Unto Him that sitteth upon the throne, and unto the Lamb,Be blessing and honour and glory and dominion—For ever and ever.”
But the Church is the centre of this tribute of the universe to God and to His Christ.
The Church and Christ Jesusare wedded in this doxology, even as they were in the foregoing supplication (vv. 18, 19). In the Bride and the Bridegroom, in the Redeemed and the Redeemer, in the many brethren and in the Firstborn is this perfect glory to be paid to God. “In the midst of the congregation” Christ the Son of man sings evermore the Father’s praise (Heb. ii. 12). No glory is paid to God by men which is not due to Him; nor does He render to the Father any tribute in which His people are without a share. “The glory which thou hast given me I have given them,” said Jesus to the Father praying for His Church, “that they may be one, even as we are one” (John xvii. 22). Our union with each other in Christ is perfected by our union with Him in realizing the Father’s glory, in receiving and manifesting the fulness of God.
The duration of the glory to be paid to God by Christ and His Church is expressed by a cumulative phrase in keeping with the tenor of the passage to which it belongs: “unto all generations of the age of the ages.” It reminds us of “the ages to come” through which the apostle in chapter ii. 7 foresaw that God’s mercy to his own age would be celebrated. It carries our thoughts along the vista of the future, till time melts into eternity. When the apostle desires that God’s praise may resound in the Church “untoall generations,” he no longer supposes that the mystery of God may be finished speedily as men count years. The history of mankind stretches before his gaze into its dim futurity. The successive “generations” gather themselves into that one consummate “age”of the kingdom of God, the grand cycle in which all “the ages” are contained. With its completion time itself is no more. Its swelling current, laden with the tribute of all the worlds and all their histories, reaches the eternal ocean.
The end comes: God is all in all. At this furthest horizon of thought, Christ and His own are seen together rendering to God unceasing glory.
“It is good we return unto the ancient bond of unity in the Church of God, which wasone faith,one baptism, and notone hierarchy,one discipline; and that we observe the league of Christians, as it was penned by our Saviour Christ, which is in substance of doctrine this:He that is not with us is against us; and in things indifferent and but of circumstance this:He that is not against us is with us.”—Lord Bacon:Certain Considerations touching the better Pacification and Edification of the Church of England, addressed to King James I.
“It is good we return unto the ancient bond of unity in the Church of God, which wasone faith,one baptism, and notone hierarchy,one discipline; and that we observe the league of Christians, as it was penned by our Saviour Christ, which is in substance of doctrine this:He that is not with us is against us; and in things indifferent and but of circumstance this:He that is not against us is with us.”—Lord Bacon:Certain Considerations touching the better Pacification and Edification of the Church of England, addressed to King James I.
“I therefore, the prisoner in the Lord, beseech you to walk worthily of the calling wherewith ye were called, with all lowliness and meekness, with longsuffering, forbearing one another in love; giving diligence to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace.“There is one body, and one Spirit,Even as also ye were called in one hope of your calling;One Lord, one faith, one baptism,One God and Father of all,Who is over all, and through all, and in all.”Eph.iv. 1–6.
This Encyclical of St Paul to the Churches of Asia is the most formal and deliberate of his writings since the great epistle to the Romans. In entering upon its hortatory and practical part we are reminded of the transition from doctrine to exhortation in that epistle. Here as in Romans xi., xii. the apostle’s theological teaching, brought with measured steps to its conclusion, has been followed by an act of worship expressing the profound and holy joy which fills his spirit as he views the purposes of God thus displayed in the gospel and the Church. In this exalted mood, as one sitting in heavenly places with Christ Jesus, St Paul surveys the condition of his readers and addresses himself to their duties and necessities. His homily, like his argument, is inwoven with the goldenthread of devotion; and the smooth flow of the epistle breaks ever and again into the music of thanksgiving.
The apostle resumes the words of self-description dropped in chapter iii. 1. He appeals to his readers with pathetic dignity: “I the prisoner in the Lord”; and the expression gathers new solemnity from that which he has told us in the last chapter of the mystery and grandeur of his office. He is “theprisoner”—the one whose bonds were known through all the Churches and manifest even in the imperial palace (Phil. i. 12–14). It was “in the Lord” that he wore this heavy chain, brought upon him in Christ’s service and borne joyfully for His people’s sake. He is now a martyr apostle. If his confinement detained him from his Gentile flock, at least it should add sacred force to the message he was able to convey. The tone of the apostle’s letters at this time shows that he was sensible of the increased consideration which the afflictions of the last few years had given to him in the eyes of the Church. He is thankful for this influence, and makes good use of it.
