EPHESIANS 6

EPHESIANS 6

8. DOXOLOGY (3:20-21)

20 Now to him who can do far more abundantly than all¹⁰⁸ we ask or think, according to the power that operates in us—

21 to him be the glory in the church and¹⁰⁹ in Christ Jesus to all the generations of eternity. Amen.

20 Has Paul sought too much from God for his fellow-believers—praying that they may be filled up to the level of the divine fullness? They might think so as they heard this letter read aloud, but Paul reassures them: it is impossible to ask God for too much. His capacity for giving far exceeds his people’s capacity for asking—or even imagining.

The contemplation of God’s eternal purpose and its fulfilment in the gospel calls forth a doxology. A doxology takes the basic form, “To God be the glory,” but it may be variously expanded as the immediate occasion for ascribing glory to God is elaborated.¹¹⁰ Other doxologies of this pattern in the Pauline writings are found in Rom. 11:36; 16:25-27; Gal. 1:5; Phil. 4:20; 1 Tim. 1:17; 2 Tim. 4:18. Such ascriptions, together with such utterances as “Praise God!”¹¹¹ or “Blessed be God!” were common in temple and synagogue worship and were taken over into the liturgy of the church.¹¹²

Here, in the light of the far-reaching prayer which has just been offered, God is described as the one “who can do far more abundantly than all we ask or think.” The power by which he can do this is the power which he has implanted in his people¹¹³—”the surpassing greatness of his power in us who believe” which, as has been said in Eph. 1:19-20, is nothing less than “the operation of his mighty strength” exerted in the resurrection of Christ. By the Spirit who imparts this power to believers the full realization of God’s gracious purpose for them and in them becomes possible.

21 The wording “to him be the glory in the church and in Christ Jesus” is unusual. It does not imply that “the church” and “Christ Jesus” are placed on a level with each other. God is to be glorified in the church because the church, comprising Jews and Gentiles, is his masterpiece of grace. It is through the church that his wisdom is made known to the spiritual forces of the heavenly realm. “The heavens declare the glory of God” but even greater glory is shown by his handiwork in the community of reconciliation. This community, moreover, consists of human beings who are united in Christ, members of his body, in whom Christ dwells: the glory of God “in the church” cannot be divorced from his glory “in Christ Jesus.” The “glory of God in the face of Christ” has illuminated the hearts of his people (2 Cor. 4:6) and is reflected in the glory which, in life as well as in word, they ascribe to God through Christ.

This ascription of glory will have no end: not only now but “in the ages to come the surpassing wealth of his grace” continues to be shown “in his kindness toward us in Christ Jesus” (Eph. 2:7), and provides occasion for eternal praise.¹¹⁴

The “Amen” which follows the doxology would be the congregation’s response as it was read in their hearing.¹¹⁵ It is through Christ, as Paul says in another letter, that his people “utter the Amen ... to the glory of God” (2 Cor. 1:20). With this loud “Amen” the first half of the present letter is concluded.

EPHESIANS 4

III. THE NEW HUMANITY IN EARTHLY LIFE (4:1-6:20)

1. EXHORTATION TO UNITY (4:1-3)

1 Therefore, prisoner in the Lord as I am, I beseech you to lead lives worthy of the calling with which you were called,

2 with all humility and gentleness, with patience, bearing with one another in love.

3 Make every effort to preserve the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace.

1 As in other Pauline letters, the doctrine expounded in the earlier part is to be worked out according to the practical guidance given in the later part, the transition from the one to the other being marked by the adverb “therefore.”¹ As members of the new humanity, the readers have already been reminded of the purpose to which God has called them: the hope of their calling (Eph. 1:18) requires lives which are in keeping with their high destiny. Paul, as “the prisoner in the Lord,”² appeals to them to conduct themselves accordingly.

In calling himself “the prisoner in the Lord,” he associates himself with them in a rather different way from that implied in Eph. 3:1, where he is Christ’s prisoner for their sake. He addresses them as one who belongs to the same fellowship as they: being “in the Lord” currently involves his being a prisoner; what should being “in the Lord” involve for them?³ There is nothing unworthy of the Christian calling in Paul’s being at present in custody, if that is where the Lord desires him to be; he is still the Lord’s ambassador, even if, for the time being, he is an “ambassador in chains” (Eph. 6:20).

Similar language about fitting behavior is used in Col. 1:10, where the Colossian Christians are told of Paul and Timothy’s prayer that they may conduct themselves “in a manner worthy of the Lord, to please him in everything.”⁴ An admonition of this kind is more far-reaching than a list of detailed rules; it affects areas of life for which it might be difficult to frame rules. As members of a reputable family will have the family’s good name in mind as they order their public conduct, so members of the Christian society will have in mind not only the society’s reputation in the world but the character of him who called it into being and the purpose for which he so called it.

2 Some guidelines are drawn to show what is meant by the injunction to lead worthy lives: mutual relations among members of the society are uppermost in the writer’s mind. Hence they are urged, like the Colossians in Col. 3:12-13, to show humility and gentleness in their dealings one with another, along with patience and mutual forbearance and tolerance.⁵ They are urged, in short, to let the fruit of the Spirit be seen in their lives. It is possible to construe “in love” as an adverbial phrase with the following imperative “Make every effort,” but it is more consistent with the idiom of Ephesians to attach it to the preceding words.⁶

3 “In one Spirit,” the Corinthians were told, “we were all baptized into one body, whether Jews or Greeks, whether slaves or free persons” (1 Cor. 12:13); certain practical consequences followed from this, not only for the Christians of Corinth but for members of other churches too. The unity of the Spirit, which is to be preserved, is not the fact that there is one Spirit: that fact cannot be affected by anything that human beings do. But the one Spirit, in whom believers are baptized into one body, imparts unity to those who are thus baptized: as fellow-members of the one body, they should live in unity one with another. To the same effect the Colossians are reminded that it was to the “peace of Christ” that they “were called in one body” (Col. 3:15). It is this peace that is in view in the present exhortation to “preserve the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace”; if they live at peace with one another the unity of the Spirit will be preserved. Indeed, since Christ is himself their peace (Eph. 2:14),⁷ it would be unnatural for them to live otherwise than at peace with one another. If “the bond of peace” is spoken of here, love is “the perfect bond” in Col. 3:14; but there is no dissonance between the two: love and peace alike are the fruit of the Spirit (Gal. 5:22). “The mind of the Spirit is life and peace” (Rom. 8:6).

2. CONFESSION OF FAITH (4:4-6)

4 There is one body and one Spirit (as indeed you were called⁸ in one hope of your calling);

5 one Lord, one faith, one baptism;

6 one God and⁹ Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all.¹⁰

4 This section has the nature of an early Christian credo, not unprecedented in the Pauline writings, but more elaborate than its predecessors. “To us,” says Paul in 1 Cor. 8:6, “there is one God, the Father, from whom are all things and for whom we exist; and one Lord, Jesus Christ, through whom are all things and through whom we exist.” This binary credo is followed, later in the same letter, by a triadic pattern of words, framing “the same Spirit ... the same Lord . . . the same God” (1 Cor. 12:4-6). So also the wording of Eph. 4:4-6 is built up around “one Spirit . . . one Lord . . . one God.” Here we have the prototype of the Eastern creeds, with their emphatic repetition of the numeral “one”;¹¹ thus, over against the old Roman creed,¹² “I believe in God, the Father almighty . . . ,” we have the creed of Nicaea (following the pattern of earlier Eastern creeds): “We believe in one God, the Father almighty . . . and in one Lord Jesus Christ . . .” (later expansions add “... one holy catholic and apostolic church . . . one baptism for the forgiveness of sins . . .”).¹³

In the present confession, “one Spirit,” “one Lord,” and “one God” are successively amplified. “One body and one Spirit” echo 1 Cor. 12:13 (quoted above), which affirms the association between these two: in the one Spirit the people of Christ have been baptized into the one body, the Spirit being the animating principle of the corporate body of Christ. The unity of the Spirit is maintained as the members of the body function together harmoniously for the well-being of the whole. This is taught in 1 Cor. 12:12-26 in relation to the local church; here the principle is applied more generally. It was, in any case, never envisaged as applicable to one local church only: wherever the people of Christ were found, there was his body,¹⁴ of which they were individually members.¹⁵

The parenthetical clause, “as indeed you were called in one hope of your calling,” may be attached to “one body and one Spirit” because those whom God “has called, not from the Jews only but also from the Gentiles” (Rom. 9:24), have been called “in one body” (Col. 3:15)—that is, as fellow-members of one body. The “one hope” which they share in virtue of that calling (Eph. 1:18) is variously called “the hope of the gospel” (Col. 1:23) because it is held forth in the saving message, and “the hope of glory” (Col. 1:27) because it will be realized in the attainment of coming glory. And of that coming glory the “one Spirit” is here and now the guarantor (Eph. 1:13-14).

5 It is not difficult to understand why “one faith” and “one baptism” are attached to “one Lord”: he is the object of his people’s faith (Eph. 3:12) and it is into him that they have been baptized (Rom. 6:3; Gal. 3:27). The “one faith” is not their common body of belief (even if it is mentioned in a credal context); it is their common belief in Christ.¹⁶ The God of the Jews and of the Gentiles, as Paul reminded the Roman Christians, is one, “and he will justify the circumcised on the ground of their faith and the uncircumcised through their faith” (Rom. 3:29-30)— one faith, placed in one Lord.

As for the “one baptism,” it is beside the point to ask whether it is baptism in water or the baptism of the Spirit: it is Christian baptism— baptism “into the name of the Lord Jesus” (Acts 8:16; 19:5; cf. 1 Cor. 1:13-15)—which indeed involved the application of water, as John’s baptism had done, but (as its inauguration on the day of Pentecost indicates) was closely associated with the gift of the Spirit.¹⁷

6 The third article in this credo, “one God and Father of all,” is expanded not by the addition of other aspects of Christian experience but by an adjective clause, as in the credo of 1 Cor. 8:6.

As for the genitive “of all,” this probably means more specifically “of all—both Jews and Gentiles.” “Have we not all one Father?” asked a Hebrew prophet: “Has not one God created us?” (Mal. 2:10). That question was directed to a situation within Israel, in which the covenant-bond which united the people of God was being violated. Here the same principle is applied in a wider context: the people of God are now “elect from every nation.”

Whereas the adjective clause appended to “one God, the Father,” in 1 Cor. 8:6 acknowledges him as creator of all and goal of all, the present adjective clause describes him as transcendent, pervasive, and immanent. But how is one to understand the “all” over whom (or which) he is transcendent, through whom (or which) he is pervasive, in whom (or which) he is immanent? So far as the grammatical forms are concerned, the gender might be either masculine or neuter, but the word is most probably to be understood as personal, as in the preceding phrase: “one God and Father of all.”¹⁸ That he is transcendent over all his children needs no emphasizing. He exists “through” them perhaps in the sense that they are instruments or agents through whom he works.¹⁹ “There are varieties of working, but it is the same God who works them all in everyone”²⁰ (1 Cor. 12:6). As for his being “in” them,²¹ this might be taken in much the same sense, but more probably it should be related to the statement of Eph. 2:22, that the people of God constitute his “dwelling-place in the Spirit.” When divine immanence in the hearts of individuals is in view, the Spirit or the indwelling Christ is regularly the subject: here “in all” may denote the people of God collectively. The presence of God in their midst is a reality of which others than themselves can be conscious, as when an unbeliever finds his way into a meeting of the church and, hearing the mind of God declared in the power of the Spirit, falls down and confesses, “God is really among you!” (1 Cor. 14:24-25).

If it be asked why the unusual order “one Spirit . . . one Lord . . . one God” is followed here, the answer no doubt is (as in 1 Cor. 12:4-6) that the Spirit has been mentioned in the immediately preceding sentence (v. 3; cf. 1 Cor. 12:3), so that there is a natural transition to “one Spirit” before “one Lord” and “one God.” The confession of faith in vv. 4-6 interrupts the paraenetic section begun in vv. 1-3, which is not resumed until v. 17. This confession, it has been further suggested, replaces the “order of logic, of metaphysics, and of apologetics” (Father-Son-Spirit) by the “order based on experience.” As in 1 Cor. 12:4-6 Paul “works ’upwards’ . . . from the present obvious fact of the gifts of the Spirit, to the service of Christ which such gifts make possible, and to the ultimate origin of all divine activity, the creative power of God,” so in Eph. 4:4-6 “the unity of the Spirit” is shown to spring “from the deep, underlying unities of the Christian faith.” Even today, it is concluded, “catechumens and converts should be led up this scala sancta whenever possible. It holds out more hope than the metaphysical order, which derives its power from a previous experiential contact with the realities it tries to explain.”²²

3. PROVISION FOR SPIRITUAL HEALTH AND GROWTH (4:7-16)

7 But to each one of us grace²³ has been given according to the measure of Christ’s gift.

8 Therefore it is said: “When he ascended on high he led captivity captive; he gave gifts to mankind.”²⁴

9 Now what does “he ascended” mean, if not that he also descended²⁵ into the lower parts of the earth?²⁶

10 He who descended is the same who also “ascended” high above all the heavens, in order to fill the universe.

11 It is he also who “gave”²⁷ some as apostles and some as prophets, some as evangelists and some as pastors and teachers.

12 He gave them to equip the saints for the work of ministry, for the building up of the body of Christ,

13 until we all attain the unity of faith and knowledge of the Son²⁸ of God, reaching the dimensions of a fully mature man, the measure of the stature of Christ’s fullness.

14 Let us no longer be infants, ²⁹ tossed about and carried around by every wind of teaching, through human craftiness and trickery which schemes to lead people astray;³⁰

15 but let us speak the truth³¹ with love and grow up in all things to him who is the³² head—that is, Christ.³³

16 It is from him that the whole body, fitted and held together through every supporting ligament, grows effectively³⁴ according to the due measure of each separate part,³⁵ so that it is built up³⁶ in love.

7 Within the unity of the body each member has a distinctive part to play, a distinctive service to perform, for the effective functioning of the whole. The ability to perform this service is here called the “grace” given to each. Paul has referred above to the special “grace” granted to him—the grace of apostleship (Eph. 3:7-8),³⁷ to be exercised not in any one local church but throughout the Gentile world. But other members of the body had their respective varieties of “grace”; since “we, though many, are one body in Christ,” says Paul to the Romans, therefore, “having gifts³⁸ that differ according to the grace given to us, let us use them” (Rom. 12:5-6).³⁹

Whereas in 1 Cor. 12:7-11 it is through the Spirit that the various “manifestations” are given “for the common good,” together with the power to exercise them, they are given here “according to the measure of Christ’s gift.”⁴⁰ Since Christ is the one who baptizes his people with the Spirit,⁴¹ it is not inconsistent to credit him with bestowing the gifts of the Spirit also: this is one of the differences in emphasis and wording between the treatment of this subject elsewhere in the Pauline writings and its treatment in Ephesians.⁴² The proportionate allocation of the gifts is consistently stressed, but while in 1 Cor. 12:11 it is the Spirit who “apportions to each one individually as he wills,” here the apportioning, like the general giving, is the work of the ascended Christ.

8 This is confirmed by the application of an OT text, introduced by the formula “Therefore it is said” (lit., “Therefore it says,”⁴³ i.e., “scripture says” or “God says”). This precise formula occurs once again in this letter (in Eph. 5:14, introducing what is not recognizably a quotation from scripture) but nowhere else in the Pauline corpus;⁴⁴ no particular significance attaches to this, however (”it says” or “he says” is common enough in Paul when scripture is being quoted, whatever the accompanying adverb or conjunction may be).⁴⁵

The text quoted is Ps. 68:18 (MT 19). A rather literal rendering of the Hebrew wording is:

“Thou hast ascended on high;

thou hast led captivity captive;

thou hast received gifts among mankind—

yes, even the rebels, that Yah may dwell (there as) God.”

