“It is the little rift within the luteThat by-and-by will make the music mute,And ever widening slowly silence all;The little rift within the lover’s lute,Or little pitted speck in garnered fruit,That rotting inward slowly moulders all.”
Let us judge ourselves, that we be not judged by the Lord. Let us count no wrong a trifle. Let us never imagine that our defects in one kind will be atoned for by excellencies in another. Our friends may say this,in charity, for us; it is a fatal thing when a man begins to say so to himself. “May the God of peace sanctify you fully. May your whole spirit, soul, and body in blameless integrity be preserved to the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ” (1 Thess. v. 23).
II. Theeffectupon surrounding darkness of the light of God in Christian lives is described in verses 11–14, in words which it remains for us briefly to examine.
Verse 12 distinguishes “the things secretly done” by the Gentiles, “of which it is a shame even to speak,” from the open and manifest forms of evil in which they invite their Christian neighbours to join (ver. 11). Instead of doing this and “having fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness,” they must “rather reprove them.” Silent absence, or abstinence is not enough. Where sin is open to rebuke, it should at all hazards be rebuked. On the other hand, St Paul does not warrant Christians in prying into the hidden sins of the world around them and playing the moral detective. Publicity is not a remedy for all evils, but a great aggravation of some, and the surest means of disseminating them. “It is a shame”—a disgrace to our common nature, and a grievous peril to the young and innocent—to fill the public prints with the nauseous details of crime and to taint the air with its putridities.
“But all things,” the apostle says—whether it be those open works of darkness, profitless of good, which expose themselves to direct conviction, or the depths of Satan that hide their infamy from the light of day—“all things being reproved by the light, are made manifest” (ver. 13). The fruit of the light convicts the unfruitful works of darkness. The daily life of a Christian man amongst men of the world is a perpetual reproof, that tells against secret sins of which no wordis spoken, of which the reprover never guesses, as well as against open and unblushing vices.
“This is the condemnation,” said Jesus, “that light is come into the world.” And this condemnation every one who walks in Christ’s steps, and breathes His Spirit amid the corruptions of the world, is carrying on, more frequently in silence than by spoken argument. Our unconscious and spontaneous influence is the most real and effective part of it. Life is the light of men—words only as the index of the life from which they spring. Just so far as our lives touch the conscience of others and reveal the difference between darkness and light, so far do we hold forth the word of life and carry on the Holy Spirit’s work in convincing the world of sin. “Let your light so shine.”
This manifestation leads to a transformation: “For everything that is made manifestis light” (ver. 13). “You are light in the Lord,” St Paul says to his converted Gentile readers,—you who were “once darkness,” once wandering in the lusts and pleasures of the heathen around you, without hope and without God. The light of the gospel disclosed, and then dispelled the darkness of that former time; and so it may be with your still heathen kindred, through the light you bring to them. So it will be with the night of sin that is spread over the world. The light which shines upon sin-laden and sorrowful hearts, shines on them to change them into its own nature.The manifested is light: in other words, if men can be made to see the true nature of their sin, they will forsake it. If the light can but penetrate their conscience, it will save them. “Wherefore He saith:—
Awake, O sleeper; and arise from out of the dead!And the Christ shall dawn upon thee!”
The speaker of this verse can be no other than God, or the Spirit of God in Scripture. The sentence is no mere quotation. It re-utters, in the style of Mary’s or Zechariah’s song, the promise of the Old Covenant from the lips of the New. It gathers up the import of the prophecies concerning the salvation of Christ, as they sounded in the apostle’s ears and as he conveyed them to the world. Isaiah lx. 1–3 supplies the basis of our passage, where the prophet awakens Zion from the sleep of the Exile and bids her shine once more in the glory of her God and show forth His light to the nations: “Arise,” he cries, “shine, for thy light is come!” There are echoes in the verse, besides, of Isaiah li. 17, xxvi. 19; perhaps even of Jonah i. 6: “What meanest thou, O sleeper? arise, and call upon thy God!” We seem to have here, as in chapter iv. 4–6, a snatch of the earliest Christian hymns. The lines are a free paraphrase from the Old Testament, formed by weaving together Messianic passages—belonging to such a hymn as might be sung at baptisms in the Pauline Churches. Certainly those Churches did not wait until the second century to compose their hymns and spiritual songs (comp. ver. 19). Our Lord’s sublime announcement (John v. 25), already verified, that “the hour had come when the dead should hear the voice of the Son of God, and they that heard should live,” gave the key to the prophetic sayings which promised through Israel the light of life to all nations.
With this song on her lips the Church went forth, clad in the armour of light, strong in the joy of salvation; and darkness and the works of darkness fled before her.
FOOTNOTES:[135]Mr. Wesley adopted this and other emendations from Bengel, “that great light of the Christian world,” in the translation accompanying hisExplanatory Notes upon the New Testament. He there supplied the Methodist preachers with many of the most valuable improvements made in the Revised Version, a hundred years before the time.[136]The word belongs to Paul’s vocabulary; it is found besides in 2 Thess. i. 11; Rom. xv. 14; and Gal. v. 22. See the Commentary on this last epistle in theExpositor’s Bible, pp. 384, 385.[137]F. W. Robertson:Sermons(First Series), xix., on “The Kingdom of the Truth.”
[135]Mr. Wesley adopted this and other emendations from Bengel, “that great light of the Christian world,” in the translation accompanying hisExplanatory Notes upon the New Testament. He there supplied the Methodist preachers with many of the most valuable improvements made in the Revised Version, a hundred years before the time.
[135]Mr. Wesley adopted this and other emendations from Bengel, “that great light of the Christian world,” in the translation accompanying hisExplanatory Notes upon the New Testament. He there supplied the Methodist preachers with many of the most valuable improvements made in the Revised Version, a hundred years before the time.
[136]The word belongs to Paul’s vocabulary; it is found besides in 2 Thess. i. 11; Rom. xv. 14; and Gal. v. 22. See the Commentary on this last epistle in theExpositor’s Bible, pp. 384, 385.
