May dwell in your hearts; may intimately and continually possess and fill, not your heads only with his doctrine, but your affections with his Spirit: see John 14:23. Is the Lord in every facet of your life? That ye, being rooted and grounded in love: either he means: 1. κατοικῆσαι τὸν χριστόν—“That Christ may dwell.” The first point of inquiry is the connection of this infinitive with the previous sentence. Now, when we get a right view of God’s love, and that love comes into our hearts, what follows? It is said that God bears witness in us; but not a whit more than we bear witness to His presence. To the stability of the former a root is necessary, proportioned to the expansion of the branches; to the stability of the latter a foundation is necessary, corresponding to the magnitude of the superstructure. “It means simply to establish something firmly. ), We must have love to be the root and to be the ground. “Rooted and grounded in love”! The love in which the roots of faith strike down for nourishment is not human but Divine. Has not a sacred light shone, from time to time, upon the holy page, when it testified of Christ? These varying modes of expression find their solution in the doctrine of the Trinity. Think of it! The conditions of the advent. The first beginning of any sort of love is the desire for further knowledge. (A. Maclaren, D. D.). It is Christ dwelling by love in his heart--dwelling in his heart by faith. Christ dwells in us by faith, because it is by faith we perceive his presence, his excellence, and his glory, and because it is by faith we appropriate and reciprocate the manifestations of his love. (2) The blessings of the church, make a list, 1:3-14. вселиться верою Имеется в виду постоянное упование верующего на Христа, осуществляющего Свое господство над ним. III. We cannot escape the connection in this passage. Be truly Christ-like in your home and business relations, fulfilling the duties that rest upon you, as did those who went about Palestine of old preaching the gospel to the poor. And as you not only see it, but feel and mourn under it, it is "the light of life" which the Lord promised to those who follow him. That is, no intellection can ever follow the outgush of experience, and reproduce it in the form of ideas. you can’t fool me.” It detected the motion of the air when nothing else could. 3 Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places, 4 even as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before him. One man may today show the spirit of Christ in the disposition of his wealth; another man may do likewise in his poverty. Ex. 1. Most people consider fellowship with Christ, and believing in Christ, to be the same thing; but the fellowship which we have with Christ is the consequence of faith. We can apprehend them only by having in us moral qualities which correspond to them, and by having them as sensitive to the Divine presence as the thermometer is to the presence of heat, or as the barometer is to the pressure of the atmosphere, or to the presence of moisture in it. Our part is not to produce life, but to exercise trust. The storms of wind and rain have done it no harm! part., as they indicate the state which must be realised in connection with the indwelling of Christ before the ability for comprehending the love of Christ can be acquired. This is receiving Christ by faith; and if we continue so to receive Him, then He dwells in our hearts by faith--that is, by heart-sanctifying love. ‘Love at first sight’ is not to be compared with the love which is increased by fuller knowledge, for the latter has borne the sternest of tests and is proved true. (W. Arnot, D. D.). Ephesians 3:1. τούτου χάριν) for this cause. Whenever we feel dead and barren let us ask to be buried in Christ afresh, and straightway we shall glorify His name by bearing much fruit. You have the very same attitudes, views, and opinions that God has expressed in His word, and you do not argue, criticize, or complain about anything that the apostles wrote. (James Culross, D. D.). This is a foundation that cannot be shaken; and it is from this alone that the doctrine of redemption flows to man, and from this alone has the soul its form and comeliness. There are three ways by which Christ can be presented to us:--. And the idea that religion should be grounded on sentiment, and reserved for those who ‘have a genius for it,’ is utterly false. Two cognate conceptions--one borrowed from the processes of nature, and the other from human art--are employed to indicate at once the life, the growth, the strength, and the stability of a Christian’s