The enigmatic reference to the “rebels” (who perhaps resent Yahweh’s choice of Zion as his dwelling-place) need not detain us; it is not included in the quotation. The first three clauses of the verse are translated word for word in the LXX (Ps. 67:19) into unidiomatic Greek.⁴⁶

The psalm as a whole, or at least this section of it, is, as Calvin called it, an epinikion, a victory ode.⁴⁷ One may picture a military leader returning to Jerusalem at the head of his followers, after routing an enemy army and taking many prisoners. The victorious procession, with the captives in its train, makes its way up to the temple mount, preceded by the sacred ark, which symbolizes the invisible presence of the God of Israel. To him a sacrifice of thanksgiving will be offered when the procession reaches the temple precincts, and the tribute received by the victor from the vanquished foe will be dedicated to him. This tribute is referred to as “gifts” which the victor has received “among men”—perhaps the NEB and NIV translators have rightly rendered the phrase “from men.”⁴⁸

In the present quotation the second person singular of the original (addressed either to Yahweh or to his anointed king) is changed to the third person so as to adapt the construction to the contextual argument. That is a minor deviation: the major deviation is the replacement of the verb “received” by its antonym “gave.” This is supported neither by the Hebrew nor by the Greek wording (so far as extant copies go); it does occur, however, as a targumic rendering.⁴⁹ An early targumic rendering is found in the Peshitta:⁵⁰

“Thou hast ascended on high;

thou hast led captivity captive; thou hast given gifts to men.”

A later amplification appears in the traditional Targum on the Psalter, which provides the text with a life-setting far removed from Jerusalem under the monarchy:

“Thou hast ascended to the firmament, prophet Moses;

thou hast led captivity captive;

thou hast taught the words of the law;

thou hast given gifts to men.”

Paul and other NT writers occasionally give evidence of using targumic renderings (or renderings known to us nowadays only from the Targums), especially where such renderings are better suited to the argument to which they are applied than the Hebrew or Septuagint wording would be.⁵¹ Even when a written Targum is quite late,⁵² the renderings it presents often had a long oral prehistory. However far “thou hast given gifts to men” deviates from “thou hast received gifts among (from) men,” it circulated as an acceptable interpretation in the first century A.D.⁵³ (It might be said that a conqueror, having received “gifts” from the defeated enemy, bestows them as largesse on the spectators lining the processional route; we have no means of knowing if this harmonizing consideration was used to bridge the gap between original text and interpretation.)

9 The targumic rendering is explained as a reference to the ascension of Christ and his bestowal of gifts on the church. The mode of explanation is that which is commonly called pesher, because of its regular employment (under that Hebrew word) in the biblical commentaries from Qumran.⁵⁴ A section of biblical text is quoted, and its explanation (pesher) is then given, word by word or phrase by phrase, in terms not of its original life-setting but of the new life-setting to which it is now being applied. Two verbs are here selected from the OT passage as quoted to receive their appropriate explanation: “he ascended” and “he gave.”

As for “he ascended,” this is applied to Christ’s return from earth to the highest heaven, mentioned already in Eph. 1:20-21. In Eph. 1:20-21 God was the subject: he raised Christ from the dead and “seated him ... in the heavenly realm.” Here Christ is the subject: it is he who ascended. The expression “he ascended” is seen to imply that he first “descended.” The same sequence “ascended/descended” appears in the Fourth Gospel. “No one has ascended into heaven but he who descended from heaven” (John 3:13; cf. John 6:38, 62, where the one who claims to “have come down from heaven, not to do my own will, but the will of him who sent me,” asks his scandalized hearers, “Then what if you were to see the Son of man ascending where he was before?”). In the Fourth Gospel the ascent is from earth to heaven and the preceding descent correspondingly from heaven to earth; and so it is here. That is to say, “the lower parts of the earth” should be understood as meaning “the earth below.”⁵⁵

But this phrase, “the lower parts of the earth,” has traditionally been interpreted as the abode of the dead,⁵⁶ and the passage has served as one of the few biblical proof-texts for the harrowing of hell—the idea that between his death and resurrection Christ invaded the abode of the dead and released the men and women of God who, from Adam onward, had been held fast there, thus “leading captivity captive.”⁵⁷ No explanation is offered in this pesher of the multitude of captives taken by the conqueror in Ps. 68:18; but the words would refer more naturally to prisoners-of-war from the enemy army than to the conqueror’s rightful subjects who had been released from the enemy leader’s unwelcome control. (If the multitude of captives had been given a christological interpretation, the vanquished principalities and powers of Col. 2:15 would have been more suitable for the purpose.)⁵⁸

10 Having descended to the earth below in incarnation, Christ then “ascended” to heaven above—”high above all the heavens,” in fact. Similarly in the letter to the Hebrews he is said to have “passed through the heavens” in order to be “exalted above the heavens” (Heb. 4:14; 7:26). He ascended there, we are now told, to “fill all things”—to pervade the universe with his presence. This is in keeping with a possible interpretation of Eph. 1:23, that he is the one who “fills the universe in all its parts.” There his relation to “the church, which is his body,” is especially in view: so here, the “filling” of the universe inaugurated in his ascension is now being put into effect more particularly as he supplies the church with everything necessary to promote the growth of the body until it matches his own fullness.

In the OT and other literature derived from it the filling of the universe is a divine property: “’Do I not fill heaven and earth?’ says the LORD” (Jer. 23:24).⁵⁹ Now, part of the exaltation conferred by the Father on the Son is the sharing by the Son in the Father’s ubiquity.

11 As for the statement in the OT text, “he gave gifts to mankind,” it is emphasized that the one who gave the gifts is the one who ascended: it is because he ascended that he has given them.⁶⁰ Something comparable is said in Acts 2:33 of his bestowal of the Spirit: “Being therefore exalted by the right hand of God, and having received from the Father the promise of the Holy Spirit, he has poured out this which you see and hear” (i.e., the gift of the Spirit with attendant manifestations). If it had been thought necessary to make allowance in the interpretation for the original as for the targumic reading (a proceeding well attested in the Qumran commentaries), it could have been said of the gifts of the Spirit, as of the gift of the Spirit himself, that Christ “received” them from the Father and then bestowed them on men. Some such idea may have lain behind the use of the preposition “for” in the Coverdale and KJV renderings of Ps. 68:18: “thou hast received gifts for men.” But it is not even hinted at here.⁶¹

Whereas in 1 Cor. 12:4-11 the “varieties of gifts”⁶² are the diverse ministries allocated by the Spirit to individual members of the church, together with the ability to exercise those ministries, here the “gifts” are the persons who exercise those ministries and who are said to be “given” by the ascended Christ to his people to enable them to function and develop as they should. It is not suggested that such “gifts” are restricted to those that are specifically named; those that are named exercise their ministries in such a way as to help other members of the church to exercise their own respective ministries (no member is left without some kind of service to perform).

Of the “gifts” that are named, three are mentioned in order of precedence in 1 Cor. 12:28, where God is said to have set in the church “first apostles, second prophets, third teachers.” Here evangelists are placed between prophets and teachers, and teachers are given the twofold designation “pastors and teachers.”

Both lists agree in placing apostles first and prophets after them. Apostles and prophets, as was indicated in Eph. 2:20, are viewed as the foundation “gifts” in the church, and what was said about them in the exposition and notes above need not be repeated here.⁶³

As for evangelists, they do not appear in the catalogue of ministries in 1 Cor. 12:4-11; indeed, they are not mentioned elsewhere in the Pauline corpus apart from 2 Tim. 4:5, where Timothy is enjoined to “do the work of an evangelist.” The one other NT occurrence of the noun is in Acts 21:8, where Philip (further identified as “one of the seven” of Acts 6:3-6) is called “Philip the evangelist.”⁶⁴ Too much should not be made of the infrequency of the noun in the NT (it may indeed be a Christian coinage);⁶⁵ the verb meaning “evangelize” or “preach the gospel,” from which it is derived, appears frequently, especially in the writings of Paul and Luke.⁶⁶

One of the principal functions—indeed, the primary function—of an apostle (in the special Christian use of the word) was the preaching of the gospel.⁶⁷ The apostles, as an order of ministry in the church, were not perpetuated beyond the apostolic age,⁶⁸ but the various functions which they discharged did not lapse with their departure, but continued to be performed by others—notably by the evangelists and the pastors and teachers listed here.

It is conceivable that evangelists are not included among the ministries set by God “in the church” in 1 Cor. 12:28 because, strictly speaking, they do not exercise their special ministry in the church but outside, in the world. The church is the community of those who have heard the preaching of the gospel and responded to it in faith; they do not need to be evangelized further. The gospel is preached to unbelievers, in order that they may be brought to faith in Christ and so be incorporated in the believing community. If the ministry of the evangelist is not exercised “in the church” it is certainly exercised for the church; but for the evangelist’s ministry, the church would speedily die out. The apostles preached the gospel before they planted churches and gave their converts further teaching; they were in effect evangelists (as well as pastors and teachers) though they are not specifically called so. The evangelists given by the ascended Christ continued to exercise the gospel-preaching aspect of the apostolic ministry, so that the church might grow in succeeding generations by the adhesion of new believers.

When new believers are incorporated in the church, they require further ministry (as indeed do older believers): they need to be “shepherded” and taught. The noun “pastor” (i.e., “shepherd”)⁶⁹ does not occur elsewhere in the NT in reference to a ministry in the church, but the derivative verb “to shepherd”⁷⁰ is used several times in this sense, and the noun “flock” (also derived from the noun meaning “shepherd”)⁷¹ is used of the church. The verb “to shepherd” and the noun “flock” are not found in this sense in the Pauline letters, but in Acts 20:28 Paul at Miletus enjoins the elders of the Ephesian church to “take heed to . . . all the flock, in which the Holy Spirit has made you guardians, to shepherd the church of God. . . .” “Pastors” may readily be identified with the ministers who are elsewhere called “elders” (presbyteroi) or “bishops” (episkopoi, rendered “guardians” in our preceding citation of Acts 20:28: “shepherd the flock of God that is in your charge” is the injunction given to “elders” by a “fellow elder” in 1 Pet. 5:2). (It is fitting that this injunction should be ascribed to the apostle whose final commission from the Lord, according to John 21:15-17, was “Feed my sheep.”)⁷²

A bishop, according to 1 Tim. 3:2, should be “an apt teacher.”⁷³ Teaching is an essential part of the pastoral ministry; it is appropriate, therefore, that the two terms, “pastors and teachers,”⁷⁴ should be joined together to denote one order of ministry. The risen Christ is depicted in Matt. 28:19-20 as commanding the eleven to “make disciples of all the nations” by “teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you.” The distinction between kērygma and didachē, made familiar in the 1930s by C. H. Dodd⁷⁵ and other leaders of the biblical theology movement, is not such a mutually exclusive distinction as has sometimes been implied, but in general the kērygma was proclaimed by the evangelist, whereas didachē was imparted by the teacher (indeed, since didachē is simply “teaching,” the latter statement would be tautologous). The content of the teaching was wide-ranging: it included the teaching of Jesus with its implications for Christian belief and conduct. In Acts 2:42 it is called “the apostles’ teaching,” to which the primitive church of Jerusalem is said to have devoted itself. In Acts 13:1 five named leaders of the church in Syrian Antioch (including Barnabas and Paul) are described as “prophets and teachers.” As the number of new churches increased, there would have been a call for more teachers to give young converts the basic instruction they needed. Paul assumes, in writing to Rome, that the “form of teaching”⁷⁶ which the Christians of that city had received was sufficiently clear and comprehensive to enable them to detect and reject propaganda which was incompatible with it (Rom. 6:17; 16:17). Timothy is directed not only to pursue a teaching ministry himself but also to entrust what he has learned “to faithful men who will be able to teach others also” (1 Tim. 4:13, 16; 2 Tim. 2:2); provision would thus be made for the continuity of the teaching in the next generations.

12 These various forms of ministry were given to the people of God to equip them for the diversity of service which they were to render in the community, so that the community as a whole—”the body of Christ”—would be built up. The three prepositional phrases in this verse are not coordinate one with another, as might be suggested by the RSV rendering (”for the equipment of the saints, for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ”);⁷⁷ the second and third phrases are dependent on the first, as is indicated by their being introduced by a different preposition from the first.⁷⁸

13 The “building up” of the body (a term borrowed perhaps from the architectural figure of Eph. 2:21-22) involves its growth to full maturity, to the dimensions of a “perfect man.” This mention of a “perfect man” has reminded some students of the “perfect man” envisaged in Naassene gnosticism, the primal man who fell from his heavenly environment but will be redeemed and restored to his original perfection.⁷⁹ In the light of this analogy it has been argued that Christ, having himself ascended as the heavenly man, has from heaven given the various ministries mentioned to build up his body until its members collectively attain his level in the heavenly world.⁸⁰ But the analogy is farfetched: indeed, the expression rendered “perfect man” here is not identical with that quoted by Hippolytus from the Naassene “mystery” (although this would not be important if a material relationship could be established between the two).⁸¹ The new humanity on earth, it is here emphasized, must grow up to adult maturity in order to resist all the adverse forces that threaten its health and effectiveness.

This maturity is marked by “the unity of faith and knowledge of the Son of God”; these are attained through accepting the various ministries provided. The unity of the faith is effectively the same as the unity of the Spirit which the readers have earlier been exhorted to preserve; it is the unity which binds together those who share the common faith in Christ. (As in v. 5 above, where “one faith” anticipates the present “unity of the faith,” it is unlikely that a body of belief is intended.) It is by faith that the people of Christ are united to him, and in being united to him they realize their own unity one with another. The “knowledge of the Son of God” is that personal knowledge of him which comes through experience. It is not to be distinguished from knowing “the love of Christ, which surpasses knowledge,” mentioned above in Paul’s prayer for them, when he desires that by such knowledge they may be “filled up to all the fullness of God” (Eph. 3:19). As the personal knowledge of Christ was the attainment which he most earnestly sought for himself (Phil. 3:10), so he seeks it for all his fellow-believers.

The full spiritual maturity that is to be attained is more specifically defined as “the measure of the stature of Christ’s fullness.”⁸² The glorified Christ provides the standard at which his people are to aim: the corporate Christ cannot be content to fall short of the perfection of the personal Christ.

14 While the maturity of the body of Christ as such has been in view, an obligation is placed on the individual members of the body, “that we be no longer infants.” More than once the NT writers use the term “infants”⁸³ to denote spiritual immaturity—an immaturity which is culpable when sufficient time has passed for those so described to have grown out of infancy. Paul tells the Corinthian Christians that, for all their cultivation of “knowledge,” he could not address them as spiritual men and women but as “infants” in Christ,” still needing to be fed with milk rather than solid food (1 Cor. 3:1-2). Similarly, the writer to the Hebrews tells his readers that “everyone who lives on milk is unskilled in the word of righteousness, for he is an infant” (Heb. 5:13). No blame is attached to the people addressed in 1 Peter for being “newborn babes,”⁸⁴ because they are recent converts; but they are urged to develop an appetite for “the pure spiritual milk” and thus “grow up to salvation” (1 Pet. 2:2). It may be that the people addressed in Ephesians have been “infants” in this sense thus far, but they must not be content to remain at this stage. Infants are defenseless, unable to protect themselves; in the spiritual life they are an easy prey for false teachers and others who would like to lead them astray from the true path. Like ships at sea without adequate means of steering, they are tossed about by the waves and carried this way and that according to the prevailing wind.⁸⁵ Maturity brings with it the capacity to evaluate various forms of teaching, to accept what is true and reject what is false. The mature “have their faculties trained by practice to distinguish good from evil” (Heb. 5:14).

The “winds of teaching” that threaten to drive the immature from the right course proceed from no pure motives: false teaching is promoted by “craftiness and trickery which schemes to lead people astray.”⁸⁶ There may be a link here with Paul’s warning to the elders of the Ephesian church in Acts 20:30 that from their own ranks, in days to come, “men will arise speaking perverse things, to draw away the disciples after them.” More generally, Paul’s severe words about “deceitful workmen” who infiltrated the church of Corinth and preached “another Jesus” and a “different gospel” from his own provide a parallel: it was plain to him that those interlopers at Corinth were moved by the ambition to gain followers for themselves (2 Cor. 11:4, 13, 20).

15 Over against such false teaching, let them embrace and follow the truth. Some Western witnesses to the text exhibit a reading which means “doing truth,”⁸⁷ and possibly “doing truth” as well as telling it is included in the sense of the injunction. “Doing truth” (or “acting truly”) is an OT expression used especially when fidelity between two parties is the subject.⁸⁸ Whether spoken or expressed in action, the truth is never to be dissociated from love. The confession of the Christian faith can be cold and indeed unattractive if it is not accompanied by the spirit of Christian love. It may not be irrelevant to recall the testimony of the Fourth Evangelist, that “grace and truth⁸⁹ came through Jesus Christ” (John 1:17).

