But these thoughts stand in closest connexion with what preceded. ( a ) An impulse towards laying stress on the unity of the society of Christians throughout the world doubtless came from the position of St Paul as writing from Rome.
Nor...would it be strange that he should use the name Ecclesia in this new and extended sense, although hitherto...applied only to the Christian community of Jerusalem or Judaea or to individual local Christian communities outside the Holy Land. ( ib. p. 129.)
(
b
) Though the language of Eph. 1:22, 4:15 f. (and Col. 1:18), compared with that of 1 Cor. 12:12 and Rom. 12:4 f. is new, the new image is Pauline (cf. 1 Cor. 11:3); also the image of the Corner-stone (cf. Matt. 21:42, Mark 12:10 f., Lk. 20:17, Acts 4:11) cannot have been either unknown to St Paul...or rejected by him. (
ib.
p.
134.)
(iii) Person and Office of Christ. ( a ) Earlier Epistles imply His Pre-existence (cf. 2 Cor. 8:9, Gal. 4:4, Rom.
Colossians (1:16 f.) carries back His Lordship to the beginning of things. Ephesians (1:10) makes the reconciliationeffected by His deathinclude all things, and carries back His Headship of the Ecclesia to a primordial choosing of its members in him (3:14). But of this there is anticipation in 1 Cor. 8:6, 15:45 f.
( b ) In Eph. 2:16 it is Christwhereas in 2 Cor. 5:28 f. it is God through Christwho appears as the Reconciler.But the two forms of language are consistent.
( g ) So also variation of language of Eph. 4:11 from 1 Cor. 12:28, as to the source of gifts, is due to context. ( ib. pp. 134 ff., 190.)
(iv) The Holy Spirit. The contrast with the Epistle to the Colossians is great in this respect; but there is no similar contrast with the earlier Epistles (e.g., Rom., 1 Cor.).
In the First Epistle to the Corinthians and in that to the Ephesians alike St Paul is anxiously insisting on the mutual duties of members of the Christian community and therefore has need to go back to the inner principle of its life, the one uniting Spirit ( id. ib. pp. 140 f.).
(v) The Present and the Future. In Ephesians the immediate imminence of the Coming of the Lord has faded out of view: and a sense of present blessedness has arisen (1:3 ff., 4:11-16) and of a long and gradual growth reaching far out into the future from age to age.
But in the earlier Epistles themselves there is a certain gradation in this respect:Romans suggests the ordering of the ages: and it was natural...that a change like this should come over St Paul's mind in view of the spread of the faith through the Roman Empire.
(vi) Apostles and Prophets. The two names represent the two types of guidance specially given to that earliest age ( Prolegomena , p. 145).
Eph. 3:5. ajpekaluvfqh t. aJgivoi" ajpostovloi" aujtou' kai; profhvtai" ejn pneuvmati, ei\nai ta; e[qnh sunklhronovma k.t.l. does but sum up in a pregnant form what had been the real course of things (cf. e.g., Acts 13:1-4).
Eph. 2:20. ejpoikodomhqevnte" ejpi; tw'/ qemelivw/ tw'n ajpostovlwn kai; profhtw'n gives the historical order of the actual structure and growth of the Ecclesia itself, not any authority over the Ecclesia. And St Paul himself could fitly...speak thus; and use the special image of the foundation. Nor would he by so using it...contradict...1 Cor.
8:3).