The Expositor's Bible: The Epistle to the Ephesians. Findlay George Gillanders

ye shew toward all the saints, cease not to give thanks for you, making mention of you in my prayers:

      “That the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give unto you a spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of Him; having the eyes of your heart enlightened, that ye may know what is the hope of His calling, what the riches of the glory of His inheritance in the saints, and what the exceeding greatness of His power toward us who believe, according to that working of the might of His strength, which He wrought in the Christ, when He raised Him from the dead, and made Him to sit at His right hand in the heavenly places.” – Eph. i. 15–20.

      Because of this: because you have heard the glad tidings, and believing it have been sealed with the Holy Spirit (vv. 13, 14). I too: I your apostle, with so great an interest in your salvation, in return give thanks for you. Thus St Paul, having extolled to the uttermost God’s counsel of redemption unfolded through the ages, claims to offer especial thanksgiving for the faith of those who belong to his Gentile province and are, directly or indirectly, the fruit of his own ministry (iii. 1–13).

      The intermediate clause of verse 15, describing the readers’ faith, is obscure. This form of expression occurs nowhere else in St Paul; but the construction is used by St Luke, —e. g., in Acts xxi. 21: “All the Jews which are among the Gentiles,” where it implies diffusion over a wide area. This being a circular letter, addressed to a number of Churches scattered through the province of Asia, of whose faith in many cases St Paul knew only by report, we can understand how he writes: “having heard of the faith that is [spread] amongst you.” —The love, completing faith in the ordinary text (as in Col. i. 4), is relegated by the Revisers to the margin, upon evidence that seems conclusive.61 The commentators, however, feel so strongly the harshness of this ellipsis that, in spite of the ancient witnesses, they read, almost with one consent,62 “your love toward all the saints.” The variation of the former clause prepares us, however, for something peculiar in this. In verse 13 we found St Paul’s thought fixed on the decisive fact of his readers’ faith. On this he still dwells lingeringly. The grammatical link needed between “faith” and “unto all the saints” is supplied in the Revised Version by ye show, after the analogy of Philemon 5. Perhaps it might be supplied as grammatically, and in a sense better suiting the situation, by is come. Then the co-ordinate prepositional phrases qualifying “faith” have both alike a local reference, and we paraphrase the clause thus: “since I heard of the faith in the Lord Jesus which is spread amongst you, and whose report has reached all the saints.”

      We are reminded of the thanksgiving for the Roman Church, “that your faith is proclaimed throughout the whole world.”63 The success of the gospel in Asia gave encouragement to believers in Christ everywhere. St Paul loves in this way to link Church to Church, to knit the bonds of faith between land and land: in this letter most of all; for it is his catholic epistle, the epistle of the Church œcumenical.

      In verse 16 we pass from praise to prayer. God is invoked by a double title peculiar to this passage, as “the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory.” The former expression is in no way difficult. The apostle often speaks, as in verse 3, of “the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ”: intending to qualify the Divine Fatherhood by another epithet, he writes for once simply of “the God of our Lord Jesus Christ.” This reminds us of the dependence of the Lord Jesus upon the eternal Father, and accentuates the Divine sovereignty so conspicuous in the foregoing Act of Praise. Christ’s constant attitude towards the Father was that of His cry of anguish on the cross, “My God, my God!” Yet He never speaks to men of our God. To us God is “the God of our Lord Jesus Christ,” as He was to the men of old time “the God of Abraham and of Isaac and of Jacob.”

      The key to the designation Father of glory is in Romans vi. 4: “Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father.” In the light of this august manifestation of God’s power to save His lost sons in Christ, we are called to see light (vv. 19, 20). Its glory shines already about God’s blessed name of Father, thrice glorified in the apostle’s praise (vv. 3–14). The title is the counterpart of “the Father of compassions” in 2 Corinthians i. 3.

      And now, what has the apostle to ask of the Father of men under these glorious appellations? He asks “a spirit of wisdom and revelation in the full-knowledge64 of Him, – the eyes of your heart enlightened, in order that you may know,” etc. This recalls the emphasis with which in verses 8 and 9 he set “wisdom and intelligence” amongst the first blessings bestowed by Divine grace upon the Church. It was the gift which the Asian Churches at the present juncture most needed; this is just now the burden of the apostle’s prayers for his people.