His first and main appeal to the Asian brethren, as we should expect from the previous tenor of the letter, is an exhortation tounity. It is an obvious conclusion from the doctrine of the Church that he has taught them. The “oneness of the Spirit” which they must “earnestly endeavour to preserve,” is the unity which their possession of the Holy Spirit of itself implies. “Having access in one Spirit to the Father,” the antipathetic Jewish and Gentile factors of the Church are reconciled; “in the Spirit” they “are builded together for a habitation of God” (ii. 18–22). This unity when St Paul wrote was an actual and visible fact, despite the violent efforts of the Judaizers to destroy it.The “right hands of fellowship” exchanged between himself and James, Peter, and John at the conference of Jerusalem were a witness thereto (Gal. ii. 7–10). But it was a union that needed for its maintenance the efforts of right-thinking men and sons of peace everywhere. St Paul bids all who read his letter help to keep Christ’s peace in the Churches.
The conditions for such pursuing and preserving of peace in the fold of Christ are briefly indicated in verses 1 and 2. There must be—
(1)A due sense of the dignity of our Christian calling: “Walk worthily,” he says, “of the calling where with you were called.” This exhortation, of course, includes much besides in its scope; it is the preface to all the exhortations of the three following chapters, the basis, in fact, of every worthy appeal to Christian men; but it bears in the first instance, and pointedly, upon Church unity. Levity of temper, low and poor conceptions of religion militate against the catholic spirit; they create an atmosphere rife with causes of contention. “Whereas there is among you jealousy and strife, are ye not carnal and walk as men?”
(2) Next to low-mindedness amongst the foes of unity comesambition: “Walk with all lowliness of mind and meekness,” he continues. Between the low-minded and the lowly-minded there is a total difference. The manof lowly mindhabitually feels his dependence as a creature and his unworthiness as a sinner before God. This spirit nourishes in him a wholesome self-distrust, and watchfulness over his temper and motives.—Themeekman thinks as little of his personal claims, as the humble man of his personal merits. He is willing to give place to others where higher interests will not suffer, content to take the lowestroom and to be in men’s eyes of no account. How many seeds of strife and roots of bitterness would be destroyed, if this mind were in us all. Self-importance, the love of office and power and the craving for applause must be put away, if we are to recover and keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace.
(3) When St Paul adds “with longsuffering, forbearing one another in love,” he is opposing a cause of division quite different from the last,—to wit,impatience and resentfulness. A high Christian ideal and a strict self-judgement will render us more sensitive to wrong-doing in the world around us. Unless tempered with abundant charity, they may lead to harsh and one-sided censure. Gentle natures, reluctant to condemn, are sometimes slow and difficult in forgiveness. Humbleness and meekness are choice graces of the Spirit. But they are self-regarding virtues at the best, and may be found in a cold nature that has little of the patience which bears with men’s infirmities, of the sympathetic insight that discovers the good often lying close to their faults. “Above all things”—above kindness, meekness, longsuffering, forgivingness—“put on love, which is the bond of perfectness” (Col. iii. 14). Love is the last word of St Paul’s definition of the Christian temper in verse 2; it is the sum and essence of all that makes for Christian unity. In it lies a charm which can overcome both the lighter provocations and the grave offences of human intercourse,—offences that must needs arise in the purest society composed of infirm and sinful men. “Bind thyself to thy brother. Those who are bound together in love, bear all burdens lightly. Bind thyself to him, and him to thee. Both are in thy power; for whomsoever I will, I may easily make my friend” (Chrysostom).
Verses 1–3 exhibit the temper in which the unity of the Church is to be maintained. Verses 4–6 set forth the basis upon which it rests. This passage is a brief summary of Christian doctrine. It defines the “foundation of the apostles and prophets” asserted in chapter ii. 20,—the groundwork of “every building” in God’s holy temple, the foundation upon which Paul’s Gentile readers, along with the Jewish saints, were growing into one holy temple in the Lord. Seven elements of unity St Paul enumerates: onebody,Spirit,hope; oneLord,faithandbaptism; oneGod and Father of all. They form a chain stretching from the Church on earth to the throne and being of the universal Father in heaven.
Closely considered, we find that the seven unities resolve themselves into three, centring in the names of the Divine Trinity—the Spirit, the Lord, and the Father. The Spirit and the Lord are each accompanied by two kindred uniting elements; while the one God and Father, placed alone, in Himself forms a threefold bond to His creatures—by His sovereign power, pervasive action, and immanent presence: “Who is over all, and through all, and in all” (comp. i. 23).
