EPHESIANS 1 (FOURTH READING, PROBABLY AT TEIGNMOUTH, 26 APRIL 1917)

EPHESIANS 1 (FOURTH ^[p. 27] READING, PROBABLY AT TEIGNMOUTH, 26 APRIL 1917)

Ephesians 1: 15 - 23; Ephesians 2: 11 - 17

Ques Do we get as wide a view here of the death of Christ as in Colossians 1?

CAC The wide view is brought out in verse 10; all things are to be headed up in the Christ, things in heaven and on earth. Then, when the assembly is in view in verse 22, He is “head over all things to the assembly”. That takes in the wide scope of His glory, does it not? It is very encouraging to see the greatness of God’s power; we could hardly entertain anything in this epistle if we had not regard to that. It is very striking that the greatness of God’s power should come out in relation to death. That is the first aspect of the death of Christ that is presented here, it is death that has been the occasion of bringing out the surpassing greatness of God’s power. Instead of death being a scene of the enemy’s power and of the weakness of the creature, it has become the most wonderful witness ever known in the universe of the surpassing greatness of God’s power. How He has reversed everything!

Ques In verse 17, does the “knowledge of him” refer to God or Christ?

CAC It is the knowledge of God, the spirit of wisdom and revelation in the full knowledge of the God of our Lord Jesus Christ.

Rem So we must start with the knowledge of the God of our Lord Jesus Christ.

CAC That is what is being effected now by the mighty power of God. It is not the power of creation; our greatest natural conception of power is creation. We think of God as Almighty and of creation as the greatest expression of His power, but it is not so. We have to learn to think of God’s power in another way; it has come out in raising a Man from the dead. We ought to ponder these things, they give one an idea of power working in a sphere entirely outside of what is of man, and one gets the feeling one can expect anything after that! There is no thought that can be suggested, or that can come in on God’s part that is too great to be carried out. God puts resurrection before us as the greatest act of His power. He would have it known. Death is utter weakness; when Christ lay in the absolute weakness of death, then God’s power came in.

Ques Is resurrection greater than redemption?

CAC Redemption is not complete without resurrection. Redemption is God acting in power for the recovery of what has been lost, and you not only need the blood for it but you need the power of resurrection. In Exodus 15 it was the people on the resurrection side of the Red Sea who could say, “The people that thou hast redeemed” (verse 13). Death is not enough; you must be in victory and you must have something to put away death. Death comes in to put away sin, but the mighty power of God comes in to put away death by resurrection. You cannot think of one without the other. That mighty power had us in view; God was not thinking of Himself alone, He was bringing His power to light towards us who believe. The assembly is in a special way the witness to all this. The full fruit of the death of Christ and of the power of God will not come out in any company as it does in the assembly. The assembly has a peculiar place as a vessel of divine fulness, “That ye may be filled even to all the fulness of God” (chapter 3: 19). We were speaking last week about the fulness reconciling all things to itself, but Ephesians suggests another thought, that there is going to be a vessel for the display of the fulness. It will not come out in Israel or in any other ^[p. 29] company. Some part may come out in Israel but what a marvellous creation the assembly is! It is created in the mighty power that raised Christ from the dead. People say that too much is made of the assembly, but if they saw what God has made and will make of the assembly, they would see it is impossible to make too much of her. People look at the assembly on man’s side as if it were something man had organised, but it is all of God and derives everything from Christ. If it is a vessel for the display of God’s glory and for the display of Christ, then we can go a long way without making too much of her. If we only look at her from man’s side, it is merely a human way of thinking.

Rem I suppose it arises from thinking of the assembly as ourselves.

CAC We should be like Laodicea if we thought of the assembly as ourselves. No, we must have our view filled with the God of our Lord Jesus Christ and in the knowledge of Him we arrive at the assembly.

Rem He is the Father of glory.

CAC That is, it all originates with Him; everything in the expanse of glory originates with the God of our Lord Jesus Christ. In Laodicea we get the Lord presented as “the beginning of the creation of God”. That should have preserved them. If they had had a sense of that there would have been no vainglory. Laodicea was boasting of what the church was, with her true riches, God, Christ and the Spirit, all left out.

