OUR PLACE AND PORTION
It is good for us all, poorly as we understand it, to know what is in the purpose of God for us. It was purposed for us before the world was, before sin came in.
We do not read that the Ephesians were sinners at all until the blood of redemption is mentioned.
Now it can be put in a very simple way. If you think of the two epistles, Romans and Ephesians, the truth comes in from our side in Romans. It is God's side of the cross, but still it is in regard to our necessity. Our responsibility and condition has been all divinely met, for God has introduced Himself as a God of grace and love. We must be established in the truth of Romans to fully appreciate what is in Ephesians.
In Ephesians you are on your face and God talks to you. Romans puts you on your face and in Ephesians God speaks to you. Romans proves the ruin, but the ruin is the dark background where God shines in His splendour. He overcomes the evil in us by setting forth the good in Himself. He does not overlook the evil, the cross is the proof of that; that is Romans. You might sum up Romans in three words - Ruin, Revelation, Response.
In our ruin -
God revealed Himself,
God made Himself known in another Man - our blessed Lord Jesus Christ. The ruin was proved, and God was revealed in connection with it. This is the way in which He makes our life responsive to Himself.
It is good to think these things out, and it came to me very forcibly to-day: ‘Give thyself to these things’. I think sometimes we depend too much on ministry; we should give ourselves up. Ministry helps if we are exercised. People sometimes say, ‘I never saw that before’. The thing is to go in for ‘spiritual thinking’, because you value the things which are presented to you. What do you think about when you wake in the morning? “As he thinketh in his heart, so is he”, Prov 23: 7. That is a very serious thing!
The measure of your sanctification lies in the character of your thinking. Right actions are secured if the thinkings are right. May the Lord help us!
Now in Ephesians it is the way the truth is presented from God's side. Paul closes Romans with a doxology and begins Ephesians with a doxology. He says, “Blessed”. The sense of the vastness and marvellous beauty of God's purpose fills his heart, and he bows and says, “Blessed”. What an outburst! Spiritual blessings, not temporal; heavenly, not earthly; in Christ, not Adam. Well, that is the way in which the apostle begins the doxology from God's side.
It is God's pleasure to surround Himself with beings who respond to Him. He dwells in light unapproachable; but if He is love, and He is, He will surround Himself with objects answering to what He is, for His own pleasure.
Grace reached us at the bottom, that is our history side; why was it? Because -
love wanted us at the top.
Entertain the thought that love wanted you at the top. If you came to Christ, it was because Christ came to you. How gladsome it was to find some one who could settle everything, and how your heart awakened! Oh! how you ought to love Christ. He wants you to know how He met you on your side, because God wanted you. To put it simply, God wants you.
It is the purpose side here, that He will surround Himself with beings for His own pleasure. It could not be without Christ.
The characteristic preposition in Romans is to, in Colossians with, in Ephesians in; in saying this I have in my mind the position we are looked at as in these epistles. Living to God in Romans, associated with Christ, “buried with him”, “raised with him”, “quickened together with him” in Colossians, and in Ephesians the purpose side is “in the heavenlies in Christ” (Eph 1: 3), “chosen us in him” (v 4), “taken into favour in the Beloved” (v 6), &c, as also in chapters 2 and 3, which gives us the subjective side, that is, His work to effect His purpose.
‘At-homedness’ with God, that is my way of explaining simply what I mean. The height of the blessing lies in the peculiar position in which we stand to God our Father. That is the future which lies beyond us. What a magnificent future! Are these things given to us as theories? What would be the result if they were held with power in our souls? If God gives us anything in the future, it is that it should affect us in the present.
Do you not think an appreciation of it would make things of earth dwindle into insignificance? You must know heaven to leave earth. You belong to this vast scheme, blessed for His own pleasure.
If that be so, it necessitates the revelation of God, and formation in God’s people answering to the revelation, if we are going to be before Him in love.
I am acquainted with human life, I speak as a man formed to live here. I am capable of enjoying human relationships, I am capable of understanding and enjoying human life, I understand nothing of heaven. I speak not as a Christian, but as a man. But the humiliating thing is that I must die. How great the anguish is - I must die! To gain life I must die. No matter what the human joy is, it comes to an end.
