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relation to God as God. He is the “image of God” ( eijkw;n tou' qeou' ) and not simply of the Father.’

‘Giving thanks always for all things in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ to our God and Father’ ( tw'/ qew'/ kai; patriv ). (Eph. 5:20.)

Christ.

( a ) ‘Grace to you and peace from God our Father and our Lord Jesus Christ.’

‘Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.’ (1:3.) ‘He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world— having fore-ordained us unto adoption as sons through Jesus Christ unto Himself.’ (1:4, 5.)

‘The Son of God.’ (4:13.) ( b ) The Divine counsel—now revealed—according to His gracious purpose—‘to sum up all things in the Christ, the things in the heaven and the things in the earth.’ (1:10.)

‘In Him’ and ‘through Him’ and ‘unto Him’ (Col. 1:16) were all things made. He is the ‘first-born,’ ‘the beginning’ of all creation. Man was formed in His Image; and in Him men find their consummation. The forces of Nature, so to speak, are revealed to us in the Bible as gathered together and crowned in man, and the diversities of men as gathered together and crowned in the Son of Man; and so we are encouraged to look forward to the end, to a unity of which every imaginary unity on earth is a phantom or a symbol, when the Will of the Father shall be accomplished and He shall sum up all things in Christ —all things and not simply all persons—both the things in the heavens and the things upon the earth. (Eph. 1:10.)

We see, inscribed upon the age-long annals in which the prophetic history of the world and of humanity has been written, the sentence of inextinguishable hope ‘From God unto God.’ We see when we look back upon the manifestation of the Divine plan that the order which we trace—nature, humanity, Christ— corresponds inversely with our earnest expectation of its fulfilment. Christ, the sons of God, nature. We see, in short, while we thus regard the universe, as we must do, under the limitation of succession, from first to last a supreme harmony underlying all things—a holy unity which shall hereafter crown and fulfil creation as one revelation of Infinite Love.

( Christus Consummator , pp. 103, 108, 111.) ‘One Lord.’ (Eph. 4:5.)

( c ) ‘His grace, which He freely bestowed upon us in the Beloved.’ (1:6.) ‘In Whom we have our redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses.’ (1:7.)

‘In the blood of Christ’ (2:13) the Gentiles, once afar, were made near. ‘For He,’—uniting—and reconciling—Jew and Gentile—‘in one body—to God—proclaimed Peace’—glad tidings of peace— ‘to all far and near.’ (2:14-17.)

‘Through Him we have our access—to the Father’ (2:18)— ‘freedom of access’ ( prosagwgh;n ) and ‘freedom of address’ ( parrhsivan )—and thus personal communion with God. (3:12.)

And an eternal purpose was thus fulfilled. The same Lord, Who is the stay of our faith and hope, is also the crown of the whole development of the world.

Through all the changes of time God prepared the way to the fulfilment of His counsel;—all creation and life tending to one end, now made manifest by the coming of the Son of God (3:11).

(1:2.)


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