462 EPHESIANS They have a being, a place, a name ; they "are," they are " existing," in Christ Jesus. The expression is undoubtedly most peculiar, having probably no perfect parallel in the New Testament. Yet it is there, and no reading that we can adopt removes it. The view that we have taken of the destination of the epistle seems to some extent to offer an explanation. There was a special propriety in reminding the Gentile Christians that they existed, that they had a place, that they " were " in Christ Jesus. We see from the whole tone of the epistle that this was the very point on which they were perplexed. There was no doubt about the Jewish Christians. It is taken for granted by the apostle, and he repeats it more than once, that they were " near " (ii. 13, 17). What he had especially to enforce is that the Gentiles were " near " also. He did not retire to say of the former what it was so needful to say of the latter. What he does say, indeed, might have been said equally of both. Both, when believing, " ivere in Christ Jesus." But the words have a peculiar force when applied to Gentile Christians who had been " strangers to the covenant of the promise," and who had to be encouraged to feel with greater depth and power than they yet experienced that they were partakers of the full privileges of those who were fellow- citizens with the saints and of the household of God. There is thus an emphasis on the rots ova-iv. The Gentile Christians are not merely in Christ, but in Him they " are." In Him they too have a real and genuine exist ence, such as those only have who are in covenant with God. 1 Object of II. Object of the Epistle. This is much more definite epistle, than it is often thought to be. The apostle has something more precise in view than to set forth the glory of the re deemed and Christian standing of his readers (Meyer), or to describe the life by which the Christian community is marked (Schenkel), or to explain the ground, the coarse, and the end of the Christian church (Alford). It is not his purpose only to pour himself forth in adoring contem plation of the blessings received by us in Christ (Harless) ; and it is far too little to say that he desires to strengthen the faith and to encourage the hopes of those to whom he writes (Gloag). Even Canon Lightfoot seems hardly to give a special enough object to the epistle when he finds its principal theme in " the life find energy of the church as dependent on Christ" (On the Coloss., p. 329). These views may be all partially correct ; but they are not enough. In this very setting forth of the greatness of the church, in this description of her life, in this presenting of her to us in all the ideal glory of her state as united to her Lord, the apostle has a further and immediately practical aim to show us that this ideal glory contemplated from the first 1 We are not without distinct examples of a use of the substantive verb approaching extremely near to this in the epistle to the Colossians, written at the same time as the epistle to the Ephesians. In ii. 3, ii. 10, and iii. 1 of that epistle the "are" and "is 1 are not to be con nected with "hidden," "fulfilled" (Authorized Version, "complete"), or "sitting." These are all secondary predicates. .The first predicate is the substantive verb, to which the others are added. The treasures of wisdom spoken of " are " in Christ, and are "hidden ; " the Colossian Christians " are" in Him, and are "fulfilled; " Christ himself " is " when the things above are, and He is there "sitting" at the right hand of God (comp. Lightfoot, in loc.}. Even in the Ephesian epistle itself, we have something of a similar kind. The Authorized Version of ii. 5 conveys a very imperfect idea of the Greek. The words there used do not mean "by grace ye are saved," but "by grace ye are, saved men." With such examples before us we need have less difficulty in putting Origen s metaphysical meaning into the " are" of i. 1 ; nor does there seem to be so rnnch over-refinement in this notion as is often thought. If the Almighty chose for Himself the name I AM, why may not His people be said to "be" in Him? All, however, that we urge is, that such a use of the verb has more than ordinary force when applied to Gentile believers. I AM is a covenant title. No one doubted that the Jews were within the covenant ; what needed enforcement was that the Gentiles were not less so. the union of both Jews and Gentiles in equal enjoyment of the privileges of God s covenant, that to the complete ness of the body of Christ the latter are as necessary as the former, and that it is only when both are tor/ether in Christ that His fulness is realized and manifested. It is God s eternal plan that all things shall thus be restored and united in the Beloved; and, unless they are so, frankly, freely, and fully, that plan will be defeated. Hence it is that the apostle begins by describing in the loftiest language Ana that realizing of the Almighty s purpose formed before the of . foundation of the world which was to be effected in "a" efns (not " the," for it is the thought of God with which we are dealing) " dispensation of the fulness of the seasons " (not " times "), when He would " sum up," or gather together under one head, " all things in the Christ, the things in heaven and the things upon the earth " (i. 3-10). Hence it is that Israel "also" (i. 11), which had before hoped in the Christ, had been made an inheritance in Him : but not Israel alone, for the Gentiles " also " (KOL fyceis) had been made a similar inheritance, " sealed with the Spirit of the promise" and to the same end, " the praise of the glory of God s grace " (i. 10-14; comp. especially verses 12 and 14, and note the article before Sd^s in verse 14). There fore he prays that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, " the Father of the glory," will reveal this knowledge fully (eTTtyt/wcrei) in them, that so they may understand the ex ceeding greatness of His power which He wrought in Christ, when He raised Him from the dead and made Him to sit at His right hand in the heavenly places, constituting him Head over all things to the one church which is his body, the pleroma of Him whose pleroma is only reached when all things in all are "fulfilled" in Him (i. 15-23), This participation in the pleroma had been bestowed on them, Gentiles though they were (fyias emphatic at ii. 1.), when they, in the same manner as the Jews (/cat ^/xets, ii. 3), had been quickened together with the Christ, been raised from the dead, and been made to sit together in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, this new and higher life being nothing more than the execution of God s great design (ii. 1-10). The apostle next makes a practical appeal to his readers, as Gentiles, calling on them to remember their present as contrasted with their former state, especially in this respect, that the same Lord who was the peace of the Jews was also their peace, 2 that they who had been afar off were now, as well as those who had been nigh, united in one new man, having access in one spirit to the one Father, and that now even they were fellow-citizens with the saints, members of the family of God, resting on the one foundation on which every building (not " the whole building" of Authorized Version). Gentile as well as Jew, grows up a part, fitly framed to the other parts, of one holy temple in the Lord (ii. 11-22). At this point the apostle seems to have been about to address to them the practical exhortation which meets us only at iv. 1, but he is again carried away by the thought of the great mystery which fills his mind. He turns to it therefore anew, only looking at it first as committed to him rather than in its effects on them. Yet it is the same mystery as that of which he had already spoken, that the Gentiles were made fellow-heirs and fellow-members of th^ body and fellow-partakers (mark the repeated a-vv used with such striking frequency in this epistle) of the promise in Christ Jesus through the Gospel, and bursting forth into a prayer to the Father, of whom every family (not "the whol,e family " of Authorized Version) in heaven and on earth is named, that Christ may dwell through faith in their hearts in love, so that they may be fulfilled unto all the fulness ii. 17.
if ought to be read a second time after the second xai of