Chrysostom’s Homily on Ephesians 5:15-5:21

November 10, 2009 By admin Leave a Comment

“Look then carefully how ye walk, not as unwise, but as wise; redeeming the time, because the days are evil. Wherefore be ye not foolish, but understand what the will of the Lord is.”

He is still cleansing away the root of bitterness, still cutting off the very groundwork of anger. For what is he saying? “Look carefully how ye walk.” “They are sheep in the midst of wolves,” and he charges them to be also “as doves.” For “ye shall be harmless,” saith he, “as doves.” (Matt. x. 16.) Forasmuch then as they were both amongst wolves, and were besides commanded not to defend themselves, but to suffer evil, they needed this admonition. Not indeed but that the former was sufficient to render them stronger; but now that there is besides the addition of the two, reflect how exceedingly it is heightened. Observe then here also, how carefully he secures them, by saying, “Look how ye walk.” Whole cities were at war with them; yea, this war made its way also into houses. They were divided, father against son, and son against father, mother against daughter, and daughter against mother. What then? Whence these divisions? They heard Christ say, “He that loveth father or mother more than me, is not worthy of me.” (Matt. x. 37.) Lest therefore they should think that he was without reason introducing wars and fightings, (since there was likely to be much anger produced, if they on their part were to retaliate,) to prevent this, he says, “See carefully how ye walk.” That is to say, “Except the Gospel message, give no other handle on any score whatever, for the hatred which you will incur.” Let this be the only ground of hatred. Let no one have any other charge to make against you; but show all deference and obedience, whenever it does no harm to the message, whenever it does not stand in the way of godliness. For it is said, “Render to all their dues, tribute to whom tribute, custom to whom custom.” (Rom. xiii. 7.) For when amongst the rest of the world they shall see us forbearing, they will be put to shame.

“Not as unwise, but as wise, redeeming the time.”

It is not from any wish that you should be artful, and versatile, that he gives this advice. But what he means is this. The time is not yours. At present ye are strangers, and sojourners, and foreigners, and aliens; seek not honors, seek not glory, seek not authority, nor revenge; bear all things, and in this way, “redeem the time”; give up many things, anything they may require. Imagine now, I say, a man had a magnificent house, and persons were to make their way in, on purpose to murder him, and he were to give a large sum, and thus to rescue himself. Then we should say, he has redeemed himself. So also hast thou a large house, and a true faith in thy keeping. They will come to take all away. Give whatever they may demand, only preserve the principal thing, I mean the faith.

“Because the days,” saith he, “are evil.”

What is the evil of the day? The evil of the day ought to belong to the day. What is the evil of a body? Disease. And what again the evil of the soul? Wickedness. What is the evil of water? Bitterness. And the evil of each particular thing, is with reference to that nature of it which is affected by the evil. If then there is an evil in the day, it ought to belong to the day, to the hours, to the day-light. So also Christ saith, “Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof.” (Matt. vi. 34.) And from this expression we shall understand the other. In what sense then does he call “the days evil”? In what sense the “time” evil? It is not the essence of the thing, not the things as so created, but it is the things transacted in them. In the same way as we are in the habit of saying, “I have passed a disagreeable and wretched day.” And yet how could it be disagreeable, except from the circumstances which took place in it? Now the events which take place in it are, good things from God, but evil things from bad men. So then of the evils which happen in the times, men are the creators, and hence it is that the times are said to be evil. And thus we also call the times evil.

Ver. 17, 18. “Wherefore,” he adds, “be ye not foolish, but understand what the will of the Lord is; and be not drunk with wine, wherein is riot.”

For indeed intemperance in this renders men passionate and violent, and hot-headed, and irritable and savage. Wine has been given us for cheerfulness, not for drunkenness. Whereas now it appears to be an unmanly and contemptible thing for a man not to get drunk. And what sort of hope then is there of salvation? What? contemptible, tell me, not to get drunk, where to get drunk ought of all things in the world to be most contemptible? For it is of all things right for even a private individual to keep himself far from drunkenness; but how much more so for a soldier, a man who lives amongst swords, and bloodshed, and slaughter: much more, I say, for the soldier, when his temper is sharpened by other causes also, by power, by authority, by being constantly in the midst of stratagems and battles. Wouldest thou know where wine is good? Hear what the Scripture saith, “Give strong drink unto him that is ready to perish, and wine unto the bitter in soul.” (Prov. xxxi. 6.) And justly, because it can mitigate asperity and gloominess, and drive away clouds from the brow. “Wine maketh glad the heart of man” (Ps. civ. 15.), says the Psalmist. How then does wine produce drunkenness? For it cannot be that one and the same thing should work opposite effects. Drunkenness then surely does not arise from wine, but from intemperance. Wine is bestowed upon us for no other purpose than for bodily health; but this purpose also is thwarted by immoderate use. But hear moreover what our blessed Apostle writes and says to Timothy, “Use a little wine for thy stomach’s sake, and thine often infirmities.”

This is the reason why God has formed our bodies in moderate proportions, and so as to be satisfied with a little, from thence at once instructing us that He has made us adapted to another life. And that life He would fain have bestowed upon us even from the very beginning; but since we rendered ourselves unworthy of it, He deferred it; and in the time during which He deferred it, not even in that does He allow us immoderate indulgence; for a little cup of wine and a single loaf is enough to satisfy a man’s hunger. And man the lord of all the brute creation has He formed so as to require less food in proportion than they, and his body small; thereby declaring to us nothing else than this, that we are hastening onward to another life. “Be not drunk,” says he, “with wine, wherein is riot”; for it does not save but it destroys; and that, not the body only, but the soul also.

Ver. 18, 19, 20, 21. “But be filled with the Spirit; speaking one to another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody with your heart to the Lord; giving thanks always for all things in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ to God even the Father; subjecting yourselves one to another in the fear of Christ.”

Dost thou wish, he says, to be cheerful, dost thou wish to employ the day? I give thee spiritual drink; for drunkenness even cuts off the articulate sound of our tongue; it makes us lisp and stammer, and distorts the eyes, and the whole frame together. Learn to sing psalms, and thou shalt see the delightfulness of the employment. For they who sing psalms are filled with the Holy Spirit, as they who sing satanic songs are filled with an unclean spirit.

What is meant by “with your hearts to the Lord”? It means, with close attention and understanding. For they who do not attend closely, merely sing, uttering the words, whilst their heart is roaming elsewhere.

“Always,” he says, “giving thanks for all things in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ unto God even the Father, subjecting yourselves one to another in the fear of Christ.”

That is, “let your requests be made known unto God, with thanksgiving” (Philip. iv. 6.); for there is nothing so pleasing to God, as for a man to be thankful. But we shall be best able to give thanks unto God, by withdrawing our souls from the things before mentioned, and by thoroughly cleansing them by the means he has told us.

“But be filled,” says he, “with the Spirit.”

And is then this Spirit within us? Yes, indeed, within us. For when we have driven away lying, and bitterness, and fornication, and uncleanness, and covetousness, from our souls, when we are become kind, tender-hearted, forgiving one another, when there is no jesting, when we have rendered ourselves worthy of it, what is there to hinder the Holy Spirit from coming and lighting upon us? And not only will He come unto us, but He will fill our hearts; and when we have so great a light kindled within us, then will the way of virtue be no longer difficult to attain, but will be easy and simple.

“Giving thanks always,” he says, “for all things.”

What then? Are we to give thanks for everything that befalls us? Yes; be it even disease, be it even penury. For if a certain wise man gave this advice in the Old Testament, and said, “Whatsoever is brought upon thee take cheerfully, and be patient when thou art changed to a low estate” (Ecclus. ii. 4.); much more ought this to be the case in the New. Yes, even though thou know not the word, give thanks. For this is thanksgiving. But if thou give thanks when thou art in comfort and in affluence, in success and in prosperity, there is nothing great, nothing wonderful in that. What is required is, for a man to give thanks when he is in afflictions, in anguish, in discouragements. Utter no word in preference to this, “Lord, I thank thee.” And why do I speak of the afflictions of this world? It is our duty to give God thanks, even for hell itself, for the torments and punishments of the next world. For surely it is a thing beneficial to those who attend to it, when the dread of hell is laid like a bridle on our hearts. Let us therefore give thanks not only for blessings which we see, but also for those which we see not, and for those which we receive against our will. For many are the blessings He bestows upon us, without our desire, without our knowledge. And if ye believe me not, I will at once proceed to make the case clear to you. For consider, I pray, do not the impious and unbelieving Gentiles ascribe everything to the sun and to their idols? But what then? Doth He not bestow blessings even upon them? Is it not the work of His providence, that they both have life, and health, and children, and the like? And again they that are called Marcionites, and the Manichees, do they not even blaspheme Him? But what then? Does He not bestow blessings on them every day? Now if He bestows blessings on them that know them not, much more does he bestow them upon us. For what else is the peculiar work of God if it be not this, to do good to all mankind, alike by chastisements and by enjoyments? Let us not then give thanks only when we are in prosperity, for there is nothing great in this. And this the devil also well knows, and therefore he said, “Doth Job fear God for nought? Hast Thou not made an hedge about him and about all that he hath on every side? Touch all that he hath; no doubt, he will renounce Thee to Thy face!” (Job i. 10, 11.) However, that cursed one gained no advantage; and God forbid he should gain any advantage of us either; but whenever we are either in penury, or in sicknesses, or in disasters, then let us increase our thanksgiving; thanksgiving, I mean, not in words, nor in tongue, but in deeds and works, in mind and in heart. Let us give thanks unto Him with all our souls. For He loves us more than our parents; and wide as is the difference between evil and goodness, so great is the difference between the love of God and that of our fathers. And these are not my words, but those of Christ Himself Who loveth us. And hear what He Himself saith, “What man is there of you, who, if his son shall ask him for a loaf, will give him a stone? If ye then, being evil, know how to give good gifts unto your children, how much more shall your Father which is in Heaven give good things to them that ask Him?” (Matt. vii. 9, 11.) And again, bear what He saith also elsewhere: “Can a woman forget her sucking child that she should not have compassion on the son of her womb? Yea, they may forget, yet will not I forget thee, saith the Lord.” (Isa. xlix. 15.) For if He loveth us not, wherefore did He create us? Had He any necessity? Do we supply to Him any ministry and service? Needeth He anything that we can render? Hear what the Prophet says; “I have said unto the Lord, Thou art my Lord, I have no good beyond Thee.” (Ps. xvi. 2.)

The ungrateful, however, and unfeeling say, that this were worthy of God’s goodness, that there should be an equality amongst all. Tell me, ungrateful mortal, what sort of things are they which thou deniest to be of God’s goodness, and what equality meanest thou? “Such an one,” thou wilt say, “has been a cripple from his childhood; another is mad, and is possessed; another has arrived at extreme old age, and has spent his whole life in poverty; another in the most painful diseases: are these works of Providence? One man is deaf, another dumb, another poor, whilst another, impious, yea, utterly impious, and full of ten thousand vices, enjoys wealth, and keeps concubines, and parasites, and is owner of a splendid mansion, and lives an idle life.” And many instances of the sort they string together, and weave a long account of complaint against the providence of God.

What then are we to say to them? Now if they were Greeks, and were to tell us that the universe is governed by some one or other, we should in turn address to them the self-same words, “What then, are things without a providence? How then is it that ye reverence gods, and worship genii and heroes? For if there is a providence, some one or other superintends the whole.” But if any, whether Christians or Heathen, should be impatient at this, and be wavering, what shall we say to them? “Why, could so many good things, tell me, arise of themselves? The daily light? The beautiful order and the forethought that exist in all things? The mazy dances of the stars? The equable course of nights and days? The regular gradation of nature in vegetables, and animals, and men? Who, tell me, is it that ordereth these? If there were no superintending Being, but all things combined together of themselves, who then was it that made this vault revolve, so beautiful, so vast, I mean the sky, and set it upon the earth, nay more, upon the waters? Who is it that gives the fruitful seasons? Who implanted so great power in seeds and vegetables? For that which is accidental is necessarily disorderly; whereas that which is orderly implies design. For which, tell me, of the things around us that are accidental, is not full of great disorder, and of great tumult and confusion? Nor do I speak of things accidental only, but of those also which imply some agent, but an unskillful agent. For example, let there be timber and stone, and let there be lime withal; and let a man unskilled in building take them, and begin building, and set hard to work; will he not spoil and destroy everything? Again, take a vessel without a pilot, containing everything which a vessel ought to contain, without a shipwright; I do not say that it is unequipped and unfinished, but though well equipped, it will not be able to sail. And could the vast extent of earth standing on the waters, tell me, ever stand so firmly, and so long a time, without some power to hold it together? And can these views have any reason? Is it not the extreme of absurdity to conceive such a notion? And if the earth supports the heaven, behold another burden still; but if the heaven also is borne upon the waters, there arises again another question. Or rather not another question, for it is the work of providence. For things which are borne upon the water ought not to be made convex, but concave. Wherefore? Because the whole body of anything which is concave is immersed in the waters, as is the case with a ship; whereas of the convex the body is entirely above, and only the rim rests upon the surface; so that it requires a resisting body, hard, and able to sustain it, in order to bear the burden imposed. But does the atmosphere then support the heaven? Why, that is far softer, and more yielding even than water, and cannot sustain anything, no, not the very lightest things, much less so vast a bulk. In fine, if we chose to follow out the argument of providence, both generally and in detail, time itself would fail us. For I will now ask him who would start those questions above mentioned, are these things the result of providence, or of the want of providence? And if he shall say, that they are not from providence, then again I will ask, how then did they arise? But no, he will never be able to give any account at all. And dost thou not know that?

