EPHESIANS 1 (NOTES OF A READING)
[p. 271] EPHESIANS 1 (NOTES OF A READING)
Rem It is precious to have this utterance in prayer as a model.
CAC It would suggest to us something of the character of assembly prayer. It would help brothers if they read all Paul’s prayers before they came to the meeting for prayer.
Rem The early part of the chapter is very much after the character of assembly worship, and this is now assembly prayer.
CAC Yes, you have the Monday meeting now.
Rem There is a difference in the manner of address in these two prayers (chapter 1: 17; 3: 14). Here it is “the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory”, and in chapter 3 it is “the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ”. Putting the two together is rather like John 20, “I ascend to my Father and your Father, and to my God and your God”.
CAC Yes, indeed. So whatever we think of God or the Father, it is in relation to that blessed Man.
Ques What is the thought of “the Father of glory” (verse 17)?
CAC Do you not think that whatever has the character of glory, the God of our Lord Jesus Christ is the Father of it? Is it the thought of an affectionate relation to the system of glory? We have the “God of glory” (Acts 7: 2), He appeared in that character to Abraham; but here He is the “Father of glory”.
Ques I wondered whether it carried the thought of Originator, or whether, as the Father, He was marked with glory as sustaining those affections, all the glories of that system?
CAC Yes, it is the thought of originating a whole system of glory, but He stands in relation to it as the Father.
[p. 272] I think it would give us more confidence in prayer, that we might pray more for glory now. If we are seeking glory, we are very likely to get it.
Ques. In what sense now?
CAC I think that this epistle has told us. If we get the spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of Him, is that not glory? And “the riches of the glory of his inheritance in the saints”, all that is glory; and the power that raised Christ from among the dead and is operating in the saints — it all belongs to the system of glory. Paul had this sphere of glory before him; I think it encourages us to pray for it. We often pray for our temporal needs, illness and so on, but there is another order of things: do we pray about that? The Father would love to minister it to us now. Nothing is more glorious in one sense than having the spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of Him; it is something in addition to having the Holy Spirit of promise.
Ques The Ephesians would get that by the prayer of the apostle, but would it come to us by our own desires?
CAC It suggests that there are things that come through prayer. There are certain things that ministry cannot give us and that the prayers of the apostle cannot; it can only be got directly from God by prayer — but then it is there; it is to be had.
Rem We are prone to be very content to remain below the level of our calling.
CAC It is a wonderful realm of glory that these prayers refer to in chapters 1 and 3.
Rem To be able to pray for it for ourselves or for others, we need to be in possession of what is spoken of here.
CAC If we are in possession of it, we can ask to be in the full possession of it; so there is always room for more of this spirit of wisdom and revelation to be given to us by God.
Ques Does ministry present things so that we should be intelligent as to what to [p. 273] pray for?
CAC Yes.
Rem The apostle says, “I do not count to have got possession myself; but one thing ... I pursue, looking towards the goal, for the prize of the calling on high of God in Christ Jesus” (Philippians 3: 13, 14).
CAC Yes. It is well to take up the prayer of Moses. He says, “Let me, I pray thee, see thy glory” (Exodus 33: 18). Well, it is worth seeing! God’s glory is worth seeing.
Rem His prayer was answered on the mount of transfiguration.
Ques Would you give some idea of what glory is? It would be different in every epistle in which it is presented — Romans, Ephesians, Colossians, etc. We often have a vague idea of what glory really is.
CAC In a certain way it transcends all human thought.
Ques Would it be the moral excellence of God as seen in a Man, in Christ?
CAC Yes, I thought so. It has often been said that glory is the excellence of a thing in display. There can be no greater glory for a creature than to have “the spirit of wisdom and revelation in the full knowledge of him” — the capacity to enter into and apprehend what is most excellent in the blessed God, brought out in His purposes of love. It is all brought out there.
Rem That is the consummation of glory.
CAC There is no greater thought of God than the glory of God in what He has prepared for the satisfaction of His love, so that we should know what is the hope of His calling. The saints enter into what the angels cannot enter into; they have not the same capacity as the saints, and so have a great deal to learn from the assembly.