In truth and love together, then, the readers are exhorted to grow up in all parts of their being so that the body of Christ may be properly proportioned in relation to the head. This idea of the growth of the body of Christ until it matches the head has been compared to the normal development of the human body: in infancy the body is small in comparison with the head, but it grows until it attains the proportions which the body bears to the head in a fully grown human being.⁹⁰ This analogy may be helpful up to a point, but the language used here about the interrelation of body and head is conditioned by the relation existing between Christ and his people. They grow up to the measure of his full stature, but at the same time it is from him that they draw the resources necessary for growth. Christ is the head, but the full man comprises both head and body, so Christ the head is also, from another point of view, Christ corporate.⁹¹

16 It is from him that the body, in all its parts, derives its life. By his power it is “fitted together”⁹²—a participle used in Eph. 2:21 of the building which is growing into “a holy sanctuary in the Lord”—so that through all its joints or ligaments the means necessary for its development flow from the head into every limb and organ. The thought is identical with that of Col. 2:19 (the wording of which indeed is closely followed): from the head, Paul says there, “the whole body, supplied and fitted together through the joints and ligaments,⁹³ grows with the growth that comes from God.” It is not from the head, important as it is, that the natural body receives all the supplies requisite for health and development; but it is indeed from the living Christ that his people receive (through the Spirit) all that they need to make them effectively his people.

This is true of his people as a whole, and it is true of each individual believer. The body “grows effectively”⁹⁴—grows by the inner strength that he supplies—”according to the due measure of each separate part.”⁹⁵ Each one functions best in union with him and with the others. The bond that unites the members one with another is the bond of love—the love of Christ constraining them (2 Cor. 5:14)⁹⁶—so that only by love can the body be built up to his stature.

4. CHRISTIAN CONDUCT (4:17-5:20)

(1) The Old Man and the New (4:17-24)

17 This, then, is what I say and affirm in the Lord: you must no longer lead your lives as the⁹⁷ Gentiles do, in the futility of their minds,

18 darkened⁹⁸ in their understanding, alienated from the life of God because of their deep-rooted ignorance,⁹⁹ because of the hardening of their hearts.

19 Having lost all moral sensitivity,¹⁰⁰ they have given themselves over to debauchery, to the practice of all sorts of impurity with covetousness.¹⁰¹

20 But as for you, that was not the lesson you learned in the school of Christ¹⁰²—

21 for I take it that you heard of him¹⁰³ and were taught in him the way of truth as it is in Jesus.¹⁰⁴

22 This means that you must put off your former way of life,¹⁰⁵ the “old man” who is corrupted by deceitful desires,¹⁰⁶

23 and must be renewed¹⁰⁷ in the spirit¹⁰⁸ of your mind

24 and put on¹⁰⁹ the “new man,” who has been created according to God in righteousness and true holiness.¹¹⁰

17 The ethical paraenesis, begun in v. 1 and broken off after v. 3 by the digression on the one body, is now resumed and carried on to Eph. 5:20 (if not indeed to 6:20).

The readers are Gentile converts to the Christian faith. They were brought up in the pagan way of life; that must now be abandoned. The darker side of that way of life is depicted in the following clauses, which repeat, but more concisely, the picture of the ethical bankruptcy of contemporary paganism presented in Rom. 1:18-32. “They became futile in their thinking and their senseless minds were darkened” (Rom. 1:21). The terms “futile” and “futility” are sometimes used in the NT to denote idolatry,¹¹¹ and although the “futility” of the pagan mind in the present context cannot be restricted to idolatry, it is the result of the idolatrous conditioning of that mind (as is argued at length in Rom. 1:18-32, wrong lines of conduct follow from wrong ideas about God). Even in the ethical field, it is implied, the most strenuous efforts of pagans are vain, because they lack the inner power to enable them to live up to their highest ideals.

18 Because they are “darkened in their understanding,” as was said above in Eph. 2:3, doing the “will of their minds” leads them into courses which can only incur divine retribution. Their “deep-rooted ignorance” is the result of their not “seeing fit to acknowledge God” (Rom. 1:28). They were accordingly “estranged and hostile in mind” (Col. 1:21), alienated from the life of God, which is the source of all life that is worth living, and therefore, as they have been told already, “dead through . . . trespasses and sins” (Eph. 2:1, 5). The “hardening¹¹² of their hearts” is the progressive inability of conscience to convict them of wrongdoing. Conscience, as Paul has said in Rom. 2:15, serves as a witness to the law of God implanted within, but habitual ignoring of the warning signals it sends out incapacitates it from fulfilling its proper function; such a conscience is “seared,” in the vivid figure of 1 Tim. 4:2.¹¹³

19 This idea of the “hardening of their hearts” is carried on in the statement that they have “lost all moral sensitivity”—a classical term which means primarily that one’s skin has become callous and no longer feels pain.¹¹⁴ The debauchery, impurity, and covetousness to which they have accordingly abandoned themselves sum up the moral delinquency which is described in greater detail in the letter to the Romans—although there the element of divine retribution is emphasized in that God is said to have abandoned them to this way of life because of their refusal to accept his self-revelation (Rom. 1:24, 26, 28).¹¹⁵

“Debauchery”¹¹⁶ is wantonness—vice that throws off all restraint and flaunts itself, “unawed by shame or fear,” without regard for self-respect, for the rights and feelings of others, or for public decency. “Impurity” has a wide range of meaning: it includes sexual misconduct, but is applicable to various forms of moral evil, as is noted in the comment on Col. 3:5, where it is included in the list of practices that believers must “put off.”¹¹⁷ As for “covetousness,” it appears as the climax of that list; a further warning against it comes in Eph. 5:5 (where it forms the climax of a similar list).¹¹⁸ It is possible to take the word here as qualifying the practice of the previously mentioned vices: “greedy to practice every kind of uncleanness” (RSV).¹¹⁹ But more probably it is listed as a third vice in itself, alongside debauchery and impurity.

20 “This is not how you learned Christ,”¹²⁰ says Paul, succinctly: this is not the kind of lesson that you learned in the school of Christ. When writing to people who were personally acquainted with him, he reminded them of his own example: he himself had been a diligent pupil in the school of Christ and saw to it that he shared with others the lessons he had learned there, by practice as well as by precept. Thus he tells the Corinthian Christians that he is sending Timothy to visit them, “to remind you of my ways in Christ, as I teach them everywhere in every church” (1 Cor. 4:17). Or the meaning may be that, since Christ is the truth, they “learned Christ” in learning the truth—the truth embracing right conduct as well as right belief. So, in Col. 2:6, those who have had the Christian tradition of faith and practice delivered to them are said to have “received Christ Jesus the Lord.”¹²¹

21 If Paul were writing to his own converts, he would not say, “I take it that you heard of Christ and were taught in him . . .”—any more than he would say that he assumed they had heard of his own special apostolic commission (Eph. 3:2). He does not express doubt about the instruction they have received; he takes it for granted that they have learned something of the Christian way of life. Even if these words are addressed to recent believers on the occasion of their baptism, they appear to have had some preliminary instruction. Christ was the subject-matter of that instruction, together with the ethical implications of being “in Christ”; to be taught in Christ is to be taught in the context of the Christian fellowship. It is difficult to discern any distinction in emphasis between “in Christ” and “in Jesus”; the point may be that the truth imparted to new converts was the truth once heard on the lips of the historical Jesus, preserved in the apostolic “tradition” and delivered to those who, one after another, were added to the community of faith.¹²² It was from Epaphras that the Colossian Christians “came to know the grace of God in truth” (Col. 1:6-7); whether from him or from others, the recipients of the present letter had embraced the same saving knowledge. Let it not be said (this may be implied) that the instruction received by Gentile Christians was one whit less genuinely “truth as it is in Jesus” than the instruction received by those “who first hoped in Christ” (Eph. 1:12).

22 The instruction took the same catechetical form as that which is evident in the companion letter to the Colossians: its ethical directives were expressed in terms of “putting off” and “putting on.” They were taught to “put off” their pagan way of life—that is to say, “the old man,” the person they formerly were. The same expression occurs in Col. 3:9, but with a difference.¹²³ There the Colossian believers are reminded that they have put him off; here the readers are taught to put him off. This tension between the indicative and the imperative, between the “already” and the “not yet,” is common in the Pauline letters; it is summed up in the admonition: “Be what you are!”—Be in practice what the calling of God has made you.¹²⁴ Because the people of God are holy by calling, they are to be holy in life. But the change from indicative to imperative as between Colossians and Ephesians may have a further explanation. Colossians was sent to established Christians, whose baptism had signified the putting off of their old ways; if Ephesians is addressed to new Christians on the occasion of their baptism, the imperative “put off ... put on” would be very much in order. The “old man” is the sum-total of their former practices, propensities, and attitudes; he is a prey to harmful desires which beguile people into sin and error. Corruption and destruction are consequently working themselves out in him; they must bid him a long and final farewell.

23 If the old ways are to be abandoned, renewal is called for, and this must be an inward renewal. The new life is not to be regulated by conformity to some external standard; its wellspring lies within, “in the spirit of your mind.” So Paul exhorts the Roman Christians: “Do not be conformed to this world but be transformed by the renewal of your mind” (Rom. 12:2). This inward renewal is the work of the Holy Spirit, progressively transforming believers into the image of Christ, “from one degree of glory to another” (2 Cor. 3:18).¹²⁵ It is by the Spirit’s power, too, that “the inner being is being renewed every day,” no matter to what attrition the body may be exposed (2 Cor. 4:16), until what is mortal is “swallowed up by life”—a consummation of which the Spirit is the present guarantee (2 Cor. 5:4-5).

24 In the parallel text in Col. 3:10, it is the “new man” himself who is “being renewed after his Creator’s image.”¹²⁶ Here the injunction to be “renewed in the spirit of the mind” is repeated in different terms by the injunction to “put on the new man.” Again, the imperative replaces the indicative of Col. 3:10;¹²⁷ but such a use of the imperative is no innovation in Pauline usage, even when established Christians are being addressed: the ethical paraenesis of Rom. 12:1-13:14 is summed up in the injunction: “Put on the Lord Jesus Christ.” For the “new man” is essentially the Lord Jesus Christ—or at least the Lord Jesus Christ as his life is lived out in his people, who by the new creation have been incorporated into that new humanity of which he is the head. It is this new creation that is referred to when the “new man” is said to have been “created according to God in righteousness and true holiness.”¹²⁸ The phrase “according to God” means “in the image of God”; so, in Col. 3:10, the “new man” is “renewed after his Creator’s image so as to attain true knowledge.” Christ, the Son of God, is the uncreated one; but the reproduction of his likeness in his people is an act of divine creation. If, in Colossians, the goal of this divine renewal is said to be the attainment of “true knowledge,” here the qualities manifested in the new creation are “righteousness and true holiness” (or “true righteousness and holiness”). The knowledge of God is never divorced from walking in his ways: to know him is to be like him, righteous as he is righteous, holy as he is holy.

(2) Negative and Positive Precepts (4:25-32)

25 Therefore,¹²⁹ put off falsehood. “Each of you must speak truth with his neighbor,” because we are members of one another.

26 ”Be angry but do not sin”; do not let the sun set on your anger,

27 and give no opportunity to the devil.

28 Let the thief give up stealing; rather, let him labor, doing an honest job with his own hands,¹³⁰ so that he may having something to share with the one who is in need.

29 Let no corrupt speech proceed from your mouth, but rather speech that is good for building one another up, as the need may arise,¹³¹ so that it may minister grace to the hearers.

30 Do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, by whom you were sealed against the day of redemption.

31 Let all harshness, wrath, anger, clamor, and slander be put away from you; with malice of every sort;

32 but¹³² be kind and tenderhearted to one another, forgiving one another, just as God in Christ forgave you.¹³³

Instead of a list of vices to be discarded and another list of virtues to be cultivated, this paragraph counterbalances each vice that is mentioned with a virtue: falsehood is to be replaced by truth, unrestrained anger by timely reconciliation, stealing of others’ property by the generous sharing of one’s own, foul language by helpful speech, animosity by kindness.

25 Falsehood was a characteristic of the “old man”; the people of Christ should be men and women of truth. “Each of you must speak truth with his neighbor” is a straight quotation from Zech. 8:16,¹³⁴ where members of the postexilic community of Judah are urged to keep covenant one with another. So here openhearted candor within the fellowship is especially enjoined, “because we are members of one another”;¹³⁵ but it is plain that in their relations with the world in general Christians should have a reputation for truthfulness, men and women whose word is their bond. This is part of the wise conduct toward outsiders which the Colossians are urged to practice (Col. 4:5): “tell no lies to one another” (Col. 3:9) is as valid in the wider context as in the narrower. The ethical implications for Christians of their being “members of one another” have been drawn out in earlier Pauline letters (Rom. 12:4-5; 1 Cor. 12:14-26); they are reinforced in Colossians and Ephesians by the consideration that the body of which they are fellow-members is the body of Christ:¹³⁶ his grace and truth should be exhibited in them.

26 Anger figures in both Colossians and Ephesians in lists of vices which the Christian must put away.¹³⁷ Our Lord himself warned his disciples that “everyone who is angry with his brother shall be liable to judgment” (Matt. 5:22). Where God is concerned, the noun commonly rendered “anger” has the sense of “retribution,”¹³⁸ but that is irrelevant in the immediate context. How is it possible to “be angry without sinning” (as the readers are directed in words drawn from Ps. 4:4)?¹³⁹ There is no doubt a proper place for righteous indignation; but there is a subtle temptation to regard my anger as righteous indignation and other people’s anger as sheer bad temper. Here it is suggested that anger can be prevented from degenerating into sin if a strict time limit is placed on it: “do not let the sun set on your anger.” Let reconciliation be effected before nightfall, if possible.¹⁴⁰ If that is not possible—if the person with whom one is angry is not accessible, or refuses to be reconciled—then at least the heart should be unburdened of its animosity by the committal of the matter to God. In a not dissimilar situation Paul deprecates anything in the nature of private vengeance: “leave it to the wrath of God” (Rom. 12:19).¹⁴¹ If retribution is called for, let God take care of it: his retribution will be just, and free from self-regarding motives.

27 “Nursing one’s wrath to keep it warm” is not recommended as a wise policy, and least of all for Christians: it magnifies the grievance, makes reconciliation more difficult, and destroys friendly relations. “Pressing anger produces strife” (Prov. 30:33) is a sentiment repeated in various forms in Israel’s wisdom literature. One who “sows discord among brothers” (or sisters) is an abomination in the sight of God (Prov. 6:19), and the prime promoter and exploiter of such discord is the devil. It is one of his wiles against which the readers of this letter are later urged to be armed (Eph. 6:11). Paul himself was on his guard against providing him with a loophole when relations were strained between himself and his converts, or among his converts. In encouraging the Corinthian church to forgive and reinstate one of their number who had been guilty of some offense, apparently against Paul in particular, he says, “Anyone whom you forgive, I also forgive. What I have forgiven, if I have had anything to forgive, has been for your sake in the presence of Christ, to keep Satan from gaining the advantage over us; for we are not ignorant of his designs” (2 Cor. 2:10-11).

In the Pauline corpus the word “devil” (diabolos) occurs only in Ephesians and the Pastorals;¹⁴² in the other letters he is always referred to as “Satan” (as also in 1 Tim. 1:20; 5:15).¹⁴³

28 If a thief is converted to faith in Christ, it goes without saying that he should abandon the practice of theft. The commandment “Thou shalt not steal” (Exod. 20:15; Deut. 5:19) expresses one of the most elementary of ethical principles; it is repeated in NT summaries of the Decalogue (Mark 10:19 and parallels; Rom. 13:9), and Paul includes thieves among various other wrongdoers who cannot “inherit the kingdom of God” (1 Cor. 6:10). But when the thief becomes a Christian, he will not only give up stealing: he will do what he can to earn an honest livelihood and have something to give to those who are in need. Instead of regarding tuum as suum, he will treat suum as tuum. The grace of generosity is part and parcel of the Christian way of life (Luke 6:29-36; 2 Cor. 8:1-15; 9:6-12), but when it is practiced by a former thief it stands in total contrast to his previous course of life. To “work with one’s own hands” is a favorite expression of Paul (cf. 1 Cor. 4:12; 1 Thess. 4:11); in recommending such activity to others, he set an example himself (cf. Acts 20:34).¹⁴⁴

29 It is not only from lying that Christians should keep their lips free: foul language of any kind is inappropriate on lips that confess Christ as Lord. The Colossians were told to put such language “right out of their mouths” (Col. 3:8); the same admonition is now given in the sister-letter. By foul language¹⁴⁵ may be understood in this context not only obscene vulgarity but slanderous and contemptuous talk, any talk that works to the detriment of the persons addressed or of those who are spoken about. In a remarkably sobering utterance our Lord declared that people would have to render account on the day of judgment for every careless word they speak (Matt. 12:36); the Christian’s words should be well chosen, uttered “always with grace, seasoned with salt” (Col. 4:6), helping to build up the common life in Christ and serving as means of grace to those who hear.¹⁴⁶ The conversation of some Christians is a benediction in itself; this should be true of the conversation of all Christians. The subject is important enough to be taken up again in Eph. 5:4.