The rhythm of expression in these verses suggests that they belonged to some apostolic Christian song. Other passages in Paul’s later epistles betray the same character;[98]and we know from chapter v. 19 and Colossians iii. 16 that the Pauline Church was already rich in psalmody. This epistle shows that St Paul was touched with the poetic as well as the prophetical afflatus. He expected his people to sing; and we see no reason why he should not, like Luther and theWesleys afterwards, have taught them to do so by giving voice to the joy of the new-found faith in “hymns and spiritual songs.” These lines, we could fancy, belonged to some chant sung in the Christian assemblies; they form a brief metrical creed, the confession of the Church then and in all ages.
I.One bodythere is,and one Spirit.
The former was a patent fact. Believers in Jesus Christ formed a single body, the same in all essentials of religion, sharply distinguished from their Jewish and their Pagan neighbours. Although the distinctions now existing amongst Christians are vastly greater and more numerous, and the boundaries between the Church and the world at many points are much less visible, yet there is a true unity that binds together those “who profess and call themselves Christians” throughout the world. As against the multitudes of heathen and idolaters; as against Jewish and Mohammedan rejecters of our Christ; as against atheists and agnostics and all deniers of the Lord, we are “one body,” and should feel and act as one.
In missionary fields, confronting the overwhelming forces and horrible evils of Paganism, the servants of Christ intensely realize their unity; they see how trifling in comparison are the things that separate the Churches, and how precious and deep are the things that Christians hold in common. It may need the pressure of some threatening outward force, the sense of a great peril hanging over Christendom to silence our contentions and compel the soldiers of Christ to fall into line and present to the enemy a united front. If the unity of believers in Christ—their oneness of worship and creed, of moral ideal and discipline—is hard to discern through the variety of humanforms and systems and the confusion of tongues that prevails, yet the unity is there to be discerned; and it grows clearer to us as we look for it. It is visible in the universal acceptance of Scripture and the primitive creeds, in the large measure of correspondence between the different Church standards of the Protestant communions, in our common Christian literature, in the numerous alliances and combinations, local and general, that exist for philanthropic and missionary objects, in the increasing and auspicious comity of the Churches. The nearer we get to the essentials of truth and to the experience of living Christian men, the more we realize the existence of one body in the scattered limbs and innumerable sects of Christendom.
There is “one body and one Spirit”: one body because, and so far as there is one Spirit. What is it constitutes the unity of our physical frame? Outward attachment, mechanical juxtaposition go for nothing. What I grasp in my hand or put between my lips is no part ofme, any more than if it were in another planet. The clothes I wear take the body’s shape; they partake of its warmth and movement; they give its outward presentment. They are not of the body for all this. But the fingers that clasp, the lips that touch, the limbs that move and glow beneath the raiment,—these are the body itself; and everything belongs to it, however slight in substance, or uncomely or unserviceable, nay, however diseased and burdensome, that is vitally connected with it. The life that thrills through nerve and artery,the spiritthat animates with one will and being the whole framework and governs its ten thousand delicate springs and interlacing cords,—it is this that makesone bodyof an otherwise inert and decaying heap of matter. Let the spirit depart, it isa body no more, but a corpse. So with the body of Christ, and its members in particular. Am I a living, integral part of the Church, quickened by its Spirit? or do I belong only to the raiment and the furniture that are about it? “If any man have not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of His.”
He who has the Spirit of Christ, will find a place within His body. The Spirit of Jesus Christ is a communicative, sociable spirit. The child of God seeks out his brethren; like is drawn to like, bone to bone and sinew to its sinew in the building up of the risen body. By an instinct of its life, the new-born soul forms bonds of attachment for itself to the Christian souls nearest to it, to those amongst whom it is placed in God’s dispensation of grace. The ministry, the community through which it received spiritual life and that travailed for its birth claim it by a parental right that may not be disowned, nor at any time renounced without loss and peril.
Where the Spirit of Christ dwells as a vitalizing, formative principle, it finds or makes for itself a body. Let no man say: I have the spirit of religion; I can dispense with forms. I need no fellowship with men; I prefer to walk with God.—God will not walk with men who do not care to walk with His people. He “loved the world”; and we must love it, or we displease Him. “This commandment have we from Him, that he who loves God love his brother also.”
