Eph. 1:15-23.
Bible Treasury, Volume 3, 2nd Edition, May 1861.
(1st. Edition, May [03 1861 270])
It is always good for our souls to draw near and review the proper starting point and pattern, if I may so say, of the blessing that God has given us. We are all apt to stop short. There are certain blessings that we cannot do without. We cannot go on for a day with the least measure of comfort, if the spring of our confidence in God's mercy is weakened. We need to know the remission of sins as a constant daily thing: but that is not enough. We shall never be able to glorify God, if we only take what we need. And, more than that, where the soul is content merely with what we actually want, we often lose the joy of it, and, by the just retribution of God, we begin to question whether we have, after all, got the remission of sins or whether we may not have been deceiving ourselves. Whereas, where the eye is kept open though in the midst of so many circumstances in this life that tend to close and darken it; but where it is kept open upon Christ, we shall not be satisfied without knowing what is the extent of the blessing that God has given us. For Christ is the only object of faith, the only One that satisfies us, as indeed He is God's object; and if we have got but one mind with God about Him; our communion is with the Father and with His Son Jesus Christ. In God's ways with Israel, He makes a great deal of two particular points in their history; one was the crossing of the Red Sea, and the other was the Jordan. In Psalm 114 we find these two things brought together, where the sea is referred to, ("the sea saw it and fled,") and where Jordan is spoken of as having been driven back. Now, we have got our Red Sea and our Jordan too, and we need them both. We need much more than the passover, in which, as it were, God has not yet come near us. He is only passing by outside. We should want Him near, for it is not best to keep God outside, in the sense of our sin. It is not honouring God to be merely shivering in the thought of a judgement that we cannot meet. The judgement is met, and so greatly has Christ magnified God and brought honour to Him, even about our sins, that God can come in, instead of merely passing over, and can put Himself in our midst, dwell among us, and have us to dwell with Him.
The way in which God has brought about this wonderful height and depth of love towards us, is in our Lord's death and resurrection. As we find here, the apostle prays for the saints — "the eyes of your understanding being enlightened, that ye may know what is the hope of His calling, and what the riches of the glory of His inheritance in the saints, and what is the exceeding greatness of his power to usward who believe, according to the working of his mighty power, which he wrought in Christ, when he raised him from the dead," etc.
Not a word is here spoken simply of redemption. He had already brought that in, and they knew it. But he desired them to enter into much more — "into the hope of his calling;" and what have we there? The whole extent of our privileges. It is God who looks at His Son, and who calls us out to be fellows of His Son, to be partakers with Christ, to have the same place in His love that His own Son has. Now there is nothing so hard for the heart really to lay hold of as this. It is so entirely beyond every thought or feeling that can issue from us. And how does God give our hearts to enter into it? By dwelling upon Christ; by having the word of God that brings His work in Christ before us, mixed with faith in them that hear it. And, as in the unconverted, it is by the word preached that the Holy Ghost acts to bring them to God, so with the Christian to bless him all the way through. We do need to be taught of God, to enter, more deeply than we have done, into what God has given us in His Son. If we do not, some difficulties will arise which will demand the knowledge of that which we have not got, and there will be weakness, there will be the consulting of flesh and blood, instead of going forward in the strength of God, with the eye fixed upon Christ. We need not use the death and resurrection of Christ merely in a selfish way for our own need, without going further, without the desire of seeing what it is that His sacrifice, already offered, capacitates us for. Christ Himself is beyond His own sacrifice, infinitely blessed as it is. He that died is better than any thing He has brought me in His death. We are prone to take His death only, because it touches the question of our sins; and most precious this is: it is quite right; and we cannot value it too much. But it is quite wrong to stop there: we must push on. The apostle was always labouring for this with the saints. If, as in the case of the Galatians, they had got away from Christ, and were putting themselves under the law, they required, of course that Christ should be formed in them again. But where the soul has found peace and rest with Christ, God desires, and we should desire, the opening of our eyes, that we should enter into the hope of God's calling, and the riches of the glory of His inheritance in the saints. These are the two great parts of the ways of God. The one embraces the knowledge of Himself and of His love, and our privilege who are by grace called to the enjoyment of it. It takes in past and present, and looks on to the future. For the hope of His calling reaches out to what we shall be in His presence. It is a question between God and His children — what He is to us and what we are in Christ; not of the glory which will be conferred upon us and displayed before the world, which is just what is meant by "the riches of the glory of His inheritance in the saints." There I get the honour that will be put upon us, and in which we shall shine. But is this the best thing? Far from it. To be saints of God, to be in His presence, at ease and at home in the presence of God, to have the privilege of beholding His beloved Son, and seeing Him in the glory which He had with the Father before the world was: there is the hope of His calling. He has called us there, where no angel can be, no creature, save those who have a divine nature imparted to them, and who, by the Holy Ghost, are capable of entering into the deepest thoughts of God. And this is communicated to us, even here in this world, that our hearts may rise up to the consciousness of the dignity of our place in Christ. Conscience alone will not keep a person from sin. There must be the affections brought into play, and such an acquaintance with God, such a familiarity with His thoughts and feelings as that they become the meat and drink of the child of God.
