WAS this Epistle sent by Paul to the Church of Ephesus? It was; and the words "in Ephesus" are so decisively attested (the evidence of the versions is unanimous for en Epheso), that they cannot be deprived of their right to a place in the text being decidedly genuine. The conjecture that it was a circular letter with the place of designation left blank, to be filled up when sent to various churches, seems to lack proof. Besides, the Apostle wrote the Epistle, and inscribed it to the Christians in Ephesus as a whole; not to a select body characterized by perseverance and fidelity. "To the saints that are at Ephesus, and to the faithful in 'Christ Jesus," is descriptive of the whole church of Ephesus. The Apostle uses the same method of address when writing to the church of Rome, " to all who are in Rome, beloved of God, called saints" (Rom. 1: 7). He does not write the word church, but we know he meant the church of Rome; so we may say, although he does not write the church in Ephesus, he intended nothing else in what he wrote in the opening of the Epistle to the Ephesians. It is a groundless notion that he could not address them as a church because " the church had been smashed to atoms." The church was there, and the churches, as established by the Apostles, were still there, and Ephesus was one of them; for the Lord, in sending an epistle to them by John, caused them to be addressed "the church in Ephesus." This tells us that the Lord could address them as a church if Paul could not! But he, too, wrote distinctly to the church " in Ephesus " and not to. Laodicea (as many would have it); nor is his Epistle a letter meant for general circulation among the churches of the district, a blank being left to fill in the name as copied and sent. It may have been so used with its Ephesian designation; and, no doubt, was meant for the profit of God's Church everywhere, and in all ages. But the conclusion that this Epistle was written to and directed to the Ephesians and no further church, in keeping with the genuine en Epheso, is the only critical procedure which rests upon a historical basis, and is in agreement with the primitive and universal tradition of the church.
It is an unsafe thing to found a doctrine upon the absence of a word. If we affirmed that there was no presbytery. in Ephesus because there is no mention of elders in the Epistle to the Ephesians, the cross light of Acts 20 would expose the unsatisfactory character of such reasoning; and to reason from the fact that the word church is not found in the inscription, that the Epistle was not addressed to the Church in Ephesus would be equally fallacious.
The church had not gone to pieces when Paul wrote to the Ephesians. Elements of evil-such as clerisy and sectism— that eventually ruined it were working, but were kept down by apostolic power as long as the Apostles lived. " After my decease," etc., the Apostle told the elders of Ephesus the ruin would come. Paul wrote his Epistle to the Philippians with their " bishops and deacons" after he wrote to Ephesus, and also his First and Second Epistles to Timothy. In chapter 3. of the First Epistle he instructs him how to behave himself in the church of God; and, as we have said, thirty years after this he testified the whole of the Apocalypse "in the churches." The, churches being there, the church was too. They needed warning, but they were still acknowledged as churches by Christ. It is therefore a gross mistake to say that the church was all smashed to atoms when Paul wrote to the Ephesians.