The Expositor's Bible: The Epistle to the Ephesians. George G. Findlay
tribute “to the praise of God’s glory.” We shall find, however, that this heritage assumes a twofold character, as did the conception of the inheritance of the Lord in the Old Testament. If the saints have their heritage in Christ, partly possessed and partly to be possessed, God has likewise, and antecedently, His inheritance in them, of which He too has still to take full possession.[47]
Opening upon this final prospect, St. Paul touches on a subject of supreme interest to himself and that could not fail to find a place in his great Act of Praise—viz., the admission of the Gentiles to the spiritual property of Israel. The thought of the heirship of believers and of God’s previous counsel respecting it (ver. 11), brought before his mind the distinction between Jew and Gentile and the part assigned to each in the Divine plan. Hence he varies the general refrain in verse 12 by saying significantly, “that we might be to the praise of His glory.” This emphatic we is explained in the opening phrase of the last strophe: “that have beforehand fixed our hope on the Christ,”—the heirs of Israel’s hope in “Him of whom Moses in the law and the prophets did write.” With this “we” of Paul’s Jewish consciousness the “ye also” of verse 13 is set in contrast by his vocation as Gentile apostle. This second pronoun, by one of Paul’s abrupt turns of thought, is deprived of its predicating verb; but that is given already by the “hoped” of the last clause. “The Messianic hope, Israel’s ancient heirloom, in its fulfilment is yours as much as ours.”
This hope of Israel pointed Israelite and Gentile believer alike to the completion of the Messianic era, when the mystery of God should be finished and His universe redeemed from the bondage of corruption (vv. 10, 14). By the “one hope” of the Christian calling the Church is now made one. From this point of view the apostle in chapter ii. 12 describes the condition in which the gospel found his Gentile readers as that of men cut off from Christ, strangers to the covenants of promise—in a word, “having no hope”; while he and his Jewish fellow-believers held the priority that belonged to those whose are the promises. The apostle stands precisely at the juncture where the wild shoot of nature is grafted into the good olive tree. A generation later no one would have thought of writing of “the Christ in whom you (Gentiles) also have found hope”; for then Christ was the established possession of the Gentile Church.
To these Christless heathen Christ and His hope came, when they “heard the word of truth, the gospel of their salvation.” A great light had sprung up for them that sat in darkness; the good tidings of salvation came to the lost and despairing. “To the Gentiles,” St. Paul declared, addressing the obstinate Jews of Rome, “this salvation of God was sent: they indeed will hear it” (Acts xxviii. 28). Such was his experience in Ephesus and all the Gentile cities. There were hearing ears and open hearts, souls longing for the word of truth and the message of hope. The trespass of Israel had become the riches of the world. For this on his readers’ behalf he gives joyful thanks—that his message proved to be “the gospel of your salvation.”
Salvation, as St. Paul understands it, includes our uttermost deliverance, the end of death itself (1 Cor. xv. 26). He renders praise to God for that He has sealed Gentile equally with Jewish believers with the stamp of His Spirit, which makes them His property and gives assurance of absolute redemption.
There are three things to be considered in this statement: the seal itself, the conditions upon which, and the purpose for which it is affixed.
I. A seal is a token of proprietorship put by the owner upon his property;[48] or it is the authentication of some statement or engagement, the official stamp that gives it validity;[49] or it is the pledge of inviolability guarding a treasure from profane or injurious hands.[50] There is the protecting seal, the ratifying seal, and the proprietary seal. The same seal may serve each or all of these purposes. Here the thought of possession predominates (comp. ver. 4); but it can scarcely be separated from the other two. The witness of the Holy Spirit marks men out as God’s purchased right in Christ (1 Cor. vi. 19, 20). In that very fact it guards them from evil and wrong (iv. 30), while it ratifies their Divine sonship (Gal. iv. 6) and guarantees their personal share in the promises of God (2 Cor. i. 20–22). It is a bond between God and men; a sign at once of what we are and shall be to God, and of what He is and will be to us. It secures, and it assures. It stamps us for God’s possession, and His kingdom and glory as our possession.
This seal is constituted by the Holy Spirit of the promise—in contrast with the material seal, “in the flesh, wrought by hand,”[51] which marked the children of the Old Covenant from Abraham downwards, previously to the fulfilment of the promise (Gal. iii. 14). We bear it in the inmost part of our nature, where we are nearest to God: “The Spirit witnesseth to our spirit.” “The Israelites also were sealed, but by circumcision, like cattle and irrational animals. We were sealed by the Spirit, as sons” (Chrysostom). The stamp of God is on the consciousness of His children. “We know that Christ abides in us,” writes St. John, “from the Spirit which He gave us” (1 Ep. iii. 24). Under this seal is conveyed the sum of blessing comprised in our salvation. Jesus promised, “Your heavenly Father will give His Holy Spirit to them that ask” (Luke xi. 13), as if there were nothing else to ask. Giving us this, God gives everything, gives us Himself! In substance or anticipation, this one bestowment contains all good things of God.
The apostle writes “the Spirit of the promise, the Holy [Spirit],” with emphasis on the word of quality; for the testifying power of the seal lies in its character. “Beloved, believe not every spirit; but try the spirits, whether they are of God” (1 John iv. 1). There are false prophets, deceiving and deceived; there are promptings from “the spirit that works in the sons of disobedience,” diabolical inspirations, so plausible and astonishing that they may deceive the very elect. It is a most perilous error to identify the supernatural with the Divine, to suppose mere miracles and communications from the invisible sphere a sign of the working of God. Antichrist can mimic Christ by his “lying wonders and deceit of unrighteousness” (2 Thess. ii. 8–12). Jesus never appealed to the power of His works in proof of His mission, apart from their ethical quality. God’s Spirit works after His kind, and makes ours a holy spirit. There is an objective and subjective witness—the obverse and reverse of the medal (2 Tim. ii. 19). To be sealed by the Holy Spirit is, in St. Paul’s dialect, the same thing as to be sanctified; only, the phrase of this text brings out graphically the promissory aspect of sanctification, its bearing on our final redemption.[52]
When the sealing Spirit is called the Spirit of promise, does the expression look backward or forward? Is the apostle thinking of the past promise now fulfilled, or of some promise still to be fulfilled? The former, undoubtedly, is true. The promise (the article is significant[53]) is, in the words of Christ, “the promise of the Father.” On the day of Pentecost St. Peter pointed to the descent of the Holy Spirit as God’s seal upon the Messiahship of Jesus, fulfilling what was promised to Israel for the last days. When this miraculous effusion was repeated in the household of Cornelius, the Jewish apostle saw its immense significance. He asked, “Can any one forbid water that these should be baptized, who have received the Holy Spirit as well as we?” (Acts x. 47). This was the predicted criterion of the Messianic times. Now it was given, and with an abundance beyond hope—poured out, in the full sense of Joel’s words, upon all flesh.
Now, if God has done so much—for this is the implied argument of verses 13, 14—He will surely accomplish the rest. The attainment of past hope is the warrant of present hope. He who gives us His own Spirit, will give us the fulness of eternal life. The earnest implies the sum. In the witness of the Holy Spirit there is for the Christian man the power of an endless life, a spring of courage and patience that can never fail.
II.