_BY COMPARING WHAT WE WERE BY NATURE WITH WHAT WE ARE BY GRACE, THE APOSTLE DECLARETH THAT WE ARE MADE FOR GOOD WORKS; AND, BEING BROUGHT NEAR BY CHRIST, SHOULD NOT LIVE AS GENTILES AND FOREIGNERS IN TIME PAST, BUT AS CITIZENS WITH THE SAINTS, AND THE FAMILY OF GOD._ _Anno Domini 62._ THE Apostle... [ Continue Reading ]
AND— This particle gives us the thread of St. Paul's discourse, which it is impossible to understand without seeing the train of it: without that view it would be like a rope of gold dust; all the parts would be excellent, and of value, butwould seem heaped together without order or connection. This... [ Continue Reading ]
WHEREIN IN TIME PAST YE WALKED— The Ephesians were remarkable, in the midst of all their learning, for a most abandoned character. They banished Hermodorus merely for his _virtue;_ thereby in effect making a law, that every modest and temperate man should leave them. The word αιων, rendered _world,_... [ Continue Reading ]
AMONG WHOM ALSO WE, &C.— The Apostle, changing the expression from _ye to we,_ seems plainly to declare, that he meant to include himself and all other Christians in what he here says. See Romans 3:9. Instead of _the desires of the flesh and of the mind,_ some render the Greek, _the dictates of the... [ Continue Reading ]
BUT GOD,— This connects the present verse admirably well with that immediatelypreceding,andmakesthepartsofthat incidental discourse cohere; which ending in this verse, St. Paul, in the beginning of Ephesians 2:5, takes up the thread of his general discourse again, as if nothing had come between. See... [ Continue Reading ]
EVEN WHEN WE WERE DEAD, &C.— "In this wonderful love, with which he of his own good pleasure has loved us, even when we Jews, as well as Gentiles, one as much as another, were in such forlorn, wretched, and desperate circumstances, as to be dead in sin, and so helpless, hopeless, and loathsome in ou... [ Continue Reading ]
AND HATH RAISED US UP, &C.— What the Apostle here says, does not merely signify our being raised to the hope of pardon and glory by the resurrection and ascension of Christ, but seems to refer to that union which there is between him and all true believers; byvirtue of which they may look on_his_ re... [ Continue Reading ]
BY GRACE ARE YE SAVED THROUGH FAITH;— He that reads St. Paul with attention, cannot but observe, that, speaking of the Gentiles, he calls their being brought back again from their apostacy into the kingdom of God, their being _saved._ Before they were thus brought to be the people of God again under... [ Continue Reading ]
LEST ANY MAN— _That no one._... [ Continue Reading ]
WE ARE HIS WORKMANSHIP,— "In this new state in the kingdom of God, we are, and ought to look upon ourselves, not as deriving any thing from ourselves, but as the mere workmanship of God, created in Christ Jesus, to the end that we should do good works, for which he hath _prepared_ and _fittted_ us t... [ Continue Reading ]
_EPHESIANS 2:11_.— From the foregoing doctrine, that God, of his free grace, according to his purpose from the beginning, had quickened and raised the convert Gentiles together with Christ, and seated them with him in his heavenly kingdom, that is, his gospel kingdom, St. Paul draws this inference t... [ Continue Reading ]
THAT—YE WERE WITHOUT CHRIST, &C.— "Without any knowledge of the Messiah, or any expectation of deliverance or salvation by him." Though the covenant, for substance, was one and the same, the Apostle speaks of it in the plural number, _covenants,_ as it was delivered at several times, with various ex... [ Continue Reading ]
ARE MADE NIGH BY THE BLOOD OF CHRIST.— There seems to be an evident allusion here to the privilege of those Israelites who were not under any ceremonial pollution, or who were cleansed from their guilt by the blood of atonement; and so had free liberty of entering the temple, and conversing with God... [ Continue Reading ]
HE IS OUR PEACE,— Mr. Locke would have this to be the same with _your peace,_ and to be meant of the Gentile converts of whom the Apostle had been speaking just before; but it is evident that the reconciliation as well as the enmity was mutual; and the Jews were at least as strongly prejudiced again... [ Continue Reading ]
HAVING ABOLISHED—THE ENMITY,— It was the ritual law of the Jews which kept them and the Gentiles at an irreconcileable distance, so that they could come to no terms of a fair correspondence: the force whereof was so great, that even after Christ was come, and had put an end to the obligation of that... [ Continue Reading ]
TO YOU WHICH WERE AFAR OFF, &C.— _To those that were afar off, and to those,_ &c. that is, _Gentiles_ and _Jews._ See Junius in Wetstein.... [ Continue Reading ]
WE BOTH HAVE ACCESS BY ONE SPIRIT— The word προσαγωγη, which we render _access,_ properly refers to the custom of introducing persons into the presence of some prince, or any other greatly their superior. See the _Inferences._... [ Continue Reading ]
STRANGERS AND FOREIGNERS,— If there be any distinction between these two words, ξενοι and παροικοι, the latter signifies something more than the former, and seems plainly to allude to the case of _sojourning strangers_ among the Jews, who were not incorporated by complete proselytism into the body o... [ Continue Reading ]
AND ARE BUILT UPON THE FOUNDATION, &C.— "And ye are still more closely united to Christ, and to the Father in him, not only as citizens to their supreme magistrate, and as children to their father; but as a building to its foundation, which is another figure under which the church of Christ may be c... [ Continue Reading ]
IN WHOM YE ALSO ARE BUILDED TOGETHER— I take the sense of this allegory to be as follows, says Mr. Locke: It is plain from the attestation of the apostles and prophets, that the Gentiles who believe in Christ are thereby made members of his kingdom, united together under him their head into such a w... [ Continue Reading ]