But we are light in the Lord. Be imitators of God: beautiful and magnificent privilege! | Terms of Use | Privacy Policy | Contact Us | Sitemap. 4 As a prisoner for the Lord, then, I urge you to live a life worthy of the calling you have received. Matthew Henry Bible Commentary (complete), Matthew Henry’s Bible Commentary (concise), California - Do Not Sell My Personal Information. But what the Lord as Head confers on individuals, they are the gifts, as His servants for forming the saints to be with Him, and for the edification of the body-the fruit of His care over them. The consideration of the community of position and of privilege, enjoyed by all the children of God in the relationships of which we have now been speaking, served to unite them with each other in the sweet enjoyment of this most precious position, leading them also, each one, to rejoice in love at the part which every other member of the body had in this happiness. Put on the full armor of God so that you can take your stand against the devil’s schemes." The proper and immediate effect is the perfecting of individuals according to the grace that dwells in the Head. It is thus "in man," that it is expressed in Psalm 68, from whence the quotation is taken. OUTLINE OF EPHESIANS Chapter 4:1-16 OVERALL THEME: You ARE one in Christ! Here (chap. They are gifts for men. Ephesians 4:11-12 “So Christ himself gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the pastors and teachers, to equip his people for works of service, so that the body of Christ may be built up.” Ephesians 5:21-25 “Submit to one another out of reverence for Christ. The thing here spoken of is another result which is accomplished meanwhile. When innocent, he was ignorant of evil in itself. [7] It is useful to note here the difference of Romans 12:1, 2, and this epistle. Unity and peace were essential (Ephesians 4:3), with Paul noting the importance of one Spirit, hope, Lord, faith, baptism, God, and Father of all (Ephesians 4:5–6). But while filling all things by virtue of His glorious Person, and in connection with the work which He accomplished, He is also in immediate relation with that which in the counsels of God is closely united to Him who thus fills all things, with that which has been especially the object of His work of redemption. (Read all of Ephesians 4) The faithful were to seek-in the dispositions mentioned above-to maintain this unity of the Spirit by the bond of peace. This is the second essential name of God and as partakers of the divine nature we are light in the Lord. Now there is a prince of this world, a stranger to God; and, besides participation in the divine nature, there is the Spirit Himself who has been given to us. He can no longer be innocent. He does it for heaven, putting the individuals who compose it spiritually and intelligently in connection with the Head by the power of the Holy Ghost acting in this body on the earth; the gifts, of which the apostle here speaks, being the channels by which His graces are communicated according to the bonds which the Holy Ghost forms with the Head. Now the Lord's ascension has immense significancy in connection with His Person and work. He went down into death of which Satan had the power. There is one body and one Spirit; not merely an effect produced in the heart of individuals, in order that they might mutually understand each other, but one body. There is one Spirit, but there is one body. Chapter 1 had laid open to us the thoughts of God; chapter 2 the fulfilment, in power, of His thoughts with regard to the redeemed-Jews or Gentiles, all dead in their sins-to form them into the assembly. He ascended indeed as man, but He first descended as man even into the darkness of the grave and of death; and from thence-victorious over the power of the enemy who had the power of death, and having blotted out the sins of His redeemed ones, and accomplished the glory of God in obedience-He takes His place as man above the heavens in order that He may fill all things; not only as being God, but according to the glory and the power of a position in which He was placed by the accomplishment of the work of redemption-a work which led Him into the depths of the power of the enemy, and placed Him on the throne of God-a position that He holds, not only by the title of Creator, which was already His, but by that of Redeemer, which shelters from evil all that is found within the sphere of the mighty efficacy of His work-a sphere filled with blessing, with grace, and with Himself. Paul first explains his commission to be a witness of Jesus Christ to the Gentiles. Love brought Him down from the throne of God, and, being found as a man, [2] through the same grace, into the darkness of death. The latter passage speaks also of the gifts bestowed on His members. ", [6] There is a sense in which God is, morally, the measure of other beings-a consideration that brings out the immense privilege of the child of God. May God grant us so to look at Jesus as to have His image stamped upon us, and in some sort to walk like Him. OUTLINE: A). The spirit of peace and love (and that, in spite of evil in others and the wrongs they may do us) completes the picture, adding that which will be easily understood after what has been said, that, in "forgiving one another," we are to be imitators of God, and to walk in love as Christ has loved us, and has given Himself for us. Neither is God the measure of all things, for He is above all things; and nothing else can be so above them, or He would not be so. 1. In the Ephesians he is sitting in heavenly places in Christ, and he has to come out as from heaven, as Christ really did, and manifest God's character upon earth, of which, as we have seen, Christ is the pattern. It is important to observe, that this unity of the Spirit is not similarity of sentiment, but the oneness of the members of the body of Christ established by the Holy Ghost, maintained practically by a walk according to the Spirit of grace. All judgment is committed to the Son, and power over all men, because He is the Son of man. [5] In Colossians we have "renewed in knowledge after the image of him that created us. There we see "the truth as it is in Jesus," save that in us it involves the putting off of the old man and putting on the new, answering to Christ's death and resurrection (compare particularly as to His death, 1 Peter 3:18; 4:1). As to His personal power, He was able to drive him out everywhere, and to deliver man. It is created after God in the perfection of His moral character. This is the essential, real, and abiding unity. What mighty bonds of unity! Now, fallen, he is a stranger to the life of God in his ignorance: but the knowledge of good and evil which he has acquired, the moral distinction between good and evil in itself, is a divine principle.

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