[136]The word belongs to Paul’s vocabulary; it is found besides in 2 Thess. i. 11; Rom. xv. 14; and Gal. v. 22. See the Commentary on this last epistle in theExpositor’s Bible, pp. 384, 385.
[137]F. W. Robertson:Sermons(First Series), xix., on “The Kingdom of the Truth.”
[137]F. W. Robertson:Sermons(First Series), xix., on “The Kingdom of the Truth.”
“Look therefore carefully how ye walk, not as unwise, but as wise; redeeming the time, because the days are evil. Wherefore be ye not foolish, but understand what the will of the Lord is.“And be not drunken with wine, wherein is riot, but be filled with the Spirit; speaking one to another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody with your heart to the Lord; giving thanks always for all things in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ to God, even the Father; subjecting yourselves one to another in the fear of Christ.”—Eph.v. 15–21.
“Look therefore carefully how ye walk, not as unwise, but as wise; redeeming the time, because the days are evil. Wherefore be ye not foolish, but understand what the will of the Lord is.
“And be not drunken with wine, wherein is riot, but be filled with the Spirit; speaking one to another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody with your heart to the Lord; giving thanks always for all things in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ to God, even the Father; subjecting yourselves one to another in the fear of Christ.”—Eph.v. 15–21.
Very solemnly did the moral homily to the Asian Christians begin in chapter iv. 17: “This therefore I say and testify in the Lord, that you must no longer walk as the Gentiles walk.” So much has now been said and testified in the intervening paragraphs, by way both of dehortation and exhortation. Here the apostle pauses; and casting his eye over the whole pathway of life he has marked out in this discourse, he bids his readers: “Look then carefully how you walk. Show that you are not fools, but wise to observe your steps and to seize your opportunities in these evil times,—days so perilous that you need your best wisdom and knowledge of God’s will to save you from fatal stumbling.”
So far St Paul’s renewed exhortation, in verses 15–17, inculcates care and wary discretion,—the skillthat in the strategy of life finds its vantage in unequal ground, that makes opposing winds help forward the seafarer. In this sober wisdom it is likely the Asian Christians were deficient. In many ways, both directly and indirectly, the need of increased thoughtfulness on the readers’ part has been indicated. But there is another side to the Christian nature: it has its moods of exhilaration, as well as of caution and reflection; ardent emotion, eager speech and exultant song are things proper to a high religious life. For these the apostle makes room in verses 18–20, while the three foregoing verses enjoin the circumspection and vigilance that become the good soldier of Christ Jesus.
A striking contrast thus arises between thesobrietyand theexcitementthat mark the life of grace. We see with what strictness we must watch over ourselves, and guard the character and interests of the Church; and with what joyousness and holy freedom we may take our part in its communion. Temperament and constitution modify these injunctions in their personal application. The Holy Spirit does not enable us all to speak with equal fervour and freedom, nor to sing with the same tunefulness. His power operates in the limbs of Christ’s body “according to the measure of each single part.” But the self-same Spirit works in both these contrasted ways,—in the sanguine and the melancholic disposition, in the demonstrative and in the reserved, in the quick play of fancy and the brightness and impulsiveness of youth no less than in the sober gait and solid sense of riper age. Let us see how the two opposite aspects of Christian experience are set out in the apostle’s words.
I. First of all, upon the one side,heedfulnessis enjoined. The children of light must use the light tosee their way. To “stumble at noonday” is a proof of folly or blindness. So misusing our light, we shall quickly lose it and return to the paths of darkness.
According to the preferable (Revised) order of the words, the qualifying adverb “carefully” belongs to the “look,” not to the “walk.” The circumspectlookprecedes the wise step. The spot is marked on which the foot is to be planted; the eye ranges right and left and takes in the bearings of the new position, forecasting its possibilities. “Look before you leap,” our sage proverb says. According to the carefulness of the look, the success of the leap is likely to be.
There is no word in the epistle more apposite than this to
“our dayOf haste, half-work, and disarray.”
We are too restless to think, too impatient to learn. Everything is sacrificed to speed. The telegraph and the daily newspaper symbolize the age. The public ear loves to be caught quickly and with new sensations: a premium is set on carelessness and hurry. Earnest men, eager for the triumph of a good cause, push forward with unsifted statements and unweighed denunciations, that discredit Christian advocacy and wound the cause of truth and charity. Time, thus wronged and driven beyond her pace, has her revenge; she deals hardly with these light judgements of the hour. They are as the chaff which the wind carrieth away. After all, it is still truth that lives; thorough work that lasts; accuracy that hits the mark. And the time-servers are “unwise,” both intellectually and morally. They are most unwise who think to succeed in life’s high calling without self-distrust, and withoutscrupulous care and pains in all work they do for the kingdom of God.
In the evil of his own times St Paul sees a special reason for heedfulness: “Walk not as unwise, but as wise, buying up the opportunity,because the days are evil.” In Colossians iv. 5 the parallel sentence shows that in giving this caution he is thinking of the relation of Christians to the world outside: “Walk in wisdom toward those without, buying up the opportunity.” Evil days they were, when Paul lay in Nero’s prison; when that wild beast was raging against everything that resisted his mad will or reproved his monstrous vices. With supreme power in the hands of such a creature of Satan, who could tell what fires of persecution were kindling for the people of Christ, or what terrible revelation of God’s anger against the present evil world might be impending. At Ephesus the spirit of heathenism had shown itself peculiarly menacing. Here, too, in the rich and cultivated province of Asia where the currents of Eastern and Western thought met, heresy and its corruptions made their first decided appearance in the Churches of the Gentiles. Conflicts are approaching which will try to the uttermost the strength of the Christian faith and the temper of its weapons (vi. 10–16).
