(Continued from p. 160)

"Wherein he hath abounded toward us in all -wisdom and prudence; having made known unto us the mystery of His will, according to the good pleasure that He hath purposed in Himself; that in the dispensation 'of the fulness of times he might gather together in one all things in Christ, both which are in heaven and which are on earth, even in Him."

We love the Authorized Version, from which the above is a quotation. We love the stately and elevated flow of the language. Its venerable and venerated English, unfolding sacred thought, laves our tired spirits in refreshing streams of reverent gladness. Sometimes it clothes its theme so that it blends with the pealing anthem of the organ and the music of sweet-voiced choirs, or breathes out the living freshness of some fair spring morning, mingling with it the symphonies of softly flowing brooks and the song of feathered choristers. Its English, if ever English was, is like the voice of inspiration.

Nevertheless there are other versions, equally accurate, sometimes even more, that either emend its thought or supplement its meaning. There are, in fact, as we have for some time been insisting, intentional ambiguities in the Greek, that hint at double and even triple blessing for us. Let us profit from them, not in garnering contention, but in an ingathering of joy.

In his Critical and Grammatical Commentary, Bishop Ellicott states that the Greek verb, translated "abounded" in the above quotation, is susceptible of both active and passive meaning and is so used by Paul, and that a better rendition of the original in this instance would be "which he hath caused to abound toward us." Such a change of course lends other force to what follows. The Authorized Version implies that "wisdom and prudence" are God's meters, used in meting out his abundance to us, while his own rendition assures us that same abundant grace is shown in the importation of all wisdom and "discrimination" to the Church. Their common thought is of the abundance of grace, however. To this a whole sermon might be devoted or an entire volume consecrated.

You will remember that the dear apostle, who wrote this lovely epistle, once found a heavy burden lightened by God's assurance that His grace was "sufficient" for him, so that he learned to glory in the infirmities that rendered it necessary. That word "sufficient" suggests the measure of abundance. The apostle John discovers in Christ an ocean fulness, crying:"Of his fulness have all we received and grace on grace." Here indeed is the glory of "the Only-begotten of the Father." Then in our Ephesian chapter we have the "grace upon grace" streaming forth in the whole current of revelation, until in our present text it is "grace abounding," which very appropriately gathers head at the mention of "redemption by His blood, the forgiveness of sins according to the riches of his grace." We are reminded of the exclamation of a poor woman, to whom all natural blessings had been stinted, who, looking upon the ocean for the first time, rejoiced that here at last was something of which there "was enough." The apostle in the poverty and strait of his sin had seen another ocean shortly after the glory on the Damascus road, and ever since it had been for him, in its divine refreshment, like the "Rock that followed" the Children of Israel, a perennial flow.

If we now consider Ellicott's idea that all "wisdom and discrimination" have, by God's grace, been imparted to the Church and ponder the reason for its introduction right after "redemption by blood" another avenue of thought calls to us. The wisdom and discrimination are then limited to "spiritual" wisdom and discrimination, for otherwise the statement would scarcely be true. We are thus reminded that "only through the cross" do God's ways with man, either for the past or the future, become intelligible. In it wisdom and intelligence are ours. It is thus the "mind" or "thinking" of the Spirit, and is "life and peace."

It is "life" for it puts us into living communication with the One in Whom is life. It is "peace," for it makes us delight in the ways and plans of God, Who apart from the cross seems as if He had forsaken the world and abandoned the race of man to hopeless despair. The "abounding grace" speaking to us through hallowed memories of Christ's sufferings "lends a light to every age." Thus the cross like a lighthouse towers over the wrecks of the Past and illumines with an undying glory the entire Future. It renders intelligible to us the exaltation of "Jesus Christ of Nazareth" to the throne of the Universe; it makes us eagerly and joyfully and comprehendingly to anticipate the "fulness of the times," the consummation of the ages, with which the apostle now continues.

From one of the peaks of the high "Rockies," upon the sudden lifting of mists that had surrounded and enshrouded him, John Muir, that eminent naturalist and ardent theist, once exclaimed:"To think that He should plan to bring us feckless creatures here just at the right moment and then flash such glories at vs."

Thank God, revelation has rolled aside the mists from our spiritual vision, has unfolded the "mystery" of God's great and grand purposes, "to gather together in one," "to sum up again together" all things in the redeeming Christ. We stand upon the threshold of eternity, and man's history, overshadowed by the bright cloud of God's atoning love, "like a many-colored dome of glass stains" its white radiance, with a golden glory.

There is some difference among commentators as to whether the verb "anakephalaiosasthai" (rendered, gather together, or head up] in which with its onomatopoetic sibilance we seem to catch the seething of the sea of time along the shores of eternity, includes the thought of Christ's headship. Ellicott, from a lexical and contextual viewpoint decides against it. Another commentator, J. N. Darby, of equal piety and great spiritual insight decides for it. To quote the former:"In a writer so profound as St. Paul this is far from impossible. The derivation of the word, however, (kephalaion and not kephale), St. Paul's use of it in its common meaning, Rom. 13:9, and most of all the context, which points to a union in Christ not under Christ, to his atonement rather than his sovereignty render it improbable."

The main argument, however is defective. It is because of the atonement that "God also hath highly exalted him" it is because of the atonement, that "God hath anointed him with the oil of gladness above his fellows," it is because of the atonement that He is appointed "heir of all things" and wherever his own are gathered together, now or in the ages to come, Jesus is crowned Lord of lords and King of kings.

"He is coming, He is coming
Not as once He came before
Lowly infant, born in weakness
On a humble stable floor
But upon His cloud of glory
In the crimson-tinted sky
Where we see the golden sunrise
In the rosy distance lie."

Yes, and farther too.

F. C. Grant