The oneness of communion amongst the people of Christ is governed by a unity of aim: “Even as also you were called inone hopeof your calling.” Our fellowship has an object to realize, our calling a prize to win. All Christian organization is directed to a practical end. The old Pagan world fell to piecesbecause it was “without hope”; its golden age was in the past. No society can endure that lives upon its memories, or that contents itself with cherishing its privileges. Nothing holds men together like work and hope. This gives energy, purpose, progress to the fellowship of Christian believers. In this imperfect and unsatisfying world, with the majority of our race still in bondage to evil, it is idle for us to combine for any purpose that does not bear on human improvement and salvation. The Church of Christ is a society for the abolition of sin and death. That this will be accomplished, that God’s will shall be done on earth as in heaven, isthe hope of our calling. To this hope we “were called” by the first summons of the gospel. “Repent,” it cried, “for the kingdom of heaven is at hand!”
For ourselves, in our personal quality, Christianity holds out a splendid crown of life. It promises our complete restoration to the image of God, the redemption of the body with the spirit from death, and our entrance upon an eternal fellowship with Christ in heaven. This hope, shared by us in common and affecting all the interests and relationships of daily life, is the ground of our communion. The Christian hope supplies to men, more truly and constantly than Nature in her most exalted forms,
“The anchor of their purest thoughts, the nurse,The guide, the guardian of their heart, and soulOf all their moral being.”
Happy are the wife and husband, happy the master and servants, happy the circle of friends who live and work together as “joint-heirs of the grace of life.” Well says Calvin here:“If this thought were fixed in our minds, this law laid upon us, that the sons of God may no more quarrel than the kingdom of heaven can be divided, how much more careful we should be in cultivating brotherly goodwill! What a dread we should have of dissensions, if we considered, as we ought to do, that those who separate from their brethren, exile themselves from the kingdom of God.”
But the hope of our calling is a hope for mankind,—nay, for the entire universe. We labour for the regeneration of humanity. “We look for a new heavens and earth, wherein dwelleth righteousness;” for the actual gathering into one in Christ of all things in all worlds, as they are already gathered in God’s eternal plan. Now if it were merely a personal salvation that we had to seek, Christian communion might appear to be an optional thing, and the Church no more than a society for mutual spiritual benefit. But seen in this larger light, Church membership is of the essence of our calling. As children of the household of faith, we are heirs to its duties with its possessions. We cannot escape the obligations of our spiritual any more than of our natural birth. One Spirit dwelling in each, one sublime ideal inspiring us and guiding all our efforts, how shall we not be one body in the fellowship of Christ? This hope of our calling it is our calling to breathe into the dead world. Its virtue alone can dispel the gloom and discord of the age. From the fountain of God’s love in Christ springing up in the heart of the Church, there shall pour forth
“One common wave of thought and joy,Lifting mankind again!”
II. The first group of unities leads us to the second. If one Spirit dwells within us, it isone Lordwho reigns over us. We have one hope to work for; it is becausewe haveone faithto live by. A common fellowship implies a common creed.
Thus Christ Jesus the Lord takes His place fourth in this list of unities, between hope and faith, between the Spirit and the Father. He is the centre of centres, the Lamb in the midst of the throne, the Christ in the midst of the ages. United with Christ, we are at unity with God and with our fellow-men. We find in Him the fulcrum of the forces that are raising the world, the corner-stone of the temple of humanity.
But let us mark that it is the oneLordin whom we find our unity. To think of Him as Saviour only is to treat Him as a means to an end. It is to make ourselves the centre, not Christ. This is the secret of much of the isolation and sectarianism of modern Churches. Individualism is the negation of Church life. Men value Christ for what they can get from Him for themselves. They do not follow Him and yield themselves up to Him, for the sake of what He is. “Come unto me, all ye that are burdened, and I will give you rest”: they listen willingly so far. But when He goes on to say “Take my yoke upon you,” their ears are deaf. There is a subtle self-seeking and self-pleasing even in the way of salvation.
From this springs the disloyalty, the want of affection for the Church, the indifference to all Christian interests beyond the personal and local, which is worse than strife; for it is death to the body of Christ. The name of the “one Lord” silences party clamours and rebukes the voices that cry, “I am of Apollos, I of Cephas.” It recalls loiterers and stragglers to the ranks. It bids each of us, in his own station of life and his own place in the Church, serve the common cause without sloth and without ambition.
Christ’s Lordship over us for life and death is signified by ourbaptismin His name. We have received, most of us in infancy through our parents’ reverent care, the token of allegiance to the Lord Christ. The baptismal water that He bade all nations receive from His apostles, has been sprinkled upon you. Shall this be in vain? Or do you now, by the faith of your heart in Christ Jesus the Lord, endorse the faith of your parents and the Church exercised on your behalf? If so, your faith saves you. Your obedience is at once accepted by the Lord to whom it is tendered; and the sign of God’s redemption of the race which greeted you at your entrance into life, assumes for you all its significance and worth. It is the seal upon your brow, now stamped upon your heart, of your eternal covenant with Christ.