As wise men, reading thoughtfully the signs of the times, the Asian Christians will “redeem the [present] season.” They will use to the utmost the light given them. They will employ every means to increase their knowledge of Christ, to confirm their faith and the habits of their spiritual life. They are like men expecting a siege, who strengthen their fortifications and furbish their weapons and practise their drill and lay up store of supplies, that they may “stand in theevil day.” Such wisdom Ecclesiastes preaches to the young man: “Remember now thy Creator in the days of thy youth, or ever the evil days come.”
Within a year after this epistle was penned, Rome was burnt and the crime of its burning washed out, at Nero’s caprice, in Christian blood. In four years more St Paul and St Peter had died a martyr’s death at Rome; and Nero had fallen by the assassin’s hand. At once the Empire was convulsed with civil war; and the year 68–69 was known as that of the Four Emperors. Amid the storms threatening the ruin of the Roman State, the Jewish war against Rome was carried on, ending in the year 70 with the capture of Jerusalem and the destruction of the Jewish temple and nationality. These were the days of tribulation of which our Lord spoke, “such as had not been since the beginning of the world” (Matt. xxiv. 21, 22). The entire fabric of life was shaken; and in the midst of earthquake and tempest, blood and fire, Israel met its day of judgement and the former age passed away. In the year 63, when the apostle wrote, the sky was everywhere red and lowering with signs of coming storm. None knew where or how the tempest might break, or what would be its issue.
When men amid evil days and portents of danger must be told not to be “foolish” nor “drunken with wine,” one is disposed to tax them with levity. It was difficult for these Asian Greeks to take life seriously, and to realize the gravity of their situation. St Paul appeals to them by their duty, still more than by their danger: “Be not foolish, but understand whatthe will of the Lordis.” As he bade the Thessalonians consider that chastity was not matter of choice and of their own advantage only, it was “God’s will” (1 Ep. iv. 3), sothe Ephesians must understand that Christ is no mere adviser, nor the Christian life an optional system that men may adopt when and so far as it suits them. He is our Lord; and it is our business to understand, in order that we may execute, His designs. For this Christ’s servants require a watchful eye and an alert intelligence. They must be no dullards nor simpletons, who would enter into the Divine Master’s plans; no triflers, no creatures of sentiment and impulse, who are to be the agents of His will. He can and does employ every sincere heart that gives itself in love to Him. But His nobler tasks are for the wise taught by His Spirit, for those who can “understand,” with penetrating sympathy and breadth of comprehension, “what the will of the Lord is.” Hence the distinction of St Paul himself, and of John the beloved disciple, amongst His ministers and witnesses,—men great in mind as they were in heart, whose thoughts about Christ were as grand as their love to Him was fervent.
Nowhere does the apostle say so much of “the will of God” in regard to the dispensation of grace as he does in this epistle.[138]For he sees life and salvation here in their largest bearings and proportions. He prayed at the outset that the Gentile readers might realize the value that God puts upon them, and the mighty forces He has set at work for their salvation (i. 18–20); and again, that they might comprehend the vast dimensions of His plan for the building of the Church (iii. 18). Now that he has shown the relation of this eternal purpose to the character and everyday life of the converted Gentiles, “the will of God” becomes matter of immediate import; it is revealedin its bearing upon conduct, upon the affairs of business and society. It is not the purpose, the promises, the doctrine of the Lord alone, but “thewillof the Lord” that they have to understand, as it touches their spirit and behaviour day by day. They must realize the practical demands of their religion,—how it is to make them truthful, gracious, pure and wise. They must translate creed into life and act. Such is the wisdom which their apostle strives to instil into the Asian Christians. Their first need was spiritual enlightenment; their second need was moral intelligence. Might they only have sense to understand and loyalty to obey the will of Christ.—And oh may we!
II. There were converted thieves in the Ephesian Church, who still needed to be warned against their old propensities (iv. 28); there were men who had been sorcerers and fortune-tellers (Acts xix. 18, 19). It appears that there were in this circle converteddrunkardsalso, men to whom the apostle is obliged to say: “Be not drunk with wine, wherein is riot.”
In view of the following context (vv. 19–21), and remembering how the Lord’s table was defiled by excess at Corinth (1 Cor. xi. 17–34), it seems to us probable that the warning of verse 18 had special reference to the Christian assemblies. The institution of the common meal, theAgapéor Lovefeast accompanying the Lord’s Supper, suited the manners of the early Christians, and was long continued. The cities of Asia Minor were full of trade-guilds and clubs for various social and religious purposes, in which the common supper, or club-feast, furnished usually by each member bringing his contribution to the table, was a familiar bond of fellowship. This afforded to the Church a natural andpleasant means of intercourse; but it must be purified from sensual indulgence.Winewas its chief danger.
The eastern coast of the Ægean is an ancient home of the vine. And the Greeks of the Asian towns, on those bright shores and under their genial sky, were a light-hearted, sociable race. They sought the wine-cup not for animal indulgence, but as a zest to good-fellowship and to give a freer flow to social joys. This was the influence that ruled their feasts, that loosened their tongues and inspired their gaiety. Hence their wit was prone to become ribaldry (ver. 4); and their songs were the opposite of the “spiritual songs” that gladden the feasts of the Church (ver. 19). The quick imagination and the social instincts of the Ionian Greeks, the aptness for speech and song native to the land of Homer and Sappho, were gifts not to be repressed but sanctified. The lyre is to be tuned to other strains; and poetry must draw its inspiration from a higher source. Dionysus and his reeling Fauns give place to the pure Spirit of Jesus and the Father. “The Aonian mount” must now pay tribute to “Sion hill”; and the fountain of Castalia yields its honours to
“Siloa’s brook that flowedFast by the oracle of God.”
