EPHESIANS 1 (SECOND READING, PROBABLY AT TEIGNMOUTH)
EPHESIANS 1 (SECOND READING, PROBABLY AT TEIGNMOUTH)
CAC We were seeing last week how the grace of our God has abounded to us in giving us wisdom and intelligence as to all that is before Himself. We must all realise that God could show no greater favour to His creatures than to bring them into the knowledge of Himself and give them intelligence as to all that is so precious to His own heart; it is the greatest conceivable favour. Christ was able to bring out by divine grace all that was in the blessed will of God. There is the good pleasure which God has purposed in Himself to bring everything in heaven and earth to find its centre and spring in Christ. It is a delightful thought for those who have been aware of the very different spring that has been operating. Things have been working in heaven and earth from a very different spring and source, but they are all going to be made to centre in Christ.
Rem God is the only Person who has a right to do as He likes, and this chapter shows what He does like to do.
CAC And what He does discloses what He is; it brings the very nature of God to light in a most blessed way after Satan has traduced and maligned Him for thousands of years, and after the creature is ready to accept every suggestion of the serpent and to believe that God is such a One who would turn him out of the garden for taking an apple! Well, God says, I am going to have a universe of bliss and I am going to give it to you. It is in Christ that the saints have obtained an inheritance, that wonderful Person who is great enough to fill the universe with pleasure for God. This gives a great enlargement to the thought of trusting in Christ. Trusting in Christ means that we have seen something of His trustworthiness.
[p. 11] He is so trustworthy that God can put everything under His hand and make everything under His hand to centre in Himself. He is the Man whom God trusts, and before the time comes when all this is brought into display there is a people who have trusted Him. While He is yet hidden out of sight there are those who trust Him according to the greatness of what He is able to effect. There is a Jewish and a gentile company who have trusted Him before there is any outward manifestation of what He can do.
Rem Paul could say, “I know whom I have believed, and am persuaded that he is able to keep for that day the deposit I have entrusted to him”, 2 Timothy 1: 12.
CAC Yes, the apostle could trust Him absolutely; he did not need to trouble about his own vindication or his reputation; he committed it altogether to the Lord. Saints had turned away from Paul; he was in great reproach among the brethren, a lonely aged prisoner, but he knew the One he had believed, and he had committed everything to Him.
Rem And he sang praises all the way through.
CAC When we get the sense of having an inheritance we get the joy of it and are able to praise God for it; we become delightful to God in a practical sense as we take up God’s thoughts and purposes in Christ. God will bring Israel into the earthly inheritance. He never abandoned His title; it is still Immanuel’s land. They will be brought into the earthly inheritance, and when they take it up in correspondence with the thoughts of God they will be delightful to God. How wonderful that they should take it up as Immanuel’s land, the land belonging to the One who is God with us! There is no doubt the faith of the Old Testament saints took account of Christ and so they could be spoken of as the dead in Christ.
Ques What is the feature of the gentiles [p. 12] trusting in Christ?
CAC It is connected with the character of the mystery as developed in this epistle. The mystery is that the gentiles should be fellow-heirs and partakers of the heavenly calling. There is not only a Jewish company who trusted before the time when the nations will be in display, but also a gentile company who have pre-trusted before there is any manifestation of what He can do in the universe. They heard the word of truth, the “glad tidings of your salvation”, and it becomes the means of complete deliverance from the present course of things. It is much greater than getting our own burden lifted; it is complete deliverance from all the evils rampant in the gentile world; that is what the gospel of our salvation means, and it is all brought about by trusting in the Christ, in the greatness of the Christ, and what He can do for the pleasure of God. It delivers the soul from Jewish and gentile evil. It is not simply that evil is judged; John the baptist got as far as that. It is very interesting to see the history of these Ephesians. When Paul first got to Ephesus, he found twelve men, disciples; they had not the Spirit; they had been baptised with John’s baptism which only went as far as repentance and the judgment of evil that characterises everything here. Evil will not do for God. John went as far as that, but he spoke of Another coming in who could set up all for the pleasure of God. The Ephesians had to move on to faith in Christ as the One coming after John who could bring in everything for the pleasure of God. When they trusted in Him they got the Spirit.
Ques Why is He called the Spirit of promise?
CAC I think the Spirit is the great promise; I do not know anything greater promised in the Old Testament; it is the supreme promise there — “I will put my Spirit upon him”, Isaiah 42: 1. And in every gospel John the Baptist [p. 13] announced Christ as the One who would baptise with the Spirit. When the Lord’s ministry closes He speaks much of the Comforter. The first promise of God to men now is the Spirit. Those who have faith in Christ are sealed; trusting in Him and believing in Him they are sealed with the Holy Spirit of promise. Everything on our side is dependent on the presence of the Spirit. The greatness of Christ is that He can baptise, immerse in the Holy Spirit. I do not know if we realise the greatness of the baptism in the Holy Spirit. Christ is great enough to take His people, those who believe on Him and immerse them in the Holy Spirit. I can think of nothing of greater importance than to see the greatness of Christ in relation to the Holy Spirit. He does not leave those who believe on Him in the region of flesh, or the world, or human thoughts and feelings, but He takes them and immerses them in the Holy Spirit. It is good to be put into the greatness of divine things. Here it comes in as marking the saints off for the inheritance — that is the point. The saints are marked off for the inheritance by the sealing, and the same wonderful Person becomes the earnest of the inheritance.
