Adam is granted unto us) because He was Creator, and being before all, sustains all. Heaven and earth, and powers, are all of Him, and by Him.

18-22. We now come to the Church as offered to us in the Epistle to the Ephesians (in its part in this epistle) which He had purchased with His own blood. The charge of this epistle being here to declare Christ as the Head of it. What would be attached to the Church, as found in the Ephesians, is not mentioned till later (ii. 19), where that is reproved which rejects both the Head, the joints, and bands, by which the members of the body are kept united together. Christ had this headship, who is the beginning, the first-born from the dead, that thus He might be the first in all things; because in Him, by divine counsels, all fulness should dwell, that having made peace by the blood of the cross, He might reconcile all things to Himself, and ourselves who were estranged by wicked works, BY THE BODY OF HIS FLESH THROUGH DEATH (oh, the wonder of the work of Him-the Word made flesh-to the sinner brought into the light of God!) that He might present us holy, unblamable, and without charge before Him.

Here are the two stages of His dealings,—our redemp tion, even the forgiveness of sins, and the work of presenting us holy, unblamable, and without charge before Him, as the wife in the epistle to the Ephesians, without spot or wrinkle, or any such thing.

Nothing may be less than fulness in the way of grace in the word of the truth of the good tidings laid before us in this epistle.

23. "If ye continue in the faith." Faith is confidence and assurance in the word of God and in His faithfulness. This may apply to many things. It is not "abide in faith," simply; but the expression is, "the faith," and in the fulness of the things here presented, grounded and settled in them. We have a marked instance of this sense in Jude. The expression, "the faith once delivered to the saints," in relation to the subject of that epistle, subjection to Christ as 4eσπотηs (4); for He had purchased the slaves of Satan out of his hand, but who now walked after Cain, Korah, and Balaam. So, all of which Paul

was made a minister manifested in this epistle is "the faith," the circle of all the revelations from the first to last revealed to him, whether common to the other apostles or peculiar to himself. The faith of the kingdom, of the Church in heavenly places, and the union of Christ with His members, fulfilling (making up the fulness of) the Word of God; and, it is added, are not moved from the hope attached to the good tidings, which is, of being with Christ when He comes.

24-29. But we have not done yet. The Apostle rejoices in sufferings, and he fills up that which is behind of the afflictions of Christ in his flesh for His body, which is the Church.

How many think it a satisfaction to gather saints for some body to which they are attached; but if it be carried on in the Spirit, and according to the purpose and ways of God in Christ, and in confession of Him in the world; and this done with the strivings of the world and Satan directed against those who would then receive their bodies and souls out of their power, gathering and keeping them for God; this would bring in many afflictions here spoken of. This was the complement of the afflictions of Him who bought them; and this was the work of Paul, here mentioned as a commission from the Lord towards those for whom Christ had died, in order to separate them out of the evil age, according to the will of God and their Father. Paul was the minister of the body according to the dispensation which was given towards them, to fill up the measure of the revelation of God, the mystery which had been hid for ages and generations, and was now made manifest among the saints, to whom God willed to make known what was the riches of the glory of it among the Gentiles. "Christ is thus the hope of glory."

In the Epistle to the Ephesians, it was given to him to make known the mystery of the Church in Christ. Here it is Christ in them. There they got spiritual blessings; here, the hope of glory.

In the Epistle to the Philippians, it was the inward life, and reaching to its fulness. In this epistle, it is characteristically Christ, the substance of that life by the

spirit, whom (i.e. Christ) we preach (kaтayyeλw not evayyeλλw), warning every man and teaching every man, that I (says Paul) may present every man perfect in Christ Jesus, he labouring in the power of God to this end which worked in him in divine energy.

ii. 1-7. The Apostle would not have the depths of the dispensations of the grace of God remain unknown to any, not even to those that had never seen him. He declares that he has earnestly pleaded with God that the blessings of that grace which he had committed to him to make known might be vouchsafed to them; that thei: hearts might be comforted (having been) knit together in love, and unto the full assurance of understanding unto acquaintance with the mystery of God, of the Father, and of Christ. The saints, strangers in the world, bound together in the same hope, are comforted, having been knit together in love, and being knit in the Gospel, have reached an apprehension unto the full assurance of understanding, even unto the acquaintance with the nature of the mystery of God. It is to guard them from everything that would be presented to them in the place of Christ.