30 Conversation that helps to build up the common life in Christ is a congenial instrument for the Holy Spirit to use to this end. On the other hand, conversation (or any other activity) that endangers the unity of the body of Christ “grieves” the Holy Spirit.¹⁴⁷ The corporate reference of this clause was appreciated by Marius Victorinus: “‘do not grieve him’—either in yourselves, when you utter bad language, or in those who hear you.”¹⁴⁸ Another Latin father, of uncertain date and identity, knows the logion as part of a couplet:

Do not grieve the Holy Spirit who is in you, and do not extinguish the light which has been lit in you.¹⁴⁹

Similar language is found in Isa. 63:10, where the people of Israel are said to have “rebelled and grieved his holy Spirit”¹⁵⁰—but there the commandment of God given through his prophets has been disobeyed. In the same way the Damascus document speaks of Israelites who “defiled their holy spirit” through disregard of the covenant ordinances.¹⁵¹ That believers, whether Gentile or Jewish, have been “sealed” with the Spirit “against the day of redemption” has been stated above in Eph. 1:14, where the “redemption” is said more explicitly to be God’s redemption of his own possession—that is, of his people.¹⁵² The reminder of what they are “sealed” for should be an incentive to right living and right speaking, together with the fact that the Spirit with whom they have been sealed is God’s holy Spirit.¹⁵³

31 It is clear that unworthy speech is especially in view when the grieving of the Holy Spirit is mentioned: what such unworthy speech might consist of is spelled out in greater detail. It is speech which has some quality of “malice”¹⁵⁴ about it—speech marked by “harshness, wrath, anger, clamor, and slander.”¹⁵⁵ Together with “malice” itself, wrath, anger, and slander are listed in Col. 3:8 as things to be put away.¹⁵⁶ This mention of anger as something that is bad without qualification, so soon after v. 26, suggests that to be angry without sinning is as rare as it is difficult. Harshness or bitterness is an attitude which husbands are forbidden to adopt to their wives in Col. 3:19;¹⁵⁷ here Christians in general are forbidden to adopt it one to another. The word translated “clamor”¹⁵⁸ is used to indicate all kinds of shouting; the context here shows that quarrelsome shouting or brawling is meant. In the version of Isa. 42:1-4 followed by the First Evangelist, it is said that the Servant of the Lord “will not strive or shout”¹⁵⁹ (Matt. 12:19); the proximity to striving suggests that quarrelsome or contentious shouting is intended, as it plainly is here.

There is a strong resemblance between this verse and 1 Pet. 2:1— “put away all malice and all guile and insincerity and envy and all slander”—although the only term strictly common to the two passages is “malice.”¹⁶⁰ Similarly there is a strong resemblance between the positive exhortation of v. 32 and 1 Pet. 3:8—”have unity of spirit, sympathy, love of the brethren, a tender heart, and a humble mind”—although, again, there is only one term (”tenderhearted”) in common.¹⁶¹

32 The converse to the unlovely attitudes of v. 31 is now recommended: a kind, tenderhearted, and forgiving spirit. All these graces, with others closely related, the readers of Col. 3:12-13 are urged to “put on.”¹⁶²”As the Lord forgave you,” says Paul to the Colossians, “so do you also forgive.” It may be asked whether “the Lord” in Col. 3:13 is God the Father or Christ, although Pauline usage suggests that Christ is meant. In practice it does not matter: in the whole work of redemption the Father and the Son act as one. But here the situation is stated unambiguously: “God in Christ forgave you.”¹⁶³ It is in Christ that God has given his people their “redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of their sins” (Eph. 1:7),¹⁶⁴ just as it is in Christ that God was “reconciling the world to himself” (2 Cor. 5:19). The KJV rendering, “even as God for Christ’s sake hath forgiven you,” goes back to Tyndale, from whom it was taken over successively by Coverdale and the Geneva and Bishops’ Bibles; it expresses a most important part of the apostolic meaning, but not quite all of it.

As so constantly in the teaching of Jesus, the free grace of the Father’s forgiving love is the pattern for his children in their forgiveness of one another.¹⁶⁵

EPHESIANS 5

(3) The Imitation of God (5:1-2)

1 Therefore, become imitators of God, as (his) dear children,

2 and lead your lives in love, as Christ for his part loved us¹ and gave himself up for us,² an offering and sacrifice to God, yielding a fragrant odor.

1 The readers, then, are urged to imitate their heavenly Father by showing the same large-hearted forgiveness to others as he has shown to them; by this it will be evident that they are his children, reproducing the family likeness.

The theme of imitation is a recurrent one in Paul. More than once he recommends his own example to his converts for their imitation—only because he was so careful to be an imitator of Christ (especially where it was a matter of considering the interests of others before his own, as in 1 Cor. 10:33—11: l).³ His converts for the most part had seen no example of Christian living before he and his companions came among them and evangelized them; in teaching them how Christians ought to live he made use of practice as well as precept (the verbal precept would in any case have been worthless if it had been contradicted by apostolic practice). To those whom he had not evangelized directly and with whom he enjoyed no face-to-face acquaintance he could not recommend his personal example in the same way. But in believing the gospel they had experienced the forgiving grace of God. No higher example of the grace of forgiveness was possible: let them imitate God in this regard, the more so as they had now been adopted into his family.⁴

Jesus had taken the same line in teaching his disciples: if they showed love to their enemies and did them good, then, he said, “you will be sons of the Most High; for he is kind to the ungrateful and the selfish. Be merciful, even as your Father is merciful” (Luke 6:35-36; cf. Matt. 5:44-48).⁵

2 The example of Christ is appealed to alongside the example of God: their way of life must be marked by love, as Christ’s was. He showed his love by giving himself up to death on their behalf; the practical implication is clear, even if Paul does not spell it out expressly here as John does: “by this we know love, that he laid down his life for us; and we ought to lay down our lives for the brethren” (1 John 3:16).⁶

In an earlier letter Paul manifests his personal appreciation of this love when he speaks of “the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself up for me” (Gal. 2:20). It is open to every believer to use the same language: Christ loved each one of them individually and gave himself up for them, just as he loved the whole church collectively and gave himself up for it (Eph. 5:25). Paul can speak of Christ as giving himself up (cf. Gal. 1:4)⁷ and of the Father as giving him up (cf. Rom. 8:32); in the whole ordo salutis the Father and the Son act as one. When the Son’s giving himself up is spoken of, the language of sacrifice lies ready to hand. The lifelong obedience of Christ was an acceptable sacrifice to God: willing obedience is the only kind of sacrifice that God desires.⁸ His crowning act of obedience in saying “Not my will, but thine, be done” (Mark 14:36 and parallels), and in embracing the cross in that spirit, was preeminently acceptable. The writer to the Hebrews consistently speaks of the work of Christ in terms of sacrifice: Paul does so occasionally.⁹ The “fragrant odor” of all the main types of sacrifice in the levitical ritual betokened their acceptance by God;¹⁰ in the NT the language, like the idea of sacrifice in its totality, is transferred to the spiritual and personal realm. It is used of the perfect self-offering of Christ and of his people’s dedication of themselves and their means. The one other place in the Pauline writings where this phrase—”a fragrant odor”—occurs is in Phil. 4:18, where Paul uses it of the gift which his friends in Philippi had sent him: “a fragrant odor, an acceptable sacrifice, well pleasing to God.”

(4) From Darkness to Light (5:3-14)

3 As for fornication and every form of impurity or covetousness, let such things not even be named among you: such (reticence) is fitting for holy people.

4 Have nothing to do with shameful talk and foolish speech or levity: such things are not fitting. (Let your conversation be marked) rather by thanksgiving.

5 Of this you are well aware: no fornicator or impure or covetous person (that is, an idolater)¹¹ has any inheritance in the kingdom which is Christ’s and God’s.¹²

6 Let no one beguile you with empty arguments: it is because of these things that the wrath of God is coming on the disobedient.

7 Therefore, do not become partakers with them.

8 Once you were darkness, but now you are light in the Lord: lead your lives as children of light—

9 for the fruit of light¹³ (consists) in all goodness and righteousness and truth—

10 and approve what is well pleasing to the Lord.¹⁴

11 Have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness, but rather expose them;

12 for their secret actions are shameful even to mention,

13 but they are all exposed when they are revealed by the light. For “everything that is revealed is light.”

14 Therefore, as it is said,

Wake up, O thou that sleepest,

And from the dead arouse thee,

And Christ will shine upon thee.¹⁵

3 Now comes a further list of vices to be avoided, partly overlapping those already mentioned, although here it is not simply their practice, but the very mention of them, that is deprecated. The injunction, “let such things not even be named among you,” does not imply a mealy-mouthed refusal to call a spade a spade,¹⁶ after the fashion of some modern Bible versions¹⁷ (else the vices would not be named so plainly as they are in this and similar lists); it means rather that such unholy things should not be acceptable subjects of conversation among people whom God has called to be holy. Fornication, impurity, and covetousness are included in the fivefold catalogue of vices in Col. 3:5.

4 If subjects of conversation are in view, further direction in this area of life is provided. “Shameful talk”¹⁸ might be foul language, or it might be talk about shameful things (as v. 12 may indicate). “Foolish speech”¹⁹ is at best a waste of time, but it can lead to grave trouble. Life is a serious matter, and provides ample material for serious and profitable discussion. The term rendered “levity” is defined by Aristotle as “cultured insolence”; he regards it as a quality characteristic of the young, who are “fond of laughter.”²⁰ But here it is a quality not appropriate for the people of God. The Colossians have been urged to be known as thankful people (Col. 3:15); believers have received so many blessings from God, in grace as well as in nature, that thanksgiving should be a dominant note in their speech as well as in their thought.²¹

5 As for the practitioners of the vices mentioned in v. 3, they have no part or lot in the heavenly kingdom. They are not, indeed, left without hope; the gate of repentance stands open. But those who persist in such practices—even if, by some mischance, they bear the Christian name— show thereby that they are excluded from eternal life. Paul found it necessary to warn his converts repeatedly about this. He reminds the Corinthians that “the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God,” and spells out what is meant by “the unrighteous” by listing practitioners of ten vices (including the three mentioned in Eph. 5:3, 5) whose way of life debars them from the kingdom.²² He adds a note of hope, however: “And such were some of you,” he says; “but you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and in the Spirit of our God” (1 Cor. 6:9-11). But the fact that they still have to be warned against such vices shows how strong, in a pagan environment, was the temptation to indulge in them even after conversion. The warning here is made the more emphatic by the double verb with which it is introduced: “Be well assured of this,” or, more probably, “you know very well.”²³

If, as Col. 3:5 affirms, covetousness or avarice is idolatry, it follows that the covetous or avaricious person is an idolater, as is said here: he worships the created thing (whatever the object of his covetousness may be) instead of the Creator.

The kingdom in which such persons have no inheritance is described, more fully than elsewhere, as “the kingdom which is Christ’s and God’s.” There is a tendency in Paul’s letters to reserve the phrase “the kingdom of God” for the future and eternal phase of the heavenly kingdom and to consider the kingdom of Christ as the present phase, which is destined to merge with the future phase.²⁴ But those whose lives are marred by the vices mentioned cannot be in any sense joint-heirs with the Christ who is at present reigning until all his enemies are subjugated, just as they cannot hope for admission to the eternal kingdom: they are self-excluded from the kingdom in all its phases—the kingdom which is both Christ’s and God’s.

6 Then, as now, sophistries encouraging ethical permissiveness were current; the readers are warned not to be misled by them, for they are “empty arguments,” having no more substance than the “empty illusion” of another kind against which the Colossian Christians are put on their guard (Col. 2:8).²⁵ Those sophistries fail to reckon with God, and ignore the fact that he has set his canon against the practices and attitudes referred to—not by the imposition of an arbitrary ban but by implanting his law within the human constitution, in such a way that those who defy it reap a harvest of retribution. Whether the ongoing process of retribution is uppermost in the apostle’s mind (as in Rom. 1:18-32) or the “wrath to come” at the end-time (as in 1 Thess. 1:10; 5:9), it remains true (as was said in Col. 3:6) that these are the things that incur the wrath of God. Those on whom it falls are “the disobedient” (lit., “the sons of disobedience”), as they have been called already in Eph. 2:2.²⁶ They are disobedient to the law of God, whether they know it in codified form or as “written on their hearts” and confirmed by the voice of conscience (Rom. 2:15).

7 “Do not become partakers with such people,” the readers are warned. It is not merely associating with them that is forbidden (as the RSV has it); those who associate with them run the risk of sharing their inheritance, which is at the farthest remove possible from “the inheritance of the saints in light” in which the people of Christ have a share (Col. 1:12). The word “partakers” is literally “joint-partakers”;²⁷ it is the word used in Eph. 3:6 to emphasize Gentile believers’ full participation in the promises of God held out to faith. These two forms of “joint-partaking” are mutually exclusive.

8 “What fellowship has light with darkness?” asks Paul in another letter (2 Cor. 6:14)—the answer obviously implied being “None!”²⁸ For believers to be joint-partakers with the “sons of disobedience” would be for the children of light to have fellowship with the children of darkness— a moral impossibility.

The Colossian Christians were reminded that God had rescued them from the dominion of darkness and transferred them to the kingdom of his Son. This was equally true of the recipients of this companion-letter. They too had once been under the dominion of darkness but now they had become “light in the Lord.” However characteristic the light-darkness vocabulary is of the thought and literature of the Qumran community,²⁹ there is no need to conclude that the use of this vocabulary here implies anything like direct Qumran influence.³⁰ In the NT the light-darkness vocabulary is a special mark of the Johannine writings, but it is not absent from Paul. “You are all sons of light and sons of the day,” the Thessalonian Christians are told; “we are not of the night or of darkness” (1 Thess. 5:5); the Philippian Christians are said to “shine as lights in the world” (Phil. 2:15).³¹

The Qumran use of the light-darkness vocabulary has this in common with the NT use: it has a thoroughly ethical content. There is nothing here of the substantial dualism which the antithesis between light and darkness regularly expresses in gnostic teaching. In the NT, as at Qumran, the antithesis is between doing right and doing wrong. The children of light do the will of God; that is what is meant by the direction: “lead your lives as children of light.”

9 The lives of children of light will yield the “fruit of light”—that is, “all goodness and righteousness and truth.” The fruit of light, in fact, is identical with the “fruit of the Spirit” in Gal. 5:22-23; it is not surprising that the latter reading has found its way into the text of Eph. 5:9 in many manuscripts (including the oldest extant Pauline manuscript). This ethical sense of “fruit” seems to be unknown to the Qumran writers.

Goodness, righteousness, and truth are basic moral qualities. Goodness belongs to the “fruit of the Spirit” in Gal. 5:22 where, as a specific virtue among others, it may mean something like “generosity”; but its range of meaning is as wide as that of the adjective “good.” One may think of the “good works” for which, according to Eph. 2:10, God has created his people in Christ Jesus; similarly Paul prays that the Colossians may “bear fruit in every good work” (Col. 1:10). As for righteousness, the “new man” has been described above as “created according to God in righteousness” (Eph. 4:24). Paul prays that his Philippian friends may be “filled with the fruit of righteousness” (Phil. 1:11), and the writer to the Hebrews speaks of discipline as yielding “the peaceful fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it” (Heb. 12:11). Truth is the antithesis of falsehood, which the readers have already been urged to “put off”; the truth of speech which they are exhorted to practice one with another (Eph. 4:25) should be the expression of that “truth in the inward being” which is divinely implanted in the children of light.

