THE EPISTLE TO THE EPHESIANS
[p. 257] THE EPISTLE TO THE EPHESIANS
Though addressed to saints in Ephesus, there is nothing in the epistle to localise it, save that Gentiles are particularly in the mind of the writer. It was probably carried by Tychicus at the same time as he brought the epistle to the Colossians, but was intended to set forth the whole counsel of God in its bearing on saints from among the Gentiles, so that it has a very general character. The opening of the epistle makes this clear.
The blessing now is spiritual and it is heavenly. What is spiritual connects with the fact that God is a Spirit, and also with the fact that there are those who are born of the Spirit and indwelt by the Spirit. Such have capacity for what is spiritual. Then blessings are heavenly because Christ is in heaven and they are in Him who is there. And what is there is linked on with God’s eternal purpose in Christ. In purpose He was viewed as Man, and the saints were chosen in Him. There was the thought in the mind of God before the first man existed of men being blessed in Christ and brought into accord with God in nature. “Holy and blameless before him in love” is a nature suitable to God. This comes first; the position and dignity in which God may set us comes second. Sonship through Jesus Christ shows the speciality and distinction which it suits the good pleasure of God’s will to confer upon His saints. It is the glory of His grace — the transcendent excellence of it. It is “in the Beloved”; that is, in Christ as in heaven, glorified. It is sonship suitable to heaven and to the love which rests upon Christ there. The God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ chose that it should be so: all His saints are in that favour. We find the expression repeatedly, “To the praise”, showing that the end in view is that saints of the assembly should take up the glory of grace in their praises.
[p. 258] As far as our side is concerned, we need redemption, which settles every moral question — the riches of God’s grace coming out in the forgiveness of offences. Whatever offences there had been, they are forgiven; they become an occasion for love according to verse 7 — “Through his blood”. It is forgiveness on the ground that the life of Christ here has been poured out that we might be with God in the value of it and in this way know the riches of His grace, so that in spite of our past we can share with Christ in the inheritance, which is all that comes unto us to the praise of God’s glory. He has marked us out for inheritance, and this calls for intelligence as to administration.
Gentiles had trusted, or hoped, in Christ, “having heard the word of the truth, the glad tidings of your salvation”. It is by hearing the word of the truth that we are brought to trust in Christ; it is all about Him. He is the subject of all Scripture, the fulfilment and the Fulfiller of all promises; One mighty enough to crush the head of “the ancient serpent”, the devil, the corrupter and deceiver of the human race; One able to express as Man here all that God was in compassion and kindness to His fallen creature; and One who could give Himself a ransom for all, and be made sin upon the cross so that God might be glorified by His suffering what was due to that dreadful thing, sin, which had come into God’s universe; One now raised from among the dead and glorified so that He sits as a glorified Man at the right hand of God.
Now all this is “the word of the truth” which God is causing men to hear. It is the truth, whether men believe it or not. But if any believe it, most wonderful light as to God comes into their hearts. They learn God’s character and disposition manward; it is told out perfectly in Christ, who has gone down lower than any of us that we might be brought up from sin and death and Satan’s power, and become the eternal expression of what God’s grace and kindness delight to do for those who have sunk to the [p. 259] lowest point through departure from Him. So that the word of the truth is the glad tidings of our salvation. For no man can say, Christ is not for me. He is preached that all men may know that He is for them. And if Christ is for me as the expression of what God has in His mind and heart for me, and I believe it, I am at once made supremely happy. Christ is salvation for me on God’s part; I can lay myself out to learn how great He is as eternally divine, and how He has descended to become Man, and then to the death of the cross, and that He is now glorified. It all enters into what He is as salvation for me. Could I desire anything more or greater? He has been found in every place from eternal Godhead to the dust of death, and now He has gone from the dust of death to the highest point in the universe, and in Him we see that divine glory is the measure of divine grace. He is God’s salvation for us in every way, and in every position. Is He not in every way trustworthy? The light of who He is brings about that we trust in Him. And those who trust in Him are saved by grace and have the certainty of being glorified and sharing His inheritance with Him.
But there is another most wonderful thing. “In whom also, having believed, ye have been sealed with the Holy Spirit of promise”. As in Christ we are sealed: God claims us as His own; we are marked off in an unmistakable way under His eye. And the word “promise” connects this great favour specially with the Father. For the Lord said, “I send the promise of my Father upon you” (Luke 24: 49). See also Acts 1: 4. It is said of the Son of man that the Father has sealed Him. The sealing in His case was the expression of the Father’s delight in Him as the Son of man. But the great matter of “promise” while the Son was here was that the Holy Spirit should be upon men as the seal of the Father’s pleasure in them as in Christ. The thought originated with the Father; the “promise” was made in view of the gratification of His own heart. No human mind [p. 260] would ever have thought of such favour from God. When the believer is sealed in Christ it is as though God said to him, ‘I am very pleased with you, because you have entered into what was in My mind and heart for you, as set forth in My glorified Son’. The Holy Spirit is the seal of this — the attestation of it — to the believer.