Much more then is it thy duty not to question, not to be over curious, in those things which concern man. And why not? Because man is nobler than all these, and these were made for his sake, not he for their sake. If then thou knowest not so much as the skill and contrivance that are visible in His providence, how shalt thou be able to know the reasons, where he himself is the subject? Tell me, I pray, why did God form him so small, so far below the height of heaven, as that he should even doubt of the things which appear above him? Why are the northern and southern climes uninhabitable? Tell me, I say, why is the night made longer in winter and shorter in summer? Why are the degrees of cold and heat such as they are? Why is the body mortal? And ten thousand questions besides I will ask thee, and if thou wilt, will never cease asking. And in one and all thou wilt surely be at a loss to answer. And thus is this of all things most providential, that the reasons of things are kept secret from us. For surely, one would have imagined man to be the cause of all things, were there not this to humble our understanding.

“But such an one,” you will say, “is poor, and poverty is an evil. And what is it to be sick, and what is it to be crippled?” Oh, man, they are nothing. One thing alone is evil, that is to sin; this is the only thing we ought to search to the bottom. And yet we omit to search into the causes of what are really evils, and busy ourselves about other things. Why is it that not one of us ever examines why he has sinned? To sin,—is it then in my power, or is it not in my power? And why need I go round about me for a number of reasons? I will seek for the matter within myself. Now then did I ever master my wrath? Did I ever master my anger, either through shame, or through fear of man? Then whenever I discover this done, I shall discover that to sin is in my own power. No one examines these matters, no one busies himself about them. But only according to Job, “Man in a way altogether different swims upon words.” For why does it concern thee, if such an one is blind, or such an one poor? God hath not commanded thee to look to this, but to what thou thyself art doing. For if on the one hand thou doubtest that there is any power superintending the world, thou art of all men the most senseless; but if thou art persuaded of this, why doubt that it is our duty to please God?

“Giving thanks always,” he says, “for all things to God.”

Go to the physician’s, and thou wilt see him, whenever a man is discovered to have a wound, using the knife and the cautery. But no, in thy case, I say not so much as this; but go to the carpenter’s. And yet thou dost not examine his reasons, although thou understandest not one of the things which are done there, and many things will appear to thee to be difficulties; as, for instance, when he hollows the wood, when he alters its outward shape. Nay, I would bring thee to a more intelligible craft still, for instance, that of the painter, and there thy head will swim. For tell me, does he not seem to be doing what he does, at random? For what do his lines mean, and the turns and bends of the lines? But when he puts on the colors, then the beauty of the art will become conspicuous. Yet still, not even then wilt thou be able to attain to any accurate understanding of it. But why do I speak of carpenters, and painters, our fellow-servants? Tell me, how does the bee frame her comb, and then shalt thou speak about God also. Master the handiwork of the ant, the spider, and the swallow, and then shalt thou speak about God also. Tell me these things. But no, thou never canst. Wilt thou not cease then, O man, thy vain enquiries? For vain indeed they are. Wilt thou not cease busying thyself in vain about many things? Nothing so wise as this ignorance, where they that profess they know nothing are wisest of all, and they that spend overmuch labor on these questions, the most foolish of all. So that to profess knowledge is not everywhere a sign of wisdom, but sometimes of folly also. For tell me, suppose there were two men, and one of them should profess to stretch out his lines, and to measure the expanse that intervenes between the earth and heaven, and the other were to laugh at him, and declare that he did not understand it, tell me, I pray, which should we laugh at, him that said he knew, or him that knew not? Evidently, the man that said that he knew. He that is ignorant, therefore, is wiser than he that professes to know.And what again? If any one were to profess to tell us how many cups of water the sea contains, and another should profess his ignorance, is not the ignorance here again wiser than the knowledge? Surely, vastly so. And why so? Because that knowledge itself is but intense ignorance. For he indeed who says that he is ignorant, knows something. And what is that? That it is incomprehensible to man. Yes, and this is no small portion of knowledge. Whereas he that says he knows, he of all others knows not what he says he knows, and is for this very reason utterly ridiculous.

Moral. Alas! how many things are there to teach us to bridle this unseasonable impertinence and idle curiosity; and yet we refrain not, but are curious about the lives of others; as, why one is a cripple, and why another is poor. And so by this way of reasoning we shall fall into another sort of trifling which is endless, as, why such an one is a woman? and, why all are not men? why there is such a thing as an ass? why an ox? why a dog? why a wolf? why a stone? why wood? and thus the argument will run out to an interminable length. This in truth is the reason, why God has marked out limits to our knowledge, and has laid them deep in nature. And mark, now, the excess of this busy curiosity. For though we look up to so great a height as from earth to heaven, and are not at all affected by it; yet as soon as ever we go up to the top of a lofty tower, and have a mind to stoop over a little, and look down, a sort of giddiness and dizziness immediately seizes us. Now, tell me the reason of this. No, thou couldest never find out a reason for it. Why is it that the eye possesses greater power than other senses, and is caught by more distant objects? And one might see it by comparison with the case of hearing. For no one will ever be able to shout so loudly, as to fill the air as far as the eye can reach, nor to hear at so great a distance. Why are not all the members of equal honor? Why have not all received one function and one place? Paul also searched into these questions; or rather he did not search into them, for he was wise; but where he comes by chance upon this topic, he says, “Each one of them, hath God set even as it hath pleased Him.” (1 Cor. xii. 18.) He assigns the whole to His will. And so then let us only “give thanks for all things.” “Wherefore,” says he, “give thanks for all things.” This is the part of a well-disposed, of a wise, of an intelligent servant; the opposite is that of a tattler, and an idler, and a busy-body. Do we not see amongst servants, that those among them who are worthless and good for nothing, are both tattlers, and triflers and that they pry into the concerns of their masters, which they are desirous to conceal: whereas the intelligent and well-disposed look to one thing only, how they may fulfill their service. He that says much, does nothing: as he that does much, never says a word out of season. Hence Paul said, where he wrote concerning widows, “And they learn not only to be idle, but tattlers also.” (1 Tim. v. 13.) Tell me, now, which is the widest difference, between our age and that of children, or between God and men? between ourselves compared with gnats, or God compared with us? Plainly between God and us. Why then dost thou busy thyself to such an extent in all these questions? “Give thanks for all things.” “But what,” say you, “if a heathen should ask the question? How am I to answer him? He desires to learn from me whether there is a Providence, for he himself denies that there is any being thus exercising foresight.” Turn round then, and ask him the same question thyself. He will deny therefore that there is a Providence. Yet that there is a Providence, is plain from what thou hast said; but that it is incomprehensible, is plain from those things whereof we cannot discover the reason. For if in things where men are the disposers, we oftentimes do not understand the method of the disposition, and in truth many of them appear to us inconsistent, and yet at the same time we acquiesce, how much more will this be so in the case of God? However, with God nothing either is inconsistent, or appears so to the faithful. Wherefore let us “give thanks for all things,” let us give Him glory for all things.

“Subjecting yourselves one to another,” he says, “in the fear of Christ.” For if thou submit thyself for a ruler’s sake, or for money’s sake, or from respectfulness, much more from the fear of Christ. Let there be an interchange of service and submission. For then will there be no such thing as slavish service. Let not one sit down in the rank of a freeman, and the other in the rank of a slave; rather it were better that both masters and slaves be servants to one another;—far better to be a slave in this way than free in any other; as will be evident from hence. Suppose the case of a man who should have an hundred slaves, and he should in no way serve them; and suppose again a different case, of an hundred friends, all waiting upon one another. Which will lead the happier life? Which with the greater pleasure, with the more enjoyment? In the one case there is no anger, no provocation, no wrath, nor anything else of the kind whatever; in the other all is fear and apprehension. In the one case too the whole is forced, in the other is of free choice. In the one case they serve one another because they are forced to do so, in the other with mutual gratification. Thus does God will it to be; for this He washed His disciples’ feet. Nay more, if thou hast a mind to examine the matter nicely, there is indeed on the part of masters a return of service. For what if pride suffer not that return of service to appear? Yet if the slave on the one hand render his bodily service, and thou maintain that body, and supply it with food and clothing and shoes, this is an exchange of service: because unless thou render thy service as well, neither will he render his, but will be free, and no law will compel him to do it if he is not supported. If this then is the case with servants, where is the absurdity, if it should also become the case with free men. “Subjecting yourselves in the fear,” saith he, “of Christ.” How great then the obligation, when we shall also have a reward. But he does not choose to submit himself to thee? However do thou submit thyself; not simply yield, but submit thyself. Entertain this feeling towards all, as if all were thy masters. For thus shalt thou soon have all as thy slaves, enslaved to thee with the most abject slavery. For thou wilt then more surely make them thine, when without receiving anything of theirs, thou of thyself renderest them of thine own. This is “subjecting yourselves one to another in the fear of Christ,” in order that we may subdue all the passions, be servants of God, and preserve the love we owe to one another. And then shall we be able also to be counted worthy of the lovingkindness which cometh of God, through the grace and mercies of His only-begotten Son, with whom to the Father, together with the Holy Ghost, be glory, might, honor, now and forever and ever. Amen.

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Be Filled with the Spirit

May 10, 2009 By admin Leave a Comment

by John Piper – Listen

Ephesians 5:18

And do not get drunk with wine, for that is debauchery, but be filled with the Spirit.

The apostle Paul commands in Ephesians 5:18 that we be filled with the Spirit. Therefore, I want to try to answer two questions today. What does it mean to be filled with the Spirit? And, how can we be filled with the Spirit? I think it might help you follow me if I tell you at the outset where I am going. So I’ll start with my conclusions and then give the biblical support. I think being filled with the Spirit means, basically, having great joy in God. And since the Bible teaches that “the joy of the Lord is our strength” (Nehemiah 8:10), it also means there will be power in this joy for overcoming besetting sins and for boldness in witness. But, basically, it means radiant joy, because the Spirit who fills us is the Spirit of joy that flows between God the Father and God the Son because of the delight they have in each other. Therefore, to be filled with the Spirit means to be caught into the joy that flows among the Holy Trinity and to love God the Father and God the Son with the very love with which they love each other. And then, in answer to the second question, the way to be filled with the Spirit is by trusting that the God of hope really reigns—that not a sparrow falls to the ground apart from his will (Matthew 10:29)—and that he runs the world for you and for all who trust his word. In believing that, you will be filled with the Holy Spirit and with joy.

With the spread of Pentecostalism in this country and in the third world, there has been a lot of discussion about the New Testament phrases “filled with the Spirit” and “baptized with the Spirit.” I feel some obligation, therefore, today not merely to interpret Ephesians 5:18 in its immediate context, but also to orient what I say in the wider New Testament teaching.

What Does “Baptize in the Holy Spirit” Mean?

The phrase “baptize in (or with) the Holy Spirit” was apparently coined by John the Baptist. All four of our gospels record that he said, “I have baptized you with water, but he (i.e., Jesus) will baptize you with the Holy Spirit” (Matthew 3:11; Mark 1:8; Luke 3:16; John 1:33). The only two writers in the New Testament who refer elsewhere to the phrase “baptize with the Spirit” are Luke in the book of Acts, and Paul in 1 Corinthians. Luke refers to it twice, quoting John each time (Acts 1:5; 11:16), and Paul refers to it once (1 Corinthians 12:13). But I don’t think Paul and Luke use this phrase to refer to the same thing. For Paul, it is virtually identical to regeneration or new birth (conversion). For Luke, it is essentially the same as being filled with the Spirit and refers to that first introductory experience of this fullness.

I’ll try to show very briefly why I think this. First, we must never assume that a particular phrase means exactly the same thing every place it occurs in Scripture. Good interpretation lets a word or phrase mean whatever the immediate context demands. What really matters in Scripture is not that a phrase everywhere have the same meaning, but that the reality which a phrase describes does not contradict other descriptions of reality in the Bible. So Paul and Luke need not use the phrase “baptized with the Spirit” in the very same sense.

