Types of transcendent virtues.
"But that ye also may know," etc. In these verses we have three types of transcendent virtues—a type of elevated friendship, a type of spiritual benevolence, and a type of Christian catholicity.
I. A TYPE OF ELEVATED FRIENDSHIP. Paul here does two things which show the purity and the worth of his friendship.
1. Introduces a noble man to his friends. Some are very anxious to keep their friends to themselves, and, if possible, to monopolize their thoughts and their hearts; and some, if they introduce a friend at all, only those of an inferior type. Paul introduces Tychicus, "a beloved brother and faithful minister." You cannot confer a greater benefit on your friends than to commend to their confidence a noble man; the gift of such a man to them is more valuable than lordly estates or mighty kingdoms.
2. He introduces a noble man to their friendship entirely for their own advantage. There are those who introduce men to their friends for the sake of getting something for them; but not so in this case. Paul does not ask them to do anything for Tychicus; nor does he ask them to send back through Tychicus any favor to him. He sends Tychicus in order to serve them in two ways.
II. A TYPE OF SPIRITUAL BENEVOLENCE. Paul's heart goes out in well-wishing. And what did he wish for his brethren at Ephesus? No secondary favors, but the highest blessings from God the Father and his blessed Son.
1. Divine peace. "Peace be to the brethren." Mark where the peace comes from—"From God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ." There is a peace that does not come from that source—a peace that comes from the devil, a moral stagnation of soul, something like the stillness of that murky atmosphere that nurses and forebodes the thunder, the lightning, and the hurricane which spread devastation over sea and land. The peace of God is:
2. A conjunction of love and faith. "Love with faith." There is a love and also a faith that are not of Heaven. Divine love and faith are always united in a good man. Divine faith "works by love," works by love as the laborer works by the sun. These are the blessings spiritual benevolence desires for men, and they are in truth the germs of all good. Give me these, and I want no more. Out of them my Paradise will bloom; they are the nebulae which will one day encircle me with the brightest of heavens. Give the race these, and soon all crimes, sufferings, discords, miseries, will cease.
III. A TYPE OF CHRISTIAN CATHOLICITY. "Grace be with all them that love our Lord Jesus"—love him purely, love him in reality, love him as he ought to be loved. Wherever they are, in whatever land, of whatever tribe or kingdom, happiness to them. The language of modern sects is—Grace be to all them that are Baptists, Methodists, Independents, Episcopalians, etc. The language of the true Christian catholicity is—"Grace be to all them that love our Lord Jesus Christ," of all creeds or no creed, Churches or no Church.
CONCLUSION. Here end our reflections on this wonderful Epistle. Our walk through this section of the great garden of truth, whose aromas have refreshed, whose beauty has charmed, and whose objects have challenged our thoughts and excited our devout admiration, is now ended. Should others follow our footsteps with keener eyes and finer senses, more apt to discover the beautiful and the good, they will be able to discover for themselves, and reveal to others, much more than we have done. When we began our walk we were afraid that we should meet some of those grim Calvinian dogmas which certain theologians assured us were there, but we never met their shadow. There are no theological weeds and thistles here. All is free and fresh as nature, as fitted to the human soul as light to the eye and breath to the lungs.—D.T.
HOMILIES BY W.F. ADENEY