remark- 
 able instance. Our translation, therefore, though not 
 the most natural, is perfectly justifiable and gives ex- 
 cellent sense. 
 
 Some of the Jewish rabbis and many heathen justi- 
 fied certain kinds of theft, especially if part of the 
 property were given for benevolent ends. In S2:)arta 
 theft was deemed dishonorable and punishable only 
 when it was discovered. The apostle teaches a differ- 
 
CHAPTEK IV. VERSES 17-32. 331 
 
 ent doctrine. Grace is the medicine for the diseased 
 soul — the only medicine that can renew its prostrate 
 powers. The thief, the drunkard and the murderer 
 are invited to enter into the kingdom of God, and his 
 grace has made provision for their fallen and fearful 
 degradation. There may have been thieves in the 
 cliurch at Ephesus, fornicators among the Corinth- 
 ians, flesh-cherishing legalists among the Galatians, 
 and then but one fountain for them all — the precious 
 blood of Christ. Nor did these or any other sins, how- 
 ever enormous, being given up and detested, ever shut 
 out any of them from the kingdom of heaven. Theft 
 is a fearful transgression of the divine law, and the 
 thunders of Sinai are uttered against it ; yet the dying 
 thief at the last hour obtained pardon and acceptance, and 
 is now, no doubt, among the spirits of the blest above. 
 The proper compensation for theft is labor, as the 
 apostle teaches ; and not only is he to work with his 
 own hands for his own support, but that he may have 
 something to give to him that needeth. This is a noble 
 principle, and we should carry it out in the Church 
 and in the world. If we are in need, it is no sin to ask 
 alms from the benevolent ; it is better to be able to sup- 
 port ourselves by our own industry ; and it is the best 
 of all to have an overplus, that we may be able to dis- 
 tribute to the poor. It is more blessed to give than to 
 receive ; and by giving a cup of cold water to a dis- 
 ciple in the name of Jesus we bring ourselves into the 
 position of God himself, the most blessed of all beings, 
 because he is the universal Givek. The ipoor shall 
 never cease out of the land, nor shall the benevo- 
 lence ever cease which God has appointed to supply 
 their wants. 
 
332 GEAHAM ON EPHESIANS. 
 
 IX. The Right Use of the Tongue. 
 
 Let no Gor7'upt coynmunication proceed out of your 
 mouth, but that which is good to the use of edfijiny, 
 that it may minister grace unto the hearers (ver. 29)_. 
 
 Here the Greek syntax is after the Hebrew form : 
 "All corrupt communications shall not proceed from 
 your mouth," instead of ^^Let no corrupt communication 
 proceed out of your mouths Compare the following- 
 passages in Greek as examples of this kind of construc- 
 tion : Matt. xxiv. 22 ; Rom. iii. 20 ; Eph. v. 5 ; 1 John 
 ii. 21 ; John iii. 15 ; 1 Cor. i. 29 ; Acts x. 14 ; vii. 1 ; 
 1 Cor. XV. 39 ; Matt. vii. 21. (Is there any difference 
 in meaning between nrj nilQ and oh naq, ?) The apostle 
 here begins, as in many other places, with the negative : 
 Let no corrupt word proceed out of your mouth. It 
 requires as much wisdom and as much grace to know 
 when to speak as to know to speak rightly, and it per- 
 haps requires more grace still to abstain from corrupt 
 communications. Corrupt does not mean merely ob- 
 scene and filthy, but everything impure and of evil 
 tendency. All that can irritate, divide or corrupt so- 
 ciety is here forbidden ; all hints at what dare not be 
 freely spoken about; all innuendos, double meanings 
 and mental reservations are forbidden. All such evil- 
 speaking tends to putrefy society and make it like cor- 
 rupting dead animals or decaying vegetable substances 
 (Matt. vii. 17, 18; xiii. 48; Luke vi. 43). Thus your 
 unguarded words are no trifle, inasmuch as they tend to 
 the destruction of the social edifice. This is verified in 
 all history. When the language and the literature be- 
 come corrupt, the nation is near its fall. This was true 
 of the Greeks and the Romans in ancient times, and in 
 
CHAPTER IV. VERSES 17-32. 333 
 
 modem Europe we have the example of France before 
 the Kevokition : the hmguage was corrupt and the 
 whole body politic interpenetrated with the poison of 
 insincerity and lying. So it is with the individual ; you 
 can judge of him by what he says and by what he does 
 not say. If his language be corrupt, you easily discern 
 the fountain from which it flows — the uuregenerate 
 heart (Matt. xv. 18, 19). This, then, is a characteristic 
 of the Christian, that no corrupt communication pro- 
 ceeds out of his mouth. Be it thine, be it mine, dear 
 brother, for by thy words thou shalt be justified, and 
 by thy words thou shalt be condemned (Matt. xii. 
 37). 
 
 But the tongue was made to be used, and hence more 
 than mere negative excellence is required. We must 
 speak whatsoever' is good (according to the Greek text) 
 for the edification of use — that is, say some, by hypal- 
 lage, for " the use of edifying," and quote " the master's 
 crib," instead of " the master of his crib," as something- 
 similar. Others search for various readings to get rid 
 of the difficulty. This is, however, quite in vain, as all 
 respectable authorities are in favor of the text as it 
 stands. The variations are mere emendations and re- 
 quire no notice. De Wette gives the correct translation 
 of this loose kind of genitive : "Zur Erbauing je nach 
 Bedi'irfness " (" Good for edification according to neces- 
 sity " — viz., as often as you require to use it). (For such 
 use of the genitive, see Winer, sect. 30-2.) Thus, then, 
 the meaning will be, "As often as edification is required 
 you are to speak that which is good, that it may minister 
 grace to the hearers." 
 
 Observe here, first of all, how important the tongue 
 is. It is called our glory in the Psalms of David ; 
 
334 GRAHAM ON EPHESIANS. 
 
 James compares the tongue (iii. 1-10) to the bridle of 
 a horse, to the helm of a ship, to a fiery wheel and 
 ti) an untamable wild beast, and he assures us that if 
 we are able to guide aright this little member we can 
 easily control all the actions of our lives. He that com- 
 mands the bridle controls the horse ; he that stands at 
 the helm guides the ship as he pleases ; and he who can 
 govern his tongue can make his way through the sea or 
 the wilderness of human life. The tongue, too, is the 
 symbol of the language of eloquence {"Concedat lau7'ea 
 linguce,'' Cicero, Off. i. 22) and of the human race itself. 
 We are not forbidden to speak of nature and of natural 
 phenomena ; the whole circle of truth lies before and 
 around us, and we may speak of it all — the Creator and 
 the creation ; the past, the present and the future ; the 
 events of time and the issues of eternity. We can see 
 our God and Father in all, and draw edification and 
 confidence from all. But let us never forget Him in 
 whom the Father's purpose and the creation's hope, 
 the events of time and the glories of the future world, 
 are headed up and manifested, Jesus Christ our Lord, 
 around whom, from Bethlehem to Mount Olivet and 
 from thence to the heavenly throne, the angels of God 
 pour forth their endless hallelujahs. Let us speak of 
 him, and we are most likely to edify. His name is as 
 ointment poured forth, and there is no balm like his 
 cross for the wounded spirit. His name is sweet and 
 soothing to the wounded spirit. We are accustomed to 
 say and to sing, 
 
 " How sweet the name of Jesus sounds 
 In a believer's ear ! 
 It soothes his sorrows, heals his wounds 
 And drives away his fear." 
 
CHAPTER IV. VERSES 17-32. 335 
 
 We ministers of the gospel especially should remem- 
 ber the weighty resolution of the apostle : " God forbid 
 that I should glory, save in the cross of our Lord Jesus 
 Christ, by whom the world is crucified to me, and I 
 unto the world." He determined to know nothing 
 among them save Jesus Christ and him crucified. This 
 was edifying. The members will no doubt grow the 
 more as they hear more and more of the strengtli 
 and beauty of the Head. The Germans say sweetly — 
 
 " Drum, O Jesu, will ich dich, 
 Immer lieben festiglich ; 
 Du, O Jesu, sollst allein, 
 Meiner Seele Alles aein." * 
 
 Let us, then, seek, as Christian men, so to guide our 
 tongues that we may honor the name of Jesus and edify 
 his Church, which he has purchased with his blood. 
 No lightness — it is unworthy of our name and profes- 
 sion as vain, frivolous, time-wasting conversation, be- 
 neath the dignity of sons of God and joint-heirs with 
 Christ; no, not even the strokes of humor and the 
 brilliant Atticisms which are naturally so attractive 
 (see in Greek the ''fine tmms,'' Eph. v. 4) — should 
 lead our minds away from the one great theme, the 
 love of God to sinful man. 
 
 O thou great Linguist, thou peiitecostal Fire, bap- 
 tize us with the fiery baptism of thy love, that in 
 our day and generation we may sjDeak to the edifica- 
 tion of men ! 
 
 * "Therefore, O Jesus, will I strongly love thee; 
 Thou alone shalt be the All of my soul." 
 
336 GRAHAM ON EPHESIANS. 
 
 X. Grieving the Holy Spirit. 
 
 And grieve not the Holy Spirit of God, whereby ye 
 are sealed unto the day of redemption (ver. 30). 
 
 Here we have before us a whole volume of divine 
 theology — the grieving, tlie person grieved, the sealing 
 and the day of redemption. We can only lightly touch 
 these great themes in passing. 
 
 The person grieved is the Holy Spirit of God, called 
 so often, by way of distinction, " the Spirit " and " the 
 Holy Spirit," Avho sanctifies and ornaments and inhab- 
 its the living temple of God. He is in every conceiv- 
 able way connected with the Father and the Son in 
 the works of creation, redemj^tion and providence 
 (Rom. viii. 9; 1 Pet. i. 2; 2 Cor. iii. 17; Gal. iv. 6). 
 He is connected with the Father and the Son in more 
 than ninety passages, of which the following may be 
 taken as specimens : Matt, xxviii. 19 ; 1 Cor. xii. 4-7 ; 
 2 Cor. xiii. 14 ; 1 Pet. i. 2 ; Jude 20 ; 1 John v. 7. 
 He is connected with the person of the Father alone 
 in such passages as the following : John xv. 26 ; Acts 
 V. 3; and with Jesus Christ the Mediator in Rom. ix. 
 1 ; XV. 20; 1 Cor. vi. 11 ; and many others. In these 
 and other such passages he is represented as the divine 
 Person whose office it is to perpetuate and complete 
 the purposes of eternal love. He is described as a 
 l^erson ; he is occupied in the. works of creation, 
 providence and redemption ; he sends messages and 
 messengers to the churches ; and he is himself sent 
 by the Father and the Son ; he works miracles, casts 
 out devils and comforts those that mourn ; he is grieved, 
 quenched and resisted by our wicked works ; and, what 
 more than anything else proves personality, the bias- 
 
CHAPTER IV. VERSES 17-32. 337 
 
 pliemy against him is more heinous than that against 
 the Father and the Son, and never to be forgiven either 
 in this life or in that which is to come. 
 
 Be sure, then, that the Holy Spirit is God, equal 
 in all divine perfections with the Father and the Son. 
 He is no mere abstraction, but a person who loves you 
 with an eternal love and grieves over you with the 
 bowels of tender compassion ; you feel him sweetly 
 drawing you to the cross and making your burdens 
 of guilt dissolve there. When you hate sin and love 
 righteousness, it is from him ; when your heart is 
 warmed with the love of God and man, so that you 
 could joyfully die for the name of the Lord Jesus 
 Christ, it is from him ; when the heart is filled with 
 adoring contemplations of the cross, so that the eye 
 brightens with humble but immortal hopes and the 
 tongue breaks forth in songs of praise, it is all from 
 him — the life that flows in the body, the sap that cir- 
 culates in the vine, the cement that makes strong the 
 temple of God, the Comforter of all that mourn. 
 When you reject the truth by which he would lead 
 you to the skies ; when you prefer the world and its 
 passing vanities to the hopes of eternity ; when dark- 
 ness is dearer to you than light, discord than peace, 
 death than life ; when sin hardens and no tears of 
 sorrow flow ; wdien God calls and there is no response ; 
 when temptation comes and there is little or no faith 
 to meet it ; when death approaches and there is no 
 preparedness for dying, — you may be sure, in all these 
 cases, that you are grieving the Holy Spirit and pierc- 
 ing yourselves through with many sorrows. 
 
 The great final, condemning sin was ever against the 
 Holy Spirit, and ever must be, for he is the last wit- 
 
 43 
 
338 GRAHAM ON EPHESIANS. 
 
 ness given to the sons of men. The inhabitants of the 
 old world resisted him in the days of Noah, and the 
 Flood came and took them all away ; the Jews resist- 
 ed him on Pentecost, and the Romans speedily de- 
 stroyed their temple and broke their nation to pieces. 
 In the last days, too, he shall be resisted, grieved and 
 quenched most awfully, until vengeance shall overtake 
 the ungodly at the coming of the Lord (2 Thess. 
 i. 8, 9). 
 
 In the mean time, he is seeking to seal us unto the 
 day of redemption. (See Eph. i. 13; 2 Cor. i. 22.) 
 But what is this sealing of the Spirit ? Vessels were 
 sealed, so we are the vessels of God's mercy, sealed and 
 preserved for the Master's use; letters are sealed, so 
 we are to be the epistles of his manifold wisdom, the 
 sealed, commissioned messengers of his grace to the 
 world. His seal is upon us (Rev. vii. 2 ; 1 Kings xxi. 
 8 ; Cant. viii. 6) , and we are required to be faithful to 
 him in the great mission of mercy to mankind. The 
 seal is always the pledge of the truth of what is prom- 
 ised, and so the Holy Spirit is the great seal of the 
 Father's purpose and the Son's dying love. The day 
 of Pentecost was the seal set by God upon the truth, 
 importance and glory of the work of Christ in our 
 nature. The sealing of the Spirit is the work that dis- 
 tinguishes the sheep of the great Shepherd. They are 
 his, he purchased them ; and the fruits of the Spirit 
 are the seal and the sign t'lat they belong to him, and 
 not to another. They bear his mark, and cannot be 
 taken for the property of a stranger. 
 
 But what is the progress of this sealing ? 
 
 There are five steps in it. He begins the sealing in 
 the conviction of sin ; he deepens the impression in our 
 
CHAPTER IV. VERSES 17-32. So'J 
 
 full conversion to God ; the image on the seal becomes 
 brighter and more distinct in the full assurance of faith; 
 then comes deatli, and we are taken into the presence 
 of the Son of God, being made like him in all the feel- 
 ings and all the faculties of our souls. AVe are still im- 
 perfect, however, until the reunion of soul and body in 
 the morning of the resurrection, and hence the sealing 
 shall be perfected at the coming of the Lord, when, in 
 body and soul being made like our Master, we shall see 
 him as he is and be with him and be like him in his 
 glory for ever. 
 
 This is the end of the sealing, brother, and this is 
 the day of redew/ption unto which you are sealed (Rom. 
 viii. 23; Eph. i. 14). We are already redeemed by 
 price, we shall then be redeemed by power ; now the 
 sting and the power of sin are taken away, then the 
 power and oppression of Satan shall be broken, then 
 death shall be destroyed and the author of sin and 
 death shut up for a thousand years in the bottomless 
 pit, so that the kingdom of righteousness and peace 
 may fill the whole world. The two comings of Christ 
 are the two poles of the Christian system, and they are 
 both called, with equal truth, " the day of redemption." 
 The former was the hope of the Jews ; the latter is the 
 hope of the Christians. The cross is the foundation on 
 which we rest ; the crown of righteousness at the coming 
 of the Lord is our animating hope in the battles of the 
 faith. Hence the constant cry for the day of redemj)- 
 tion alike from the souls under the altar in heaven and 
 from the persecuted saints upon the earth : Come, Lord 
 Jesus, come quickly. May the good Lord make us 
 ready to meet him when he comes ! May the Holy 
 Spirit seal us unto the day of redemption ! 
 
340 GRAHAM ON EPHESIANS. 
 
 " Veni, Sancte Spiritus, 
 Eeple tiiorum corda fideliuni, 
 Et tui in eis ignein accende, 
 Qui per diversitatem linguarum cunctaruiu 
 Gentes in unitate fidei congregasti. 
 Alleluia! Alleluia!"* 
 
 XI. Bitterness, Anger, Wrath, Clamor, eto. 
 
 Let all bitterness, and wrath, and anger, and clamor, 
 and evil speaking, be put away from you, ivith all mal- 
 ice (ver. 31). 
 
 There seems to be a climax in this summary of evil 
 passions. He begins with bitterness {pikria, " points," 
 "pricks," "pikes;" the adjective from it means "sharp"), 
 which refers to sourness of temper, the spirit of com- 
 plaint, which sees all things from a false position and 
 judges all persons, events and tilings according to 
 narrow-minded prejudices and preconceived ojnnions. 
 This pikria may not be a passion which leads to wars 
 and commotions, but it can make the family circle very 
 unlike the heaven which it should typify. The bitter- 
 minded man has points and corners which you are in 
 danger of infringing at every turn ; there is no yield- 
 ing to the o[)inion of others, or, if so, it is done with a 
 bad grace and in bitterness, so that the deference has 
 only increased the vinegar or the venom of the heart. 
 This is the merorah of the Hebrews, which signifies the 
 sourness of unripe grapes (Deut. xxxii. 32), the bitter- 
 ness of gall and the poison of the serpent. Indeed, 
 
 * " Come, Holy Spirit, 
 
 Fill the heart of thy faithful ones, 
 And kindle in them thine own fire^ 
 Thou who through the diversity of all languages 
 Hast congregated the Gentiles in the unity of the faith. 
 Hallelujah ! Hallelujah !" ' 
 
CHAPTEE IV. VERSES 17-32. 341 
 
 among the Jews bitterness and poison were, both in the 
 mind and in the hmguage, connected with each other. 
 Nothing is more nnlike the patient, loving character of 
 Christ than this spirit of bitterness. It is opposed to 
 the love which believeth all things, hopeth all things 
 and beareth all things. It has no oil to pour upon 
 troubled waters, no soft, kind answers to turn away 
 wrath, no sweet, mild, winning looks to soothe the 
 asperities of human life. You must lay aside all 
 this bitterness : it is not the characteristic of a Chris- 
 tian. 
 
 Wrath and anger are often associated in the Script- 
 ure, and cannot easily be distinguished (Col. iii. 8 ; 
 Heb. xi. 27; Rev. xii. 12). They are violent, fierce 
 passions which overbear the control of reason ; they 
 unhinge the mind and destroy for the time the reason- 
 ing and reflective faculty. The Christian should put 
 them away as being unworthy of the name and charac- 
 ter which he bears. Love, and not anger, must rule in 
 his heart ; patience, and not wrath, must have her per- 
 fect work. Let the same mind be in you which was 
 also in Christ, who when he was reviled reviled not 
 again, and when he was buffeted threatened not. Let 
 truth, holiness and love flow toward heaven in a still 
 and peaceful course unrufiled by the winds and the 
 gusts of passion. The rock beneath us is steadfast, the 
 heaven above us is serene, and the God whom we love 
 and serve is of one mind for evermore. Why, then, 
 should we allow the cares of the world or the raging 
 of the enemies or the attacks of the devil to stir up 
 our minds to anger and wrath ? The patient Lamb, 
 bearing his cross to Calvary, is not the type and leader 
 of such. Neither, beloved, should you lift up your 
 
342 GEAHAM ON EPHESIANS. 
 
 voice in the streets nor join the tumultuous populace 
 in clamor and controversy (Acts xxiii, 9; Eph. iv. 31). 
 The noisiest rivers are not the deepest, and the Lord 
 was not in the storm nor in the earthquake, but in 
 the still, small voice. 
 
 Evil speaking, also (Greek, blasphemy), is forbidden 
 by the royal law of love under which we dwell. Blas- 
 phemy here means slander, calumny or intentional 
 defamation of character, and it may well stand at the 
 top of the climax. You began with bitterness, and 
 it has led you thus far ; you are beyond the stages 
 of anger and wrath and clamor, and are ready for the 
 devil's diploma in the university of the damned. But 
 I will restrain myself lest I become what I would lead 
 you to avoid. The word blasphemy (" evil sj^eaking ") 
 is used in reference to God and the Holy Spirit (Matt, 
 xii. 31 ; xxvi. Qi":) ; Mark ii. 7 ; xiv. 64 ; Luke v. 21 ; 
 John X. 33 ; E,ev. xiii. 5, 6) as well as to our fellow- 
 men, and in both cases it consummates the guilt of 
 the wicked. 
 
 This gives he tongue a fearful imj^ortance, and 
 may well justify tlie striking language of the apostle 
 James (iii. 3-10). How noble is the right use of the 
 tongue ! A good converser (there are only a few his- 
 torically celebrated ones in English history) ; a faithful 
 preacher, such as Paul was and such as Cowper de- 
 scribed (Task, book ii.) ; a public orator in tlie high 
 places of the land, leading the destnies of nations and 
 having for his audience, one may say, the civilized 
 world, — these are examples of the wonderful power of 
 the tongue and of the estimate in which the right use 
 of it is held among men. Even so cruel, accursed 
 and execrable is the bitter, lying, boastful, clamorous, 
 
CHAPTER IV. VERSES 17-32. 343 
 
 calumnious tongue, and it is, or ought to be, in an equal 
 degree detested and despised. 
 
 All these evil monuments of the old man are to be 
 put away from the saints, with all malice or ill-will. 
 Kakia (" badness ") has two representatives in Hebrew. 
 (See Ex. xxxii. 11, 12; Isa. xxix. 20.) Xenophon 
 makes it the cowardice of the soldiers {Cyr. 2, 2, 27), 
 and in the New Testament it means malice or malignity 
 (1 Cor. V. 8; Col. iii. 8; Tit. iii. 3). This seems to be 
 the soil out of which all the others grow, the fallen 
 condition of the natural heart in which so many evil 
 passions find nourishment and scope. Be done with 
 them all. In the name and strength of God, be done 
 with them all ! It is possible ; grace can do it, and God 
 himself commands it. 
 
 XII. Three Graces. 
 
 Be ye kind one to another, tenderhearted, forgiving 
 one another, even as God for Chrisfs sake hath for- 
 given you (ver, 32). 
 
 Kindness, tenderheartedness, forgiveness, are here 
 presented to us as the attributes of the new man and 
 the virtues which the faith of Christ inspires. These 
 are some of the active duties which adorn the Christian 
 character, in which all negative and positive excellence 
 should unite together. 
 
 Kind and tenderhearted are to be distinguished only 
 in degree, as they both show the beneficent operations 
 of divine mercy and love. The latter is much the 
 stronger of the two (well-boweled — viz., having yearn- 
 ing compassion, 1 Pet. iii. 8), and denotes the pitying, 
 grieving afiection with which love looks upon misery. 
 These are indeed noble graces, and tell at once the 
 
344 GRAHAM ON EPHESIANS. 
 
 fountain from which they flow, even the forgiving love 
 of God in Jesus Christ our Lord — forgiving one an- 
 other even as God, for Christ's sake, hath forgiven you. 
 Oh, noble conduct, and still nobler motive ! Forgive 
 one another as God in Christ (so the Greek) hath 
 forgiven you ! 
 
 Stripped of all ornament and seen simply by the 
 eye of the intellect, the verse teaches the following 
 propositions : (1) All forgiveness of sin is the act of 
 God's grace ; (2) This act takes place through the 
 mediation of Christ ; (3) Christians are to be adorned 
 with the noblest moral virtues ; (4) These moral vir- 
 tues are based upon, or flow from, the revealed char- 
 acter of God ; (5) Assurance, conviction, certainty, 
 should be the condition of the believing soul : God 
 in Christ hath forgiven you. 
 
 These five propositions contain more truth concern- 
 ins; God and man than is to be found in the entire 
 literature of heathen Greece and Rome. Any one of 
 these many times outweighs the speeches of Cicero and 
 the orations of Demosthenes. 
 
 God for Chris fs sake hath forgiven you. It is a re- 
 prieve from the God of heaven, reaching the criminals 
 on the road to the execution. It in a moment re-estab- 
 lishes the broken link between God and his creatures 
 by restoring confidence and peace. Being forgiven, we 
 then forgive ; we are as certain that God has forgiven 
 us as are others that we forgive them. He has done it, 
 and we shall do it. Jesus, the Head, is the Receiver 
 from the fount of divine Majesty ; we receive the heal- 
 ing streams from him, not to appropriate them or con- 
 ceal them, but to dispense the water of life to all 
 around. 
 
CHAPTER IV. VERSES 17-32. 345 
 
 But observe here, brother-man, the first thing to 
 make sure of is this : Has God forgiven thee ? All 
 other questions may well be kept in abeyance till 
 this be answered, and this must be answered before you 
 can be kind and forgiving to others. — May I, then — 
 must I, then — know that my sins are forgiven ? — You 
 may, and you must if you would exercise the virtues 
 of this verse. — But you are teaching the assurance of 
 faith. — Well, yes, I am, and I now assert that no be- 
 liever in the New Tedatiient ever expresses a doubt of his 
 salvation. — Never ? Show me the text ; I am oj)en to 
 conviction when I see the passage. — Mant's exposition 
 of 1 Cor. ix. 27 is false, and the passage teaches the 
 assurance of faith. — Then in that case I should say, 
 "God has, for Christ's sake, forgiven me; Jesus 
 Christ loved me and gave himself for rue ; what shall 
 separate me from the love of God in Christ Jesus my 
 Lord ? I know that when he shall appear I shall be 
 like him, for I shall see him as he is. I have fought a 
 good fight, I have finished my course, I have kept the 
 faith ; henceforth there is laid up for me the crown of 
 righteousness, which the Lord will give me at his com- 
 ing. Behold what manner of love the Father hath 
 bestowed upon us, that we should be called the sons of 
 God." — Yes, my brother, such is the strain of the New 
 Testament, and such should at all times be the lan- 
 guage of the believer. The doubting faith (a contradic- 
 tion) of modern times the holy Scripture knows noth- 
 ing about, and neither did the Keformers of the sixteenth 
 century. The Council of Trent, indeed, condemns this 
 doctrine as Protestant, under the title of ^ana Jiducia 
 hereticorum ("the vain assurance of heretics"). 
 
 But enough of this. Our text says, " Forgive, as 
 
 44 
 
^46 GRAHAM ON EPHESIANS. 
 
 God in Christ hath forgiven you." Remember, the 
 source of forgiveness is not simply God, but God in 
 Christ — God d'spensi ]g his gifts and blessings through 
 the Mediator whom he has appointed. Approach, then, 
 and drink abundantly from the fount of mercy, for 
 there is no lock on the door of the Father's house. 
 He meets the prodigal and in fatherly embraces for- 
 gives him ; so that there is no fear of repulsion or of 
 refusal. This good, kind, forgiving God is ours, and 
 we may well take refuge under the shadow of his 
 wing. 
 
CHAPTEE X. 
 
 Be ye therefore followers of God, as dear children ; and walk in love, 
 as Christ also hath loved us, and hath given himself for us an offering 
 and a sacrifice to God for a sweetsmelling savor. But fornication and 
 all uncleanness, or covetousness, let it not be once named among you, as 
 hecometh saints; neither filthiness, nor foolish talking, nor jesting which 
 are not convenient : but rather giving of thanks. For this ye know, 
 that no whoremonger, nor unclean person, nor covetous man, who is an 
 idolater, hath any inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and of God. 
 Let no man deceive you with vain words : for because of these things 
 cometh the wrath of God upon the children of disobedience. Be not 
 ye therefore partakers with them. For ye were sometime darkness, 
 but now are ye light in the Lord : walk as children of light (for the 
 fruit of the Spirit is in all goodness and righteousness and truth) ; prov- 
 ing what is acceptable unto the Lord. And have no fellowship with the 
 unfruitful works of darkness, but rather reprove them. For it is a 
 shame even to speak of those things which are done of them in secret. 
 But all things that are reproved are made manifest by the light: for 
 whatsoever doth make manifest is light. Wherefore he saith. Awake, 
 thou that sleepest, and arise from the dead, and Christ shall give thee 
 light. See then that ye walk circumspectly, not as fools, but as wise, re- 
 deeming the time, because the days are evil. Wherefore be ye not un- 
 wise, but understanding what the will of the Lord is. And be not drunk 
 with wine, wherein is excess: but be filled with the Spirit; speaking to 
 yourselves in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and mak- 
 ing melody in your heart to the Lord; giving thanks always for all 
 things unto God and the Father, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ; 
 submitting yourselves one to another in the fear of God. Wives, sub- 
 mit yourselves unto your own husbands, as unto the Lord. For the 
 husband is the head of the wife, even as Christ is the head of the Church : 
 and he is the Saviour of the body. Therefore as the Church is subject 
 unto Christ, so let the wives be to their own husbands in everything. 
 Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ also loved the Church, and 
 gave himself for it ; that he might sanctify and cleanse it with the 
 
348 GRAHAM ON EPHESIANS. 
 
 washing of water by the word, that he might present it to himself a 
 glorious Church, not having spot, or wrinkle, or any such thing ; but 
 that it should be holy and without blemish. So ought men to love their 
 wives as their own bodies. He that loveth his wife loveth himself. For 
 no man ever yet hated his own flesh ; but nourisheth and cherisheth it, 
 even as the Lord the Church. For we are members of his body, of his 
 flesh, and of his bones. For this cause shall a man leave his father and 
 mother, and shall be joined unto his wife, and they two shall be one 
 flesh. This is a great mystery : but I speak concerning Christ and the 
 Church. Nevertheless let every one of you in particular so love his 
 wife even as himself; and the wife see that she reverence her hus- 
 band. — Ephesians v. 
 