He rejoices at their firmness and order. As they had received Christ Jesus the Lord, so let them continue to walk, rooted and built up in Him, confirmed in the faith we have before heard of, abounding in it with thanksgiving.

8-10. To the believing soul, every word is, in these words, a volume. Christ in whom dwelleth the fulness of the Godhead bodily being He in whom the saints are completed,-faith in Him, in all we have in Him, faith in our place in him; faith working by love.

11, 12. From this verse onward, we find the moral and practical and formal application of the truth set ou in this Epistle. Still, however, it is "in whom " all i found. To think to find it elsewhere is Anti-Christ "In whom" ye are circumcised - the end of the flesh and its power on the eighth day (ever the token

This was the "justification' " of Rom. iv. 25, and "for Jesus' sake, 1 Cor. iv. 5.

a See Appendix.

1

resurrection), makes a dead body of it, by the Spiritthe good conscience by the resurrection of Jesus Christ raised by the glory of the Father, and dwelling in the newness of "this life." By faith we see the old man, and everything that could apply to him, buried by baptism in the grave of Christ, "in whom" we are risen through faith of the operation of God that raised up Jesus. Our business is with life, His life, and we ascend with Him.

13. To you hath He forgiven all trespasses who were dead in them, and the uncircumcision of your flesh, and quickened you in His risen life. What have ordinances to say to you? Ordinances which were ordained for the flesh and for trespasses and sins. Ordinances are the dead works under the law, from which your conscience is purged by the blood of Christ. They no longer serve any purpose. But we here come to a more obscure expression, evident, however, in considering the nature and order of the dispensation now laid aside. There are special warnings against two evils- re-introduction of ordinances as a principle of religion, and adopting the patronage of angels. Both of these had place from God in the dispensation that had vanished away.

The Jewish people received the law by the dispensation of Angels (Acts vii. 53). It had been committed to them in this prior order of things. The world to come, of which Israel will be the head, will not be subject to them but to the Son.

This inferior agency, and all that was subject to it by the will of God, had never any place to the Church,save, as angels are to minister to the heirs of salvation, a place of service instead of superiority. Ordinances

take altogether a secondary place to the Church, they being in the kingdom. They were once the connecting link with God. Christ is so now. When, therefore, God in His wisdom sent Christ the Son into the world, it was to take all things to Himself and bring the world back to God under Himself. He now sits at the right hand of power. All handwriting of ordinances, which was against us, was nailed to His cross, and all authority overthrown but His. These things were thrown out into

the world-the place of the excommunicate. And they became rudiments of the world, beggarly elements. Satan has taken advantage of the honour in which they once stood by the divine appointment, and has corrupted the souls which he could not overthrow by violence, by the re-introduction of those things which render the faith of Christ of no effect. Angels, too, were applied to as mediators, all which things so easily in false humility lay hold of the fleshly mind, which looks into things it has not seen, and judges of God by it.

It is most needful to see, that God, in the spiritual institution of the Church, had provided helps and the joints and bands under the Head, thus showing the guard which the institution of the body of Christ in its character in the Church and administration was against this dangerous relapse; and in its positive force, when held to, in having nourishment ministered, and knit together, and increasing the increase of God (see Greek). If then dead in Christ to the elements of that ye are which is of this world, why do ye found your ways upon ordinances? And what did the rules of the law do but prohibit things which God hath given to be received with thanksgiving for our needs, and which perish with the using, distorting thus the gracious purposes of God.

All variety of argument is answered by the single word, "It is not the way of God in Christ." He that is dead hath been justified from sin (Rom. vi.; see margin). Risen, ascended, glorified in Him. Presented thus in His life, ascension and glory. We ourselves are within reach of all things in Him.

iii. 1-11. The beginning of this chapter lays the foundation of heavenly and divine practice.

Every believer, by grace, risen in Christ and before God in Him-in the perfectness of His risen life and Christ in them, is called (faith working by love) to be exercised to walk in the way of this divine life, to bring by Him all that was contrary to that life into

-

We are justified in the Spirit (Rom. ix. 24). There are two senses of justification in the word. The doctrine founded on Lutheran ideas.