The Expositor's Bible: The Epistle to the EphesiansFindlay, George G. (George Gillanders)
Religion
The Expositor's Bible: The Epistle to the Ephesians
Findlay, George G. (George Gillanders)
Bible. Ephesians -- Commentaries
They are found to be parts of a
consistent whole, sketches and studies of this fragment or of that
belonging to the consummate Person and the comprehensive plan manifest
in the revelation of Jesus Christ.
But while Christ gathers into Himself the accumulated wealth of former
revelation, His fulness is not measured thereby or exhausted. He solves
the problems of the past; He unseals the ancient mysteries. But He
creates new and deeper problems, some explained in the continued
teaching of His Spirit and His providence, others that remain, or emerge
from time to time to tax the faith and understanding of His Church.
There are the mysteries surrounding His own Person, with which the Greek
Church struggled long--His eternal Sonship, His pre-incarnate relation
to mankind and the creatures, the final outcome of the mediatorial reign
and its subordination to the absolute sovereignty of God. These depths
St Paul sounded with his plummet; but he found them unfathomable.
Theological science has explored and defined them, and illuminated them
on many sides, but cannot reach to their inmost mystery. Then there is
the problem of the atonement, with all the cognate difficulties touching
the origin of sin, its heredity and its personal guilt, touching the
adjustment of law and grace, the method of justification, the extent and
efficacy of Christ’s redeeming work, touching the future destiny and
eternal state of souls. Another class of questions largely occupies the
minds of thoughtful men to-day. They are studying the relation of Christ
and His Church to nature and the outward world, the bearings of
Christian truth upon social conditions, the working of the Spirit of God
in communities, and the place of man’s collective life in the progress
and upbuilding of the kingdom of Christ.
For such inquiries the Spirit of wisdom and revelation is given to those
who humbly seek His light. He is given afresh in every age. Out of
Christ’s unsearchable riches ever-new resources are forthcoming at His
Church’s need, new treasures lying hidden in the old for him who can
extract them. But His riches, however far they are investigated, remain
unsearchable, and inexhaustible however largely drawn upon. God’s ways
may be tracked further and further in each generation; they will remain
to the end, as they were to the mind of Paul at the limit of his bold
researches, “past finding out.” The inspired apostle confesses himself a
child in Divine learning: “We know in part,” he says, “we prophesy in
part.” Oh the depths of “hidden wisdom” unimagined now, that are in
store for us in Christ, “foreordained before the worlds unto our
glory!”
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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