10 The followers of Christ will naturally desire to do what pleases him. This was Paul’s own ambition, and he cherished the same ambition for his Christian friends (1 Cor. 4:4; 2 Cor. 5:9).³² They should not only “try to learn what is pleasing to the Lord” (RSV) but have their minds so attuned to his that, when they have learned what pleases him, they may approve it. The same verb,³³ which is capable of both shades of meaning, is used in Rom. 12:2, where the renewing of believers’ minds leads them to “prove—and thereby also to approve—what is the will of God, all that is good and acceptable and perfect.” Paul similarly prays that the church of Philippi may be given spiritual discernment to “approve what is excellent” (Phil. 1:9-10).³⁴

11 The “works of darkness” are called “unfruitful” because, unlike the deeds that mark out the children of light, they are dead and sterile. We may compare the antithesis between “the works of the flesh” and “the fruit of the Spirit” in Gal. 5:19, 22. (In other contexts the figure of “fruit” may be used differently, as in Rom. 6:21, where it refers to the outcome of a sinful life.) There is no difference in practice between being joint-partakers with the children of darkness and sharing in their works.³⁵ Such works must not be condoned or excused, but exposed for what they are.

It is not necessary to go along with K. G. Kuhn and recognize here a “continuity” of Essene tradition, but he does helpfully illustrate the duty of exposing the works of darkness from Qumran literature. It is laid down as the duty of each member of the community “who sees another member breaking God’s commandment ... to rebuke the person concerned, i.e. to say to him, What you have done or are doing is not just in the eyes of God. He must not express this reprimand angrily or with pride or with hatred, but rather ‘with real faithfulness, humility and merciful love.’ But he must make the other aware of his sin on the same day and may not postpone the matter until the next day, otherwise he is held responsible before God for any further sinning on the part of the other.”³⁶ The same procedure, it may be recalled, is laid down for the community of Jesus’ disciples in Matt. 18:15.³⁷ But not only the sins of fellow-members of the community are to be rebuked: Kuhn adds that “when, according to Mark 6:18, John the Baptist comes before Herod and tells him, ‘. . . it is not lawful for thee to have thy brother’s wife’, we have an instance of the Essene practice of ‘correction’.”³⁸ (But John stood in the authentic prophetic tradition of Israel in thus pointing out to a ruler the error of his ways.)

12 If “their secret actions are shameful even to mention,” why expose them to the light of day? Perhaps because exposure to the light is the best way to make them wither and die. Schlier suggests that Paul may allude to the libertine rites of many mystery cults:³⁹ if they were made public, they might lose their glamor (just as the spells of the Ephesian specialists in magic lost their potency when they were openly divulged, according to Acts 19:18). This could be so, but nothing in the context requires a reference to mystery cults. However, it is not by accident that the term orgia, used of mystery rites, has developed semantically into our word “orgies,” which, in the sense which it bears for us, may be very much what is intended here: such things are “unspeakably shameful.”⁴⁰

13 That all things are “exposed when they are revealed by the light” takes up a proverbial saying, along the lines of Luke 8:17, “For nothing is hid that shall not be made manifest, nor anything secret that shall not be known and come to light.” The words of John 3:20-21 are also apposite: “For everyone who does evil hates the light, and does not come to the light, lest his deeds should be exposed; but he who does what is true comes to the light, that it may be clearly seen that his deeds have been wrought in God.”

For the collocation of the verbs to be “exposed” and “revealed by the light” K. G. Kuhn compares a passage in the Damascus document, concerning an errant member of the Qumran community: “when his deeds are revealed by the light, he shall be sent away from the congregation like one whose lot has not fallen in the midst of those ‘taught by God.’ According to his sin shall men of discernment expose (correct) him, until the day when he shall stand again in the conclave of the men of perfect holiness.”⁴¹ But it does not appear to be fellow-Christians or their unworthy actions that are primarily in view in Eph. 5:13. If they do commit things that bring the Christian name into disrepute, then indeed their conduct calls for reproof; but the reference here is wider.

14 The paraenesis on light and darkness is clinched by a quotation, introduced by the same formula⁴² as the quotation from Ps. 68:18 in Eph. 4:8, but not identifiable as a biblical text. The words quoted do indeed echo one or two OT passages—Isa. 26:19 (”O dwellers in the dust, awake and sing for joy!”) and Isa. 60:1 (”Arise, shine; for your light has come, and the glory of the LORD has risen upon you”), and perhaps even Jon. 1:6 (”What do you mean, you sleeper? Arise . . .!”)—but the echo, especially in Greek, is a distant one. The quotation is a tristich, best interpreted as a primitive baptismal hymn, in which the congregation greets the new convert as he or she emerges sacramentally from the sleep of spiritual death into the light of life.⁴³ The ethical admonition is reinforced by a call to the readers to remember their baptism and its significance, just as in Rom. 6:3-4 Paul refutes the suggestion that one should “continue in sin that grace may abound” by appealing to the Roman Christians’ baptismal experience: “Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? We were buried therefore with him by baptism into death, so that as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life.” If ever the readers of the present letter were tempted to forget that, while once they had been children of darkness, they were now children of light, let them remember their baptism and the words they heard then: they would be left in no doubt about their present status and its moral implications.

Attempts have been made to strengthen the identification of the tristich as a baptismal hymn by the argument that its rhythm is that found in the initiation formulae of various Hellenistic cults. The formula most commonly adduced is one quoted by Firmicus Maternus as uttered by the person newly initiated into the Attis mystery.⁴⁴ Such formal parallels are difficult to establish, and throw no light on the meaning of what is, in context and content, an explicitly Christian composition. Clement of Alexandria quotes this tristich and accompanies it with another tristich amplifying the reference to Christ in its third clause:

The sun of resurrection,

Begotten before the day-star,

Who has given life with his own beams.⁴⁵

(5) “Be Filled with the Spirit” (5:15-20)

15 So then, be careful about your conduct:⁴⁶ do not live unwisely but as wise persons,

16 buying up the present opportunity, because the days are evil.

17 Therefore, do not be foolish, but discern⁴⁷ what the Lord’s will⁴⁸ is.

18 Do not be intoxicated with wine—for with that comes dissipation—but be filled with the Spirit,

19 addressing one another in psalms, hymns, and Spirit-inspired songs, singing⁴⁹ and making melody in your hearts⁵⁰ to the Lord,

20 giving thanks at all times for everything to our God and Father⁵¹ in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ.

15 A further paraenetic paragraph now opens, setting out more general principles for Christian living. Like the Colossians, the recipients of this letter are admonished to conduct themselves wisely in the world (Col. 4:5). They form a small minority, and because of their distinctive ways their lives will be scrutinized by others: the reputation of the gospel is bound up with their public behavior. Hence the need for care and wisdom, lest the Christian cause should be inadvertently jeopardized by thoughtless speech or action on the part of Christians.

16 The injunction to “buy up the present opportunity”⁵² is repeated from Col. 4:5; in both places it has special reference to Christian witness in the world. The statement that “the days are evil” may imply that, whatever difficulties lie in the way of Christian witness now, they will increase as time goes on. It must be borne in mind not only that the present time remains an “evil age” (Gal. 1:4) even if it has been invaded by the powers of the age to come but also that, as the Corinthians were warned, “the appointed time has grown very short” (1 Cor. 7:29), so that opportunities must be exploited while they last.⁵³ The perspective on the end-time has not changed radically since Paul’s earlier letters; moreover, from Rome to Judaea there were signs that the relative freedom from molestation currently enjoyed by Christians was liable shortly to be curtailed.

17 It is always incumbent on the people of Christ to know and to do his will—the readers have already been told to “approve what is well pleasing to the Lord” (v. 10)⁵⁴—but it is doubly necessary in the present situation. The doing of his will is not a matter of irrational impulse but of intelligent reflection and action.

18 “Do not be intoxicated with wine” is yet another OT quotation—from Prov. 23:31 (LXX).⁵⁵ It is introduced here not so much for its own sake (although such a warning is never untimely) as for the sake of its antithesis: “be filled with the Spirit.” Overindulgence in wine leads to dissipation, which is good neither for the winebibber nor for others; the fullness of the Spirit is helpful both for those who are filled with him and for those with whom they associate. The noun rendered “dissipation” appears also in Tit. 1:6 (where the children of church elders must not be chargeable with dissipation) and 1 Pet. 4:4 (in reference to the profligacy which marked the former lives of people recently converted from paganism to Christianity); the corresponding adverb is used of the “riotous living” in which the prodigal son wasted his substance (Luke 15:13).⁵⁶

“Be filled with the Spirit” is literally “Be filled in spirit”;⁵⁷ this has given rise to the question whether the human spirit of the believer or the Spirit of God is meant. The same phrase, “in spirit,” occurs in three other places in this letter—in Eph. 2:22, with regard to the new community of believers as the dwelling-place of God; in 3:5, with regard to the revelation of the “mystery” of the new community to God’s “holy apostles and prophets”; and in 6:18, with regard to the prayer life of Christians. In those three places the Holy Spirit is certainly intended, and equally certainly it is he that is intended here. The Holy Spirit is given to believers to fill them with his presence and power. The choice of drunkenness as an antithesis to the fullness of the Spirit is not unparalleled: when the disciples were all filled with the Holy Spirit on the day of Pentecost the resultant phenomena moved some of the spectators to say in derision that they were “filled with new wine” (Acts 2:13),⁵⁸ and Paul had to warn the Corinthians that a stranger, coming into their company when they were all exercising the spiritual gift of tongues, would conclude that they were mad (1 Cor. 14:23). But the Spirit given by God to his children is the Spirit “of power and love and self-control” (2 Tim. 1:7);⁵⁹ the normal exercise of intelligence is not eclipsed but enhanced when he is in control.

The antithesis between wine and the Spirit does not suggest that the Spirit is a sort of fluid with which one may be filled, any more than the collocation of baptism in water with baptism in the Spirit suggests that the Spirit is a sort of fluid in which one may be dipped.⁶⁰ Whatever grammatical constructions are used, the Spirit operates as a personal subject— “the Lord who is the Spirit” (2 Cor. 3:18).

19 If the Spirit is the source of their fullness, then, instead of songs which celebrate the joys of Bacchus, their mouths will be filled with words which build up the lives of others and bring glory to the living and true God. The reference to “psalms, hymns, and Spirit-inspired songs” is reproduced from Col. 3:16.⁶¹ The construction of the clauses is rather different, but the general tenor is the same. The meetings of those early Christians must have been musical occasions, as they not only sang and made melody to the Lord, in their hearts as well as with their tongues, but addressed one another for mutual help and blessing in compositions already known to the community or in songs improvised under immediate inspiration. Testimonies to the prevalence of music in their fellowship and worship have been cited in the exposition and notes on Col. 3:16. One of these testimonies—Pliny’s report of antiphonal singing “to Christ as God”⁶²—has a bearing on both clauses in this verse, where the singing is antiphonal (”addressing one another”) and is offered “to the Lord.” The hymn quoted in v. 14 could serve as one example of their “addressing one another.” If “singing and making melody in your hearts to the Lord” in the present context has as its parallel in Col. 3:16 “singing with thanksgiving in your hearts to God,” it reminds us that in the church, from the earliest days, praise has been offered alike to God and to Christ. Thus in the Apocalypse, where the worship presented by the holy ones before the heavenly throne is echoed by the church on earth, “Worthy art thou, our Lord and God, . . . for thou didst create all things” (Rev. 4:11) has as its counterpart the “new song”: “Worthy art thou, ... for thou wast slain and by thy blood didst accomplish redemption” (Rev. 5:9), while both God and Christ are conjoined in the doxology: “To him who sits upon the throne and to the Lamb be blessing and honor and glory and might forever and ever!” (Rev. 5:13).

20 The call for thanks giving is made again (cf. the end of v. 4) in the most comprehensive terms, in language echoing Col. 3:17.⁶³ The words “at all times for everything” sum up “whatever you do, in word or in action, do it all” in the Colossians passage, while “. . . in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks through him to God the Father” there has as its counterpart here: “giving thanks . . . to our God and Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ.”⁶⁴ A life filled with such thanksgiving will find spontaneous expression in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs.

5. “BE SUBJECT” (5:21-6:9)

(1) Mutual Submission (5:21)

21 Be subject one to another in the fear of Christ.⁶⁵

21 The household code which follows (Eph. 5:22–6:9) is a special application of the Christian grace of submission;⁶⁶ it is introduced by this general exhortation to mutual submissiveness. Christians should not be self-assertive, each insisting on getting his or her own way. As the Philippian believers are told, they should be humble enough to count others better than themselves and put the interests of others before their own, following the example of Christ, who “emptied himself,” “humbled himself,” and “became obedient,” even when the path of obedience led to death on the cross (Phil. 2:3-8). Out of reverence for their Lord, who set such a precedent, his followers should place themselves at one another’s disposal, living so that their forbearance is a matter of public knowledge (Phil. 4:7), even when others are encouraged on this account to take advantage of them (1 Cor. 6:7). Even those who fill positions of responsibility and honor in the Christian community, to whom their fellow-believers are urged to render submission and loving respect (1 Cor. 16:16; 1 Thess. 5:12-13), earn such recognition by being servants, not lords (cf. 1 Pet. 5:3). For all his exercise of apostolic authority when the situation called for it, Paul invites his converts to regard him and his colleagues as “your slaves for Jesus’ sake” (2 Cor. 4:5).⁶⁷

(2) Wives and Husbands (5:22-33)

22 Wives, (be subject)⁶⁸ to your own husbands as to the Lord,

23 for a husband is head of his wife, as also Christ is head of the church, being himself ⁶⁹ savior of the body.

24 But as⁷⁰ the church is subject to Christ, so also let wives be to their husbands in everything.

25 Husbands, love your wives,⁷¹ as also Christ loved the church and gave himself up for it,

26 in order to sanctify it, purifying it by the washing of water with (the) word,

27 in order to present the church to himself invested with glory, free from spot, wrinkle, or anything of the sort, but holy and blameless.

28 So indeed⁷² husbands ought to love their own wives as their own bodies. He who loves his own wife loves himself.

29 No one ever hated his own flesh but nourishes and cherishes it, as Christ ⁷³ does the church,

30 for we are members of his body.⁷⁴

31 ”This is why a man will leave his father and mother⁷⁵ and be joined to his wife,⁷⁶ and the two will become one flesh.”

32 This mystery is a deep one: I am quoting it in reference to Christ and to the church.⁷⁷

33 But as for you, individually, let each man love his own wife as he loves himself, and let the wife reverence her husband.

While the household code is introduced by a plea for mutual submissiveness,⁷⁸ the submissiveness enjoined in the code itself is not mutual. As in the parallel code in Col. 3:18-4:1, wives are directed to be subject to their husbands, children to be obedient to their parents, and slaves to their masters, but the submissiveness is not reciprocated: husbands are told to love their wives, parents to bring up their children wisely, and masters to treat their slaves considerately. As for the section dealing with wives and husbands, its distinctive feature in Ephesians is that the relationship between husband and wife is treated as analogical to that between Christ and the church.

22 No verb is expressed in v. 22, the imperative “be subject” (a participle in the Greek text) being understood from v. 21.⁷⁹ There is no special emphasis on the pronoun “own” in “your own husbands” (as though a contrast were pointed between their own husbands and other women’s husbands); it might be said that we have here an instance of the “exhausted” use of this pronoun, but it seems to have been a feature of household codes.⁸⁰

Whereas in Col. 3:18 wives are told to be subject to their husbands “as is fitting in the Lord,” the phrase here, “as to the Lord,”⁸¹ has a rather different force. “The Lord” is certainly Christ and not the husband (despite the analogy of 1 Pet. 3:6); the singular noun does not stand in apposition to the plural “husbands.” The implication rather is that Christian wives’ submission to their husbands is one aspect of their obedience to the Lord. This is found to be the more appropriate when their submission to their husbands is seen to have a counterpart in the church’s submission to Christ.

23 That “a husband is head of his wife” has been stated as part of the ordinance of creation in 1 Cor. 11:3, although there the sense is probably “woman’s head is man” (NEB), “head” meaning “source” or “origin.”⁸² The reference is to the narrative of Gen. 2:21-24, where the woman is made from the man (a narrative which has influenced the thought and language of the present passage too). As Adam was the source of his wife’s existence, so the husband is “head” of the wife. But in this context the word “head” has the idea of authority attached to it after the analogy of Christ’s headship over the church. As in 1 Cor. 11:3-15 the argument depends on an oscillation between the literal and figurative senses of “head,”⁸³ so in the present argument from analogy different senses of the word are involved. For when Christ is said to be “head of the church,” that involves the correlative figure of the church as his body (Eph. 1:22-23; 4:15-16; cf. Col. 1:18; 2:19)—a correlative which is absent from the husband-wife relationship.⁸⁴ (This is not the force of “their own bodies” in v. 28 or “his own flesh” in v. 29.)