Our nature craves excitement,—some stimulus that shall set the pulses dancing and thrill the jaded frame, and lift the spirit above the taskwork of life and the dreary and hard conditions which make up the daily lot of multitudes. It is this craving that gives to strong drink its cruel fascination. Alcohol is a mighty magician. The tired labouring man, the household drudge shut up in city courts refreshed by no pleasant sight or cheering voice, by its aid can leave frettednerves and aching limbs and dull care behind, and taste, if it be only for a feverish moment, of the joy of bounding life. Can such cravings be hindered from seeking their relief? The removal of temptation will accomplish little, unless higher tastes are formed and springs of purer pleasure opened to the masses for whom our civilization makes life so drab and colourless. “One finds traces of the primitive greatness of our nature even in its most deplorable errors. Just as impurity proceeds at the bottom from an abuse of the craving for love, so drunkenness betrays a certain demand for ardour and enthusiasm, which in itself is natural and even noble.... Man loves tofeelhimself alive; he would fain live twice his life at once; and he would rather draw excitement from horrible things than have no excitement at all” (Monod).
For the drunkards of Ephesus the apostle finds a cure in the joys of the Holy Ghost. The mightiest and most moving spring of feeling is in the spirit of man kindred to God. There is a deep excitement and refreshment, a “joy that human thought transcends,” in the love of God shed abroad in the heart and the communion of true saints, which makes sensuous delights cheap and poor. Toil and care are forgotten, sickness and trouble seem as nothing; we can glory in tribulation and laugh in the face of death, when the strong wine of God’s consolations is poured into the soul.
“Be filled with the Spirit,” says the apostle—or more strictly, “filledinthe Spirit”; since the Holy Spirit of God is the element of the believer’s life, surrounding while it penetrates his nature: it is the atmosphere that he breathes, the ocean in which he is immersed. As a flood fills up the river-banks, as the drunkard is filled with the wine that he drainswithout limit, so the apostle would have his readers yield themselves to the tide of the Spirit’s coming and steep their nature in His influence. The Greek imperative, moreover, is present, and “describes this influence as ever going forth from the Spirit” (Beet). This is to be a continual replenishment. Paul has prayed that we may “be filled unto all the fulness of God” (iii. 19), and has bidden us grow “to the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ” (iv. 13) in whom we “are made full” (Col. ii. 9): in the replenishment of the Spirit the fulness of God in Christ is sensibly imparted. God’s fulness is the hidden and eternal spring of all that can fill our nature; Christ’s fulness is its revelation and renewed communication to the race; the Holy Spirit’s fulness is its abiding energy within the soul and within the Church. Thus possessed, the Church is truly the body of Christ (iv. 4), and the habitation of God (ii. 21, 22).
The words of verses 19, 20 show that St Paul is thinking of that presence of the Spirit in the Christian community, which is the spring of its affections and activities. The Spirit of Jesus, the Son of man, is a kindly and gracious Spirit, the guardian of brotherhood and friendship, the inspirer of pure social joys and genial converse. The joy in the Holy Ghost that in its warmth and freshness filled the hearts of the first Christians, soared upward on the wings of song. Their very talk was music: they “spoke to each other in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody with their heart to the Lord.” Love loves to sing. Its joys
“from out our hearts arise,And speak and sparkle in our eyes,And vibrate on our tongue.”
All exalted sentiment tends to rhythmical expression. There is a mystical alliance, which is amongst the most significant facts in our constitution, between emotion and art. The rudest natures, touched by high feeling, will shape themselves to some sort of beauty, to some grace and refinement of expression. Each new stirring of the pulse of man’s common life has been marked by a re-birth of poetry and art. The songs of Mary and Zechariah were the parents and patterns of a multitude of holy canticles. In the Psalms of Scripture the New Testament Church found already an instrument of wide compass strung and tuned for her use. We can imagine the delight with which the Gentile Christians would take up the Psalter and draw out one and another of its pearls, and would in turn recite them at their meetings, and adapt them to their native measures and modes of song. After a while, they began to mix with the praise-songs of Israel newer strains—“hymns” to the glory of Christ and the Father, such as that with which this epistle opens, needing but little change in form to make it a true poem, and such as those which break in upon the dread visions of the Apocalypse; and added to these, “spiritual songs” of a more personal and incidental character, like Simeon’sNunc dimittisor Paul’s swan-song in his last letter to Timothy. In verse 14 above we detected, as we thought, an early Church paraphrase of the Old Testament. In later epistles addressed to Ephesus, there are fragments of just such artless chants as the Asian Christians, exhorted and taught by their apostle, were wont to sing in their assemblies: see 1 Timothy iii. 16, and 2 Timothy ii. 11–13.
Upon this congenial soil, we trace the beginnings ofChristian psalmody. The parallel text of Colossians (iii. 16) discloses in the songs of the Pauline Churches a didactic as well as a lyric character. The apostle bids his readers “teach and admonishone another by psalms, hymns, spiritual songs.” The form of the sentence of chapter iv. 4–6 in this letter, and of 1 Timothy iii. 16, suggests that these passages were destined for use as a chanted rehearsal of Christian belief. Thus “the word of Christ dwelling richly” in the heart, poured itself freely from the lips, and added to its grave discourse the charms of gladdening and spirit-stirring song.
As in their heathen days they were used to “speak to each other,” in festive or solemn hours, with hymns to Artemis of the Ephesians, or Dionysus giver of the vine, or to Persephoné sad queen of the dead—in songs merry and gay, too often loose and wanton; in songs of the dark underworld and the grim Furies and inexorable Fate, that told how life fleets fast and we must pluck its pleasures while we may;—so now the Christians of Ephesus and Colossæ, of Pergamum and of Smyrna would sing of the universal Father whose presence fills earth and sky, of the Son of His love, His image amongst men, who died in sacrifice for their sins and asked grace for His murderers, of the joys of forgiveness and the cleansed heart, of life eternal and the treasure laid up for the just in the heavenly places, of Christ’s return in glory and the judgement of the nations and the world quickly to dissolve and perish, of a brotherhood dearer than earthly kindred, of the saints who sleep in Jesus and in peace await His coming, of the Good Shepherd who feeds His sheep and leads them to fountains of living water calling each by his name, of creation redeemedand glorified by His love, of pain and sorrow sanctified and the trials that make perfect in Christ’s discipline, of the joy that fills the heart in suffering for Him, and the vision of His face awaiting us beyond the grave. So reciting and chanting—now in single voice, now in full chorus—singing the Psalms of David to their Greek music, or hymns composed by their leaders, or sometimes improvised in the rapture of the moment, the Churches of Ephesus and of the Asian cities lauded and glorified “the name of our Lord Jesus Christ” and the counsels of redeeming love. So their worship and fellowship were filled with gladness. Thus in their great Church meetings, and in smaller companies, many a joyous hour passed; and all hearts were cheered and strengthened in the Lord.