Ques Does verse 18 suggest a glory attaching to the saints as the inheritance of God?
CAC Yes, it is what He has in His saints, and it is putting them into all that God has the enjoyment of, speaking simply. It is wonderful that God should have [p. 274] picked up men and so enlightened them as having their place in the assembly that they can speak to Him as entering into all the treasures of His love. “In which are hid all the treasures of wisdom and of knowledge” (Colossians 2: 3). They can speak to Him intelligently. It is where these things are understood.
Rem 1 Corinthians 2 says that the things which God has prepared for them that love Him He has revealed unto us by His Spirit — the Spirit has revealed them.
CAC Yes, and searched. “The Spirit searches all things, even the depths of God”. That is, He comes over to our side and He searches the depths of God to know all that is there, because all these things are hid in the depths of God, and the Spirit has come into a relative position, so that He can search them out. They were known to the apostles. There is a man here who entered into it and can speak of it, and he says, I would like you to know how I got such a wonderful knowledge. Now they are ministered so that we can pray about them. All ministry is intended to turn to prayer. It is all grace, it is God’s free giving. There is no epistle that magnifies grace like Ephesians.
Ques Can you explain the expression, “The eyes of your heart”? Would it be the perception of the affections?
CAC Yes, I think it shows that the great things of God are perceived by love.
Rem It has been said that nothing is so intelligent as love. The wisdom of Solomon came out in that in connection with the two women (1 Kings 3: 16 - 28); he knew love would respond.
CAC So that our stature is in love. It is not in any human ability, nor in any divine gift, our stature is in love; and I do not know any reason why the humblest saint should not be as matured in love as the apostle Paul or John. We should never have Paul’s gift, but it is quite within our range to be as formed in love as he was. We do not believe it, I know, but it is a fact!
[p. 275] Ques Perhaps not all are so consumed with the desire to obtain it. Was your thought that we do not believe in the possibility, or that we do not desire it?
CAC I think we are to entertain the possibility of it. We should lay ourselves out for it more if we thought it was a possibility. There is an unlimited power working towards us, the power that worked in Christ in raising Him from the dead; it is the same power.
Rem The problem is things weighing us down.
CAC Yes, that is the secret; we are minding earthly things and minding our own things. Paul said, ‘All seek their own things; I have only got one man who is any different’.
Rem In the prayer in chapter 3 the power works in us; it is not in us here.
CAC Yes, here it is operative towards us. Well, he brings it in in chapter 1, that we may apprehend it objectively. It is the greatest power that wrought in Christ; nothing ever exceeds it. The power that wrought in all the saints is not so great as that. Paul says, I want you to know it, to take account of that. It is given eventually to bring us into the glorified condition, but it is known to us now.
Rem It must be the entire overthrow of any other power against us; that ought to be an encouragement.
CAC Quite so.
Rem There are two great thoughts of encouragement here: God’s thoughts for us, and His power to bring them about.
CAC Yes, the power that wrought in Christ in raising Him from among the dead, and we want our eyes to be open to it.
Rem It is not a question of the power operating in the future.
CAC No, it is in the past; it is the working of God’s power in raising Christ from among the dead, and it is towards those that believe, and it is nothing less than that.
Ques Why does it say, “The hope of his calling”? Does it look on to the glorious end and actuality, and include it?
CAC Yes, wonderful things are brought into the hope of His saints by the calling of God.
Ques Is it the inheritance in a definite setting — God’s inheritance here?
CAC Yes, as what God becomes possessed of for His enrichment and satisfaction in relation to His saints.
Ques What would you understand by “the riches of the glory of his inheritance in the saints”? In Colossians 1: 27 we get “the riches of the glory of this mystery .., which is Christ in you the hope of glory”; would this go further?