The relevance of the appended statement that Christ is himself “savior of the body”⁸⁵ is not obvious. That Christ is the Savior of his people is the essence of the gospel, but is it implied that in some sense the husband is “savior” of the wife? An analogy has been found in Tob. 6:18 (17) where Raphael, speaking to Tobias about his cousin Sarah, who is to be his wife, says, “you will save her”—but there it is Sarah’s deliverance from the disastrous attentions of the demon Asmodaeus that is in view. According to W. Foerster, Christ’s being “savior of the body” is elucidated in vv. 25-27, in the sense that by his self-sacrifice he has purified the church for himself in order to present it to himself in glory at the consummation, and the conduct of husbands to their wives is to be “in some sense” parallel to this conduct on Christ’s part.⁸⁶ But, it may be asked, in what sense? A reference to the husband’s role as his wife’s protector may be implied, but anything more detailed is difficult to discern. At the other extreme J. P. Sampley thinks that in this particular respect there is a contrast between Christ and the earthly husband: “Christ, unlike the husband, is the savior of his own body.”⁸⁷ The adversative particle “but” at the beginning of v. 24 is taken to indicate that a contrast is being pointed; but even if this is so, it is not clear that this is the contrast.

24 Referring to “many commentators” who give full adversative force to the conjunction “but” at the beginning of this verse by interpreting the preceding words “as intended to enhance the headship of Christ, as being vastly superior to that of the husband” (the conjunction then meaning “but notwithstanding this difference”), J. A. Robinson points out that the conjunction need not have adversative force. It is used here rather “to fix the attention on the special point of immediate interest.” The apostle, having made the general point that “it is the function of the head to plan for the safety of the body, to secure it from danger and to provide for its welfare,” checks himself from a fuller exposition of this and resumes his main line of thought: ”but—for this is the matter in hand—as the church is subject unto Christ, so let the wives be to their husbands in everything.”⁸⁸This is the most satisfactory account of the connection between vv. 23 and 24, since v. 24 is largely resumptive of v. 22, adding a reference to the church’s submission to Christ as the pattern for the wife’s submission to her husband. That wives should be submissive to their husbands “in everything”⁸⁹ follows from the undoubted fact—too undoubted to call for specific mention—that the church is submissive to Christ in everything.⁹⁰

25 As in Col. 3:19, husbands are exhorted to love their wives, but here the self-sacrificing love of Christ for the church is set forth as the pattern for the husband’s love for his wife. This does not imply a nobler view of the institution of marriage than that expressed in the earlier Pauline letters: even there Paul shows himself to be a “philogamist,”⁹¹ regarding matrimony as the norm for the majority of Christians and commending it as a way of life sanctified by God (1 Cor. 7:3-14). In 2 Cor. 11:2-3 he has already used the marriage relationship as a figure for the union between Christ and the church; in the present household code this figure is worked out in greater detail. It is sometimes pointed out that the Greek word for “bride” appears neither here nor in 2 Cor. 11:2-3⁹²—as though its appearance were necessary when bridal language is so plainly used. In both places the bridal language is used by way of a simile; there is no reason to give ontological status to a figure of speech. The believing community is here compared to a maiden for whom Christ laid down his life that she might become his bride. In v. 2 of this chapter Paul has said that “Christ loved us and gave himself up for us”;⁹³ now he repeats the statement, except that instead of “us” the object is “the church,” referred to by the feminine form of the third person singular pronoun (”her”). Christ’s love for the church is a self-sacrificing love, and the same, it is implied, should be true of husbands’ love for their wives. The idea of self-sacrifice inheres not in the verb “love” as such, but in its context.⁹⁴

26 Before the bride was presented to the bridegroom she received a cleansing bath and was then dressed in her bridal array. This provides part of the imagery in Yahweh’s account of his treatment of the foundling in Ezek. 16:6-14, where he reminds her that, when she reached marriageable age, “I bathed you with water ... I clothed you also with embroidered cloth . . . and I decked you with ornaments.”⁹⁵ So here, the purpose of Christ’s giving himself up for the church is said to be her sanctification and cleansing with water. It is pointed out that the Hebrew verb “to sanctify” is used, in appropriate contexts, in the sense of betrothal (”to take someone apart for oneself as a wife”), so that the present passage might mean: “he gave himself up for her in order to betroth her to himself.”⁹⁶But it is unnecessary to see this special meaning here: the verb “sanctify” anticipates the adjective “holy” toward the end of v. 27.

The sanctification takes places by means of cleansing “by the washing of water with the word.” The verb “cleanse” or “purify” occurs in 2 Cor. 7:1, in the exhortation: “let us cleanse ourselves⁹⁷ from every defilement of body and spirit, and make holiness perfect in the fear of God.” But here it is not the believers who cleanse themselves, but Christ who cleanses them, as also in Tit. 2:14 (the only other instance of the verb in the Pauline corpus), where he is said to have given himself “for us to redeem us from all iniquity and to purify for himself a people of his own who are zealous for good deeds.”⁹⁸ When believers are exhorted to purify themselves, something in the nature of ethical discipline is suggested; but when Christ is said to purify them (as in our present passage and in Tit. 2:14), the reference is probably to his activity as baptizer.⁹⁹

The noun translated “washing” occurs in only one other place in the NT—in Tit. 3:5, where Christ is said to have saved his people “by the washing of regeneration¹⁰⁰ and renewal in the Holy Spirit.” The reference is to Christian initiation, in which the bestowal of the Spirit and baptism in water play a central part—the baptism involving not only the external washing but the inward and spiritual grace which it signifies. When Ananias of Damascus said to Paul, “Rise and be baptized, and wash away¹⁰¹ your sins, calling on his name” (Acts 22:16), he implied that the external washing symbolized the more important inward cleansing from sin. And the participial clause, “calling on his name”¹⁰² (that is, the name of Christ), throws light on the phrase “with the word” or “with a word” in our present text: the “word” or “utterance” is the convert’s confession of the name of Christ as baptism is administered.¹⁰³ A similar emphasis, in slightly different language, is found in 1 Pet. 3:21: “baptism . . . now saves you, not as a removal of dirt from the body but as a pledge to God proceeding from a good conscience [a conscience cleansed from sin], through the resurrection of Jesus Christ.” The “pledge”¹⁰⁴ in which the convert’s purified conscience makes its response to the saving act of God in Christ is the “word” which here accompanies the “washing of water.”

If “baptism is a sacrament, wherein the washing with water in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost, doth signify and seal our ingrafting into Christ . . . and our engagement to be the Lord’s,”¹⁰⁵ the engagement, which is made in the heart but expressed with the lips, is the “word” of Ephesians and the “pledge” of 1 Peter. “Each individual member of the Church had become dedicated to God at the time of his symbolic purification from sin; and what happened to each separate individual is said to have happened to the entire New Society”;¹⁰⁶ the whole church, personified as a bride, is said in effect to have been “washed, . . . sanctified, . . . justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and in the Spirit of our God” (1 Cor. 6: 11).¹⁰⁷

27 In his earlier bridal analogy (2 Cor. 11:2) Paul speaks of himself as the paranymphios whose role it is to “present” the church to Christ “as a pure virgin.”¹⁰⁸ He may have been acquainted with the Jewish conception of Moses as fulfilling a similar role in presenting Israel as a bride to Yahweh (although this is not attested in literature until later).¹⁰⁹ Without the bridal imagery he speaks in Col. 1:28 of his purpose “to present everyone perfect in Christ.”¹¹⁰ There, as in 2 Cor. 11:2, the time of the presentation is probably the parousia of Christ; and here it is evidently at his parousia that Christ plans “to present the church to himself.”¹¹¹ But here Christ is his own paranymphios, just as he has already done all that is necessary to make the church fit to be presented to him as his bride—sanctified and purified and now (at the parousia) ”invested with glory.”¹¹² So John in the Apocalypse sees the bride, the holy Jerusalem, “having the glory of God” (Rev. 21:9-11). The royal bride in Ps. 45:13 is described as “all-glorious within, clothed in gold embroidery”; the adornment of the glorified church is the perfection of character with which her Lord has endowed her, so that she is “free from spot, wrinkle, or anything of the sort.”¹¹³ The OT law envisaged a situation in which a husband, having married a wife, might find “something unseemly”¹¹⁴ in her (Deut. 24:1); no such possibility exists for the glorified church, whom her Lord has fitted for himself and graced with all the “seemliness” that he could desire to find in her. Spots, wrinkles,¹¹⁵ and the like are physical blemishes which might make an earthly bride distasteful to her bridegroom; here they are spiritual and ethical defects, which have been removed by the Lord’s sanctifying and cleansing act.

Thus the purpose of his sanctifying and cleansing act has been achieved: that the church should be “holy and blameless.” In Eph. 1:4 the purpose for which God chose his people in Christ “before the world’s foundation” is said to be that they should be “holy and blameless before him.”¹¹⁶ Similarly, in Col. 1:22, believers are told that Christ has reconciled them to God by his death “in order to present you holy, blameless, and irreproachable in his presence”—and there, be it noted (as in Eph. 5:27), it is Christ who presents them. The adjectives which are used in the plural in those two passages to describe individual believers are used here in the singular to describe the church.¹¹⁷

To this picture of the church’s being presented to Christ as his bride analogies have been found in the “sacred marriage”¹¹⁸ of ancient ritual and in the “heavenly syzygy”¹¹⁹ of some gnostic schemes. But such analogies are fortuitous; they are certainly not conscious. The sacred marriage of the fertility cults was designed to ensure the production of fruit; no such idea is present here. The gnostic “syzygy” probably owes something to the bridal terminology of the present passage and related NT texts. If a background for this terminology is sought, the OT portrayal of Israel as the bride of Yahweh provides all the background necessary.¹²⁰

28 The statement that “husbands ought to love their own wives as their own bodies” applies to this special relationship the more general commandment of Lev. 19:18, “you shall love your neighbor as yourself.”¹²¹ There is a reason for the use of “their own bodies” in place of “themselves,” but the echo of the second of the two great commandments is scarcely to be missed. In more than one place in the Talmud this commandment is quoted as a reason for the husband’s behaving toward his wife with propriety, “lest he find something repulsive in her.”¹²² And the same word translated “neighbor,” in its feminine form, is used repeatedly by the lover in the Song of Songs when addressing his beloved or speaking about her to others (Cant. 1:9, 15; 2:2, 10, 13; 4:1, 7; 5:2; 6:4).¹²³

The locution “as their own bodies” instead of “as themselves” is due to the influence of Gen. 2:24, the text quoted in v. 31 below. Since husband and wife are “one flesh” or one body, to love one’s wife is not merely a matter of loving someone else as oneself; it is in effect loving oneself. Adam recognized Eve as “bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh” (Gen. 2:23); to love her therefore was to love part of himself. Hence, “he who loves his own wife loves himself.”

29 That it is natural to love oneself is evident from the way in which most people care for themselves, and especially for their bodies. They feed their bodies, clothe their bodies, and do what they can for their comfort. To the statement that “no one ever hated his own flesh” it might be replied that some people have practiced severity to their bodies, starving them, subjecting them to all sorts of discomfort, flagellating them, and so forth. But such “severity to the body” is unnatural; it is deprecated in Col. 2:23 as powerless to promote true humility. It is natural conduct that is in view in the present context: just as a man provides for his own comfort and well-being, so he should provide for his wife’s. Again, Christ is invoked as the perfect exemplar: he makes every provision for the church.

It is hardly necessary to say that the expression “his own flesh” has nothing to do with the distinctive Pauline use of “flesh” in the sense of that basically perverted element in human nature which puts self in the place of God;¹²⁴ it is simply a synonym of “his own body” (under the influence of “one flesh” in Gen. 2:24).¹²⁵

30 Because “we are members of his body,” and collectively “his body,” Christ “nourishes and cherishes” us. The church as the body of Christ and the church as the bride of Christ are two concepts with distinct origins, but a link between the two is found in Gen. 2:24, where husband and wife become “one flesh.” The fact that “no one ever hated his own flesh” underlies the maxim that one should love one’s neighbor—and preeminently one’s wife—as oneself. Christ’s love for his “neighbor,” and preeminently for the church, is the paradigm for a husband’s love of his wife; the paradigm is made the more effective by importing into it the thought of the church as the body of Christ, already expounded in this letter, together with the thought of individual believers as members of his body.¹²⁶

The phrase “of his body” was later amplified by the epexegetic “of his flesh and of his bones” (as in the KJV). These additional words are self-evidently derived from Gen. 2:23. H. Schlier may be right in detecting an antignostic tendency in their insertion here; he points out that Irenaeus uses them as an antignostic argument.¹²⁷

31 What has been said thus far about the unity of husband and wife is now reinforced by an OT quotation. In Gen. 2:24, after describing how woman was taken from the side of man to be his companion, the narrator adds the comment: “This is why a man¹²⁸ will leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two will become one flesh.” In Jesus’ response to a question about divorce in Mark 10:6-8 this comment is attached to the statement that “from the beginning of creation ‘God made them male and female’ ” (Gen. 1:27);¹²⁹ the two texts together constitute an argument against divorce: “What therefore God has joined together, let not man put asunder” (Mark 10:9). (In the parallel passage in Matt. 19:4-5 the comment of Gen. 2:24 is quoted as an utterance of God: “he who made them from the beginning made them male and female, and said, ‘This is why a man will leave his father and mother. . . .’ “)¹³⁰

It is evidently by sexual union that husband and wife are viewed as becoming “one flesh”; indeed, in 1 Cor. 6:16 Paul applies Gen. 2:24 to the most casual intercourse with a prostitute: “Do you not know that he who joins himself to a harlot becomes one body with her?” (In taking this line, it has been said, Paul “displays a psychological insight into human sexuality which is altogether exceptional by first-century standards,” insisting that the sexual act is one “which, by reason of its very nature, engages and expresses the whole personality in such a way as to constitute a unique mode of self-disclosure and self-commitment.”)¹³¹ In 1 Cor. 6:17, by analogy (and contrast) with the “one flesh” or “one body” union of man and woman, the union of the believer and Christ is said to be one of spirit: “whoever is joined to the Lord is one spirit.” But the body language of Ephesians makes it natural for the union both of husband and wife and of Christ and the church to be equally expressed in terms of “one body.”

Referring to the use of Gen. 2:24 in rabbinical halakhah as providing a basis for divorce, J. P. Sampley asks, “Could the author of Ephesians be confronted with a need to reclaim Gen. 2:24 as . . . grounds for marriage, not divorce?”¹³²

32 “This mystery is great” apparently refers to the scripture just quoted (Gen. 2:24). Attempts have been made to understand “mystery” here in a sense similar to that which it has earlier in Ephesians,¹³³ but this is not easy. The “mystery” of Eph. 3:3-4, made known to Paul and manifested by his ministry, relates more particularly to the incorporation of believing Gentiles along with believing Jews as fellow-members of the one body of Christ. While the conception of the church as the body of Christ finds expression in the present context, it is incidental to the portrayal of the church as his bride, and the inclusion of Gentiles as well as Jews in the body receives no mention here. Here it is not God’s eternal plan of salvation in Christ that is in view so much as the relationship of life and love between Christ and the church, of which the husband-wife relationship is treated as a parable.¹³⁴ It has, indeed, been suggested that “mystery” in this verse has much the same sense as “parable”; but it is better to take it as a reference to the OT text reproduced in the previous sentence.¹³⁵

We have, in fact, an example here of the principle of exegesis found regularly in the Qumran commentaries and not unknown in the NT. To the Qumran commentators a text of scripture was a mystery, a rāz, as they called it in Hebrew.¹³⁶ They treated all OT scripture as prophetic, and believed that, when God made known his purpose to the prophets, he revealed so much, but withheld part (especially the part relating to the time of its fulfilment).¹³⁷ Thus the text of scripture, while it embodied a divine revelation, remained a mystery until God made known the interpretation to someone else. (In the belief of the Qumran community, this “someone else” was the Teacher of Righteousness, “to whom God disclosed all the mysteries of the words of his servants the prophets,”¹³⁸enabling him thus “to show to the last generations what God was about to do to the last generation.”)¹³⁹ So here, Gen. 2:24, which on the surface explains why a man will leave his parents’ home and live with his wife, is taken to convey a deeper, hidden meaning, a “mystery,” which could not be understood until Christ, who loved his people from eternity, gave himself up for them in the fullness of time. In the light of his saving work, the hidden meaning of Gen. 2:24 now begins to appear: his people constitute his bride, united to him in “one body.” The formation of Eve to be Adam’s companion is seen to prefigure the creation of the church to be the bride of Christ. This seems to be the deep “mystery” contained in the text, which remains a mystery no longer to those who have received its interpretation.¹⁴⁰

The following words, “but I am speaking with reference to Christ and to the church,” seem to contrast the writer’s preferred interpretation with other interpretations: the pronoun “I” is emphatic.¹⁴¹ But it is difficult to discover what the rival interpretations of the text might be, or who might have propounded them. “It is possible,” says J. P. Sampley, “that it is the recipients of Ephesians who have chosen Gen. 2:24 and have drawn conclusions about the relationship between a husband and a wife or perhaps about the relationship between Christ and the church”—conclusions which were deemed “dangerous and worthy of refutation”¹⁴²—but on this there can be no certainty. What does seem to be certain is that Gen. 2:24 is being applied here to the relationship between Christ and the church.

