St. Paul's Epistle to the Ephesians Part 12

_The Christian life an imitation of G.o.d and a life in the light._

[Sidenote: _The imitation of G.o.d_]

St. Paul has just suggested the thought of imitating G.o.d by ready forgiveness. And in fact here--in the imitation of G.o.d--is one of the greatest of the new ideas and motives which Christianity supplies. G.o.d has manifested Himself in Christ under human conditions. He has translated the unimaginable G.o.dhead into terms of our own well-known human nature. For Christ is very man, yet He is the Son of G.o.d, truly G.o.d, and His character is G.o.d's character. For the Christian henceforth in a quite new sense G.o.d is imitable: He can become a pattern for actual human life. As children partly consciously and partly unconsciously imitate their parents, so we Christians as 'beloved children' are to 'become imitators of G.o.d.'

And it is quite plain what the character of {193} G.o.d as manifested in Christ is. It is love; and to imitate G.o.d is therefore to 'walk in love,' that is, to conduct one's life with love as its conscious motive and atmosphere. Moreover, the love of Christ is a love which shows itself in self-sacrifice. 'He offered himself as an offering and sacrifice to G.o.d on our behalf; and G.o.d, who had of old made it plain by His prophets that He could find no satisfaction in animal victims, accepted 'as a sweet savour' this free-will offering of self-sacrificing love. In the self-sacrifice of Christ, therefore, we have the clear disclosure both of what G.o.d is and of what G.o.d will accept from man.

But this ideal of life as lying in love and in the deliberate self-sacrifice of one for another is the plain negation of some maxims for life generally accepted in heathen society. It is the plain negation of sensual self-indulgence at the expense of others, or at the expense of our spiritual nature, of 'fornication and uncleanness of all kinds,' of filthy conduct, of the sort of jesting or wit which ignores all moral restraints. It is the plain negation again of selfish greed or the unlimited desire to get--'covetousness.' These things are out of the question for a body of saints, that is, men dedicated to a holy G.o.d.

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[Sidenote: _Life in the light_]

The tone and language which befits such a dedicated life is the tone and language of thanksgiving. But clearly Asiatic Christians were only too ready to forget the essential incompatibility of their new profession with the old sinful habits around them. So St. Paul emphasizes 'This ye know for certain that fornication or unclean living on the one hand, or the turning of gain into a G.o.d on the other, surely excludes a man from the kingdom of Christ and G.o.d[1].' And he reiterates 'let no man deceive you with empty words.' Such vices, being in plain contradiction to the divine will, make men subjects of the divine wrath, and for you this should be startlingly plain. You have been brought out of the realm of darkness of which once you formed a part, into the realm of light, of which you now form a part, the realm whose light is Christ. There is no fellows.h.i.+p between the light and the darkness[2]. To live in the light means to bring forth fruit of goodness and righteousness and truth, the fruit of a character like Christ's. For you have in Christ a definite standard by which you can test what is well pleasing to the {195} Lord. It is your business, therefore, to keep yourselves altogether separate from the works of darkness which bear no fruit. Not only so, but it is your business to 'reprove' or convict the dark world of sin; not, of course, by making the works of darkness the subjects of your curiosity and conversation--that indeed must not be--but simply by the contrast which your own lives present. In the light of your lives the secret shame of the heathen life will be unmasked. And in being unmasked even the works of darkness will themselves become part of the light. To make such ways of living attractive they must be cloaked up in a deceitful glamour. Once stripped bare and shown in their true character they teach their true lesson. Thus, the one duty of a man is to awake from the old sleep of death; to separate himself from the morally dead world and stand clear in the light of Christ. And that is what the early Christian hymn, which St. Paul cites, was continually impressing upon the Christian conscience. We may attempt to reproduce it in something like its original rhythm thus:--

'Be awakened, thou that sleepest; Rise alive from out the dead world; Christ, the Light, shall s.h.i.+ne upon thee.'

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Be ye therefore imitators of G.o.d, as beloved children; and walk in love, even as Christ also loved you, and gave himself up for us, an offering and a sacrifice to G.o.d for an odour of a sweet smell. But fornication, and all uncleanness, or covetousness, let it not even be named among you, as becometh saints; nor filthiness, nor foolish talking, or jesting, which are not befitting: but rather giving of thanks. For this ye know of a surety, that no fornicator, nor unclean person, nor covetous man, which is an idolater, hath any inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and G.o.d. Let no man deceive you with empty words: for because of these things cometh the wrath of G.o.d upon the sons of disobedience. Be not ye therefore partakers with them; for ye were once darkness, but are now light in the Lord: walk as children of light (for the fruit of the light is in all goodness and righteousness and truth), proving what is well-pleasing unto the Lord; and have no fellows.h.i.+p with the unfruitful works of darkness, but rather even reprove them; for the things which are done by them in secret it is a shame even to speak of. But all things when they are reproved are made manifest by the light: for everything that is made manifest is light.

