Paul's method of action, in the case of the preaching at Ephesus, is stated in 1 Cor. 9:19-23. To the Jews he became as a Jew, in order that he might gain Jews: to those under law asunder law, that he might gain those who were under law: to those without law, as without law (not as without law to God, but as legitimately subject to Christ), in order to gain those without law: to the weak he became as weak, in order to gain the weak. To all he became all things, that at all events he might save some. And it is with these three classes of Jews the church deals here. The Jew in the synagogue, where Paul takes the place of a Jew, shaving his head. Apollos, still under law in its most searching form, gained for Christ, perhaps almost unconsciously to himself, by the unfolding of the way of God. Aquila and Priscilla, acting for Christ, taking a place, as it were, by his side; and, lastly, the twelve men who are disciples, in the place of utter weakness, Paul comes to them in their need, and delivers them for Christ; and so greatly is the power of God shown in the church, and that, though hunted and persecuted, there was neither evil nor transgression in her hand that fear fell upon all—Jews and Greeks—who inhabited Ephesus, and the name of the Lord Jesus was magnified. It is here the last recorded instance is met with of men owning the baptism of John; these are brought into the church, and the last link which might seem to have connected the earthly with the heavenly thing is finally snapped, and the testimony distinctly declared to the Jew which had been formally closed at Corinth, but which divine grace, lingering over them, had continued through Paul and Apollos at Ephesus, even through an apparently unjustifiable course, for Paul shaved his head, and Apollos at the time was not in the church, as to his own conscience and outward place, now ceases forever.
Paul, as we shall see, makes one more effort, at an apparently greater sacrifice of principle, without effect; but there is no further testimony of any kind to the Jews, except a witness of rejection and judgment. In conformity with this, it is at this period in the history of the church, namely, while Paul is at Corinth and Ephesus, that the Holy Spirit first brings to the work of building up the church that abiding and perfect instrument, “the written word.” The perfect revelation of the grace of God had been declared to the Jews during three successive periods; the first of these was during Saul's witness at Damascus and Jerusalem, that Jesus is Son of God. (Acts 9:21.) The Christ (Acts 9; 22); the Lord (Acts 9:29): the result being that the Hellenist Jews seek to kill him, and the Lord Jesus appears to him when praying in the temple, and says to him, he having become in ecstasy, “Make haste, and go quickly out of Jerusalem, for they will not receive thy testimony concerning me.” Coupled with this rejection of the Jew is the command,” Go, for I will send thee to the nations afar off.” Thus, at the outset, the casting out of the Jew, and the calling in of the Gentile, is distinctly set forth; though divine grace carries on the witness of fulfillment of promise and manifested love in the Son throughout the whole three periods. The result of the first witness clearly shows that the Jew and the church of God could not exist together on earth as the owned servant of God—that the one, when its measure had filled up, must give place to the other—that because of unbelief the Jew would be cut off, the vineyard taken from him, and given to others bringing forth the fruits thereof.
The epistles written by the hand of Paul at this time clearly bring out these truths, with the further revelation that though the Jew had fallen, and thereby salvation come to the nations, yet they should be gathered in and blessed again, to the great blessing of the world, that blindness, in part, had happened to Israel, until the fullness of the nations were come in. The Epistle to the Galatians deals, as its main subject, with the complete setting aside of Judaism, and everything connected with it—the law, the temple, the customs, and worship—the people and nation—just bringing in the new family, and showing its characteristics. Paul first exhibits himself as an example of what God was doing, for, having himself been foremost in Judaism, God had set him apart from the womb, called him by His grace, and was pleased to reveal His Son in him, that he might preach Him among the nations, and therefore it was impossible for him to go back to the old thing, since he had died to law, that he might live to God: he was crucified With Christ, and it was Christ that lived in him, and that in Christ all who believed in Him were delivered from the curse of the law, He having become a curse for them. In Him were brought into the possession of the promises a prior thing to the law, and are brought out of the place of bondage into the liberty of sons, and heirs through God.
