JANUARY 12TH, 1913

JANUARY 12TH, 1913

MY DEAR —, — It always gives me pleasure to see your handwriting, and I thank you for your letter and the pamphlet.

I will say briefly how the first part of Ephesians 2 presents itself to me. The apostle prays that the Ephesian saints should know “what the surpassing greatness of his power towards us who believe, according to the working of the might of his strength, in which he wrought in the Christ in raising him from among the dead”. It is of all importance that the saints should estimate in a divine way the greatness of God’s power towards them. It is not only that He wrought in the Christ, but it is according to the working which He wrought in Christ that His power is towards us who believe. That power expressed itself once in the Christ in raising Him from among the dead, and this is the measure of the power that is towards those who believe, and is exercised in the way of quickening with the Christ, etc., those who had previously been dead in offences and sins. What blessed encouragement there is in considering that so great a power is toward us — a power that quickened men, and raised them up from the earth and made them sit down in the heavenlies in Christ! To make this simply purpose is to my mind to destroy all the force of the Scripture. It is Gentiles and Jews — persons having a past history as such on earth, and whose condition and walk are described in the passage, who by the working of God’s power — the outcome of His rich mercy and great love — are quickened with the Christ. It is the saints viewed not in the light of purpose, but of God’s workmanship; that is, it is purpose effectuated by God’s power — spiritually now, actually ^[p. 63] at the rapture. We thus see the height, the blessedness, to which that power can raise men in Christ. Is that power towards all saints? Surely it is, for God’s thought and purpose comprehend all saints, but one could not say that all have come by God’s power to this height of blessing. I do not think the apostle would have written Ephesians 2 to the Corinthians or even to the Thessalonians. I believe it was effectuated spiritually in a company of Gentiles and Jews, and that the apostle in writing as he did took account of a divine work by which it had been made good in those to whom he wrote. It may not have been spiritually wrought in many, but it was there as full Christianity — this product of God’s mighty power in men. To take it up as true of all saints apart from the divine work in them by which it is made good in spiritual power, seems to me to be the revival in an extreme form of the idea of “standing”. That it is God’s thought for all saints is true, but saints are only really in it as His thought is made good by His work.

With very much love in the Lord,

Yours affectionately in Him,

January 12th, 1913.