Ques Is it what Christ inherits as Man?
CAC I think so. The purpose which God purposed in Himself is that He is going to make everything in heaven and earth centre in Christ and that is given to the saints as their inheritance; it constitutes the wealth of God. The universe filled out of Christ, made to centre in Christ, constitutes the wealth of God, and He is going to enjoy all He possesses by putting His saints in possession of it. To produce a universe of bliss which finds its centre in Christ and is filled out of the fulness of Christ does not satisfy the heart of the blessed God. To have an estate does not satisfy anyone; the greater the estate a man has, the more desire he has for an heir. We all know in our [p. 14] experience that if we take great delight in anything, our joy is greatly intensified if we have someone to share it. Now that is exactly the joy of the blessed God; He is going to have a company of sons to participate in the joy He has brought about and is going to bring about in Christ. The supreme joy of God will be in the joy of sons who can enter intelligently and in their affections with common interest into the inheritance; that will satisfy the heart of God. The prayer at the end of the chapter comes in in connection with this. The apostle prays for something in addition to the sealing and earnest of the Spirit. He does not pray that they may have the sealing or the earnest, they have that, but he prays for something additional, the spirit of wisdom and revelation. He gets down on his knees and prays that they might have the “spirit of wisdom and revelation in the full knowledge of him”, that there should be a power in the saints to know the nature of God and what God can delight in. We can only know it in a kindred nature.
Ques. Is that Colossians?
CAC That is the start, there was a measure of formation in the divine nature in them, and when it is there there is something to work on.
Ques Should it be constant faith or believing?
CAC Yes. In John’s gospel the word believing is always used as characteristic of the believer. It is not that we have heard the gospel some twenty years ago and believed it — that does not constitute one a believer in John’s way, but the person is a believing one; that marks him. The Lord said before He went away, “Ye believe on God, believe also on me”; He is to be the abiding Object of faith. The gospel of John was written that “ye may believe ... and that believing ye might have life in his name”, John 20: 31.
Ques If as believers we had faith in the Lord Jesus [p. 15] would not every difficulty be solved?
CAC I think so. It would settle everything because there is such a resource in Him, an unfailing Person. Then love to all the saints would show the divine nature in activity; one who loves all saints is no longer alienated from the life of God.
Ques The apostle did not cease giving thanks for them. Was that because he had found a company to whom he could give the choicest thoughts of God?
CAC Yes, and yet there was something very great for them to be still endowed with. Though they were in such an excellent state yet he prays that God would give them the spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of Him. The spirit of revelation is a remarkable expression, it is not only a spirit of wisdom but of revelation. It is something in the saints that corresponds with all the blessedness of the revelation that has come; it is not only known as ministered to us, but actually known because there is something there in keeping with it in the believer. It is beautiful but immense. It is a question of what we know; we get the “full knowledge of him” in verse 17, and “so that ye should know what is the hope of his calling” in verse 18. There are things that cannot be known by reading them in Scripture. We might think by reading this chapter we could get to know these things, but we cannot know them that way. People often think that if they study Scripture sufficiently they would get to know divine things, but they are known by the spirit of wisdom and revelation. It is the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, the wonderful Originator of the whole system of glory, who can give to us a spirit of wisdom and revelation so that we may know Him in relation to the vast system of glory which He has purposed in Christ. The spirit of wisdom and revelation can be had by asking, no one need be without [p. 16] it.
Ques Is it the quickening?
CAC We get that in the next chapter. In this prayer it is a question of knowing rather than living; quickening is living. Knowing comes first. A great deal of christian blessing lies in knowledge; life eternal lies in knowledge, and “we know that the Son of God has come”, 1 John 5 20. This knowledge is a wonderful thing — to know the hope of His calling, His inheritance in the saints and the surpassing greatness of His power towards us which was manifested in the resurrection of Christ — to know these things is immense, the natural mind could not take in any of them. The eyes of your heart being enlightened indicates that the affections are illuminated; the heart is illuminated by the light of it all. The Father of glory is the Originator of the whole system of glory and He is the One who delights to give His saints the spirit of wisdom and revelation so that they might know Him in that character.
Ques What about the eyes of our hearts?
CAC I think it suggests the affections have perceptive power as divinely illuminated. It is not merely getting hold of things mentally, but there is divine illumination in the heart. God is love and none of the wisdom of God can be understood except by love, so the eyes of the heart need to be enlightened.
Ques What is the hope of His calling?
CAC It is the whole vast scene of glory which is in the good pleasure of God to bring about, what He purposed to bring about. What He purposed in Himself is a matter of hope — all is in hope as yet.