CAC Well, words are used to stimulate our interest; ‘riches’ and ‘glory’ might well appeal to our hearts. It does clearly bring out the place of the saints, in a sense perhaps more wonderfully than any other aspect, that they should take up for God’s satisfaction all that He can regard as His own inheritance. It is wonderful to think of God condescending to use human language to express such a thought. Even the language of Scripture fails to convey the glories of divine thoughts; still God uses it to convey something of it to our hearts. ‘Inheritance’ — it is human language, a human thought. We know if a man comes of age he may come into a vast inheritance; some men do, they are born with the right of heirship and when of age come into possession of great property.
God sees fit to apply it to Himself, ‘Now I am going to have an inheritance, a satisfaction throughout eternal ages’. He takes it up in His saints.
We might well consider these things in our wakeful nights; then we should have better nights than if we slept. It is better to lie awake all night thinking of the Lord, than to sleep. It is true!
[p. 277] NOTES OF A READING Ephesians 1: 20 - 23; Ephesians 2: 1 - 8 It all seems connected, could you indicate why?
CAC Well, the desire of the apostle is that they should know the greatness of the power which God wrought in Christ in raising Him from among the dead. That was evidently prayer; but from the middle of verse 20 the character changes; it becomes statement — it is a blessed statement of fact. The apostle goes on basing it on the prayer. He states a wondrous fact, that Christ is sitting down at the right hand of God in the heavenlies far above all principality and power, but that is not prayer. It is well to see that the translator has not noticed that sufficiently, but it is obvious to any careful reader.
It is an unfolding to us of the wondrous position in which God has set Him down at His right hand in the heavenlies. It is His present position, in which His lovers are intensely interested. It is to be deplored that there is not sufficient interest in the Lord’s present position among believers — that what should be of supreme interest to them is not much thought of. It is a marvellous thing to think of. If we once took that in, we should no longer be troubled with worldliness or earthly-mindedness.
Rem The assembly is His fulness, His complement.
CAC There would not be the vessel for the display of Christ apart from the assembly. It has pleased God that there should be a certain vessel, a formation, which is spiritually competent to receive, retain and express all the features of Christ, so that it can display what Christ is. The assembly is added to Him, so as to display in a creature vessel all that this Person gloriously exalted is.
This surpasses all the wildest imagination or thoughts or expectation of the creature man. It is the assembly viewed in its entirety, not the assembly as existing at any particular [p. 278] moment. It would take in the whole assembly from Pentecost till the rapture; it is a universal thought.
The assembly is complete at any given moment. There is a vessel capable of expressing Christ at any given moment on the earth, and it does not say, ‘If they are in the good of it’ or ‘in the light of it’, but it is an absolute fact. The assembly is the body, the fulness of Him who fills all in all.
Ques “The heavenlies” — what does this mean?
CAC It shows that “the heavenlies” is a very comprehensive expression, does it not? It applies in different ways in this epistle. “Blessed ... with every spiritual blessing in the heavenlies”, Christ is set down at the right hand of God in the heavenlies, and the saints are made to sit down in the heavenlies in chapter 2: 6. The object of it is to take our hearts entirely away from the earth; heavenly would seem to stand in contrast to what is earthly. In the Old Testament, God is spoken of as dwelling in heaven, but it is as the One who has His dwelling in heaven and who has His footstool on the earth. We have to gather the meaning of the words which the Spirit of God uses in the New Testament. It is a spiritual sphere in contrast to an earthly sphere. We all naturally gravitate towards the earth, our occupation of mind is all earthly, so for us to come under the influence of the heavenly is a very wonderful thing in its position and outlook.
What gives character to the heavenlies is that Christ is made to sit down there at God’s right hand — it is where Christ is sitting at the right hand of God. It is very much like finality, so that we do not get the rapture in this epistle.
