Ephesians Chapter 2.

Ephesians Chapter 2.

2:1-10.  These verses are almost a summary of Romans. 1-5.

2:1.  "By nature," i.e., "by ourselves."  Every sin is a declaration of independence, every declaration of independence is sin.  The Gospel is not "good news" to make us feel good.  We are corpses in our transgression.

2:2.  The course (age) - the passing standard.  The word used implies time, and the singular is perhaps intentionally contrasted with the `ages to come' 2:7. 

           

Vaughan - Bible Educator:-  Two words here meaning `world', `aion' regards time, `kosmos' regards space.  Paul uses `aion' as the appropriate term for that temporary condition of man's world.

           

"Wear not the garb of time, live for eternity."  "In accordance to the time-state of this matter-        world." 

           

"The air."  The `aer' of 2:2 must be also the `epourania' of 6:12.  See Rev.19:17, mid-heaven. The atmosphere suggests :

a.  The nearness to us of the spiritual foes - as the air  we breathe.

b.  Their free and unrestricted action.

c. The invisible and impalpable character of their presence.

           

Vaughan argues that `Spirit' (genitive) is in opposition not to `prince', but to `power'.  The prince is the ruler of the spirit that works in the sons of disobedience.  The `spirit' itself is under the rule and dominion of Satan.

           

Barry - Philosophy from prison:   What religion calls God's wrath is nothing else than the love in action, vindicating itself where it is rejected.

           

`Middle wall' - the Jewish failure was built into its stones.  The Jews were not really interested in spreading the knowledge of God through the world, so much as adding to their membership.  They wanted to increase the prestige of Israel.

           

Group - loyalty is essentially self-centred and is the very opposite of what Christianity calls `Fellowship'.  Group - loyalty is in the nature of it, exclusive, for antagonism to other groups is inherent in the whole conception. 

           

But fellowship is, in the nature of it, inclusive; for it is essentially God-centred, and as centred in the universal, embraces all mankind in its horizons.  It is, therefore, inherently evangelistic, knowing that its life is incomplete until it is shared by the whole race.  (Barry).  When men live "without God" there comes a moment when they begin to live without themselves.  (J.Mackay).

           

`Kata ton aiona'.  Note the force of `Kata' expressive of studied conformity.  Such was the ruling principle of their life, which was deliberately shaped toward \ secular aims. The world of sense (kasmos) and the world of time (aion) was the standard of their moral conduct.  `Ton pneumatos tou nun energountos' - a genitive absolute, the whole clause is inserted in the final explanation of the difference between the `now' and the `then'.  Their present death to sin is due to the present working of the Spirit.  "The Spirit which is now working in the sons of disobedience."

           

2:3.  `Epithumiais' - the self-stirrings of the sinful nature. "Children of wrath," - objects of punishment.  "We also," - we Jewish Christians.  The desires (or wills) - with a sense of deliberateness implied and standing in contrast to the one will of God.  "By nature," i.e. "by birth."

           

2:4.   `Charis  expresses the spontaneity of good will;  `Eleos', the ill-deserts of its objects.  `Plousios en', is the richness is apparently descriptive of the nature of the wealth.

Love preceded and was the underlying motive of the `pity'.  "Pity" was the form which love took.  `Pollen' expresses diffusion as well as intensity.  `Loved us' - God's love fastened upon them.

           

2:5.  Death to sin precedes vital conjunction with Christ. "With Christ," the with-ness with Christ is a common thought in the Epistle.

           

2:6.  The new life is triumphantly brought forth and shown as clothed with moral power and invested with spiritual sovereignty.

           

2:7.  "In the process of the ages," the purpose of God is being ever continuously unfolded.  Age after age, is ever seen advancing, each made a scene for the display of some portion of the incalculable "grace."

           

2:10.  A divine poem.  `Poiema' - while it means a "work" (and this is its general sense), but it also is used of a poetical work.  A poem suggests a fitting together, harmony, and it follows a fixed metrical law.  A song is a poem set to music.  The cry of man throughout all ages has been for some master-power that would quell the tumult of his being, and make it one instead of many.  `Workmanship' - the Christian life shows forth poetical beauty.

           

2:11.  "called," - nicknamed uncircumcision: so called circumcision.

           

2:13-14.  He is the Unity of which Peace is the characteristic, as discord is a characteristic of Disunity.  Three images illustrate the Unity of Christ:

a.  He broke down the middle wall of petition.

b.  He abolished in His flesh the enmity.

c.  He abolished the Law of Commandments contained in ordinances.

"That He might create in himself of the twain, one new man, so making peace."  He has not merely pacified the two races, but has transformed them.