But it is the seal of acorporatelife in Him. Christian baptism is no private transaction; it attests no mere secret vow passing between the soul and its Saviour. “For in one Spirit we were all baptizedinto one body, whether Jews or Greeks, whether bond or free; and were all made to drink of one Spirit” (1 Cor. xii. 13). Our baptism is the sign of a common faith and hope, and binds us at once to Christ and to His Church.
Onebaptism there has been through all the ages since the ascending Lord said to His disciples: “Go, make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them into the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.” The ordinance has been administered in different ways and under varying regulations; but with few exceptions, it has been observed from the beginning by every Christian community in fulfilment of the word of Christ, and in acknowledgement of Hisdominion. Those who insist on the sole validity of this or that mode or channel of administration, recognize at least the intention of Churches baptizing otherwise than themselves to honour the one Lord in thus confessing His name; and so far admit that there is in truth “one baptism.” Wherever Christ’s sacraments are observed with a true faith, they serve as visible tokens of His rule.
In this rule lies the ultimate ground of union for men, and for all creatures. Our fellowship in the faith of Christ is deep as the nature of God; its blessedness rich as His love; its bonds strong and eternal as His power.
III. The last and greatest of the unities still remains. Add to our fellowship in the one Spirit and confession of the one Lord, our adoption by theone God and Father of all.
To the Gentile converts of the Asian cities this was a new and marvellous thought. “Great is Artemis of the Ephesians,” they had been used to shout; or haply, “Great is Aphrodité of the Pergamenes,” or “Bacchus of the Philadelphians.” Great they knew was “Jupiter Best and Greatest” of conquering Rome; and great thenumenof the Cæsar, to which everywhere in this rich and servile province shrines were rising. Each city and tribe, each grove or fountain or sheltering hill had its localgeniusordaimon, requiring worship and sacrificial honours. Every office and occupation, every function in life—navigation, midwifery, even thieving—was under the patronage of its special deity. These petty godships by their number and rivalries distracted the pious heathen with continual fear lest one or other of them might not have received due observance.
With what a grand simplicity the Christian conceptionof “the one God and Father” rose above this vulgar pantheon, this swarm of motley deities—some gay and wanton, some dark and cruel, some of supposed beneficence, all infected with human passion and baseness—which filled the imagination of the Græco-Asiatic pagans. What rest there was for the mind, what peace and freedom for the spirit in turning from such deities to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ!
Here is no jealous Monarch regarding men as tribute-payers, and needing to be served by human hands. He is the Father of men, pitying us as His children and giving us all things richly to enjoy. Our God is no local divinity, to be honoured here but not there, tied to His temple and images and priestly mediators; but the “one God and Father of all, who is above all, and through all, and in all.” This was the very God whom the logic of Greek thought and the practical instincts of Roman law and empire blindly sought. Through ages He had revealed Himself to the people of Israel, who were now dispersed amongst the nations to bear His light. At last He declared His full name and purpose to the world in Jesus Christ. So the gods many and lords many have had their day. By His manifestation the idols are utterly abolished. The proclamation of one God and Father signifies the gathering of men into one family of God. The one religion supplies the basis for one life in all the world.
God isover all, gathering all worlds and beings under the shadow of His beneficent dominion. He isthrough all, andin all: an Omnipresence of love, righteousness and wisdom, actuating the powers of nature and of grace, inhabiting the Church and the heart of men. You need not go far to seek Him; if you believe in Him, you are yourself His temple.
FOOTNOTES:[98]See ch. v. 14; 1 Tim. i. 17, ii. 5, 6, vi. 15, 16; 2 Tim. ii. 11–13.
[98]See ch. v. 14; 1 Tim. i. 17, ii. 5, 6, vi. 15, 16; 2 Tim. ii. 11–13.
[98]See ch. v. 14; 1 Tim. i. 17, ii. 5, 6, vi. 15, 16; 2 Tim. ii. 11–13.
“But unto each one of us was the grace given according to the measure of the gift of Christ. Wherefore He saith: ‘When He ascended on high, He led captivity captive, and gave gifts unto men.’ Now this, ‘He ascended,’ what is it but that He also descended into the lower parts of the earth? He that descended is the same also that ascended far above all the heavens, that He might fill all things. And He gave someto beapostles; and some, prophets; and some evangelists; and some, pastors and teachers; for the perfecting of the saints for work of ministration, for the building up of the body of Christ.”—Eph.iv. 7–12.