The saints are actually there in spirit, ‘In spirit there already’, as we sometimes sing. The assembly is viewed here, not in its imperfection or immaturity, but as the product of God’s workmanship. On our side there is nothing but death. There is not an element contributed from our side; it is a matter of grace. It is pure grace that the saints are saved with this great salvation. That we should [p. 279] be brought into the assembly is just a matter of pure grace. “Head over all things to the assembly”. The assembly will be capable, it will be found to be so when the veil is lifted over all that the blessed God is doing now. It will be seen that there is a vast company rendered capable of being so filled with Christ that there will not be a single feature of Christ which has not been possessed by it. It is a wonderful thought that the assembly is equal to the reception of all that Christ is so that it can be expressed in glorified conditions; it is the greatest thought of God. Hebrews speaks of “the heavenly things”. The tabernacle was a pattern that brings in the heavenlies.
Ques He “fills all in all”. Will you say a word as to what “all in all” means?
CAC I feel too small to say much about it. Chapter 4: 10 says, “He that descended is the same who has also ascended up above all the heavens, that he might fill all things”. It would seem here that He is going to fill all things in the greatness of what has come out in the descending and ascending. In His descending He gave full expression as to what God is, and in ascending He gave full expression as to what man is according to divine purpose; and He is going to fill all things in the virtue of those two things. Someone said once that there is no allusion to the deity of Christ in Ephesians, but I think the fact that He fills all in all requires His deity. “The fulness of him who fills all in all” — the fulness of Christ; it is a very wondrous thing to be the vessel of it. It is one of those immeasurable words — “fills all in all”.
It is presented to us as a great divine reality, but we have to let it soak into our souls. Am I prepared to let it, so that I am prepared to be saturated with it? There is not a single thing in the universe of bliss that is not going to be filled out of Christ. There will not be a moral element there which will not be filled out with Him. And think that the assembly is entitled to draw out of that Person — out of [p. 280] Christ, now. There is no limit to what the assembly is entitled to draw out of Christ now, it is illimitable.
It is very striking that He brings all this into such close comparison to all that we were in our lost and dead condition, “dead in your offences and sins”. He seems purposely to bring two extremes together with not even a full stop between; we were dead in our sins, an act of death, though we walked in it, in sin. All this is to enhance to our minds the wonderful working of God, it is a background for it. On God’s part it is a purely unsought activity of mercy and love, for none of us wanted it. It was God’s moving in the blessedness of His own nature and choosing objects such as we were.
And the saints as saved by grace do not retain a single feature of what they were in Adam. God would teach us to divest ourselves of everything that we were marked by naturally. We were dead in offences and sins, sons of disobedience. We have to shed all that and view ourselves as purely subjects of mercy, and think of what He has done, even in making us to sit down in Him in the heavenlies. Being what we are, it is difficult for us to put completely out of sight everything but the work of Christ; but it is our privilege to do it.
The great act of God is that He has quickened us with the Christ.
Ques What does “quickened” mean?
CAC I suppose it means being made to live. He has made us to live with Christ and made us to sit down in the heavenlies in Christ. It is the thing viewed in its completeness, do you not think?
Ques Has the apostle still in his mind Jew and Gentile?
CAC It would seem that when he says “we” in verse 5, he is referring to the Jews, but when he says “ye” he is alluding to the Gentiles. The wonderful thing is that both Jew and Gentile are viewed in this state of death, and that [p. 281] both are brought out of it by Christ’s quickening power, so that they, as it were, go up together (the thought of leaving entirely Jew and Gentile) and are made to sit together in the heavenlies in an entirely new position. It is the complete divine thought, and I suppose it is salvation in the fullest possible sense. It is salvation that takes us completely off the earth and gives us a new status and position in Christ and gives us new affections. It needs this quickening power of God so that we can live in this new position suitably. We could not do so otherwise. The Lord breathed His own risen life into the apostles (John 20: 22), and that is like quickening, so that “to my Father and your Father, and to my God and your God” supposes a quickened company able to live along with the risen Christ. God would have the sense of that impressed upon our spirits, the need of divine quickening.
[p. 282] NOTES OF A READING Ephesians 2: 11 - 22 The apostle emphasises the state of the Gentiles here: “Without Christ, aliens ..., and strangers to the covenants of promise, having no hope, and without God in the world”. We come in on the line of mercy, do we not?
CAC I suppose it does not mean that we should dwell upon what we were, but that we should take account of it in contrast to the wholly new place that grace has called us into.