“Singing andplaying,” says the apostle. For music aided song; voice and instrument blended in His praise whose glory claims the tribute of all creatures. But it was “with the heart,” even more than with voice or tuneful strings, that melody was made. For this inward music the Lord listens. Where other skill is wanting and neither voice nor hand can take its part in the concert of praise, He hears the silent gratitude, the humble joy that wells upward when the lips are still or the full heart cannot find expression.
But the Spirit who dwelt in the praises of the new Israel, was not confined to its public assemblings. The people of Christ should be “always giving thanks, for all things, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ.” It is one of St Paul’s commonest injunctions. “Ineverythinggive thanks,” he wrote to the Thessalonians in his earliest extant letter (1 Ep. v. 18). “For all things,” he says to the Ephesians,—“though fallen on evil days.” Do we not “know that to them that loveGod all things work together for good”—evil days as well as good days? Nothing comes altogether amiss to the child of God. In the heaviest loss, the severest pain, the sharpest sting of injury—“in everything” the ingenuity of love and the sweetness of patience will find some token of mercy. If the evil is to our eyes all evil and we can see in it no reason for thanksgiving, then faith will give thanks for that which we “know not now, but shall know hereafter.”
Always, the apostle says,—for all things! No room for a moment’s discontent. In this perfecting of praise he had himself undergone a long schooling in his four years’ imprisonment. Now, he tells us, he “has learnt the secret of contentment, in whatsoever state” (Phil. iv. 12). Let us try to learn it from him. These words, which we treat, almost unconsciously, as the exaggeration of homiletical appeal, state no more than the sober possibility, the experience attained by many a Christian in circumstances of the greatest suffering and deprivation. The love of God in Jesus Christ our Lord suffices for the life and joy of man’s spirit.
The twenty-first verse, which seems to belong to a different line of thought, in reality completes the foregoing paragraph. In the Corinthian Church, as we remember, with its affluence of spiritual gifts, there were so many ready to prophesy, so many to sing and recite, that confusion arose and the Church meetings fell into disedifying uproar (1 Cor. xiv. 26–34). The apostle would not have such scenes occur again. Hence when he urges the Asian Christians to seek the full inspiration of the Spirit and to give free utterance in song to the impulses of their new life, he adds this word of caution: “being subject to one another in fear of Christ.” He reminds them that “God is not the authorof confusion.” His Spirit is a spirit of seemliness and reverence. “In fear of Christ,” the unseen witness and president of its assemblies, the Church will comport herself with the decorum that befits His bride. The spirits of the prophets will be subject to the prophets. The voices of the singers and the hands of them that play upon the strings of the harp or the keys of the organ, will keep tune with the worship of Christ’s congregation. Each must consider that it is his part to serve and not rule in the service of God’s house.
In our common work and worship, in all the offices of life this is the Christian law. No man within Christ’s Church, however commanding his powers, may set himself above the duty of submitting his judgement and will to that of his fellows. In mutual subjection lies our freedom, with our strength and peace.
FOOTNOTES:[138]See ch. i. 5–11, ii. 21, iii. 11, v. 10, vi. 6; comp. Col. i. 9, 27, iv. 12; Phil. ii. 13,—epistles of the same group.
[138]See ch. i. 5–11, ii. 21, iii. 11, v. 10, vi. 6; comp. Col. i. 9, 27, iv. 12; Phil. ii. 13,—epistles of the same group.
[138]See ch. i. 5–11, ii. 21, iii. 11, v. 10, vi. 6; comp. Col. i. 9, 27, iv. 12; Phil. ii. 13,—epistles of the same group.
Θέλω δὲ ὑμᾶς εἰδέναι ὅτι παντὸς ἀνδρὸς ἡ κεφαλὴ ὁ Χριστός ἐστιν, κεφαλὴ δὲ γυναικὸς ὁ ἀνήρ, κεφαλὴ δὲ τοῦ Χριστοῦ ὁ Θεός.—1Cor.xi. 3.“And pure Religion breathing household laws.”W. Wordsworth.
Θέλω δὲ ὑμᾶς εἰδέναι ὅτι παντὸς ἀνδρὸς ἡ κεφαλὴ ὁ Χριστός ἐστιν, κεφαλὴ δὲ γυναικὸς ὁ ἀνήρ, κεφαλὴ δὲ τοῦ Χριστοῦ ὁ Θεός.—1Cor.xi. 3.
“And pure Religion breathing household laws.”
W. Wordsworth.
“Wives,be in subjectionto your own husbands, as unto the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife, as the Christ also is the head of the Church,beingHimself the saviour of the body. But as the Church is subject to the Christ, so let the wives alsobeto their husbands in everything.“Husbands, love your wives, even as the Christ also loved the Church, and gave Himself up for her; that He might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word, that He might present the Church to Himself a gloriousChurch, not having spot or wrinkle or any such thing; but that she should be holy and without blemish.“Even so ought husbands also to love their wives as their own bodies. He that loveth his wife loveth himself: for no man ever hated his own flesh; but nourisheth and cherisheth it, even as the Christ also the Church; because we are members of His body. ‘For this cause shall a man leave his father and mother, and shall cleave to his wife; and the twain shall become one flesh.’ This mystery is great: but I speak in regard of Christ and of the Church. Nevertheless do ye also severally love each one his own wife even as himself; andletthe wifeseethat she fear her husband.”—Eph.v. 22–33.