 Children, obey your parents in the Lord : for this is right. Honor 
 thy father and mother (which is the first commandment with promise) ; 
 that it may be well with thee, and thou may est live long on the earth. 
 And, ye fathers, provoke not your children to wrath : but bring them up 
 in the nurture and admonition of the Lord. Servants, be obedient to 
 them that are your masters according to the flesh, with fear and trem- 
 bling, in singleness of your heart, as unto Christ ; not with eye-service, 
 as men-pleasers ; but as the servants of Christ, doing the will of God 
 from the heart; with good will doing service, as to the Lord, and not to 
 men : knowing that whatsoever good thing any man doeth, the same 
 shall he receive of the Lord, whether he be bond or free. And, ye 
 masters, do the same things unto them, forbearing threatening : know- 
 ing that your Master also is in heaven ; neither is there resi^ect of per- 
 sons with him. — Ephesians vi. 1-9. 
 
 The fifth chapter of Ephesians, like the fourth, in 
 entirely practical, and teaches the believing Church 
 generally what is to be sought after and what is to 
 be avoided. Jesus Christ is indeed ever present in 
 the duties, trials and temptations of his Church, as 
 well as in the doctrines, promises and hopes by which 
 she is animated. " God in Christ " is the glorious cen- 
 tre round which revolves everything in the Church <ik 
 well as in Scripture and the hearts of his people. It is 
 with the Church as such we have here to do, as there 
 is no reference to classes or ofiices till we come to the 
 twenty-second verse, in which the apostle begins to 
 treat of our social duties and relations. Let us, then, 
 
CHAPTEK V. VERSES 1-2. 349 
 
 with our hearts open to receive the truth wherever we 
 find it and our eye upon God, who alone can teach 
 it, examine this fine passage of practical theology, in 
 which we shall see the apostle unfolding tlie relations 
 in which God and Christ, sin and the sinner, the 
 Church and holiness, stand to each other. 
 
 I. Imitators of God. 
 
 This first verse brings out the startling command or 
 exhortation, ''Be ye therefore followers of God, as dear 
 children.'' The Greek has the stronger expression, 
 imitators, which, indeed, is necessary to bring out the 
 meaning and connection of the ] assage. The verse 
 is closely bound to the one foregoing by the particle 
 therefore, which shows the motive of the imitation to 
 be God's forgiving love. God in Christ has forgiven 
 you, and therefore, as dutiful and loving children, 
 you are bound to imitate him. His will, his way and 
 his purpose must be yours, so that one law and one 
 life may pervade the whole family. Read carefully the 
 following scriptures : 1 Cor. iv. 16 ; xi. 1 ; Eph. v. 1 ; 
 1 Thess. i. 6; ii. 14; Heb. vi. 12; 1 Pet. iii. Ill 
 
 There is, therefore, an imitative prmciple planted in 
 the nature of man, and we have the following ques- 
 tions to ask concernino; it. 
 
 M7^st. What is the source and origin of it? We 
 observe, in reply, that God in the beginning created 
 us in one head ; so that Headship is the very law and 
 order in both the kingdom of nature and the kingdom 
 of grace. One life flows through the human family, 
 and one blood unites them in a common brotherhood. 
 This great principle has been, and is, fully developed 
 in the history of mankind. We were all created in 
 
350 GRAHAM ON EPHESIANS. 
 
 Adum, and we all fell in his fall ; Noah became the 
 head of the world, and in him we escaped the deluge ; 
 Shem, Ham, Abraham, Ishmael, were all heads througli 
 whom the curse or the blessing flowed, and still con- 
 tinues to flow, upon their descendants. Jesus Christ 
 is the Head of the new dispensation, and the universal 
 law of our creation and preservation has been mani- 
 fested and sealed in him. Here, then, we have the 
 principle in its widest sense, inasmuch as the head and 
 the members must resemble one another. What else 
 are the family, the Church and the State but differ- 
 ent circles of headship where imitation and obedience 
 should be the rule ? Besides, did not God create us in 
 his image and likeness ? He is a King, and he created 
 us a royal race, from whom, notwithstanding the fall, 
 God's kings and priests are to be taken (Rev. i. 6). He 
 is a Father ; paternity is a divine relation in the God- 
 head, and he has created the human family to manifest 
 and develop it as a part of t e image of God himself. 
 What is the divine mystery of the Trinity ? Is it 
 not this — that there are three divine Persons in one 
 divine nature? The principle is unity in diversity — 
 many in one — three persons in one Godhead ; all which 
 is not more mysterious than the human race, which con- 
 tains the same mystery of many persons in one and the 
 same nature. If many human persons may exist in one 
 human nature, surely three divine persons may exist in 
 one divine nature. In fact, the human race is distin- 
 guished from the angels — is the monument in time 
 which God has erected to the value and importance 
 of the eternal generation of Christ. This, then, is the 
 source of the imitative principle in us ; we are created 
 in his image by divine grace, and thus, even though 
 
CHAPTER V. VERSES 1-2. 351 
 
 fallen, we are enabled to imitate him — indeed, cannot; 
 but imitate him, since his life is in us. 
 
 Second. But tchat is the extent of it f This is very 
 great indeed. All language is acquired by imitation, 
 so that without it the faculty of sj^eech would be use- 
 less ; all education depends on it ; all trades, schools 
 and professions proceed from it; without it the prog- 
 ress and the civilization of the human race would cease 
 for ever and endless barbarism overflow the world. All 
 this is only typical (as are all things) of the new and 
 eternal life which, as believers, we receive from the 
 God-Man in heaven. Grace uses all the channels and 
 currents of our fallen nature and gives them a proper 
 direction. The imitative principle was never so nobly 
 developed as in the seed of life which Christianity sowed 
 among the nations. Look down from the hills into the 
 city of Nazareth, where the eye can distinguish the sol- 
 itary Nazarene as he commences his public ministry ; 
 or see him in the midst of the twelve apostles, strug- 
 gling against the wickedness of the world ; or number 
 the one hundred and twenty disciples who acknowl- 
 edged him as their Master, and then follow this little 
 b:ind in affliction and persecution and cruel deaths, and 
 see how, in spite of all opposition, the seed of right- 
 eousness grows and flourishes through tears and ago- 
 nies and blood until Judaism is overthrown and hea- 
 thenism is subjugated and Christianity ascends the 
 throne of the Csesars. It is the principle of imita- 
 tion ; like produces like in the great moral regenera- 
 tion which proceedeth, and shall not cease till the great 
 purpose of God be accomplished and the whole family 
 be brought into their Father's house. It is the Spirit's 
 work to make us imitators of God, as dear children. 
 
352 GRAHAM ON EPHESIANS. 
 
 May he speedily perfect this good work in the hearts of 
 all his people ! 
 
 " Lava quod est sordidum ; 
 Riga quod est aridum ; 
 Sana quod est saucium." * 
 
 Nor is there any reason to believe that this principle 
 of assimilation shall cease with the present state of 
 existence. No ; we shall be growing up into the like- 
 ness and character of the adorable Jehovah for ever 
 and ever — eternally approaching, and at an infinite 
 distance still ; always receiving, and ever becoming 
 capable of receiving, more and more from the ocean- 
 fullness of our heavenly Father's love. 
 
 Third. The object is God. This is most important, 
 and distinguishes Christianity from all other systems. 
 We are brought into contact with the divine Being 
 himself, that the feelino; and sense of his nearness mav 
 influence and purify our minds. We behold him, the 
 Source of all goodness and perfection, in the face of 
 Jesus Christ — God, our God, Creator, Redeemer and 
 Father, who dwells among us as he did among the 
 Israelites of old, and leads us with a surer guidance 
 than the pillar and the cloud. Idolatry is a darkening 
 of the character and the perfections of God ; the many 
 mediators of the papists are an attempt to remove the 
 mind and heart from the direct and purifying presence 
 of the living God ; images, pictures, formalities and 
 ritualism of every form are so many efforts of the 
 natural corrupt heart to get away to a distance from 
 the Holy One — to be relieved from the duty com- 
 
 * " Wash our souls and make them clean ; 
 Fructify and make them green ; 
 Heal where thev have wounded been." 
 
CHAPTER V. VERSES 1-2. 358 
 
 manded by the apostle : " Be ye therefore imitators of 
 God, as dear children." The nearer we are to the 
 Fountain of perfection, the more perfect we must be. 
 The face never shines so brightly as when we remain 
 long on the mount with God ; and the very reason 
 given for our becoming like the Redeemer in his king- 
 dom is that we shall see him as he is (1 John iii. 2). 
 Surely there is nothing so ennobling to the human 
 character as the contemplation of the being and attri- 
 butes, the wisdom, mercy and beneficence, of God. 
 His universe and the laws which regulate its mysteri- 
 ous movements are a noble study, and one which tends 
 to destroy the dwarfishness of our natural dimensions 
 )\v giving us large and far-reaching thoughts. But we 
 are here led to God himself, tli£ Author and Sustainer 
 of the mighty system — not the laws, but the Lawgiver ; 
 not the work, but the Workman; not the dull, dark 
 masses of a cold materialism, but the living, personal, 
 eternal God who gives it all its glory and all its beauty. 
 Fourth. Never forget, however, the important clause 
 in the verse : ^^As dear children^ As such only can 
 we imitate our heavenly Father. The child looks to 
 the father for counsel and guidance, for fond protection 
 and defence. We are made his children by faith in 
 Christ and adopted into the family of God by grace. 
 This is the adoption so often mentioned in the Script- 
 ures — the new birth from above, the new nature and 
 the new heart ; it is the same in substance as conver- 
 sion, repentance and the translation from darkness into 
 the kingdom of light. All these are different sides of 
 the same subject, and are intended to delineate in a 
 various and striking manner the change that takes 
 place in the soul when the prodigal returns to his 
 
 45 
 
354 GRAHAM ON EPHESIANS. 
 
 father. As his dear children we are to follow his Son 
 whithersoever he goeth, knowing that all things shall 
 work together for good to them that love him. He 
 treats us as dear children, giving us all things richly to 
 enjoy and holding out to our hopes the promises of a 
 bright and glorious future. He opens the fountains of 
 his mercy, and invites us to drink ; he unites us to 
 himself by his love, and says, " Follow me," " Imitate 
 me." 
 
 This active service, however, is more especially men- 
 tioned in the second verse, which contains — 
 
 II. The Walk in Love and the Sacrifice of 
 Christ, 
 
 And walk in love, as Christ also hath loved us, and 
 hath given himself for us an offering and a sacrifice to 
 God for a sweetsmelling savor (ver. 2). 
 
 It is remarkable how doctrines and duties are inter- 
 woven together in the Bible. The system of divine 
 teaching differs from all human plans of education in 
 this — that unity pervades diversity ; and the doctrines 
 of grace, which indeed are nothing but a delineation 
 of the character of God, without any formal statement, 
 without the least effort at theory and systematizing, are 
 felt all-present everywhere as the compelling motive 
 and vivifying principle of the whole. We have not 
 one chapter on faith and another on works, one on the 
 incarnation and another on the doctrine of the Trinity, 
 }is we find in human compositions. No; God is every- 
 where brouo;ht into contact with man. His love meets 
 our coldness, his mercy meets our transgressions, and 
 his Son's dying love is the motive of our service to 
 him : " Walk in love, as Christ also hath loved us." 
 
CHAPTER V. VERSES 1-2. 365 
 
 First. Here the believe7'^s life is compared to a ivalk 
 (so in Hebrew, Prov. vi. 22), which denotes activity 
 and energy as well as a distinct and definite direction. 
 We have left Egypt on our journey for the heavenly 
 country ; and while there are enemies before and be- 
 hind us, many difficulties in ourselves and our com- 
 panions and in the nature of the road, we have still the 
 manna from the heavens and the water from the rock, 
 and the fiery pillar to lead us on. This is the same 
 idea, differently expressed, which the agon or " race " 
 suggests to the mind (Heb. xii. 1). This world is the 
 stadium where the race-contests are exhibited in a 
 nobler, grander manner than among the old Romans, 
 The Greek ago7i (whence comes our " agony ") signifies 
 the race, the fight, the struggle of the new man w^ith 
 the sins, temptations and afflictions of life ; the runners 
 are the professors of the Christian name ; the course is 
 the way of holiness — the blood-sprinkled path whieli 
 Jesus trod ; the spectators are the angels and the 
 glorious cloud of witnesses that surround us ; and the 
 rewards are the crowns which the Saviour gives the 
 conquerors — the crowns of life, of righteousness and 
 of glory. This, too, seen from another point of view, 
 is the battle of life, the spiritual warfare (1 Tim, vi. 12 ; 
 2 Tim. iv. 7) waged from the beginning between the 
 seed of the woman and the seed of the serpent ; the 
 two kingdoms which divide the universe — the Cains 
 and the Abels, the Sauls and the Davids, the goats 
 and the sheep, the fiesh and the spirit; a warfare not yet 
 ended, nor to be ended till the Captain of our salvation 
 comes from heaven. This walk must be in love ; the 
 pilgrimage, the battle and the race are all to be con- 
 ducted in the spirit of holy love ; and the motive is to 
 
356 GRAHAM ON EPHESIANS. 
 
 l)e found in the constraining love of Christ : " Walk in 
 love, as Christ also hath loved us." 
 
 Second. We now come to the sacrifice of Christ, 
 which is the fullest manifestation of his love: ''He 
 hath given himself for us an offering and a sacrifice 
 to God for a sweetsmelling savor'' It is not a little mar- 
 velous with what pertinacity some modern writers, even 
 of the most orthodox kind, as Meier, Riiekhert, Usteri 
 and others, deny in this passage all reference to the 
 expiation of Christ. De Wette does not deny it, but 
 says it is not to be insisted uj)on. Even Olshausen 
 admits that it is not the suffering, but the obedience, of 
 Christ that is well-pleasing to God. (See Isa. liii. 10.) 
 
 Let us observe the words of the passage : ''He gave 
 himself for us^ 
 
 Take for here in whatever sense you please, it can 
 refer only to the dying love of Christ. He gave him- 
 self above us to ward off the stroke of vengeance ; he 
 gave himself instead of us (Rom. v. 7, 8 ; Phil. i. 29) 
 as the ransom to redeem the devoted victim ; or he 
 gave himself on account of us that by his death he 
 might procure for us the blessings of the gospel. His 
 giving himself for us can refer only to his death. In 
 his life he gave us many gifts, such as the doctrines of 
 grace, the assurance of his Father's love, the example 
 of perfect holiness ; but in his death he gave himself 
 for us as an offering and a sacrifice to God. These 
 two words show the fullness and the perfection of the 
 expiation. All gifts and eucharistic oblations of the 
 law {phosphorce; Minclia) were fulfilled and ended in 
 him, as well as the bloody sacrifices of the altar {thu- 
 sfa, Heb. V. 1 ; vii. 27 ; viii. 8 ; ix. 9, 2:5 ; x. 1, 11, 12, 
 20) which prefigured the great atonement. Christ our 
 
CHAPTER V. VERSES 1-2. 357 
 
 Passover is sacrificed for us (1 Cor. v. 7), and this 
 glorious expiation is well-pleasing to God. (Comp. 
 Lev. i. 9 ; Gen. viii. 21.) 
 
 If God, the sovereign and moral Governor of the 
 world, was not well pleased with the death of Jesus, 
 his incarnate Son, as the vindicator and fulfiller of the 
 broken law, why did he send him to assume our na- 
 ture? Why were the ancient sacrifices appointed? 
 and, above all, why is it written (Isa. liii. 10), "It 
 pleased the Lord to bruise him " ? Were the eyes of 
 the Lord not open when the Jews and the Eomans 
 were preparing, in horrid mockery and scorn, their 
 bleeding victim for the cross? or was his arm short- 
 ened that he could not save? Oh no, my brother! 
 He saw it all, and his fatherly heart bore it all out of 
 love to thee. Out of tender compassion to thee he 
 allowed the Son, the eternal Son, to drink the bitter 
 cup of death and vindicate the sanctions of a violated 
 law. This is the doctrine of the cross in which Paul 
 gloried, and which has ever been the attraction of 
 weary and anxious souls; and so it must continue to 
 be till sin ceases to be sinful or God to be holy. God 
 forbid, therefore, that we should glory save in the cross 
 of our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom the world is cruci- 
 fied unto us and we unto the world. 
 
 Yes, O thou great Redeemer ! we take refuge in thy 
 cross and glory only in thine atoning death! Thou 
 hast borne the curse for us, and in thy bitter pains we 
 see thine own and thy Father's love to a sinful world. 
 Help us, O Lamb of God that takest away the sins of 
 the world ! help us to serve and love thee more and 
 more, until finally we enter into thy glorious king- 
 dom ! Amen. 
 
358 GRAHAM ON EPHESIANS. 
 
 III. The Character of The Saints; Warnings 
 AND Exhortations (ch. v. 3-21). 
 
 The gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ requires the 
 motives to be pure and the conduct upright. It is a 
 holy gospel, and the fruits which it brings forth in the 
 life and conversation must be the fruits of righteous- 
 ness, which are to the praise and honor of our Father 
 in heaven. The vices so common among the Greeks 
 and Romans — which, indeed, were not only tolerated 
 and winked at, but allowed and provided 'for by the 
 f^tate — must be rooted out from the soil of the heart 
 by grace. 
 
 First. The first of these is porneia, " fornication " — 
 a vice which in the ancient world prevailed universally, 
 and in the time of Augustus had fearfully depopulated 
 the empire. It prevents marriage and tends directly to 
 the dissolution of all the bonds which hold society to- 
 gether. (For the evils of this vice and the Scripture 
 denunciations against it, read Matt. xv. 19 ; Mark vii. 
 21 ; Rom. i. 29 ; 1 Cor. vi. 13, 18 ; vii. 2 ; 2 Cor. xii. 
 21 ; Gal. v. 19 ; Eph. v. 3 ; C^ol. iii. 5 ; 1 Thess. iv. 3 ; 
 Rev. ix. 21 ; John viii. 41.) It is sufficiently distin- 
 guished from adultery (Matt. xv. 19; Mark vii. 21 ; 
 John viii. 3 ; Gal. v. 19) in the Scripture, yet it is ap- 
 plied to the adulterer (Matt. v. 32 ; xix. 9) and to the 
 incestuous person (1 Cor. v. 1). It is remarkable how 
 often it is used mystically for idolatry, or forsaking the 
 true God for idols, which is based on its application to 
 the adulteress (Rev. ii. 14, 20; xvii. 2; xviii. 3-9). 
 .'Comp. Ezek. xxiii. 19 ; Hos. xi. 1.) Hence the apos- 
 tate Church called Babylon, the seductress of the kings 
 of the earth, is " the great pome, or whore," which sit- 
 
CHAPTER V. VERSES 3-21. 369 
 
 teth on the scarlet-colored beast, drunken with the blood 
 of the martyrs of Jesus (Rev. xvii. 1-16; xix. 2). 
 Thus the most terrible and blasphemous apostasy 
 the world has ever seen is called fornication or whore- 
 dom, which shows the fearful enormity of the vice. 
 
 Second. Unclean ness is a wider term, and includes 
 the former. "All uncleanness " no doubt refers here 
 specially to the unnatural sins connected with the cit- 
 ies of the plain and to otlier similar enormities which 
 degrade human nature beneath the instincts of the 
 brute. These were common among the heathen, as 
 their literature and remaining monuments of sculp- 
 ture and statuary abundantly prove, and at the pres- 
 ent day the whole Eastern world groans under the 
 same enormous crimes. 
 
 The apostle adds covetousness, which, from its Greek 
 derivation, signifies " having more," the desire to have 
 more, or greed (Mark vii. 22 ; Luke xii. 15 ; Kom. i. 
 29; Col. iii. 5; 1 Thess. ii. 5; 2 Pet. ii. 3, 14). It 
 means also extortion, the amor sceleratus habendi of the 
 Latins, which the Scotch render " hell-fire greed ;" and 
 surely there is nothing more contrary to the character 
 of the gospel and that of its divine Author. The 
 covetous man is called an idolater (ver. 5). He has 
 given up the God of the Bible and taken up with 
 Plutus and Mammon as his master and rewarder, and 
 his worship becomes more and more intense by the 
 daily increase of his treasures. "A^noi' pecunice crescit 
 quantum pecunia ipsa crescit'^ — viz., "His greed in- 
 creases with his gain ; his eye rests with delight on 
 the golden god " (Nummos contemplor in Area, Horace, 
 Satires i. QQ) in whom his heart delights, and the true 
 living God is forgotten. This is indeed idolatry, and 
 
360 GRAHAM ON EPHESIANS. 
 
 shuts out from the kingdom of" lieaven (Phil, iii, 19; 
 Col. iii. o). 
 
 These things are not to be named among the saints ; 
 the very mention of them is unbecoming the profession 
 ye have made. Ye belong to him who is holy, and the 
 words of your lips as well as the works of your hands 
 should produce only works of righteousness. Hence 
 (ver. 4) fiUhiness (base, vile words and actions) and 
 foolish talking and jesting, fine turns in discourse, 
 double meanings, urbanity in the bad sense of the 
 word, attractive Atticisms, — all these are inconvenient 
 and do not suit the character of the children of God. 
 They must never be uttered in the meetings of the 
 saints ; all this is condemned by the pure morality of 
 the gospel.* 
 
 Third. Note also in this fifth verse the words " the 
 kingdom of Christ and of God^'' where in Greek tlie 
 first noun, " Christ," has the article, and the second, 
 " God," has not ; and hence Bengel, Beza, Middleton 
 and others translate " the kingdom of Him who is 
 Christ and God " on the ground that if two jDersons 
 were meant the article must be repeated before " God." 
 Harless, indeed, maintains that the words can have no 
 other meaning, though he will not say that Paul meant 
 that by them. So completely has the fear of critics 
 mastered the love of orthodoxy ! On which Meyer 
 cries out, " Oh, weak and inconsistent exegesis ! your 
 
 * In verse 5, ^ore is by most modern critics rejected for /ore ; the mean- 
 ing is absolutely the same in both cases, but in the latter the Hebraism 
 is very harsh and hardly justifiable by the laws of that language. The 
 Hebrews say, "knowing ye shall know," but never "ye shall know, 
 knowing." (See Acts vii. 34; Heb. vi. 14; Matt. xiii. 14.) If the au- 
 thorities finally decide in favor of tare, we shall have one of the most 
 curious constructions in the New Testament. 
 
CHAPTER V. VERSES 3-21. 361 
 
 criticism is false, Christ is not here called God. dtoz 
 (' God ') needs no article ; besides, Paul was too rigid 
 a monotheist to call Christ 'God,' and he never does 
 so in any one of his Epistles." This is just a single 
 specimen of the sweeping assertions of German neolog- 
 ical critics. This takes for granted many things that 
 require to be proved : (1) That Paul did not write the 
 Epistle to the Hebrews ; (2) That Theos (" God ") is 
 not the correct reading in 1 Tim. iii. 16 ; (3) That 
 Rom. ix. 5 should be read as a doxology ; (4) That 
 Paul w^as a more rigid monotheist than John, who is 
 admitted to have called Christ " God ;" and (5) Meyer 
 takes for granted, in the sweeping assertion above men- 
 tioned, that his own interpreta:!on of this verse is the 
 right one. Now, I deny every one ( f thes;', and assert 
 that they are every one false. Paul did write the 
 Epistle to the Hebrews, and did call Christ " God " (i. 
 8, 9, 10) ; God is the correct reading in 1 Tim. iii. 16 ; 
 Rom. ix. 5 cannot, according to the Greek language, be 
 read as a doxology ; John and Paul were of the same 
 opinion concerning Christ, and both of them call him 
 " God ;" and, lastly, I defy Meyer to prove that 6 deoQ 
 xat Xpiaro^ must mean two persons. The Greek rule is 
 this : " Two nouns joined together by and, the first 
 having the article, and the second not, both refer to 
 the same person." 
 
 Let us now consider the usage of the New Testament 
 in this important matter. " God and Father " is a com- 
 mon phrase in Scripture, and it never signifies two per- 
 sons, but one only (2 Cor. i. 3 ; xi. 31 ; Eph. i. 3 ; 1 
 Thess. i. 3; Col. i. 3; Rev. i. 6). In all these pas- 
 sages the first noun has the article, j nd the second has 
 not; and they are both descriptive of the same person. 
 
 46 
 
362 GRAHAM ON EPHP^SIANS. 
 
 Now, I demand why 6 Xpiarac: xm deoc:, " the Christ and 
 God," should be translated differently? So, I main- 
 tain, by the same rule, 2 Thess. i. 12 should be rendered 
 " according to the grace of our God and Lord Jesus 
 Christ." This is the natural translation ; and so 
 strongly is it felt to be critically incapable of any 
 other that Winer, forgetting his character as a critic, 
 simply solves the difficulty by saying the aj^ostle used 
 xofjcoi: for 6 xofno!: — that is, he wrote bad grammar and 
 Winer will correct him, but he by no means intended 
 to call Christ " God " ! This, indeed, solves the diffi- 
 culty, if there be any difficulty, but it does so by des- 
 ecrating and corrupting the word of God. The same 
 celebrated grammarian, in reference to Tit. ii. 13, says 
 he finds ground in the doctrinal system of Paul for be- 
 lieving that the words " the great God and our Saviour " 
 do not refer to one and the same person. But this is 
 admitting that critically and grammatically they do : 
 and this is indeed so manifest that, so far as I know, 
 no critic, ancient or modern, has ventured to assert the 
 contrary. It is easy to find reasons in our own minds 
 or in our preconceived opinions for denying the God- 
 head of Christ ; but when we interj)ret Scripture, we 
 must follow the usages of language ; and I repeat it : 
 the kingdom of Christ and of God in this passage is 
 " the kingdom of him who is Christ and God." I say 
 the same of Jude 4. The examples quoted by Meyer 
 (1 Cor. vi. 9, 10; xv. 20 f Gal. v. 21) are nothing to 
 the 23urpose, if he could show that such forms as " lie 
 that eateth and drinketh" (John vi. 54), "he that seeth 
 and heareth" (Rev. xxii. 8), "the Lord and Saviour" 
 (2 Pet. ii. 20; iii. 18) and " God and Father" must 
 necessarily refer to two persons, and not to one only. 
 
CHAPTER V. VERSES 3-21. 363 
 
 Until this is done nothing is done, and we must con- 
 tinue to believe that the doctrine of the deity of Christ 
 is not only very plainly stated in the word of God, but 
 is so interwoven with the expressions of the apostles 
 tliat it cannot be extracted w.thout destroying the 
 sense and significancy of the wh le Scripture. 
 