Wherefore the bondmaid and her son, Hagar—the Jewish system—must be cast out, for the son of the bondmaid shall in nowise inherit with the son of the freewoman. The Epistles to the Thessalonians take up the next stage of truth regarding this new family, starting from the utter rejection of the old; wrath having come upon them to the uttermost, it shows the new thing to be wholly heavenly, with heavenly hopes only, to await God's Son from the heavens—the Lord Jesus—at His coming, and to be unblameable in holiness before our God and Father at the coming of our Lord Jesus with all His saints—the catching up together in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air—to be always with the Lord—to the obtaining of the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ. In the same epistles the opportunity is taken to show the perfected manifestation and final destruction of that spirit of wickedness which had caused the setting aside of the old thing. The Epistle to the Romans covers the same ground, showing that God is just in dealing with Jew and Gentile upon the same footing; the Jew, as such, having failed, was set aside, and a new blessing brought in, which all, Jew or Gentile, characterized by faith were partakers, in even an utterly new race, the Head and source of which is Christ, wholly spiritual in character, conduct, and condition, flesh being obliterated. (Rom. 9; 10:11:1-10), reveal the Jew, except a remnant, refusing to enter in, and consequently broken out, and cast away (Rom. 11:16-36), and the Gentile grafted in, and occupying their place of witness for God on earth (Rom. 11:25, 26, 11-15). But the Epistle proceeds a step further, showing that the Jew is again to be restored to his own place in superabundant blessing, and in the overwhelming grace of God the whole world to be blessed through him.
Thus the Epistles to the Gal. 1 and 2 Thessalonians, and Romans, clearly bring out what marked the first period of witness regarding Christ in the glory, namely, the casting out justly the Jew, as a Jew, the bringing of all who believe into a new thing—not yet fully shown—and then proceeding a step further to show the gathering back again into more than former blessing of the Jew, when the new thing had been perfected. The second period commences from Acts 18. The first period of witness regarding Christ in the glory dealt more with the rejection of the Jew as God's earthly witness; the second with the place and portion of the new thing—the body of Christ, the church—the truth regarding which is brought out principally in the Epistles to the Corinthians; the period commences with the sending forth of the gospel to the heathen Greeks of Macedonia and Achaia, but Paul uses the opportunity to announce it to the Jews wherever he can, the consequence being that, though some believe, yet the unbelieving Jews pursue him from city to city, until at Corinth he testifies to them in the Spirit, “Your blood be upon your own head; I am pure; from henceforth I will go to the nations.” At the commencement of Paul's first witness to the nations, he had said to the Jews, “Since ye thrust it from you, and judge yourselves unworthy of eternal life, so we turn to the Gentiles,” leaving still an opportunity for repentance; but now the case is hopeless, the master of the house has, as it were, risen up, and shut-to the door, and he declares that their blood is upon their own head. Here the setting aside of the Jew is complete, and consequently, in 1 and 2 Corinthians, where the truth is revealed connected with this second period of witness to Christ in the glory, the church, in its character, objects, and condition, is the prime subject; but in 1 Corinthians there is an undercurrent of Jewish reference through it all, and the second epistle brings clearly out the old thing, in order to contrast it with the new, showing the abiding nature of the one, and the temporary character of the other.
The opening of the first epistle strikingly sets faith the perfectly opposite character of the new thing. It is the assembly of God set apart in Christ Jesus—the Man in heaven. Born by a heavenly means—foolish to them that perish—of God in Christ, standing in the power of God, endowed with the Spirit of God, taught by Him the things of God, having the mind of the Lord Christ. Not only having thus a heavenly character, but heavenly objects—bound to observe a heavenly conduct—not mixing with fornicators, avaricious, or idolaters, though they be called brethren—being washed, sanctified, justified, in the name of the Lord Jesus, and by the Spirit of our God; as to the body, members of Christ, also one Spirit with the Lord. One loaf, one body, and that the Lord's body. Christ's body, and members in particular, having the same concern one for another; living in a condition of things in which love is the spring and course, the motive and guide.
Not only is the new thing, as a whole, thus heavenly, but each individual is heavenly, even as to his body which is down here for a time, and that after the nature of Christ's body, who died and rose again, through His Spirit that dwelleth in it, waiting to bear the image of the heavenly One, immortal, incorruptible. The second epistle brings out the further truth regarding this heavenly thing, the new creation, that in it God establishes us in Christ, has anointed us, has sealed us, and given the earnest of the Spirit in our hearts; and where He is there is life, abiding glory, and liberty, the ministry of the letter to the old thing bringing darkness, bondage, and death.
In 1 Cor. 15:20-28, in a parenthesis, is given the condition of the old man, consequent upon its connection with Adam, its fountainhead, and the portion of the new in Christ, who is the firstfruits of those in Him. Death marks the one, life out of it the other: the one pledged in the resurrection of Christ, and proved at His coming to reign on earth; the other continuing so marked until the end, when He gives up the kingdom to Him who is God and Father, having put all enemies under His feet. Then shall death itself be brought to nothing. There is here a hint of an earthly kingdom in judgment and power, during the interval between His coming in His kingdom, and giving up the kingdom. Thus reigning in two circles of power over the heavenly thing, of which He is the firstfruits now, where all is characterized by life and righteousness, and also in an earthly kingdom, characterized by power and judgment, and where death is found. But death appears to have now power over those who are Christ's, yet, as even the first of the race became a living soul, the last a quickening Spirit, thus all His, having borne the image of the natural out of earth, shall as surely bear also the image of the spiritual and heavenly One, the second Man. Besides, not all shall have part in the completed result of having borne the image of the one made of dust, since in the heavenly One law does not apply, consequently death is powerless as to its sting, and only waits to be swallowed up in a victory already achieved.
