CHAPTER 3: 14 - 21
CHAPTER 3: 14 - 21
FER “For this cause” is in reference, I think, to the apostle’s own case, the special place he has in connection with the ministry of the mystery. It is on that account he bows his knees.
In the first chapter it is for the apprehension of the inheritance he prays, but here it is much more in connection with the state of saints, that they may be filled to all the fulness of God. It is a tremendous thought!
The “fulness of God” is that there is nothing lacking; it is the full display of God. The church is the fulness of Christ; it is that in which Christ is to be fully displayed. So, too, the saints are filled to the fulness of God; that is, for the full display of God.
There are two distinct thoughts in this prayer: (1) “That Christ may dwell in your hearts by faith; that ye, being rooted and grounded in love, may be able to comprehend with all saints what is the breadth, and length, and depth, and height”; (2) “And to know the love of Christ”. Both are necessary in order that we should be filled to all the fulness of God. If God is dwelling here by His Spirit, is there not to be any effulgence, any shining out? If there is to be this, is it not to come out in the saints? We have been accustomed to look at the house too exclusively as a dwelling-place of God by the Spirit, but there is more than that: it is that the effulgence of God should shine out in those who compose the house. The apostle prays about the state that is needful for that. We get the statement that it is the dwelling-place of God in chapter 2: 22, but I am sure chapter 3 comes in parenthetically to fill it out.
The principalities and powers in heavenly places saw in creation the perfection of divine ordering, and [p. 235] the man and the woman placed in the midst of it. They saw the beauty of all this; then sin came in. Philosophy did not improve things; philosophers had beautiful ideas, but they were as corrupt as those whom they condemned. But the principalities and powers saw what had been marred, restored in the house of God — men lifting up holy hands without wrath and doubting; women adorned in modest apparel giving honour to the man; the husband in the superiority of love towards his wife, and she in her place of subjection; I think this is what they saw.
From verse 14 we are introduced to the new order of things. The apostle prays to the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, of whom every family in heaven and earth is named. The Father puts each family in its place according to His purpose. It is not all brought about yet, but we are in the light of it. What will be displayed in each family is an eternal purpose; it is like Adam naming all the animals. Nothing is more important than the way we are brought into the presence of an entirely new order of things. That is where Christianity brings us. It is not displayed yet, but it is in existence.
In this prayer we get all the divine Persons connected with the saints, with the assembly down here. The Spirit of the Father is to strengthen you, that Christ may dwell in your hearts. The love of Christ is the love of God expressed in Him. God comes in mediatorially: He is not, as God, directly in connection with men; it is in Christ, and thus Christ becomes the expression of what is of God, for He is God. The place Christ takes mediatorially takes its character from His own Person. All that is divine is set forth in Christ; the display is all in Him. Who shall separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord? (Romans 8). It is thus through the Mediator alone that God puts Himself in relation with men. The love of God is immeasurable, you cannot [p. 236] compass it; you may know it, but you cannot fathom it.
It is wonderful to me how all the divine Persons put themselves in touch with the saints; they all have their part in producing the state which brings about the presentation of God here. It is Christ who comes out.
We may become weaker in the outward man, but the inward man is strengthened. The Christian is a duality in that sense. The “inward man” represents what is of God. It is a man — it is presented in the light of a being. The inward man puts me in touch with the new order of things. The outward man is ruled by the inward man. It is unseen, but it is that by which I am in touch with unseen things, the things that are above. By the outward man we are put in relation with things here. We get no “inward man” contemplated until there is a work of God; the inward man starts from the beginning of God’s work in a man. The “inward man” in Romans 7 is akin to it — it is the same in germ — the beginning of God’s work. We get the expression again in 2 Corinthians 4, “though our outward man perish, yet the inward man is renewed day by day”. I do not know if it is identical. The Spirit of God works in the inward man. There is what is antecedent to the Spirit indwelling, and He works in connection with what is already there.
New birth is not something imparted to a man: it is an operation of the Spirit in a man. There have been mistaken ideas about it. It is perfectly beyond the ken of man to define what the operation is. You cannot dissociate what is done in the man from the man. Take a man of parts in this world, full of self-confidence and self-reliance — it is all brought down, there is a complete collapse. That is what is brought about in new birth. It is a tremendous work; the man is brought down to the smallest thing possible — a mere babe, only able to utter a cry! Then the next [p. 237] thing is that man gets light, and the Spirit of God connects Himself with what is there. The negative effect of new birth is a collapse, and the positive is a cry: a man wants light. The evangelist ought to preach in view of the work of God, for his work is to enlighten when new birth has taken place. Man cannot help it on — it is in God’s hands entirely. The wind bloweth where it listeth; we only know it by its effect. The Philippian jailor was undoubtedly born again before the word of the Lord was spoken to him. The evangelist’s work is “to open their eyes”, that is, to give them light, that they may turn from darkness to light. The apostle reasoned with Felix, but there was no work of God in him.
The preaching of the gospel is enforced by the thought of judgment to come. We get God’s righteousness revealed in the gospel: He is just, and the Justifier of those who believe in Jesus; but contemporaneously the wrath of God is revealed, so we get also, “In the day when God shall judge the secrets of men by Jesus Christ according to my gospel”.
The church was to be here in the world what Christ had been. It was to be a perfect representative of Christ here. Instead of the thing being brought out in a divine Person, it was to be brought out in the church. For this we need to be intelligent as to the whole range and scope of things which it is in the purpose of God to accomplish for His glory: the breadth, and length, and depth, and height (see verse 18). Stephen saw the failure and collapse of all down here, and he could look up and see the whole range of divine glory come out in Christ. Nothing was lost!
The next thing we have to know is “the love of Christ”, and you can only know love by love. In proper Christian privilege no one has a monopoly of love. It is an amazing thing to me that what came out in Christ was to come out in the assembly — the assembly “filled even to all the fulness of God”. If we love one another, God abides in us; this is an illustration of it. “No man hath seen God at any time”, but what was declared in Christ is displayed in the saints when they love one another. It is in this way the Spirit of God works. It is by the Spirit that the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts, and we get rooted and grounded in love.
Men do not care that God should have any pleasure. The thought of nine people out of ten who are converted is their own pleasure and gain. This shows the importance of the way in which we present the gospel. There is joy in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner that repents. The epistle to the Romans was not written to unconverted people; it is to show God’s intent in the gospel, His special purpose, not what reaches man’s point only. All the apostles had was the commission at the end of the gospels; but the epistle to the Romans greatly helps us; it is Christians who want it, and I think we want it very much.
In the present day we cannot expect to see much of the power of God in the gospel testimony. We ought to accept the ruin. See the state of the vessel! In the gospel God is not approaching man directly, but in the church, just as He had approached man in Christ. I do not believe God overlooks the state of the vessel. See the state of things in Samson’s time! What was done was through individual faith. I do not expect now to see three thousand converted by one sermon; there will not be the same outward effect. Today it is gathering up the fragments that nothing be lost. What testimony is there to the world at the present time through the church? If the church has any power at all, it must be in the complete sanctification of the Spirit and the most absolute separation from all that is of the world. The gospel comes into a world of which Satan is the god and prince.
[p. 239] The apostles all went out from the assembly, and gathered into the assembly, and returned and reported to the assembly. The power of the church was when she was maintained in the sanctification of the Spirit; that is, in moral separation from the world.
When it comes to the doxology, it is “to him who is able to do exceeding abundantly above all that we ask or think, according to the power that worketh in us”. It is beyond our limit or capacity.
In the first chapter it is the power of God towards us; in the third it is the power in us; and in the sixth it is power from us.