“Wives,be in subjectionto your own husbands, as unto the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife, as the Christ also is the head of the Church,beingHimself the saviour of the body. But as the Church is subject to the Christ, so let the wives alsobeto their husbands in everything.
“Husbands, love your wives, even as the Christ also loved the Church, and gave Himself up for her; that He might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word, that He might present the Church to Himself a gloriousChurch, not having spot or wrinkle or any such thing; but that she should be holy and without blemish.
“Even so ought husbands also to love their wives as their own bodies. He that loveth his wife loveth himself: for no man ever hated his own flesh; but nourisheth and cherisheth it, even as the Christ also the Church; because we are members of His body. ‘For this cause shall a man leave his father and mother, and shall cleave to his wife; and the twain shall become one flesh.’ This mystery is great: but I speak in regard of Christ and of the Church. Nevertheless do ye also severally love each one his own wife even as himself; andletthe wifeseethat she fear her husband.”—Eph.v. 22–33.
In mutual subjection the Christian spirit has its sharpest trials and attains its finest temper. “Be subject one to another,” was the last word of the apostle’s instructions respecting the “walk” of the Asian Churches. By its order and subjection the gifts of all the members of Christ’s body are made available for the upbuilding of God’s temple. The inward fellowship of the Spirit becomes a constructive and organizingforce, reconstituting human life and framing the world into the kingdom of Christ and God. “In fear of Christ” the loyal Christian man submits himself to the community; not from the dread of human displeasure, but knowing that he must give account to the Head of the Church and the Judge of the last day, if his self-will should weaken the Church’s strength and interrupt her holy work. “For the Lord’s sake” His freemen submit to every ordinance of men. This is such a fear as the servant has of a good master (vi. 5), or the true wife for a loving husband (ver. 33),—not that which “perfect love casts out,” but which it deepens and sanctifies.
Of this subjection to Christ the relationship of marriage furnishes an example and a mirror. St Paul passes on to the new topic without any grammatical pause, verse 22 being simply an extension of the participial clause that forms verse 21: “Being in subjection to one another in fear of Christ—ye wives to your own husbands, as to the Lord.” The relation of the two verses is not that of the particular to the general, so much as that of image and object, of type and antitype. Submission to Christ in the Church suggests by analogy that of the wife to her husband in the house. Both have their origin in Christ, in whom all things were created, the Lord of life in its natural as well as in its spiritual and regenerate sphere (Col. i. 15–17). The bond that links husband and wife, lying at the basis of collective human existence, has in turn its ground in the relation of Christ to humanity.
The race springs not from a unit, but from a united pair. The history of mankind began in wedlock. The family is the first institution of society, and the motherof all the rest. It is the life-basis, the primitive cell of the aggregate of cities and bodies politic. In the health and purity of household life lies the moral wealth, the vigour and durability of all civil institutions. The mighty upgrowth of nations and the great achievements of history germinated in the nursery of home and at the mother’s breast. Christian marriage is not an expedient—the last of many that have been tried—for the satisfaction of desire and the continuance of the human species. The Institutor of human life laid down its principle in the first frame of things. Its establishment was a great prophetic mystery (ver. 32). Its law stands registered in the eternal statutes. And the Almighty Father watches over its observance with an awful jealousy. Is it not written: “Fornicators and adulterers God will judge”; and again, “The Lord is an avenger concerning all these things”?
St Paul rightly gives to this subject a conspicuous place in this epistle of Christ and the Church. The corner-stone of the new social order which the gospel was to establish in the world lies here. The entire influence of the Church upon society depends upon right views on the relationship of man and woman and on the ethics of marriage.
In wedlock there are blended most completely the two principles of association amongst moral beings,—viz., authority and love, submission and self-surrender.
I. On the one side,submission to authority.
“Wives, be in subjection, as to the Lord,”—as is fitting in the Lord (Col. iii. 18). Again, in 1 Timothy ii. 11, 12, the apostle writes: “I suffer not a woman to teach, nor to have dominion,” or (as the word may rather signify) “to act independently of the man.” Were these directions temporary and occasional?Were they due, as one hears it suggested, to the uneducated and undeveloped condition of women in the apostle’s time? Or do they not affirm a law that is deeply seated in nature and in the feminine constitution? The words of 1 Corinthians xi. 2–15 show that, in the apostle’s view of life, this subordination is fundamental. “The head of woman is the man,” as “the head of every man is the Christ” and “the head of Christ is God.” “The woman,” he says, “is of the man,” and “was created because of the man.” Whether these sentences square with our modern conceptions or not, there they stand, and their import is unmistakable.[139]They teach that in the Divine order of things it is the man’s part to lead and rule, and the woman’s part to be ruled. But the Christian woman will not feel that there is any loss or hardship in this. For in the Christian order, ambition is sin. To obey is better than to rule. She remembers who has said: “I am amongst you as he that serveth.” The children of the world strive for place and power; but “it shall not be so amongst you.”
Such subordination implies no inferiority, rather the opposite. A free and sympathetic obedience—which is the true submission—can only subsist between equals. The apostle writes: “Children, obey; ... Servants, obey” (vi. 1, 5); but “Wives, submit yourselves to your own husbands, as to the Lord.” The same word denotes submission within the Church, and within the house. It is here that Christianity, in contrast with Paganism, and notably with Mohammedanism, raises the weaker sex to honour. In soul and destiny itdeclares the woman to be man, endowed with all rights and powers inherent in humanity. “In Christ Jesus there is no male and female,” any more than there is “Jew and Greek” or “bond and free.” The same sentence which broke down the barriers of Jewish caste, and in course of time abolished slavery, condemned the odious assumptions of masculine pride. It is one of the glories of our faith that it has enfranchised our sisters, and raises them in spiritual calling to the full level of their brothers and husbands. Both sexes are children of God by the same birthright; both receive the same Holy Spirit, according to the prediction quoted by St Peter on the day of Pentecost: “Your sons and your daughters shall prophesy.... Yea, on my servants and on my handmaidens in those days will I pour out of my Spirit, saith the Lord” (Acts ii. 17, 18). This one point of headship, of public authority and guidance, is reserved. It is the point on which Christ forbids emulation amongst His people.
