CHAPTER 1: 19 - 23; 2: 1 - 4
CHAPTER 1: 19 - 23; 2: 1 - 4
FER The passage at the close of chapter 1 (verse 22) introduces Christ, not as Lord but as Head: “Head over all things”, He is presented as Head to the church. Colossians, too, is headship, first of principalities and powers, then of the body. The Corinthians were not in a condition to enter into the truth of the Head or the purposes of God. The relation of Christ as Head to the body, is always in connection with His being Head over all things. In Colossians 1, “he is before all things, and by him all things consist”, and then it goes on to, “he is the head of the body”: and in Colossians 2 after presenting Him as Head of all principality and power, he speaks of “not holding the head, from which all the body ... increaseth with the increase of God”. The idea of headship is supremacy; it is not the same thought as lordship. You get it in the relationship of husband and wife: the husband does not exercise authority as lord; it is the pre-eminence of affection. It is in that sense that Christ is Head of the church. So the husband is to love his wife even as Christ loved the church. The wife is to be subject, but the husband is not to rule her.
All that is under Christ, as Head, takes character from Him; whether it is as taking up the throne of David, or as Head of the Gentiles, He will give character to all. He will not rule as Nebuchadnezzar did, for it is said: “In him shall the Gentiles trust”. It is not simply that He rules them. Everything which Christ takes up in headship takes a character from Him. He is Head to the body — but then it is His [p. 209] fulness: the Gentiles will trust in Him: the Jew, too, will take character from Him, the law will be written in their hearts, but that is partial, only a trait of Him. The church alone is His fulness, adequate for the full display of Christ. Eve was the fulness of Adam.
The prayer terminates in the middle of verse 20: “He raised him from the dead”. After that, it becomes statement — “and set him at his own right hand ... and hath put all things under his feet”. The great idea of the passage is God’s great beginning — the moral beginning. All was in death; Jew and Gentile were dead, and Christ was also in death; all were dead, and then it was that God began to work, that He might bring about the resurrection sphere. The question of time is no element in this passage.
In chapter 2 “quickened” is applied to Jew and Gentile, not to Christ. Christ is raised up and made to sit at His right hand.
Ques Why is “quickening” left out in regard to Christ?
FER Because it is used in a moral sense and therefore could not be applied to Christ. Peter uses the word as applied to Christ, but not with the same force as here: “put to death in the flesh, but quickened by the Spirit”, 1 Peter 3: 18.
People are but poorly prepared to receive what we get here. It is not the responsible man as living on the earth that is in view. People are uncommonly careful of the present creation, which proves that they are not prepared to enter on, nor do they attach much importance to, the new creation. ‘Quickening’ is for another sphere: the resurrection sphere where Christ is. A man made alive is not brought back into the old sphere. The point here is that we may have the conscious knowledge of these things.
What led the apostle to prayer was that they might get the state to enable them to enjoy the light he had [p. 210] given them. In chapter 1 he gives light in regard of the gospel; that is as far as he can go, and then he resorts to prayer. In chapter 3 he gives them all the light of the mystery, and then again he turns to prayer. The gospel gives forgiveness, an inheritance, and the Spirit as the earnest, and this is as far as the apostle can go in regard to the gospel; then he prays to God for them that He may give them the state to enjoy the light. The most eminent servant can do no more than enlighten. The evangelisation of the present day has often a great evil in it; man is acted on, his flesh, his sensibilities and nerves — the emotional part of man. Many of these preachers lay themselves out to affect men in this way. God works in spite of it, but what He uses is the measure of light presented, for there is of course a certain amount of truth in the preaching, and this God uses. It should be a settled thing with the servant that his work is to enlighten. The evangelist has to open their eyes, and what follows is, that they turn from darkness to light. The evangelist works to that end, i.e., that men may be undeceived.
Ques You would like people to be interested, would you not?
FER Oh, yes! and what comes from the heart goes to the heart. The qualification of an evangelist is that he is interested in people — this cannot be affected or imitated; but the relating of thrilling anecdotes is acting on men’s nerves, not enlightening them.