Paul uses the phrase only once. He says in 1 Corinthians 12:12, 13:

Just as the body is one and has many members, and all the members of the body, though many, are one body, so it is with Christ. For by one Spirit we were all baptized into one body—Jews or Greeks, slaves or free—and all were made to drink of one Spirit.

According to this one reference, Paul conceived of Spirit-baptism as the act by which the Spirit made us members of Christ’s body. Once we were alienated from God, cut off from Christ (Ephesians 2:12), but then the Holy Spirit swept over us and brought us to life by uniting us to the living Christ and thus to his people in one body. This is a once-for-all event. It is never repeated, and nowhere does Paul (or Luke) ever admonish a Christian to be baptized by the Spirit.

But Luke seems to mean something different by the phrase, namely, something essentially the same as being filled with the Spirit, which is not a once-for-all event (for Luke and for Paul) but an ongoing or repeated occurrence. The evidence for this comes from the book of Acts. In Acts 1:4, 5 Luke reports that Jesus, just before he ascended to the Father, told his apostles to stay in Jerusalem and wait for the promise of the Father which “you heard from me, for John baptized with water, but before many days you shall be baptized with the Holy Spirit.” This was a clear reference to Pentecost. But when Pentecost comes in chapter 2, listen to how Luke describes it:

When the day of Pentecost had come, they were all together in one place. And suddenly a sound came from heaven like the rush of a mighty wind, and it filled all the house where they were sitting. And there appeared to them tongues as of fire, distributed and resting on each one of them. And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other tongues as the Spirit gave them utterance.

Jesus promises in chapter 1 that they will be baptized by the Spirit, and Luke describes the fulfillment of that promise in chapter 2 in terms of the filling of the Holy Spirit. Yet we know from Acts 11:15–17 that Luke does see Pentecost as a baptism with the Spirit. He reports there how Peter described his preaching to the Gentiles, in Cornelius’ house:

As I began to speak, the Holy Spirit fell on them just as on us at the beginning. And I remembered the word of the Lord, how he said, “John baptized with water, but you shall be baptized with the Holy Spirit.” If then God gave the same gift to them as he gave to us who believed in the Lord Jesus Christ, who was I that I could withstand God?

So this later outpouring of the Spirit on the Gentiles (in Acts 10:44ff.) is equated with the first Pentecostal outpouring, and both are explained as a baptism with the Spirit. Therefore, Luke sees what happened at Pentecost as both a baptism with the Spirit and a filling with the Spirit. Since Luke refers later on to the disciples being filled again (Acts 4:8, 31; 13:4), but never refers to them as being baptized again with the Spirit, it seems to me that for Luke “baptism with the Spirit” refers to that initial filling by the Spirit after a person trusts in Christ. I don’t think Luke equates “baptism by the Spirit” with regeneration like Paul does. That would mean that all the apostles, who, with God’s help, had confessed Jesus to be the Christ (Luke 9:20; Matthew 16:17) and had seen him alive after his resurrection and had their minds opened by him to understand the Scriptures (Luke 24:45), were in fact dead in trespasses and sins and enslaved to the flesh during all their time with Jesus and up till Pentecost morning. If we asked Luke, “Is that what you mean?” I think he would say, “O no, they had already been born of the Spirit, just like all the great saints of the Old Testament, but they hadn’t yet experienced to the full what God could do through them by his Spirit. But now that Christ has come and through his death and resurrection purchased all the blessings of God, it is God’s purpose to call all his people to experience the fullness of the Holy Spirit.” When a person first experiences this fullness of the Spirit, that is what Luke means by being baptized with the Spirit. And that is different from Paul who, I think, uses the phrase to refer to regeneration (new birth or moment of conversion).

Interacting with Pentecostal Theology

Now we are right at the heart of the charismatic controversy, and I want to try to sort out some things and let you know where I stand and why I think this stance is biblical. What is clear so far is at least this: if anyone ever asks you, “Have you been baptized with the Holy Spirit?” your first response should be to say, “What do you mean by baptism with the Holy Spirit?” So many of our arguments could be avoided if we just started off defining our terms. Suppose the definition they gave was this: “Baptism with the Holy Spirit is an experience you have with God after conversion in which the Holy Spirit falls upon you in such a way that your heart bursts forth in the utterance of tongues (some ecstatic speech or unknown language).” What would our answer be, then? Some of us would say, “Yes, I have experienced that.” Others would say, “No, I never have spoken in tongues.” But both of us should then say, “But, you know, that definition of baptism with the Spirit is not a biblical one.” There is no way to argue rightly from the book of Acts that God intends for baptism with the Spirit always to be accompanied by speaking in tongues. And Paul teaches plainly in 1 Corinthians 12:10 that God does not give the gift of tongues to everyone. Being baptized with the Holy Spirit may or may not result in glossalalia (tongues-speaking) and, therefore, speaking in tongues is not a necessary part of either Luke’s or Paul’s definition of baptism with the Spirit.

I want to stress here, though, that I do not reject the validity of the gift of tongues for our own day. It is wrong to insist that they are a necessary part of the baptism of the Spirit; it is not wrong to insist that they are a possible part of that experience today. When I was in high school, I listened to Mr. DeHaan on the radio. I was standing in my bedroom one morning, listening to him try to argue from the New Testament that the so-called sign gifts, like tongues and miracles and healing, were intended by God to come to an end at the close of the apostolic age, so that they are no longer valid today. And I can remember even in those early years saying to myself, “Mr. DeHaan, those arguments are not valid. All you are able to show is that if there are no tongues today, you can see some possible reasons for it. But nothing that you have said proves that God intends for these gifts to end before this age closes.” And now after 20 years of Bible study and friendships with charismatic believers I will say with even more assurance: Let us not reject or despise any of God’s gifts, including tongues.

But now back to the person who is asking if you have been baptized with the Spirit. If he uses Paul’s definition and means, “Have you been united to Christ by the Spirit so that you are part of His body (1 Corinthians 12:12)?”—then the answer of all believers should be, “Yes, I have indeed been baptized with the Spirit.” If he uses Luke’s definition and means, “Have you ever once been so filled by the Holy Spirit that you overflowed with joy, had victory over besetting sins, and were made bold to witness?”—then the answer should be and could be, “Yes,” for all Christians, but probably won’t be. The apostle Paul taught that there is such a thing as a babe in Christ, and he contrasted with the babe in Christ the person who is spiritual (1 Corinthians 3:1). Now, both Luke and Paul would have agreed that what this new, faltering babe in Christ needs is a great outpouring of the Holy Spirit into his life. Paul would have called this experience “being filled” with the Spirit. And Luke would have agreed, but then would have also called this first experience of the Spirit’s fullness the “baptism of the Holy Spirit.” So while the phrase “baptized with the Spirit” is used differently by Paul and Luke, they view man’s need and God’s action as basically the same.

Perhaps one other clarification of some Pentecostal teaching should be mentioned. We are sometimes urged to seek a “second blessing” or second experience of the Spirit after our initial conversion experience. Two things need to be said. First: the blessing of the fullness (or baptism) of the Holy Spirit may occur at the moment of conversion and leave nothing to be sought but its preservation and growth or repetition. Second: even if one does not experience the fullness of the Spirit at conversion, the thing to be sought is not “the second blessing,” as if that experience would be the end of our spiritual quest. What we should seek (and this applies to all Christians) is that God pour his Spirit out upon us so completely that we are filled with joy, victorious over sin, and bold to witness. And the ways he brings us to that fullness are probably as varied as people are. It may come in a tumultuous experience of ecstasy and tongues. It may come through a tumultuous experience of ecstasy and no tongues. It may come through a crisis of suffering when you abandon yourself totally to God. Or it may come gradually through a steady diet of God’s Word and prayer and fellowship and worship and service. However it comes, our first experience of the fullness of the Spirit is only the beginning of a life-long battle to stay filled with the Spirit.

Don’t Turn to Alcohol, Turn to the Spirit

And that brings us to Ephesians 5:18 where the present tense of the verb in Greek means just that: “Keep on being filled with the Spirit.” Let’s look at the context to see more specifically what this means (5:15–18).

Look carefully how you walk, not as unwise but as wise, redeeming the time because the days are evil. Therefore, do not be foolish, but understand what the will of the Lord is. And do not get drunk with wine for that is debauchery, but be filled with the Spirit, addressing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody in your heart to the Lord, always and for everything giving thanks in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ to God the Father.

The contrast with drunkenness is the key here. What do people go to alcohol for? For a happy hour. We all want to be happy, but there is a problem: “The days are evil.” Notice the logic of verses 16–18:

The days are evil. Therefore, do not be foolish, but understand what the will of the Lord is. And do not get drunk . . . but be filled with the Spirit.

Where do you turn when the days are evil, when you are frightened or discouraged or depressed or anxious? Paul pleads with us: “Don’t turn to alcohol; turn to the Spirit. Anything of value that alcohol can bring you, God the Holy Spirit can bring more.”

There are people who can’t begin to whistle a happy tune or sing a song at work because they are so tense and anxious about life. But later in the evening at the tavern with a few drinks under their belt they can put their arms around each other and sing and laugh. All of us long to be carefree, uninhibited, happy. And the mounting tragedy of our own day, as in Paul’s, is that increasing numbers of people (even Christians) believe that the only way they can find this child-like freedom is by drugging themselves with alcohol or other mind-benders. Such behavior dishonors God, and so Paul says: There is a better way to cope with the evil days—be filled with the Spirit, stay filled with the Spirit. And you will know unmatched joy that sings and makes melody to the Lord.

The fundamental meaning of being filled with the Spirit is being filled with joy that comes from God and overflows in song. And Luke would agree with that, too, because he says in Acts 13:52, “The disciples were filled with joy and with the Holy Spirit.” To be sure, one of the marks of a person filled with the Spirit is that he is made strong to witness in the face of opposition (Acts 4:8, 31; 7:55; 13:9). But the reason for this is that “the joy of the Lord is your strength” (Nehemiah 8:10). When you are happy in God, you are a strong and brave witness to his grace. So I repeat, whatever joy or peace you find in alcohol, the Spirit of God can give you more. Even the psalmist of the Old Testament had experienced this. He says in Psalm 4:7– 8:

You (O Lord) have put more joy in my heart than they have when their grain and wine abound. In peace I will both lie down and sleep; for you alone, O Lord, make me dwell in safety.

How to Do What Can Only Be Done for Us

And that psalm leads us now to our final, all-important question of how we can obey this command to be filled with the Spirit. We are in the same predicament we were in last week. We are commanded to be full, and yet we are not the filler; the Spirit is. The answer to this predicament in the New Testament is that God has ordained to move into our lives with fullness through faith. The pathway that the Spirit cuts through the jungle of our anxieties into the clearing of joy is the pathway of faith. Luke says of Stephen in Acts 6:5, that he was “a man full of faith and of the Holy Spirit,” and he says of Barnabas in Acts 11:24 that he was “a good man full of the Holy Spirit and of faith,” The two go together. If a person is filled with faith, he will be filled with the Spirit, the Spirit of joy and peace.

The most important text in Paul’s writings to show this is Romans 15:13, “May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, that by the power of the Holy Spirit you may abound in hope.” Notice that it is in or by believing that we are filled with joy and peace. And it is by the Spirit that we abound in hope. When we put those two halves of the verse together, what we see is that through our faith (our believing) the Spirit fills us with his hope and thus with his joy and peace. And, of course since hope is such an essential part of being filled with joy by the Spirit, what we have to believe is that God is, as Paul says, the God of hope. We have to rivet our faith on all that he has done and said to give us hope.

Nobody stays full of the Spirit all the time—no one is always totally joyful and submissive to God and empowered for service. But this should still be our aim, our goal, our great longing. “As a hart pants for the flowing streams, so my soul pants for you, O God. My soul thirsts for God, for the living God” (Psalm 42:1, 2). But in order to slake that thirst, we must fight the fight of faith. We must preach to our souls a sermon of hope:

Why are you downcast, O my soul, and why are you disquieted within me? Hope in God. For I shall again praise him. He is my help and my God. (Psalm 42:5, 11; 43:5)

We must set before our own soul the banquet of promises that God has made to us and feed our faith to the full. Then it may be said of us as it was of Stephen and Barnabas: “They were filled with faith and with the Holy Spirit.”

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Used by permission: John Piper. © Desiring God. Website: desiringGod.org

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Singing And Making Melody To The Lord

May 10, 2009 By admin Leave a Comment

by John Piper – Listen

Ephesians 5:17-20

So then do not be foolish, but understand what the will of the Lord is. (18)And do not get drunk with wine, for that is dissipation, but be filled with the Spirit, (19) speaking to one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody with your heart to the Lord; (20)always giving thanks for all things in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ to God, even the Father.