Wherefore _he_ saith, Awake, thou that sleepest, and arise from the dead, and Christ shall s.h.i.+ne upon thee.

Three points may be noticed in this characteristic exhortation:--

1. The strife of light and darkness. The victory of the rising sun and its surrender at evening to the darkness; the obscuring of the light through eclipse or mist and its recovery--these {197} universal appearances present themselves naturally to human consciences everywhere as being experiences a.n.a.logous to the moral strife within between good and evil. Light is thus the universal symbol of good, and darkness of evil. The symbolism pa.s.ses out of early native myths into the spiritual phraseology of many religions; but especially into those of the Persians and the Jews. 'In thy light shall we see light' is the cry of the devout heart towards G.o.d. And the whole of Christian language is possessed by the symbolism. Christ is 'the light of the world': His disciples are 'the children of light,' they are to be clothed in 'the armour of light,' bathed in 'the light of the glorious Gospel': they are the children of the G.o.d who 'dwelleth in the light which no man can approach unto': who 'is light and in whom is no darkness at all.'

St. Paul, like St. John, specially loves the metaphor of light. And it is somewhat startling to notice how different is his conception of enlightenment from that common in modern times, or indeed, from that held in the schools of philosophy of his own day or by the Gnostics just after him. This latter cla.s.s of men, who can be taken as typical of many others at very {198} different epochs, meant by 'the enlightened' a select few who had a special capacity for intellectual abstraction and contemplation, and who by such qualities of the intellect were believed to attain to a knowledge of G.o.d which was beyond the reach of the ordinary men of faith. But St. Paul, following his Master, is quite certain that the root of true enlightenment lies in the will and heart. The love of the light is first of all simply the pure desire for goodness; and anything that is not this first of all is a counterfeit and a sham. And the true enlightenment is thus not the privilege of a few, but is open to all who will come to Christ.

'Where is the wise? where is the scribe? where is the disputer of this world? Hath not G.o.d made foolish the wisdom of this world? For seeing that in the wisdom of G.o.d the world through its wisdom knew not G.o.d, it was G.o.d's good pleasure, through the foolishness of the preaching, to save them that believe.' 'If any man thinketh that he is wise among you in this world, let him become a fool that he may become wise. For the wisdom of this world is foolishness with G.o.d[3].' This language sounds violent; but I doubt if many thinking men could now be found {199} to doubt that the way opened by the 'foolishness of the gospel preaching' was a way of light for the world compared to which the way of the contemporary philosophers was darkness and delusion. The arrogant wisdom of the contemporary 'Heracleitus' would have provided no real light at all for the Ephesians whom he denounced. A fresh start was wanted for man, and the fresh start was primarily in the life of the conscience and heart. On the other hand neither St. Paul, nor any of the New Testament writers, can be accused of the sort of obscurantism to which the later Church has often fallen a victim. One cannot even conceive St. Paul denouncing free inquiry, or cloaking up from free investigation the t.i.tle-deeds of Christianity. His love of the light--even with all the dangers that the light has--like his love of freedom, is frank and real.

If we come down to our own time, there is no doubt a great deal of contemporary 'enlightenment' that St. Paul would have p.r.o.nounced spurious. He would never surely have disparaged intellectual inquiry or free scientific research: but he would have continually emphasized that no one was really enlightened whose will and heart was not right with G.o.d. {200} To have a scientific knowledge of facts is by comparison superficial; and worse than superficial is the sharpness and worldly cleverness which continually boasts of being 'wide awake' and 'up to date.' It is possible to be awake and enlightened in the speculative and practical intelligence: to be awake and enlightened in the region of the senses: and yet to be asleep and in the dark in the region of the will and conscience towards G.o.d. And there lies the true heart of manhood. It is possible even to be enlightened about evil and in the dark as regards goodness. But St. Paul hates curiosity about the ways and methods of sin. 'I would,' he says, 'have you wise unto that which is good, and simple unto that which is evil[4].' Take heed that the light that is in thee be not darkness. This curiosity about sin is a delusion which has sometimes a strange hold on some who would serve G.o.d. But they must recognize that the only Christian method of 'convicting the world of sin' is by 'convicting it of righteousness.'

Innocence has a power which sometimes is strangely underrated.

