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| The Epistle to the Laodiceans. The Proper Designation is to the Ephesians. Recapitulation of All Things in Christ from the Beginning of the Creation. No Room for Marcion's Christ Here. Numerous Parallels Between This Epistle and Passages in the Old Testament. The Prince of the Power of the Air, and the God of This World--Who? Creation and Regeneration the Work of One God. How Christ Has Made the Law Obsolete. A Vain Erasure of Marcion's. The Apostles as Well as the Prophets from the Creator.
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Chapter
XVII.—The Epistle to the Laodiceans. The Proper Designation is to
the Ephesians. Recapitulation of All Things in Christ from the
Beginning of the Creation. No Room for Marcion’s Christ
Here. Numerous Parallels Between This Epistle and Passages in the
Old Testament. The Prince of the Power of the Air, and the God of This
World—Who? Creation and Regeneration the Work of One God.
How Christ Has Made the Law Obsolete. A Vain Erasure of
Marcion’s. The Apostles as Well as the Prophets from the
Creator.
We have it on the true tradition5948
of the Church, that this epistle was sent to
the Ephesians, not to
the Laodiceans. Marcion, however, was very desirous of giving it the
new title (of Laodicean),5949
| 5949 Titulum interpolare
gestiit: or, “of corrupting its title.” | as if he were
extremely accurate in investigating such a point. But of what
consequence are the titles, since in writing to a certain church the
apostle did in fact write to all? It is certain that, whoever they were
to whom he wrote,5950
he declared Him to
be God in Christ with whom all things agree which are
predicted.5951
| 5951 For a discussion
on the title of this epistle in a succinct shape, the reader is
referred to Dean Alford’s Gr. Test. vol. iii.
Prolegomena, chap. ii. sec. 2. | Now, to what god
will most suitably belong all those things which relate to “that
good pleasure, which God hath purposed in the mystery of His
will, that in the dispensation of the fulness of times He might
recapitulate” (if I may so say, according to the exact
meaning of the Greek word5952
| 5952 ἀνακεφαλαιώσασθαι,
“to sum up into a head.” | ) “all things
in Christ, both which are in heaven and which are on
earth,”5953
but to Him whose
are all things from their beginning, yea the beginning itself too; from
whom issue the times and the dispensation of the fulness of times,
according to which all things up to the very first are gathered up in
Christ? What beginning, however, has the other god; that is to
say, how can anything proceed from him, who has no work to show? And if
there be no beginning, how can there be times? If no times, what
fulness of times can there be? And if no fulness, what
dispensation? Indeed, what has he ever done on earth, that any
long dispensation of times to be fulfilled can be put to his account,
for the accomplishment of all things in Christ, even of things in
heaven? Nor can we possibly suppose that any things whatever have been
at any time done in heaven by any other God than Him by whom, as all
men allow, all things have been done on earth. Now, if it is impossible
for all these things from the beginning to be reckoned to any other God
than the Creator, who will believe that an alien god has recapitulated
them in an alien Christ, instead of their own proper Author in His own
Christ? If, again, they belong to the Creator, they must needs be
separate from the other god; and if separate, then opposed to him. But
then how can opposites be gathered together into him by whom they are
in short destroyed? Again, what Christ do the following words announce,
when the apostle says: “That we should be to the praise of
His glory, who first trusted in Christ?”5954
Now who could have first trusted—i.e. previously
trusted5955
| 5955 He explains
“præsperasse by ante
sperasse.” | —in God,
before His advent, except the Jews to whom Christ was previously
announced, from the beginning? He who was thus foretold, was
also foretrusted. Hence the apostle refers the statement to
himself, that is, to the Jews, in order that he may draw a distinction
with respect to the Gentiles, (when he goes on to say:) “In whom
ye also trusted, after that ye heard the word of truth, the gospel (of
your salvation); in whom ye believed, and were sealed with His Holy
Spirit of promise.”5956
Of what promise?