“The Christian Church was born in song.” Those are the words of Ralph Martin in his book called Worship in the Early Church. (London: Marshall, Morgan and Scott, 1964, p. 39). We are a singing people. And there is a reason for this. The reality of God and Christ and creation and salvation and heaven and hell are simply too great for mere speaking; they must also be sung. This means that the reality of God and his work is so great that we are not merely to think truly about it, but also feel duly about it. Think truly and feel duly -that is, feel with the kind and depth and intensity of emotion that is appropriate to the reality that is truly known.

If we think truly and do not feel duly, at best we render to God half the honor he is due. And if we feel strongly (I do not say “duly”because I think it is impossible to feel duly without thinking truly) – if we feel strongly,but do not think truly, we render to him even less than half the honor he is due.

Jonathan Edwards, who knew God’s reality with his head and passionately felt God’s reality in the love of his heart, is right when he says,

God glorifies Himself toward the creatures also in two ways:

1. By appearing to . . . their understanding.

2. In communicating Himself to their hearts,and in their rejoicing and delighting in, and enjoying, the manifestations which He makes of Himself. . . God is glorified not only by His glory’s being seen, but by its being rejoiced in. When those that see it delight in it, God is more glorified than if they only see it. His glory is then received by the whole soul, both by the understanding and by the heart.*

Once you see this – that the work of the heart (the emotions) is as important for reflecting the glory of God as the work of the head(understanding) is,then you will begin to see why music and singing is so important for Christian worship. The reason we sing is because there are depths and heights and intensities and kinds of emotion that will not be satisfactorily expressed by mere prosaic forms, or even poetic readings. There are realities that demand to break out of prose into poetry and some demand that poetry be stretched into song.

So music and singing are necessary to Christian faith and worship for the simple reason that the realities of God and Christ, creation and salvation,heaven and hell are so great that when they are known truly and felt duly,they demand more than discussion and analysis and description; they demand poetry and song and music. Singing is the Christian’s way of saying: God is so great that thinking will not suffice, there must be deep feeling;and talking will not suffice, there must be singing.

So what I want to do this morning is take these several verses from Ephesians 5:17-20 and make six brief statements about singing in corporate worship,which is what this text is about. Each of these six points could be developed for an hour easily, but I will only state them as a kind of outline for a basic theology of music in our worship. I hope you will take them and fill them up with more Bible and more experience and turn them into reality here at Bethlehem.

Singing is to be an Expression of the Fullness of the Holy Spirit.

Verses 18 and 19: “And do not get drunk with wine, for that is dissipation, but be filled with the Spirit, speaking to one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody with your heart to the Lord.” You see how singing flows out of being filled with the Holy Spirit. This means that Christian singing is not natural, but supernatural. The Holy Spirit is God. He is supernatural. He comes and he fills his people and moves them to act in certain ways.

Singing about Christian things in Christian settings is not necessarily pleasing to the Lord. Recall Amos 5:23-24, “Take away from Me the noise of your songs; I will not even listen to the sound of your harps. But let justice roll down like waters and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream.”There is religious singing that is offensive to the Lord, namely,singing that is not a work of the Holy Spirit along with his other fruit.

You get a glimpse of what being filled with the Holy Spirit is by the comparison in verse 18 with being drunk. “Don’t get drunk with wine, be filled with the Holy Spirit.” Getting drunk with wine means being controlled by wine. It masters you and makes you feel and act in certain ways. So being filled with the Spirit means being controlled by the Spirit so that you feel and actin certain ways, in this case with singing – and a certain kind of singing, as we will see in a minute.

How are we filled with the Holy Spirit? The clue to that question is in the question: How do you get drunk with wine? The answer is: by drinking a lot of it. So it is with the Holy Spirit. I don’t have time to develop it here, but I believe we could show from 1 Corinthians 2:12-16 and Romans 8:4-8 and Galatians 3:5 that the primary way to drink the Spirit is to read and meditate on and believe the breathings of the Spirit recorded in the Scripture. This is why, in the book of Acts, when people are filled with the Spirit, what spills over is the word of God (Acts 2:4,11; 4:8,31; 9:17,20;Colossians 3:16).

So Christian singing in corporate worship is to be the expression of the fullness of the Holy Spirit. That’s the first thing to say about it.

Singing is to be from the Heart.

Verse 19b: “. . . singing and making melody with your heart to the Lord.” The opposite of “singing and making melody with your heart” would be singing and making melody with your mouth and whatever willpower it takes to make the mouth move. But “with your heart” signifies that you mean it and that you feel it.

In other words, as we have seen for several weeks now, the essence of Christian worship is not mere liturgical actions – or any other kind – but an inner, authentic valuing of God in the heart.

Let me mention here that this does not mean that worship is authentic only when you are red-hot for God. It can mean that when you are not red-hot, your heart feels a longing for the passion that you once knew or want to know more of. That longing, offered to God, is also worship. Or it can mean remorse that even the longing is gone, and you are scarcely able to feel anything but sadness that you don’t feel what you should. That remorse,offered to God, is also worship. It says to God that he is the only hope for what you need. So don’t have an all-or-nothing attitude about worship. The heart can be real even if it is not as enflamed with zeal as it ought to be – which it never is in this life.

Singing is to be “to the Lord.”

Verse 19: “Speaking to one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody with your heart to the Lord.” Now I am aware that the verse begins with “speaking to one another in psalms . . .” I will get to that in a minute. What is remarkable is that both are true and they are true in this one verse in the same singing: sing both to one another and to the Lord.

“To the Lord,” means that worship is to be God-centered, of Christ-centered(the “Lord” is Jesus, but notice in verse 20 that thanks are continually offered to God the Father in the name of the “Lord” Jesus). But not just God-centered in that everything in worship relates to God, but also God-centered in that everything in worship is done toward God – in the presence of God,with a view to God’s hearing it and seeing it, with a desire that God receive it into his hearing with approval and delight.

When you sing, whether you are singing directly to the Lord(“You, O Lord, area shield about me . . .”) or whether you are singing indirectly to the Lord(“A mighty fortress is our God . . .”), sing with a focus on the present hearing of Jesus and the Father.

But surely, this word will encourage us to sing many songs in the second person (“you”) rather than only the third person (“you,” rather than”he”).”Great is Thy faithfulness . . .”, “Holy, Holy, Holy! Lord God Almighty! Early in the morning our song shall rise to thee . . .”, “Come, Thou Fount of every blessing, tune my heart to sing thy praise . . .”, “You are Lord .. .”, “I love you Lord . . .” We should want to linger in the presence of the Lord speaking to the Lord about what we think and feel in response to who he is and what he has done and what he promises to do and be for us. That’s what “to the Lord” means in verse 19b. Worship is fundamentally Godward, not manward.

These three have a powerful impact on the way we conceive worship: Spirit-driven, heartfelt, God-centered. This is not a time for trifling or joking or silliness or superficiality. Worship comes from roots that are too deep in God, and is meant to take root too deep in the human heart, and focuses so relentlessly on God himself that it has to be a seriously joyful (or joyfully serious) affair.

Singing is to be Undergirded by a Deep, Biblical Theology of God’s Sovereign Goodness.

Why do I say this? Because in verse 20 Paul says, “. . . always giving thanks for all things in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ to God, even the Father.”Now giving thanks for all things is an outrageous idea unless you have a deep, Biblical theology of God’s sovereign goodness. I call this theology deep because it avoids superficial conclusions like a chipper praise-God-anyhow approach to pain. Paul said, “Weep with those who weep”(Romans 12:15). He said, “Abhor what is evil; cling to what is good” (Romans 12:9).

However it is that we may thank God for horrible circumstances of sickness or lostness or sinfulness, it is not in the same way we thank him for healing and salvation and holiness. Yet, there is, I think this text points out, a way to see in all things the hand of God moving for the glory of his name and the good of his people. And what we need is a theology that is deep and Biblical enough that we can hate and repudiate and oppose (in prayer and social work and evangelism) the evils of the world, and not cancel out the truth that in these very things and in our very hating of them, and working against them,and patiently enduring in them, there is also a ground for thanks (Romans 8:28; Genesis 50:20).

I say that our singing needs this deep, Biblical theology because this text on singing calls for such thanks, and because there is not a week that goes by in this church but that some people are dealing with horrible and painful things. There is a deep way to worship God with those people that quietly bears their burden with them, and quietly leads them to the all-sufficient God who is working for them in and through it all.

Understanding this and believing this makes for the greatest of all congregational singing – which is why “It is Well with my Soul” is almost like a theme song among us.

Singing is to be to Each Other.

Verse 19: “. . . speaking to one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody with your heart to the Lord.” Here is one of the clearest mandates for corporate worship in the New Testament. You can’t obey this in solitude. God calls us to speak in song to one another.

This has at least three implications for us. One is that we should get together and sing as a congregation and as small groups. We should sing in each other’s hearing and want to be heard by each other. The second implication is that it is justifiable that many of our great hymns and newer worship songs are addressed not to God but to each other. “O Worship the King,” “All Hail the Power of Jesus’ Name,” “Crown Him with Many Crowns,”"Majesty, Worship His Majesty.”

The third implication is that the use of solos or musical groupings like worship teams and choirs can be part of this speaking to one another in songs. If it is good to speak to each other in songs as we do this in a Godward way,then we don’t always have to do it all at the same time, though we do think that congregational singing should be the defining sound of our worship. A choir can speak the word to us in song from the heart, filled with the Spirit,with a view to God’s presence and undergirded by a deep, Biblical theology of God’s sovereign goodness. And we can hear this and say Yes and Amen to the glory of God.

In 1 Corinthians 14:15-16 Paul says, “I will sing with the spirit and I will sing with the mind also. Otherwise if you bless in the spirit only, how will the one who fills the place of the ungifted say the ‘Amen’ at your giving of thanks?” In other words, God means for us to hear each other pray and sing so that there can be corporate responses of agreement – “Amen.”

There are reasons for this corporate dimension to worship. Being together and singing to each other, and not just alone, intensifies our emotions for God, communicates our witness to God, and unifies our corporate life around God(Romans 15:6).

Finally, Singing is to be Varied in its Forms.

Verse 19: “. . . speaking to one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody with your heart to the Lord.”

Referring to these the words, “psalms and hymns and spiritual songs,” Ralph Martin says,

It is hard to draw any hard-and-fast distinction between these terms; and modern scholars are agreed that the various terms are used loosely to cover the various forms of musical composition. “Psalms” may refer to Christian odes patterned on the Old Testament Psalter. “Hymns” would be longer compositions and there is evidence that some actual specimens of these hymns may be found in the New Testament itself. “Spiritual songs” refer to snatches of spontaneous praise which the inspiring Spirit placed on the lips of the enraptured worshipper, as 1 Corinthians 14:15 implies. (p. 47)

Now there is a reason for different kinds of music. The main reason is that God is infinitely varied in his beauty and he relates to us in profoundly and wonderfully different ways. If you experience God in the death of your four daughters and your wife, in the sinking of a ship, you may write,”It Is Well with My Soul.” If you are overwhelmed with the truth of the incarnation at Christmas time, you may write “Joy to the World.” If God meets you simply and quietly in your prayer closet, you may write, “Father, I adore you,lay my life before you . . .” If you are stunned at the marvel that you are saved,you may write “Amazing grace! How sweet the sound . . .” If you area Sunday School teacher longing to teach your students profound things in simple ways,you may write, “Jesus loves me, this I know, for the Bible tells me so. . .”

God meets us in high and holy ways. He meets us in lowly and meek ways. He meets us in thunderously glorious ways; he meets us in quiet, intimate ways. He meets us in complex ways and simple ways, furious ways and merciful ways. There are aspects of God’s character and relation to us that can only be expressed with high and fine expressions of music like Handel’s Messiah, and there are aspects of God’s character and relation to us that can only be expressed with more common and folk-like kinds of music like “Amazing Grace” and “Just a Closer Walk with Thee,” and “The B-I-B-L-E.”

Conclusion – Pray for your Worship Leaders

My pastoral exhortation is that we seek the Lord earnestly in all these things and go deeper with him in our understanding and experience of corporate worship each week. Pray for each other, and especially for Chuck and me as we try to flesh out this text from week to week. Pray:

1. that we would be filled with the Holy Spirit,

2. that all our worship would be “from the heart,”

3. that we would be radically God-focused and God-centered,

4. that all would be undergirded by deep, Biblical theology of God’s sovereign goodness,

5. that we would provide the most helpful ways for you to speak to each other with psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, and

6. that we would embrace the variety of music and singing that is most helpful for this cultural setting and this great God.

__________

Used by permission: John Piper. © Desiring God. Website: desiringGod.org

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Urgency and Gratitude

May 10, 2009 By admin Leave a Comment

by John Piper – Listen

Ephesians 5:15-20

Look carefully then how you walk, not as unwise but as wise, making the most of the time, because the days are evil. Therefore do not be foolish, but understand what the will of the Lord is. And do not get drunk with wine, for that is debauchery; but be filled with the Spirit, addressing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody to the Lord with all your heart, always and for everything giving thanks in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ to God the Father.