It is striking that the next presentation of the death of Christ is what brings men together; this is in order for God to have pleasure in men so as to dwell in them; they must be brought into proper unity and the death of Christ is the divine way of bringing that about. We are not enough concerned about getting close to one another. The dwelling of God here is dependent on our being ^[p. 30] builded together, and that certainly means being in close contact.

Rem Distance exists today amongst christians. We think of it with the Jew and gentile as a historical fact, but the spirit of it exists today.

CAC Yes, we have to take it up in a moral way. We read a scripture like this too dispensationally, as if it were merely that the Jew and gentile had been brought together in the ways of God, but what about you and me? You may be a Jew and I a gentile figuratively. If as saints we do not apprehend the death of Christ in the way it is presented here, it shows we are some distance apart.

Rem When we come together we are tested in relation to one another. The measure in which we hold the truth will expose itself.

CAC If we are to walk here in consistency with this presentation of truth we must learn the death of Christ in this character. If I really learnt the import of the death of Christ, there would be nothing to cause a shade of difference between me and another christian who has learned it, so we could get into the closest possible contact. We are made one, an organic unity. One feels ashamed to read Ephesians from our side; it is blessed from God’s side. What a dwelling for God, people with not a shade between them! At Pentecost there were three thousand people and only one mind. God’s thought is a dwelling place for Himself composed of those builded together, the things that would keep us apart all done away in the death of Christ. There were two men before God, Jew and gentile, and Christ went into death to close the history of both of them, and to end what had been enmity (God’s law and ordinances) between them. God says, ‘What has been enmity I am going to set aside, I want your hearts in unity, because I am going to dwell among you’. It almost appeared of old as if God was the God of ^[p. 31] the Jews, and the devil was the god of the gentiles, but now God has done away with all that. Oh, the power of the death of Christ if it takes away the man after the flesh! It is the man after the flesh that is to be removed whether I am a good man or a bad man, whether I am a nice man or a nasty man! We have all our natural peculiarities, things that are like angular points that keep us from contact with one another, but that is the man after the flesh. If this is all gone and our souls have learnt the death of Christ, nothing can keep us apart.

Rem Reserve between saints is a witness that we are not in liberty.

CAC Satan is working to bring in elements of discord. I think spots and wrinkles (chapter 5: 27) are elements of discord; they spoil the beauty of the assembly. The beauty of the assembly is her unity, and the devil says, ‘I will bring in as many blemishes and spots as possible to spoil the beauty of the bride’. She is one pearl, a perfect unity. Satan works with each of us to spoil beauty. If he can bring in something fleshly with any of us, there is an element that disturbs unity and the beauty is spoilt.

It is interesting to see the privilege side and the testimony side. The privilege side is that we have access to the Father, and the testimony side is that we are a habitation of God.

We should ponder the death of Christ more. We try to put things right without using divine means. It is only as we ponder the death of Christ and drink in its import that we shall find every element of discord rebuked. We all admit saints should be in unity; we accept it as a principle, but we do not sufficiently ponder the death of Christ as the power to bring it about.

Ques Do we look at unity as the divine mind for us, or do we only mourn our discord in the assembly ^[p. 32] for the shame of what we are in the eyes of man?

CAC If we do not see the divine thought of the assembly, we shall never see the complete ruin of the assembly in the hands of man. It is such a ruin under the eye of God, not only in testimony, but we can get back to the original thought. The saints at Ephesus were prepared by the work of God in them to appreciate what is presented; they were spiritually capable of entertaining it. It is an immense thing to be in a state that qualifies one to appreciate the full height of God’s thoughts, an immense privilege. We should pray that it might be true of us. It is a very real thing to be taken into God’s confidence as to that which is so exceedingly precious to Him. One cannot imagine the profound and intense interest of the blessed God in all this, and there could not be any favour so great as to be taken into His confidence.