EPHESIANS 1 (NOTES OF A READING)
[p. 264] EPHESIANS 1 (NOTES OF A READING)
Ques The will of God, the purpose of God and the counsel of God, is there a definite thought connected with each?
CAC It would seem that the will of God must prevail — a great comfort. Our place of infinite favour in the Beloved is a matter of the good pleasure of His will. Is that the inner circle?
Rem Yes, indeed. You were thinking of it in contrast later to the mystery of His will.
CAC I was thinking the subject widens out as we pursue this chapter. What is for the good pleasure of His will is already brought to pass, the saints being put at the very centre of all that is the product of the will of God, and they look out to the vast scene of glory which has such a Centre.
Rem The mystery — to head up all things in the Christ — is now made known.
Rem And this is all the working out of what was in the mind of Christ when He said, “Lo, I come ... to do, O God, thy will” (Hebrews 10: 7).
CAC It all stands in the value of His Person; and what He has wrought for the glory of God all puts its measurement there — according to the Beloved, and the ability to give effect to the will of God. So we move out to a wondrous scene in which no trace of imperfection remains.
“Which he purposed in himself”. It originated in God Himself — all these developments, all are for the satisfaction of His own heart.
CAC Surely. One can see what a vast range of wisdom and intelligence is opened up: wisdom and intelligence are what God would develop in the assembly,
[p. 265] ability to compass His great thoughts and what He is doing for Himself.
Ques Would counsel suggest the Persons of the Godhead in conclave in regard to what is purposed?
CAC I should think so. Counsel would suggest the wisdom, if one might use the word, of God, the deliberation by which all is worked out. The purpose is the purpose of love surely, but the love works in wisdom.
Ques Would “will” be the power to effect the purpose according to His counsel?
CAC I think so; God being what He is, His will is the most blessed thing that we can think of. Saints often limit the thought of God’s will to what God would have them do.
Rem “That ye may prove what is the good and acceptable and perfect will of God” (Romans 12: 2).
CAC In giving ourselves over to God we prove that His will is extremely good and acceptable, indeed it is perfect. We do not get the comfort of it until we give ourselves over to it. But here it is the will of God embracing the universe, but connected with time.
Ques They are operations carried out in time?
CAC Yes, the reference is to time — “the fulness of times” — it is not eternity.
Rem I notice the activities here are entirely God’s acting: “Who works all things according to the counsel of his own will” and, “Which he purposed in himself for the administration of the fulness of times; to head up all things in the Christ”.
CAC Yes, quite so.
Ques What is conveyed in the thought of “the fulness of times”?
CAC Is it everything coming to maturity according to God in relation to time? In a certain sense everything came to maturity when the Son of God came in; it was the fulness of time. All was brought in that was of God and for [p. 266] God, but in one Person, in view of many receiving sonship.
Ques All that is concentrated in Christ is to be displayed; is that the idea?
CAC When we get sonship we come to full maturity of what is in the mind of God.
Rem It is “fulness of times”.
CAC I suppose “times” in which God has developed His mind in the actual history of the world.
Rem His “administration of the fulness of times”.
CAC What do you understand by that?
Rem What is wrought out and all headed up in Him. God has been working out something throughout all the dispensations and there will be the culmination of it.
CAC Yes.
Rem The millennium will be the fulness of times as regards the creation. Afterwards there will be the new heavens and earth.
Ques Would Psalm 8 be prophetic of this, everything put under the Son of man?
CAC Yes, I think so.
Ques “When the fulness of the time was come, God sent forth his Son” (Galatians 4: 4) Would that bear on this?
CAC Was not that in contrast to the previous dispensation resting on the law, when the saints were in an imperfect and immature state, and could not get beyond it? The fulness of the time is contrasted with what is imperfect. In Galatians it is clearly sonship that is in view; it is the full thought of God as mature. It is a wonderful time we live in, and presently it is going to reach out to all things in heaven and on earth; and the administration will be perfect because it centres in Christ. Men will not be perfect, but the administration will be perfect.
Rem “The Father had given him all things into his hands” (John 13: 3).
CAC How competent He is to secure the pleasure of God in any sphere.
[p. 267] Rem In your prayer in the morning you referred to sonship in relation to angels and Israel as well as ourselves.
CAC Scripture shows sonship is not always on the same plane. Sonship is a great cherished thought of God, and the angels are sons of God, but they do not answer to God as the saints of the assembly do.
Rem They must be in the same place as Christ in order to do so.