One way to describe the Christian life is to say that it is made up of paradoxes. That means that there are things in our lives that don’t seem to make sense, don’t seem to fit with other things in our lives. And yet we Christians have seen enough of God’s power and wisdom and love that we believe with good reason that the paradoxes of our lives really do fit together in God’s mind, even if we can’t always figure them out now.

Paradoxes of the Christian Life

Let me illustrate some of the paradoxes of the Christian life by simply quoting the apostle Paul. He described his own life in 2 Corinthians 6:8–10 like this:

. . . as sorrowful, yet always rejoicing; as poor, yet making many rich; as having nothing, and yet possessing everything.

This is what I mean by the paradoxes of the Christian life. Paul says he is “sorrowful, yet always rejoicing.” How can you be always rejoicing if you are sometimes sorrowful? There must be some kind of “sorrowful joy” and “joyful sorrow.” Indeed, there is—that is one of the deep paradoxes of life for those who rest in a sovereign God and live in a sinful world.

Paul says that he is “as having nothing, yet possessing everything.” You may recall that on Reformation Sunday—the last Sunday of October—I commended Martin Luther’s essay called “The Freedom of a Christian.” In that great essay Luther captures this particular paradox of the Christian life in two sentences. Paul said he has nothing, yet possesses everything. Luther put it this way,

A Christian is a perfectly free lord of all, subject to none.

A Christian is a perfectly dutiful servant of all, subject to all.

In other words, when you are adopted into the royal family of God through faith in Jesus Christ, some of the same paradoxes that marked Jesus mark you as well. Having nothing yet possessing everything. Subject to no man, yet servant of all.

There is another place where Paul describes some of the paradoxes of the Christian life, namely, 1 Corinthians 7:29–31,

The time has grown very short; from now on, let those who have wives live as though they had none, and those who mourn as though they were not mourning, and those who rejoice as though they were not rejoicing, and those who buy as though they had no goods, and those who deal with the world as though they had no dealings with it.

If we obey these admonitions of the apostle, we husbands will love our wives with the faithfulness and firmness and tenderness of Christ and yet in a sense as though we had no wives. Those of us who grieve will grieve in a sense as though there were no tragedy. And when we do business with the world, we do it as though our dealings with the world were nothing.

So the Christian life is the living of many paradoxes. Little by little as we draw near to God, we begin to see the unity and harmony of it all. But in every case we see through a glass darkly. We know in part. And we wait until the last day when the secrets of the human heart will be made plain.

But I don’t think the Lord wants us to live in continual confusion and frustration. There is some light to shed on the paradoxes of our lives. And sometimes even just being aware that the paradox is biblical helps us live with it and even thrive on it.

Ready for Battle and Filled with Peace

So what I want to do today is focus our attention on the paradox I see in today’s text and simply ponder it with you and see how it applies to our lives. Let’s read the text (Ephesians 5:15–20):

Look carefully then how you walk, not as unwise but as wise, making the most of the time, because the days are evil. Therefore do not be foolish, but understand what the will of the Lord is. And do not get drunk with wine, for that is debauchery; but be filled with the Spirit, addressing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody to the Lord with all your heart, always and for everything giving thanks in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ to God the Father.

When I was pondering this as our Thanksgiving text back in August, I was gripped by the tension in the verses. Let me try to capture it for you.

Be Careful and Vigilant

On the one hand the text says, Watch carefully how you live, that is, be alert, be vigilant. Apply wisdom to redeem the time. That opportunity will never come again. The days are evil; opposition is great; be wise as serpents. Understand what the will of the Lord is. Don’t surrender your powers of judgment to alcohol.

These words ring with a sense of urgency. They are like the words of a platoon leader addressing his unit just before they enter combat. The air is tense and your heart is beating fast and, even if you love battle, your hands are sweaty. “Watch your step; be smart; don’t miss your opportunity; keep yourself lean for the battle!”

Sing and Make Melody with Thanksgiving

Then come verses 18b–20: Be filled with the Spirit, and sing to each other—sing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs. And let your heart fill up with melody where nobody else can hear but God. And let the golden thread of all your songs be thanksgiving to your heavenly Father—thanksgiving for everything!

Now it sounds like the war is over! The tension and vigilance of conflict are gone. We’re back home with the family. It’s Thanksgiving Day. There’s a fire in the fireplace and marshmallows on the skewers, and a game spread out on the dining room table; and sweet music is in the air.

And so I have called this message “Urgency and Gratitude.” And I want us to just meditate on this paradox of being a vigilant people at war and yet a thankful and singing people at peace. And even if we can’t fully explain how this can be, my prayer is that the mere awareness of it will help you live with it, and perhaps even thrive in it.

Three Ways to Express This Tension

So let me try to take the overall paradox that I see between urgency in verses 15–18a and gratitude in verses 18b–20 and break it up into three parts—three ways of expressing the tension of these verses.

1. Evil Days and Thanksgiving for Everything

First, there is the paradox here between the evil days in verse 16 and the call to be thankful for everything in verse 20. Verse 16: “Making the most of the time, because the days are evil.” Verse 20: “Always and for everything giving thanks.”

Evil Days

Paul is not naïve about the world. He says the days are evil. In Galatians 1:4 he said that “Christ gave himself for our sins to deliver us from this present evil age.” The age is evil because God gives Satan so much leash that he can be called “the god of this age” (2 Corinthians 4:4). The age is evil because God allows so much pride and wickedness in the human heart to go unrestrained for now. The age is evil because so many natural catastrophes bring suffering and misery on the world, on both the good and the bad.

And Paul knew all of this first hand. He was not an armchair critic. He wrestled with his own sin in Romans 7. He felt the sins of others when he was stoned and beaten with rods and imprisoned. He went without food and clothes and shelter. He was harassed in almost every city, never knowing when his life would be put out by a dagger beneath the robes of some mercenary.

And on top of everything, he suffered some kind of chronic ailment that God would not remove no matter how hard Paul prayed. Instead God taught Paul some of the purposes of struggling with sin and suffering.

One lesson he tells about in 2 Corinthians 12:9–10. Christ told him that his power was made perfect in Paul’s weakness. So Paul is given the grace and faith to say, “I will all the more gladly exult in my weaknesses, that the power of Christ may rest upon me.”

Thanksgiving

And so when Paul gets to verse 20 of Ephesians 5, he is not in some dream world where all is easy and healthy and holy. He is not telling us to do any more than the Lord has given him grace to do: be thankful for everything. It does not say “in” everything (like it does in 1 Thessalonians 5:18). It says “for” everything.

But let us be very careful here. It doesn’t say you should dance around the coffin. It doesn’t say you can’t cry if you have cancer. It doesn’t say there is no place for anger against injustice. But it does say, “Always be thankful for everything.” And this is the word of God, not merely the word of man.

If it puzzles us, if it even provokes us, we must not become cynical or rebellious; we should be like Mary when the angel said she would conceive a son without a husband. She asked humbly, “How can this be?” And Gabriel gave her not a whole explanation, but all she needed: “The Holy Spirit will come upon you and the power of the Most High will overshadow you . . . with God nothing will be impossible.”

And is that not the same answer Paul would give to our perplexity here in Ephesians 5? Wouldn’t he say from verse 18: It is beyond your understanding and beyond your emotional ability to give thanks to God for all things; it comes with the filling of the Holy Spirit: “Be filled with the Spirit.”

For the Spirit searches everything, even the depths of God (1 Corinthians 2:10). If you trust him, he will unfold for you how your omnipotent and all-wise Father in heaven can even take the evils of the world and work them together for your eternal good.

And when he begins to teach you that lesson, you will experience the truth and the depth, and maybe even the unity, of this first paradox: the days are evil, but give thanks always for everything to God the Father. He is wise and he is sovereign and he is good.

2. Analysis and Exultation

The second way of expressing the paradox of these verses is to say that we must live in the tension between analysis and exultation. Let me try to explain what I mean.

Analysis

Verse 15 says, “Look carefully then how you walk.” Verse 17 says, “Do not be foolish but understand what the will of the Lord is.” So together these verses call us to use our minds in careful thought. Look carefully! Know yourself, know your enemy, know your commander, know the situation, apply your mind to understand what the Lord wills in this crucial time. This is what I mean by analysis. It is the use of the mind to scrutinize, to examine, to sort out distinctions and seek relationships and patterns and to draw conclusions and inferences.

Exultation

But then verse 19 says that we should be full of exultation. We should make melody to the Lord in our hearts. Our emotions, not just our minds, should be engaged. We should not merely scrutinize the providence of God; we should also be carried away by it. We should not just analyze the message of the Bible, we should be swept up into song when we read it. We shouldn’t be content to formulate a theory of salvation, we should be filled with thanksgiving that we are saved.

The Two Do Not Easily Fit Together

This is a burdensome paradox for us because the two states of mind don’t fit easily together and yet both are crucial: analysis and rigorous thought on the one hand and exultation and thanksgiving on the other. This is why we get concerned when our young people go off to college or seminary or graduate school. It’s not just because they will sometimes have unbelieving teachers and wrestle with secular ideas. It’s because we know that exultation and thanksgiving can be swallowed up by the analytic demands of academic work.

But on the other hand this paradox is why many of us are unimpressed by much charismatic renewal. It’s because the life of the emotions is often cultivated at the expense of the life of the mind. Careful thought and study and right doctrine is swallowed up by the ecstatic demands of the community.

An Admonition

My admonition this morning is this: Keep these two things alive and well in your life, the powers of analysis and the pleasures of exultation.

If you are all cerebral with little emotion, don’t brag about it. It’s a weakness not a strength. Strive to nurture your heart’s capacity for joy in God, lest you be stunted forever and have a little cup of joy all through eternity.

And if you are all emotional with little bent for study and analysis, don’t brag about it. It’s a weakness, not a strength. Strive to nurture your mind’s capacity for thinking and understanding the work of God.

Don’t surrender the paradox. It stands in Scripture. And without it your celebration of Thanksgiving will have exultation and yet be superficial or it may have intellectual depth and yet be lukewarm. Hold the paradox together and your heart may experience the deepest gratitude you’ve ever known because your mind has seen more of God’s truth than it has ever known.

3. Wartime Vigilance and Peacetime Thanks

The third way of describing the paradox of these verses is to say that we must live in the tension between being vigilant people at war and yet a thankful people at peace. Or another way to say it is that we must be careful about our walk in the world and yet carefree about the outcome of our lives. Vigilant yet secure. Careful yet carefree.

Vigilance

You can see the call for vigilance and carefulness in verse 15: “Look carefully then how you walk.” You can see it in verse 16: “Since the days are evil be alert how you can snatch up every opportunity for good.” You can see it in verse 17: “Don’t be foolish. Apply your mind. Think through what the will of the Lord is.”

In other words, the Christian life is a vigilant life, defensively guarding itself from the subtleties of the evil days and offensively redeeming the time to strike for love and righteousness again and again. We are a vigilant people at war with unbelief and evil.

Thankful Peace

But on the other hand you can see the restful, thankful peace, especially in verse 19. What amazes me about verse 19 is not that we are supposed to sing songs of thanks to God, but that we are to have a musical heart. I can imagine a wartime scene with a church surrounded by hostile forces. They have no escape and so the company commander (i.e., the minister of music) leads the church in hymn after hymn while the enemy closes in. I can imagine that.

But what is harder to imagine is that not only outwardly would the mouth be singing, but inwardly the heart would be singing. This is what I mean when I say we should be a thankful people at rest in God. Our hearts should be carefree about the outcome of our lives. This is what Paul says happens when a person becomes a Christian. A paradox is born:

  • vigilance and carefulness in the way we live our lives lest evil gain the upper hand, and yet
  • carefree restfulness and thankfulness that the out come of the battle will be victory.

“He who called us is faithful, and he will do it” (1 Thessalonians 5:24).

The Glue That Holds the Paradoxes Together

What is the glue that holds the pieces of these three paradoxes together?

  1. the paradox between living in evil days and being thankful for everything.
  2. the paradox between rigorous analysis and thankful exultation.
  3. the paradox between being vigilant people at war and being thankful people at peace.

The glue that holds them all together is the work of the Holy Spirit: “Do not be drunk with wine, but be filled with the Spirit!” And God will uncover for you

  • the mystery of gratitude for all things, even when the days are evil,
  • the pleasures of exultation even in the midst of analysis,
  • and the peace that passes all understanding even in the vigilance of our daily conflict with evil.

Urgency and gratitude. Glued together in one heart by the work of the Holy Spirit. This morning we have been heavy on the side of urgency, analysis, and vigilance. Tonight we will pluck the fruit of our analysis and blow the roof off this old building with exultation in the sixth annual Festival of Thanksgiving.