           

2:14.  "The peace" is opposed to the "enmity" of the next verse.  Christ came into a world that was rent in twain.  Humanity was divided in many ways and forms.  Christ removed disunion, dislike and disorder.  In His, Christ's own person He draws Jew and Gentile to Himself.  As the Emperor to the Empire, so Christ to His Church.

           

2:14-15.  Round the inner part of the Temple in Jerusalem there was a five foot wall with inscriptions on it in Latin and Greek, threatening death to any Gentile that crossed it.  There was a barrier like it in the mind of every Jew - Macphail.  Macphail calls the Council in Acts 15 an Ecumenical Council.  Paul's work is a piece, every part of it is personal, and Ephesians is the crown.  Ephesians Macphail says is Paul's last letter.

           

H.G.Miller - Commentary - Miller's interpretation of 2:1 is unusual, he translates - "who is being filled with all things in all, even with you, in so far as ye are dead to your trespasses and to your sins." The contrast here and in the next verse is between their present death to sin and their former walking in sin.

           

2:14-16.  E.Best.  "One Body," - this cannot be the glorified body of Christ.  It could be His crucified body; but, then, why is `en' used with `soma'?   We should expect "His Body," not "one Body."  In 4:4 "one Body" refers to the Church and we conclude it does so here also.  Best discusses `the one new man'.  `Kainos' - new in quality.   Is the `one new man:

1/  Two peoples who have become one new persons, as distinct from one new race?   Henceforth           God deals with man as a whole, as a single individual; "in Christ."

2/  Or is it that the two types of men, - Jews and Gentiles - have given way to a third type, `the     new man', the Christian?  

           

In favour of No.1, we note the description elsewhere of the Church as an individual - a bride, the full grown man, -the one body.  In favour of No.2, we argue that the identification of the `one new man' and the `one body' is by no means certain.  Also the phrase `the new man' in 4:24, and in Col.3:10, is individualistic. 

It does not mean to enter a corporate personality, but to adopt a new character or status.  Best thinks the balance of the argument favours No.2.  He declares that the "new one man" is not a corporate personality; but a genuine individual. The thought is therefore, a combination of 2.Cor.5:17,  Gal.6:15 and Ephes.4:24.  There are Jews and there are Gentiles; but the Jews that became Christians lose their Jewishness and are not Jewish Christians, and Gentiles that become Christians lose the Gentileness and are not Gentile Christians.  Both are simply Christians.

           

A third and new type of man, distinct from the old two-fold classification of Jew and Gentiles.  There are now three races of man, Jews, Gentiles, and Christians.  The `one body' in verse 16, is the Church.  It is within the Church that Jew and Gentile are not only reconciled to God, but also to one another.  (Best).

           

2:15.  Christ creates the two (Jew and Gentile) in Himself into `one new man', reconciling them both in `one body' to God through the cross.  Here the mention of the cross makes it certain that the phrase, "one body,"  has reference to the Incarnate Person of Christ, and, indeed, it is plainly parallel to "in Himself," in the first half of the verse.  At the same time the context forbids us to exclude from the words, "in one body," all reference to the Church. 

           

In short, that which Christ effected as our Representative in His own Person, "in His Body," is capitulated in those who are baptised into His body, i.e. into union with Himself.  However, in Ephes. and Col., the body of Christ is also explicitly identified with the Church.  (Eph.1:23; Col.1:24).  Christ is termed in relation to the body, the Head of the body Eph.1:22; Col.1:18.

           

Bedale rejects Armitage Robinson's idea that the head is the source of harmony.  Paul knew nothing of the central nervous system and thought men reasoned with their hearts or diaphram (phren).  Bedale rejects also the idea of `head over' or `ruler of' the Church.  `Kephale' never in Greek signifies a ruler of a community.  It is hardly likely that it meant chieftain like the Latin `caput'.  Bedale seeks the Pauline meaning of `Kephale' in the Hebrew, `rosh'.  `Rosh' means:

a.  `Head' in the literal anatomical sense, which is presumably fundamental;  and by an obvious  extension, the top of anything, e.g. of a mountain.  `Rosh' in this sense is translated in the LXX by `kephale'.

b.  A second meaning, not very obviously related to the former, is that of "first" or the "beginning of things."  Prov.8:23, "from the beginning" is `merish', lit. "from the head."Gen.2:10.  The river of Eden is described as dividing and became 4 heads, i.e. the beginning or starting point, of four rivers.  In such cases `rosh' is translated in the LXX by `arche'.

c.  A third meaning, quite frequently found, is that of chief' among men, and this seems to arise out of the preceding.  `Chief' apparently combined with the idea of first in a series.  See e.g. `head of a family'.  1.Chron.5:12. "Joel the chief." - LXX., translated `rosh' by `prototokos'.