hope. note, Ephesians 2:20-21; Colossians 1:23; Colossians 2:7). Ephesians 3:17. When God is truly influencing you, when His words are being allowed to "settle down" in our hearts the following happens: You think about God and His will all the time (Colossians 3:17). It does not mean that I will not have any sorrow. (3) The elements and characteristics of the new life, 4:25-32. A Syllepsis(49) precedes, which must thus be explained: that you may have Christ dwelling in you, being rooted, comp. Note here, 1. Or it may be taken as dependent on the , etc., expressing the contemplated result of the gift of strength (inf. This in opposition to Harless and Olshausen, who find this more precise definition only in the following ἐν ἀγ. on the Trinity, ch. By faith - Greek, 'through faith,' which opens the door of the heart to Jesus (Rev. (54)— ὑπερεκπερισσοῦ, exceedingly abundant) Construe with to do.— ὧν) The Genitive is governed by the comparative, which is contained in περισσοῦ.— ἢ νοοῦμεν, or think) Thought takes a wider range than prayers. And so the life will grow, not by effort only, but as by an inherent power drawing its nourishment from the soil. He points to that part in which Christ peculiarly dwells,in your hearts, — to show that it is not enough if the knowledge of Christ dwell on the tongue or flutter in the brain. Apathy towards the church or the will of God is another proof that Christ hasn"t been allowed to settle down in the life of a Christian. Can we dare let Him do that? What created understanding can know what is unknowable, or comprehend what is incomprehensible? (J. We refuse to let anger, bitterness, resentment, and envy rule or fester in our hearts (Ephesians 4:31-32). g.]— ὁ δέσμιος) The ambassador, and he too bound [a prisoner].— ὑπὲρ ὑμῶν, for you) The persecutors were incensed against Paul’s zeal in behalf of the Gentiles, so that they imprisoned him; and his very bonds were profitable to the Gentiles, Ephesians 3:13; 2 Timothy 2:10.— τῶν ἐθνῶν, for the Gentiles) This is explained in the following verses. Yes. That is the reception of Christ by the form of an actual experience; by such a cooperation of the reason with the imagination that we are able to bring the invisible person near to us, and so bountifully reproduce Him, and so beautifully set Him forth, that He becomes to us the “chiefest among ten thousand,” and the one “altogether lovely”; so that every sweet thing in us goes out to Him as every dewdrop in the sunshine evaporates and goes up towards the sun. Our bodies are actually the sanctuaries of God. In a word, faith is not a distant view, but a warm embrace, of Christ, by which he dwells in us, and we are filled with the Divine Spirit. “Settle down and abide. So, dear brethren, go to Christ like those two on the road to Emmaus; and as Fra Angelico has painted them on his convent wall, put out your hands and lay them on His, and say, “Abide with us. Faith is simply the condition of that indwelling of Christ (comp. A similar exegesis is maintained by Harless and Matthies, while Olshausen looks upon the clause as a subordinate definition of the phrase “to be strengthened.” He maintains that Paul could not pray that Christ would dwell in their hearts, for He already dwelt there. We certainly don"t see this sort of Christian living in many churches. By the heart. What is meant when we say that Christ dwells in the hearts of men? 2. Any of you who can consult the original for yourselves will see that the apostle here uses a compound word which conveys the idea of intensity and of continuity. Delitzsch, System der Bib. III. All dry and withered like a rod we are thrust into the sacred soil, and life comes to us at once, with bud and branch and speedy fruit. It is heaven upon earth that love should be the soil in which our obedience is rooted, and from which we draw all the nutriment that turns to flowers and fruit. How shall some poor occupant of some poor but by the wayside, fit it up for the abode of a prince? Кроме того, Павел указывает, каким способом достигается такое благо. The love of God is the essence of religion. The figures are taken respectively from a tree and a building; but the former word was frequently used to indicate ‘firmness at the base or foundation’ (Ellicott), without any further suggestion as to vital growth. Neither is this indwelling against our will. Ephesians 3:5.— ταῖς ἀρχαῖς καὶ ταῖς ἐξουσίαις, to the principalities and powers) good, or even bad; but in a different way to the one, as compared with the other.