Christian courtesy treats the woman as “the glory of the man”; it surrounds her from girlhood to old age with protection and deference. This homage, duly rendered, is a full equivalent for the honour of visible command. When, as it happens not seldom in the partnership of life, the superior wisdom dwells with the weaker vessel, the golden gift of persuasion is not wanting, by which the official ruler is guided, to his own advantage, and his adviser accomplishes more than she could do by any overt leadership. The chivalry of the Middle Ages, from which the refinement of European society takes its rise, was a product of Christianity grafted on the Teutonic nature. Notwithstanding the folly and excess that was mixed with it, there was a beautiful reverence in the old knightly service andchampionship of women. It humanized the ferocity of barbarous times. It tamed the brute strength of warlike races and taught them honour and gentleness. Its prevalence marked a permanent advance in civilization.
Shall we say that this law of St Paul is that laid down specifically forChristianwomen? is it not rather a law of nature—the intrinsic propriety of sex, whose dictates are reinforced by the Christian revelation? The apostle takes us back to the creation of mankind for the basis of his principles in dealing with this subject (ver. 31). The new commandments are the old which were in the world from the beginning, though concealed and overgrown with corruption. Notwithstanding the debasement of marriage under the non-Christian systems, the instincts of natural religion taught the wife her place in the house and gave rise to many a graceful and appropriate custom expressive of the honour due from one sex to the other. So the apostle regarded the man’s bared and cropped head and the woman’s flowing tresses as symbols of their relative place in the Divine order (1 Cor. xi. 13–15). These and such distinctions—between the dignities of strength and of beauty—no artificial sentiment and no capricious revolt can set aside, while the world stands. St Paul appeals to the common sense of mankind, to that which “nature itself teaches,” in censuring the forwardness of some Corinthian women who appeared to think that the liberty of the gospel released them from the limitations of their nature.
Some earnest promoters of women’s rights have fallen into the error that Christianity, to which they owe all that is best in their present status, is the obstacle in the way of their further progress. It is anobstacle to claims that are against nature and against the law of God,—claims only tolerable so long as they are exceptional. But the barriers imposed by Christianity, against which these people fret, are their main protection. “The moment Christianity disappears, the law of strength revives; and under that law women can have no hope except that their slavery may be mild and pleasant.” To escape from the “bondage of Christian law” means to go back to the bondage of paganism.
“As unto the Lord” gives the pattern and the principle of the Christian wife’s submission. Not that, as Meyer seems to put it, the husband in virtue of marriage “represents Christ to the wife.” Her relation to the Lord is as full, direct, and personal as his. Indeed, the clause inserted at the end of verse 23 seems expressly designed to guard against this exaggeration. The qualification that Christ is “Himself Saviour of the body,” thrown in between the two sentences comparing the marital headship to that which Christ holds towards the Church, has the effect of limiting the former.[140]The subjection of the Christian wife to her husband reserves for Christ the first place in the heart and the undiminished rights of Saviourship. St Paul indicates a real, and not unfrequent danger. The husband may eclipse Christ in the wife’s soul, and be counted as her all in all. Her absorption in him may be too complete. Hence the brief guarding clause: “He Himself [and no other] Saviour of the body [to which all believers alike belong].” As the Saviour of the Church, Christholds an unrivalled and unqualified lordship over every member of the same.
“Nevertheless, as the Church is subject to the Christ, so also wives [should be] to their husbands in everything” (ver. 24). Again, in verse 33: “Let the wife see that she fear her husband”—with the reverent and confiding fear which love makes sweet. As the Christian wife obeys the Lord Christ in the spiritual sphere, in the sphere of marriage she is subject to her husband. The ties that bind her to Christ, bind her more closely to the duties of home. These duties illustrate for her the submissive love that Christ’s people, and herself as one of them, owe to their Divine Head. Her service in the Church, in turn, will send her home with a quickened sense of the sacredness of her domestic calling. It will lighten the yoke of obedience; it will check the discontent that masculine exactions provoke; and will teach her to win by patience and gentleness the power within the house that is her queenly crown.
II. The apostle alludes to submission as the wife’s duty; for she might, possibly, be tempted to think this superseded by the liberty of the children of God. Love he need not enjoin upon her; but he writes: “Husbands,love your wives, even as the Christ also loved the Church and gave up Himself for her” (comp. Col. iii. 18, 19).
The danger of selfishness lies on the masculine side. The man’s nature is more exacting; and the self-forgetfulness and solicitous affection of the woman may blind him to his own want of the truest love. Full of business and with a hundred cares and attractions lying outside the domestic circle, he too readily forms habits of self-absorption and learns to make his wifeand home a convenience, from which he takes as his right the comfort they have to give, imparting little of devotion and confidence in return. This lack of love denies the higher rights of marriage; it makes the wife’s submission a joyless constraint. Along with this selfishness and the uneasy conscience attending it, there supervenes sometimes an irritability of temper that chafes over domestic troubles and makes a grievance of the most trifling mishap or inadvertence, ignoring the wife’s patient affection and anxiety to please. Too often in this way husbands grow insensibly into family tyrants, forgetting the days of youth and the kindness of their espousals. “There are many,” says Bengel (on this point unusually caustic), “who out of doors are civil and kind to all; when at home, toward their wives and children, whom they have no need to fear, they freely practise secret bitterness.”