“But unto each one of us was the grace given according to the measure of the gift of Christ. Wherefore He saith: ‘When He ascended on high, He led captivity captive, and gave gifts unto men.’ Now this, ‘He ascended,’ what is it but that He also descended into the lower parts of the earth? He that descended is the same also that ascended far above all the heavens, that He might fill all things. And He gave someto beapostles; and some, prophets; and some evangelists; and some, pastors and teachers; for the perfecting of the saints for work of ministration, for the building up of the body of Christ.”—Eph.iv. 7–12.
In verse 7 the apostle passes from the unities of the Church to its diversities, from the common foundation of the Christian life to the variety presented in its superstructure. “To each single one of us was the grace given.” The great gift of God in Christ is manifold in its distribution. Its manifestations are as various and fresh as the idiosyncrasies of human personality. There is no capacity of our nature, no element of human society which the gospel of Christ cannot sanctify and turn to good account.
All this the apostle keeps in view and allows for in his doctrine of the Church. He does not merge man in humanity, nor sacrifice the individual to the community. He claims for each believer direct fellowship with Christand access to God. The earnestness with which in his earlier epistles St Paul insisted on the responsibilities of conscience and on the personal experience of salvation, leads him now to press the claims of the Church with equal vigour. He understands well that the person has no existence apart from the community, that our moral nature is essentially social and the religious life essentially fraternal. Its vital element is “thecommunionof the Holy Spirit.” Hence, to gather the real drift of this passage we must combine the first words of verse 7 with the last of verse 12: “To each single one of us was the grace given—in order to build up the body of Christ.” God’s grace is not bestowed upon us to diffuse and lose itself in our separate individualities; but that it may minister to one life and work towards one end and build up one great body in us all. The diversity subserves a higher unity. Through ten thousand channels, in ten thousand varied forms of personal influence and action, the stream of the grace of God flows on to the accomplishment of the eternal purpose.
Like a wise master in his household and sovereign in his kingdom, the Lord of the Church distributes His manifold gifts. His bestowments and appointments are made with an eye to the furtherance of the state and house that He has in charge. As God dispenses His wisdom, so Christ His gifts “according to plan” (iii. 11). The purpose of the ages, God’s great plan for mankind, determines “the measure of the gift of Christ.” Now, it is to illustrate thismeasure, to set forth the style and scale of Christ’s bestowments within His Church, that the apostle brings in evidence the words of Psalm lxviii. 18. He interprets this ancient verse as he cites it, and weaves it intothe texture of his argument. In the original it reads thus:
“Thou hast ascended on high, Thou hast led Thy captivity captive,Thou hast received gifts among men,—Yea, among the rebellious also, that theLordGod might dwell with them.” (R.V.)
Let us go back for a moment to the occasion of the old Hebrew song. Psalm lxviii, is, as Ewald says, “the greatest, most splendid and artistic of the temple-songs of Restored Jerusalem.” It celebrates Jehovah’s entry into Zion. This culminating verse records, as the crowning event of Israel’s history, the capture of Zion from the rebel Jebusites and the Lord’s ascension in the person of His chosen to take His seat upon this holy hill. The previous verses, in which fragments of earlier songs are embedded, describe the course of the Divine Leader of Israel through former ages. In the beat and rhythm of the Hebrew lines one hears the footfall of the Conqueror’s march, as He “arises and His enemies are scattered” and “kings of armies flee apace,” while nature trembles at His step and bends her wild powers to serve His congregation. The sojourn in the wilderness, the scenes of Sinai, the occupancy of Canaan, the wars of the Judges were so many stages in the progress of Jehovah, which had Zion always for its goal. To Zion, the new and more glorious sanctuary, Sinai must now give place. Bashan and all mountains towering in their pride in vain “look askance at the hill which God has desired for His abode,” where “Jehovah will dwell for ever.” So the day of the Lord’s desire has come! From the Kidron valley David leads Jehovah’s triumph up the steep slopes of Mount Zion. A train of captives defiles before the Lord’s anointed, whosits down on the throne that God gives him and receives in His name the submission of the heathen. The vanquished chiefs cast their spoil at his feet; it is laid up in treasure to build the future temple; while, upon this happy day of peace, “the rebellious also” share in Jehovah’s grace and become His subjects.
