The keynote to the doctrinal basis of the epistle is struck at the very outset. The hymn of praise centers in the thought of God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. It is to Him that the blessing is due, to Him, who had chosen us from the beginning, in whom there is redemption in Eph (1:3-7). God as the very heart and soul of everything, "is over all, and through all, and in all" (4:6). He is the Father from whom all revelation comes (1:17), and from whom every human family derives its distinctive characteristics (3:15). But He is not only Father in relation to the universe: He is in a peculiar sense the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ (1:3). The eternity of our Lord is distinctly asserted (1:4,5) as of one existing before the foundation of the world, in whom everything heavenly as well as earthly is united, summed up (1:10; compare 2:12; 4:18). He is the Messiah (the Beloved (1:6) is clearly a Messianic term, as the voice from heaven at Christ's baptism, "This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased," shows (Mt 3:17)). In Him we are quickened (Mt 2:5). He is made flesh (Mt 2:15). He died on the cross (Mt 2:16), and by His blood (Mt 1:7) we have redemption (Mt 4:25), and reconciliation with God (Mt 2:16). He whom God raised from the dead (Mt 1:20), now is in heaven (Mt 1:20; 4:8) from which place He comes (Mt 4:8), bringing gifts to men. (This interpretation makes the descent follow the ascent, and the passage teaches the return of Christ through His gifts of the Spirit which He gave to the church.) He who is in heaven fills all things (Mt 4:10); and, from a wealth which is unsearchable (Mt 3:8), as the Head of the church (Mt 1:22), pours out His grace to free us from the power of sin (Mt 2:1). To this end He endues us with His Spirit (Mt 3:16). This teaching about God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, is no abstract theorizing. It is all intensely practical, having at its heart the purpose of God from the ages, which, as we saw above, is to restore again the unity of all things in Him (Mt 1:9-10); to heal the breach between man and God (Mt 2:16-17); to break down the separation between Jew and Gentile, and to abolish the enmity not only between them, but between them and God. This purpose of God is to be accomplished in a visible society, the one church, built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets (Mt 2:20), of which Jesus Christ is the head of the corner, into which men are to be admitted by holy baptism, where they own one Lord, hold to one faith, in one God and Father of all who is above all and through all (Mt 4:4-7).
The teaching as to the church is one of the most striking elements of the epistle. In the first place we have the absolute use of the term, which has been already discussed. The apostle sees the whole Christian community throughout the world bound together into a unity, one fellowship, one body. He has risen to a higher vision than man had ever had before. But there is a further teaching in the epistle. Not only is the church throughout the world one body, but it is the body of Christ who is its Head (Eph 1:21 f). He has, as Lightfoot suggests, the same relation to the church which in Eph 1:10 He has to the universe. He is its Head, "the inspiring, ruling, guiding, combining, sustaining power, the mainspring of its activity, the center of its unity, and the seat of its life." But the relation is still closer. If, as the evidence adduced would necessitate, one accepts J. Armitage Robinson's explanation of pleroma, as that without which a thing is incomplete (Eph, 255 f), then the church, in some wonderful mystery, is the complement of Christ, apart from which He Himself, as the Christ, lacks fullness. We are needed by Him, that so He may become all in all. He, the Head of restored humanity, the Second Adam, needs His church, to fulfill the unity which He came upon earth to accomplish (compare Stone, Christian Church, 85, 86). Still further, we find in this epistle the two figures of the church as the Temple of the Spirit (2:21 ff;, and the Bride of Christ (5:23 ff). Under the latter figure we find the marriage relation of the Lord to Israel, which runs through the Old Testament (Ho 3:5, et al.), applied to the union between Christ and the church. The significance is the close tie that binds them, the self-sacrificing love of Christ and the self-surrender of obedience on the part of the church; and the object of this is that so the church may be free from any blemish, holy and spotless. In the figure of the Temple, which is an expansion of the earlier figure in 1Co 3:16; 2Co 6:16, we see the thought of a spiritual building, a sanctuary, into which all the diverse elements of the churches grow into a compact unity. These figures sum up the apostle's thought of that in which the Divine purpose finds its fulfillment. The progress forward to that fulfillment is due to the combined effort of God and man. "The church, the society of Christian men .... is built and yet it grows. Human endeavor and Divine energy cooperate in its development" (Westcott). Out of this doctrinal development the apostle works out the practical life by which this Divine purpose can find its fulfillment. Admitted into the fellowship of the church by baptism, we become members one of another Eph (2Co 4:18). It is on this basis that he urges honesty and patience and truth in our intercourse with each other, and pleads for gentleness and a forgiving spirit (2Co 4:18). As followers of God we are to keep free from the sins that spring from pride and self-indulgence and any fellowship with the spirit of evil (2Co 5:1-14). Our life is to be lived as seeking the fulfillment of God's purpose in all the relationships of life (2Co 5:15 through 2Co 6:9). All is to be done with the full armor of the Christian soldier, as is fitting for those who fight spiritual enemies (2Co 6:10 ff). The epistle is preeminently practical, bringing the significance of the great revelation of God's will to the everyday duties of life, and lifting all things up to a higher level which finds its ideal in the indwelling of Christ in our hearts, out of which we may be filled with all the fullness of God (2Co 3:17-18).
LITERATURE.
J. Armitage Robinson, Paul's Epistle to the Ephesians; Westcott, Epistle to the Ephesains; Abbott, "Ephesians and Colossians," International Critical Commentary; Moule, "Ephesians," Cambridge Bible; Salmond, "Ephesians," Expositor's Greek Testament; Macpherson, Commentary on Ephesians; Findlay, "Epistle to the Ephesians," Expositor's Bible; Alexander, "Colossians and Ephesians," Bible for Home and School; Haupt, Meyer's Exeget. und krit. Kommentar; von Soden, Handcommentar; Hort, Prolegomena to the Epistles to the Romans and Ephesians; Dale, Lectures on the Ephesians.
Charles Smith Lewis