“Love your wives,even as the Christ loved the Church.” What a glory this confers upon the husband’s part in marriage! His devotion pictures, as no other love can, the devotion of Christ to His redeemed people. His love must therefore be a spiritual passion, the love of soul to soul, that partakes of God and of eternity. Of the three Greek words for love,—eros, familiar in Greek poetry and mythology, denoting the flame of sexual passion, is not named in the New Testament;philia, the love of friendship, is tolerably frequent, in its verb at least; butagapéabsorbs the former and transcends both. This exquisite word denotes love in its spiritual purity and depth, the love of God and of Christ, and of souls to each other in God. This is the specific Christian affection. It is the attribute of God who “loved the world and gave His Son the Only-begotten,” of “the Christ” who “loved the Church and gave upHimself for her.” Self-devotion, not self-satisfaction, is its note. Its strength and authority it uses as material for sacrifice and instruments of service, not as prerogatives of pride or titles to enjoyment. Let this mind be in you, O husband, toward your wife, which was also in Christ Jesus, who was meek and lowly in heart, counting it His honour to serve and His reward to save and bless.
From verse 26 we gather that Christ is the husband’s model, not only in the rule of self-devotion, but in the end toward which that devotion is directed: “that He might sanctify the Church,—that He might present her to Himself a glorious Church without spot or wrinkle,—that she might be holy and without blemish.” The perfection of the wife’s character will be to the religious husband one of the dearest objects in life. He will desire for her that which is highest and best, as for himself. He is put in charge of a soul more precious to him than any other, over which he has an influence incomparably great. This care he cannot delegate to any priest or father-confessor. The peril of such delegation and the grievous mischiefs that arise when there is no spiritual confidence between husband and wife, when through unbelief or superstition the head of the house hands over his priesthood to another man, are painfully shown by the experience of Roman Catholic countries. The irreligion of laymen, the carelessness and unworthiness of fathers and husbands are responsible for the baneful influences of the confessional. The apostle bade the Corinthian wives, who were eager for religious knowledge, to “ask their husbands at home” (1 Cor. xiv. 35). Christian husbands should take more account of their office than they do; they should not be strangers to the spiritual trials and experiences of the heart sonear to them. It might lead them to walk more worthily and to seek higher religious attainments, if they considered that the shepherding of at least one soul devolves upon themselves, that they are unworthy of the name of husband without such care for the welfare of the soul linked to their own as Christ bears toward His bride the Church. Those who have no father or husband to look to, or who look in vain to this quarter for spiritual help, St Paul refers, beside the light and comfort of Scripture and the public ministry and fellowship of the Church, to the “aged women” who are the natural guides and exemplars of the younger in their own sex (Titus ii. 3–5).
The selfishness of the stronger sex, supported by the force of habit and social usage, was hard to subdue in the Greek Christian Churches. Through some eight verses St Paul labours this one point. In verse 28 he adduces another reason, added to the example of Christ, for the love enjoined. “So ought men indeed to love their wives as their own bodies. He that loveth his wife loveth himself.” The “So” gathers its force from the previous example. In loving us Christ does not love something foreign and, as it were, outside of Himself. “We are members of His body” (ver. 30). It is the love of the Head to the members, of the Son of man to the sons of men, whose race-life is founded in Him. Jesus Christ laid it down as the highest law, under that of love to God: “Thou shalt love thy neighbouras thyself.” His love to us followed this rule. His life was wrapped up in ours. By such community of life self-love is transfigured, and exalted into the purest self-forgetting.
Thus it is with true marriage. The wedding of a human pair makes each the other’s property. Theyare “one flesh” (ver. 31); and so long as the flesh endures there remains this consciousness of union, whose violation is deadly sin. As the Church is not her own, nor Christ His own since He became man with men, so the husband and wife are no longer independent and self-complete personalities, but incorporated into a new existence common to both. Their love must correspond to this fact. If the man loves himself, if he values his own limbs and tends and guards from injury his bodily frame (ver. 29), he must do the same equally by his wife; for her life and limbs are as a part of his own. This the apostle lays down as an obvious duty. Nature teaches the obligation, by every manly instinct.
The saying the apostle quotes in verse 31 dates from the origin of the human family; it is taken from the lips of the first husband and father of the race, while as yet unstained by sin (Gen. ii. 23, 24). Christ infers from it the singleness and indelibility of the marriage covenant. But this doctrine, natural as it is, was not inferred by natural religion. The cultivated Greek took a wife for the production of children. Her rights put no restriction upon his appetite. Love was not in the marriage contract. If she received the maintenance due to her rank and the mistress-ship of the house, and was the mother of his lawful children, she had all that a free-born woman could demand. The slave-woman had no rights. Her body was at her owner’s disposal. Nothing in Christianity appeared more novel and more severe, in comparison with the dissolute morals of the time, than the Christian view of marriage. Even Christ’s Jewish disciples seemed to think the state of wedlock intolerable under the condition He imposed. This want of reverence andconstancy between the sexes was a main cause of the degeneracy of the age. All virtues disappear with this one. Roman manliness and uprightness, Greek courtesy and courage, filial piety, civic worth, loyalty in friendship—the qualities that once in a high degree adorned the classic nations, were now rare amongst men. In the most exalted ranks infamous vices flourished; and purity of life was a cause for odium and suspicion.
Amidst this seething mass of corruption the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus created new hearts and new homes. It kindled a pure fire on the desecrated hearth. It taught man and woman a chaste love; and their alliances were formed “in sanctification and honour, not in the passion of lust as it is with the Gentiles who know not God” (1 Thess. iv. 3–6). Every Christian house, thus based on an honourable and religious union, became the centre of a leaven that wrought upon the corrupt society around. It held forth an example of wedded loyalty and domestic joy beautiful and strange in that loveless Pagan world. Children grew up trained in pure and gentle manners. From that hour the hope of a better day began. The influence of the new ideal, filtrating everywhere into the surrounding heathenism and assimilating even before it converted the hostile world, raised society, though gradually and with many relapses, from the extreme debasement of the age of the Cæsars. Never subsequently have the morals of civilized mankind sunk to a level quite so low. The Christian conception of love and marriage opened a new era for mankind.