In this conquest David “gave to men” rather than “received”—gave even to his stubborn enemies (witness his subsequent transaction with Araunah the Jebusite for the site of the temple); for that which he took from them served to build amongst them God’s habitation: “that,” as the Psalmist sings, “the Lord God might dwell with them.” St Paul’s adaptation of the verse is both bold and true. If he departs from the letter, he unfolds the spirit of the prophetic words. That David’sgivingsignified a higherreceiving, Jewish interpreters themselves seem to have felt, for this paraphrase was current also amongst them.
The author of this Hebrew song has in no way exaggerated the importance of David’s victory. The summits of the elect nation’s history shine with a supernatural and prophetic light. The spirit of the Christ in the unknown singer “testified beforehand of the glory that should follow” His warfare and sufferings. From this victorious height, so hardly won, the Psalmist’s verse flashes the light of promise across the space of a thousand years; and St. Paul has caught the light, and sends it on to us shining with a new and more spiritual brightness. David’s “going up on high” was, to the apostle’s mind, a picture of the ascent of Christ, his Son and Lord. David rose from deep humiliation to a high dominion; his exaltation brought blessing and enrichment to his people; and the spoil that he won with it went tobuild God’s house amongst rebellious men. All this was true in parable of the dispensation of grace to mankind through Jesus Christ; and His ascension disclosed the deeper import of the words of the ancient Scripture. “Wherefore God saith” (and St Paul takes the liberty of putting in his own wordswhatHe saith)—“wherefore He saith: He ascended on high; He led captivity captive; He gave gifts to men.”
The three short clauses of the citation supply, in effect, a threefold measure of the gifts of Christ to His Church. They are giftsof the ascended Saviour. They are gifts bestowedfrom the fruit of His victory. And they are giftsto men. Measure them, first, by the height to which He has risen—from what a depth! Measure them, again, by the spoils He has already won. Measure them, once more, by the wants of mankind, by the need He has undertaken to supply.—As He is, so He gives; as He has, so He gives; as He has given, so He will give till we are filled unto all the fulness of God.
I. Think first, then, of Him. Think of what, andwhereHe is! Consider “what is the height” of His exaltation; and then say, if you can, “what is the breadth” of His munificence.
We know well how He gave as a poor and suffering man upon earth—gave, with what affluence, pity and delight, bread to the hungry thousands, wine to the wedding-feast, health to the sick, sight to the blind, pardon to the sinful, sometimes life to the dead! Has His elevation altered Him? Too often it is so with vain and weak men like ourselves. Their wealth increases, but their hearts contract. The more they have to give, the less they love to give. They go upon high as men count it, and climb to places of power and eminence; and they forget the friends of youth and the ranks from which they sprang—low-minded men. Not so with our exalted Friend. “It is not one that went down, and another that went up,” says Theodoret. “He that descended,it is Healso that ascended up far above all the heavens!” (ver. 10). Jesus of Nazareth is on the throne of God,—“the same yesterday and to-day!” But now the resources of the universe are at His disposal. Out of that treasure He can choose the best gifts for you and me.
Mere authority, even Omnipotence, could not suffice to save and bless moral beings like ourselves; nor even the best will joined to Omnipotence. Christ gained by His humiliation, in some sense, a new fulness added to the fulness of the Godhead. This gain of His sufferings is implied in what the apostle writes in Colossians i. 19 concerning the risen and exalted Redeemer: “It was well-pleasing thatallthe fulness should make its dwelling in Him.” His plenitude is that of the Ascended Onewho had descended. “If He ascended, what does it mean but that He also descended into the under regions of the earth?” (ver. 9). If He went up, why then He had been down!—down to the Virgin’s womb and the manger cradle, wrapping His Godhead within the frame and the brain of a little child; down to the home and the bench of the village carpenter; down to the contradiction of sinners and the level of their scorn; down to the death of the cross,—to the nether abyss, to that dim populous underworld into which we look shuddering over the grave’s edge! And from that lower gulf He mounted up again to the solid earth and the light of day and the world of breathing men; and up, and up again,through the rent clouds and the ranks of shouting angels, and under the lifted heads of the everlasting doors, until He took His seat at the right hand of the Majesty in the heavens.
Think of the regions He has traversed, the range of being through which the Lord Jesus passed in descending and ascending, “that He might fill all things.” Heaven, earth, hades—hades, earth, heaven again are His; not in mere sovereignty of power, but in experience and communion of life. Each He has annexed to His dominion by inhabitation and the right of self-devoting love, as from sphere to sphere He “travelled in the greatness of His power, mighty to save.” He is Lord of angels; but still more of men,—Lord of the living, and of the dead. To them that sleep in the dust He has proclaimed His accomplished sacrifice and the right of universal judgement given Him by the Father.