           

No doubt the idea of authority is implicit in that phrase:  but then a father's or chieftain's authority in social relationship is largely dependent upon his `priority' in the order of being.  `Rosh' in the sense of chief or ruler is rendered in the LXX by `kephale, arche, archon, archegos'.

           

In Classical Greek, `arche' and `kephale' have nothing in common, but in Biblical Greek become closely associated by reason of their common connection with `rosh', and, in certain cases, at least, are interchangeable.  See Isaiah 9:14, `kephale' and in 9:15, `arche'.  We may assume Paul knew this range of meanings. 

           

In certain Pauline passages `kephale' has the face of `arche'.  See Gal.1:18; 2:19; Eph.4:15.  Here `kephale' seems to have the force `arche'.  In 1.Cor.11:3 Adam stands as `kephale' to Eve because in the order of nature he is the (immediate) source of her existence:  she is therefore `subordinate' to him from whom she derived her being.  See Eph.5:23-28.  Headship in either case implies not merely authority, but a certain relationship in the order of being.  Eve derives her being from Christ.  Christ is the beginning of the `new creation', the `Head' from whom the whole body increases.

           

Bedale suggests that the image of the `Second Adam" integrates and interprets almost everything said in the Pauline Epistle of the relation of Christ to Christians, or the Church.  In and through our union with Christ and with one another in Christ, we individually attain, by the operation of the Holy Spirit, to the perfect manhood of the Second Adam, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ.

           

Nearly two whole chapters, or a third of the Epistle is devoted to the theme of the incorporation of the Gentiles into the Church.  C.P.M.Jones translates 3:8, "to make clear to all the nature of the providential dispensation of the `mystery.'"

           

`Ten echthran' - the hostile twain. But the `echthra' was by no means confined to this twain.

`Dogma' - royal mandate, an authoritative utterance. 

`Katargeas' - having rendered inoperative, reduced to inactivity.  It is one thing to destroy "the energy," and quite another to destroy "the existence."  Christ came that he might accomplish:

1/  An entire reconstruction of human society.

2/  The establishment of new spiritual relations.

Humanity divided into rival camps is to be fitted and harmonized together and held in organic harmony.

           

"Create" (ktise) - the product of creative power.  The transforming effect of Christ's creative power and energy is expressed by the word "new."  He reconciled them, did away with the alienation, which had served God's temporary purpose and united them in one body, created an entirely new and different conception of humanity, not national only, but catholic.

           

2:16.  "Through the Cross."  The reconciliation was the result, not simply of death, but of the particular form in which the death was inflicted. It was a threefold reconciliation:  it reconciled Jew to Gentile, Gentile to Jew, and both to God.

           

2:16-18.  The spiritual benefits of Christianity.  The source of these is in the Cross of Christ.

           

2:18.  `Prosagogen' means more than "access," in the sense of "right of approach."  It expresses rather an actual standing in the Father's presence.  It does not mean our coming to God, but His bringing us to Himself.  `Oi amphoteroi'.  Community of the privilege is marked.

           

2:19-22.  The foundation that consists of persons.  It is not the teaching of the apostles and prophets.  How can a `doctrine' about Christ be a foundation for a building which includes Christ and consists of persons?  The foundation must therefore consist of persons.

           

The prophets are not Old Testament prophets.  They are New Testament prophets.  There is no suggestion that they are a definite class whose period ended sometime in the first century; the New Testament does not itself envisage any immediate end to their work.

           

Are we to regard the apostles in a similar way as a continuing class?  This is a more difficult question.  If by Apostle we mean someone who is a witness of the historical resurrection of Jesus, then they must be a group who disappeared in the first century.  But the name Apostle is probably not confined to those who were witnesses to the resurrection.  See Rom.6:17; Acts 14:14.  Best inclines to think that Apostles, in the wider sense, were those who laid foundations, it is probably an association of ideas to think of them as themselves the foundation stones.

The apostles in the wide sense might then be those who lay the foundations in different places, i.e. pioneer missionaries.  If apostles and prophets were continuing classes, then all the foundation stones had not necessary been laid at the time of our Epistle.  New foundations are laid as the Gospel is taken to new countries, or as new relations, or new meanings in revelation, are given to the prophets.  The image then concern the laying of foundations in a spatial as well as a temporal sense, i.e. apostles and prophets are the foundation stones in the sense that they both spread the Gospel in the world and that they are the recipients of the revelation on which the Church is founded.  On this foundation (themelios) the Church is built up, (epoiko - domethentes); this latter word is here correctly used in 1.Cor.3:10, to denote the erection of a building on its foundations.  Further stones have to be built in if the building is to be at all, and these further stones are `ordinary Christians'.