Rem It is all intended to emphasise the magnitude of the grace.
CAC That “now in Christ Jesus ye who once were afar off are become nigh by the blood of the Christ”.
Ques Do you think the difficulty of a number of Christians is that they are hanging back on what they are and not going forward, and God’s thought is not received?
CAC And some think it is a part of humility to own our shortcomings by nature and the corruption of the flesh; there is no liberty found in that, but in seeing that the most marvellous contrast has come in by divine purpose as announced — “But now”.
Rem The thought of ‘miserable sinners’ might be a good balance for us, but the thought of sonship is God’s thought.
CAC I think that is what gives pleasure to God. It must be pleasing to the Father that we should dwell upon that. All this is to enhance the blessedness of the new position. “But now in Christ Jesus ye who once were afar off are become nigh by the blood of the Christ”; that is the new position, and I suppose when the words “in Christ Jesus” are used, the implication is that the saints have taken up the new position. It is not simply, ‘in Christ’; that is the divine purpose. They are viewed as having taken up the [p. 283] status with God.
Ques Why is the “become nigh” connected with the blood of Christ?
CAC It is remarkable that it should be put that way; it seems to be in all the value of the blood of Christ.
Ques Do you take that to be the present tense? It speaks of the blood as though it were existing — I mean the existing good of the blood; the efficacy remains of what is secured. It remains before God, and the saints are established.
CAC That is, anything that could bring in a shade of distance has been met by the blood of the Christ. It is not here exactly the cross, it is the abiding place of the saints in contrast to the “afar off” place. They are become nigh, God would have it so. It is not exactly by any change in themselves, but by the blood of the Christ, a power outside themselves that can never be diminished. Simplicity of faith on our side would gladly take up the place of nearness — we “are become nigh”. I suppose you might say that it is nearness to God in a dispensational sense, if that is understandable.
Rem It is true of all positionally in the chapter.
CAC It is the character of the dispensation. It is something that Abraham, David and Moses never knew, and never could know.
Rem In that way it applies to saints on earth who have not died.
CAC Yes.
Rem While Israel had a favoured nearness, it was not this. They are brought in now.
CAC That dispensation was one of distance. The ordinary Israelite could not enter the holy place, still less the holiest of all; there was a mark of distance all the time, but all that has dispensationally passed away, and the position is one of nearness, not through the holy character and title of persons, but by the blood of the Christ, so that [p. 284] there is an infinite value attached to it.
Ques Would you say more of the linking it up with “in Christ Jesus”?
CAC Is it not that the saints are conscious of a new position in Christ Jesus? It is not at all a question of what they are according to flesh, but they are “in Christ Jesus”.
Ques It puts it, “Now in Christ Jesus ye who once were afar off are become nigh by the blood of the Christ”. Does that suggest a collective idea? It must be the saints together, I suppose?
CAC Yes. It is the blessing that has reached the Gentiles. The thought of the Jew and the Gentile is in the mind of the apostle all through this passage. Peace is between the Jew and the Gentile, it is not peace with God. The Jew and the Gentile are “made both one”.
Rem Peter could speak in Acts 15 in relation to the Jew and the Gentile; “We believe that we shall be saved by the grace of the Lord Jesus, in the same manner as they also”; so from this the middle wall was broken down, was it not? The Gentile comes in on the same line as the Jew, and Israel comes in on the same line as the Gentile.
CAC Yes, it is very striking.
Rem Verse 16 refers to them, I suppose.
CAC Yes. I suppose there could be no greater difference between men, than between the Jew and the Gentile, and if all that is obliterated, how small and insignificant the differences between saints are. They should all perish in the light of Christ and the cross. What makes differences must be something of that which was ended at the cross. It is the thought of persons not only away from God, but from each other, now brought very nigh to God and very nigh to each other, so that they actually become one.
Rem It is in Himself, “that he might form the two in himself into one new man”. It is really the truth of another Man.
[p. 285] Rem I was struck that their relation not only to God, but also to one another seems to come in. So that the relation of the saints one to another is more important than we sometimes think.
