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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.com | DownloadWilliam Burkitt Notes and Observations - Ephesians 5:1 - 5:1
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Our apostle having, in the conclusion of the foregoing chapter, exhorted the Ephesians to mutual offices of love and kindness towards each other, in the beginning of this chapter he makes use of several very cogent arguments to excite and quicken them thereunto.
The first of which is drawn from the example of God: as he had been kind to us, and for Christ's sake forgiven us, let us therefore be followers of him, not as our God only, but as our Father: Be ye followers of God, as dear children.
Where note, 1. The duty exhorted to: Be ye followers of God; that is, in all the excellences of his communicable attributes, and particularly in the exercise of universal goodness and kindness, mercy and forgiveness.
The argument exciting to this duty; as dear children; you are children, and who should children imitate but their father? And you are dear children, will you not imitate such a Father?
Learn from both, That such as lay claim to a relation to God, without imitation to him, are not children, but bastards: they may be of his family, but not of his household; of his family by instruction, but not by descent. There is no implantation into Christ without an imitation, both of the Creator and Redeemer, Christ as a Son over his own house: whose house are we, if we hold fast, & c. Heb_3:6