 Fourth. But what is the inheritance of this fifth 
 verse ? It is that ennobling hope of glory from which 
 the idolater is shut out, but which, brightening above 
 the children of God, sustains them in their pilgrim- 
 age and gives them a foretaste of their eternal home 
 (Acts XX. 32; Gal. iii. 18; Eph. i. 14, 18; v. 5 ; Col. 
 iii. 24; Heb. ix. 15; 1 Pet. i. 4). The Israelites had 
 their bondage and their deliverance ; their iron furnace 
 and the paschal lamb which redeemed them ; their 
 wanderings in the wilderness, with fearful difficulties 
 contending, but guided by the pillar and fed by the 
 manna from heaven ; they murmured, rebelled and were 
 very stiff-necked against the Lord and his servants, but 
 the one great hope sustained them through it all and 
 made them finally triumjDhant — the hope of the Prom- 
 ised Land, where they might serve the Lord in the 
 beauty of holiness without fear. Oh, hope is indeed 
 the solace of the wretched, the balm for all wounded 
 and weary hearts. And have we too the hope of an 
 inheritance, or has the coming of Christ to die for us 
 exhausted all the fullness of God, so that all is now 
 faith and there is nothing more to hope for ? Oh no, 
 brother, no ! The ocean-fullness of Jehovah's grace 
 and mercy and glory is not exhausted ; new dejDths of 
 love and new heights of glory will attract and entrance 
 the enlarged and adoring mind for ever. We too have 
 our manna and the streams from the spiritual rock ; we 
 
364 GKAHAM ON EPHESIANS. 
 
 too have a heavenly country before us, where God is 
 not ashamed to be called our God. We shall have a 
 temple nobler than the beautiful house of old, where 
 the Lord God and the Lamb shall be the light thereof; 
 a palace with many mansions, where all the family of 
 God shall dwell ; a rest that remains for the people of 
 God, of which Baxter hath spoken so sweetly ; a com- 
 mon inheritance with all the saints in the goodness and 
 bounty of our heavenly Father, in the love and like- 
 ness of our divine Master, for ever. This is the king- 
 dom promised to the saints from the foundation of the 
 world — not the kingdom of righteousness and peace and 
 joy in the Holy Ghost, the kingdom of grace wliich we 
 at present enjoy, but the kingdom of majesty, power 
 and glory which we enter partially into the enjoyment 
 of at death, and fully at the resurrection of the right- 
 eous dead, when the kingdom shall come and the glory 
 of the Lord shall cover the whole earth. 
 
 These words, therefore, ''the kingdom of Christ," 
 the reign of the Son of man, should fill our hearts 
 with the highest hopes and the noblest aspirations. 
 This is the day of man (1 Cor. iv. 3, Greek), that is 
 the day of Christ ; now sin prevails, then righteousness 
 shall prevail; Satan is now seeking whom he may 
 devour, then he shall be shut up and imprisoned for 
 a thousand years ; now sin mars or sullies all the 
 noblest work and efforts of men, then holiness, love 
 and joy shall fill all hearts and the presence and bless- 
 ing of the all-perfect God shall make all things else per- 
 fect. Death shall not divide us any more, temptation 
 shall not beset us any more, anger and wrath no longer 
 trouble our blessedness ; our day shall no more decline 
 and the night of our sorrow shall be ended. We shall 
 
CHAPTER V. VERSES 3-21. 365 
 
 ]>e with the King whom here on earth we loved and 
 served in weakness and in tears, even Jesus Christ, the 
 Beloved of our souls, in whom all beauty, holiness and 
 perfection meet ; more wonderful, more lovely, more 
 adorable, from the contrasts and extremes which are 
 realized in his person — lowliness and majesty ; man- 
 hood in its purity and Godhead in its vastness ; the 
 tears of sympathy for our woes and the eyes of fire to 
 wither up iniquity ; the Lion and the Lamb united ; 
 the Sceptre-Bearer of the world and the Burden- 
 Bearer of our sins ; the Son of the Virgin, the Son 
 of Abraham, the Son of David, the Son of man and 
 the Son of God. 
 
 O thou King of glory, how we desire to see thee ! 
 How beautiful art thou in thy kingdom ! Come, 
 O thou Beloved of our souls, come quickly ! Amen. 
 Even so come. Lord Jesus ! 
 
 Fifth. We come now to the vain words of the sixth 
 verse, which very probably were the delusive asser- 
 tions of Greek philosophers and sophists, having no 
 reality of truth in them. (See Matt. xii. 3 ; Luke xx. 
 10, 11.) Vain also means " fruitless," " without effect " 
 (Acts iv. 25; 1 Cor. xv. 10, 14, 58; 1 Thess. ii. 1) ; 
 and these philosophical babblings could produce no 
 fruit to the benefit of man or to the honor of God. In 
 our text the word rather means fallacious, deceptive 
 (Col. ii. 8; comp. Ex. v. 9; Hos. xii. 1, Septuagint), 
 lying words, by which, from without or from among 
 themselves, they might be led to abandon the hopes of 
 the gospel. They were thus exposed to the wrath of God, 
 the punishment due to the children of disobedience. 
 
 But is there wrath in God ? Ask the angels whom 
 he cast down to Tartarus and still retains in chains ; 
 
366 GRAHAM ON EPHESIANS. 
 
 a.sk the flaming cherubim who banished Adam from 
 Paradise ; ask the antediluvians who perished in the 
 Deluge ; ask the cities of the phiin as tlie devouring 
 element consumes them ; ask the scattered nation of 
 Israel, stripped and peeled and wasted by the curse of 
 eighteen hundred years ! There is fierce, burning 
 wrath in God against all ungodliness and transgression. 
 The coming of Christ is to be in flaming fire to take 
 vengeance on ungodly man ; the Scripture doctrine of 
 hell shows the anger of God against sin ; and why 
 does the natural conscience tremble at the idea of a 
 righteous and holy God ? Why the thousand shifts 
 to which it resorts in order to appease him ? Be 
 assured, then, that there is wrath in God, and that the 
 finally impenitent shall not escape his. vengeance. 
 
 Sixth. Darkness and light (ver. 7, 8, 9). Be ye not 
 partakers with them. Why should you give up the 
 noble hopes of the gospel for the lying promises of de- 
 ceivers and seducers, seeing that by experience ye know 
 that the end of these things is death ? Ye were former- 
 ly darkness, and the enemy of your souls seeks again 
 to entangle you in the by-ways of delusion. Our 
 natural state is darkness ; there is no light in the 
 hidden depths of the soul by which she can ascend out 
 of the turmoil and destruction that rage around her 
 into the liberty and dignity of a life well-pleasing to 
 God. All the civilization of which the heathen na- 
 tions can boast is but the whitewashing of a nauseous- 
 sepulchre — the speckled, glittering skin which the ser- 
 pent has put on ; but the poisonous venom flows 
 through the veins notwithstanding, and must continue 
 to flow and augment there if the Serpent-Bruiser 
 should not follow the footsteps of the destroyer an<l 
 
CHAPTER V. VERSES 3-21. 367 
 
 CKpel the corrupting element by the light of life. He 
 has done so in your case, and his blessed word declares, 
 " Ye are the light of the world." This is nothing else 
 than the change of heart and life indicated by the 
 various Scripture expressions " new name," " new 
 nature," " new heart," " new birth," " faith," " repent- 
 ance," " conversion," and such-like, which are all based 
 upon the great truth that nature can do nothing for us 
 and grace must do everything ; that there is, in fact, 
 no hope of peace or prosperity for us, here or hereafter, 
 until, yielding to the entreaties of divine mercy, w(! 
 are translated from the kingdom of darkness into the 
 kingdom of God's dear Son. How glorious the name! 
 How high the privileges ! Behold what manner of 
 love the Father hath bestowed upon us — that we 
 should be called the sons of God. Do not deceive 
 yourselves with the hopes of the children of God if ye 
 are walking in darkness ; for the fruit of the Spirit is 
 in all goodness, righteousness and truth. His presence 
 in the children of God is made manifest by their love 
 of truth, holiness and goodness. 
 
 Manifold and various are the clusters of this spiritual 
 fruit (fruit, not fruits) which adorn the branches of the 
 living Vine (Gal. v. 22). He is the life of the deml 
 heart ; the sap that flows through the trees of God ; 
 the blood that circulates in the mystical body ; the 
 cement of the temple of God. Like the wind, he 
 breathes upon the dry bones and regenerates them ; 
 like the oil of gladness, he medicates the wounded 
 Samaritans ; like the fire of Pentecost, he baptizes us 
 with burning love to God and man ; like the dewdrops 
 of the morning or the rain upon the mown grass, he 
 revives the heritage of God when it is weary. He is 
 
368 GKAHAM ON EPHESIANS. 
 
 the Fertilizer, the Restorer, the Fruit-Bi-inger, the 
 Comforter, whose work is in the hearts of believers, 
 even as Jesus the Mediator, who sent him, has his 
 place and his work at the right hand of the Father in 
 heaven. Jesus prepares the place, and the Spirit pre- 
 pares the person ; Jesus by his ex})iation removes all 
 barriers that prevented divine mercy from reaching us, 
 and the Spirit by drawing us to tlie cross removes the 
 impediments which would keep us from receiving it ; 
 Jesus gives the food, and the Holy Spirit the appetite 
 to enjoy it. Hence it is that when walking as tlie chil- 
 dren of God and bringing forth the fruit of the Spirit 
 we are able to prove what is acceptable to the Lord. 
 Seventh. This acceptability (ver. 10) is the very 
 highest and noblest of all human attainments, and in 
 proportion as it is sought for and reached marks the 
 progress of the soul in the life of faith. To be living 
 or dead is of comparatively little importance, seeing 
 a very few years at the longest must end this mortal 
 state ; wherefore we labor that, whether absent or 
 present, we may be accepted of him (2 Cor, v. 9). 
 This is the important end and business of life — even 
 so to regulate our thoughts, words and actions in the 
 fear and love of God that our whole life may be pleas- 
 ing to him. Our sleep reminds of the sleeping of the 
 saints in Jesus ; our rising, clothing, washing and re- 
 union in the morning are the daily types and anticipa- 
 tions of the purity, freshness and beauty of the saints 
 when they shall assemble around the Lord in the morn- 
 ing of the resurrection. Our morality is pure and holy ; 
 we hate even the garments spotted by the 1 esh, and 
 our great aim, in life and deatli and all things, is to 
 please God. 
 
CHAPTER V. ^^EKSES 3-21. 369 
 
 Eighth. Works of darkness (ver. 11, 12). Hence, 
 our fellowship is with him, and not with the " unfruit- 
 ful U'orks of darkness.'^ (See 1 Tim. v. 20.) These are 
 the works of man in his unrenewed state, and the 
 apostle assures us they are unfruitful, they are not 
 well-pleasing to God. These are the dead works 
 (Heb. vi. 1 ; ix. 14) which do not spring from faith, 
 and which lead men to destruction (Rom. vi. 21 ; viii. 
 12; Gal. vi. 8; Eph. iv. 22). These are the "wicked 
 works " (Col. i. 21) and the " works of the flesh " (Gal. 
 v. 21) which are directly opposed to the fruit of the 
 Spirit and manifest the carnal mind, which is enmity 
 against God. Have no fellowship with them ; reject 
 them, condemn them, rep:ove tl em. 
 
 The twelfth verse gives the reason : "For it is a 
 shame even to speak of those things that are done of 
 them in secret^ The very mention of their crimes is 
 scandalous. What these enormities were is manifest in 
 tlie history of heathenism, and Paul refers to some of 
 them (Rom. i. 22-32). It is well, however, to observe 
 that the words in secret take for granted the existence 
 of an original conscience in man, which, however dark 
 in itself and darkened by evil habits, is not willing 
 to have the light of day thrown in u; on its doings. 
 They are ashamed to be known as the authors of such 
 evil deeds, and honest men are ashamed even to name 
 them. How, then, shall they meet God ? What must 
 be their shame and confusion before the judgment-seat 
 of Christ ! This is the deadening nature of sin, that 
 it seeks concealment and cannot endure the presence 
 of God, while the ennobling aim of the Christian is to 
 do what is pleasing in Ifis sight. The man without the 
 wedding-gar;nent was speechless. The awe-struck con- 
 
 47 
 
370 GRAHAM ON EPHESIANS. 
 
 science will at last stand silent under the overwhelming 
 consciousness of guilt. May God deliver us from the 
 guilt and power of sin ! 
 
 The thirteenth verse has given the critics not a little 
 to do, and those who wish to see their opinions may 
 consult Meyer. Our English translation is clear and 
 consistent; and if the text can be proved to bear it, 
 the difficulty is removed. The more natural transla- 
 tion of the last clause, however, is this : " Whatsoever 
 is made manifest is light " — viz., belongs to the light, 
 or, as Olshausen says, is changed into light. 
 
 Ninth. The gospel call. " Wherefore he saith, Aivake, 
 thou that steepest, and arise from the dead, and Christ 
 shall give thee lighV (ver, 14). The formula "where- 
 fore he saith" does not refer to any passage in the Old 
 Testament which Paul here quotes, for there is no such 
 passage. Harless and Olshausen try to refer it to Isa. 
 Ix. 1, but without success. De Wette insinuates that 
 it was a slip of the apostle's memory, which surely 
 borders on irreverence. Better say, with Calvin and 
 others, that the apostle speaks as the representative and 
 the ambassador of God, thus : " Wherefore he, God, now 
 speaking in me, saith. Awake, thou that sleepest," etc. 
 Campbell supplies the word gospel : " Wherefore the 
 gospel saith," etc. Others put in the word Scripture : 
 " Wherefore the Scripture saith," etc., meaning the 
 Scripture generally, and not any particular passage. 
 It is, however, far more imj^ortant to attend to the 
 substance than to the mere form of the address, and 
 we learn from it tliree important truths. 
 
 (1) That the natural man is asleep, and requires to 
 be wakened ; dead, and requires the power of God to 
 quicken him ; a child of wrath (E2:)h. ii. o), and needs 
 
CHAPTER V. V1':RSES 3-21. 371 
 
 the pardoning mercy of God. This is the weighty 
 doctrine of Paul and of the whole Scripture, and upon 
 it rest the need and the necessity of a Redeemer. 
 
 (2) The will of man must concur with the power of 
 God in this awakening from the sleep of death; he 
 must attend to the voice of his Father's love ; he must 
 drink of the streams which grace has opened ; he must 
 receive the gift which the Creator sends, or he cannot 
 become a son (John i. 12); he must obey the authority 
 which says to him, " Turn ye, turn ye, why will ye 
 die?" This is an important truth, and is everywhere 
 taken for granted in the Bible. 
 
 (3) Jesus Christ is the Light-Giver, and he gra- 
 ciously promises to suppl}^ all their need in the as- 
 surance, "Christ shall give thee light." Thee, my 
 brother — he will give thee light. To thee his call is 
 directed ; thy soul is dear to him, for he bore thee on 
 his bosom on the cross when he died. His eye is upon 
 thee ; his ear is open to thy call ; and now the very 
 voice of God says, " Awake, arise, and Christ shall 
 give thee light." He is truly the Light of the world, 
 and truth, holiness and peace follow in the train of his 
 gospel. Compare Europe with Africa and see what 
 blessings, temporal as well as spiritual, the gospel 
 brings to the nations. Compare Britain with Spain 
 and Italy and see what ennobling effects the free use 
 of the Scriptures has upon the kingdoms of the world. 
 Shine forth, O thou Sun of righteousness, upon the 
 dark places of the earth, that the whole world may 
 be filled with thy praise ! There is no light to irra- 
 diate the chamber of the heart or the mansion of the 
 tomb ; none but thine, O Lord, to guide us safely in 
 the bitter waters of death. Shed forth the beams of 
 
872 GKAHAM ON EPHESIANS. 
 
 thy beauty, O thou Light and Joy of the whole workl, 
 and let us now walk in the light ; for the night conieth 
 when no man can work. 
 
 Tenth. As wise. ''''See then that ye walk circum- 
 spectly, not as fools, but as wise, 7'edeemi7ig the time, 
 because the days are eviV^ (ver. 15). Wisdom, next 
 to love, is one of the noblest, sweetest virtues, and for 
 the daily affairs of life much more important than 
 l)Ower or high attainments in understanding. The an- 
 cient Greeks boasted that they were the ao(poc (" soph- 
 ists"), the wise men of the world, and thought, no 
 doubt, that wisdom would die with them. Pythagoras, 
 one of the wisest of them, saw their presumption and 
 modestly took the name of " friend of wisdom " [philos- 
 ophos), or philosopher, which has descended to our 
 time, having lost the original signification only so far 
 as that denoted modesty. The Druses of Mount Leb- 
 anon make the same division of mankind, calling the 
 initiated into their mysteries Akkal, " the wise men," 
 and the uninitiated Jehhal, " the fools," for whom there 
 is no salvation. This same division runs through the 
 word of God also, and makes the only radical, per- 
 manent distinction among the children of men. We 
 have the wise and the foolish virgins, the wheat and the 
 tares, the sheep and the goats, the good and the bad, 
 the new and the old man, the renewed and the un- 
 renewed. This is the dividing-line to which God looks 
 in the day when he makes up his jewels, and he re- 
 gards no other. The rich and the poor, the learned and 
 the ignorant, the civilized and the semi-barbarous, are 
 of little account before him. The national distinctions 
 of which we make our boast, the various Church 
 parties who are divided by names, clauses {Filioque 
 
 1 
 
CHAPTER V. VERSES 3-21. 373 
 
 divides the East from the West) and partition-walls 
 which God never built, are all sunk and submerged in 
 the one radical division of which heaven and hell 
 are born — the wise and the foolish, those with oil in 
 their lamps and those without it. Grace or no grace, 
 faith on the Son of God or no faitll, — that is the ques- 
 tion which divides the sjoecies, and shall divide them 
 for evermore. 
 
 See, then, that ye walk circumspectly — accurately, 
 pointedly, on the points, the steps, the promises — look- 
 ing well where you set your feet. Such is the idea of 
 the Greek. See then how {tzok never means " that ") 
 ye walk circumspectly — viz., see in what manner ye 
 can best attain the end in view, to wallv circumspectly, 
 redeeming the time, for the days are evil. So De 
 Wette, Beza, Luther and almost all the translators. 
 
 Eleventh. Evil days. ^'' Redeeming the time, because 
 the days are eviV^ (ver. 16). In the days of the apos- 
 tles the followers of the Lord were surrounded with 
 evils of the most appalling kind. Judaism was their 
 mortal enemy and diligently sought their destruction ; 
 heathenism treated them as miscreants detested by gods 
 and men — heathenism in all its developments, with its 
 established rites and gorgeous ceremonies and statelv 
 temples and proud traditions of conquest, stability and 
 glory. Like their Master, they had not where to lay 
 their heads. They had, indeed, faith, which kept them 
 above the surging elements by uniting them with the 
 Son of God in heaven, but, so far as this world was 
 concerned, they were of all men the most miserable (2 
 Cor. vi. 3-12). They were hunted, rejected, despised, 
 crucified. Their life was a continual martyrdom, and 
 their death was the triumph of faith. They shunned 
 
374 GRAHAM ON EPHESIANS. 
 
 the waves of iniquity by the sacrifice of their lives, 
 and after multitudes were slain the blood of the martyrs 
 became the seed of the Church and the Lord brought 
 to naught all the counsels of their enemies. The days 
 may be more or less evil at different times, but the 
 whole period of the Bridegroom's absence, when the 
 friends of the Bridegroom should fast (Matt. ix. 15), 
 are evil days. These are the "last days" (Heb. i. 2), 
 and the "latter times" (1 Tim. iv. 1), and the "last 
 times" (1 Pet. i. 20), and the "day of man" (1 Cor. 
 iv. 3, in the Greek), and the "last hour" (1 John ii. 
 18, meaning of the present age; see John v. 25, 28, 
 where " hour" means a long period), and the " present 
 evil age " (aion, Gal. i. 4) , from which Christ died to 
 deliver us. Thus the whole " course or age " {daou too 
 xo^fjtoo, Eph. ii. 2) " of the world," from the beginning 
 until the second advent, is characterized as evil, inas- 
 much as the life-and-death struggle of the two king- 
 doms is going on in it, and sin is increased and mul- 
 tiplied in it, and death the destroyer triumphs over us 
 during it, and Satan the roaring lion continues to rage 
 against us until the evil days are ended. Hence the 
 hope of the Church is ever directed to the coming, 
 when the new age is to begin and underneath us is to 
 rise a new earth wherein dwelleth righteousness. Till 
 sin be restrained by the power of almighty God, till 
 death be obliterated from the bodies and souls of believ- 
 ers, till Antichrist and his faction be swept from the 
 face of the earth and given to the burning flame (Rev. 
 xix. 20; Dan. vii. 11), till Satan, the liar, be impris- 
 oned in the bottomless pit, I see no prospect of an end 
 to these evil days — none, none ! On the contrary, the 
 evil is to increase more and more, and love is to wax 
 
CHAPTER V. VERSES 3-21. 375 
 
 colder and colder, and Satan is to roar and rage the 
 more vehemently, as the time of the end approaches. 
 It is the delusion of the present age that we are riding 
 victoriously into millennial hlessedness on the back of 
 a progressive series of moral and religious ameliora- 
 tions ! What a delusion ! How contrary to the word 
 of God ! What ! a reign of righteousness before Anti- 
 christ is slain and the devil cast out ? No, my brother ! 
 The days are evil still ; therefore let us watch and be 
 diligent, redeeming the time. No rest save the rest of 
 faith till the Rewarder comes with many crow^ns upon 
 his head ; no folding of tlie arms to sleep while grace 
 is free and souls are perishing. Oh that we felt in 
 reality the evil of these days ! Oh that we understood 
 what the Lord would have us to do ! 
 
 Twelfth. The will of the Lord. " Wherefore be ye not 
 unwise, but understanding what the will of the Lord is " 
 (ver. 17). The argument of the apostle is this: Sin 
 abounds, the days are evil, wherefore be not unwise, but 
 understanding what the will of the Lord is. Ye must 
 discern the signs of the times that ye may ascertain the 
 will of God therein, as ye judge of the nearness of the 
 summer by the budding of the fig tree (Matt. xxiv. 32, 
 o3). He speaks to us no more from the top of Sinai ; 
 no more do his prophets bear their heavy burdens to 
 the nations ; no longer does a miraculous apostolic min- 
 istry relieve our doubts and silence our fears. Nature 
 holds on her silent course uninterrupted by the arrests 
 of her Master's hand. We have the Bible without us 
 and the Spirit of God within us, and with these we 
 must seek to understand what is the w^ill of the Lord. 
 Our testimony must suit the times. This is a word 
 especially given to pastors. Ye should know the will 
 
376 GRAHAM ON EPHESIANS. 
 
 of the Lord as to the state of your churches, and act 
 accordingly ; the sluinberers must be awakened, the 
 presumptuous must be checked and the superstitious 
 must be led to the simplicity of the gospel. In a 
 sleepy, lethargic age the testimony must go forth on 
 the winds of heaven, and with a voice of thunder, to 
 shake the pillows from all arm-holes and arouse the 
 sleeping virgins to a sense of their danger. In an age 
 like the present, when all powers are stirring themselves 
 and preparing for the conflict, infidelity, superstition 
 and tyranny — ^the leaven of the Sadducee, the leaven 
 of the Pharisee and the leaven of Herod — all working in 
 the heaving mass and waiting for the moment when the 
 angels that restrain them shall let loose the tempests 
 upon the earth, — oh, in such a time we who bear the 
 name of Jesus should not be as fools, but as wise, re- 
 deeming the time and understanding what is the will 
 of the Lord. Let us put on the whole armor of God, 
 that we may be able to stand fast in the evil days ! 
 Thirteenth. The contrast : wine and Spirit. ^''And 
 be not drunk with wine wherein is excess ; but be filled, 
 with the Spirit " (ver. 18). In this train of thought 
 the apostle mentions one disgusting vice which is par- 
 ticularly to be avoided — namely, drunkenness — inas- 
 much as it gives full license to the lusts of the flesh 
 and leads to all kinds of debauchery. It was a very 
 early practice, and it continues to have a very extensive 
 sway in the world. (See Prov. xx. 1 ; xxiii. 2, 30 ; 
 Isa. V. 11, 22 ; Luke xxi. 34.) The vine is one of the 
 good gifts of God, and in many countries, but especially 
 in the East, it supplies, not the rich with an article of 
 luxury, but the common people with an extensive arti- 
 cle of food. It is not the use, but the abuse, of wine 
 
CHAPTER V. VERSES 3-21. 377 
 
 which is forbidden. Mohammed, indeed, did not see 
 this distinction, for he forbade wine altogether in every 
 form, though many of his followers disregard his in- 
 junctions. In the East I have seen few instances of 
 intoxication ; the wines are light and healthful, thougli 
 certainly a great quantity would intoxicate. The best 
 and finest old wines are found in the convents of 
 Mount Lebanon, where the monks are always well 
 supplied. 
 
 The evils of drunkenness are these : It relaxes the 
 powers of reason and self-government ; it degrades, 
 stupefies and brutalizes the character ; it wastes time 
 and money and bodily and mental *vigor ; it ruins the 
 temper of the mind and the peace of the family, the 
 comfort of the wife and the prospects of the children 
 and the hopes of a glorious future. It is, in fact, as 
 this verse teaches, the devil's mockery and mimicry 
 of the joy, power and consolation of the Holy Ghost. 
 The drunkard is deceived, imagining that he is great 
 and wise and excellent, that he is wdiat he is not and 
 can do what he cannot, which is nothing but the Satan- 
 ic imitation of being filled with the Spirit of God, by 
 whom the believer obtains real power to accomplish 
 what nature never could, and joy of heart far surpass- 
 ing anything this world can afford. This power and 
 presence of the Holy Ghost in the hearts of believers 
 is the compensation which the Lord has given us to 
 make up for the loss of the Saviour's j^ersonal presence 
 (John xiv. 16, 17), and the person and personal offices 
 of the Comforter — his operations both in the head and 
 in the members, as well as his constant intermediating 
 between them — are fully and frequently described in 
 the Holy Scriptures. 
 
 48 
 
378 GRAHAM ON EPHESIANS. 
 
 This passage says, " Be filled not with wine, but with 
 the Holy Ghost." The Church is the body of Christ, 
 and the Holy Ghost is the quickening S2:)irit that 
 anoints it; the Church is the vessel of God's mercy, 
 and he is the Water of Life held forth in it to the 
 thirsty world (Acts i. 5 ; ii. 4 ; vi. 5 ; vii. 55) . He is 
 indeed a blessed Comforter to guide and glorify the 
 children of God. He is the last gift of the Father to 
 the children of men ; whose witness being rejected, there 
 is none to come after him, and nothing remains for the 
 desolate bosom but an eternity of darkness and des2:)air. 
 Oh what love, what grace, from our God and Father, 
 what tenderness and compassion in our Lord Jesus 
 Christ, are revealed to us in the exhortation, " Be ye 
 filled with the Spirit " ! The Father has promised the 
 heavenly gift from the times of old ; Jesus, the Son, the 
 risen King and Lord of mankind, has ascended to the 
 right hand of God to shed abroad the gifts of the Spirit 
 as he pleases ; and now the exhortation reaches your 
 ears, "Ask and receive, that your joy may be full." 
 The fountain overflows, and if ye perish it is your own 
 doing ; the x'ullness of the Holy Ghost is presented to 
 your acceptance, and if ye remain cold and comfortless 
 and alienated from God it is by putting away from you 
 the overtures of your Father's love. Be filled with 
 the Spirit. Turn ye, turn ye, why will ye die ? There 
 is bread for the prodigal, and water for the thirsty soul, 
 and life eternal in the merciful heart of God for you 
 all. Hell was not made for you, but for the devil and 
 his angels. There is no right in hell for any of you, 
 and nothing but your blindness and impenitency can 
 send you there ! Again I say, " Be filled with the 
 Spirit." Turn ye, turn ye, why will ye die? 
 
CHAPTER V. VERSES 3-21. 379 
 
 Fourteenth. Heart-melody. " Speaking to yourselves m 
 psalms, and hyinnsy and spiritual sonys, singing arid 
 niaking melody in your heart to the Lord" (ver. 19), 
 This spiritual joy, which the Holy Spirit imparts, shall 
 burst forth in holy words, heavenly prayers and melo- 
 dious singing in their hearts to the Lord, as Pliny the 
 heathen tells us the Christians were accustomed to do 
 in the primitive times {Epist. x. 97) : " Carmen Christo 
 quasi Deo dicunt " (" They sing hymns to Christ as a 
 God"). This fullness of the Spirit leads to ''speaking 
 to yourselves in psalms, and hymns, and spiritual songs, 
 singing and making melody in your heart to the Lord^ 
 There can be no doubt that the word Lord here refers 
 to Christ, and the same idea is more fully asserted m 
 tlie twentieth verse: ''Giving thanks always for aU 
 things unto God and the Father, in the name of our 
 Lord Jesus Christ.'''' Jesus Christ is the prominent 
 object of love, reverence and adoration in the Chris- 
 tian worship, and to the wonders of his redemption 
 every earnest, thoughtful heart beats responsive. 
 