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Used by permission: John Piper. © Desiring God. Website: desiringGod.org

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John Wesley’s Notes On Ephesians 5

December 18, 2008 By admin Leave a Comment

Ephesians 5
Verse 1. Be ye therefore followers – Imitators. Of God – In forgiving and loving. O how much more honourable and more happy, to be an imitator of God, than of Homer, Virgil, or Alexander the Great!

Verse 3. But let not any impure love be even named or heard of among you – Keep at the utmost distance from it, as becometh saints.

Verse 4. Nor foolish talking – Tittle tattle, talking of nothing, the weather, fashions, meat and drink. Or jesting – The word properly means, wittiness, facetiousness, esteemed by the heathens an half- virtue. But how frequently even this quenches the Spirit, those who are tender of conscience know. Which are not convenient – For a Christian; as [Read more...]

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John Darby’s Commentary on Ephesians 5

December 11, 2008 By admin Leave a Comment

Ephesians 5

Moreover, let us remark here, and it is an important feature in this picture of the fruits of grace and of the new man, that when the grace and love, which come down from God, act in man, they always go up again to God in devotedness. Walk, he says, in love, even as Christ loved us and gave Himself up for us, an offering and a sacrifice to God for a sweet-smelling savour. We see it in Christ. He is this love which comes down in grace, but this grace, acting in man, makes Him devote Himself to God, although it is on behalf of others. So it is in us; it is the touchstone of the christian heart’s activity.

The apostle then speaks plainly as to sin, in order that no one may deceive himself; nor be occupied with deep truths, using them intellectually, to the neglect of ordinary morality-one of the signs of heresy, properly so called. He has connected the profoundest doctrines in his teaching with daily practice. If Christ be glorified, the Head of the assembly, He is the model of the new man, the last Adam; the assembly being one with Him on high, and the habitation of God on earth by the Spirit, with whom every Christian is sealed. Every Christian, if indeed he has learned the truth as it is in Jesus, has learned that it consists in having put off the old man, and having put on the new man, created after God in righteousness and holiness (of which Christ is the model, according to the counsels of God in glory); and he is to grow up unto the measure of the stature of Christ, who is the Head, and not grieve the Holy Spirit wherewith he is sealed. The fullest revelation of grace does not weaken the immutable truth that God had a character proper to Himself; it unfolds that character to us by means of the most precious revelations of the gospel, and of the closest relationships with God, which were formed by these revelations: but this character could not alter, nor could the kingdom of God allow of, any characters contrary to it. The wrath of God therefore against evil, and against those who commit it, is plainly set forth.

Now we were that which is contrary to His character, we were darkness; not only in the dark, but darkness in our nature, the opposite of God who is light. Not one ray of that which He is was found in our will, our desires, our understanding. We were morally destitute of it. There was the corruptness of the first Adam, but no share in any feature of the divine character. We are now partakers of the divine nature, we have the same desires, we know what it is that He loves, and we love what He loves, we enjoy that which He enjoys, we are light (poor and weak indeed, yet such by nature) in the Lord-looked at as in Christ. They are the fruits of light [24] that are developed in the Christian; he is to avoid all association with the unfruitful works of darkness.

But, in speaking of motives, the apostle returns to the great subjects that pre-occupied him, and he returns to them, not only that we should put on the character set forth by that of which he speaks, but that we should realise all its extent, that we should experience all its force. He had told us that the truth in Christ was the having put on the new man, in contrast with the old man, and that we are not to grieve the Holy Spirit. Now he exhorts those that sleep to awake, and Christ should be their light. Light makes all things manifest; but he who sleeps, although not dead, does not profit by it. For hearing, seeing, and all mental reception and communication, he is in the state of a dead man. Alas, how apt this sleep is to overtake us! But in awaking, it was not that they should see the light dimly, but Christ Himself should be the light of the soul; they should have all the full revelation of that which is well-pleasing to God, that which He loves; they should have divine wisdom in Christ; they should be able to profit by opportunities, should find them, being thus enlightened, in the difficulties of a world governed by the enemy, and should act according to spiritual understanding in every case that presented itself. Further, if they were not to lose their senses through means of excitement used in the world, they were to be filled with the Spirit, that is, that He should take such possession of our affections, our thoughts, our understanding, that He should be their only source according to His proper and mighty energy to the exclusion of all else. Thus, full of joy, we should praise, we should sing for joy; and we should give thanks for all that might happen, because a God of love is the true source of all. We should be full of joy in the spiritual realisation of the objects of faith, and the heart continuing to be filled with the Spirit and sustained by this grace, the experience of the hand of God in everything here below will give rise only to thanksgiving. It comes from His hand whom we trust and whose love we know. But giving thanks in all things is a test of the state of the soul; because the consciousness that all things are from God’s hand, full trust in His love, and deadness as to any will of our own, must exist in order to give thanks in everything-a single eye which delights in His will.

In entering into the details of relationships and particular duties, the apostle cannot give up the subject that is so dear to him. The command which he addresses to wives, that they are to submit themselves to their husbands, immediately suggests the relationship between Christ and the assembly, not now as a subject for knowledge, but to unfold His affection and tender care. We have seen that the apostle, having established the great principles displayed in the revelation of our relationship with God-our vocation-then deduces their practical consequences with regard to the life and conduct of Christians: they were to walk as having put on the new man, to have Christ for their light, not to grieve the Spirit, to be filled with the Spirit. Now all this, while the fruit of grace, was either knowledge or practical responsibility.

But here the subject is viewed in another aspect. It is the grace that acts in Christ Himself, His affections, His guardian care, His devotedness to the assembly. Nothing can be more precious, more tender, more intimate. He loved the assembly-that is the source of all. And there are three steps in the work of this love. He gave Himself for it, He washes it, He presents it all glorious to Himself. This is not precisely the sovereign election of the individual by God; but the affection that displays itself in the relationship which Christ maintains with the assembly.[25] See also the extent of the gift, and how marvellous the ground of confidence that it contains. He gives Himself; it is not only His life, true as that is, but Himself.[26]

All that Christ was has been given, and given by Himself; it is the entire devotedness and giving of Himself. And now all that is in Him-His grace, His righteousness, His acceptance with the Father, the excellent glory of His Person, His wisdom, the energy of divine love that can give itself-all is consecrated to the welfare of the assembly. There are no qualities, no excellencies in Christ, which are not ours in their exercise consequent on the gift of Himself. He has already given them, and consecrated them to the blessing of the assembly which He has given Himself to have. Not only are they given, but He has given them; His love has accomplished it . We know well that it is on the cross that this giving of Himself was accomplished, it is there that the consecration of Himself to the good of the assembly was complete. But here that glorious work is not exactly viewed on the side of its atoning and redeeming efficacy, but on that of the devotedness and love to the assembly which Christ manifested in it. Now we can always reckon upon this love which was perfectly displayed in it. It is not altered. Jesus-blessed and praised be His name for it!-is for me according to the energy of His love in all that He is, in all circumstances and for ever, and in the activity of that love according to which He gave Himself. He loved the assembly and gave Himself for it. This is the source of all our blessings, as members of the assembly.

But this love of Christ is inexhaustible and unchangeable. It effects the blessing of its cherished object, by preparing it for a happiness of which His heart is alike the measure and the source, [27] to happiness of perfect purity, the excellence of which He knows in heaven-purity suited to the presence of God, and to her who should be in that presence for ever, the bride of the Lamb-purity which renders it capable of enjoying perfect love and glory; even as that love tends to purify the soul by making itself known to it, and attracting it, divesting it of self, and filling it with God as the centre of blessing and joy.

It is important to remark that Christ does not here sanctify the assembly to make it His own, but makes it His own to sanctify it. It is first His, then He suits it to Himself. Christ, who loves the church as being His own, and who has already made it His own by giving Himself for it, and who chooses to have it such as His heart desires, occupies Himself with it, when He has won it, to render it such. He gave Himself for it, that He might sanctify it by the washing of water by the word. Here we find that moral effect produced by the care of Christ, the object which He proposes to Himself in His work accomplished in time, and the means He uses to attain it. He appropriates the assembly morally, sets it morally apart for Himself, when He has made it His; for He can only desire holy things-holy according to the knowledge He has of purity-by virtue of His eternal and natural abode in heaven. He then puts the assembly in connection with heaven, from whence He is, and into which He will introduce it. He gave Himself in order to sanctify it. For this purpose He uses the word, which is the divine expression of the mind of God, of heavenly order and holiness, of truth itself (that is to say, of the true relation of all things with God; and that according to His love in Christ), and which consequently judges all that deviates from it as to purity or love.

He forms the assembly for His bride, a help-meet for Him, in which all is according to the glory and the love of God, by the revelation (through the word, which comes from thence) of these things as they exist in heaven. Now Christ Himself is the full expression of these things, the image of the invisible God. Thus, in communicating them to the assembly, He prepares it for Himself. When speaking therefore in this sense of His own testimony, He says, “We speak that we do know, and testify that we have seen.”

But it is this which the word is, as we have received it from Jesus; and more especially as speaking from heaven, with the character of the new commandment, the darkness passing away, and the true light now shining; and consequently, the thing being true, not only in Him, but in us. The ministry of chapter 1 is occupied with this, forming the hearts of the saints on earth in fellowship with the Head from which the grace and the light descended. In this manner then Christ sanctifies the assembly for which He gave Himself. He has formed it for heavenly things by the communication of heavenly things, of which He is Himself the fulness and the glory. But this word finds the assembly mixed up with things that are contrary to this heavenly purity and love. Alas! its affections-as to the old man at least-mixed up with these earthly things, which are contrary to the will of God and to His nature. Thus in sanctifying the assembly He must needs cleanse it. This is therefore the work of the love of Christ during the present time, but for the eternal and essential happiness of the assembly.

He sanctifies the assembly, but He does it by the word, communicating heavenly things-all that belongs to the nature, to the majesty, and to the glory of God-in love, but at the same time applying them to judge everything in her present affections, which is at variance with that which He communicates. Precious work of love, which not only loves us but labours to make us fit to enjoy that love; fit to be with Christ Himself in the Father’s house!

How deeply is He interested in us! He not only accomplished the glorious work of our redemption by giving Himself for us, but He acts continually with perfect love and patience to make us such as He would have us to be in His own presence-fit for the heavenly places and heavenly things.

What a character this shews to belong also to the word, and what grace in His use of it! It is the communication of divine things according to their own perfection, and now as God Himself is in the light. It is the revelation of God Himself, as we know Him in a glorified Christ, in a perfect love to form us also according to that perfection for the enjoyment of Him; and yet it is addressed to us, yea is suited in its very nature to us down here (compare John 1:4) to impart these things to us by bringing in light amid the darkness, thus necessarily judging all that is in the darkness, but in order to purify us in love.

Observe, also, the order in which this work of Christ is presented to us, beginning with love. He loved the assembly; this, as we have already said, is the source of all. All that follows is the result of that love and cannot gainsay it. The perfect proof of it is then stated: He gave Himself for the assembly. He could not give more. It was to the glory of the Father, no doubt, but it was for the assembly. Had he reserved anything, the love in giving Himself would not have been perfect, not absolute; it would not have been a devotedness that left nothing for the awakened heart to desire. It would not have been Christ, for He could not but be perfect. We know love and perfection in knowing Him. But He has won the heart of the assembly by giving Himself for it. He has won her thus. She is His according to that love. Yea; it is there that we have learnt what love is. Hereby know we love in that He gave Himself for us. All was for the glory of the Father: without that it wouldnot have been perfection; and the revelation of the heavenly things would not have taken place, for that depended on the Father’s being perfectly glorified. In this the things to be revealed were manifested and verified, so to speak, in spite of evil; but all is entirely for us.

If we have learnt to know love, we have learnt to know Jesus, such as He is for us; and He is wholly for us.

Thus the entire work of cleansing and of sanctification is the result of perfect love. It is not the means of obtaining the love, or of being its object. It is indeed the means of enabling us to enjoy it; but it is the love itself which, in its exercise, works this sanctification. Christ wins the assembly first. He then in His perfect love makes it such as He would have it to be-a truth that is precious to us in every way, and first, in order to free the soul from all servile fear, to give sanctification its true character of grace and its true extent here. It is joy of heart to know that Christ Himself will make us all He desires us to be.

We have considered two effects of the love of Christ for the assembly. The first was the gift of Himself, which in a certain sense comprises the whole; it is love perfect in itself. He gave Himself. The second is the moral formation of the object of His love, that it may be with Him; according, we may add, to the perfections of God Himself, for that indeed is what the word is-the expression of the nature, the ways, and the thoughts of God.