That which was made through Joel: “In the last days will I pour
out of my Spirit upon all flesh,”5957
that is, on all nations. Therefore the Spirit and the Gospel will be
found in the Christ, who was foretrusted, because foretold. Again,
“the Father of glory”5958
is He whose
Christ, when ascending to heaven, is celebrated as “the King of
Glory” in the Psalm: “Who is this King of Glory? the Lord
of Hosts, He is the King of Glory.”5959
From Him also is besought “the spirit of wisdom,”5960
at whose disposal is enumerated that
sevenfold distribution of the spirit of grace by Isaiah.5961
He likewise will grant “the
enlightenment of the eyes of the understanding,”5962
who has also enriched our natural eyes with
light; to whom, moreover, the blindness of the people is
offensive: “And who is blind, but my servants?…yea,
the servants of God have become blind.”5963
In
His gift, too, are “the riches (of the glory) of His inheritance
in the saints,”5964
who promised such
an inheritance in the call of the Gentiles: “Ask of me, and I
will give Thee the heathen for Thine inheritance.”5965
It was He who “wrought in Christ His
mighty power, by raising Him from the dead, and setting Him at His own
right hand, and putting all things under His feet”5966
—even the same who said: “Sit
Thou on my right hand, until I make Thine enemies Thy
footstool.”5967
For in another
passage the Spirit says to the Father concerning the Son: “Thou
hast put all things under His feet.”5968
Now, if from all these facts which are found in the Creator there is
yet to be deduced5969
another god and
another Christ, let us go in quest of the Creator. I suppose,
forsooth,5970
we find Him, when
he speaks of such as “were dead in trespasses and sins, wherein
they had walked according to the course of this world,
according to the prince of the power of the air, who worketh in the
children of disobedience.”5971
But Marcion
must not here interpret the world as meaning the God of the
world.5972
| 5972 Deo mundi: i.e. the
God who made the world. | For a creature
bears no resemblance to the Creator; the thing made, none to its Maker;
the world, none to God. He, moreover, who is the Prince of the power of
the ages must not be thought to be called the prince of the power of
the air; for He who is chief over the higher powers derives no title
from the lower powers, although these, too, may be ascribed to Him.
Nor, again, can He possibly seem to be the instigator5973
| 5973 Operator: in reference
to the expression in ver. 2, “who now
worketh,” etc. | of that unbelief which He Himself had rather
to endure at the hand of the Jews and the Gentiles alike. We may
therefore simply conclude that5974
these designations
are unsuited to the Creator. There is another being to whom they
are more applicable—and the apostle knew very well who that was.
Who then is he? Undoubtedly he who has raised up “children of
disobedience” against the Creator Himself ever since he took
possession of that “air” of His; even as the prophet
makes him say: “I will set my throne above the
stars;…I will go up above the clouds; I will be like
the Most High.”5975
This must mean the
devil, whom in another passage (since such will they there have the
apostle’s meaning to be) we shall recognize in the appellation
the god of this world.5976
| 5976 On this and another
meaning given to the phrase in 2 Cor. iv. 4, see above, chap. xi. | For he has filled
the whole world with the lying pretence of his own divinity. To be
sure,5977
| 5977 Plane: an ironical
particle here. | if he had not existed, we might then
possibly have applied these descriptions to the Creator. But the
apostle, too, had lived in Judaism; and when he parenthetically
observed of the sins (of that period of his life), “in which also
we all had our conversation in times past,”5978
he must not be understood to indicate that
the Creator was the lord of sinful men, and the prince of this air; but
as meaning that in his Judaism he had been one of the children of
disobedience, having the devil as his instigator—when he
persecuted the church and the Christ of the Creator. Therefore he says:
“We also were the children of wrath,” but “by
nature.”5979
Let the heretic,
however, not contend that, because the Creator called the Jews
children, therefore the Creator is the lord of wrath.5980
For when (the apostle) says, “We were
by nature the children of wrath,” inasmuch as the Jews were not
the Creator’s children by nature, but by the election of
their fathers, he (must have) referred their being children of wrath to
nature, and not to the Creator, adding this at last, “even as
others,”5981
who, of course,
were not children of God. It is manifest that sins, and lusts of
the flesh, and unbelief, and anger, are ascribed to the common nature
of all mankind, the devil however leading that nature astray,5982
which he has already infected with the
implanted germ of sin. “We,” says he, “are His