 These psalms and hymns and spiritual odes are not 
 to be artistically distinguished, nor do they refer to the 
 collections of primitive psalmody or to ecclesiastical 
 hymn-books. They were not songs of human com- 
 position, but the outburstings of praise direct from the 
 heart as the Spirit gave utterance to the worshipers. 
 This may have been in their worship (1 Cor. xiv. 15, 
 16) ; or it may have been in their quiet meetings for 
 mutual encouragement and edification ; or it may have 
 been at midnight, when the dungeon enclosed them 
 and their feet were fast in the stocks (Acts xvi. 25). The 
 early Church, having to contend with such fearful en- 
 emies, was endowed by her Head and Redeemer with 
 
380 GRAHAM OK EPHESIANS. 
 
 such a glorious fullness of the Spirit that the indwelling 
 life was ever breaking forth in streams of adoration 
 and praise. Every need was provided for and every 
 difficulty overcome by this mighty endowment, which 
 included all the gifts of the Spirit (1 Cor. xii.) for the 
 ministry of the apostolic Church, the gift of languages 
 for unbelievers, the ninefold fruit of the Spirit (Gal. 
 V. 22) for the Church universal ; and for the psalmody 
 the 23rovision was simple and sufficient, even the out- 
 bursting joy of the indwelling Spirit in psalms and 
 hymns and spiritual songs. It is possible some of the 
 psalms of David may have been used. Hymns means 
 simply songs of praise. Ode seems to be more general 
 and worldly, for the apostle qualifies it by the word 
 spiritual. The same order is observed in Col. iii. 16. 
 " Ode" is found in the following passages : Eph. v. 19 ; 
 Kev. V. 9 ; xiv. 3 ; xv. 3. The practice referred to in 
 1 Cor. xiv. 26 seems to show that the word psalms has 
 some reference to the Jewish psalmody ; and this is 
 still more probable from the fact that the mode and 
 system of worship passed from the synagogue service 
 into the early Christian Church. 
 
 ^^ Giving thanks always for all things unto God a7id 
 the Father, in the name of our Lord Jesus Chi'ist, sub- 
 mitting yourselves one to another in the fear of God *' 
 (ver. 20, 21). 
 
 The twentieth and twenty-first verses are a contin- 
 uance of the same subject, but they show the relations 
 of the Church to the Father and the Son. We learn 
 from them the following truths : (1) That thankfulness 
 is the natural expression of the believing heart, and it 
 should be exercised perpetually. (2) The object of all 
 our thankfulness is the God and Father of our Lord 
 
CHAPTER V. VERSES 3-21. 381 
 
 Jesus Christ. This phrase, " God and Father," in 
 Greek and in English, can refer to only one person, 
 and is another confirmation of the rule which we sought 
 to establish when considering verse 5 of this chapter. 
 (3) Our prayers, praises and thanksgivings should all 
 l)e in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ. We approach 
 God in the name of Christ, which is the same as through 
 the merits and mediation of Christ (Col. iii, 17). In 
 Christ, in the name of Christ, through Christ, for the 
 sake of Christ, — all show the principle of mediation, and 
 may be used indifterently in our praises and our prayers. 
 Fifteenth. In verse 21 the apostle ends these gener- 
 al exhortations with the principle of deference and 
 subynhsion one to another in the fear of God. No 
 place for pride ; no personal superiority of gifts must 
 be permitted to impede the free circulation of brotherly 
 love among the saints. They have much to learn in 
 the school of Christ, and one of the deepest lessons of 
 his love is to bear one another's burdens and be sub- 
 missive one to another in the fear of God. We are 
 very partial in our judgments, and often partial in our 
 affections ; and Jesus will teach us that his saints are 
 one — that we should love them all and be submissive 
 and brotherly in all our relations with them. A pas- 
 tor, for example, is not to take up with the literary 
 families of his neighborhood, where he may join in 
 the gambols of intellect ; nor with the rich and luxu- 
 rious, where he may expatiate in the elegance of sj^len- 
 did mansions and stately hospitality ; nor with the ven- 
 erable and far-advanced Christians whose hearts and 
 hopes are in heaven. No ; not with any one class, but 
 with all classes, should he come in contact, and show 
 the same submissive, loving, deferential spirit to them 
 
382 GRAHAM ON EPHESIANH. 
 
 all. We fail in few things more lamentably than in 
 esteeming one another very highly in love for the 
 Lord's sake ; nor is there any nobler or more difficult 
 exercise of that charity which hopeth all things, be- 
 lieveth all things and beareth all things than to submit 
 ourselves one to another in the fear of God. 
 
 IV. Household Duties (ch. v. 22-vi. 9). 
 Next to the Church, the family occupies place in the 
 Bible. The family is the society of nature, out of 
 which flow all other corporations, as townships, prov- 
 inces, republics, monarchies, empires, etc. — all the nat- 
 ural arrangements and relations of the body politic 
 throughout the world. The Church is the society of 
 grace, founded, sustained and perfected in grace (which 
 finally, indeed, brightens into glory), and out of it as a 
 teeming fountain of blessedness flow all the charitable 
 and benevolent institutions (heathenism had, and has, 
 none of them) with which every Christian land is filled. 
 The Church is the fountain opened in the rock from 
 whence the healing waters flow over the world ; this is 
 the source of all our missionary undertakings which in 
 the apostolic ages and in these last times have attracted 
 the attention and excited the admiration of mankind. 
 These are the two centres whence mighty influences go 
 forth in all directions and shed their dewy blessings 
 over the populations of the world, the two poles — na- 
 ture and grace, the family and the Church, Creator 
 and Redeemer — around which the mighty systems of 
 providence and grace revolve, the former being the 
 manifestation of creating power ; the second, of re- 
 deeming love. The Head of the family is God the 
 Father ; the Head of the Church is God the Son, the 
 
CHAPTER V. VERSES 22-33. 383 
 
 God-Man ; and the Spirit that pervades and glorifies 
 both is the Holy Ghost. Thus we have before us the 
 two theatres of divine operation harmoniously united 
 in the Christian household. Let us, therefore, enter 
 with the apostle the sanctuary of the family — not tur- 
 bulent and repulsive as in nature it often is, but peace- 
 ful and benignant as grace makes it — and expatiate over 
 tlie moralities, sanctities and beauties which adorn it. 
 
 Fh'st. Wives. " Wives, submit yourselves unto your own 
 husbands, as unto the Lord'^ (ver. 22). For the duty of 
 wives generally, consult the following scriptures : Prov. 
 xii. 4 ; xix. 14 ; xxxi. 10-31 ; Rom. vii. 2, 3 ; 1 Cor. 
 vii. 3 ; Eph. V. 22 ; Col. iii. 18 ; 1 Tim. ii. 9-12 ; Tit. 
 ii. 4, 5 ; Heb. xiii. 4 ; 1 Pet. iii. 1-6. Here, however, 
 the apostle mentions only the one great necessary duty 
 of submission. The wife is not the head of the house- 
 hold, and rule on her part would be a reversing of 
 the order and ordinance of both Creator and Redeemer, 
 and would be followed by fearful evils, as quaint old 
 Francis Quarles sings not unskillfully : 
 
 " 111 thrives the hapless family that shows 
 A cock that's silent and a hen that crows ; 
 I know not which live most unnatural lives — 
 Obeying husbands or commanding wives." 
 
 If, as Pope asserts, the two dominant passions of the 
 female sex be the love of pleasure and the love of 
 power, wives should, however unwilling to bow to the 
 authority of Scripture, at least yield to the recommen- 
 dation of the poet, 
 
 " And never answer till their husbands cool, 
 And if tliey rule them do not seem to rule." 
 
 The word of God, however, does not deal in appear- 
 
384 GRAHAM ON EPHESIANS. 
 
 aiices, but in realities ; and if any wife refuses the sub- 
 mission proper to her head and guardian, she disobeys 
 the command of God, and to him she must answer for 
 it. Newton says in his pleasant way that he would 
 allow the reins occasionally to lie in the wife's hand 
 when the road is smooth and pleasant — with the pro- 
 viso, however, that he may have the liberty of resum- 
 ing them in rough roads and stormy weather. Such a 
 mutual arrangement may be agreeable to both parties, 
 and is, perhaps, permissible, though the analogy of the 
 text, and especially of the words " as unto the Lord," is 
 against it. This phrase, as unto the Lord, reveals the 
 glory and the dignity of the Christian dispensation, 
 in which the presence of the Lord is an all-pervading 
 element, and in wliich all the littleness of our personal 
 relationships is submerged in the recognition of fel- 
 lowship with him. It is his service throughout. We 
 recognize him in the magistrate who reigns ; in the 
 husband who rules his household w^ell ; in the loving, 
 obedient wife — a type of the redeemed Chur(;h ; and 
 in the honest diligence of feithful servants. Every 
 one acts in his sphere as unto the Lord, and the pres- 
 ence of our common Lord and Master sustains and 
 blesses aU. The reason of this submission is given 
 in verses 23 and 24. 
 
 Second. The example of Christ. "For the husband is 
 the head of the wife, even as Christ is the head of the 
 Church, and he is the Saviour of the body'' (ver. 23). 
 Jesus Christ, having assumed our nature for the pur- 
 pose of redemption and for the glory of God, ha^^ ap- 
 j)ropriate.d, consecrated and dignified all human rela- 
 tions. The husband, the wife, the servant condition, 
 the offices of royalty and submission — all conceivable 
 
CHAPTER V. VERSES 22-33. 385 
 
 relations among men — he has glorified by shedding 
 over them the sacredness of a personal appropriation. 
 He is himself the Frince and the Subject, the Sceptre- 
 Bearer and the Burden-Bearer, the Lion of the tribe of 
 Judah and the Lamb of God that taketh away the sin 
 of the world. The husband manifests Christ's head- 
 ship ; the wife, lowly and loving and obedient, like the 
 Church, shows forth the reception and fullness of 
 Christ's love ; and the servant in unrepining submis- 
 sion to the will of his master is but treading the path 
 consecrated by Christ, who, being in the form of God 
 and thinking it no robbery to be equal with God, yet 
 took upon him the form of a servant and became obe- 
 dient unto death, even the death of the cross (Phil. ii. 
 <5-8). There seems to be no restriction but the will of 
 God. While the rule of the husband is in the Lord, 
 the wife is bound to obey ; but the commands of a hard, 
 cruel, tyrannical master who has no respect to the will 
 of God she has no right to obey, and that simply for 
 the reason that such obedience could never be given to 
 the husband as unto God. The headship of Christ is 
 holy, loving and just, and such should be the rule of 
 the husband. Christ provides for the Church, leads her 
 in the wilderness by his presence, defends her from her 
 enemies, and finally makes her the sharer of his glory ; 
 and such should be the conduct of husbands to their 
 wives if they expect from them the obedience which the 
 Church renders to C'hrist. 
 
 Third. The husbcmd's love. For the duty of hus- 
 bands generally, consult the following passages : Gen. 
 ii. 24; 1 Sam. i. <s ; Matt. ii. 13-15; xix. 5, 6; 1 
 Cor. vii. 3-11 ; Eph. v. 28; Col. iii. 19; 1 Tim. v. 8; 
 Heb. xiii. 4; 1 Pet. 3-7. Here, however, the great 
 
 49 
 
386 GRAHAM ON EPHESIANS. 
 
 duty commanded is love, and the liiglie.st of all ex- 
 amples is brought forth to enforce it : " Love your 
 wives, even as Christ loved the Church, and gave 
 himself for it," If, on the one hand, Paul requires obe- 
 dience " in everything," on the other he requires a love 
 which can be extinguished only in death. These are 
 the two mother-virtues — love and obedience — from 
 which all others flow. If the husband act out the 
 love of Christ in his whole family life and the wife 
 exhibit the obedience which the Church owes to Christ, 
 then the family will be a happy family, and on this side 
 of heaven you can find no other spot where so many 
 virtues meet. The rule of love is not felt to be tyran- 
 nical, and obedience in the Lord is not felt to be degra- 
 dation ; and then there is so much that is common to 
 both that the peculiarities of their distinctive positions 
 make up but an inconsiderable portion of their house- 
 hold relations. They have one faith, one hope and one 
 heavenly calling ; their enemies are the same ; they 
 must gird themselves together for the same conflict m 
 the struggle of life ; and the clouds and the tempests 
 of the evil day threaten both equally. Take such a 
 faithful Christian family wherever you find it, from the 
 palace to the cottage, and you will find in it the same 
 noble principles, the same moral beauty and grandeur. 
 It is a nursery lor heaven and a type of the house not 
 made with hands. 
 
 Fourth. Christ's love to the Church. This subject is 
 introduced only in a cisual way and as an example for 
 husbands, but, being mentioned, the apostle, whose prin- 
 ciple was to know nothing among men save Jesus Christ 
 and him crucified, immediately launches forth upon the 
 ocean of redeeming love : 
 
CHAPTER V. VERSES 22-33. 387 
 
 *^ Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ also loved 
 tlie Church, and gave himself for it; that he might 
 sanctify and cleanse it with the washing of ivater by the 
 word, that he might present it to himself a glorious 
 Church, not having spot or wrinkle, or any such thing ; 
 but that it should be holy and without blemish'''' (ver. 
 25-27). 
 
 Let us analyze for a moment this glorious description, 
 that we may comprehend at our leisure, as far as may 
 be, the nature of the eternal mercy. 
 
 (1) He loved the Church. His heart was moved with 
 affection in the heavens, and he left the throne of his 
 glory, the homage of the angels and the bosom of the 
 Father that he might restore the wanderer to the heav- 
 enly fold. She is the chosen bride which he contem- 
 plated from eternity in the purpose of the Father, 
 when, even before the creation of the world, his de- 
 lights were with the sons of men. It is sweet to be the 
 object of love ; to know and feel that Jesus loved you 
 from eternity, loves you now and will love you for ever; 
 to be sure in the midst of forgetfulness and estrange- 
 ment that One loves thee still and can never forget 
 thee — that his eye and his heart are as tender and as 
 merciful as on the day when he exj)ired upon the ac- 
 cursed tree. This tranquillizes our fears and stills all 
 the stormy emotions of our troubled minds. This is 
 not the love he bears to the world, for he loves the 
 world too ; it is not mere compassion over misery, nor 
 the tender feeling which seeks to relieve distress. No ; 
 the love he bears the Church is that, and far more than 
 that. It is a love which delights in its object, which 
 turns misery into joy and deformity into beauty, that 
 it may have an object of complacency on which to 
 
388 GRAHAM ON EPHESIANS. 
 
 fasten its regards. His love to the Church is sympathy 
 and delight. He has made her beautiful by his own 
 comeliness, so that the all-seeing Eye can discover no 
 imperfection. She is his bride, the second Eve for the 
 second Adam, taken from his bleeding side and to be 
 presented to him on the day of the espousals (Rev. xix. 
 7) as the worthy queen of the new world. She is bone 
 of his bone and flesh of his flesh, and his own royal 
 resurrection I'ighteousness is the garment which she 
 wears. Oh, who can imagine the affection which the 
 Son of God bears to his beloved Church, the object of 
 his eternal solicitude and the vessel of mercy into which 
 he has poured all the fullness of his grace ? She fol- 
 lowed him through the Valley of Humiliation, and she 
 shall share with him the visions of his beatific glory. 
 With hi in, is the secret and charm of her love — 2vifh 
 him throuofh the barren wilderness or urith him in the 
 heavenly Canaan. To drink the bitter gall on Gol- 
 gotha or to enter into the cloud of his glory on Tabor 
 is all the same to her, for in both and in all cases she 
 has the strong and victorious assurance that he is with 
 her. No higher glory can she ever desire on earth or 
 in heaven than to be with him and like him, for he is 
 the one living centre in which all glories meet. 
 
 (2) He gave himself for it. This is atonement, 
 redemption, sacrifice, ransom, and it is the constant 
 doctrine of the New Testament. (See Rom. v. 6, 7, 8 ; 
 xiv. 15; 2 Cor. v. 14, 15; 1 Thess. v. 10; John xviii. 14; 
 Heb. ii. 9 ; Luke xxii. 19 ; Tit. ii. 14 ; 1 Tim. ii. 6 ; 
 1 Cor. V. 7; xi. 24; Gal. ii. 20; iii. 13; iv. 4 ; 1 Pet. 
 ii. 21.) These passages with one voice declare that 
 the death of Jesus Christ was to expiate the sins of 
 men and to brinsj in reconciliation with God. Hold 
 
CHAPTER V. VP:R8ES 22-83. 389 
 
 fast, therefore, the docti-ine of atonement, by which 
 every believer lias free access to the holiest of all. His 
 death was our peace-offering with God. Had he not 
 vlied, the law would have remained without vindication 
 and the portals of glory would have remained closed. 
 No mighty and compelling example of divine clemency 
 would have been given to the universe, and the poor 
 soul, forsaken and fatherless, would have no assurance 
 of a welcome in the skies. The cross is the expla- 
 nation of the dark ways of providence ; we read at the 
 same time the enormity of sin and the love that for- 
 gives it. All attempts to explain away the death of 
 Christ into common martyrdom are profane and un- 
 ])hilosophical. His sufferings are twofold— exe7nplary 
 and atoning. He is the Head of believers, to lead them 
 on, and he is the I.amb of God that taketh away the 
 sins of tlie world. Paul speaks often of our suffering 
 with Christ and bearing the cross of Christ; yet he 
 exclaims in indignation, "Was Paul crucified for you?" 
 (1 Cor. i. 13). He knew the difference between the ex- 
 ample of Christ and his expiation, and we should be 
 careful not to confound them. 
 
 (3) 'The purpose of his love. ''That he might sanctifg 
 and cleanse it with the washing of water by the word, 
 thai he might present it to himself a glorious Church, 
 not having .spot or wrinkle, or any such thing; but that 
 it should be holy aiid without blemish " (ver. 26, 27). 
 
 This purpose was twofold, according to our passage — 
 viz., sanctification and glorification. His purpose in 
 dying was " that he might sanctify and cleanse it with 
 the washing of water by the word." Jerome and others 
 translate, " That he might sanctify it by the word, and 
 cleanse it by the washing of water ;" and the sense is 
 
390 GRAHAM ON EPHESIANS. 
 
 good, and the construction neither forced nor unnatural. 
 This washing refers, without doubt, to baptism, though 
 the phrase in our Greek text is nowhere else found in 
 the Scriptures ; but we have the washing or bath of 
 regeneration (Tit. iii. 5) ; water is connected with 
 regeneration in John iii. 5, and the washing of the 
 YhkIj with pure water refers to the same thing (Heb. 
 X. 22). So, also (Acts xxii.), baptism is connected 
 with the washing away of sins and calling uj)on the 
 name of the Lord. All these agree with our passage 
 in making the bath of baptism the means of the 
 Church's purification. There seems, however, to be 
 a distinction taken between sanctifying the Church 
 and purifying her, for the passage seems to imply this 
 — that he might sanctify her after having purified her 
 l)y the bath of water (baptism), according to the word 
 of God. Baptism is the threshold of purification, over 
 which she must first pass, and then the work of sancti- 
 fication proceeds until she is assimilated unto the Lord. 
 In the New Testament little more seems to be required 
 for baptism than a simple confession that Jesus is the 
 Son of God. This acknowledgment being made, the 
 candidate enters into the Church through the bath of 
 regeneration, and now the great work of sanctification 
 proceeds under the hand of the Holy Spirit. Baptism, 
 therefore, is the ordinance for regenerating the children 
 of God, as the Lord's Supper is the ordinance for 
 nourishing and building them up. It is not only 
 a solemn admission of the baptized into the visible 
 Church, but also a sign and seal of the covenant of 
 grace, of his ingrafting into Christ, of regeneration, of 
 remission of sins, of his going up unto God, through 
 Jesus Christ, to walk in newness of life. 
 
CHAPTER V. VERSES 22-33. 391 
 
 But what does the phrase here, by the word, or " ac- 
 cording to the word," mean ? The okl expositors of 
 the Church understood it of the form of baptism. 
 This, however, is weak and unsatisfactory, notwith- 
 standing De Wette's defence of it. The term rema 
 ("word") is "the gospel" — viz., the word of God or 
 tlie word of life; so the word of faith (Rom. x. 8). 
 (Hee also Rom. x. 17 ; E])h. vi. 17 ; 1 Pet. i. 25.) De 
 Wette's surmise that tJie word {rema) cannot signify 
 the gospel is groundless ; it differs, indeed, from logos, 
 but such is not the difference. Both are applied to 
 the word of God — that is, the gospel — but logos alone 
 is applied to the person of the Son of God. The 
 meaning, then, is this : " That he might sanctify her 
 by the word of the gospel, after having purified her by 
 the bath- water." 
 
 Then the second object that he had in view was that 
 he might present her to himself a glorious Church — 
 not having spot or wrinkle, or any such thing, but that 
 she should be without blemish. This offers no difficulty, 
 and the critics have only made work for themselves. 
 Surely, when the saints shall hear his voice and rise 
 from their graves to meet him in the air, they shall be 
 presented to him. He loved her and washed her from 
 her sins in his blood, and he shall first draw her up to 
 the presence of his glory in the clouds (1 Thess. iv. 17), 
 after which he shall present her to the Father, and 
 then come, invested with the authority and majesty of 
 God, to reign for ever over the renewed earth with his 
 bride. She is now in misery and conflict, struggling 
 ao;ainst the waves of sorrow which threaten everv 
 moment to submerge her ; she shall then be gloriou.< 
 like her Master and Head in every faculty of the mind 
 
392 GRAHAM ON EPHESIANS. 
 
 and in every fibre of tlie body ; with a beauty and a 
 loveliness corresponding to the dignity in store for her ; 
 with a splendor and a majesty in keeping with the 
 ransom that was paid for her ; with a fullness of love 
 and a nearness to God and a perpetually-increasing 
 communion in the Spirit worthy of the eternal purpose 
 of God in the creation and redemption of the world. 
 No spot to remind you of the ancient storms — no 
 wrinkle, through all the years of eternity, to testify 
 of superannuation or decay ! Holy and without 
 blemish (these are sacrificial terms, but used here 
 morally), she shall enjoy the vigor of eternal youth 
 in that happy land where winter does not wither the 
 fiowers of paradise, and sin and Satan and death 
 can sully and divide the children of God no more. 
 
 Oh how glorious this Church ! How noble the hope 
 of being there, of standing with accejDtance before the 
 presence of the Lord invested with the white robes of 
 spotless purity ! O my God, I long after thine image, 
 that in all things I may act worthily of thy love to me. 
 Oh for that burning love which can rest satisfied with 
 nothing less than thee ! 
 
 " Yes, we shall love. But who can know — 
 What tongue or pen can fully show — 
 The depths beneath and height of love? 
 Our souls from endless death to save, 
 Himself, his blood, his life, he gave." 
 
 Fifth. The natural oneness. " So ought men to love 
 their wives, as their own bodies. He that loveth his wife 
 loveth himself^' (ver. 28). The apostle now returns to 
 his theme — that is, t e duty of husbands — and he does 
 so after stating the example of Christ, who to seek and 
 to save his bride came down from the upper sanctuary, 
 
CHAPTER V. VERSES 22-33. 393 
 
 became one with her by assuming her nature (Heb. ii. 
 14) ; so that the redeemed Church and the Redeemer 
 fulfilled and perfected the paradisiacal marriage union : 
 " This is now bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh " 
 (Gen. ii. 23; 1 Cor. xi. 8). Adam, without being 
 deceived, followed (1 Tim. ii. 14) his wife into sorrows 
 and dangers from which he was unable to deliver her. 
 He could not break the yoke, but he could help to bear 
 it, and in so doing he was a type of the Redeemer and 
 Husband, who, seeing all our dangers and knowing 
 well the depth of our fallen condition, voluntarily 
 came into them, himself undefiled amidst all possible 
 defilement ; not only the Burden-Bearer of our woes, 
 but the triumphant Redeemer of our forfeited glories. 
 
 His oneness with us is complete. He is our Brother- 
 Man, our Kinsman-Redeemer, and his love to us was 
 perfect. This is the force of the " so ought men to 
 love their wives as their own bodies. He that loveth 
 his wife loveth himself" Jesus, clothing himself with 
 our nature, bearing our burdens of sorrow and finally 
 dying for his bride on the cross, is the right and 
 proper example for husbands. The union is full and 
 complete : husband and wife are sharers of one com- 
 mon nature ; they are, or ought to be, animated by the 
 same temj^oral and eternal hopes ; they have entered into 
 the same lifeboat to buffet together the billows of the 
 troublous sea ; they have put £lieir hands to the plough, 
 and should never look back to what they were before 
 their marriage. Their union is the most j^erfect known 
 upon earth, for they are no longer twain, but one flesh ; 
 and the more this is realized, the happier the married 
 life must be. Let differences arise between them, so that 
 the sentiment or feeling of oneness is broken, and the 
 
 50 
 
394 GRAHAM ON EPHESIANS. 
 
 glory of the marriage state is at once dimmed ; it is no 
 more that unity in variety which is the perfection of all 
 God's works in so far as they illustrate his own nature. 
 The faithful husband seeks not his own, but his wife's ; 
 his affections, which God has made to flow outward and 
 upward, find their natural home in her ; and he seeks 
 and finds in her the solace for his earthly woes. She 
 knows her weakness, and looks to him for provision 
 and defence ; while his affection finds in her not only 
 the clinging dependant, but also the strong supporter 
 by whom all his cares are divided and all his happi- 
 ness far more than doubled. He loves her as he loves 
 himself, and this love is returned manifold into his 
 bosom ; so that the typical nature of the marriage 
 union is realized. On the one hand, there is power, 
 authority, protection and love ; on the other, meekness, 
 gentleness, quiet obedience, winning affection ; and 
 these two, meeting and mingling in the family circle, 
 mutually limit, counteract or sustain each other, as the 
 case may be ; so that impetuosity is tempered by pru- 
 dence ; weakness is sustained by the feeling of anoth- 
 er's strength ; angularities are rubbed off by contact ; 
 patience has her perfect work ; anger and wrath are 
 moderated by gentle forbearance and kind words; while 
 the spirit of love — the great anti-friction in human 
 afi\iirs — interpenetrating the whole domestic economy, 
 gilds the family life with the sacredness and the radi- 
 ance of heaven. It is indeed the best and noblest type 
 of Christ and the Church. 
 
 Sixth. The principle of self-love. " iVo man ever yet 
 hated his otvn flesh" (ver. 29). The apostle might 
 have said " body," and the meaning would have been 
 the same. Flesh is not here used in the bad sense 
 
 I 
 
CHAPTER V. VERSES 22-33. 395 
 
 which it often has in the New Testament (Rom. viii. 
 4, 5, 6-13 ; Gal. v. 16, 24 ; vi. 8). Here sarx (" flesh") 
 is used for phusis (" nature " — viz., the nature of man, 
 or human nature). The principle is not condemned 
 in the New Testament. Selfishness is strongly repro- 
 bated, but self-love is sometimes encouraged and often 
 taken for granted as right and proper. " Thou shalt 
 love thy neighbor as thyse/f^ is the solemn command 
 of God ; so that self-love is the measure of all other 
 love. The power of this principle may be seen espe- 
 cially in times of great calamity and common danger, 
 such as earthquakes and shipwrecks, when each indi- 
 vidual, generally speaking, seeks to take care only of 
 himself. The examples of self-sacrificing love are not 
 more than enough to confirm the rule that self-love 
 regulates, and should regulate, the conduct of mankind. 
 This principle the apostle uses as an argument wdiy 
 husbands should love their wives, inasmuch as the 
 nuitual love is self-love, seeing they twain are one 
 flesh; for no man ever yet hated his own flesh, but 
 nourisheth it and cherisheth it, even as the Lord the 
 Church. 
 
 Seventh. Members of his body. "For ive are members 
 of his body, of his fesh, and of his bones " (ver. 30) . 
 The Holy Scripture speaks much about our incorpora- 
 tion into the body of Christ (Rom. xii. 5 ; 1 Cor. vi. 
 15; xii. 27). There is the old Adam, to whom we 
 stand related by nature and from whom have descended 
 the burdens of iniquity which oppress us, from which 
 it is the effort of the second Adam to deliver us ; and 
 this can be accomplished only by union with Christ. 
 No strength but his can enable us to stem the ocean- 
 swell that rises up against us in the struggle for holi- 
 
396 GRAHAM ON EPHESIANS. 
 
 ness and life ; the branch shed off from the vine be- 
 comes a sport of the winds ; the stone that is loosed 
 from the temple has lost all its strength and import- 
 ance ; a member cut off from the body is deprived of 
 the living circulation and dies or withers away. It is 
 even so with believers, says the apostle. United with 
 our Lord, we are strong and holy and victorious ; we 
 can go anywhere, do anything and conquer anything. 
 We are identified with him by faith and love, and are 
 permitted and encouraged to apj)ropriate all the prom- 
 ises of his grace. This is our strength and our glory ; 
 nor is there any stimulus to faith and good works so 
 effectual as the realized consciousness of union with 
 Christ. This oneness is begun by faith, continued in 
 love and perfected in the glories of the skies. 
 