CAC Israel will be in the place of sons one day, but it will not be sonship as we know it.
Ques In what way do you distinguish it?
CAC Well, I should seek to see that if a divine Person came into the place of Son, it gives an entirely new apprehension of sonship. It is a divine Person come into manhood and found in the relation of Son to God; the thought of sonship could not be entertained previously. You do not get such a thing in the book of Psalms as “Abba, Father”, do you?
Rem It is a peculiar place of blessing belonging to the saints now in a faith period.
CAC It is wonderful that God waited so long before He brought in the cherished thought of His own heart — before it was developed. His thought could not be secured in the sons of Adam.
Rem I have been struck in reading through the Psalms, that David in the Psalms does not speak of God’s love, though he says, “I will love thee”.
CAC Loving-kindness is the highest note you would reach in the Psalms.
Rem ‘When time had fully run its course, Thy Son came forth to make it known’ (204:1).
Ques What is the thought of heading up all things in Christ? Is it a further thought than administration, or connected with it?
CAC I think it is connected with the administration,
[p. 268] that God will bring everything in heaven and on the earth to find its moral centre in Christ. When God takes in hand to administer (which He is not now doing in relation to the earth certainly), it will work out in that way, so things will work out from Christ.
Rem It will not be arbitrary, but through the attractiveness of His Person.
CAC And in the fulness of times there will be no counteracting influence.
Ques And is it that that wonderful scene, when everything is headed up in Christ, is given to us as our portion, our inheritance; is that the thought?
Rem And sharing with Him is the thought of heirship.
CAC Yes, I think God would have us sometimes to look down as well as to look up.
Ques What do you mean by that?
CAC The spirit of sonship would lead us to look up, but the spirit of heirship would lead us to look down.
Rem So the whole scene would be under our eyes.
CAC So it becomes a very real portion to us. The millennium should not be a mere abstraction to us. We are often interested in a detached way only.
Rem “The whole creation groans together and travails in pain together until now”, etc. (Romans 8: 22).
CAC In Romans the glory is brought in as adjusting everything here.
Ques I wondered if it was like Moses on Pisgah and John on the mountain, taken to see the extent of the inheritance?
CAC Yes, and I thought what is given to us in Christ as an inheritance, the whole range of what is headed up in Christ. And the Spirit being here brings it to the present time; we have not yet the inheritance, but we have the earnest of it.
Rem It seems as if our portion here is very definitely marked out; there is no question of challenge, or [p. 269] of a lawsuit.
CAC It is the security and stability of being in the will of God, so that nothing can possibly fail.
Rem It seems as if the apostle, instructed of God, is letting out his heart as to what is in the mind of God.
CAC On our side it is just the question of having “heard the word of the truth, the glad tidings of your salvation”.
Rem How Job remarked on it in his day, “I know ... that thou canst be hindered in no thought of thine” (Job 42: 2).
CAC Very good. Yes, and we are not properly brought to God until we see that, are we? In being brought to God, we are brought to One whose will must prevail.
Ques Is verse 12 the culmination of it? The result of all God has set Himself out to accomplish is the response.
CAC Yes, “to the praise of his glory”. Why does he distinguish between the “we” and the “you” at this point? He has in mind the Jew and the Gentile, has he not? There was a certain company that had pre-trusted — a remarkable word — a remnant of Jews that had trusted in Christ before the time; then there were the Gentiles. He throws into relief the extraordinary acting of God. So there were some who trusted before the time, and we come in along with the favoured company, and have the seal of the Spirit. It is a very distinctive matter, the seal of the Spirit.
Ques Would it include those at the baptism?
Ques And Anna and Simeon and those who looked for redemption in Israel?
CAC Well, they would be among the pre-trusters, coming into the assembly, no doubt, later. We get it in the whole record of the gospels; the Lord was securing persons for that, and they were all pre-trusters — before the day of the manifestation of His glory.
Rem There are those who trusted Him “through their word” (John 17: 20).
[p. 270] Ques Is the sealing for the inheritance?
CAC Peculiarly marked by the Holy Spirit. I suppose the angels would know every sealed person.
Ques How would they discern?
CAC Well, I cannot see how any person could carry the seal of God without intelligent beings like angels discerning it; it is a public witness. There should be a very decided evidence; there was then, why should there not be now?
Rem The cloud coming down and then filling the tabernacle was both outward and inward.
CAC One would covet that our being sealed was a more publicly recognisable fact.