— διὰ, by) from those things which happen to the Church; for it (the Church) is the theatre in which the Divine works are displayed. As the is also without any or other defining gen., it appears to have its most general sense here, not “the love of God” or “the love of Christ” in particular, but love, the Christian principle or grace which is “the bond of perfectness” (Colossians 3:14). Ex. What a remarkable commendation is here bestowed on faith, that, by means of it, the Son of God becomes our own, and “makes his abode with us!” (John 14:23.) (4) The different things done in an intelligent Christian life, 5:3-17. The justice of God does not afford a soil on which the hope of sinners can thrive. A gradation.— κατὰ, according to) Paul appeals to their and his experience. You see, let Him have the run of the shop; let Him have the run of the life, that Christ may dwell down in our heart by faith. He prays that they may know the superlative love of Christ to a lost world is a transcendent love; that the knowledge of it may be attained in some measure, that it is our duty to seek after it, and search into it; but, after all, we can never fully comprehend it. Faith is to this spiritual communion, what esteem and affection are to the fellowships of domestic life. In Ephesians 3:19 the love is at length expressly mentioned; but in Ephesians 3:18 the fulness of God in itself; but this very fulness is also tinctured with love. The man who uses his wealth in a humble, lowly spirit--with the spirit of the loving Jesus; who makes it not merely the instrument of selfish aggrandizement and outward development--he feels that wealth is the gift of God. “Rooted”: “So that having your roots deep and your foundations strong in love” (Wey). May I add a little word in here. So may we be rooted and grounded in level (Newman Hall, LL. I. If we are to realise what St. Paul means when he speaks of us as a habitation of God through the Spirit, we may do well to consider what some of those things are which do daily fill our thoughts, and almost literally people our hearts. (48) The Scripture has regard chiefly to things internal. rhizoomai. by faith — Greek, “through faith,” which opens the door of the heart to Jesus (John 3:20). 1. One great difficulty in the way of our being Christians is that no one appears to imagine that we wish to be Christians. Ephesians 3:2. εἴγε ἠκούσατε, since(39) indeed ye have heard) The things which they had heard concerning Paul (comp. We are partakers of the Holy Spirit, in proportion to the intercourse which we maintain with Christ; for the Spirit will be found nowhere but in Christ, on whom he is said, on that account, to have rested; for he himself says, by the prophet Isaiah, “The Spirit of the Lord God is upon me.” (Isaiah 61:1; Luke 4:18.) “The love of Christ constraineth us; because we thus judge, that if one died for all, then were all dead: and that He died for all, that they which live should not henceforth live unto themselves, but unto Him which died for them and rose again.” Thus have I endeavoured to show what the nature of the principle is which the apostle prays for in behalf of the believing Ephesians--that it is a fervent, constant, intelligent, and enlightened attachment to the Lord Jesus, that Christ might dwell in their hearts. Take up His permanent abode, so that ye may be a habitation ( κατοικητήριον ) of God. As I sat there, when there was not a cloud moving, when there was not a ripple on the glassy surface of the river, when there was not a grain of dust lifted, when everything was still--dead still--right over against me was that aspen tree; and there was one little leaf quivering and dancing on it. In love. The fibre, then young and pliable, had sensitively turned as soon as it felt the obstacle, and grew for a little upward, as if retracing its steps. Again, a mere conventional or traditional acquiescence is not the kind of faith that is required, an acquiescence by which men are called Christians in the sense in which we are a Christian community. A creed is just like a philosopher’s telescope. The intercessor continues-. God becomes the object of a man’s affection when he enters into this text. But He wants to come in and glorify Himself in and through us. Maclaren, Christ in the Heart, pp. He fills it with the hope of glory (Colossians 1:27). Would Olshausen apply his criterion to the prayer contained in the 1st chapter, and affirm that the fact of such gifts being asked for implied the total want of them on the part of the Ephesian church? I am speaking in an age which runs strongly in the line of scepticism as to the existence of God. There remains, however, the question of the construction. 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