CAC I am sure it is, especially if we think of the mystery, which is the particular truth at the present time.
Ques Would you enlarge a little on the expression, “one new man”?
CAC Well, it is evidently a collective idea. It seems to suggest the kind of material that can really be formed into one body. I thought the new man was like the moral material, and the body is the result.
Ques “In one body” — what is that, is that the saints?
CAC I thought so. He has reconciled both (Jew and Gentile) in one body by the cross — that is the great result, that there is one body for the pleasure of God. Then there could not be such a result as that if the new man had not come in — the new man morally. I suppose it takes all the people in the world to set forth the old man; and it takes all the saints to make up the new man.
Ques “Man” there is man in a general way?
CAC Yes, and the saints as such have put off the old man and put on the new, and are so addressed in this epistle. But here it is all looked at as effected by Christ Himself; it is Christ who has made of twain one new man, so making peace; and that He might reconcile both unto God in one body by the cross, having slain the enmity thereby; and came and preached peace to you which were afar off, and to them that were nigh. It is all what Christ has done; it is looked at as completed.
This is what He has done, and He announces it now. It is very blessed; He accomplishes the whole thing Himself, whether I understand it or not, and at the present moment He is the Announcer of it to Gentile and Jew.
It is wonderful to see that Christ has undertaken to give effect to all that is in the mind of God, and He is presented [p. 286] here as having done it; Christ Himself is the Preacher. The glad tidings do not refer to His incarnation, but He has come in a spiritual sense to announce the peace that He has Himself accomplished.
I think it refers to Him in His present position; it is marked by the coming of Christ to announce all that He has brought to pass; and if we listened to Him He would tell us all that.
“If ye have heard him and been instructed in him according as the truth is in Jesus”, as the apostle says later on (chapter 4: 21). If we did, He would tell us wonderful things, and things that have all been effected in His wonderful Person.
Ques May I ask as to access to the Father?
CAC We both have access — that is our privilege as saints of this dispensation. The whole Trinity is involved in the matter; it is “through” Christ, “by one Spirit” and “to the Father”, so the great truth at this time is that we have access to the Father.
Rem It is important to carry in our minds the thought of Christ and the Spirit, Both being necessary in access to the Father.
CAC Yes, apart from Christ and the Spirit there is no such thing as access to the Father.
Rem In the days of His flesh He could say, “No one comes to the Father unless by me” (John 14: 6).
CAC Yes, I suppose that verse 18 is a wonderful summary of the privilege of the moment. We could hardly have it more precisely stated: “Through him we have both access by one Spirit to the Father”.
Rem So we should not give the place some would give to Mary in this way.
CAC No, she has no mediatorial place whatever.
She is the most blessed saint, the most highly favoured above others, but she has no mediatorial place.
Ques Access to the Father is to be known [p. 287] individually, but it is to be experienced in a peculiar way when in assembly, would you say?
CAC Yes, we are able as together to leave in spirit anything that divides us and keeps us apart; if not, we have no access to the Father. If there is a bad feeling between a brother and sister, it is utterly impossible. But we have the privilege to leave all that order of things, through Christ and the Spirit, as the Conductors, so to speak, by whom we have access to the Father. It is remarkable how the Lord Jesus and the Spirit take a subservient place in connection with this great privilege. I think we should weigh that carefully.
Rem It would help us to understand the revelation of the Godhead.
CAC Christ and the Spirit have taken up a position of service in connection with our access to the Father. The access to the Father is the great point — through Christ and by the Spirit.
Ques Do you think that the point is that They have come over to the side of the saints?
CAC I think it would greatly help us in assembly service if we understood the relative position into which divine Persons have come. Sometimes there is an addressing of divine Persons as if it did not much matter which was addressed, but it does matter very much. There is a time when Christ is Himself before us, and there is a time when He takes a place of service in relation to the Father, and He serves us in that way. His great concern is that we should have access to the Father. The Spirit also has taken a place of service in connection with this truth, that we should have access to the Father.