We may pause for a moment longer to dwell on the beauty of St. Paul's ideal of Christianity {201} as a life in the light. It has everything to gain and nothing to lose by disclosure. It has no need to cloak itself. It can be frank with itself and the world. And, on the other hand, sin is a great fraud and delusion as well as a great disobedience. It dwells in a region of lies and excuses and concealments; it hides from itself and from the world its true character and true issues. For, in fact, it is not only in itself foul and rebellious, but it is in its issues fruitless. It leads to nothing: it produces nothing: it tends only to decay or corruption of mind and body, while goodness is only another term for life and fruitfulness. Life, and the production of life, is the good, and it belongs to the light; on the contrary, what hinders or destroys life goes against G.o.d and belongs to the darkness. This is a judgement which mis-called disciples of Malthus in our day would do well to remember. It is not from too much life that the world is suffering, but from corrupt and perverted life. What we want to secure is not a limit to the population, but the bringing up of children in health and simple living, in the nurture and admonition of the Lord.

2. St. Paul, in some pa.s.sages of his epistles, uses very strongly 'universalist' phrases. He {202} has spoken to the Ephesians of bringing all things in heaven and earth again into a divine unity in Christ. And to the Corinthians he spoke of a time when G.o.d should be 'all things in all.' It is, therefore, all the more noticeable that when he comes to speak of the destiny of evil men he does not offer them any hope if they persist in their evil, but warns them that moral evil utterly and wholly excludes from the kingdom of G.o.d: and he appears to be not at all anxious to reconcile this warning as to the eternal consequences of wilful evil with what he has said in other connexions as to the final inclusion of all things in a great unity.

His example would teach us to aim at being true to the whole truth rather than at attaining a premature completeness or consistency of knowledge about a world in regard to which we only 'know in part.'

'Yea, the more part of G.o.d's works are hid[5].'

3. We cannot fail to notice how constantly St. Paul a.s.sociates lawless l.u.s.t with lawless grasping at money or the goods of other men--greediness or avarice. This has led some to suppose that the Greek word for greediness is really intended to mean l.u.s.t in its grasping {203} character. But this is a mistake. The words are a.s.sociated partly, no doubt, because l.u.s.t so often involves an 'overreaching and wronging our brothers[6]' of their just rights; but much more because the lawless grasping after gain and the lawless grasping after pleasure are the two great perversions of the human soul. Pleasure and mammon are the two typical idols.

[1] Possibly this expression means 'the kingdom of Him who is at once Christ and G.o.d.'

[2] 2 Cor. vi. 14.

[3] 1 Cor. i. 20, 21; iii. 18.

[4] Rom. xvi. 19.

[5] Ecclus. xvi. 21.

[6] 1 Thess. iv. 6.

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DIVISION II. -- 4. CHAPTER V. 15-21.

_The Christian life a zealous and deliberate seizing of the opportunity afforded by surrounding moral evils._

[Sidenote: _Buying up the opportunity_]

The Christian stands awake and in the light. He has a vantage-ground of spiritual knowledge, and the opportunity afforded by this vantage-ground he is to use. He is not to live at random but is to fas.h.i.+on his life with deliberate circ.u.mspection and prudence in order to make the best of the spiritual opportunity, just as the merchant cleverly seizes and uses to his own advantage a particular commercial situation. What gives the Christian his spiritual opportunity is the corruption which surrounds him. Of that corruption St. Paul has already said enough. The result of it was to leave whatever was good in man disconsolate and ill at ease. The exhibition of the Christian light amidst such surroundings could not but arrest men's attention and attract {205} their hearts. And if we want to be informed, in greater detail, how to buy up the opportunity, St. Paul's answer is threefold.

First, there must be a positive apprehension of the divine will in particular cases such as qualifies for decisive action. 'Be not foolish, but understand what the will of the Lord is.' This is the sort of wisdom which enables a man to do what our Lord expects of spiritual leaders, to 'discern the time.' It is a rare quality but, according to the measure of the gift of Christ to each, it is attained by spiritual thoughtfulness, singlemindedness, and prayer.

Secondly, there is to be a strong and sociable enthusiasm, expressing itself in uninterrupted joy, and based upon deep draughts of the divine Spirit. In St. Paul's day, as in our own, men would seek escape from the dullness of life and its sense of isolation in the excitement and fellows.h.i.+p which comes of intoxicating drink. Other forms of mental intoxication were provided at Ephesus by a sensual religious enthusiasm. St. Paul would have the Christians confront such lawless excitement not merely with the spectacle of discipline and self-restraint, but also with a counter-enthusiasm, purer but not less strong. Christians are to find an {206} excitement as strong as drunkenness, and a fellows.h.i.+p as warm as is to be found in any band of revellers, in deep draughts of the wine of the Holy Ghost. 'Be not drunken with wine wherein is riot, but be filled with the Spirit, speaking one to another in psalms[1] and hymns and spiritual songs (such as the one he has just quoted), singing and making melody with your hearts to the Lord.'