This, then, is what the apostle desired for the saints. First, he sought they should understand the hope of His calling, the full extent of the privileges of Grace, from before the foundation of the world till the world is no more. Then, he presses the riches of the glory of His inheritance in the saints, which is rather the scene of display that will come out before the world in the scene of creation. The hope of His calling goes beyond that. It is the working out of the counsels of God's own heart and purposes — the communication of His own divine nature, making us one with Christ. This is far beyond any inheritance that we can enjoy, and will last when the inheritance, in the sense of the kingdom, is over.
But there is more than this. The Apostle goes on: "And what is the exceeding greatness of his power to us-ward who believe, according to the working of his mighty power, which he wrought in Christ when he raised him from the dead, and set him at his own right hand in the heavenly places." There is what I just referred to passingly as our Jordan. In the Romans we get our Red Sea — the death and resurrection of Christ as that which ushers us into this world as a wilderness, or place of trial, where our heart has to be proved, and where God is testing us how far we, who were the servants of sin, are willing now to be the servants of righteousness. But in Ephesians we get a deeper thing still than that — the enjoyment of Christ as taking possession of our heavenly privileges. It is not, therefore, the death and resurrection of Christ as bringing us into the wilderness; but the death and resurrection of Christ as bringing us into heaven now. Are not our souls too often satisfied short of this? Content with what is more simply suited to our need, or with what would be considered more practical. Why is it so, that we rest short of entering into what God gives us in His beloved Son as He is in His own presence now? It is because we are not spiritual: it is the power of nature coming in that hinders us. Nature always clings to something present — something that touches our wants as we see them; whereas, where the heart is more in the presence of God and the enjoyment of Christ, while we are still more sensitive as to what glorifies God, yet we learn a power in Christ, and not merely in the fact of certain things being right or wrong. It ceases to be a mere question of habit. It is God unfolding His Son to us — His own thoughts and feelings as revealed in His Son: and this is what gives us power. Because if I see that God has really wrought in Christ this wonderful work; far beyond that of creation — the raising up of Christ from the dead, and setting Him at His own right hand in heaven; if we read that act in the light of God, we see what sin was — what Satan was — what the judgement of God was, who now, in grace, passes over all. All is gone now — all is passed over for us, that God might magnify Himself. While we are in the world, over which judgement is hanging, we are raised above it all — we have the liberty of heaven while we are on the earth. This is passing the Jordan. We have passed in the person of Christ outside this world; we have taken our place in heaven, have been made to sit together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus. That is, we have been put at ease there, which the thought of sitting gives. All thought of pilgrimage is lost sight of in this range of truth. Our being pilgrims and strangers, though most true and blessed, is not so blessed a place as being seated together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus.
And if a person were to say, This is a higher region of truth outside my reach, I answer, God is jealous over us. He has called us out from the many things that once hindered us — has showed us the present state of the Church and what He is going to do for us by and by. We are not come to set up the Church again, but are resolved to commit our souls to nothing but that which is His will about the Church. We may fail ever so much — we may mourn the many difficulties on every side, through lack of wisdom, grace, righteousness, etc.; but the place that God has given us in His grace abides unchangeable wherever there is faith to own it. Our business is to leave room for God, and not to hinder the Holy Ghost. It is not enough to have been brought into this blessed place. It is but a means, and not an end. There is often great danger of resting complacently in the fact, that we are meeting together in the Lord's name. But let us not think that we have done anything. It is the mercy of God that has brought us where He can deal with us, and where He will deal with us, where He will not suffer one single thing that is contrary to His name; who will work in private, and work in public, so that His name be honoured. This is the exceeding greatness of His power to us-ward who believe. Why should we distrust Him in anything? We might see everything crumbling around us, difficulties that we cannot surmount, sorrows in seeing hearts turned away from the truth. But if it is the power that wrought in Christ when God raised Him from the dead which now works in us, why should we doubt? The power that raised Christ from the grave is necessarily above everything else. And it is the way of God to allow things to come to the worst before He interferes. There may, perhaps have been a leaning upon others, more likely upon our own understanding, which is a shade worse than leaning upon the understanding of another; but the grand thing that God brings out is, the blessedness of having Himself, the certainty that He will appear and deliver, that He will work according to the mighty power which He wrought in Christ when He raised Him from the dead. If, when we think of the hope of His calling, and the riches of the glory of His inheritance in the saints, we may feel ashamed to think of our failure and shortcoming, yet what comfort to think that the power which wrought in Christ is the same that has to do with us, whether it be power for us or in us! The Lord grant we may enter into this which He brings before our souls! It was God that led His people through the Jordan, God that caused His own ark to stand there in the midst of it; and not a single Israelite's foot was wet. Well might Israel trust Him about everything! For if God had wrought such a work as this before they entered into the conflict with their enemies, would He not be with them all through? Could there have been one doubt of victory, if they had thought of the Jordan? It is when we forget what God has done for us, that we show self in one form or another. But where even the sense of failure drives us back to God, then comes this bright comfort before our souls — the exceeding greatness of the power to usward who believe. Therefore let us not in anywise look to the right hand or to the left; but let us look upward, where Jesus is. Let us think of Him, rest upon Him, who has so wrought toward us, and who will so work in us. The Lord grant that our faith may be very simple!