But now, as a Christian, I have ability to understand heaven. I am formed, have a constitution for it, which belongs to heaven, so that I can distinguish between what is natural and what is spiritual.
I must not discard what is natural, but I can only behave properly in it as I understand what is spiritual. What is natural fades away, but what is spiritual does not fade away. What a magnificent thing!
In Romans the one word which conveys the greatest thought is glory. Glory is there, which means what God is. He does what He does because He is what He is, and all that God is in nature and character came to light in the lowest parts of the earth. It shone there; Christ displayed it there. Glory is the greatest word in Ephesians also.
We sometimes think of glory as something we can see. But God's glory is what He is in His nature and character, and we are to reflect His glory in what we are. ‘Like Jesus in that place’, I shall never think of myself. It will be gone.
You are truly happy when you forget yourself entirely. God proposes to present Himself in such a way that we shall -
forget ourselves entirely.
Never throughout that blessed eternity, when this will be fulfilled, will you once think of yourself. It is only natural to think of ourselves. That proves our degradation. The first fallen creature became occupied with his beauty and fell. He forgot he was only a creature, and fell. He wanted to be as God, self-sufficient, and he fell. He will fall, and will be the most degraded creature in a lost eternity.
Thank God that we are Christians, that we are delivered from that horrid principle. A Christian has Christ, he has turned to God, and what will He do? He will hold him to Himself, both now and for ever. How I treasure these verses! I look at them, I repeat them, and say, all my blessing lies there. This is the generation of purpose.
Do you weigh over these things and live in the power of them? If I am wanted where Jesus is, I shall be taken care of where Jesus was.
When you come to verse 11 you have the inheritance. The mystery of His will is that God will head up all things in Christ. It is a great thing to know that you are coming into sonship and heirship. It is ours now to enjoy. Here it is in the future and the fulness of it, “In whom also we have obtained an inheritance”, &c. I will put it practically. Do you think if any one held this he would be making a fortune? It is a most degrading thing to be here making a fortune. I am simply -
left here to be educated
for my destiny. I have to work with my hands and earn my living, but I am talking about people who have making a fortune as their aim. It is most humiliating.
If we were in the light of our heavenly calling we should act differently. The question of our calling has been raised of recent date, but to apply it to one thing and miss the application to all things shews a lack of integrity. If I belong to heaven it should separate me from all that is here.
God would have us upright; we need to see the application of these things to ourselves. How far we are in the light of our heavenly calling would produce a testimony which is often lacking.
A young Christian may say, How am I to know that I belong to this vast system? I am only a little atom, and I think of a vast scheme where I see the glory of God in these proposals. I say, how am I to know that I am a little stone in this ‘mosaic work’? (I speak figuratively.)
I was in Italy, and once saw millions of little stones put together by the skill of man. That is an illustration. How lovely the scripture is!
The apostle says, ‘Ye have trusted Christ’. He comes right down from purpose to soul history. I must know that I am one of the little stones in it. ‘Ye trusted Christ’. What can be more simple and useful than the way in which a Christian is spoken of?
The youngest child
- can say, ‘I trusted Christ’. What made us trust Christ? The word of truth, His grace, His mercy. All truth is presented in Christ, and you were led to trust Him.
The poor woman who came to Jesus put out her hand and touched the hem of His garment. That touch said, ‘Lord, I need Thee’. The garment had no seam; she little knew what she was in for. All the fulness of the Godhead dwelt in Him bodily.
Now look - after you trusted you were sealed by the Holy Spirit of promise. She touched Him by faith, and He touched her by the Spirit. I am leading you to Mark 5, where He said, “Daughter”. She said in her touch, I need Thee. He said, I need you.
You were sealed: you touched Him by faith, and He touched you by the Spirit; and now you are one of the little stones in this vast structure of blessing. It is the generation of purpose. May the Lord expand our hearts in the sense that we belong to this vast scheme. I was once having a meeting, and there was a sister whose husband was a great painter. She was at the reading, and the effect of it was that she said to her husband, ‘I have seen a picture in Ephesians, and your pictures are as nothing to be compared with this one’. This is the generation for the pleasure of God. May the Lord in His goodness, by the consideration of it, enable us to truly enter into our portion.
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From ‘The Believer’s Friend’, 1918