           

Foundations are essential, but there is no building if there is no superstructure; equally, there is no Church if there are no apostles and prophets.  But what is "the chief corner stone?"  It must surely be more important than the "foundation stone."  Best rejects the view of older commentators, that the corner stone is the straight block that runs up the corner, where it is met in the angle by a similar stone.  These straight blocks are of great length.  There would be many in a large building; but our passage implies there is only one.  J.Jerimais has made a good case for regarding it as "the final stone" of the building.  See Test. Sol.22:7.

           

These passages describe the Temple building.  See Test.Sol.22:8; 23:2,3.  In 4.Kdms.25:17 Symmachu has `akrogoniaion', and the Peshitta renders Isa.28:16, as "head of the wall."  The Chief corner stone is consequently the last stone to be put in position, and is probably the `key stone' of the arch above the entrance; if so, it is a locking stone.

           

The building is a Temple; it is founded upon apostle and prophets; it is complete and held together by Christ.  The stones in the foundation of a building are more important than those further up, with one exception - the last which completes the building.  Without this last stone a storm would destroy the building.

           

2:20.  The motive for action becomes now the filial response to a Father's love.  The foundation of, i.e. consisting of, not laid by.  Corner stone - stones shaped at right angle binding two walls together.

           

2:21.  `En O', Christ is more than the `Corner stone', - more than the connecting link between the seperate walls;  His presence enfolds the whole building.  He is under, around, and above it.

           

`Para oikodome' - not "every" (distributive sense), but "all."  The church is shown in the unity of an ideal completeness, and the idea of separate constituent Churches is kept out of sight.  `Sunarmologomene' - present tense.  The consolidation of the building is a progressive work.  The right arrangement of the material is a matter of studied contrivance.  The parts are not loosely thrown together, but handled with patient skill until their perfect coherence is affected.  (H.G.Miller).

           

In 2:21 the metaphor is partly changed; the building, hitherto unspecified as the type, now becomes a temple.   It is still regarded as growing.   Note, that Paul sees inadequacies in the imagery of verse 20;  it only makes Christ one amongst a number of other stones in the building - though, of course, the most important stone - and it suggests that He cannot be put into position till the rest of the building is completed;  but Christ is the beginning of the Church.  There is a sense in which the Church is complete without Christ; but He is more than its completion, for without Him there would be no Church at all.

           

`Para oikodome oikodome' can refer either to the completed building or to the act or process of building; "grows into a holy temple," it can hardly be the former.  We must take it to mean that as the building proceeds, the parts are built together to form a holy temple.  See Abbott here.  "The image is that of an extensive pile of buildings in process of construction at different points on a common plan."   The several parts are adjusted to each other so as to preserve unity in design.  In the New Testament and Josephus, `naos' is restricted to the actual shrine (the Holy Place and Holy of Holies), where `ieron' refers to the "whole temple precincts."  The Jew thought of God inhabiting the `naos' and not the `ieron'.  Thus it is perhaps more suitable if we regard `naos' as here, only one structure, and not many.

           

`Armologein', represents the whole of the elaborate process by which the processed stones are fitted together: the preparation of the surfaces, including the cutting, rubbing and testing; the preparation of the dowels and dowel-holes, and finally the fixing of the dowels with molten lead.

           

The Christian is a stone.  God is the builder.  Each stone has its place in the building.  Thus the building grows and reveals its final shape, and the whole takes its place in Christ.

           

The repeat of `en o' and the `en kurio' can only mean that Christ is concerned in the whole process.  It is not enough to say that He is the "chief corner stone;" the whole building is to be far more closely identified with Him than that.  Again, the building tends towards identity with Him since it is He, yet, it is distinct from Him because He is one stone in it.  The building is complete, the chief corner stone having already been put into position; it still grows.

           

In our present case the conception of growth in size emerges explicitly for the first time.  Christians as stones are being added to the temple;  it will only be complete and perfect when their full number is built in;  should one be missing the building will not be perfectly finished.. In ancient times, a temple was not a place of worship, but the actual dwelling place of the divinity.  (Best).

           

"Each several building."  Possible "each act of God as builder," more probably, "each building erected."  Paul is writing to a number of churches and wants each to realize its unity with the others.  The simile is drawn from the different building round the central shrine.  The cathedral at New York with its separate chapels for the different nationalities which worship there is a good illustration.  (Lock). 

           

2:21-23.  "Each several building."  "In whom every construction."  Verse 21 is a parenthesis.  Christ is the `Corner-stone.  He gives unity to the structure.  In Him all things cohere.  (Synge).