Chapter IX.—Ye have given no heed to false teachers.

Nevertheless, I have heard of some who have passed on from this to you, having false doctrine, whom ye did not suffer to sow among you, but stopped your ears, that ye might not receive those things which were sown by them, as being stones⁵⁴²⁵⁴²    Comp. 1 Pet. ii. 5. of the temple of the Father, prepared for the building of God the Father, and drawn up on high by the instrument of Jesus Christ, which is the cross,⁵⁴³⁵⁴³    Comp. John xii. 32. making use of the Holy Spirit as a rope, while your faith was the means by which you ascended, and your love the way which led up to God. Ye, therefore, as well as all your fellow-travellers, are God-bearers, temple-bearers, Christ-bearers, bearers of holiness, adorned in all respects with the commandments of Jesus Christ, in whom also I exult that I have been thought worthy, by means of this Epistle, to converse and rejoice with you, because with respect to your Christian life⁵⁴⁴⁵⁴⁴    Literally, “according to the other life.” ye love nothing but God only.

Nevertheless, I have heard of some who have passed in among you, holding the wicked doctrine of the strange and evil spirit; to whom ye did not allow entrance to sow their tares, but stopped your ears that ye might not receive that error which was proclaimed by them, as being persuaded that that spirit which deceives the people does not speak the things of Christ, but his own, for he is a lying spirit. But the Holy Spirit does not speak His own things, but those of Christ, and that not from himself, but from the Lord; even as the Lord also announced to us the things that He received from the Father. For, says He, “the word which ye hear is not Mine, but the Father’s, who sent Me.”⁵⁴⁵⁵⁴⁵    John xiv. 24. And says He of the Holy Spirit, “He shall not speak of Himself, but whatsoever things He shall hear from Me.”⁵⁴⁶⁵⁴⁶    John xvi. 13. And He says of Himself to the Father, “I have,” says He, “glorified Thee upon the earth; I have finished the work which, Thou gavest Me; I have manifested Thy name to men.”⁵⁴⁷⁵⁴⁷    John xvii. 4, 6. And of the Holy Ghost, “He shall glorify Me, for He receives of Mine.”⁵⁴⁸⁵⁴⁸    John xvi. 14. But the spirit of deceit preaches himself, and speaks his own things, for he seeks to please himself. He glorifies himself, for he is full of arrogance. He is lying, fraudulent, soothing, flattering, treacherous, rhapsodical, trifling, inharmonious, verbose, sordid, and timorous. From his power Jesus Christ will deliver you, who has founded you upon the rock, as being chosen stones, well fitted for the divine edifice of the Father, and who are raised up on high by Christ, who was crucified for you, making use of the Holy Spirit as a rope, and being borne up by faith, while exalted by love from earth to heaven, walking in company with those that are undefiled. For, says [the Scripture], “Blessed are the undefiled in the way, who walk in the law of the Lord.”⁵⁴⁹⁵⁴⁹    Ps. cxix. 1. Now the way is unerring, namely, Jesus Christ. For, says He, “I am the way and the life.”⁵⁵⁰⁵⁵⁰    John xiv. 6. And this way leads to the Father. For “no man,” says He, “cometh to the Father but by Me.”⁵⁵¹⁵⁵¹    John xiv. 6. Blessed, then, are ye who are God-bearers, spirit-bearers, temple-bearers, bearers of holiness, adorned in all respects with the commandments of Jesus Christ, being “a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a peculiar people,”⁵⁵²⁵⁵²    1 Pet. ii. 9. on whose account I rejoice exceedingly, and have had the privilege, by this Epistle, of conversing with “the saints which are at Ephesus, the faithful in Christ Jesus.”⁵⁵³⁵⁵³    Eph. i. 1. I rejoice, therefore, over you, that ye do not give heed to vanity, and love nothing according to the flesh, but according to God.