Therefore the second epistle begins with a life down here in the power of resurrection, the earnest of the Spirit being already possessed, which gives the confidence of being the work of God for the building from Him, the house eternal in the heavens. From this place of glory and blessing follow the solemn, weighty, holy exhortations to be agreeable to Him, He having done away, in its entireness, with the old thing, giving His Son to take it up as a whole, developed to perfection, and to obliterate it, bringing us reconciled to God, and in Himself God's righteousness. “Wherefore, as walkers down here, we must come out of the midst of, be separated from, touch not, the unclean thing.
The third period of witness to Christ in the glory is at Ephesus, where the Jew is shown out in all the malice and impotency of fleshly religion, in the presence of the full manifestation of all grace and power in the church, so that wicked spirits, which are cast out by means of handkerchiefs brought from Paul's body, leap upon Jewish exorcists when attempting to wield the same power, and overcome them.
The first period coincides with Saul's preaching at Damascus and Jerusalem, where the Lord says, “Make haste, and go quickly out of Jerusalem, for they will not receive thy testimony concerning me.....Go, for I will send thee to the nations afar off;” and deals principally with the total setting aside of the old thing, the earthly religious—system—and bringing in both Jew and Gentile into a new thing, a heavenly, upon an altogether different principle, truth developed in Galatians, Thessalonians, and Romans, which show what the death of Christ is to the believer.
The second period dates from Corinth, where Paul witnesses to the opposing, injurious Jews, “Your blood be upon your own head; I am pure; from henceforth I will go to the nations.” And the Lord says to him by vision in the night, “Fear not, but speak, and be not silent, because I am with thee, and no one shall set upon thee to injure thee; because I have much people in this city.” The truth characterizing this period is brought out in the Epistles to the Corinthians, and is occupied chiefly with the order and establishment of the new thing, its position and abiding character, contrasted with the temporary and inferior nature of that which it superseded, and dealing with the resurrection of Christ and its results to the believer.
The third period centers at Ephesus, where the Jew, having been given over judicially, is only introduced to show his utter impotence for good, and the rotten state of the religious system he belonged to, the revelation proper to this period deals, therefore, exclusively with the church, as seen in its ascended Head, showing the glory of Christ in the heavens, and the church in Him, and is communicated in the Epistles to the Ephesians, Colossians, and Philippians. Thus we find in Acts 19 intimations that the Jewish system, as such, is finally deprived of all spiritual power and blessing, and given over unto the power of the spirit of evil. The church, on the contrary, from this time takes a distinct standing, existing not as by sufferance, but upon proof of superior power and authority, commanding the allegiance of all who owned the truth of God, and looked for the Messiah of Israel. The Epistle to the Ephesians reveals the sanctified in Christ in the heavenlies in Him, blessing God who had thus blessed; chosen before the world's foundation, marked out beforehand, taken into favor in the Beloved in whom all things are to be headed up (the things in the heavens and the things upon the earth), having obtained inheritance in Him, being sealed thereto by the Holy Spirit, which is the earnest. The aim of the Holy Spirit is therefore to open their eyes to the things amidst which they are set, and that they might have the spirit of wisdom and revelation in the full knowledge of Him in whom they became partakers in the calling, the glory, and the power which had wrought in the Christ, in raising Him from among the dead, and setting Him down at God's right hand in the heavenlies, above every principality, and authority, and power, and dominion, and every name named, and that as head over all things to the assembly, which is His body, the fullness of Him who fills all in all; the members of which, Jew and Gentile, having been alike dead in trespasses and sins, sons of disobedience, children of wrath, are now created of God in Christ Jesus unto good works, formed in Him into one new man, reconciled to God by the cross—a thing hitherto hid, but now revealed and accomplished for God's glory. And this body—the body of Christ on earth—is perfected, and ministered to, and built up by means of gift direct from its Head in heaven, in order that it may arrive at the full-grown man, the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ, holding the truth in love, and growing up to Him in all things, from whom the whole body builds itself up in love.
(To be continued)