Nor did Abraham alone and Moses and Elijah have the joy of “seeing His day,” but all the holy men of old, who had embraced its promise and “died in faith,” who looked forward through their imperfect sacrifices “which could never quite take away sins” to the better thing which God provided for us, and for their perfection along with us.[99]On the two side-posts of the gate of death our great High Priest sprinkled His atoning blood. He turned the abode of corruption into a sweet and quiet sleeping chamber for His saints. Then at His touch those cruel doors swung back upon their hinges, and He issued forth the Prince of life, with the keys of death and hades hanging from His girdle. From the depths of the grave to the heaven of heavens His Mastership extends. With the perfumeof His presence and the rich incense of His sacrifice Jesus Christ has “filled all things.” The universe is made for us one realm of redeeming grace, the kingdom of the Son of God’s love.
“So there crowns Him the topmost, ineffablest, uttermost crown;And His love fills infinitude wholly, nor leaves up nor downOne spot for the creature to stand in!”[100]
So “Christ is all things, and in all.” And we are nothing; but we have everything in Him.
How, pray, will He give who has thus given Himself,—who has thus endured and achieved on our behalf? Let our hearts consider; let our faith and our need be bold to ask. One promise from His lips is enough: “If ye shall ask anything in my name, I will do it.”
II. A second estimate of the gifts to be looked for from Christ, we derive fromHis conquests already won. David as he entered Zion’s gates “led captivity captive,”—led, that is in Hebrew phrase, a great, a notable captivity. Out of the gifts thus received he enriched his people. The resources that victory placed at his disposal, furnished the store from which to build God’s house. In like fashion Christ builds His Church, and blesses the human race. With the spoils of His battle He adorns His bride. The prey taken from the mighty becomes the strength and beauty of His sanctuary. The prisoners of His love He makes the servants of mankind.
This “captivity” implies a warfare, even as the ascent of Christ a previous descending. The Son of God came not into His earthly kingdom as kings are said to have come sometimes disguised amongst theirsubjects, that they might learn better of their state and hear their true mind; nor as the Greeks fabled of their gods, who wandered unknown on earth seeking adventure and wearied haply of the cloying felicities of heaven, suffering contempt and doing to men hard service. He came, the Good Shepherd, to seek lost sheep. He came, the Mighty One of God, to destroy the works of the devil, to drive out “the strong one armed” who held the fortress of man’s soul. He had a war to wage with the usurping prince of the world. In the temptations of the wilderness, in the strife with disease and demoniac powers, in the debate with Scribes and Pharisees, in the anguish of Gethsemane and Calvary that conflict was fought out; and by death He abolished him who holds the power of death, by His blood He “bought us for God.” But with the spoils of victory, He bears the scars of battle,—tokens glorious for Him, humbling indeed to us, which will tell for ever how they pierced His hands and feet!
For Him pain and conflict are gone by. It remains to gather in the spoil of His victory of love, the harvest sown in His tears and His blood. And what are the trophies of the Captain of our salvation? what the fruit of His dread passion? For one, there was the dying thief, whom with His nailed hands the Lord Jesus snatched from a felon’s doom and bore from Calvary to Paradise. There was Mary the Magdalene, out of whom He had cast seven demons, the first to greet Him risen. There were the three thousand whom on one day, in the might of His Spirit, the ascended Lord and Christ took captive in rebel Jerusalem, “lifted from the earth” that He might draw all men unto Him. And there was the writer of this letter, once His blasphemer and persecutor. Bya look, by a word, Jesus arrested Saul at the height of his murderous enmity, and changed him from a Pharisee into an apostle to the Gentiles, from the destroyer into the wise master-builder of His Church.
St Paul’s own case suggested, surely, the application he makes of this ancient text of the Psalter and lighted up its Messianic import. In the glory of His triumph Jesus Christ had appeared to make him captive, and put him at once to service. From that hour Paul was led along enthralled, the willing bond-slave of the Lord Jesus and celebrant of His victory. “Thanks be unto God,” he cries, “who ever triumphs over us in the Christ, and makes manifest through us the savour of His knowledge in every place.”[101]
Such, and of such sort are the prisoners of the war of Jesus; such the gifts that through sinners pardoned and subdued He bestows upon mankind,—“patterns to those who should hereafter believe.” Time would fail to follow the train of the captives of the love of Christ, which stretches unbroken and ever multiplying through the centuries to this day. We, too, in our turn have laid our rebel selves at His feet; and all that we surrender to Him, by right of conquest He gives over to the service of mankind.