There is yet a third effect of this love of Christ’s which completes it. He presents it to Himself a glorious assembly without spot or wrinkle. If He gave Himself for the assembly, it was in order to have it with Him; but if He would have it with Him, He must render it fit to be in His glorious presence; and He has sanctified it by cleansing it according to the revelation of God Himself, and the heavenly things of which He is in Himself the centre in glory. The Holy Ghost has taken the things of Christ, and has revealed them to the assembly; and all that the Father has is Christ’s. Thus perfected according to the perfection of heaven, He presents it to Himself a glorious assembly. Morally, the work was done; the elements of heavenly glory had been communicated to her who was to stand in that glory, had entered into her moral being, and thus formed her to participate in it. The power of the Lord is needed to make her participate in it in fact, to make her glorious, to destroy every trace of her earthly abode, save the excellent fruit that results from it. He presents her glorious to Himself-this is the result of all. He took her for Himself, He presents her to Himself, the fruit and the proof of His perfect love; and for her it is the perfect enjoyment of that same love. But there is yet more. That sentence discloses to us all the import of this admirable display of grace. The Spirit carries us back to the case of Adam and Eve, in which God, having formed Eve, presents her to Adam all complete according to His own divine thoughts and at the same time suited to be the delight of Adam, as a help-meet adapted to his nature and condition. Now Christ is God. He has formed the assembly, but with this additional right over her heart that He has given Himself for her; but He is also the last Adam in glory; and He presents her glorified to Himself, such as He had formed her for himself. What a sphere for the development of spiritual affections is this revelation! What infinite grace is that which has given place for such an exercise of these affections!

We cannot fail to notice the connection between the cleansing and the glory, that is, that the cleansing is according to the glory and by it; and that the glory is the completeness of, and completely answers to, the cleansing. For the cleansing is by the word, which reveals the whole glory and mind of God. Presented in glory she has neither spot not wrinkle; she is holy and unblamable. This is a most important truth, and recurs elsewhere. Compare 2 Corinthians 3:18, and Philippians 3:11 to the end. So in 1 Thessalonians3:13. What is complete in glory there, is wrought into the soul now by the Spirit operating with the word.

This then is the purpose, the mind of the Lord, with regard to the assembly, and this the sanctifying work which prepares her for Himself and for heaven. But these are not all the effects of His love. He watches tenderly over her during all the time of her sojourn here below.

The apostle, who did not lose sight of the thesis which gave rise to this digression that is so instructive to us, says that the husband ought to love his wife as his own body-that it was loving himself. He was naturally led to this by the allusion to Genesis; but he immediately returns to the subject that occupies him. No one, he says, ever hated his own flesh; he nourishes and cherishes it, even as the Lord the assembly. This is the precious aspect, during time, of Christ’s love, which the apostle here presents. Not only has Christ a heavenly aim, but His love performs the work which, so to speak, is natural to it. He tenderly cares for the assembly here below; He nourishes it, He cherishes it. The wants, the weaknesses, the difficulties, the anxieties of the assembly are only opportunities to Christ for the exercise of His love. The assembly needs to be nourished, as do our bodies; and He nourishes her. She is the object of His tender affections; He cherishes her. If the end is heaven, the assembly is not left desolate here. She learns His love where her heart needs it. She will enjoy it fully when need has passed away for ever. Moreover it is precious to know that Christ cares for the assembly, as a man cares for his own flesh. For we are members of His own body. We are of His flesh, and of His bones. Eve is here alluded to. We are, as it were, a part of Himself, having our existence and our being from Him, as Eve from Adam. He can say, “I am Jesus whom thou persecutest.” Our position is, on the one hand, to be members of His body; on the other hand, we have our existence as Christians from Him. Therefore it is that a man is to leave his natural relations, in order to be united to his wife. It is a great mystery. Now it was just this that Christ did as man, in a certain sense, divinely. Nevertheless every one ought thus to love his own wife, and the wife to reverence her husband.

There remain yet certain relationships in life, with which the doctrine of the Spirit of God is connected: those of children and parents, of fathers and children, and of servants and master. It is interesting to see the children of believers introduced as objects of the Holy Spirit’s care, and even slaves (for servants were such), raised by Christianity to a position which the circumstances of their social degradation could not affect.

All the children of Christians are viewed as subjects of the exhortations in the Lord, which belong to those who are within, who are no longer in this world, of which Satan is the prince. Sweet and precious comfort to the parent, that he may look upon them as having a right to this position, and a part in those tender cares which the Holy Ghost lavishes on all who are in the house of God! The apostle marks the importance which God attached, under the law, to this duty. It is the first command with which He linked a promise. Verse 3 is only the quotation of that which he alludes to in verse 2.

The exhortation to fathers is also remarkable-that they should not provoke their children; that their hearts should be turned towards them; that they should not repel them, nor destroy that influence which is the strongest guard against the evil of the world. God forms the heart of children around this happy centre: the father should watch over this. But there is more. The christian father (for it is always those within to whom he speaks) ought to recognise the position in which, as we have seen, the children are placed, and to bring them up under the yoke of Christ in the discipline and admonition of the Lord. Christian position is to be the measure and the form of the influences which the father exercises, and of the education which he gives his children. He treats them as brought up for the Lord, and as the Lord would bring them up.

It will be remarked, that in the two relationships we are considering, as well as in that of wives with their husbands, it is on the side from which submission is due that the exhortations begin. This is the genius of Christianity in our evil world, in which man’s will is the source of all the evil, expressing his departure from God to whom all submission is due. The principle of submission and of obedience is the healing principle of humanity: only God must be brought into it, in order that the will of man be not the guide after all. But the principle that governs the heart of man in good, is always and everywhere obedience. I may have to say that God must be obeyed rather than man; but to depart from obedience is to enter into sin. A man may have, as a father, to command and direct; but he does it ill if he do it not in obedience to God and to His word. This was the essence of the life of Christ: “I come to do thy will, O my God.” Accordingly the apostle begins his exhortations with regard to relationships by giving the general precept: “Submit yourselves one to another.” This renders order easy, even when the order of institutions and of authority may fail. Submission, moral obedience, can never in principle be wanting to the true Christian. It is the starting-point of his whole life. He is sanctified unto the obedience of Christ (1 Pet. 1:2).

In the case which has led to these remarks, it is striking to see how this principle elevates the slave in his condition: he obeys by an inward divine principle, as though it were Christ Himself whom he obeyed. However wicked his master may be, he obeys as if he obeyed Christ Himself. Three times the apostle repeats this principle of obedience to Christ or the service of Christ, adding, “doing the will of God from the heart.” What a difference this made in the poor slave’s condition! Moreover, whether bond or free, each should receive his reward from the Lord. The master himself had the same Master in heaven, with whom there is no respect of persons. Still it is to masters that he says this, not to the slave; for Christianity is delicate in its propriety, and never falsifies its principles. The master was also to treat the slave with perfect equity-even as he expected it from the slave-and was not to threaten.

It is beautiful to see the way in which divine doctrine enters into the details of life, and throws the fragrance of its perfection into every duty and every relationship; how it acknowledges existing things, as far as they can be owned and directed by its principles, but exalts and enhances the value of everything according to the perfection of those principles; by touching not the relationships but the man’s heart who walks in them; taking the moral side, and that of submission, in love and in the exercise of authority which the divine doctrine can regulate, bringing in the grace which governs the use of the authority of God.

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[24] We should read “fruit of the light,” not “fruit of the Spirit.”

[25] It is well to notice here this character of love-love in an established relationship. The word of God is more exact than is generally thought in its expressions; because the expression has its origin in the thing itself. It is not said that Christ loved the world-He has no relationship with the world as it is. It is said that God so loved the world; this is what He is towards it in His own goodness. It is not said that God loved the assembly. The proper relationship of the assembly as such is with Christ, her heavenly Bridegroom. The Father loves us, we are His dear children. God, in this character, loves us. Thus Jehovah loves Israel. On the other hand, all the tenderness and faithfulness that belong to the relationship in which Christ stands are our portion in Him, as well as all that the name of Father means on its side also.

[26] It is specially the devotedness of His love; He gives and gives Himself.

[27] When I say (here and above) that the love of Christ is its source, it is not as if the love of the Father and the counsels of God had not their place in it. I speak of the blessing applied and carried out in the relationship presented in this passage; and this relationship exists with Christ. Nevertheless it is the same divine love.

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Matthew Henry’s Commentary on Ephesians 5:3-20

December 9, 2008 By admin 1 Comment

These verses contain a caution against all manner of uncleanness, with proper remedies and arguments proposed: some further cautions are added, and other duties recommended. Filthy lusts must be suppressed, in order to the supporting of holy love. Walk in love, and shun fornication and all uncleanness. Fornication is folly committed between unmarried persons. All uncleanness includes all other sorts of filthy lusts, which were too common among the Gentiles. Or covetousness, which being thus connected, and mentioned as a thing which should not be once named, some understand it, in the chaste style of the scripture, of unnatural lust; while others take it in the more common sense, for an immoderate desire of gain or an insatiable love of riches, which is spiritual adultery; for by this the soul, which was espoused to God, goes astray from him, and embraces the bosom of a stranger, and therefore carnal worldlings are called adulterers: You adulterers and adulteresses, know you not that the friendship of the world is enmity with God? Now these sins must be dreaded and detested in the highest degree: Let it not be once named among you, never in a way of approbation nor without abhorrence, as becometh saints, holy persons, who are separated from the world, and dedicated unto God. The apostle not only cautions against the gross acts of sin, but against what some may be apt to make light of, and think to be excusable. Neither filthiness (v. 4), by which may be understood all wanton and unseemly gestures and behaviour; nor foolish talking, obscene and lewd discourse, or, more generally, such vain discourse as betrays much folly and indiscretion, and is far from edifying the hearers; nor jesting. The Greek word eutrapelia is the same which Aristotle, in his Ethics, makes a virtue: pleasantness of conversation. And there is no doubt an innocent and inoffensive jesting, which we cannot suppose the apostle here forbids. Some understand him of such scurrilous and abusive reflections as tend to expose others and to make them appear ridiculous. This is bad enough: but the context seems to restrain it to such pleasantry of discourse as is filthy and obscene, which he may also design by that corrupt, or putrid and rotten, communication that he speaks of, ch. 4:29. Of these things he says, They are not convenient. Indeed there is more than inconvenience, even a great deal of mischief, in them. They are so far from being profitable that they pollute and poison the hearers. But the meaning is, Those things do not become Christians, and are very unsuitable to their profession and character. Christians are allowed to be cheerful and pleasant; but they must be merry and wise. The apostle adds, But rather giving of thanks: so far let the Christian’s way of mirth be from that of obscene and profane wit, that he may delight his mind, and make himself cheerful, by a grateful remembrance of God’s goodness and mercy to him, and by blessing and praising him on account of these. Note, 1. We should take all occasions to render thanksgivings and praises to God for his kindness and favours to us. 2. A reflection on the grace and goodness of God to us, with a design to excite our thankfulness to him, is proper to refresh and delight the Christian’s mind, and to make him cheerful. Dr. Hammond thinks that eucharistia may signify gracious, pious, religious discourse in general, by way of opposition to what the apostle condemns. Our cheerfulness, instead of breaking out into what is vain and sinful, and a profanation of God’s name, should express itself as becomes Christians, and in what may tend to his glory. If men abounded more in good and pious expressions, they would not be so apt to utter ill and unbecoming words; for shall blessing and cursing, lewdness and thanksgivings, proceed out of the same mouth?

