THE KING’S BUSINESS
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in detail the various ranks of celestial beings, Paul, lest any be left out, adds : “and every name that is named, not only in this age, but’ also in that which is to come” (cf. Phil. 2:9). By “this age” Paul refers to the present age, a period which is to be succeeded in due time by another age, at the coming of our Lord Jesus. Saturday, June 22 . Eph. 1 : 22 , 23 . God not only exalted Jesus far above all principality, and power, etc., above all the ranks of supernatural beings, but further more He also “put all things in subjection under His feet.” It is not yet made mani fest that they are all under His feet (1 Cor. 15:24, 25, 27), but'it is really done, though the outward manifestation of it may lie some ways still in the future (John 5:22; Acts 17:31; Matt. 28:18). There is some thing further yet that God did for Christ, He “gave Him (the “Him” is very emphatic in the Greek) to be Head over all things to the Church.” The thought of the word “Head” has in it not only the thought of exaltation and supreme government, but also of vital union, and source of power and action. Christ is to the church what our heads are to the body—the center of thought, decision, government, power, action—just as our heads are in vital union with our bodies and send forth life into every part of the body and direct its whole activity, so Christ is in vital union with His body, the church, and sends forth life in every most insignificant member of it and directs its whole activity (cf. Col. 1:18; 2:10, 19; Eph. 4:15, 16; 5:23). By “the church” is meant the real church, com posed of all those called out of this present evil world into living union with Christ as their Head, and composed of them alone. This real church is the body of Christ in vital union with Him, governed by Him, and through it Christ works and carries out His plans, just as our heads carry out their purposes through our bodies in their various parts. More than that the church is “the fullness of” Christ (cf. Col. 2:9), and the fullness of Christ dwells in the church. This is not to say that all the
Bible here and elsewhere. But some one will ask, how can He? if God be spirit and is everywhere? The answer is plain, while God is Spirit and is omnipresent, God manifests Himself in one place with a fullness that He does not elsewhere, and that is where God peculiarly is, and it is there that Jesus now is, and it is thither that He will some day take us (John 14:2, 3; Rev. 3:21). “Over yonder” means more to the intelligent believer even than it does to the mother or the wife or the sweetheart who today has a loved one “over yonder” in France. Friday, June 21 . Eph. 1 : 21 . Verses 21-23 give us details about the exaltation of Jesus to which Paul has made reference in verse 20. The Holy Spirit here tells us that God has given our Lord Jesus a place “far above all principality, and authority, and power, and dominion (literally, lordship), and every name that is named, not only in this world (rather, age), but also in that which is to come.” The Revised Version is not consistent with itself in its translation' of the Greek words used in verse 21 and the same words used in ch. 6:12, and we have rendered the word which the révisers rendered by “rule” by “principality,” as in the Authorized Ver sion, because this is the rendering which the Revised Version gives to the same Greek word when used in Eph- 6:12 in a similar connecton. These words, “prin cipality,” “authority,” “power,” “lordship,” refer to different orders of angelic or super natural potentates (cf. ch. 3 :10; Col. 1:16; Peter 3:22). There are also orders of potentates among the fallen angels (ch. 6:12; Cok 2:15; Rom. 8:38, 39). But God has exalted Jesus Christ above all these “mighty kingdoms angelical” (cf. 1 Peter 3:22; Rev. 5:11, 12, 13). We have a Saviour who is exalted to a heighth of glory far abov.e all pur power of compre hension, and what God has done in thus exalting Him is a sample of His power to "«¿ward” (v- 19). The angelic hierarchies were originally created in Him, i. e., in Christ (Col. 1 :16, R. V.). Having recounted
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