workmanship, created in Christ.”5983
It
is one thing to make (as a workman), another thing to create. But he
assigns both to One. Man is the workmanship of the Creator. He
therefore who made man (at first), created him also in Christ. As
touching the substance of nature, He “made” him; as
touching the work of grace, He “created” him. Look also at
what follows in connection with these words: “Wherefore
remember, that ye being in time past Gentiles in the flesh, who are
called uncircumcision by that which has the name of circumcision in the
flesh made by the hand—that at that time ye were without Christ,
being aliens from the commonwealth of Israel, and strangers from the
covenants of promise,5984
having no hope, and
without God in the world.”5985
Now, without
what God and without what Christ were these Gentiles? Surely, without
Him to whom the commonwealth5986
| 5986 Conversatio: rather,
“intercourse with Israel.” | of Israel belonged,
and the covenants and the promise. “But now in Christ,”
says he, “ye who were sometimes far off are made nigh by His
blood.”5987
From whom were they
far off before? From the (privileges) whereof he speaks above, even
from the Christ of the Creator, from the commonwealth of Israel, from
the covenants, from the hope of the promise, from God Himself. Since
this is the case, the Gentiles are consequently now in Christ made nigh
to these (blessings), from which they were once far off. But if we are
in Christ brought so very nigh to the commonwealth of Israel, which
comprises the religion of the divine Creator, and to the covenants and
to the promise, yea to their very God Himself, it is quite ridiculous
(to suppose that) the Christ of the other god has brought us to this
proximity to the Creator from afar. The apostle had in mind that it had
been predicted concerning the call of the Gentiles from their distant
alienation in words like these: “They who were far off from me
have come to my righteousness.”5988
For the Creator’s righteousness no less than His peace was
announced in Christ, as we have often shown already. Therefore he says:
“He is our peace, who hath made both one”5989
—that is, the Jewish nation and the
Gentile world. What is near, and what was far off now that
“the middle wall has been broken down” of their
“enmity,” (are made one) “in His
flesh.”5990
But Marcion erased
the pronoun His, that he might make the enmity refer to flesh,
as if (the apostle spoke) of a carnal enmity, instead of the enmity
which was a rival to Christ.5991
And thus you have
(as I have said elsewhere) exhibited the stupidity of Pontus, rather
than the adroitness of a Marrucinian,5992
| 5992 He expresses the
proverbial adage very tersely, “non Marrucine, sed
Pontice.” |
for you here deny him flesh to whom in the verse above you
allowed blood! Since, however, He has made the law
obsolete5993
by His own
precepts, even by Himself fulfilling the law (for superfluous is,
“Thou shalt not commit adultery,” when He says, “Thou
shalt not look on a woman to lust after her;” superfluous also
is, “Thou shalt do no murder,” when He says, “Thou
shalt not speak evil of thy neighbour,”) it is impossible to make
an adversary of the law out of one who so completely promotes
it.5994
“For to create5995
| 5995 Conderet:
“create,” to keep up the distinction between this and
facere, “to make.” | in
Himself of twain,” for He who had made is also the same
who creates (just as we have found it stated above: “For
we are His workmanship, created in Christ
Jesus”),5996
“one new man,
making peace” (really new, and really man—no
phantom—but new, and newly born of a virgin by the Spirit of
God), “that He might reconcile both unto God”5997
(even the God whom both races had
offended—both Jew and Gentile), “in one body,” says
he, “having in it slain the enmity by the cross.”5998
Thus we find from this passage also, that
there was in Christ a fleshly body, such as was able to endure the
cross. “When, therefore, He came and preached peace to them that
were near and to them which were afar off,” we both obtained
“access to the Father,” being “now no more strangers
and foreigners, but fellow-citizens with the saints, and of the
household of God” (even of Him from whom, as we have shown above,
we were aliens, and placed far off), “built upon the foundation
of the apostles”5999
—(the apostle
added), “and the prophets;” these words, however, the
heretic erased, forgetting that the Lord had set in His Church not only
apostles, but prophets also. He feared, no doubt, that our building was
to stand in Christ upon the foundation of the ancient
prophets,6000
since the apostle
himself never fails to build us up everywhere with (the words of) the
prophets. For whence did he learn to call Christ “the chief
corner-stone,”6001
but from the figure
given him in the Psalm: “The stone which the builders
rejected is become the head (stone) of the corner?”6002
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