      The spirit of wisdom and revelation desired will proceed from the Holy Spirit dwelling in these Gentile believers (ver. 13). But it must belong to their own spirit and direct their personal mental activity, the spirit of revelation becoming “the spirit of their mind” (iv. 23). When St Paul asks for “a spirit of wisdom and revelation,” he desires that his readers may have amongst themselves a fountain of inspiration and share in the prophetic gifts diffused through the Church.65 And “the knowledge – the full, deep knowledge of God” is the sphere “in” which this richer inspiration and spiritual wisdom are exercised and nourished. “Philosophy, taking man for its centre, says, Know thyself: only the inspired word, which proceeds from God, has been able to say, Know God.”66

      The connexion of the first clause of verse 18 with the last of verse 17 is not very clear in St Paul’s Greek; there is a characteristic incoherence of structure. The continuity of thought is unmistakable. He prays that through this inspired wisdom his readers may have their reason enlightened to see the grandeur and wealth of their religion. This is a vision for “the eyes of the heart.” It is disclosed to the eye behind the eye, to the heart which is the true discerner.

      “The seeing eyes

      See best by the light in the heart that lies.”

      Yonder is an ox grazing in the meadow on a bright summer’s day. Round him is spread the fairest landscape, – a broad stretch of herbage embroidered with flowers, the river gleaming in and out amongst the distant trees, the hills on both sides bounding the quiet valley, sunshine and shadows chasing each other as they leap from height to height. But of all this what sees the grazing ox? So much lush pasture and cool shade and clear water where his feet may plash when he has done feeding. In the same meadow there stands a poet musing, or a painter busy at his easel; and on the soul of that gifted man there descends, through eyes outwardly discerning no more than those of the beast at his side, a vision of wonder and beauty which will make all time richer. The eyes of the man’s heart are opened, and the spirit of wisdom and revelation is given him in the knowledge of God’s work in nature.

      Like differences exist amongst men in regard to the things of religion. “So foolish was I and ignorant,” says the Psalmist, speaking of his former dejection and unbelief, “I was as a beast before Thee!” There shall be two men sitting side by side in the same house of prayer, at the same gate of heaven. The one sees heaven opened; he hears the eternal song; his spirit is a temple filled with the glory of God. The other sees the place and the aspect of his fellow-worshippers; he hears the music of organ and choir, and the sound of some preacher’s voice. But as for anything besides, any influence from another world, it is no more to him at that moment than is the music in the poet’s soul or the colours on the painter’s canvas to the ox that eateth grass.

      It is not the strangeness and distance of Divine things alone that cause insensibility; their familiarity has the same effect. We know all this gospel so well. We have read it, listened to it, gone over its points of doctrine a hundred times. It is trite and easy to us as a worn glove. We discuss without a tremor of emotion truths the first whisper and dim promise of which once lifted men’s souls into ecstasy, or cast them down into depths of shame and bewilderment so that they forgot

61

See Westcott and Hort’s New Testament in Greek, vol. ii., pp. 124, 125.

62

Dr. Beet abides by the critical text. He solves the difficulty by giving πίστις a double sense: “the faith among you in the Lord Jesus, and the faithfulness towards all the saints.” See his Commentary on Ephesians, etc., pp. 284–6.

63

In 1 Thess. i. 7–9; 2 Thess. i. 4, the same thought enters into Paul’s thanksgiving; comp. 2 Cor. ix. 2.

64

This is the emphatic ἐπιγνῶσις, so frequent in the later epistles. See Lightfoot’s note on Col. i. 9; or Cremer’s Lexicon to N.T. Greek.

65

See ch. iii. 3–5, iv. 11; and comp. 1 Cor. xiv. 26–40, etc.

66

Adolphe Monod: Explication de l’épître de S. Paul aux Éphésiens. A deeply spiritual and suggestive Commentary.