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access (see verse 12) and a united family (15), the believer's attention is directed within,
and the inner man is prepared so that "Christ may dwell in the heart by faith".
The figure which is used of the company of believers thus made nigh is "The Body";
the figure used of the company of believers in whom God makes His dwelling place is
"The Temple". This thought of the body and the temple is not new. Christ Himself
"spake of the temple of His body" (John 2: 21). To the Corinthians the Apostle wrote as
practical truth that which God was to put into operation as doctrine in Ephesians:--
"Know ye not that your bodies are the members of Christ . . . . . he that is joined to an
harlot is one body . . . . . but he that is joined unto the Lord is one spirit . . . . . Know ye
not that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit" (I Cor. 6: 15-20).
There are some who see nothing more in Eph. 2: 19 than that the Gentiles who once
were aliens from the commonwealth of Israel are now given access to that position. Two
great objections to this are found in the Epistle, viz., one is the unqualified emphasis upon
the new dispensation which Paul ushered in upon the revelation of the mystery, and the
other is the presence of the word "FELLOW" in verse 19. When the Apostle unfolded
the mystery, as he does in chapter 3:, he uses this word to express the great distinctive
fact:--
"That the Gentiles should be FELLOW heirs, FELLOW (members of the same) body,
and FELLOW partakers of the promise" (verse 6).
So long as we are dealing with the commonwealth of Israel and the covenants of
promise, so long must Israel's position be maintained, "The Jew first", the Gentiles being
"wild olive branches grafted in". The dispensation has changed. Instead of the flesh we
have the spirit; instead of nations and kingdoms we have the church which is His body.
In this new sphere the Jew who believes, equally with the Gentile, loses all his national
and covenanted distinctions. This blessed truth was preached by Christ through the
prison ministry of Paul equally to those who were far off (Gentiles) and to those who
were nigh (Jews), and while the distinctive character of this Church and dispensation is
Gentile, those Jews who were made fellow-members at the beginning, were in no sense
favoured above their Gentile brethren. The position of the Gentile in the one body is
exceptional, and is designed to fill up the Word of God until the day comes for the breach
to be healed and the threads resumed.
There is a great use made in these few verses of the word oikos, a house, and its
cognates:--
FOREIGNER (2: 19)
is paroikos (cf. Acts 7: 6, 29).
HOUSEHOLD (2: 19)
is oikeioi (cf. Gal. 6: 10; I Tim. 5: 8).
BUILT (2: 20)
is epoikodomeõ (cf. I Cor. 3: 10).
BUILDING (2: 21)
is oidodomē (cf. I Cor. 3: 9).
BUILT-TOGETHER (2: 22)
is sunoikodomeomai (only occurrence).
HABITATION (2: 22)
is katoikētērion (cf. Rev. 18: 2).
It will be noticed that the word which is so suggestive of the peculiar blessing of this
dispensation, viz., "builded together", occurs nowhere else in the New Testament. The