33 The paragraph about the mutual duties and responsibilities of husband and wife, which has launched out into the realm where Christology embraces ecclesiology, is now concluded with an admonitory summing up in which these mutual duties and responsibilities are briefly recapitulated. “Do you at least grasp this”¹⁴³—the practical lesson to be learned from the excursus on Christ and the church—that the husband is to love his wife as himself (a further echo of the commandment about neighborly love in Lev. 19:18), and that the wife is to reverence her husband.¹⁴⁴ The verb “to reverence” is the ordinary verb meaning “to fear”; the character of the “fear” is suggested by v. 21: “Be subject one to another in the fear of Christ.”¹⁴⁵ “Fear” in the sense of terror is not in the picture here: “there is no fear in love” (1 John 4:18).¹⁴⁶ It is fear in the sense of terror that is excluded in the exhortation to Christian wives in 1 Pet. 3:6, where they are assured that they are true daughters of Sarah “if you do right and are not made afraid by any intimidation.”¹⁴⁷ (Sarah, as 1 Pet. 3:6 has recalled, showed her husband reverence by calling him “my lord,”¹⁴⁸ but the patriarchal narrative nowhere implies that she lived in fear of him: her record is marked by laughter¹⁴⁹ rather than terror.)

EPHESIANS 6

(3) Children and Parents (6:1-4)

1 Children, obey your parents in the Lord;¹ for this is right.

2 “Honor your father and mother” —that is² the first commandment accompanied by a promise—

3 ”so that it may go well with you and you may live a long time on earth.”

4 Fathers, do not make your children angry, but bring them up in the training and instruction of the Lord.

1 The directions to children and parents are quite similar to those in Col. 3:20-21, although that to children is reinforced by an OT quotation.

The phrase “in the Lord” is of doubtful authenticity. It is in any case a Christian household that is envisaged; there is no question here of Christian children’s being told to obey their (possibly non-Christian) parents except where such obedience would conflict with their duty “in the Lord.”³ Attempts to establish dependence of the Ephesians passage on its counterpart in Colossians, or vice versa, are totally inconclusive.⁴

2-3 This direction is undergirded by the quotation of the fifth commandment of the Decalogue, quoted according to Deut. 5:16 rather than Exod. 20:12, from which the clause “so that it may go well with you” is absent (on the other hand, part of Deut. 5:16 is missing from this quotation).⁵ The “promise” which accompanies this commandment⁶ is the promise of prosperity and long life; no such promise is attached to any of the four preceding commandments. In the original form of the commandment (both in Exod. 20:12 and in Deut. 5:16) the long life is to be enjoyed “in the land which the LORD your God gives you,” that is, in the land of Israel; such a limitation would be inappropriate in a Gentile-Christian context, so the final adjective clause is omitted and “in the land” understood as “on the earth.”⁷ Verse 3 may be designed mainly to state what the attached promise is; in what sense prosperity and long life might be assured to Christians in the Roman Empire in the second half of the first century A.D. is uncertain. The chief point of the quotation of the fifth commandment may be to confirm that obedience to parents is “right”⁸because it is enjoined in the law of God.

The fifth commandment was cited by Jesus as an example of a divine ordinance which was nullified in practice by a rabbinical ruling, current in his day, regarding the law of vows (Mark 7:9-13).⁹

4 As in Col. 3:21, fathers (or parents) are urged not to assert their authority over children in a manner more calculated to provoke resentment than ready obedience. The verb expressing such unreasonable parental conduct is different from that in the parallel passage, but the general sense is the same.¹⁰ Where Col. 3:21 adds the clause “lest they be disheartened,” the Ephesians injunction recommends a better course of action: “bring them up in the training and instruction of the Lord.”¹¹ The “training and instruction of the Lord” would involve following Christ’s example, with due regard to his “meekness and gentleness” (2 Cor. 10:1), as well as putting into practice his precepts. And the children will the more readily learn these lessons if the parents themselves show the way—by following Christ’s example and practicing his precepts. The only other occurrence of the word “training” in the Pauline corpus is in 2 Tim. 3:16, where inspired scripture is said to be “profitable” (among other things) “for training in righteousness.”¹² In Heb. 12:5-11 it appears four times in the sense of “discipline” or even “chastisement.” The word “instruction” is also used in relation to OT scripture—in 1 Cor. 10:11, where the record of Israel’s rebellion in the wilderness is said to have been “written for our instruction.”¹³ It carries with it the sense of admonition and sometimes of warning, as in Tit. 3:10, where a factious man is to have no more time wasted over him “after a first and second warning.”¹⁴

J. A. Robinson compares the injunction to a parent in Didache 4.9: “You shall not withhold your hand from your son or daughter, but teach them the fear of God from their youth up.”¹⁵ Only, in the NT household codes nothing is said (explicitly, at any rate) about corporal punishment.

(4) Slaves and Masters (6:5-9)

5 Slaves, obey your earthly masters with fear and trembling, in the sincerity of your heart,¹⁶ as (you obey) Christ,

6 not by way of eye-service, as men-pleasers, but as slaves of Christ, doing the will of God heartily,

7 rendering service with goodwill, as to the Lord¹⁷ and not to human beings.

8 You should know that, whatever good thing each one does, this is what he will receive from the Lord, whether he is a slave or a free person.

9 As for you masters, do the same to them; give up threatening, for you know that both their master and yours is in heaven, and there is no favoritism with him.

5 The directions to slaves and masters follow those in Col. 3:22-4:1 quite closely, and the exposition of those verses will for the most part be applicable here too. The phrase “with fear and trembling” is a recurring one in Paul (cf. 1 Cor. 2:3; 2 Cor. 7:15; Phil. 2:12); it appears a number of times in the Septuagint.¹⁸ Here it probably catches up the phrase “in the fear of Christ” in Eph. 5:21.¹⁹ It is Christ rather than their earthly masters that slaves should fear, although the fear of Christ will teach them to show due reverence and respect to their earthly masters (lit., their “masters according to the flesh,” as in Col. 3:22). In serving their earthly masters they will bear in mind that they are primarily serving Christ.²⁰

The words “in sincerity of heart” are used by David of himself in the Septuagint version of 1 Chron. 29:17, where the Hebrew text means “in the uprightness of my heart.”²¹ J. B. Lightfoot suggests the translation here and in Col. 3:22: “with undivided service”;²² he compares the exordium of the book of Wisdom, where the rulers of the earth are called upon to seek the Lord “with sincerity of heart.”²³

6 “Not by way of eye-service, as men-pleasers” practically repeats Col. 3:22: “not with eye-service, as men-pleasers.” J. B. Lightfoot regarded “eye-service” as a “happy expression” and thought that it might be Paul’s own coinage.²⁴ The contrast between being a slave of Christ and a pleaser of men is pointed by Paul, with reference to his own policy, in Gal. 1:10.²⁵ There is indeed one place in his letters where he speaks of himself as “pleasing everybody in everything,” but there he means putting other people’s preferences before his own for the gospel’s sake, “not seeking my own advantage but that of the many, that they may be saved” (1 Cor. 10:33).

Doing the will of God “heartily”—from the heart or from the soul²⁶—is set in contrast (as in Col. 3:23, “whatever you do, do it heartily”) with eye-service.

7 Eye-service may pass muster for a time when one is working for an earthly master, but the Lord judges by the heart and not by outward appearance. Even if the work to be done for an earthly master were tedious and burdensome, if the Christian slave looked on it as a service rendered “to the Lord and not to human beings” that would transform his attitude to it and enable him to do it with “the ready good will, which does not wait to be compelled” (J. A. Robinson).²⁷

8 “You should know,”²⁸ the apostle adds—implying that what he is about to say is a piece of common Christian catechesis—that each person will receive from the Lord a recompense for what he or she has done; and it makes no difference whether one is enslaved or free.²⁹ The time when the recompense will be awarded appears from other Pauline references to be the advent of Christ, when his people will be manifested before his tribunal.³⁰ In Col. 3:25 the one who does wrong will be requited for that wrongdoing; here it is the good deed that is fittingly rewarded. The Pauline teaching echoes the dominical logion of Matt. 16:27, which declares that when the Son of Man comes in glory, “then he will render to everyone according to what he has done.”³¹

9 When masters are told to “do the same” to their slaves,³² the sense is that they are to treat their slaves with Christian consideration, the spirit with which Christian slaves are to obey their masters. They should make it easy for their slaves to work for them with goodwill. Threatening with punishment, or harsh language and behavior in general, may ensure outward obedience, but hardly that obedience which comes “from the heart.” There is no word of abolishing the institution of slavery, but where masters and slaves are fellow-members of a Christian household their relationship should be mutually helpful. As in Col. 4:1, Christian masters are reminded that they themselves serve a Master in heaven: their treatment of their slaves is a matter for which he will hold them responsible to him. The statement that “there is no favoritism with him” is appended to the direction to slaves in the Colossians household code (Col. 3:25).³³

6. “BE STRONG IN THE LORD” (6:10-17)

10 For the rest,³⁴ be strong³⁵ in the Lord and in his mighty power.³⁶

11 Put on the panoply of God so that you may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil;

12 because it is not against flesh and blood that we wrestle,³⁷ but against the principalities, against the powers, against the world-rulers of this dark domain,³⁸ against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realm.³⁹

13 Therefore, take up the panoply of God, so that you may be able to withstand them in the evil day and, having done everything, to stand your ground.

14 Stand therefore, with the girdle of truth round your waist, having put on the breastplate of righteousness

15 and having shod your feet with the preparation of the gospel of peace.

16 Take up, in addition to all these,⁴⁰ the shield of faith, with which you will be able to quench all the fire-tipped darts of the evil one;

17 and take⁴¹ the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit, which is God’s word.

10 “Be strong in the Lord” might be rendered more literally “Strengthen yourselves in the Lord.” This form of words has OT precedent. In a critical situation in the life of David, he is said to have “strengthened himself in the LORD his God” (1 Sam. 30:6). At a later date the God of Israel says of his people gathered home from exile, “I will make them strong in the LORD” (Zech. 10:12).⁴² But the idea of divinely imparted strength finds frequent expression without the explicit addition of the phrase “in the LORD”; the exhortation to Joshua, “be strong and very courageous” (Josh. 1:7),⁴³ is given to many others in the OT, and is taken up in the NT. “Be watchful, stand firm in your faith, be courageous, be strong,” says Paul to the Corinthians (1 Cor. 16:13),⁴⁴ and these words are echoed here.

The “mighty power” of God by which his children are to be strengthened—literally, “the power of his might”—has been mentioned already in this letter. It is “the surpassing greatness of his power in us who believe”; it is the “operation of his mighty strength” by which he raised Christ from the dead (Eph. 1:19-20); it is the power with which Paul has prayed that his readers may be strengthened by the Spirit of God in their inner being (Eph. 3:16).⁴⁵ Here they are told one way in which this power can be effective in their lives—in enabling them to resist those forces in the world that are hostile to their well-being and opposed to the gospel.

11 To resist those forces their natural strength and resolution will not suffice. The “panoply of God,” spiritual armor, is necessary. The word “panoply,” which occurs several times in the Septuagint, is found once only in the NT outside our present passage—in the parable of the strong man armed in Luke 11:21-22, where one who is even stronger comes and strips him of his “panoply”—“his armor in which he trusted.” It denotes a complete outfit of personal armor, for defense and for attack.⁴⁶

“Though we live in the world,” says Paul to the Corinthians, “we are not carrying on a worldly war, for the weapons of our warfare are not worldly but have divine power to destroy strongholds” (2 Cor. 10:3-4). But there it is not body armor that Paul has in mind, but siege engines, with which he intends to “demolish arguments and every lofty structure that is raised against the knowledge of God,” with the aim of “taking every design prisoner and subjecting it to the obedience of Christ” (2 Cor. 10:5).

Here it is the “wiles”⁴⁷ of the devil that have to be resisted. These may be even more subtle than the “human craftiness and trickery which schemes to lead people astray” against which a warning has been sounded in Eph. 4:14. One of the devil’s wiles has already been mentioned in this letter: it is his readiness to exploit strained relations and angry feelings between believers so as to damage their personal or corporate welfare and witness (Eph. 4:27). To be forewarned about the nature of his wiles is to be forearmed against them.

12 Nor do believers need to be on their guard only against the wiles of the devil. The whole climate of opinion in the Graeco-Roman world of apostolic days was inimical to the principles of the gospel. “The god of this age” who “has blinded the minds of the unbelievers, to keep them from seeing the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ” (2 Cor. 4:4), has a host of allies, principalities and powers, here described as “the world-rulers of this dark domain” (lit., “this darkness”) and “the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realm.”

The former references to principalities and powers in this letter have been neutral, nothing being said expressly about their character. In Eph. 1:21 Christ has been exalted above them; in Eph. 3:10 they are meant to learn through the church something of God’s “manifold wisdom.” It is not necessary to infer from the present reference that all principalities and powers are viewed as evil, or hostile to the cause of Christ. But those mentioned here certainly are viewed as hostile,⁴⁸ and the question arises whether they are to be identified with the principalities and powers disarmed by Christ in the vivid picture of Col. 2:15. If they are identical, how can disarmed powers still constitute a threat? The answer is that they constitute no threat to those who are united by faith to the victorious Christ and avail themselves of his resources, the resources which are here described metaphorically as “the panoply of God.” But to those who neglect those resources, and especially to those who are disposed to give them some room in their lives, they continue to present a threat.

The term “world-rulers”⁴⁹ appears here only in the NT, but it is difficult to dissociate them from the “rulers of this age” who, according to 1 Cor. 2:6, 8, are on the way out because their failure to discern God’s eternal wisdom led them to “crucify the Lord of glory.” In the Fourth Gospel the singular form, “the ruler of this world,” is found three times (John 12:31; 14:30; 16:11); this “ruler” (archōn) endeavors to take advantage of Christ as his passion draws near, but finds no means of doing so: on the contrary, he himself is judged and cast out. The same malign figure is mentioned as “the ruler of the domain of the air” in Eph. 2:2.⁵⁰

The original application of the term “world-rulers” (kosmokratores) appears to have been to the planets,⁵¹ but it is used also of a variety of dominant deities and later of the Roman emperor, who on the human level was indeed the “world-ruler.”⁵² It was taken over as a loanword in rabbinical Hebrew, with reference to the Roman emperor and other human potentates and also to spiritual powers like the angel of death.⁵³ In the Testament of Solomon (2nd or 3rd cent. A.D.) demons who come to Solomon introduce themselves as stoicheia,⁵⁴ ”the world-rulers of this dark domain” (18:2)⁵⁵—but these words are probably dependent on the present text.

When they are called rulers of “this dark domain,” they are associated with the “dominion of darkness” from which, according to Col. 1:13, the people of Christ have been rescued.⁵⁶ They will do their best to reclaim the people of Christ for their own dominion, but their attempts will be fruitless if the people of Christ resist them with the spiritual resources which are now placed at their disposal. Only spiritual resources can prevail against them, for they themselves are “spiritual forces,” and forces of evil at that.⁵⁷ The heavenly realm⁵⁸ in which they are located has been mentioned already as the realm in which “principalities and powers” learn lessons in divine wisdom (Eph. 3:10); it is also the realm in which Christ sits enthroned at God’s right hand, high above every principality and power (Eph. 1:20-21) and in which his people have been made to sit along with him (Eph. 2:6). The heavenly realm may be envisaged as comprising a succession of levels, with the throne of God on the highest of these and the hostile forces occupying the lowest.⁵⁹ The level which they occupy is probably identical with “the domain of the air,” ruled (according to Eph. 2:2) by “the spirit which now operates in the disobedient.”⁶⁰ At any rate, these are real forces of evil which are encountered in the spiritual sphere, and they have to be withstood. The spirit of the age—any age—is rarely found in alliance with the Spirit of Christ.

