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"For to create in Himself of twain one new man, so making peace" (Eph. 2: 15).
"Put on the new man, which after God is created in righteousness and true holiness"
(Eph. 4: 24).
This passage makes us think of Col. 3: 10, where we read:
"And have put on the new man, which is renewed in knowledge after the image of
Him that created him."
but this in its turn is the practical outworking of the doctrine contained in that wondrous
passage concerning Christ:
"Who is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of every creature" (Col. 1: 15).
Again, several items of the Unity of the Spirit which, in Eph. 4:, the believer is
enjoined to keep, are found in the doctrine of Eph. 1:, 2:, and 3:
Ephesians 1: - 3:
Eph. 4: 3 6.
One Body.
Reconcile . . . . . in One Body (2: 16).
One Spirit.
Access by one Spirit (2: 18).
One Hope of your calling.
The Hope of His calling (1: 18).
One Lord.
Head over all things (1: 22).
One Faith.
Faith according to the Lord Jesus Christ (1: 17).
One Baptism.
Fellowheirs, body, partakers (3: 6).
One God and Father.
Blessed be the God and Father (1: 3).
The Bond of Peace.
He is our Peace, Who hath made both one (2: 14).
While the Apostle uses the word prosagoge, "access", in Eph. 2: 18, we have to turn
to Peter's testimony to discover the actual doctrinal fact, of which this "access" is the
practical balance:
"For Christ also hath once suffered for sins, the Just for the unjust, that He might bring
us to God" (I Pet. 3: 18).
"That He might bring" is the verb prosago from which "access", prosagoge, is
derived. In other words, we "draw nigh", personally, because we have been "made nigh"
by the finished work of Christ.
As the concluding example of this balance between doctrine and practice, let us take
the great fundamental of Paul's gospel, "righteousness", dikaiosune. Nothing is more
incisive than the teaching of the Apostle concerning the way in which righteousness must
be received under the gospel. It is "by faith" (Phil. 3: 9), it is "not by works" (Tit. 3: 5),
it is not "by the law" (Rom. 3: 21), it is "reckoned", not as a wage, but as a gift
(Rom. 4: 5). Christ is "made unto us righteousness" (I Cor. 1: 30), and is "the end of the
law unto righteousness to every one that believeth" (Rom. 10: 4).
Here is the doctrinal basis; what of the practical correspondence? Those thus justified
by faith are told that they have become "the servants of righteousness" (Rom. 6: 18),
that their members should be yielded as "instruments of righteousness" (Rom. 6: 13);
and that the armour in which they stand contains "the breastplate" of righteousness