 Members of his body ! This is a great thought and 
 worthy of its divine Author; for it announces the 
 reality of the Church's unity and annihilates the 
 natural sectarianism of our carnal minds. The body 
 of Christ is not half a dozen of the least informed 
 and most immoral nations of Europe, headed by a 
 tyrannical priest on the Tiber whose own states are 
 the most degraded and the worst governed in the world. 
 No ! The body of Christ is not seated on the seven 
 hills, nor clothed with purple and scarlet and decked 
 with gold and precious stones and pearls, though Baby- 
 lon, the mother of harlots, may be (Rev. xvii. 4) ; and 
 the impudence must be nearly diabolical which can as- 
 sert it. The body of Christ is holy, and its members 
 are the saints, the holy ones, wherever they are found. 
 The renewed, the converted, the faithful, who receive 
 the testimony of God ; the poor in spirit, to whom be- 
 longs the kingdom ; the pure in heart, who shall see 
 
CHAPTER V. VERSES 22-33. 397 
 
 God ; the persecuted for righteousness' sake, of whom 
 the world is not worthy, — these are the body of Christ, 
 the glorious corporation which the Holy Ghost is form- 
 ing, and which shall survive all earthly things and 
 flourish immortally in the kingdom of God, 
 
 Eighth. 3Iarriage. '"''For this cause shall a man leave 
 his father and mother, and shall be joined unto his wife, 
 and they two shall be one flesh'' (ver. 31). The apostle, 
 having referred to Gen. ii. 22 as containing a typical 
 reference to the union between Christ and the Church, 
 now turns again to the natural physical relation, which 
 he confirms from Gen. ii. 24 : " For this cause " — viz., 
 the closeness of the union — " shall a man leave his 
 father and mother, and shall be joined to his wife, and 
 they two shall be one flesh." Meyer refers the phrase 
 for this cause (ver. 31) exclusively to ver. 30, and, fol- 
 lowing Bengel, Grotius and others, asserts that the man 
 leaving father and mother must be Christ. It is true 
 that Jesus left his Father and came down to redeem the 
 l»ride, but this truth is not taught in the text ; it is also 
 true, as Meyer asserts, that he shall leave his Father's 
 throne, where he now is, and come in the glory of his 
 royal state to claim his Bride, but this is not taught ui 
 our text. The thirty-first verse is a description of the 
 marriage relation, and does not refer to Christ and the 
 C%urch in any one respect. 
 
 The words they two form a strong argument against 
 }»olygamy. The Scripture in a thousand ways recog- 
 nizes the propriety of monogamy, though polygamy is 
 nowhere expressly forbidden. (1) God created one 
 man and one woman in the beginning, which shows 
 clearly the intention of the Creator that a man should 
 have onlv one wife. (2) It is a remarkable fact that 
 
398 GRAHAM ON EPHESIAXS. 
 
 the sexes are nearly equal. I was told by a pastor in a 
 very large congregation that after twenty years' labor 
 the number of males and females baptized was abso- 
 lutely the same. All our population tables bring out 
 nearly the same result, which sliows how unnatural 
 polygamy is, and how impjjs-ible to generalize it. In- 
 deed, even in Mohammedan countries comparatively 
 few men have more than one wife. (3) There are 
 tr -ces of the natural and scriptural doctrine of mar- 
 riage in the histories and traditions of all nations, 
 savage as well as civilized. (4) Polygamy is the 
 source of boundless evils — bitterness, feuds, destruc- 
 tion, divided affections (if, indeed, pure affection can 
 exist in it), mutual hatred and jealousy; and, instea<l 
 of increas ng, it infallibly diminishes, the population, 
 as we see in the empire of the Osmanlies, of which it 
 has been truly said " that Turkey is perishing for want 
 of Turks." 
 
 Marriage and the Sabbath — an ordinance of nature 
 and an ordinance of grace — are the only two institu- 
 tions which have descended to us from paradise ; and 
 when complied with in the spirit of their divine Au- 
 thor, they are the source of innumerable blessings to 
 mankind. Olshausen's opinion that the enjoyments of 
 marriage typified the union of the Head with the mem- 
 bers in the Lord's Supper, when they become one with 
 him by eating his flesh and drinking his blood, is ab- 
 surd, carnal and contrary to the text. 
 
 The apostle now leaves the type and resumes the con- 
 sideration of the thing typified. 
 
 Ninth. The great mystery. " This is a great m,ystery : 
 but I speak concerning Christ and the Church " (ver. 
 82). The great mystery is not that Christ loved the 
 
CHAPTER V. VERSES 22-33. 399 
 
 Church and gave himself for it, for this was known 
 long before ; and what is known ceases to be a mystery. 
 Mystery is not a thing that cannot be understood, but 
 something that has not hitherto been revealed ; the 
 word is applied to the facts, types and ordinances of 
 Judaism which adumbrated the doctrines of the cross. 
 Hence the office of Christ was to make known the 
 mysteries of the kingdom of heaven (Matt, xiii. 11). 
 Hence the secret working of the Babylonian Antichrist, 
 in which the liar assumes the garb of an angel of light, 
 is called the mystery of iniquity (lawlessness, having no 
 law, being above law, like God) (2 Thess. ii. 7), and the 
 coming of Christ in the fle.-^h is cil'ed the mystery of 
 godliness (1 Tim. iii. 16). (See the use of the word 
 " mystery " in the following passages : Eph. iii. 4 ; vi. 
 19 ; Col. iv. 3; 1 Tim. iii. 9; Rom. xi. 25; xvi. 25; 
 1 Cor. ii. 7 ; iv. 1 ; xiii. 2.) 
 
 Here, in our passage, the fine comparison between 
 the husband and the wife and Christ and the Church 
 is called a great mystery, not because it is not know- 
 able, but because it was not hitherto fully revealed, nor 
 is it now, nor shall it be until the coming of the Lord 
 shall make manifest all strength and wisdom of the tie 
 which unites the members with the Head. I do not say 
 that a mystery is something which we fully understand 
 even when it is revealed, but that it is something which 
 may be understood, and which we are not forbidden to 
 search after. The union of Christ and his Church is a 
 glorious mystery, h"nted at in the Old Testament, real- 
 ized fully in the incarnation and work of the Redeemer, 
 and yet to be fully manifested when we shall see him 
 as he is and know even as we are known. Adam and 
 Eve in the happy garden were types of it; the Jewish 
 
400 GRAHAM ON EPHESIANS. 
 
 nation, separated from the rest of the world and dedi- 
 cated to the service of God, symholized it (Isa. liv. 5 ; 
 Ps. xlv. ; Ezek. xvi. ; Hos. ii. 16) ; and the faitliful 
 husband, loving, protecting and in all things identified 
 with his wife, is the perpetual, external and universal 
 memorial of it.* Marriage is the mystery of natural 
 life springing forth in all directions as from a fountain 
 until it fill the world with men ; the union of the Church 
 with her Head in heaven is the mystery of spiritual 
 life, which, breaking forth in the wilderness like the 
 streams from the rock, shall go on increasing and mul- 
 tiplying till the world be filled with Christians. Our 
 union with Adam is the moral bond which unites the 
 whole family of earth, and our union with Christ, the 
 second Adam, is the spiritual bond which unites all the 
 family of heaven. These are the two fountains, the 
 two Adams, the two poles of the natural and the spirit- 
 ual, the two kingdoms which have existed from the be- 
 ginning, and under the forms of hell and heaven shall 
 exist for ever. 
 
 Tenth. The thirty-third verse contains nothing new 
 save the phrase " and the wife see that she reverence her 
 Jiusband.''^ Here wife {gune) is the nominative absolute, 
 and can be understood only by reference to som^ verb 
 understood. (For the use of the particle " that " (hina), 
 see Winer, sect. 44, 4.) But the sentiment here is im- 
 portant : If the husband is bound to love and protect, 
 she is equally bound to obey and reverence. He is 
 the type of power, wisdom and divine love ; she, of 
 obedience, attachment and reverence. The faithful 
 
 * Jerome translates mystery in this passage by the word sacr amentum, 
 and on this false translation tlie whole popish doctrine of marriage as a 
 sacrament is built. 
 
CHAPTER VI. VERSES 1-9. 401 
 
 wife following her husband in the trials and dangers 
 of life is the type of the Church leaning on the arm of 
 her Redeemer and braving with him all the dangers of 
 Egypt, the wilderness and the Jordan of death. Thus 
 all the relations of human life are consecrated and 
 blessed with a heavenly unction ; so that in the midst 
 of earthly duties and obligations there is always a 
 breath and a savor of heaven. The family circle is 
 filled with the choicest fruits, and is compared to a 
 garden which the Lord has blessed. Jesus rules in 
 each member and love becomes the o^uidino;, central 
 principle of all their actions. 
 
 This, however, leads the apostle to another family 
 relationship, to which we must now turn your atten- 
 tion. 
 
 JEleventh. Ohedience. "'Children, obey yoiw 'parenU 
 in the Lord ; for this is right " (chap. vi. 1). 
 
 The Greek word for " children " [tekna] means, in 
 this passage, " natural children," as in the following 
 and many similar scriptures: Matt. x. 21 ; Acts vii. 5; 
 both sons and daughters, like the Hebrew (Gen. iii. 16 ; 
 XXX. 1 ; xxxiii. (3). It means descendants or posterity 
 (Matt. iii. 9; Luke i. 17; iii. 8; Acts ii. 39; 1 Pet. 
 iii. 6, " daughters"). 
 
 It is used figuratively in the following significations : 
 (1) To denote descendants (Matt. ix. 2 ; Mark ii. 5 ; 
 1 Tim. i. 18; 2 Tim. ii. 1). The usage (Mark x. 23) 
 is the same as the Hebrew (1 Sam. iii. 9-16). (2) 
 Disciples or scholars (2 Tim. ii. 1 ; Pliilem. 10; 1 Cor. 
 iv. 17 : here it is " in the Lord ;" 1 Tim. i. 2, " in the 
 faith"). 
 
 Take these significations together, and you have the 
 explanation of the following phrases : " the children of 
 
 51 
 
402 GRAHAM ON EPHESIANS. 
 
 God" (Jolin i. 12; Horn. viii. 16-21; ix. 8; 1 John 
 iii. 1) ; " children of the devil " (1 John iii. 10 ; so the 
 Hebrew and the Septuagint, 2 Kings xvii. 7) ; "the chil- 
 dren of Jerusalem " (Luke xix. 44 ; Gal. iv. 25 ; Rev. 
 ii. 23) ; " the children of wisdom " (Matt. xi. 19 ; Luke 
 vii. 35) ; " children of light " (Eph. v. 8) ; " children 
 of obedience" (1 Pet. i. 14); "children of wrath" 
 (Eph. ii. 3) ; " children of apostasy," " children of 
 unrighteousness." (See Deut. xxv. 2 ; 1 Kings ii. 26 ; 
 2 Kings xiv. 14.) Many similar phrases are found 
 both in Scripture and in the classics, but they are 
 without any difficulty and need not be repeated. 
 
 But, leaving the form of expression, we observe that 
 obedience is a natural duty confirmed and sanctioned 
 in every way by the word of God. We owe to our 
 parents life, being, health, food, raiment — in fact, all 
 earthly blessings ; and love, veneration, obedience, seem 
 to be only a natural return on our part. This is one 
 of the very instincts of nature and is coextensive with 
 the species, varying among the different nations and 
 religions in strength and intensiveness, but existing 
 everywhere — the very root and basis of all other 
 duties and obligations. The reason or ground given 
 is that it is right, wliich Theodoret expounds by the 
 words " according to the law of God." 
 
 The only limitation given is in the words in the Lord, 
 which are not to be joined with parents, as if the obedi- 
 ence were required only to spiritual parents, but with 
 the verb obey, and should be rendered thus : Children, 
 obey, in the Lord, your parents — that is, obey your 
 natural parents in so far as their commands are accord- 
 ing to the will of the Lord. His will is the limitation ; 
 all commands find their boundary-line at this point — 
 
CHAPTER VI. VERSES 1-9. 403 
 
 numely, the will of God, or, which is the same thing, 
 the fundamental principles of our moral nature (Acts 
 V. 28, 29; iv. 19). 
 
 This glorious principle of obedience is the law of 
 the happy universe, and the moment it is violated 
 death, confusion and chaos flow in upon us, as if the 
 fountains of the great deep were broken open. God, 
 the living God, King and Creator, sits at the centre of 
 this great universe, upon which he has imjDressed the 
 law of obedience as the condition of its blessedness, 
 and while this law is obeyed it is holy and happy and 
 blessed. Through the wide circles of the heavens the 
 royal law of loving obedience sheds its benedictions ; 
 and the hearts, families, churches and kingdoms on 
 the earth where its authority is most fully realized 
 are the best types and examples of the heavenly state. 
 It is the constant aim of the divine mercy to restore 
 in our rebellious province the supremacy of this celes- 
 tial law, and hence the new and nobler motives for 
 keeping it which have been furnished by the gospel. 
 It is no longer a Creator invested with the attributes 
 of vengeance and terror who sj^eaks to us of a broken 
 law out of the midst of the fire, but a Redeemer, our 
 Kinsman and Brother, who tells us of his dying love, 
 of the law vindicated and made honorable, and of the 
 coming of the Holy Ghost, the Comforter, to write the 
 new law of loving obedience upon our hearts. Let 
 this obedience in the Lord become the law of our 
 families, and from that moment a new life and a new 
 spirit will flow into them : the parents will rule in the 
 Lord, and the children will obey in the Lord ; the masters 
 will no more exact, and the servants will no longer 
 seek to deceive ; the magistrate will judge in the fear 
 
*04 GRAHAM ON EPHESIANS. 
 
 of the Lord, and the subjects will obey him joyful Iv, 
 not only for wrath, but for conscience' sake. Tlie eye 
 cannot behold, the very heart cannot imagine, a lovelier 
 spectacle in this sin-stricken world of ours than a quiet, 
 obedient family where everything is done in the Lord 
 and as unto the Lord. In such a family the principle 
 of obedience is love. It is no mere external obedience, 
 such as we sometimes see in soldiers and servants, where 
 there is nothing of respect or of veneration. Hence the 
 apostle adds — 
 
 Twelfth. ^^ Honor thy father and mother ; ivhich is the 
 first commandment with promise'''' (ver. 2). The second 
 commandment has a promise of mercy to those in gen- 
 eral who keep the commandments of God ; the fifth is 
 the first to which a special promise is annexed. Jer- 
 ome and others thought there was something like a 
 contradiction here. Jerome says : '' Quod est manda- 
 tum primtim iii promissione, quasi quatuor alia man- 
 data, qua' ante dicta sunt non habeant promissiones, et 
 in hoc solo policitatio feratur adjuncta " — that is, "As 
 if the four ])receding commandments have no prom- 
 ises, while this alone has." It is, however, an unde- 
 niable fact that the fifth is the first commandment with 
 a special promise attached, and surely that should 
 silence the cavils of these objectors and faultfinders. 
 
 But what is the promise, and how can it influence us ? 
 
 The promise is twofold — prosperity and long life, 
 the two great blessings promised to Israel of old. Ju- 
 daism was the childhood of the Church (Gal. iv. 1-4), 
 and the law perfected the bringing in of a better hope 
 and a firmer covenant whose promises reach onward 
 and upward to the eternal world. Canaan, the wil- 
 derness and Egypt were indeed literal and positive 
 
CHAPTER VI. VEESES 1-9. 405 
 
 realities for the typical nation whose ordinances and 
 ceremonies, stately and full of significance, carried 
 the eye of hope forward to the antitypes — to the evil 
 of sin and the coming of the Deliverer to destroy it ; 
 to the conflict with spiritual enemies, the triumph of 
 the believer over them, the pilgrimage to a better world 
 and the eternal reward when the victory is won. But 
 Canaan, the wilderness and Egypt, the temporal prom- 
 ises of the Jews and their worldly sanctuary, have for 
 us a still higher significancy, as they are the drapery 
 in which so many spiritual realities are shrouded, the 
 enamel in which the pearls of great price are fast, the 
 veils and vestments of blue and purple and fine linen 
 which surrounded the all-glorious person of the Re- 
 deemer. We see it all, and understand it all. Paul, 
 in the Hebrews, has let us into the secret of the Mosaic 
 ceremonial, and we are able to enter into and enjoy all 
 the Jewish promises with a nobler ardor than even the 
 the Jews themselves. Besides, the New Testament as 
 well as the Old Testament sustains us with temporal 
 promises; it supports and comforts us, indeed, main- 
 ly by the assurance of future glory at the coming of 
 the Lord ; but the hope of temporal blessings is by no 
 means excluded (Matt. vi. 33 ; 1 Tim. iv. 8 ; Luke xii. 
 31 ; 1 Pet. iii. 10-12). Godliness has the promise both 
 of the life that now is and of that which is to come. 
 The faithful child may take refuge in the promise of 
 his father that his bread shall be given and his water 
 made sure ; he will honor his father and mother, that 
 it may be well with him and that he may live long on 
 the earth. He would, indeed, sometimes " desire to 
 depart and be with Christ, which is far better" (Phil, 
 i. 23) ; but he knows and feels that the lonoer his davs 
 
406 GRAHAM ON EPHESIANS. 
 
 are prolonged, the more opportunities will he have t() 
 ])ear witness to the name of his absent Lord. This is 
 the place of danger and of honor — the battle-held on 
 which the soldiers of the cross must take their stand ; 
 and he would willingly spend all his strength and 
 courage in such a glorious warfare. 
 
 " Vita nostra plena bellis 
 Inter hostes inter arma, 
 More belli vivitur; 
 NuUse lucis absque pugna, 
 Nullse noctes absque luctu 
 Terrse dantur filiis." * 
 
 Or take the same in a lii)e German translation, which, 
 though free, is very beautiful : 
 
 " Unser Leben ist ein kriegen, 
 Feinde rings, Geschosse fliegeu 
 
 Wie im Kriege stets umher, 
 Kampfen musst du alle Tage 
 Keine Nacht ist ohne Plage 
 
 Fiir uns Erdensohne mehr." 
 
 The promise may indeed have a wider application in 
 reference to both tlie Jewish and the Christian econo- 
 mies, thus : Let children obey and honor their parents, 
 for this is indispensably necessary to your moral and po- 
 litical well-being. When such honor and obedience are 
 wanting, the bands of society are breaking up and the 
 elements of national prosperity ready to be dissolved. 
 I do not say this was in the mind of the Jewish legis- 
 
 *"Our life is full of wars 
 Among enemies and arms ; 
 We live as soldiers do: 
 No days without fighting, 
 No nights without sorrow, 
 Are given to the children of earth." 
 
CHAPTER VI. VERSES 1-9. 407 
 
 liitor, but it follows as a necessary corollary from the 
 exact meaning of the text. The long life and prosper- 
 ity of the individuals necessarily lead to the perpetuity 
 and prosperity of the state. The whole body politic is 
 but the union of the individuals that compose it, the 
 nation is but an enlarged individual, and the whole 
 human family is nothing but Adam dilated ; so that 
 tlie promises and the blessings attached to individual 
 families in obeying and honoring their parents may 
 without straining be extended to all proper honor and 
 obedience both in the Church and in the State. 
 
 Thirteenth. "And, ye fathers, provoke not your chil- 
 dren to wrath : but bring them up in the nurture and 
 admonition of the Lord. " (ver. 4) . 
 
 The fathers is without doubt to be taken in the 
 natural sense (Mark v. 40 ; Luke ii. 48 ; Heb. xi. 23 : 
 here " fathers " vaQ'axi^ parents). " Father," in Greek, 
 is often only a name of honor and respect (1 Cor. 
 iv. 15 ; Phil. ii. 22 ; 1 Thess. ii. 11) ; it signifies (like 
 the Hebrew ab) the source, origin or author of any- 
 thing, and is applied in many ways in the Holy Script- 
 ure; as, the father of circumcision (Rom. iv. 12) ; the 
 father of lies (John viii. 44). God is the Father of 
 the human race, of the Jewish nation (John viii. 41), 
 of the Christian Church (John i. 12; Rom. viii. 16), 
 and in an altogether peculiar sense he is the Father 
 of our Lord Jesus Christ. (See Matt. xi. 27 ; xxviii. 
 19 ; Luke ix. 26 ; x. 22 ; John i. 14, 18 ; iii. 35.) 
 
 The duty of fathers is both negative and positive. 
 In Colossians (iii. 21) the apostle adds the reason why 
 we should not provoke our children to wrath — viz., 
 lest they be discouraged. You may excite and enrage 
 your children in many ways, such as by hastiness of 
 
408 GRAHAM ON EPHESIANS. 
 
 temper, by punishing inytead of correcting them, by 
 severity instead of the spirit of kindness and love, by 
 threatenings which you do not intend to execute, and 
 by promises which you can never j)erform. Rasli 
 actions and untempered words may provoke them to 
 anger and discourage them exceedingly. Everything 
 partial, cruel and unjust should be avoided if you wish 
 your children to honor and obey you. 
 
 Then the positive duty is to bring them up in the 
 nurture and admonition of the Lord — that is, in the 
 education and discipline which God requires. " Educa- 
 tion " (paideia) here includes all the family and rela- 
 tive duties, such as love, respect and obedience ; all the 
 doctrines, duties and moralities of the Christian re- 
 ligion ; all the honest or honorable trades and pro- 
 fessions by which children can be made to provide for 
 themselves. In one word, you should give your chil- 
 dren, in the highest and best sense of the word, a good 
 education. Then this should be accompanied all 
 through with the nouthesia, or proper discipline, 
 mental and moral, which will enable the children 
 to turn this education to good account. This right 
 disposing of the nous, this infusing into the mind the 
 principles of restraint, moral control and self-govern- 
 ment, is more important than the amount of instruction 
 communicated. A well-regulated mind is as noble a 
 sight as a well-informed one, and the perfection of the 
 family training consists in the union of both. There 
 should be the stores of knowledge from which to draw 
 and the well-regulated mind to use them properly, and 
 both these great practical principles or duties should 
 be enforced as coming from and leading to the Lord ; 
 for such is the double meaning of the genitive in this 
 
CHAPTER VI. VERSES 1-9. 409 
 
 passage. If we must choose between the subjective 
 and the objective, we at once prefer the former ; it is 
 an education and a discipline which proceed from the 
 Lord and must be based upon gospel teachings. His 
 will is the ruling principle in the whole process ; and 
 if this be neglected, no blessing from the Lord can be 
 expected to follow your efforts. 
 
 Fourteenth. Slaves, servants. ''Servants, be obedient 
 to them that are your masters according to the flesh, with 
 fear and trembling, in singleness of your heart, as unto 
 Christ" (ver. 5). Slavery is one of the most ancient, 
 extensive and demoralizing institutions of the old 
 world, and the apostle cannot pass it in silence. It is 
 fundamentally anti-Christian, and the apostle never 
 could have founded, or recommended the founding of, 
 such an institution. On the contrary, he advises the 
 practical abolition of it wliere it may be done without 
 violence (1 Cor. vii. 21), and introduces the principle 
 of a higher liberty, which altogether equalizes the 
 master and the slave in the eye of the heavenly Law- 
 giver. Look at Christianity from whatever point of 
 view you please, and you will find it opposed to the 
 slavery of the ancient world, and to all slavery of 
 mind and body everywhere. Compared with the sys- 
 tems, principles and religions of old heathen times, 
 Chi'istianity is essentially democratic and leveling. 
 It teaches the unity of the human race, and that 
 the same blood flows through us all; it teaches the 
 fallenness of our whole nature, and, consequently, the 
 sinful equality of masters and their slaves in the sight 
 of God; it teaches that the same divine ransom— even 
 the precious blood of Christ— was freely and equally 
 shed for us all. The master and his slaves must 
 
 62 
 
410 GKAHAM ON EPHESIANS. 
 
 stand at the same laver of baptismal purification, must sit 
 down side by side at the same table of the Lord, and, 
 beins: washed and sanctified and iustified in the name of 
 the Lord Jesus and by the Spirit of our God, must share 
 together the same Father's house in the kingdom above. 
 All these doctrines and principles are directly opposed 
 to slavery, and when freely admitted into the commu- 
 nity must eventually lead to the abolition of it. 
 
 The principle of the new life, however, does not act 
 convulsively, but, like the law of Nature in the vege- 
 table kingdom, gradually sheds forth its all-pervading 
 vigor until the whole community flourishes and blooms 
 with the health and freshness of a moral renovation. 
 Our religion is the gospel of peace. Jesus Christ did 
 not shed his blood to set the slave against his master 
 or {he subjects against their governors, though slavery 
 and tyranny were both crying evils deserving the 
 reprobation of both earth and heaven. No ; the slave 
 is to obey quietly, as before the Lord, and the master 
 is to treat him kindly, knowing that he too has a 
 Master in heaven (Col. iii. 22 ; 1 Tim. vi. 1 ; Tit. ii. 9; 
 1 Pet. ii. 18; Philem. 15, 16). From these passages 
 it is manifest that the mere fact of being in slavery 
 does not justify the slaves in abandoning their masters. 
 If there be cruelty and tyranny on the part of the 
 master, so that the position of the slave — evil in its 
 own nature — becomes intolerable, then we must judge 
 of his violence and insubordination as we judge of 
 tlie risings and rebellions of oppressed subjects against 
 their tyrannical rulers. The apostle does not, either 
 here or elsewhere, give one precept or command which 
 can fairly lead to the conclusion that slavery is script- 
 ural or that the slave-owner has a right to appeal to 
 
CHAPTER VI. VERSES 1-9. 411 
 
 revelation for his justification. He says nothing of 
 the slave-traffic, nor does he justify the principle that 
 man should have property in his fellow-man, though 
 he very clearly teaches that Christianity is not the 
 religion of a sect, but of human nature, and that the 
 slave and the slaveholder have equal need of its pro- 
 visions. The gospel is not the standard of revolt 
 around which the idle, the ignorant and the disaffected 
 should rally, but a banner of peace to heal all the 
 wounds and distractions of our world. Hence the 
 apostle says, "Servants" (slaves), "be obedient to them 
 that are your masters according to the flesh, with fear 
 and trembling, in singleness of heart, as unto Christ." 
 Obedience is the law of the gospel as well as the law 
 of the unfallen universe, nor can the enormous evils of 
 the ancient slave-system relieve the slave from the duty 
 of it. 
 
 The words " according to the flesh," however, sug- 
 gest that they have another Master, even a heavenly, 
 to whom the slave and the slaveholder stand in the 
 same relation of sin and apostasy. Be of good cour- 
 age ; the eye of Jesus is upon you. He was the Lord 
 and became the servant {doulos) of all ; his tender 
 heart feels for your afflictions, and in due time he will 
 deliver you as he did the Israelites in the days of old. 
 Your position is indeed severe and oppressive, but 
 grace can mitigate its bitterness ; and the Lord and 
 (liver of all grace has shared it with you, has entered 
 into all its darkness and weariness (Phil. ii. 7), and he 
 waited patiently for deliverance till the time appointed 
 of the Father. Obey, therefore, as he obeyed, for he 
 has given you an example that you should follow his 
 steps. This will be useful also to your masters, and 
 
412 GRAHAM ON EPHESIANS. 
 
 will dispose them to mildness and gentleness when they 
 see that you seek to obey them in honesty and single- 
 ness of heart. 
 
 The three words as to Christ show the lovely prin- 
 ciple of the gospel — a principle found nowhere else on 
 the earth. All relations of life, however bitter, are 
 consecrated and sweetened by divine love ; the Chris- 
 tian serves Christ in everything, and his entire service, 
 whoever may be his immediate master, is done as unto 
 Christ. 
 
 This is brought out more fully in the sixth verse : 
 "iVb^ ivith eye-service as men-pleasers, but as the ser- 
 vants of Christ, doing the will of God from the hearth 
 Eye-service is ^ word formed by the apostle for the 
 occasion, and is found only here and in Colossians (iii. 
 22) ; it naturally pignifies the service done under the 
 eye of the master, and includes the disposition to neg- 
 lect it when the master is absent. From the heart is, 
 in the Greek, " from the soul," and is quite a peculiar 
 expression. The apostle here and elsewhere shows 
 that he felt himself perfectly free in the use of his 
 words and phrases. The obedience here recommend- 
 ed is not the submission of hypocrisy and deceit, but 
 the willing obedience of the heart and mind as unto 
 the Lord. All is honest and open-hearted ; everything 
 breathes the spirit of a heavenly presence, knowing that 
 whatever good thing any man doeth the same shall he 
 receive of the Lord, whether he be bond or free ; there 
 is one common Master, one great Rewarder in the heav- 
 ens, before whom they must all take the position of 
 needy suppliants, and whose gifts of pardon and of 
 life are freely distributed to all believers, whether 
 they be bond or free. 
 