We do not get the verb belonging to verse 1, until we come to verse 5, “hath quickened us together”. In verse 1 “you” is Gentiles; in verse 5 “we” is Jews, but he repeats the expression “dead in sins” in connection with the Jew; he shows that the Jew also is dead. In verse 3, he speaks of Jews, and then he adds “we too being dead in sins”. There was but a scene of death — all were dead. Christ is in death, and God comes in in resurrection power, and the first expression of it is in Christ!
[p. 211] What we do need to know is the resurrection sphere. It starts in Romans; God has raised up our Lord Jesus from the dead; there we are put upon that platform. He was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, that we should walk in newness of life. Here, in Ephesians, it is a much larger thing; He has raised us up together, i.e., Jew and Gentile.
There is very little instruction in Ephesians about the body. Colossians is where it is most brought in, because there the Christian circle is most in view. In Ephesians the great point is, God is looking down upon a scene of death, nothing but death — Jew and Gentile dead, Christ in death, and nothing remains but for God to work, His motive and spring being in Himself, for the satisfaction of His own love. Nothing is expected from the responsible side; it is because of His great love wherewith He loved us, that He quickened us together with Christ. He brings us to His own habitation; He quickened us to that end.
It is here that we touch union. Scripture does not use the term, so the question is, what force do we attach to it? To my mind, union is as when Eve was brought to Adam and united to him, and she shared all that Adam possessed — that is marriage. Eve was taken from Adam, so the church is Christ’s body because she was taken from Him. There was no help-meet found for Adam, and God took a rib — what was essentially Adam — and He forms a woman and brings her to the man, and they are united and she shares all that belongs to Adam. The idea of union is taken from marriage, not the figure of a body united to the head. If a man marries a woman positionally below him, she, in virtue of being united to him, shares all that belongs to him. So, “he that is joined to the Lord is one spirit”; the link is the “one spirit”, just as the link between man and woman is “one flesh”. The idea of all this in Ephesians is collective, not individual, but we enter into it individually.
[p. 212] Now the first thing we get here is, “quickened us together, with Christ”; then, “hath raised us up together and made us sit together in the heavenlies in Christ Jesus”. Mark, it is “in Christ”, it is abstract, not actual. We are associated with Christ in life, that is quickening, but more — resurrection power has come in to raise us above the level of nature. The apostle would not have said this of the Corinthians; he does say it of the Ephesians and Colossians. Everything is true for every believer who has the Spirit, but it must be realised. There is no sense in saying that I live with Christ, if I do not know anything about it. “Hath raised us up”: it is complete liberation from all the bonds that held Jew and Gentile in moral death here; they are all broken. As with Lazarus, grave and grave-clothes all left behind!
Then more than that — “made us sit together in heavenly places”. That is the great point here, I get a new place. “The quickening” is that I am made partaker of the divine nature; I am in conscious association with Christ. We live with Him in being partakers of the divine nature. I could not live with Christ merely by virtue of having the Spirit, I must be in the divine nature. John 5 runs parallel to this — we have passed out of death into life. John 6 corresponds more with “raised us up”; that is, I am emancipated from all the bonds that held me. There are two appropriations in John 6: the one is eating the flesh of the Son of man and drinking His blood, that is His death; then, appropriating Christ, that is the Priest.
Do you suppose that we are going to get into such exalted blessedness without the appropriation of Christ? He must be and He is the Leader in it all!
In connection with Romans 5 I have noted three ‘D’s’ — disturbance, distance, death — and in contrast we find peace, reconciliation, and eternal life.
John 3 is the divine side; chapters 4, 5 and 6 are subjective. It is most extraordinary that we should [p. 213] be raised up and made to sit in heavenly places in Christ, and this for the satisfaction of His love. The more we enjoy His love the more we enjoy the place.
There are four words used in chapter 2 as setting forth the attitude of God towards us: love, mercy, kindness, and grace.