CHAPTER 5: 1 - 14
CHAPTER 5: 1 - 14
FER The great object of the epistle to the Ephesians is the presentation of God down here. In the second chapter we are seen “builded together for an habitation of God through the Spirit”. In the third we are to be “filled even to all the fulness of God” — the church is to be for His glory. Now the same thought comes out here: “Be ye therefore imitators of God, as beloved children, and walk in love”. It is the character of God coming out. The “life of God” is an expression we find in this epistle — that is, the life of God coming out here in its moral features.
Ques What is the difference between this and Colossians?
FER In Ephesians the church is the vessel of testimony, just as the life of God was expressed in Christ; the same is to come out in the church. In Colossians it is more the relation of saints among themselves. It will all come out in the heavenly city.
Rem What comes out morally now will come out then in display.
FER Yes, it will. The natural man is averse to the life of God; he does not like it in its moral [p. 256] characteristics. The life of God has two features — love and light. It is love, but it is love in the light, where all evil is rebuked and made manifest. Christ, when here, was perfect love and perfect light, so that all that was of darkness was rebuked.
Rem The love that goes out to man goes up to God as a sweet savour.
FER Yes, it does. We can only get the thought of it in Christ. It goes out to others, but it goes up to God. If your brother was the only object of your love, you might pass over all sorts of things; it would be partiality. Perhaps the best service you could render a person, if you had grace to do it and it was the fruit of love, would be to point out something that was not right in him.
Ques What is the difference between love and brotherly love?
FER The principle of love takes a wider range, it puts you in touch with God: “He that loveth not knoweth not God; for God is love”. Brotherly love adapts itself to the particular circumstances in which you find yourself in relation to your brother.
One wonderful thing in Scripture is, that you get great contrasts brought out; the best and the worst are brought together. We have had the life of God spoken of, and now (verses 3, 4) we get the very worst. In verses 1 and 2 we are carried up to the nature of God: “Walk in love” — then we get lust, fornication, and all uncleanness. So in Galatians 5: “The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace”, etc., and the works of the flesh are “adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lasciviousness”, etc. The nature of God and the nature of man are diametrically opposed. The way in which flesh acts is the complete opposite of what God is. Flesh would sacrifice others for its own gratification. Love would sacrifice itself for the good of its object. The nature of fallen man and the nature of God are completely opposed. Here they are presented [p. 257] nakedly. The apostle takes up the thing in which flesh sacrifices others to gain its point. I do not believe man at all knows how bad he is; he is restrained, made respectable, but it is all there. If a man is bent on making money, it is no question whether others are sacrificed or not. It is the same in the politics of countries; there the same principles come out on an enlarged scale. The missionary is often the pioneer of trade, and often trade ends in annexation. Many things are done politically which are not at all justifiable morally, but all is passed by because it tends to the aggrandisement of the country. It is difficult for us to imagine what a world would be where all is of God — love reigning, every man seeking the good of others!
Verse 5 is an accepted proposition, “For this ye know”. The person contemplated is not a Christian at all. It does not contemplate a person who falls, but one of whom these things are characteristic. It is like John’s statements. It is the “without” of the heavenly city; Revelation 22: 15. These things would be perfectly inadmissible in the kingdom of God; grace reigns in that kingdom, therefore these things would be inadmissible; they are obnoxious to God, and so we get in verse 6 that “because of these things the wrath of God cometh upon the children of disobedience”. It is a most dreadful thing, that man having departed from God, sets himself to work to gratify himself without God. The systems of science propounded in the present day are intended to do away with the fact of sin. It is intended to do away with the moral element — with the thought that man is responsible. They ignore conscience.
It is inconceivable that God could begin at the bottom! It is contrary to all my knowledge of God. If He makes a man, He makes the very best man first — there never was a better man than Adam; or an angel — it is the best angel that could be. Do you [p. 258] think God could begin at the bottom and allow things to work up to something better! No Christian could believe such a thing, though “some have not the knowledge of God”; but it is an awful reproach to a Christian not to know God.
Scripture is light, and light makes manifest; there is a perfect exposure somewhere in the word, of every evil that can come out in man, if only we had eyes to see it. I believe, for instance, we should see the germ of Darwinism exposed. Things here grow darker and darker, but it is a great comfort to have the scripture. It is a fashion with people to set it aside, and it is done by those who have the merest superficial acquaintance with the letter of it.