CHAPTER VI. VERSES 1-9. 413 
 
 Fifteenth. The masters. "And, ye masters, do the 
 same things unto them, forbearing threatening : know- 
 ing that your blaster also is in heaven ; neither is there 
 respect of persons with him''^ (ver. 9). Kurios ("Lord," 
 " master," " possessor ") is used in the New Testament 
 for " Jehovah " (Matt. i. 22 ; v. 33 ; xxvii. 10 ; Acts 
 vii. 49) ; it is used for Baal or simple " master," as 
 the master of a house (Mark xiii. 35) ; of servants, 
 slaves, etc. (Matt. x. 24 ; xxiv. 45 ; Acts xvi. 16) ; of 
 a vineyard (Matt. xx. 8 ; xxi. 40) ; it is applied to the 
 king or emperor (Acts xxv. 26) and to the heathen 
 gods (1 Cor. viii. 5). It is one of the highest titles 
 given to the supreme God, and, as we have seen, it is 
 the Greek word for the unutterable name " Jehovah." 
 It is applied to Jesus Christ in the following as well as 
 in many other passages : Rom. x. 12 ; Heb. ii. 8 ; viii. 1. 
 Thus the term Kurios, or " Lord," has a very wide 
 signification, but in all possible applications it includes 
 the ideas of possession, power and authority. In our 
 text it designates the slave-owners, to whom the apos- 
 tle now turns in the course of his warnings and ex- 
 hortations. 
 
 This apostolic warning to masters is threefold. 
 
 (1) To do the same things to them — that is, the will 
 of God. The obedience and the faithful service of the 
 slaves are to be met by corresponding qualities in the 
 masters. You are not to treat them as your property, 
 for they belong to C^hrist ; ye are not to say, " They be- 
 long to me ; their feelings are of no importance to me ; 
 I wish only their labors, nor am I under any obligations 
 to them in the way of reciprocal kindness and affection." 
 No, says the apostle ; ye are to do the same things 
 to them ; ther.' is to be one law to both parties, one 
 
414 GRAHAM ON EPHESIANS. 
 
 Judge and Creator to wliom they must all give an 
 account. 
 
 (2) Forbearing threatening, which some render "re- 
 mitting the threatened punishment." The Greek arti- 
 cle here is emphatic. It is not any or every kind of 
 threatening, or threatening in general, but the threaten- 
 ing — that is, the haughty, cruel, tyrannical, threatening 
 — manners of most slaveholders. " Qiiem admodum vul- 
 gus dominorum solet " ("As the common herd of mas- 
 ters are accustomed to"), says Erasmus. This you are 
 to give up. Your servants are human, and you are to 
 treat them humanely ; all overbearing and tyrannical 
 conduct must be abandoned, and your awful position as 
 slaveholders must not be made the means of degrading 
 and brutalizing your dependants. 
 
 (3) " Ye too have a Master in heaven to whom you 
 are responsible, and with whom there is no respect of 
 persons." This view of the character of God must 
 have been perfectly new to the heathen slaveholders, 
 and tended, no doubt, not only to mitigate the bitter- 
 ness of slavery, but finally to break the yoke alto- 
 gether. 
 
 This finishes the apostle's exhortations to the mem- 
 bers of the Christian household, and truly he has taught 
 us much which it is all-important that we should know 
 and observe. There is more of truth and beauty and 
 holiness in these few verses from Ephesians (chap. v. 
 22 to vi. 10) than in all that remains of the heathen 
 writers of antiquity put together. Here our thoughts 
 are elevated to the great idea of a family in which the 
 love of God reigns ; where the various members, in their 
 service to one another and to all men, are fillt-d witli 
 
CHAPTER VI. VERSES 1-9. 415 
 
 one common spirit of charity and forbearance ; where 
 authority is tempered by mihhiess and obedience and 
 dignified by vohmtary submission to the will and exam- 
 ple of Christ, It is a sweet circle where all the inner 
 wheels, great and small, move harmoniously, being- 
 tempered by grace ; a fruitful field where the breath 
 of heaven is j)leasant and all the fruits of righteous- 
 ness grow apace ; a home of peace where men find 
 their happiest hours on eartli and saints the sweetest 
 foretastes of heaven. 
 
 " Selig durch die Liebe, 
 Gotter-durch die Liebe 
 
 Men.schen Gottern gleich ! 
 Liebe macht den Himmel 
 Himmlischer — die Erde 
 
 Zu dem Himmelreich." * 
 
 * Schiller. 
 
CHAPTER XI. 
 
 Finally, my brethren, be strong in the Lord, and in the power of his 
 might. Put on the whole armor of God, that ye may be able to stand 
 against the wiles of the devil. For we wrestle not against flesh and 
 blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of 
 the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places. 
 Wherefore take unto you the whole armor of God, that ye may be able 
 to withstand in the evil day, and having done all, to stand. Stand 
 therefore, having your loins girt about with truth, and having on the 
 breastplate of righteousness ; and your feet shod with the preparation 
 of the gospel of peace; above all, taking the shield of faith, wlierewith 
 ye shall be able to quench all the fiery darts of the wicked. And take 
 the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word 
 of God : praying always with all prayer and supplication in the Spirit, 
 and watching thereunto with all perseverance and supplication for all 
 saints; and for me, that utterance may be given unto me, that I may 
 open my mouth boldly, to make known the mystery of the gospel, for 
 which I am an ambassador in bonds: that therein I may speak boldly, 
 as I ought to speak. But that ye also may know my affairs, and how 
 I do, Tychicus, a beloved brother and faithful minister in the Lord, 
 shall make known to you all things : whom I have sent unto you for 
 the same purpose, that ye might know our affairs, and that he might 
 comfort your hearts. Peace be to the brethren, and love with faith 
 from God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Grace be with all 
 them that love our Lord Jesus Christ in sincerity. Amen. — Ephesians 
 vi. 10-24. 
 
 The apostle, having finished his warnings and ex- 
 liortations to the various chisses in the church — such as 
 children and parents, servants and masters — turns now 
 once more to the whole body of believers in order to 
 prepare them for the spiritual warfare which by grace 
 they are enabled to wage against the enemies of their 
 
 416 
 
CHAPTER VI. VERSES 10-24. 417 
 
 souls. From verse 10 to near the end of the chapter 
 we have one of the noblest delineations anywhere to 
 be found of the controversy between the soul of man 
 enlightened and strengthened by the grace and power 
 of God and the kingdom of darkness which seeks to 
 hold her in thrall. 
 
 I. First Principles. 
 If we analyze this noble allegory, we find the follow- 
 ing principles taken for granted as the necessary basis 
 on which it rests ; 
 
 (1) That the soul, though fallen, is conscious of her 
 former glory, and by darkly groping and longing seeks 
 to regain her native innocency. We may say with 
 Augustine, 
 
 "Ad perennis vitse fontem 
 
 Mens aitivit arida ; 
 Claustra carnis praesto frangi, 
 
 Clausa quserit anima; 
 Gliscit, ambit eluctatur 
 
 Exul frui patria."* 
 
 (2) That the soul is of great, peerless value, seeing; 
 there is such a panoply provided to defend her. Such a. 
 ransom has been given for her ; such a glorious reward 
 is awaiting her victory. 
 
 (3) That the chief enemy of man is the devil and 
 his dark kingdom, against which we are called to 
 wrestle. Flesh and blood are not our only nor our 
 
 * " For the living fount of glory 
 
 Longs my panting, thirsting soul, 
 Longs to break its earthly prison. 
 
 Longs to reach its heavenly goal, 
 To regain its lost dominion. 
 
 Far beyond this world's control." 
 53 
 
418 GRAHAM ON EPHESIANS. 
 
 greatest enemies; the devil is going about like a roar- 
 ing lion, seeking whom he may devour. 
 
 (4) The harmony between the soul of man and the 
 will of God in this warfare. The two extremes must 
 meet, the sovereignty of God and the free agency of 
 man must be reconciled ; it is a wrestle in which the 
 human will must engage with all its powers, and yet 
 the outfit and the panoply, the strength and the vic- 
 tory, all must be from above. 
 
 " Ecce cceli lapsus area 
 Atque spissa nube tectus, 
 Rector ipse siderum 
 Contra salvos mentis hostes, 
 Proeliantem me tuetur 
 Bella pro me suscipit." 
 
 "Der da sliaut von Himmels Bogen, 
 Von der Wolke dieht umzogen : 
 Der da lenkt der Sterne Schaar, 
 Der wird mir zur Seite kaempfen, 
 Feindesgriram mir helfen diimpfen, 
 Fur mich streiten immerdar."* 
 
 This is indeed the main source of our strength, and 
 in proportion as we use it are we bold and successful 
 warriors in the battles of the faith. He is with us and 
 in us, and the sure word of his promise shall never 
 fail. These thoughts fill the victorious soul of the 
 apostle as with words of fire and promises of glory 
 he seeks to enlist us under the banner of the cross. 
 Thus in his final exhortation he says, to lot-rcov (" for 
 the rest," "as to what remains," "finally"), not rm 
 
 * " Lo ! from the arch of heaven descending, 
 And in a thick cloud arrayed, 
 He, the Ruler of the starry vi'orld. 
 Beholds me fighting against my cruel enemies, 
 And his strong hand gives me the victory." 
 
CHAPTER VI. VERSES 10-24. 419 
 
 XocTiou * (" from henceforth," "for the rest of your time "), 
 which would be weak here, while in Gal. vi. 17 it is 
 the appropriate form of expression. (See Phil. iii. 1 ; 
 iv. 8; 2 Cor. xiii. 11 ; 1 Thess. iv. 1 ; 2 Thess. iii. 1.) 
 To A(n7io> rarely refers to time, and when it does it is in 
 such circum>tances that the meaning cannot be mis- 
 taken (Heb. xii. 13), and almost all the passages can 
 be explained without any reference to time. (Com]>. 
 1 Cor. vii. 29; Matt. xxvi. 45; Mark xiv. 41. Here 
 it may mean " sleep out the rest of your sleep," etc.) 
 For the further use of the phrase, see 1 Cor. iv. 2 ; i. 
 16 ; 2 Cor. xiii. 11 ; 1 Thess. iv. 1 ; 2 Tim. iv. 8 ; Acts 
 xxvii. 29. 
 
 11. My Brethren. 
 
 The apostle begins with the words "3Iy brethren'" '\ 
 (ver. 10). Nothing can be more natural than that the 
 apostle in his last exhortation to that church should 
 address them as his brethren in Christ and soldiers 
 under the same banner of the cross. He gives them, as 
 brethren (ver. 23), the salutation of peace, and the spirit 
 of brotlierly love breathes through the whole Epistle. 
 Let us now^ therefore, consider the meaning of the word. 
 
 And first, no doubt, it signifies the children of the 
 same father and mother (Matt. i. 2; Luke iii. 1, 19), 
 or of the same father only, or of the same mother only 
 (Luke vi. 14; comp. with Matt. i. 2). Metaphorically, 
 brother is applied in many ways : men of the same race, 
 blood-relations, are brethren (Matt. xii. 46 ; John vii. 3 ; 
 Acts i. 14 ; Gal. i. 19) : so the Septuagint for the He- 
 
 * Lachmann and Riickhert. 
 
 t Which are omitted by Lachmann and Tischendorf, but without suf- 
 ficient documental authority; nor is Olshausen's suspicion worthy of 
 much regard. 
 
420 GRAHAM ON EPHESIANS. 
 
 brew ach (Gen. xiii. 8 ; xiv. 1 6) ; men of the same 
 country are brethren (Matt. v. 47 ; Acts iii. 22 ; Heb. 
 vii. 5) ; one of equal rank and dignity is a brother 
 (Matt, xxiii. 8) : so Septuagint and Hebrew (Prov. 
 xviii. 9) ; disciples, followers, are brethren (Matt. xxv. 
 40; Heb. ii. 11, 12); persons having the same office, 
 colleagues, are in Scripture called brethren (1 Cor. i. 1), 
 joined with fellow-slave or fellow-servant (Rev. vi. 11 ; 
 comp. Rev. xix. 10 ; xxii. 9) : so the Septuagint and 
 the Hebrew ; men of the same faith are bretliren, fel- 
 low-Christians (xicts ix. 30; xi. 29; 1 Cor. v. 11 ; 
 Amos i. 9). Ye are ray brethren, says the apostle; 
 we are all of the same royal family, the same holy 
 generation, descended from the second Adam, the 
 Lord from heaven, as the earthly family is from the 
 earthly Adam ; we are fellow-countrymen, citizens of 
 no mean city — that is, the heavenly Jerusalem, which 
 is the mother of us all. We are all of the same rank 
 in the sight of God — viz., miserable sinners redeemed 
 by the blood of Christ, heirs of the same promises 
 and clothed with the same office of royal priesthood. 
 We are all discij^tles of one common Master, and all 
 animated by the one faith of the Son of God, who 
 loved us and gave himself for us, an offering and a 
 sacrifice well-pleasing to God. We are brethren in 
 every sense of the word ; our enemies, our trials, our 
 hopes and our fears, our struggles and our tempta- 
 tions, are all the same. Therefore I exhort you to 
 consider — 
 
 III. The Source of your Strength. 
 Be strong in the Lord, and in the poioer of his might 
 ver. 10). Here, indeed, is the source of our strength, 
 
CHAPTER VI. VERSES 10-24. 421 
 
 the foimtiiin-head from which flow all the streams of 
 grace to water the weary heritage of God. We are 
 strong in his strength. The joy of the Lord is our 
 strength, and in the consciousness that he rejoices over us 
 there is no sacrifice too dear for us to make, none of his 
 and our enemies over whom we cannot triumph. When 
 Jesus Christ is before our mind's eye, when his name, 
 memory and dying love are in our hearts, then, indeed, 
 sin loses its attractions, the world its power over us, 
 and the tempter finds no entrance into our souls. Here 
 tlie weakest saint has a treasure of strength against the 
 day of temptation. Daniel was safe in the lions' den ; 
 Joseph was raised from the pit and the prison to the 
 light hand of Pharaoh himself; the three faithful 
 children were delivered from the furnace ; Peter when 
 sinking found the hand of Jesus ready to save ; John 
 in his lonely isle was comforted and sustained by 
 apocalyptic visions which showed him the final triumph 
 of Jesus and his saints ; the denier of his Lord could 
 not meet that tender Master's eye without bitter tears 
 of penitence ; and Stephen in the midst of his mur- 
 derers found succor in his ascended Lord, and died, 
 as his Master did, breathing forth only forgiveness and 
 love. Oh, brother, here is a fountain of joy, a rock of 
 strength, for pilgrims like you and me! It is (en 
 Kurio) in thy dear Lord Jesus, to whom all power in 
 heaven and earth is given ; in whom love and strength, 
 weakness and majesty, are united for evermore; who 
 in the bosom of the Father, before the worlds, on the 
 cross of Calvary as the dying Lamb, and now on the 
 throne of God as the King and Mediator, in eternity 
 and time, in life and in death, is the one loving Brother 
 in whom thou canst trust, the one almighty Friend 
 
422 GRAHAM ON EPHESIANS. 
 
 and Helper for all the weary children of men. Be, 
 therefore, strong in him. Fear neither the fierceness 
 of the flesh nor the roaring of the lion. He lives, and 
 ye shall live ; his life is the charter of yours. " Be- 
 cause I live, ye shall live also." 
 
 " If thou, Saviour, still art nigh, 
 Cheerful I live, and cheerful die ; 
 Secure when mortal comforts flee, 
 I find a thousand worlds in thee." 
 
 IV. The Panoply. 
 
 We come now, in verse 11, to the 'panoply and the 
 wiles or methods ; the defence of God's grace and the 
 attacks of the devil. 
 
 Put on, therefore, the whole armor of God, that ye 
 may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil. 
 
 Observe here that the armor must be complete ; ye 
 must take the provision which divine mercy has pro- 
 vided for you, or ye cannot come 6ff victorious in the 
 battles of the faith. Ye must fight as the Captain of 
 salvation orders if ye expect from him the rewards 
 of victory. The self-willed, who fight in their own 
 way and with their own weapons, can expect no 
 crowns of glory from him. He gives the strength 
 and he provides the armor. It is not only " the 
 panoply," but " the panoply of God," in which the 
 believer stands arrayed in the day of battle and of 
 victory. It is from the armory of the great King, 
 proved in many a hard encounter and always found 
 a complete defence. The meaning is that the grace of 
 God in Jesus Christ is sufticient to make an honest 
 believer in the gospel pure, to keep him pure in the 
 midst of all possible temptations, and finally to bring 
 
CHAPTER VI. VEESES 10-24. 423 
 
 him triumphantly, in spite of them all, into the king- 
 dom and glory of God. This is the great idea of the 
 passage, and surely it is worthy of its divine Author. 
 The provision is sufficient for the journey, the armor is 
 a perfect defence, the cross is the assurance of finjil 
 triumph. Tourto vcxa, ''Hoc signo vince." Under this 
 banner we conquer still, as Constantine did in the 
 days of old ; and it is a glorious fact in the history of 
 the Church, in all her persecutions from pagans and 
 popes, that the strength of the living Head has been 
 perfected in her weakness and the panoply of his 
 providing more than sufficient for her protection and 
 defence. 
 
 But what are these methods, or wiles of the devil, 
 against which we are exhorted and enabled to stand ? 
 These are the stratagems of war, the attacks of the 
 enemy, the various trials and temptations under which 
 we feel so often the oppression of the old serpent, the 
 accuser of the children of God. Observe the contrast 
 which lies in these words " the whole armor of God " 
 and " the wiles of the devil :" the armor is from God, 
 and the wiles are from the devil. He is the liar from 
 the beginning, and his kingdom is based upon darkness 
 and lies ; nor can it be elfectually overturned but by 
 the introduction of righteousness and truth. He is the 
 tempter, having the experience of many thousand years 
 to perfect his plans of deception and carry out his 
 diabolical methods (methodeias) of delusion and death. 
 Strong is he, as his names and his attributes demon- 
 strate — ^the lion for his power, the dragon for his 
 fierceness and the old serpent for his wiles. He has 
 skill to lay his snares like a fowler, and superhuman 
 energy to carry them into execution. He can boast of 
 
424 GRAHAM ON EPHESIANS. 
 
 an ancient and extensive kingdom in which jDaganism 
 and papacy, Islam and polytheism, image-worshij), 
 angel-worship and hero-worship, are some of the cul- 
 minating points. All these are but the garniture of 
 his incarnated personality, the draperies that surround 
 the shrine of his worship, the courts, alleys and cham- 
 bers of imagery in his temple, where the impure and 
 the idolatrous continually perform their service. See 
 where his wiles lead. The four great temptations 
 before which so many have fallen, and do fall con- 
 tinually, are distrust, presumption, ambition, idolatry ; 
 and it is remarkable that the tempter tried every one 
 of them in the temptation of our Lord (Matt. iv.). 
 He begins modestly by suggesting some doubts, and 
 then, through the intermediate stages of presumj)tion 
 and ambition, leads his victorious way to the worship 
 of the devil — to fall down and worship me. 
 
 Put on the armor quickly, brother, for the time is 
 pressing and the danger at hand. IJis wiles are many, 
 and there is no defence but in the wounds of Jesus. 
 Take, then, the panoply which God has provided, and 
 stand fast against the wiles of the devil. 
 
 V. The Wrestle. 
 
 For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against 
 principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the 
 darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in 
 high places (ver. 12). 
 
 Flesh and blood here does not mean simply "men"' 
 or " human nature," as many modern commentators 
 assert, but fallen, corrupt humanity as opposed to the 
 righteousness and truth of the gospel. Flesh and blood 
 are the human enemies of every name and kind. The 
 
CHAPTER VI. VERSES 10-24. 425 
 
 Jews and the Gentiles, the world and its lusts, the law 
 of the members that wars against the law of the mind, 
 the tem})tations and sorrows to which, for the sake of 
 Christ, we are subjected, — all these are our inveterate 
 enemies, and we are called upon to resist and subdue 
 them ; but our main struggle is with greater antagonists 
 than these. There is a kingdom of darkness to be 
 abandoned, a prince of the power of the air to be re- 
 sisted, the god of this world to be contended against ; 
 and this part of the contest, being the hottest and keen- 
 est, is, by way of emphasis, called " the wrestle." (See 
 2 Cor. iv. 4 ; Col. ii. 15 ; Luke xxii. 53 ; John xii. 31 ; 
 xiv. 30; Col. i. 13.) 
 
 What, then, do we gather from these and similar 
 passages as to the nature of the kingdom of dark- 
 ness ? 
 
 (1) That there is a spiritual world containing two 
 great departments, as the visible does — the good and 
 the bad ; the fallen angels under Satan their head, and 
 the holy angels wIjo kept their first estate ; that sin, the 
 fearful poison of the old serpent, has shed its virus far 
 and wide in the invisible world also. The great king- 
 dom of Jehovah is divided, the oneness of the universe, 
 visible and invisible, is broken up, and Satan claims a 
 portion and a kingdom in both. 
 
 (2) There are various ranks and degrees in the dia- 
 bolical kingdom, designated by the terms " principal- 
 ities," " powers," "world-rulers" and " spirits of wicked- 
 ness." We cannot from the words settle the exact 
 hierarchy, but we may suppose they are all headed up 
 under Satan, the prince of the devils or demons. They 
 are his ministering spirits, as the holy angels are God's 
 (Heb. i. 14) . There is but one dlabolos — devil or Satan — 
 
 54 
 
426 GRAHAM ON EPHESIANS. 
 
 according to the Scripture, who is called, also the tempter 
 (Matt. iv. 1-11 ; Acts v. 3; 1 Cor. v. 7) and the de- 
 stroyer (Kev. ix. 11), and many other names and titles 
 which show forth the corruption and malignity of his 
 nature. He stands, therefore, alone, the one great head 
 and chief of the fallen creation, the first mover of evil 
 in the universe, and on whom the most fearful vengeance 
 of Jehovah must rest. His servants and ministers are 
 never called devils, but angels of the devil (Matt. xxv. 
 41 ; Rev. xii. 7,9; ix. 14) and unclean spirits or evil 
 spirits (Matt. x. 1 ; xii. 43, 45 ; Luke vii. 21 ; xi. 24 ; 
 Eph. vi. 12). The most common appellation, however, 
 is daimon, or daimonioji — viz., " demon " (rendered im- 
 properly "devil" in our translation) — which is found 
 in the Gospels nearly fifty times and in the other 
 scriptures very frequently (James ii. 19 ; Rev. xviii. 
 2; Acts xvii. 18; 1 Cor. x. 20, etc.). These de- 
 mons, therefore, with their head and ruler the devil, 
 are the principalities, powers and world-rulers men- 
 tioned in our text against whom we are called upon 
 to wrestle. 
 
 (3) It may not be uninteresting to mention some of 
 the qualities, attributes and offices of these enemies of 
 God and of his Christ. They are fallen, apostate spirits 
 or angels ( Jude 5, 6 ; 2 Pet. ii. 4) ; they are unclean, 
 wicked spirits (Matt. x. 1 ; Luke vii. 21) ; they — head 
 and members, Satan and his angels — are the authors of 
 death (in whatever sense you take Heb. ii. 14), the in- 
 flicters of sickness and disease, and, generally speaking, 
 the oppressors of mankind (Acts x. 38) ; they tempt 
 into apostasy and idolatry by lies and delusions, by 
 signs and wonders of falsehood (2 Thess. ii. 9 ; John 
 viii. 44) ; and their special delight seems to be the pos- 
 
CHAPTER VI. VERSES 10-24. 427 
 
 session of the souls and bodies of men. This is the 
 kingdom of darkness into which sin has cast us, and it 
 Ls from this the divine Redeemer descended from heav- 
 en to deliver us (1 John iii, 8 ; Matt. xiii. 38 ; John 
 viii. 44). As to their locality or dwelling-place, we 
 gather the following facts from Scripture. They in- 
 habit the air, the aerial heavens, probably that they 
 may be near the human race, the object of their malig- 
 nant hatred. Hence Lazarus was borne by angels (as 
 through an enemy's country) into Abraham's bosom ; 
 hence Satan is called the prince of the aerial hosts 
 (Eph. ii. 2) ; so that the space between the earth and 
 the starry heavens is for the time being the camj) and 
 the headquarters of the devil. This gives force and 
 significancy to the words of our passage (Eph. vi. 12) : 
 " Our wrestle is against principalities and powers, 
 against the rulers of the darkness of this world, 
 against wicked sj)irits" (Greek, neuter plural taken 
 collectively ; Die Geiderschaft, see Winer, sect. 34) 
 " in the aerial regions." (Comp. Matt. vi. 26 ; Col. 
 i. 4 ; 2 Thess. i. 3.) Hence Satan is seen falling like 
 lightning from heaven, and Michael and his angels 
 make war with the devil and his angeL in heaven — 
 viz., in the aerial regions (Luke x. 18; Rev. xii. 7-10). 
 They are represented as cast down into the abyss of 
 darkness, the bottomless pit, Tartarus (2 Pet. ii. 4), 
 where they are reserved under chains of darkness unto 
 the judgment of the great day. They are under the 
 command and control of God ; so that the range of 
 their operations and the length of their chain are 
 owing entirely to his permission. They are sometimes 
 represented as inhabiting desolate ruins and the waste 
 j)laces of wildness and horror ; hence the unclean spirit, 
 
428 GEAHAM ON EPHESIANS. 
 
 when cast out of a man, walketh through desolate places 
 (Matt. xii. 43) and findeth no rest anywhere. Hence 
 Babylon wasted and overthrown, the infernal papacy 
 leveled to rise against the saints of God no more, is to 
 become the habitation of devils (demons) (Rev. xviii. 2), 
 The literal Babylon is (according to Isa. xiii. 21) be- 
 come tlie habitation of sehirmi (Septuagint, " demons ;" 
 De Wette, Waldteufel, " wood-demons "), who hold their 
 hell-dance in the ruins thereof. So also the demons 
 led the demoniacs into the tombs (Matt. viii. 28) as 
 the residence they best liked, for the air of corruption 
 is the breath of life to a devil. The future and final 
 habitation of the devils and of the damned seems to be 
 Gehenna (Matt. v. 22, 29; x. 28; xviii. 9; xxiii. IT), 
 33; Mark ix. 43, 47; Luke xii. 5; James iii. 6), the 
 place of material torment after the resurrection of the 
 dead, called in the Apocalypse the lake of fire (xx. 14, 
 15), where the beast anl the false prophet are and 
 shall be tormented day and night for ever and ever. 
 Let this brief notice of Scripture demonology suffice 
 for the present. 
 
 VI. The Position of the Believee. 
 
 Wherefore take unto you the whole armor of God. 
 that ye may he able to withstand in the evil day ; and 
 having done all, to stand (ver. 13). 
 
 The evil day here spoken of is not the day of battle 
 as such — for that, through the help of God, may be a 
 glorious day — it is the day of anguish and persecution, 
 when the devil puts forth all his might and his wiles 
 to lead away the Church from the Rock on which she 
 rests. The evil day, in the largest sense, corresponds 
 with the present age of the world, where Satan rules 
 
CHAPTER VI. VERSES 10-24. 429 
 
 (Eph. ii. 2, Greek), the "Vast time" of St. John, the 
 time of Jacob's trouble, the night of the Church's fast- 
 ing in the absence of the Bridegroom (Matt. ix. 15). 
 But our translation is not the most natural one. The 
 meaning seems to be, "And, having vanquished all your 
 enemies, stand forth as victors on the field of battle " 
 [Das Feld behalten, Luther ; Alles uberwdltigend, beste- 
 het, De Wette), for that is the meaning of the military 
 expression ; azrjvat, stare tanquam trium2:)hatores (Zanch.) , 
 " stand forth as victors, as the warriors of Christ." 
 
 This is the believer's position. He is not always 
 engaged in the act of fighting ; the flesh is crucified 
 with the Lord when he died, the world is conquered 
 by the victory of faith, the old man is buried in the 
 waters of baptism. Our position is that of the victor 
 who has prostrated his enemies, and now his business 
 is to keep them down. Ye are dead, and your life is 
 hid with Christ in God ; mortify, therefore, your mem- 
 bers which are upon the earth. Your enemies of every 
 kind — the world, the flesh and the devil — are conquered, 
 overthrown in the act of believing, and henceforth your 
 only active service is to walk over the field and keep 
 them from again rising up. This is the victory that 
 overcometh the world, even your faith. 
 
