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| Chapter IX.—Ye have given no heed to false teachers.
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Chapter IX.—Ye have given no heed to
false teachers.
Nevertheless, I have heard of some who have
passed on from this to you, having false doctrine, whom ye did not suffer
to sow among you, but stopped your ears, that ye might not receive those
things which were sown by them, as being stones542
of the temple of the Father, prepared for the
building of God the Father, and drawn up on high by the instrument of
Jesus Christ, which is the cross,543
making use of the Holy Spirit as a rope, while your faith was the means
by which you ascended, and your love the way which led up to God. Ye, therefore, as well as all your
fellow-travellers, are God-bearers, temple-bearers, Christ-bearers,
bearers of holiness, adorned in all respects with the commandments of
Jesus Christ, in whom also I exult that I have been thought worthy, by
means of this Epistle, to converse and rejoice with you, because with
respect to your Christian life544
| 544 Literally, “according to the other
life.” | ye love nothing but God only.
Nevertheless, I have
heard of some who have passed in among you, holding the wicked doctrine
of the strange and evil spirit; to whom ye did not allow entrance to sow
their tares, but stopped your ears that ye might not receive that error
which was proclaimed by them, as being persuaded that that spirit which
deceives the people does not speak the things of Christ, but his own, for
he is a lying spirit. But the Holy Spirit
does not speak His own things, but those of Christ, and that not from
himself, but from the Lord; even as the Lord also announced to us the
things that He received from the Father. For, says He, “the word
which ye hear is not Mine, but the Father’s, who sent
Me.”545
And says He of the Holy Spirit, “He
shall not speak of Himself, but whatsoever things He shall hear from
Me.”546
And He says of Himself to the Father,
“I have,” says He, “glorified Thee upon the earth; I
have finished the work which, Thou gavest Me; I have manifested Thy name
to men.”547
And of the Holy Ghost,
“He shall glorify Me, for He receives of Mine.”548
But the spirit of deceit preaches himself, and
speaks his own things, for he seeks to please himself. He glorifies
himself, for he is full of arrogance. He is lying, fraudulent, soothing,
flattering, treacherous, rhapsodical, trifling, inharmonious, verbose,
sordid, and timorous. From his power Jesus Christ will deliver you, who
has founded you upon the rock, as being chosen stones, well fitted for
the divine edifice of the Father, and who are raised up on high by
Christ, who was crucified for you, making use of the Holy Spirit as a
rope, and being borne up by faith, while exalted by love from earth to
heaven, walking in company with those that are undefiled. For, says [the
Scripture], “Blessed are the undefiled in the way, who walk in the
law of the Lord.”549
Now the way is unerring,
namely, Jesus Christ. For, says He, “I am the way and the
life.”550
And this way leads to the
Father. For “no man,” says He, “cometh to the Father
but by Me.”551
Blessed, then, are ye who are God-bearers,
spirit-bearers, temple-bearers, bearers of holiness, adorned in all
respects with the commandments of Jesus Christ, being “a royal
priesthood, a holy nation, a peculiar people,”552
on whose account I rejoice exceedingly, and have had the
privilege, by this Epistle, of conversing with “the saints which
are at Ephesus, the faithful in Christ Jesus.”553
I rejoice, therefore, over you, that ye do not give heed to
vanity, and love nothing according to the flesh, but according to
God.E.C.F. INDEX & SEARCH
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