I. To fortify us against the sins of uncleanness, etc., the apostle urges several arguments, and prescribes several remedies, in what follows,

1. He urges several arguments, As, (1.) Consider that these are sins which shut persons out of heaven: For this you know, etc., v. 5. They knew it, being informed of it by the Christian religion. By a covetous man some understand a lewd lascivious libertine, who indulges himself in those vile lusts which were accounted the certain marks of a heathen and an idolater. Others understand it in the common acceptation of the word; and such a man is an idolater because there is spiritual idolatry in the love of this world. As the epicure makes a god of his belly, so the covetous man makes a god of his money, sets those affectations upon it, and places that hope, confidence, and delight, in worldly good, which should be reserved for God only. He serves mammon instead of God. Of these persons it is said that they have no inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and of God; that is, the kingdom of Christ, who is God, or the kingdom which is God’s by nature, and Christ’s as he is Mediator, the kingdom which Christ has purchased and which God bestows. Heaven is here described as a kingdom (as frequently elsewhere) with respect to its eminency and glory, its fulness and sufficiency, etc. In this kingdom the saints and servants of God have an inheritance; for it is the inheritance of the saints in light. But those who are impenitent, and allow themselves either in the lusts of the flesh or the love of the world, are not Christians indeed, and so belong not to the kingdom of grace, nor shall they ever come to the kingdom of glory. Let us then be excited to be on our guard against those sins which would exclude and shut us out of heaven. (2.) These sins bring the wrath of God upon those who are guilty of them: “Let no man deceive you with vain words, etc., v. 6. Let none flatter you, as though such things were tolerable and to be allowed of in Christians, or as though they were not very provoking and offensive unto God, or as though you might indulge yourselves in them and yet escape with impunity. These are vain words.” Observe, Those who flatter themselves and others with hopes of impunity in sin do but put a cheat upon themselves and others. Thus Satan deceived our first parents with vain words when he said to them, You shall not surely die. They are vain words indeed; for those who trust to them will find themselves wretchedly imposed upon, for because of these things cometh the wrath of God upon the children of disobedience. By children of disobedience may be meant the Gentiles, who disbelieved, and refused to comply with, and to submit themselves to, the gospel: or, more generally, all obstinate sinners, who will not be reclaimed, but are given over to disobedience. Disobedience is the very malignity of sin. And it is by a usual Hebraism that such sinners are called children of disobedience; and such indeed they are from their childhood, going astray as soon as they are born. The wrath of God comes upon such because of their sins; sometimes in this world, but more especially in the next. And dare we make light of that which will lay us under the wrath of God? O no. Be not you therefore partakers with them, v. 7. “Do not partake with them in their sins, that you may not share in their punishment.” We partake with other men in their sins, not only when we live in the same sinful manner that they do, and consent and comply with their temptations and solicitations to sin, but when we encourage them in their sins, prompt them to sin, and do not prevent and hinder them, as far as it may be in our power to do so. (3.) Consider what obligations Christians are under to live at another rate than such sinners do: For you were sometimes darkness, but now, etc., v. 8. The meaning is, “Such courses are very unsuitable to your present condition; for, whereas in your Gentile and your unregenerate state you were darkness, you have now undergone a great change.” The apostle calls their former condition darkness in the abstract, to express the great darkness they were in. They lived wicked and profane lives, being destitute of the light of instruction without and of the illumination and grace of the blessed Spirit within. Note, A state of sin is a state of darkness. Sinners, like men in the dark, are going they know not whither, and doing they know not what. But the grace of God had produced a mighty change in their souls: Now are you light in the Lord, savingly enlightened by the word and the Spirit of God. Now, upon your believing in Christ, and your receiving the gospel. Walk as children of light. Children of light, according to the Hebrew dialect, are those who are in a state of light, endued with knowledge and holiness. “Now, being such, let your conversation be suitable to your condition and privileges, and accordingly live up to the obligation you are under by that knowledge and those advantages you enjoy—Proving what is acceptable unto the Lord (v. 10), examining and searching diligently what God has revealed to be his will, and making it appear that you approve it by conforming yourselves to it.” Observe, We must not only dread and avoid that which is displeasing to God, but enquire and consider what will be acceptable to him, searching the scriptures with this view, thus keeping at the greatest distance from these sins.

2. The apostle prescribes some remedies against them. As, (1.) If we would not be entangled by the lusts of the flesh, we must bring forth the fruits of the Spirit, v. 9. This is expected from the children of light, that, being illuminated, they be also sanctified by the Spirit, and thereupon bring forth his fruit, which is in all goodness, an inclination to do good and to show mercy, and righteousness, which signifies justice in our dealings. Thus they are taken more strictly; but, more generally, all religion is goodness and righteousness. And in and with these must be truth, or sincerity and uprightness of heart. (2.) We must have no fellowship with sin nor sinners, v. 11. Sinful works are works of darkness: they come from the darkness of ignorance, they seek the darkness of concealment, and they lead to the darkness of hell. These works of darkness are unfruitful works; there is nothing got by them in the long run, whatever profit is pretended by sin, it will by no means balance the loss; for it issues in the utter ruin and destruction of the impenitent sinner. We must therefore have no fellowship with these unfruitful works; as we must not practise them ourselves, so we must not countenance others in the practice of them. There are many ways of our being accessary to the sins of others, by commendation, counsel, consent, or concealment. And, if we share with others in their sin, we must expect to share with them in their plagues. Nay, if we thus have fellowship with them, we shall be in the utmost danger of acting as they do ere long. But, rather than have fellowship with them, we must reprove them, implying that if we do not reprove the sins of others we have fellowship with them. We must prudently and in our places witness against the sins of others, and endeavour to convince them of their sinfulness, when we can do it seasonably and pertinently, in our words; but especially by the holiness of our lives, and a religious conversation. Reprove their sins by abounding in the contrary duties. One reason given is, For it is a shame even to speak of those things, etc., v. 12. They are so filthy and abominable that it is a shame to mention them, except in a way of reproof, much more must it be a shame to have any fellowship with them. The things which are done of them in secret. The apostle seems to speak here of the Gentile idolaters, and of their horrid mysteries, which abounded with detestable wickedness, and which none were permitted to divulge upon pain of death. Observe, A good man is ashamed to speak that which many wicked people are not ashamed to act; but, as far as their wickedness appears, it should be reproved by good men. There follows another reason for such reproof: But all things that are reproved are made manifest by the light, v. 13. The meaning of this passage may be this: “All those unfruitful works of darkness which you are called upon to reprove are laid open, and made to appear in their proper colours to the sinners themselves, by the light of doctrine or of God’s word in your mouths, as faithful reprovers, or by that instructive light which is diffused by the holiness of your lives and by your exemplary walk.” Observe, The light of God’s word, and the exemplification of it in a Christian conversation, are proper means to convince sinners of their sin and wickedness. It follows, For whatsoever doth make manifest is light; that is, it is the light that discovers what was concealed before in darkness; and accordingly it becomes those who are children of light, who are light in the Lord, to discover to others their sins, and to endeavour to convince them of the evil and danger of them, thus shining as lights in the world. The apostle further urges this duty from the example of God or Christ: Wherefore he saith, etc. (v. 14); as if he had said, “In doing this, you will copy after the great God, who has set himself to awaken sinners from their sleep, and to raise them from the death of sin, that they might receive light from Christ.” He saith. The Lord is constantly saying in his word what is more particularly expressed in Isa. 60:1. Or, Christ, by his ministers, who preach the everlasting gospel, is continually calling upon sinners to this effect: Awake, thou that sleepest, and arise from the dead. The same thing in the main is designed by these different expressions; and they serve to remind us of the great stupidity and the wretched security of sinners, how insensible they are of their danger, and how unapt they naturally are to spiritual motions, sensations, and actions. When God calls upon them to awake, and to arise, his meaning is that they would break off their sins by repentance, and enter on a course of holy obedience, and he encourages them to essay and do their utmost that way, by that gracious promise, And Christ shall give thee light; or Christ shall enlighten thee, or shall shine upon thee. “He shall bring thee into a state of knowledge, holiness, and comfort, assisting thee with his grace, and refreshing thy mind with joy and peace here and rewarding thee with eternal glory at length.” Observe, When we are endeavouring to convince sinners, and to reform them from their sins, we are imitating God and Christ in that which is their great design throughout the gospel. Some indeed understand this as a call to sinners and to saints: to sinners to repent and turn; to saints to stir up themselves to their duty. The former must arise from their spiritual death; and the latter must awake from their spiritual deadness. (3.) Another remedy against sin is circumspection, care, or caution (v. 15): See then, etc. This may be understood either with respect to what immediately precedes, “If you are to reprove others for their sins, and would be faithful to your duty in this particular, you must look well to yourselves, and to your own behaviour and conduct” (and, indeed, those only are fit to reprove others who walk with due circumspection and care themselves): or else we have here another remedy or rather preservative from the before-mentioned sins; and this I take to be the design of the apostle, being impossible to maintain purity and holiness of heart and life without great circumspection and care. Walk circumspectly, or, as the word signifies, accurately, exactly, in the right way, in order to which we must be frequently consulting our rule, and the directions we have in the sacred oracles. Not as fools, who walk at all adventures, and who have no understanding of their duty, nor of the worth of their souls, and through neglect, supineness, and want of care, fall into sin, and destroy themselves; but as wise, as persons taught of God and endued with wisdom from above. Circumspect walking is the effect of true wisdom, but the contrary is the effect of folly. It follows, redeeming the time (v. 16), literally, buying the opportunity. It is a metaphor taken from merchants and traders who diligently observe and improve the seasons for merchandise and trade. It is a great part of Christian wisdom to redeem the time. Good Christians must be good husbands of their time, and take care to improve it to the best of purposes, by watching against temptations, by doing good while it is in the power of their hands, and by filling it up with proper employment—one special preservative from sin. They should make the best use they can of the present seasons of grace. Our time is a talent given us by God for some good end, and it is misspent and lost when it is not employed according to his design. If we have lost our time heretofore, we must endeavour to redeem it by doubling our diligence in doing our duty for the future. The reason given is because the days are evil, either by reason of the wickedness of those who dwell in them, or rather “as they are troublesome and dangerous times to you who live in them.” Those were times of persecution wherein the apostle wrote this: the Christians were in jeopardy every hour. When the days are evil we have one superadded argument to redeem time, especially because we know not how soon they may be worse. People are very apt to complain of bad times; it were well if that would stir them up to redeem time. “Wherefore,” says the apostle (v. 17), “because of the badness of the times, be you not unwise, ignorant of your duty and negligent about your souls, but understanding what the will of the Lord is. Study, consider, and further acquaint yourselves with the will of God, as determining your duty.” Observe, Ignorance of our duty, and neglect of our souls, are evidences of the greatest folly; while an acquaintance with the will of God, and a care to comply with it, bespeak the best and truest wisdom.

II. In the three following verses the apostle warns against some other particular sins, and urges some other duties. 1. He warns against the sin of drunkenness: And be not drunk with wine, v. 18. This was a sin very frequent among the heathens; and particularly on occasion of the festivals of their gods, and more especially in their Bacchanalia: then they were wont to inflame themselves with wine, and all manner of inordinate lusts were consequent upon it: and therefore the apostle adds, wherein, or in which drunkenness, is excess. The word asoµtia may signify luxury or dissoluteness; and it is certain that drunkenness is no friend to chastity and purity of life, but it virtually contains all manner of extravagance, and transports men into gross sensuality and vile enormities. Note, Drunkenness is a sin that seldom goes alone, but often involves men in other instances of guilt: it is a sin very provoking to God, and a great hindrance to the spiritual life. The apostle may mean all such intemperance and disorder as are opposite to the sober and prudent demeanor he intends in his advice, to redeem the time. 2. Instead of being filled with wine, he exhorts them to be filled with the Spirit. Those who are full of drink are not likely to be full of the Spirit; and therefore this duty is opposed to the former sin. The meaning of the exhortation is that men should labour for a plentiful measure of the graces of the Spirit, that would fill their souls with great joy, strength, and courage, which things sensual men expect their wine should inspire them with. We cannot be guilty of any excess in our endeavours after these: nay, we ought not to be satisfied with a little of the Spirit, but to be aspiring after measures, so as to be filled with the Spirit. Now by this means we shall come to understand what the will of the Lord is; for the Spirit of God is given as a Spirit of wisdom and of understanding. And because those who are filled with the Spirit will be carried out in acts of devotion, and all the proper expressions of it, therefore the apostle exhorts, 3. To sing unto the Lord, v. 19. Drunkards are wont to sing obscene and profane songs. The heathens, in their Bacchanalia, used to sing hymns to Bacchus, whom they called the god of wine. Thus they expressed their joy; but the joy of Christians should express itself in songs of praise to their God. In these they should speak to themselves in their assemblies and meetings together, for mutual edification. By psalms may be meant David’s psalms, or such composures as were fitly sung with musical instruments. By hymns may be meant such others as were confined to matter of praise, as those of Zacharias, Simeon, etc. Spiritual songs may contain a greater variety of matter, doctrinal, prophetical, historical, etc. Observe here, (1.) The singing of psalms and hymns is a gospel ordinance: it is an ordinance of God, and appointed for his glory. (2.) Though Christianity is an enemy to profane mirth, yet it encourages joy and gladness, and the proper expressions of these in the professors of it. God’s people have reason to rejoice, and to sing for joy. They are to sing and to make melody in their hearts; not only with their voices, but with inward affection, and then their doing this will be as delightful and acceptable to God as music is to us: and it must be with a design to please him, and to promote his glory, that we do this; and then it will be done to the Lord. 4. Thanksgiving is another duty that the apostle exhorts to, v. 20. We are appointed to sing psalms, etc., for the expression of our thankfulness to God; but, though we are not always singing, we should never want a disposition for this duty, as we never want matter for it. We must continue it throughout the whole course of our lives; and we should give thanks for all things; not only for spiritual blessings enjoyed, and eternal ones expected (for what of the former we have in hand, and for what of the other we have in hope), but for temporal mercies too; not only for our comforts, but also for our sanctified afflictions; not only for what immediately concerns ourselves, but for the instances of God’s kindness and favour to others also. It is our duty in every thing to give thanks unto God and the Father, to God as the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ and our Father in him, in whose name we are to offer up all our prayers, and praises, and spiritual services, that they may be acceptable to God.

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