Lastly, there is to be a spirit of submission, mutual accommodation and order. The disciples are to 'subject themselves one to another in the fear of Christ.' They are, as St. Peter says[2], to be girt each one with the ap.r.o.n of service to minister to one another's needs, knowing their responsibility to Christ, and how He looks for obedience and service in all men. Enthusiasm is apt to be lawless, but the enthusiasm of the Christians is to be the enthusiasm of an organized body. It was said of old of the men of Issachar, who gathered round the standard of David[3], that they had 'understanding of the times to know what Israel ought {207} to do; the heads of them were two hundred, and all their brethren were at their commandment.' A similar spirit of practical religious understanding, with a similar readiness to obey their leaders, is what St. Paul desires in the new Israel to do the work of the true Son of David.

A temper then of clear positive understanding as to what G.o.d wills to be done in the immediate future, fired by an ardent and sociable enthusiasm, and a.s.sociated with a disinterested readiness to obey one another in practical affairs--this is what St. Paul means by 'looking carefully how we walk'; and it is worth while noticing that St. Paul's conception of carefulness leads in a direction quite opposed to mere timorous and negative prudence. Exhortations not to be rash, but to 'look before you leap,' are very commonly given by the wise. But it does not seem to be generally remembered that, at least in the service of G.o.d, most men err by excess not of rashness but of caution, and 'look' so long that they never 'leap.' Truly if rashness has slain its thousands, irresolution has slain its ten thousands. The spirit St.

Paul would have us cultivate is not this cowardly mis-called wisdom, but rather the spirit of the ideal soldier, of the 'happy warrior.'

Nothing, {208} in fact, could be more fascinating than the picture St.

Paul here draws of the Christian community. He has a vision of a pure brotherly enthusiastic society, fulfilled with a divine life, and attracting into its warm and comfortable fellows.h.i.+p the isolated, weary, hopeless, and sin-stained from the cold dark world outside.

Look therefore carefully how ye walk, not as unwise, but as wise; redeeming the time, because the days are evil. Wherefore be ye not foolish, but understand what the will of the Lord is. And be not drunken with wine, wherein is riot, but be filled with the Spirit; speaking one to another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody with your heart to the Lord; giving thanks always for all things in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ to G.o.d, even the Father; subjecting yourselves one to another in the fear of Christ.

St. Paul's exhortation to 'buy up the opportunity because the days are evil' finds fresh application in every generation. For each generation the 'days are evil,' and good men always feel them to be so. Not necessarily that they are evil by comparison with other days, for the 'good old times' certainly never existed, and it is not often possible to balance the evils of one age against those of another. It is enough {209} for us to understand 'the ills we have.' What they are in our own generation is conspicuous enough. In part they are the normal evils of selfishness, and sensuality, and pride, and weakness; of divisions of races and cla.s.ses, and personal uncharity. In part they are special: I will not make any general attempt to characterize them here. But it is probably true to say that, among other characteristics which our generation exhibits, is a lack of great enthusiasms and strong convictions and inspiring leaders. Literature, philosophy, and politics are alike lacking in a clear moral impulse. 'Causes' are at a discount. Men are disillusionized. It is a 'fin de siecle' by some better t.i.tle than a chronological mistake. It is this characteristic of the moment that ought to give the Church its opportunity. At present she largely fails to take it because she lacks concentration within her own body. The true disciples, the faithful remnant, exist in every place, but they are lost in the crowd. They need to be drawn together if they are to make an impression. A vigorous faith, and the confident hope for humanity which a vigorous faith begets, were never better calculated than they are to-day to produce a right moral impression on the world, owing to the {210} mere absence of rival enthusiasms. We can supply what is wanted if only everywhere we will cultivate sincerity and enthusiasm rather than numbers, and aim at forming strong centres of spiritual life, rather than a weak uniform diffusion of it.

[1] St. Paul is in part referring to the habit of responsive or antiphonal chanting, which Pliny, the governor of Bithynia, reports as characteristic of the Christians half a century later--'to sing responsively (sec.u.m invicem) a hymn to Christ as a G.o.d.'

[2] 1 Pet. v. 5.

[3] 1 Chron. xii. 32.

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