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THE KING’S BUSINESS
fullness of Christ dwells in fullness in each individual believer, but in the whole church, composed of all who have been members irf the past, all who are members now, and all who shall become members in the future, and that church in its completed state, when Christ has brought His work to com pletion7in her (cf. ch. 5:27), is a perfect revelation of Christ, all His fullness is therein displayed, as all the fullness of the Godhead is now displayed in Him. Christ Himself “filleth all in all.” i. e., He filleth all things in all members of His body. His presence is everywhere, pervading every thing. It is further true, though seemingly not the thought of this verse, that His presence and power pervades the universe (Matt. 28:18; Col. 1:16, R.'V .). This, of course, carries with it His omnipresence, and consequently His absolute Deity. Sunday, June 23 . •" Rph. 2 : 1 . Paul having spoken of the relation of Christ to the church, of the Head to the body, now proceeds to tell how we become members of that body. He begins with what we were before the grace of God in Christ laid hold of us and made us what we are. This statement of what the Ephe sians were before they were “quickened” (i. e., “made alive”), and which Paul imme diately proceeds to apply to himself and all others before their regeneration, is simply terrific, but the experience of each individ ual, and our observation of other men, shows that the Holy Spirit’s statement given here of what all men are by nature is absolutely true. It is not a pretty por trait, but it is an accurate portrait. When God met the Ephesians in His rich mercy and great love (v. 4) they were “dead in (or by) their trespasses and sins.” Such is the state of every member of the human race until God quickens him or makes him alive. While, of course, it will not do to force the word “dead,” it certainly implies absence of spiritual life and utter incapacity of ourselves to become living. Life must be imparted from without (v. 5; John 5:24; 1 John 3:14; 5:12). We cannot grow into life. The only growth
possible to the dead is the process of putre faction (cf. John 3:3; 6:53). It is evi dent that the '“death” which is the outcome of sin as applied to men in the New Tes tament does not mean non-existence, nor even non-conscious existence, but that wrong existence, because of the absence of moral and spiritual life, which ripens into eternal death, eternal wrong existence, eternal separation from God, shame and agony and despair (cf. 1 Tim. 5:6; Rev. 21:8). It is the exact opposite of “life,” which is not mere existence, bqt right exist ence, divine existence, (1 John 5:12; 1:2; John 17:3; 1 Tim. 6:12, 19, R. V.). This death is “by,” or “in respect of” “trespasses and sins” : trespasses and sins are the sphere in which death works and the evidence of the death. Two words, “trespasses” and “sins” are used in order to bring out that sin is present in many forms, in all kinds In the former times (i. e., in their unre generate years) the Ephesians had walked in trespasses and sins, i. e., trespasses and sins had been the road their feet had daily traveled. This walking in the road of tres passes and sins had been “according to the course (rather, age, since trespasses and sins are the characteristic tendency of this present time-period, the zeit-geist, or spirit of the times) of this world (or cosmos, the present order of things).” The present cosmos, or world-order, or organization of society, is one where sins and trespasses reign. We see this in all our social, com mercial, and political life. The Devil is the god of this age (cf. 2 Cor. 4:4; Marg.; 1 John 5:19). And now Paul goes on to still more darkly describe their walk: he says it was “according to the prince of the authority of the air,” i. e., the Devil, The Authorized Version and the English Revised Version render the words, “the prince of the power of the air.” The American Revision renders it, “the prince of the powers of the air,” but says in the margin, “Greek, power.” The truth is it is neither the one nor the other. In the of manifestations. Monday, June 24 . Eph. 2 : 2 .
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