13 The panoply of God, then, is available for his children to take up and use. The “evil day” (like the “evil age” of Gal. 1:4) is the period that is dominated by the forces of evil,⁶¹ with special emphasis, perhaps, on those occasions when the hostility of evil is experienced in exceptional power, and the temptation to yield is strong. It is then that the panoply of divine grace and strength is indispensable, enabling the believer to resist the pressure and stand firm. A Roman centurion, according to Polybius, had to be the kind of man who could be relied upon, when hard-pressed, to stand fast and not give way;⁶² and the same quality is necessary in the spiritual warfare. “Having done everything” is explained by J. A. Robinson as “having accomplished all that your duty requires.”⁶³ When all that has been accomplished, the one thing needful is to stand one’s ground.

14 “Stand therefore,” comes the command; and then the panoply of God is described in detail, each piece of armor being identified with some divine gift or virtue.

There are literary antecedents for this metaphorical use of armor. In Isa. 59:17 the God of Israel, displeased because no one has shown himself willing to stand up for justice, arms himself for the defense of the cause of truth:

He put on righteousness as a breastplate,

and a helmet of salvation upon his head;

he put on garments of vengeance for clothing,

and wrapped himself in fury as a mantle.

In partial dependence on this passage the author of the book of Wisdom describes God as acting in defense of the righteous when they are oppressed (5:17-20):

The Lord will take his zeal as his panoply,

and will arm all creation to repel his enemies;

he will put on righteousness as a breastplate,

and wear impartial justice as a helmet;

he will take holiness as an invincible shield,

and sharpen stern wrath for a sword,

and creation will join with him

to fight against his frenzied foes.

Paul uses military language from time to time to describe his own ministry.⁶⁴ A closer parallel to the present passage is found in the exhortation to “put on the breastplate of faith and love, and for a helmet the hope of salvation” (1 Thess. 5:8). But what we have here is more elaborate. Truth is to be their belt or girdle (lit., “having girt⁶⁵ your loins with truth”); this may be an echo of Isa. 11:5, where it is said of the coming “shoot from the stump of Jesse” that “righteousness shall be the girdle of his waist, and faithfulness (LXX “truth”) the girdle of his loins.” Here truth remains the girdle⁶⁶ but righteousness becomes the breastplate, as in Isa. 59:17 and Wisdom 5:18. It is truth and righteousness as ethical qualities that are meant, rather than truth of doctrine and justification by faith; though the latter are not unrelated to the ethical qualities.⁶⁷

15 The designation of the military footwear (the caligae, if we use the Roman term) as “the preparation of the gospel of peace” is patently borrowed from Isa. 52:7: “How beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of him who brings good tidings, who publishes peace”—words applied by Paul, in an abridged form, to those who are sent to preach the Christian message (Rom. 10:15). Here he “means to express the readiness which belongs to the bearer of good tidings,” says J. A. Robinson,⁶⁸ who points out that the Greek noun meaning “preparation” is used in the Septuagint for a stand or base.⁶⁹ Those who must at all costs stand their ground need to have a secure footing; in the spiritual conflict, this is supplied by the gospel, appropriated and proclaimed.

16 In addition to the defensive equipment actually worn on the body comes the shield, carried on the left arm and maneuvered so as to repel attacks of various kinds, including “fire-tipped darts”⁷⁰ or other flaming missiles designed to cause personal or material damage. Even when such a missile was caught by the shield and did not penetrate to the body, says Livy, it caused panic, because it was thrown when well alight and its motion through the air made it blaze more fiercely, so that the soldier was tempted to get rid of his burning shield and expose himself to the enemy’s spear-thrusts.⁷¹ But the “shield of faith” not only catches the incendiary devices but extinguishes them. The “fire-tipped darts of the evil one” are the “wiles of the devil” already mentioned; the best defense against them is faith in God. Here too a question arises: is it faith in God or faithfulness to God that is meant? In 1 Pet. 5:8-9, where the assaults of the devil are described by means of a different figure of speech (he “prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour”), faith again is recommended as the best means of defense against him: “resist him, firm in your faith.” There, as E. G. Selwyn says, “a flint-like resolution” is what is called for;⁷² such a resolution is the product of an unshakable faith in God.

There is a figurative reference to fiery missiles in the Qumran Hymns of Thanksgiving, where the speaker says of the mighty men who surround him with their weapons of war:

”They have let fly arrows

against which there is no cure,

and the flame of (their) javelins

is like a consuming fire among trees.”

But his loyalty to God’s covenant protects him; his “foot remains upon level ground.”⁷³

17 The “helmet of salvation” is taken from Isa. 59:17, where Yahweh wears it.⁷⁴ In such a context it might well be the helmet of victory (cf. GNB: “He will wear . . . victory like a helmet”), for the God of Israel does not receive salvation; he bestows it. Here too the “helmet of salvation” recommended to the believer might be called the helmet of victory, for God’s victory is his people’s salvation. In 1 Thess. 5:8 “the hope of salvation” serves as a helmet, for in that letter salvation is something which believers are “destined . . . to obtain . . . through our Lord Jesus Christ”—at his parousia. In this letter, however, salvation is viewed as already accomplished—”it is by grace that you have been saved” (Eph. 2:5)—so “the helmet of salvation” is available for the protection of believers.

The only weapon of attack that is included in the equipment is the sword. It is the “sword of the Spirit,” the sword of the breath of God. Of the expected prince of the house of David it is said in Isa. 11:4 that “he shall smite the earth with the rod of his mouth, and with the breath of his lips he shall slay the wicked.” This prophecy is taken up in the vivid picture of the conquering Word of God in Rev. 19:15: “from his mouth issues a sharp sword with which to smite the nations.”⁷⁵ But now the sword is used not to smite the earth or slay the wicked, but to repel the spiritual foes of the people of God. “God’s word” is his utterance—“every word that proceeds from the mouth of God” (Deut. 8:3 LXX). It is through his Spirit that his word is both uttered and received on earth. Perhaps the best example of the use of his word to repel spiritual foes is seen in Jesus’ employment of the text just quoted (Deut. 8:3) to repel the tempter in the wilderness.⁷⁶ The divine utterance, the product of the Spirit, lends itself readily to the believer who has laid it up in his heart⁷⁷ for effective use in the moment of danger against any attempt to seduce him from allegiance to Christ.

The pieces of armor listed cover most of those which might have been seen on a Roman soldier at the time. The most obvious omission would be the greaves, which were worn to protect the front of the legs.⁷⁸When John Bunyan described the equipment which Christian received in the armory of the House Beautiful and used to good effect against Apollyon on the next stage of his journey, he drew on this passage in Ephesians, and noted that no armor was provided for the back, so that at the approach of Apollyon Christian had no option but “to venture and stand his ground.”⁷⁹

This account of the spiritual conflict and the panoply of God has inspired others to develop the theme—notably Bunyan in The Holy War (The Holy War made by Shaddai upon Diabolus for the Regaining of the Metropolis of the World or the Losing and Taking Again of the Town of Mansoul, 1682)—a work which, had the same author not written The Pilgrim’s Progress, would have been acclaimed as the greatest allegory in the English language. Twenty to twenty-seven years before The Holy War was published, another Puritan, William Gurnall, minister of Lavenham, Suffolk, produced his encyclopaedic exposition of these verses (Eph. 6:10-20), The Christian in Complete Armour (1655-62), which in its twentieth-century reprint (London: The Banner of Truth Trust, 1964) runs to some 1200 double-column pages—an exhaustive body of practical divinity.⁸⁰

7. “WATCH AND PRAY” (6:18-20)

18 Pray in the Spirit at all times with all prayer and supplication, and keep awake for this very purpose with all perseverance and supplication for all the saints,

19 and also for me: pray that I may be given utterance as I open my mouth, to make known the mystery of the gospel⁸¹ with liberty of speech.

20 It is for the sake of the gospel that I am an ambassador—an ambassador in chains! Pray that I may enjoy liberty in this matter,⁸² and speak as I ought.

18 This paragraph is closely similar to its counterpart in Col. 4:2-5, but neither passage can be shown to be dependent on the other. Both reflect a common situation, existing at the time and place of writing.

There is no obvious separation in the Greek text between this exhortation to prayer and the immediately preceding encouragement to resist spiritual foes.⁸³ The imperative “pray” (in our rendering above) renders the participle “praying” in the Greek.⁸⁴ This might be a further instance of the imperatival use of the participle;⁸⁵ but, so far as the construction goes, “praying” (with the following “keeping awake”) seems to belong to the series of participles dependent on the imperative “stand” at the beginning of v. 14 (”having girt,” “having shod,” “having taken up”).⁸⁶

Praying “in the Spirit” means praying under the Spirit’s influence and with his assistance. “I will pray with the spirit⁸⁷ and I will pray with the mind also,” says Paul (1 Cor. 14:15), by way of response, it appears, to some who believed that to pray in a “tongue” unintelligible to speaker and hearers alike was to pray “in the Spirit.” It is no criterion of the power of the Spirit that the person praying does not understand his own prayer. On the other hand, there are prayers and aspirations of the heart that cannot well be articulated; these can be offered in the Spirit, who, as Paul says, “himself intercedes for us with sighs too deep for words” (Rom. 8:26).

Both in his own practice and in that of his converts and others, Paul insists on the necessity of constant prayer—praying “at every time” (as the literal rendering is here).⁸⁸ “Pray without ceasing,” the Thessalonian Christians are exhorted (1 Thess. 5:17), while Paul himself repeatedly assures his readers of his unremitting prayer for them (cf. Col. 1:3). Here the general word for prayer is used, together with “supplication,” the word emphasizing the element of petition or entreaty in prayer.⁸⁹

As in Col. 4:2, the importance of watchfulness, keeping spiritually alert, is stressed. A different word for keeping awake is used here⁹⁰—the same word as appears in a similar exhortation in Luke 21:36, where Jesus, warning his disciples of the impending crisis, urges them to “keep awake at all times, praying that you may prevail ... to stand before the Son of Man.”⁹¹ The eschatological note is not explicitly prominent in Colossians and Ephesians, but it can be discerned wherever watchfulness and perseverance⁹² are enjoined.

The readers have already been commended for their love “to all the saints” (Eph. 1:15); one way of continuing to show this love is to persevere in making supplication for them.

19 With the exhortation to pray “for all the saints” comes a special request to pray for Paul in particular, in language closely akin to that in Col. 4:3-4. If the life-setting of the letter was Paul’s detention in Rome, where he looked forward to his appearance before the supreme tribunal, then he might well ask for prayer as he tried to exploit every opportunity for gospel witness in his present restricted situation, and especially when the time came (as he hoped) to bear witness before Caesar himself.⁹³ Much might depend on what Paul said on that occasion, and on the manner in which he said it—not so much for his own safety (a matter of minor importance in his eyes) as for the progress of the gospel in the Roman world. He had made known in the eastern provinces the “mystery”⁹⁴ with which he had been entrusted on the Damascus road; the impending opportunity of making it known at the very heart of the imperial administration carried great responsibility with it, wholeheartedly as he welcomed it. Hence he besought the prayers of his fellow-Christians, that he might say the right thing in the right way,⁹⁵ and do so without inhibitions.

20 Twice in this prayer request he expresses the desire that he may be granted liberty of speech as he makes the gospel known.⁹⁶ This liberty of speech cannot be divorced from the inward liberty of spirit which enables one to speak from the heart. His sense of liberty was the greater because he knew that what he had to make known was not his own message but the Lord’s. He was but the ambassador; Christ was the sovereign on whose behalf he was to speak. He had no uncertainty about his commission: as he put it to Philemon, if he was the prisoner of Christ Jesus, he was at the same time the ambassador of Christ Jesus⁹⁷—none the less an ambassador even if he was, as he says here, “an ambassador in chains.”⁹⁸

If it is to the hearing of his appeal that 2 Tim. 4:17 looks back, then the answer to the prayer requested here is recorded there: “the Lord stood by me and gave me strength to proclaim the message fully, so that all the Gentiles might hear it.” “All the Gentiles” could not be present in court while Paul made his defense, but this is an instance of Paul’s “representative universalism”;⁹⁹ what was said in public at the center of the empire would reverberate as far as the distant frontiers.

IV. LETTER-CLOSING (6:21-24)

1. PERSONAL NOTES (6:21-22)

21 So that you also may know my affairs, how I am getting on, you will learn everything from Tychicus, my dear brother and a trusty servant in the Lord.

22 I am sending him to you for this very purpose, that you may learn our news and that he may encourage your hearts.

21-22 This note about Tychicus follows Col. 4:7-8 almost word for word. The implication is that Tychicus was entrusted with this letter together with that to the church of Colossae, and would deliver it on his journey to the Lycus valley—perhaps in the Lycus valley itself. The words at the beginning of v. 21—”so that you also may know my affairs”—most probably mean “so that you, in addition to others who are receiving news of me, may know my affairs.”¹⁰⁰ This would be natural if Colossians and Ephesians were written and sent at the same time.

Tychicus, who was evidently in Paul’s company at the time of writing, would be able to convey further information about him by word of mouth.

If this letter is pseudonymous, then the reference to Tychicus is a literary borrowing from Col. 4:7-8, and it might be asked why a reference to Tychicus in particular was thought apposite here. An answer to this question must necessarily be speculative.¹⁰¹

2. FINAL BENEDICTION (6:23-24)

23 Peace to the brothers,¹⁰² and love¹⁰³ with faith, from God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.

24 Grace and immortality be with all who love our Lord Jesus Christ.¹⁰⁴

23 The grace and peace which figured in the initial greeting are repeated here in the final blessing, but in reverse order and less closely tied together. “Peace” is mentioned similarly in the letter-closing of Galatians (Gal. 6:16);¹⁰⁵ more fully, the presence of “the God of peace” is the substance of the benedictions of Rom. 15:33 (cf. 16:20); Phil. 4:9; 1 Thess. 5:23,¹⁰⁶ of “the Lord of peace” in 2 Thess. 3:16, and of “the God of love and peace” in 2 Cor. 13:11.

“Love with faith” is love accompanied by faith. “Love” in a final blessing is not surprising, whether it be the love of God (as in 2 Cor. 13:14) or Paul’s own love (as in 1 Cor. 16:24). But what is the force of “faith”? Most probably its present collocation with love takes up the thanksgiving of Eph. 1:15, in which the apostle expresses his pleasure at news of the readers’ faith or fidelity as members of the Christian fellowship and their love shown to “all the saints.”¹⁰⁷ At the end of the letter he prays that these qualities may continue to characterize them. Such qualities would be their response to the peace and grace bestowed by God; like all the Christian virtues, they have their source in God—”God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ” (cf. Eph. 1:2).

24 “Grace be with you,” as in Col. 4:18, is Paul’s basic benediction at the end of a letter; it is generally expanded in various forms. Here it is cast in the third person (like “to the brothers” in v. 23).¹⁰⁸ “This,” says J. A. Robinson, “is in harmony with the circular nature of this epistle”—possibly so, but its circular nature has not inhibited the use of the second person in vv. 21-22.

The present expansion bespeaks grace on “all who love our Lord Jesus Christ.” This is a positive counterpart to the negative “if anyone has no love for the Lord” of 1 Cor. 16:22¹⁰⁹ (which perhaps takes up a word of eucharistic admonition).¹¹⁰ The construction of the last two words in the Greek text of the letter—”in immortality” or “with immortality”¹¹¹—is uncertain. Their position would suggest that they be taken as an adverbial phrase modifying the verb “love”: hence RSV “all who love our Lord Jesus Christ with love undying” (similarly ASV, NAB, NIV, GNB).¹¹² The KJV took the Greek word aphtharsia in a moral sense, translating “. . . that love our Lord Jesus Christ in sincerity” (RV, with excessive literalness, “in uncorruptness”). But J. A. Robinson found it impossible to “point to any passage in the writers of the second century” in which the word was “used of moral incorruptness, though . . . common enough in the usual sense of immortality.” He further considered that “the disposition of the sentence” was “fatal” to the rendering adopted above, in which the word is attached to “grace.”¹¹³ The justification for adopting this rendering lies mainly in the prevalence throughout this letter of the preposition “in” with a “comitative” sense, attaching the following word to one or more preceding words so as to complete a series.¹¹⁴ Cf. NEB (”God’s grace be with all who love our Lord Jesus Christ, grace and immortality”); Jerusalem Bible (“May grace and eternal life be with all who love our Lord Jesus Christ”).

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