 VII. The Girdle. 
 
 Stand therefore, having your loins girt about with 
 truth, and having on the breastplate of righteousness. 
 (ver. 14). 
 
 On the girdle (the Greek zone, the Hebrew ezor and 
 chagor), see 2 Kings i. 8 ; Matt. iii. 4 ; x. 9 ; Mark i. 6 ; 
 vi. 8; Acts xxi. 11 ; Rev. i. 13; xv. 6. 
 
 From these and similar passages we learn that the 
 
430 GRAHAM ON EPHESIANS. 
 
 girdle was used to strengthen and support the body ; hf 
 a purse to carry money in (Matt. x. 9) ; also for swords, 
 daggers, pistols, knives, keys, inkhorns, etc. It assists 
 women to carry their children, and without it there 
 could be no speed in running, no alacrity in labor or 
 in war. The girdle is therefore first mentioned, as 
 being the most important ; and the girdle that can 
 sustain us is the truth of God. It is of cloth or of 
 leather or of velvet, and sometimes it is studded with 
 the richest jewels. Harless errs egregiously in think- 
 ing the girdle is used only for ornament. On the con- 
 trary, it is the most useful and necessary part of the 
 dress. It binds all together, and is, therefore, well 
 compared to truth, which is the cement of the living 
 Temple, the blood in the body and the strong band 
 that unites us to God and to one another. It strength- 
 ens the loins and braces the whole frame for active 
 field-service, like truth in the inward parts, by which 
 the Church has been made victorious over her enemies 
 since the day of Pentecost. If ye, then, are deter- 
 mined to be soldiers of the cross, put on the girdle 
 of truth. Truth is the source of your victory and 
 strength. Jehovah is the God of truth, Jesus is the 
 way, the truth and the life, and tlie saints who follow 
 him are girt about with truth. 
 
 VIII. The Breastplate. 
 
 Stand therefore, having your loins girt about with 
 truth, and having on the breastplate of righteousness 
 (ver. 14). 
 
 But what is the breastplate — the thorax, cuirass, 
 lorica f It is the breastplate of righteousness, which 
 covers the heart and the more vital parts of the bo<ly 
 
CHAPTER VI. VERSES 10-24. 431 
 
 (Homer, Iliad iii. 332). In 1 Thess. v. 8 it is said 
 to be of faith and love. This righteousness of Christ, 
 which is imputed to the believer and received by faith 
 (for this is referred to afterward and besides the right- 
 eousness of Christ), is rather a garment for the whole 
 body than a defence of a single part. Perhaps the mean- 
 ing here is best expressed by "justice," and the sense 
 will be this : The war in which you are engaged is 
 just and holy, for it is nothing else than the subjuga- 
 tion of the world to the Son of God ; it is just and 
 right that every creature should submit to his sceptre, 
 and the assurance of this will be a breastplate to shield 
 you from the thrusts of the enemy. " Justice " is en- 
 graven on our breastplates, and we will never lay down 
 our arms till the enemy is overthrown, till the beast 
 and the false prophet are in the lake of fire and the 
 devil in the bottomless pit (Kev. xix. and xx.). Sin 
 has no right to reign in us or over us ; Satan can estab- 
 lish no claim over the purchased possession ; there is 
 no absolute right in hell for any of the sons of men ; 
 and therefore, with the love of justice in our hearts, 
 we go forth to do battle against ihe principalities and 
 the powers of darkness. 
 
 IX. The Shoes. 
 
 And yovr feet shod with the preparation of the gos- 
 pel of peace (ver. 15). 
 
 The shoes — sandalia, " sandals " (Mark vi. 9 ; see 
 Acts xii. 8) — are said to be the ])reparation of the 
 gospel of peace. The sandals which you wear are the 
 alacrity of gospel love — not the costly shoes which are 
 worn in luxurious houses, but the traveling-sandals by 
 which you are at all times ready to go forth into the 
 
432 GRAHAM ON EPHESIANS. 
 
 highways and hedges to preach the gospel. This shows 
 the nature of the war : it is the triumph of light over 
 darkness, of justice over tyranny, of the kingdom of 
 righteousness and peace over the king and the king- 
 dom of all the enemies of God (Isa. v. 27). These 
 are the swift messengers that are to bear to all nations 
 the story of divine mercy and love ; the martyr-heroes 
 who through blood and persecution, and death itself, 
 show forth the value of the gospel of peace and the 
 unconquerable vigor which it inspires ; these are the 
 warriors of the cross, girded for the battle, in all things 
 fully prepared, who without hesitation or fear shall bear 
 onward the standard of the cross into all nations and 
 languages, singing as they go, 
 
 " Waft, waft, ye winds, his story, 
 And you, ye waters, roll, 
 Till, like a sea of glory. 
 
 It spreads from pole to pole." 
 
 Observe well, brother, in passing, that sweet word, 
 the gospel of peace. It is the good-will of God that 
 you should have peace — peace in Jesus, peace through 
 the blood of the cross. He is the very God of peace ; 
 Jesus is the Prince of peace, and his blood is the seal 
 of peace. The enmity is removed in the cross ; the 
 breach is healed, and you have peace. Oh, sweet and 
 comforting word for thee and me ! Love conquers all 
 things — his love to thee and me. — Then this God 
 of peace — the great and mighty God — thought of 
 me ? — Yes, yes, brother, of thee too ; and Jesus left 
 heaven for thee and me — yea, died on the cross for 
 thee and me. — I can hardly believe it. I sink under 
 the burden of divine love ; my very faith is terri- 
 
CHAPTEE VI. VERSES 10-24. 433 
 
 fied at the immensity of the eternal mercy. O God, 
 strengthen and enlarge my fainting reason, that I may 
 c^omprehend with all saints the dimensions of thy love. 
 Lord, I believe ! Help thou mine unbelief. 
 
 But observe, if you please, some of the uses of the 
 shoes, and see that you fully realize them. The way 
 is often slippery, and the sandals enable you to keep 
 groimd and make progress on your homeward journey. 
 This is surely the intent of the gosj)el. It gives us 
 firmness of purpose to do the will of God. Here we 
 find a noble preparation, a joyous alacrity in following 
 the way of holiness and fighting the battles of the faith. 
 It is a superhuman power let down into our world to 
 stay the rush and ruin of a fallen creation and turn 
 the soul of man into the fellowship of God. The gos- 
 })el prepares by inward peace for encountering outward 
 storms. Be the way rough or smooth, thorny or stony, 
 up hill or down hill, all is alike to him who has his 
 feet shod with the j^rejDaration of the gos2~)el of peace. 
 His feet are ready for all roads and all weathers ; the 
 breastplate, like Aaron's, glitters on his bosom ; and 
 under the accoutrement of the panoply of God the 
 heart of the warrior burns with unquenchable fire and 
 invincible courage. He is ready for anything. Life 
 is dear, for he has a work to accomplish for his Mas- 
 ter ; death is dearer still (Phil. i. 23), for it brings 
 him to his Lord ; poverty is sacred, for it makes him 
 like his King, who had not where to lay his head ; 
 riches are to him the gift of God, to enable him to 
 minister to the necessities of the saints ; all things 
 are his and minister to his welfare for the prepara- 
 tion of the gospel of peace, which blesses all and 
 sweetens all. 
 
 55 
 
434 GRAHAM ON EPHESIANS. 
 
 " Lasst uns nicht ermatten 
 Unter seinem Shatten 
 
 Unter seinem Thron ! 
 Wirket well ihr lebet 
 Betet helft und gebet 
 Flir den Menschensohn ! 
 
 "Jesus lebt! 
 Das Haupt erliebt 
 Briider die ihr ihn erkennet 
 Seineu Namen nennet !" * 
 
 X. The Shield of Faith. 
 
 Above all, taking the shield of faith, whereby ye shall 
 be able to quench all the fiery darts of the tvicked (ver. 
 16). 
 
 Instead of above all Lachmann reads " in all," in 
 omni opere ("in every operation") — a reading which 
 Jerome must have followed : in omnibus sumens scutum 
 fidei (" in all things taking the shield of faith ") ; but 
 the authorities are decidedly in ^ivor of the common 
 reading, ahove all. 
 
 But what, then, is the idea attached to the two words, 
 above all, in the simple sentence, "Above all things, 
 take the shield of faith " ? They may very well mean, 
 In additio7i to all these, take the shield of faith (Meyer ) , 
 and in this sense Bloomfield and others take them ; but 
 
 * " Should the way be dreary, 
 Let us never weary : 
 
 Jesus reigns above. 
 Work while ye are living, 
 Praying, helping, giving. 
 
 For Him whose name is love. 
 
 " .Jesus liveth, who was dead ; 
 Lift, lift up your head I 
 Ye who knew him, sons of God, 
 Spread his glorious name abroad !" 
 
CHAPTEE VI. VERSES 10-24. 435 
 
 surely this is unnatural, as there are others to be as- 
 sumed afterward. Others take above or upon in the 
 sense of " over," and then yoij have this idea : Over 
 all these various pieces take the shield of faith — not, 
 indeed, the aspis, or serpent-formed, but the thureos, or 
 broad, door-shaped, shield, which will hide and defend 
 the whole bod}^ But this gives a poor, weak, material 
 signification and could hardly be the mind of the apos- 
 tle, who glories in grand and spiritual sentiments. Far 
 nobler to say with Luther {vor alien Dingen) and 
 others, Above all things, more necessary than all, it 
 is that ye take the shield of faith ; and the reason is 
 given : That ye may " be able to quench all the fiery 
 darts of the wicked" (one, that is the devil). This 
 gives faith the importance which it had in the mind 
 of the apostle, as well as strength and consistency to 
 the passage. This is not the faith in miracles, nor 
 even the faith which works miracles, but the living- 
 faith in the Redeemer without wdiich it is impossible 
 to please God. It is the justifying faith {fides salvifica) 
 by which we receive Jesus Christ and rest upon him 
 as he is offered to us in the gospel (John i. 12). It is 
 not the reception of certain opinions into the mind, be 
 they orthodox or otherwise, but a holy, confidential 
 reliance on the power, promises and love of God as 
 revealed to mankind in the person and the work of 
 Christ. It is a holy, joyous conviction and assurance 
 of Jehovah's love, which the Spirit of God works in 
 the heart sometimes by the promises and sometimes by 
 the preaching of the word, sometimes by the events of 
 Providence and sometimes with all or without any of 
 these, according to his own good pleasure. 
 
 This feith is based upon the faithfulness of God, and 
 
436 GRAHAM ON EPHESIANS. 
 
 roots itself most deeply in tlie person and the work of 
 C^hrist. It is in a certain sense supernatural, being the 
 ojDeration of God and leading the soul into supernatural 
 and immortal hopes. It is a new organ or sense by 
 which the soul can return to the way of holiness and 
 hold communion with her God (Rom. v. 2) — an ear 
 that can hear the music of the skies ; an eye that can 
 see in the cross more than the worth of worlds ; a 
 mouth to feed pleasantly on the spiritual manna ; a 
 hand ready to receive gratis from the Lord all the 
 blessings of time and eternity. It is the great, if not 
 the only, bond of union between man and his Maker, 
 which in a manner worthy of God and ennobling to 
 man opens up a way through the flaming cherubim to 
 tlie tree of life ; which, uniting us with our Father and 
 all his family — with the 8on of God the Redeemer 
 and the Holy Ghost the Quickener — gives to our sor- 
 rowful condition the strength, wisdom and beauty of 
 God ; which, opening up in all directions channels 
 between the Church and her Head, brings her into 
 the possession of his manifold fullness, out of which 
 she receives now, according to the measure of faith, 
 the requisite outfit for her pilgrimage — the manna, the 
 pillar, the water from the rock — and out of which she 
 shall never cease to draw fresh supplies while eternally 
 approaching the Ineffable, though still at infinite dis- 
 tances she continues her starry way through the ages 
 of eternity. 
 
 This faith works by love and purifies the heart. It 
 is a saving, holy, sanctifying, sin-conquering, Christ- 
 appropriating faith. It staggers not at difficulties, 
 trembles not before enemies, sinks not in the floods of 
 many waters, fears not to confront tyrants, Antichrists 
 
CHAPTER VI. VERSES 10-24. 437 
 
 and devils. It removes all mountains, brings distant 
 events near, realizes while in the flesh the promises of 
 future glory, joyfully makes acquaintance with bonds, 
 prisons, persecutions, tortures and death itself for the 
 Redeemer's sake. It seeks and finds him ever the 
 Lamb of God in all things ; so that the rock and the 
 river, the trees of the woods and the fruitful fields, the 
 stars of the night, the sun in the mid-heaven above 
 and the light in the circumambient air all, testify of 
 him and tell us the story of his love. This faith kills 
 us and makes us alive to God, humbles us to the dust 
 and exalts us to the skies, overwhelms us with afflic- 
 tions and sustains us with abundant consolations. It 
 suits all ages, generations and conditions of mankind ; 
 for by it the young and the old, the ignorant and the 
 learned, the civilized nations and the semi-savage bar- 
 barians, have equal liberty of access to God, may 
 equally triumph over the impediments and restric- 
 tions of nature and rejoice in the prospect and assur- 
 ance of glory. 
 
 Take the shield of faith, brother ; it was made for 
 thee. It fits thy breast. It is needed against the fiery 
 darts. It is fireproof, tried and found good by proph- 
 ets, apostles and the glorious army of the martyrs. 
 The shield of Achilles, of which Homer speaks so 
 much,* is not to be compared with the shield of the 
 Christian warrior, which, as to its material, is not made 
 of wood or of bull-hides or of iron, but of faith, the 
 most ethereal, elastic substance known on earth, and 
 able" to quench, not the burning, combustible maleoli 
 of the ancients [Domus plena maleorum ad urhis incendia 
 comparatorum^, Cicero pro Mill. 24), which De Wette 
 
 * r 347-349, 356, 357, E 300, H 250, 251, A 434, N 160, 264, etc. 
 
438 GRAHAM ON EPHESIANS. 
 
 thinks were known to the Hebrews also (Ps. x. 13), or 
 tlie poisoned arrows which drink up the spirit ( Ungere 
 tela manu, ferrumque armare veneno), but the fiery 
 darts of Satan, which we may say, with the apostle 
 James, are set on fire of hell (James iii. 6). 
 
 We observe here, also, the union between the will of 
 God and that of the creature in the salvation of the 
 soul. The shield, like the panoply, is given by God, 
 ))ut we are required to hold it up; the shoes, the girdle 
 and the whole armor are provided by the King, but we 
 are required to put them on and prove them. This 
 shows the harmony between the human responsibility 
 and the divine sovereignty : he gives faith, but ive be- 
 lieve ; he provides the armor, but we must fight the 
 battle; Jesus is ascended to give repentance, yet re- 
 pentance is our own act, and our tears of sorrow are 
 sincerely shed ; the Holy Sj^irit works in us both to 
 will and to do of his own good pleasure, yet for that 
 very work we are rewarded with heaven. One will must 
 pervade the creation — even the will of God ; one life 
 must circulate in the body, one sap in the vine ; one 
 cement must bind together the temple of God ; one 
 spirit — even the spirit of faith — must pervade all the 
 armies of the Captain of salvation. 
 
 XL The Helmet. 
 
 And take the helmet of salvation (ver. 17). 
 
 This helmet of salvation is (in 1 Thess. v. 8) the 
 hope of salvation, and in this sense it is to be taken 
 here. The soterion (" salvation ") is a neuter and rarely 
 used in Scripture (Luke ii. 30 ; iii. 6 ; Acts xxyiii. 28 ; 
 Eph. vi. 17), while the feminine form, soteria, is used 
 very often. It is certainly remarkable that, while Paul 
 
CHAPTEK VI. VERSES 10-24. 439 
 
 constantly uses the latter, he never uses the former save 
 in this one instance, and De Wette argues from this 
 that Paul was not the author of the Epistle to the 
 Ephesians ; but surely an author may vary his words 
 as he pleases ? 
 
 But what is this helmet? It is the Jiope of salvation. 
 " Hope " refers to and embraces the future, as " mem- 
 ory " does the past ; and these two faculties place us, 
 Janus-like, looking two ways — standing, as it were, on 
 the bridge of time between the eternities. The food of 
 memory is history, on which it fastens, devouring all 
 the treasures of God's past dealings with mankind — his 
 providence and his grace, the wonders of his p^wer and 
 the still greater wonders of his love. The proper food 
 of hope is prophecy and promise, by which the golden 
 doors of futurity are partially opened; and those to 
 whom God has given eyes to see may get eagle-glances 
 into the glories of eternity — foretastes of the blessedness 
 which God has prepared for the righteous. Take away 
 the promises and the prophecies of Scripture — the suc- 
 cors of grace in death and the glories beyond the grave, 
 the overthrow of Antichrist and the coming of the Lord 
 — and every man, being left without guidance, will be- 
 come his own prophet and shape out a future for him- 
 self, as the heathen did, for till we cease to be human 
 we must anticipate and provide for the future. Nor 
 can hope ever be extinguished while memory remains 
 a faculty of the mind : we cannot cease to hope, even 
 as we cannot cease to remember ; and to supply both 
 these sides of our being with clothing and nutriment 
 the divine Wisdom has given us history and prophecy, 
 by which the two eternities which meet in us — the past 
 and the future, the work done and the work to be done. 
 
440 GRAHAM ON EPHESIANS. 
 
 the cross of Christ and the crown of glory — are borne 
 in and fill the soul with all their tranquillizing and 
 sanctifying solemnities. 
 
 Memory hinges around the bleeding cross. Oh how 
 lovingly, mournfully, joyfully, does it linger there, 
 finding sweet every object and dear every spot which 
 reminds us of Him ! With burning hearts we survey 
 the Holy City, the type of the heavenly ; the brook 
 Kedron, which he so often passed over ; the old olive 
 trees of Gethsemane, where he drank for us the bitter 
 cup of anguish ; the temple-area, where he so often 
 taught the people ; the tomb where he is supposed to 
 have lain ; and the Mount of Olives, from which, in 
 blessing his disciples, he ascended into heaven — on 
 which, also, his feet shall once mure stand when he 
 comes again as the Judge and the Avenger. Oh how 
 dear — how very dear — to memory are these scenes of 
 more than mortal love and anguish ! Indeed, the poor 
 weak heart faints and breaks under the pressure of such 
 divine mercy and goodness. Here he lived, labored 
 and died for me. He ! Oh, it is Jesus, and none but 
 he, the Son of the Highest, and yet the Virgin's Son ! 
 God manifest in the flesh ! God over all, blessed for 
 ever ! He, then, thought of me — nay, came to see me. 
 From the throne of the Omnipotent, from the bosom 
 of the Father almighty, he came hei^e to seek and to 
 save me. Oh, is this all true ? Is it possible that such 
 ocean-fullness of love should flow in around me, a poor 
 wretched, sinful, dying worm ? It is indeed ; it is all 
 true ; and now I know what is worth all knowledge be- 
 sides — that God is Love. Such is the field from.whicli 
 memory gathers her treasures. 
 
 Nor is liope less important or less active. I believe. 
 
CHAPTER VI. VERSES 10-24. 441 
 
 indeed, it is more active and embraces a still wider 
 range of vision, in which, also, the objects are both 
 more numerous and more gorgeous. In both one con- 
 spicuous object occupies the foreground, even the ador- 
 able person of our Lord Jesus Christ ; but oh how dif- 
 ferent does he appear to the eye of hope ! Not any 
 more the sin-bearing Lamb of Calvary, but the life- 
 giving Head of the Creation ; not crowned with thorns 
 and arrayed in a mock purple robe, but invested with 
 the splendor and the majesty of God ; not the God- 
 Man any longer, but the Man-God for evermore ; not 
 the Servant, but the Master ; not the Burden-Bearer of 
 creation, but the Sceptre-Bearer whose kingdom is 
 over all and shall have no end. 
 
 " Lo ! he comes, in clouds descending, 
 
 Once for favored sinners slain ; 
 
 Thousand, thousand saints attending 
 
 Swell the triumph of his train : 
 
 Jesus comes on earth to reign." 
 
 These are the two poles around which revolve mem- 
 ory and hope — the coming of Christ in the flesh, and 
 his coming in glory ; and they both centre, like every- 
 thing great and good and holy, in the person of the 
 Mediator, in whom alone, as creation's Head and Unit, 
 the past, the present and the future, all depths of suf- 
 fering love and mercy as well as all purj^oses of blessed- 
 ness and glory, are summed up and harmonized. Hence 
 elpis (" hope ") occupies such a conspicuous place in the 
 word of God. It occurs in the New Testament more 
 than fifty times, and is often, as in our text, connected 
 with salvation. Thus we are saved by hope (E-om. viii. 
 *^4), which is explained to be the adoption — to wit, the 
 redemption — of the body ; and this great act of divine 
 
 56 
 
442 GRAHAM ON EPHESIANS. 
 
 power is called the hope of Israel, for which Paul joy- 
 fully suffered bonds (Acts xxviii. 20). Hope is in 
 every way connected with the advent of Christ as the 
 event to which the eye of the bride should ever be 
 directed, for which we are to long and watch and wait 
 patiently with our loins girded and our lamps burning, 
 that we may be counted worthy to escape the things 
 that are coming on the earth and to stand before the 
 Son of man (Luke xxi. 36). His coming in glory is 
 called the blessed hope (Tit. ii. 13), inasmuch as it con- 
 tains in it all the elements which constitute the future 
 blessedness of the Church of Christ. This is the hel- 
 met of salvation which we are expected to take for the 
 battles of the faith, and its efficacy has been j^roved in 
 many a well-fought field. 
 
 Read the history of any j^articular Church, as the 
 Church of Scotland, or the history of the Church 
 universal, and you will find that in times of perse- 
 cution and trial the believer puts on this helmet. 
 " Come, Lord Jesus !" is the cry of the martyr-church, 
 and our ceasing to cry " Come !" shows that the bride 
 is becoming the harlot (Prov. vii. 6-22) as she seeks 
 to make this her rest. It is the struggling soul full of 
 the hope of salvation that cries, 
 
 " Jesu, meine Wonne, 
 
 Komm bald und mach dich aufi 
 Geh' auf du Lebensonne 
 Und fdrdere deinen Lauf. 
 
 " O Jesu, inach ein Ende 
 
 Und fiihr' uns aus dem Streit; 
 Wir heben Haupt und Hande 
 Nach der Erlosungszeit." * 
 
 * " O Jesus, my ecstatic joy, 
 Come quickly ! rise ! 
 
CHAPTER VI. VERSES 10-24. 443 
 
 Lift up your heads, ye weary and licavy-laden, ye 
 2)ersecuted for righteousness' sake, for the Avenger 
 comes quickly and your redemption draweth nigh. 
 Are ye enduring a great fight of afflictions, like the 
 Hebrews (Heb. xi. 32-38) ? Then put on this helmet 
 of salvation, as they did, and patiently do the will of 
 the Lord that you may receive the promise : " For yet 
 a little while, and He that shall come will come, and 
 will not tarry." Are ye mourning over departed 
 friends whom silently and with tears ye have laid in 
 the narrow house ? Then put on this helmet and say 
 with the persecuted Thessalonians, " For if we believe 
 that Jesus died and rose again, even so them also which 
 sleep in Jesus will God bring with him " (1 Thess. iv. 
 14). Are ye worldly, money-loving men to whom this 
 world is all in all? Ye should put on this helmet 
 quickly, for the Lord is coming in flaming fire, and 
 all that ye at present delight in shall be burnt up. 
 Ye have no hope of salvation ; his coming shall bring 
 you only anguish and despair as ye hear the words, 
 " Depart, ye cursed, into everlasting fire, prepared for 
 the devil and his angels." 
 
 " Where, where for safety shall the gailty flee, 
 When consteruation turns the good man pale ?" 
 
 " Quid sum miser tunc dicturus ! 
 Quem patronum rogaturus 
 Cun nee Justus sit securus? 
 
 Ascend, thou life-giving Sun, 
 And advance in thy course. 
 
 " O Jesus, make an end of our sorrows, 
 Lead us out of the conflict! 
 We lift up head and hand 
 For the time of redemption." 
 
444 GRAHAM ON EPHESIANS. 
 
 'Rex tremeadse majestatis! 
 Qui salvandos salvas gratis, 
 Salva me, fons pietatis."" " 
 
 " * 
 
 But for the faithful, believing people of God the 
 o;lorious advent is the helmet which crowns and com- 
 pletes the whole armor of God. Then we shall see 
 Him whom unseen we loved, and we shall be with him 
 and like him in his glory, for we shall see him as he 
 is. We shall mingle with the saints and the angels 
 of God, with the prophets, apostles and martyrs of 
 Jesus, around the throne, where sin and separation 
 and pain and death shall trouble our blessedness no 
 more. This is the Father's house, the New Jerusa- 
 lem, of which David Dixon has sung so sweetly in 
 his noble canticle beginning — 
 
 " O mother dear, Jerusalem, 
 When shall I come to thee? 
 When shall my sorrows have an end? 
 Thy joys when shall I see? 
 
 " O happy labor of God's saints ! 
 O sweet and pleasant soil I 
 In thee no sorrow can be found, 
 No grief nor care nor toil." 
 
 Oh, surely this is the hope of salvation, the house 
 and city of our God, where the Kedeemer and the 
 redeemed shall enjoy their rest and their glory together 
 in the beauty and glory of the heavenly kingdom. 
 
 *"What excuse shall I, a wretched sinner, make? 
 What patron shall I then flee to. 
 When even the righteous shall scarcely be saved? 
 
 " King of tremendous majesty. 
 Who savest gratis those that are to be saved, 
 Save me, O thou Fountain of piety!" 
 
CHAPTER VI. VERSES 10-24. 445 
 
 " Hinc perenne tenent esse 
 Nam iransire transiit ; 
 Inde virent, vigent, florent 
 
 Corruptela corruit, 
 Immortalitatis vigor 
 Mortis jus absorbuit." * 
 
 Oh yes, my brother, when he comes all that the fond 
 heart can desire shall come with him, and hence the cry 
 of the whole groaning creation (Rom. viii. 22) and the 
 cry of the redeemed Bride remain < ne and the same 
 from the beginning : " Come, Lord Jesus, come quickly. 
 Amen. Even so, come. Lord Jesus." 
 
 XII. The Sword of the Spirit. 
 
 A7id the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of 
 God (ver. 17). 
 
 Here, it is manifest, the genitive is quite different 
 from the foregoing examples — breastplate of righteous- 
 ness, shield of faith Miid helmet of salvation, in which 
 righteousness is the breastplate, faith the shield and 
 salvation the helmet ; but the sword of the Spirit 
 cannot mean that the Spirit is the sword, else there 
 would not have been added the phrase " which is the 
 word of God." The sword of the Spirit means the 
 sword which the Spirit gives, a very common use of 
 the genitive and the same as in verse 11 — the panoply 
 w^hich God furnishes to the warrior. The masculine 
 pronoun stands for the feminine by what grammarians 
 call " attraction " (see examples : Mark xv. 16 ; 1 Tim. 
 
 * " Henceforth they shall possess a perennial existence, 
 For all that ia transient has passed away; 
 Henceforth they shall flourish in ever-opening beauty ; 
 All that is corruptible has sunk into corruption: 
 The vigor of immortality 
 Has absorbed the law of death." 
 
446 GRAHAM ON EPHESIANS. 
 
 iii. 16; 1 John ii. 26), and can refer only to sword 
 Olsliaiisen's attempts to refer it to Spirit, making the 
 sword to be the Spirit and the Spirit the word, are 
 worse than trifling. Rema never signifies " the Spirit 
 of God," but "■ the word of God " — the word spoken, 
 as distinguished from the Logos, the personal Word, 
 who was in the beginning with God and was God, 
 and became flesh for our redemption. Rema (" word ") 
 means the gospel, the evangelical doctrine (Acts v. 20), 
 the word of faith (Rom. x. 8). There is no reason 
 against, but every reason for, taking it here in its 
 widest sense as referring to the whole Scripture. The 
 Bible is tlie sword of the Spirit ; it is inspired by him, 
 and is " profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correc- 
 tion, for instruction in righteousness, that the man of 
 God may be perfect, thoroughly furnished unto all 
 good works " (2 Tim. iii. 16). 
 
 This remarkable name of the Bible, " sword of the 
 Spirit," teaches us much of the way and wisdom of God 
 in his dealings with the children of men. What gave 
 the Jews their valor, their comj^act unity, their won- 
 derful tenacity and fortitude as God's witnesses both 
 in grace and in apostasy? The sword of the Spirit 
 alone. What was it in the hand of the apostolic 
 Church which overturned the temples of paganism, 
 smote to the dust the gorgeous systems of supersti- 
 tion consecrated by time and cemented by wealth, in- 
 terest and victory, and finally j^lanted the cross on the 
 palace of the Caesars ? Nothing but the sword of tlie 
 Spirit, which is the word of God. 
 