Scripture gives samples of things. For instance, Nebuchadnezzar is a sample of unlimited monarchy; the Medes and Persians of constitutional government; the kings bound by the constitution, and that administered by those who are irresponsible. Scripture is so simple and yet so profound!
“The sons of disobedience” are those in whom disobedience is expressed; the man of sin is the son of perdition, the one in whom evil will find its perfect expression. It refers to a class of people who have had the light presented to them and have refused it: they are not subject to the light. At the time when the apostle wrote, the Jews were the “sons of disobedience” — they really courted the wrath of God. It was the same with Israel of old: they could not enter in because of unbelief — disobedience. They first disobeyed in making the golden calf, and then when the report of the good land was brought to them they refused to believe it; then God closed up His offer to them: it was final.
People are not judged merely because they do not obey the gospel; when they are judged, it is according to their works. And so, too, it is because of these things
[p. 259] that the wrath of God comes on the sons of disobedience. It is what a man is morally. His whole course comes up for judgment, not merely the fact of disobedience. Nothing can be more explicit than this passage; it is what the man is morally that is obnoxious to God. The Jews admitted that they had the light in the Scriptures; they did not attempt to gainsay it, but they did not obey it. The glad tidings are supposed to command the obedience of faith; disobedience involves responsibility. You are to bow to it: it brings the light of God to you: it is the crowning testimony; to disobey leaves a man without excuse — it is his crowning sin, though his whole course is obnoxious to God. The Jews “stumbled at the word”. They expected Christ, and when He came He did not please them. If they had been all right they would not have needed a prophet. A prophet was only sent in times of weakness, when the ordinary state of things had broken down. Now, when a prophet came to them they were offended, because he did not come in the way they approved. John came to them mourning, and they would not weep. But neither did they like the way in which Christ came. As has been said, they would rather have a man with a legion of devils, than Christ! It is so today; people feel and know that they are not fitted to be with God. “Seeing ye put it from you, and judge yourselves unworthy of everlasting life, lo, we turn to the Gentiles”.
Ques Why is it “light in the Lord”?
FER Because it is not light outwardly; it is only in the Lord that we are light. The title ‘Lord’ brings in the light of the day, and we are light just in proportion as we anticipate the day, and are controlled and governed and affected by the Lord. We are in the light as to our souls; our bodies are in the darkness, but the Day-star has arisen in our hearts. I am more than ever sure that the epistles are written to [p. 260] bring us anticipatively into the light of what is to be displayed in the future. Romans anticipates the reign of grace; Corinthians, the temple, and victory over death; Ephesians, all things put under Christ; Hebrews, the world to come; Galatians, the New Jerusalem. All these things are anticipated in faith for the Christian. Every principle of the heavenly city is to come out in the church. We are in the end of the testimony in a certain sense, and yet in another way we are only at the beginning. This latter is important. We are to be in the faith sphere, where God is known in resurrection, His power exhibited, and Christ is known as Lord; that is where the Christian is to live! If we were more there, we should see a great many more signs of God’s activities than we do now. We are “of the day”; it is not yet displayed, but what will come out then, should come out in us morally now. We anticipate the day. Here on earth we are in the kingdom, subject to the Lord. We never shall have part in the kingdom in the same way in which we have part in it now. We shall be reigning with Him in that day. We ought now to prove ourselves in the kingdom; we shall not have the opportunity of being subject then. The best man to exercise authority is the one who has been subject to discipline. You will find the same principle in all the epistles — we are to be in the light of all that is to be displayed.
Rem Everything is finished for God.
FER Exactly. He has put forth the might of His strength, and He will not do it again; all the rest is a question merely of detail, and we are in the light of the world to come. The working of His might has been displayed, and all He does after is according to that. A continuation of the same power will change our bodies of humiliation and fashion them like to the body of His glory. The natural outcome of the resurrection of Christ is a new heaven and a new [p. 261] earth. We get the same line in 1 Corinthians 15, “That God may be all in all”.
The fruit of the light has beautiful features: it is in all goodness, righteousness, and truth; not in some, but in all goodness. The man who walks in the light of the Lord and in love to Him could not go on with evil. It is the greatest antidote to going on with evil. “The Lord” brings in not only the thought of subjection, but of administration: “One Lord Jesus Christ, by whom are all things”, 1 Corinthians 8: 6. This latter idea has not been sufficiently in our thoughts in connection with the place Christ has as Lord.