Ephesians 1:15-16 Why I also, after I heard of your faith in the Lord Jesus, and love to all the saints,… No one who knows what faith and love are, according to the New Testament, will ever doubt that they are the most human of all our capacities. They are distinct, yet essentially one. They are significant signs of our vast future. Give yourself to history, to geology, astronomy, physiology, chemistry, and you will correspondingly inform and expand your mind. But by faith, your spirit is at one with the wisdom and goodness, the power and glory, the infinity and eternity of God. Faith involves, therefore, the utmost enlargement of soul, and yet begets nothing like self-exaltation. We say nothing of nominal believers; but minds which are in actual sympathy with the Son of God, are in the condition to become the master minds of the universe. Nor can anyone doubt this, who understands the scope of God's purpose in Christ Jesus. It is not possible that "the power of God, and the wisdom of God," should establish their empire in certain men, without constituting them "kings and priests unto God." The elements of essential precedency and power are rooted and grounded in them. By selfish thoughts of the gospel, as of a plan by which we are to be saved from misery and hell, we spoil it of its Divine glory. The gospel of God comprehends higher and broader reaches of thought, than any subject ever opened to the minds of angels or men. The noble-mindedness of faith is always associated with a corresponding noble-heartedness. Faith and love are inseparable bosom companions. I constantly thank God, writes Paul, for your faith and love. "Your faith" is a Divine expansiveness given to your understanding, and "your love unto all the saints" is a like vastness given to your affections. They are the double suns of your soul, sun within sun. Whole galaxies of wisdom are comprehended in faith, as in a mental firmament. And as to the new spirit of love, which is faith's associative soul, "He that dwelleth in love, dwelleth in God, and God in him." "Wherefore, I cease not to give thanks for you," that the goodness and the greatness which are everlasting are made sure to you. Your faith and love are of unknown value. They constitute your initiation into an endless progress. Infinite truth is the scope of your mind; and infinite love, the scope of your heart. (John Pulsford.) Parallel Verses KJV: Wherefore I also, after I heard of your faith in the Lord Jesus, and love unto all the saints, |
    |