 See these men! They seem poor and despised and 
 forsaken, but they are the heroes of the faith and tlie 
 chosen instruments of God. They are persecuted, and 
 
CHAPTER VI. VERSES 10-24. 447 
 
 can find no resting-place on earth ; tlieir heads fall in 
 the market-jDlace, and no man regards it; the lions 
 and the wild beasts are let loose upon them in the 
 theatres of the Koman empire ; they are burned, they 
 are sawn asunder, they are crucified like their Master 
 and tormented with all kinds of tortures ; yet they 
 yield not in the fiery trial, they are not submerged in 
 the surging waters, but, rising above pain and torment 
 and death, they sow, in their tears and in their blood, 
 the seeds of righteousness, which spring up into a 
 harvest of saints and servants of God. This is the 
 glorious army of the martyrs. What sustained them ? 
 The sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God. 
 
 The sword which smote the pagan in his strongest 
 entrenchments, which in the hands of Luther and the 
 Reformers pierced to his centre the Antichrist of Rome 
 and won for the suffering saints and the servants of 
 God generally the liberty to worship God, — this is the 
 sword which the Spirit is now sending into all nations 
 to cut the cords which bind the heathen to their idols, 
 the f)apists to their images, the Turks to their fanati- 
 cism and the Jews to their imj^enitency and unbelief. 
 It is circulating among the hundred millions of British 
 India, and the Dead Sea of China itself is now open- 
 ing to the word of life ; so that this fiery sword, the 
 symbol of gospel warfare, is making the circuit of the 
 habitable globe. Perish the attempt to stay the flam- 
 ing sword in its course ! Broken be the arm, papal 
 or infidel, which would dare to lay restrictions on the 
 word of God and deprive the perishing nations of 
 their blood-purchased rights ! 
 
 In the mean time, we may rest assured that the pur- 
 poses of God in giving it shall be accomplished, what- 
 
448 GRAHAM ON EPHESIANS. 
 
 ever may be the opposition of men and of devils. In 
 vain shall superstitious kings and tlieir lackeys the 
 |>opes seek to impede the progress of its saving truths. 
 It is a sharp two-edged sword, cutting into the joints 
 and marrow with the earnestness of truth, and there- 
 fore the lovers of darkness cannot bear it. It lays 
 open our wounds as deej^ly as the malady reaches, and 
 those who have rejected the Balm of Gilead do not 
 like the torture of the necessary surgery. Others are 
 of a different opinion, and esteem the word of God 
 above all price. They find it just what they need — a 
 height for every hollow, a balm for every wound, n 
 sympathy for every sorrow in the poor sin-smitteu 
 heart of man. Its pages are varied and lovely as is 
 the fairest landscape, but they always breathe of heav- 
 en ; sprinkled with its thousand promises brighter than 
 the stars, it draws out the deeper affections of the soul 
 and centres them in the Sun of righteousness. Jesus 
 in his temptation in the wilderness used this sword 
 against the subtlety of the tempter, and so should the 
 saints ever do, as it is the weapon which God has given 
 in this our Christian warfare. It is the best defence 
 of our families and our homes, of the faithfulness of 
 our sons and the honor of our wives and daughters. 
 It consecrates every circle of society where its influ- 
 ence is cherished, and brings forth from the hol- 
 lowness and heartlessness, from the hypocrisies and 
 formalities, of life something of the fragrance and 
 verdure, the truth, fullness and beauty, of heaven. It 
 consecrates everything, everywhere and always, to the 
 service of God. 
 
CHAPTER VI. VERSES 10-24. 449 
 
 XIII. The Way to Use the Armor. 
 
 Praying always with all prayer and supplication in 
 the Spirit, and watching thereunto with all perseverance 
 and supplication for all saints (ver. 18). 
 
 I do not connect this verse with the receiving the 
 weapons, but with the right use of them ; nor can I 
 admit that the verse contains a tautology, much less a 
 drawling tautology, as De Wette asserts. The words 
 prayer and supplication are connected in Phil. iv. 6, 
 and are by no means of the same signification. The 
 former is the proper word to express our petitions to 
 the supreme Being, and the latter may be addressed to 
 both God and man ; united, they show the fullness and 
 the fervency with which we ought to express our wants 
 and desires to God. The points to be attended to in 
 this verse are the following: 
 
 (1) We ought to pray always — that is, at all proper 
 times and places ; we ought to be always in the spirit 
 of prayer (see 1 Thess. v. 17; Luke xi. 1; xxi. 36; 
 Kom. xii. 12; Col. iv. 2; 1 Pet. iv. 7). This steadies 
 the faculties of the mind and makes us ready and will- 
 ing, through God's assistance, to fulfill the divine will 
 with reverence and godly fear. In the spirit of prayer 
 and fellowship nothing can take us by surprise, nothing 
 throw us off our guard, inasmuch as we feel ourselves 
 surrounded by the love and the protection of God. Life 
 and death, sorrows and troubles, are mere accidents 
 which produce no essential change in our relations to 
 God, and our only effort is " that, whether present or 
 absent, we may be accepted of him" (2 Cor.' v. 9). 
 
 (2) We ought to fight the good fight of faith with all 
 prayer — that is, with all kinds of prayer and supplica- 
 
 57 
 
450 GRAHAM ON EPHESIANS. 
 
 tion. (Comp. 2 Cor. ii. 4 ; 2 Cliron. vi. 19, in the 
 Septuagint. Like tlie English, hoth' the Hebrew and 
 the Greek have similar expressions ; the distinction is 
 not always kept up.) These kinds may be such as 
 private prayer, family prayer, social prayer, public 
 prayer in the assemblies of the saints, vocal prayer 
 for ourselves and for others, and mental silent prayer 
 at all times and in all places. The object is to keep 
 as unbroken as possible our conscious communion with 
 God. When one way of access is shut up another way 
 is opened, and our desire should be to avail ourselves 
 of them all. 
 
 (3) Our prayers and our supj^lications should be in 
 the Spirit — ^that is, in the power of the Holy Ghost, 
 who is the inspirer and author of prayer (Rom. viii. 
 15-26; Gal. iv. 6). Some render it "in spirit" — viz., 
 heartily, earnestly ; but tliis is weakening the passage 
 and utterly inconsistent with the mind and sentiment 
 of the apostle (Rom. viii.). We are therefore to plead 
 the promised assistance of the Holy Spirit that he 
 may make our approaches to God holy and acceptable. 
 Through the Son as Mediator, by or in the Spirit and 
 to the Father is the appointed method of access to God 
 (Eph. ii. 18). The prayer is awakened in the bosom 
 of the Church by the Holy Ghost; it ascends to the 
 heavens through the appointed Mediator and finds its 
 end and home in the ear of the eternal Father, from 
 whom all proceedeth and to whom all returneth. He 
 is the Fountain-Head of love (John iii. 16), which 
 can be shed forth on the fallen only in the way of 
 mediati(5n through the Son, and is only to be real- 
 ized in the life and the heart of believers by the 
 Holy Ghost. 
 
CHAPTEK VI. VERSES 10-24. 451 
 
 (4) We are to watch and pei^severe and supplicate for 
 uU saints. This opens up to us the full mind of our 
 Father regarding the use of the panoply which he 
 gives. If we watch not against the tenij^tations and 
 attacks of the enemy, if we avoid not the occasions of 
 sin and the ways of ungodly men, our prayers are mere 
 hypocrisy and the whole armor will not profit us. No, 
 brother ; we must watch. The known evil we must 
 avoid at all hazards ; the sin which so easily besets us 
 we must abandon, be it dear as the right eye or useful 
 as the right hand ; the known path of duty we must 
 follow wherever it leads, and at whatever cost. We 
 are walking amidst the snares of the fowler, and time 
 and sin and evil customs and false brethren and the 
 ungodly world seek to throw over us their deceitful 
 entanglements. "What I say unto you, I say unto all, 
 Watch." But we must persevere also, and continue 
 asking, seeking, knocking, even unto the end. Ke- 
 ligion is not the convulsive effort of a moment (thougli 
 it often begins convulsively), but the calm, steady de- 
 termination of a mind which knows what it is doing 
 and has counted all costs. It is not the flashing of the 
 lightning which rends the rocks and the trees, but the 
 radiance of the sun which illumines the whole world 
 with its splendors. " On ! on ! on !" is ever the cry 
 of the pilgrim, however beaten back by the waves or 
 impeded by the tempests of the deep, for he knows that 
 the Jordan is before him and beyond it the many-man - 
 sioned house of his Father, where his heart and his 
 treasure and his Saviour are. In this state of earn- 
 est struggle he is to pray for all saints. The belie^•er 
 should have neither party nor preferences save in the 
 degrees of holiness to be found in the Church. He is 
 
432 GRAHAM ON EPHESIANS. 
 
 a ])SiTt of the bride, he is a branch of the Vine, he is 
 a member of the body, and his aspiration ever is that 
 the number of the elect may quickly be completed and 
 the glory of the Head shed over all the members. He 
 knows there is but one temple, one Vine, one bride of 
 the Lamb, one great, glorious, redeemed Church — the 
 saints, all saints ; and in his heart and in his suppli- 
 cation he can embrace them all. Names and parties 
 go for nothing ; he recognizes, with his Master, only 
 two distinctions — saints and sinners, sheep and goats, 
 the kingdom of light and the kingdom of darkness. 
 This breaks the bonds of sectarianism and enlarges the 
 soul into the dimensions of divine love ; this lets into 
 the darkness and littleness of our minds something of 
 the expansive force of the hidden life which circulates 
 through all saints and makes them eternally one in 
 Christ Jesus. Those who have not made the trial do 
 not know how hard it is to love and to pray for the 
 saints who do not walk in the same paths with them- 
 selves, and tlie best way to get over this narrow-minded- 
 ness is to meditate much on the love of God, which, 
 like light from the sun, flows forth abundantly, and in 
 thus beholding the glory of the Lord we are changed 
 into the same image, from glory to glory. 
 
 XIV. Prayer for Individuals. 
 
 And for me, that utterance may be given unto me, that 
 I may open my mouth boldly, to make knoivn the mystery 
 of the gospel (ver. 19). 
 
 The heart of the apostle is not filled with anger 
 against his persecutors, nor does he pray for vengeance 
 upon the enemies of the Lord. He does not think of 
 liis danger, but of the testimony which he is to bear for 
 
CHAPTEK VI. VERSES 10-24. 453 
 
 his Master. He is indeed confined, but his soul is free ; 
 and, whether free or incarcerated, whether in Jerusalem 
 or in Rome, his one aim is to proclaim to all men that 
 gospel of grace which gives " liberty to the captives 
 and the opening of the prison to them that are 
 bound " (Isa. Ixi. 1). He asks the prayers of the 
 church, not for his liberation, but that words may be 
 given him, that he may be filled to overflowing with 
 the materials of the gospel history and qualified to 
 utter it with demonstration and with power. He 
 wants utterance. 
 
 What a gift is speech, language, oratory, discourse, 
 especially when it concerns God or the Spirit of God 
 or the incarnate Son, in whom dwells all the fullness 
 of the Godhead bodily ! Paul wants utterance to tell 
 out the great, big idea of God's infinite love in Jesus 
 Christ. It is not eloquence, but utterance. The 
 thing is eloquent enough if you can only get it out — 
 only get it uttered. Tell the tale of Jehovah's love ; 
 glory only in the cross ; pray for words — big, round, 
 holy, burning words — that with open mouth and loving- 
 heart you may make known the mystery of the gospel. 
 Give no thought to mere eloquence ; your place and 
 your position speak for you. The prison is an elo- 
 quent place ; the stripes and the fetters speak for 
 you ; the roaring of the lions is an eloquent voice, and 
 the martyr's prayer (Acts vii. 54-60) surpasses 
 Tully, Demosthenes and Chatham. 
 
 But kt us bridle the fancy and keep close to the 
 text. Here, then, in our text we have the following 
 important facts. 
 
 (1) That prayer — prayer on the part of the people 
 as well as on the part of the pastor — is absolutely 
 
4§4 GRAHAM ON EPHESIANS. 
 
 necessary to the right preaching of tlie gospel in 
 Christian congregations ( Acis iv. 29 ; Col. iv. 3 ; 
 2 Thess. iii. 1). Without this the promised blessmg 
 cannot be expected ; without this the preacher, the 
 j)risoner and the martyr lose a main part of their 
 power. Love is the great uniter, and prayer is the 
 offspring of love. When the peoj)le abound in prayer 
 the minister will not lack utterance, and the result 
 will be zeal for the glory of God and love to the souls 
 of men. The highest office is the apostolic, and it did 
 not deliver Paul from trials and dangers, but increased 
 them greatly ; nor, though he had constant fellowship 
 with God and the Spirit of God miraculously dwelling 
 in him, could he dispense with the necessity of prayer. 
 The holier we are, the more we see and lament our 
 vileness. Nearness to Christ, the Sun of righteous- 
 ness, reveals tlie sin-spots on our white robes; and 
 we may add that in proportion as we imbibe the spirit 
 of our Master must we encounter the hatred and the 
 opposition of the world. 
 
 (2) Boldness is a New-Testament vii'tue : the apostle 
 wished to speak with boldness. Or you may connect 
 boldness with the following clause, thus : " He worked 
 with all boldness to make known the mystery of the 
 gospel." (See Phil. i. 20; John vii. 4; Col ii. 15; 
 Acts ii. 29 ; iv. 29, 31 ; xxviii. 31.) This bold, earnest 
 manner of stating the truth is in entire accordance with 
 the nature and the claims of the gospel, which every- 
 where appeals to human guilt and the necessity of 
 atonement and mediation. Life and death depend 
 upon your words, O ye heralds of the cross ! Crowns 
 of glory or everlasting ruin are the alternatives placed 
 before men. Be in earnest, as becomes such a message, 
 
CHAPTER VI. VERSES 10-24. 455 
 
 and proclaim with boldness the saving doctrines of the 
 cross. 
 
 (3) The apostolic preaching — indeed, the Christian 
 ministry generally — is appointed to make known tlie 
 mysteries of the gospel. God is no longer the unknown 
 and unapproachable God whose throne is surrounded 
 with darkness and with terror. The only begotten 
 Son, who is in the bosom of the Father, hath declared 
 him ; the fountains of salvation are opened to all, and 
 the ministry of the Spirit is to make it known to man- 
 kind. The apostles were not appointed to be sacrificing 
 ]>riests, as the papists blasphemously pretend, but to 
 make known the mysteries of the gospel. The gos- 
 pel ministry is to teach, not to sacrifice, seeing Jesus has 
 by one offering for ever perfected all that are sanctified. 
 Paul will make known this mystery to all the world ; 
 there is no concealment, no preaching of the atonement 
 with reserve, as the half papists among us would do. 
 
 Nor should the word mystsry frighten any one, as 
 if there were more mysteries in grace than in nature, 
 in the redemption than in the creation of the world. 
 There is, in reality, less mystery in the word than in 
 the work of God. We know a great deal more about 
 the resurrection of the dead, and the divine Persons of 
 the Godhead, and the incarnation of Christ, and the 
 Holy Sj)irit the Comforter, than we do about the 
 eternity of God, the creation of the universe or the 
 essence and the attributes of the human soul. As 
 for the essence of matter, we know nothing about it. 
 Mystery is not with us, as with the heathen, something 
 which we are bound to conceal, but something which 
 God has commissioned us to make known. Tell all the 
 perishing there is eternal life for them in Jesus, but 
 
456 GRAHAM ON EPHESIANS. 
 
 think not to expound all its glories ; proclaim upon all 
 the winds of heaven the mystery of all mysteries — that 
 God is love — but leave the everlasting ages to sound 
 the depths of that ocean. Preach Jesus Christ and 
 him crucified ; tell forth the tale of his love to 
 sinful men ; and if they will not hear, proclaim it to 
 the desert-winds. But still there remains much to 
 be told — many of the depths and heights of redeem- 
 ing love which we shall begin to understand only when, 
 enlarged in our faculties and purified from all defile- 
 ment, we arrive at the many-mansioned house of our 
 Father in heaven. 
 
 XV. The Ambassador in Bonds. 
 
 To make known the mystery of the gospel, for which 
 I am an ambassador in bonds : that therein I may 
 speak boldly, as I ought to speak (ver. 20) . 
 
 This is the same mystery for which he says (Col. iv. 
 3), " I am in bonds." (Comp. 2 Cor. v. 20.) For the 
 gospel's sake I execute the ofiice of an ambassador in 
 a chain. The chain, the one chain, some take to be 
 the chain with which he was bound to the soldier who' 
 guarded him ; or the singular may be taken for the 
 ])lural, as our translators have done, as simply desig- 
 nating his bondage (Acts xxviii. 20). Bengel has a 
 fine thought here : ^'Mandiis habet legatos splendidos, 
 Christus vinctos^ Yes, indeed, it is true : "The world 
 has splendid ambassadors, and Christ's are in bonds." 
 Yet if ye consider it well, there is much to be envie<l 
 in these despised messengers and ambassadors of the 
 gospel. They can in their prisons sing songs of sui'- 
 passing sweetness (Acts xvi. 25) ; sometimes, too, tli(" 
 radiance of heavenly light shines into the dungeon an«l 
 
CHAPTER VI. VERSES 10-24. 457 
 
 gilds their chains with glory (Acts xii. 7). They seem 
 wondei'fuUy composed in their afflictions, and, what m 
 most remarkable, their temper is never embittered, nor 
 do you hear any complaint out of their mouth. They 
 seem to be denizens of some higher sphere where a 
 })erj3etual serenity pervades all hearts ; they turn the 
 cheek to the smiter, and, like their Master, when dying 
 under murderous hands breathe only the sj^irit of for- 
 giveness and of love (Acts vii. 54-60). There seems 
 to be in all this something truly wonderful and divine 
 — something which the reason w^ould prefer to the most 
 splendid embassies. Behold Paul in the prison and 
 Caesar on the throne, and tell me which you would 
 prefer to be. The Caesars are dead and their decrees 
 have perished, but Paul and his fourteen Epistles live 
 and reign and fructify in the hearts of millions. Oh 
 how much is moral excellence superior to external 
 splendor ! The pomp and the glory of the imiDerial 
 throne are all gone, but the letter written in the dun- 
 geon of E-ome is read by a third part of the human 
 race. 
 
 The hina (" that ") in the last clause of the verse is 
 to be referred to verse 18, thus : " Praying that therein " 
 (in the mystery of the gospel) " I may speak boldly as 
 I ought to speak." All these afflictions, imprison- 
 ments and bonds are necessary concomitants of the 
 gospel message, for love shown to the unloving is a 
 consuming fire, entering into their bones and giving 
 them no rest night or day. Yet is fire the purifying 
 element in nature for the rougher and harder mate- 
 rials ; and what aie all the trials and all the tempta- 
 tions of this sinful life — the wrestlings with our enemies 
 and the manifold persecutions which, whether at the 
 
 58 
 
458 GRAHAM ON EPHESIANS. 
 
 hand of paganism, papacy or infidelity, the gracious 
 God allows to come upon us, — what are they all but 
 the furnace from which, in his good time, all the faith- 
 ful shall come forth pure and beautiful as the gold of 
 the sanctuary, a holy and glorious Church, without 
 spot or wrinkle, or any such thing? 
 
 XVI. Conclusion, — Salutation. 
 
 But that ye also may knoiv my affairs, and how I do, 
 Tychieus, a beloved brother and faithful minister in the 
 Lord, shall make known to you all tilings : whom 1 
 have sent unto you for the same purpose, that ye might 
 know OUT affairs, and that he might comfort your hearts. 
 Peace be to the brethren, and love with faith, from, 
 God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Grace 
 be with all them that love our Lord Jesus Christ in 
 sincerity. Amen (ver. 21-24), 
 
 The messenger of the apostle and bearer of this 
 Epistle was Tychieus, a beloved brother and faithful 
 minister in the Lord. He is mentioned in Acts xx. 4 
 as an Asiatic ; in Col. iv. 7, " as a beloved brother, a 
 faithful minister and fellow-servant in the Lord ;" in 
 2 Tim. iv. 12 he is sent by Paul to Ephesus, and in 
 Tit. iii. 12 to Crete. This is all we know of him, 
 and it is quite sufficient to account for the want of 
 individual salutations at the end of this Epistle, as if 
 Paul had said, " I am well known- to you all ; I labored 
 long among you at Ephesus ; I know and love you all 
 in the Lord Jesus ; and, instead of mentioning partic- 
 ular names, I send you a brother who shall salute you 
 all and tell my affairs — the things that concern me.*" 
 
 * For the use of the Greek phrase, see Phil. i. 12 ; Acts xxiv. 22 ; 
 XXV. 14. 
 
CHAPTER VI. VERSES 10-24. 459 
 
 He shall tell you all particulars and comfort your 
 hearts." He then sends his benediction to the brethren. 
 
 Brethren in the present day is a word that signifies 
 much ; in the days of the apostle it signified more. 
 These holy brethren were the chosen witnesses for 
 God in one of the most corrujDt cities in the world the 
 word of life had drawn together from the wastes of 
 heathenism ; they were the few against the many, the 
 poor against the wealthy, the followers of the despised 
 l^azarene against the multitude of powerful respectable 
 citizens who could boast of Greek culture and a cele- 
 brated mythology. To be a brother you must give up 
 much — name, relatives, fortune, friends, all that the 
 world holds dearest — and, instead, be content with the 
 consolations of the soul and the hopes of the life to 
 come. 
 
 His first wish or prayer for them is peace — a sweet 
 and most blessed fruit of the gospel. Jesus is the Sar- 
 shalom, the Prince of peace ; his gospel brings peace 
 to the souls of distracted men ; and the kingdom which 
 we preach is a kingdom of righteousness and peace and 
 joy in the Holy Ghost. He came with the angel-song 
 of peace, and he ascended from the Mount of Olives 
 leaving to the world that rejected him his benedic- 
 tions of peace. This 23eace may be threefold, peace of 
 conscience, peace with our fellow-men and peace with 
 God — a peace looking inward, outward and uj)ward. 
 
 And love. This is a diffusive princip-e — love to God 
 and love to our fellow-creatures and (especially as 
 Christians) love to Christ. Jesus is the true home of 
 the heart, where all our sorrows can be treasured up 
 and all our wants made known. He is the life of all 
 our joys and the death of all our woes. 
 
460 GRAHAM ON EPHESIANS. 
 
 " Jesu, meines Lebens Leben ; 
 Jesu, meines Todes Tod ; 
 Der du dich fiir mich gegeben 
 
 In die tiefste Seel^nnoth, 
 In das ausserste Verderben, 
 Nur dass ich nicht miichte sterben. 
 Tausend, tausend mal, sei dir 
 Liebster Jesu, Dank dafiir." * 
 
 " We love him because he first loved us, and gave him- 
 self for us." Peace be to the brethren, and love with 
 faith — that is, faith on the Lord Jesus Christ. But 
 what is faith ? The best human definition is this : 
 " Faith is a saving grace, whereby we receive Jesus 
 Christ, and rest upon him alone for salvation, as he is 
 offered to us in the gospel." Volumes have been writ- 
 ten on the nature of savino; faith without making it 
 much clearer. It is the simplicity of the act that as- 
 tonishes and perplexes us. Like the Syrian nobleman, 
 we would do some great thing to obtain eternal life 
 and cannot easily admit what is freely given us of God. 
 Yet faith has many forms and is variously described in 
 Scripture. It is simply believing the testimony of 
 God ; it is the sure confidence of things unseen ; it is 
 following the Lamb whithersoever he goeth ; it is re- 
 ceiving and resting upon Christ ; it is hearing the voice 
 of our Father ; it is seeing Him that is invisible ; it is 
 coming to Christ that he may give us rest. God sends 
 us a gift, and faith takes it ; God opens the fountain, 
 
 * " Fount of life for ever flowing, 
 
 Death of death, I come to thee ; 
 Jesus, endless life bestowing, 
 
 Thou hast borne my agony, 
 Bitterest sorrow, sorest pain, 
 Life eternal to regain. 
 Thousand, thousand thanks to thee, 
 Jesus, for thy charity." 
 
CHAPTER VI. VERSES 10-24. 461 
 
 and faith drinks from it ; God gives the manna, and 
 faith gathers it ; the cross is erected, faith looks up and 
 we are healed. Faith takes God at his word and stag- 
 gers not at difficulties, while it fixes its eagle-glance on 
 the unseen realities of heaven. As the old monkish 
 rhyme has it, 
 
 " Quid est Fides ? quod non vides. 
 Quid est Spes? futura res. 
 Quid est Cliaritas ? in hoc mundo raritas." * 
 
 These gifts of peace, love and faith are from God the 
 Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. The exposition of 
 Grotius, "Conjungit causam principem cum causa se- 
 cunda " (" He joins the primary with the secondary 
 clause"), may be taken in a scriptural sense, as the love 
 of God the Father is the source (John iii. 16) from 
 which redeeming mercy flows ; yet it ought never to be 
 forgotten that all these actions of grace and beneficence, 
 as well as all the attributes of the Godhead, are in the 
 Scrij)ture ascribed equally to the Father and the Son. 
 Their glory is equal and their majesty coeternal. They 
 are both everywhere in the Scripture presented to the 
 l^eliever as the objects of faith and love, trust and con- 
 fidence, adoration and praise. 
 
 The apostle concludes with grace : " Grace be with 
 all them that love the Lord Jesus Christ in sincerity. 
 Amen." Grace is connected with God (Col. iv. 18 ; 1 
 Tim. vi. 21 ; 2 Tim. iv. 22 ; Tit. iii. 15) ; with Jesus 
 Christ (Eom. xvi. 20, 24 ; 1 Cor. xvi. 23 ; 2 Cor. xiii. 
 14; Gal. vi. 18; Phil. iv. 23; 1 Thess. v. 28 ; 2 Thess. 
 
 * " Faith, what is that ? an unseen somewhat. 
 What is Hope ? a future thing, a rope. 
 What is Charity? in this world a rarity." 
 
462 GRAHAM ON EPHESIANS. 
 
 iii. 18 ; Philem. 25) ; with the Holy Spirit (Heb. x. 
 29 ; 1 Cor. xii. 4) . All is free grace in the matter of 
 salvation. With this thought the apostle begins and 
 with it he ends the Epistle ; and well he may, for noth- 
 ing sweeter than grace meets the anxious heart. 
 
 " Grace ! 'tis a charming sound, 
 Harmonious to the ear; 
 Heaven with the echo shall resound, 
 And all the earth shall hear." 
 
 Here, then, in grace, in the last verse as at the begin- 
 ning, we come to the fountain-head of all our hopes. 
 Free and pure as the river of God it flows from the 
 sanctuary above, and whosoever will may take of the 
 water of life freely. His grace goes before you, follows 
 you like the water from the rock, and encircles you at 
 every step till you enter the promised glory. 
 
 " In Jesu ruht der Seel' Verlangen,' 
 
 Die ach ! so mlid von Sorg' und Lust ;^ 
 Sein Gnadenarm will mich umfangen,' 
 
 Da lieg' ich sanft an seiner Brust.* 
 Ich liebe Jesu heren Namen ;* 
 
 Emanuel mein treur HortI® 
 Gleich Bllithenhauch aus edlem Samen,' 
 
 Wallt Jesu Nam' von Ort zu Ort."^* 
 
 ' Deut. xxxiii. 27. ^ Matt. xi. 28. » Song ii. 6. * John xiii. 83. 
 "* 1 John iv. 19. « Matt. i. 23. ^ Song i. 3. « Phil. ii. 9, 10. 
 
 Do we not love to linger at this fountain of grace ? 
 
 * " In Jesus Christ, the Rock of ages, 
 
 The weary soul finds perfect rest. 
 And when the tempest fiercely rages 
 
 Reposes sweetly on his breast. 
 I love the holy name of Jesus : 
 It makes us strong, from danger frees us ; 
 Like galea from Araby the Blest, 
 It sheds perfumes from east to west." 
 
CHAPTEK VI. VERSES 10-24. 463 
 
 Oh yes, we do, for we can say, " We too love the Lord 
 Jesus Christ in sincerity." His name is more to us 
 than are a thousand worlds, and, like Paul, we desire 
 to glory only in his cross. 
 
 Reader, we have now finished our travels together in 
 this pleasant garden, and, like all others, we must part. 
 To me this labor has not been a toil, and to thee may 
 it not be unprofitable. Grace and peace be with thee ! 
 Amen ! 
 
 THE END. 
 
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