IN THE HEAVENLIES - On Ephesians
THE SPHERE OF CHRISTIAN PRIVILEGE
"Paul, an apostle of Jesus Christ by the will of God, to
the saints which are at Ephesus, and to the faithful in Christ Jesus: Grace be
to you, and peace, from God our Father, and from the Lord Jesus Christ. Blessed
be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who hath blessed us with
spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ" (Eph. 1:1-3).
THERE
is nothing redundant in God's Word. Men write books and very frequently pad
them in order to give quantity as well as quality, but there is nothing like
that in the Bible. God's words are tried -"as silver tried in a furnace of
earth, purified seven times"- and therefore we may well give our most careful
attention to every item and every expression used. With what great outstanding
theme does this epistle deal? It opens up the truth of the privileges and
responsibilities of the Church as the Body and Bride of Christ. It brings
before us our position as believers; as quickened, raised, and seated in Christ
in heavenly places. There are very remarkable correspondences between certain
Old Testament books and New Testament epistles. The Epistle to the Romans, for
instance, answers to Exodus; the Letter to the Hebrews is the counterpart of
Leviticus; and this Epistle to the Ephesians is the New Testament book of
Joshua. In Joshua we have the people of Israel entering upon the possession of
their inheritance. In Ephesians believers are called upon to enter by faith now
into the possession of that inheritance which we shall enjoy in all its fulness
by-and-by. We are far richer than we realize. All things are ours, and yet how
little we appropriate! It is said in the prophecy of Obadiah that when the Lord
returns and His kingdom is established, the people of Israel shall "possess
their possessions." This is a challenge to us. Do you possess your possessions?
Or are your heavenly estates like castles in Spain about which you dream, but
never really make your own? I trust the Spirit of God may lead us into the
present enjoyment of our portion in Christ.
For our purpose the epistle
may be divided very simply, without breaking it up into many portions which
would be difficult to carry in our memories. We shall divide it into two parts,
the first three chapters giving us the doctrinal unfolding, and the last three,
the practical outcome; the first division gives us our inheritance, and the
last, the behavior that should characterize those who are so richly blessed.
That is the divine order; instruction in the truth first, practice in
accordance with the truth afterwards. Now let us look particularly at these
opening verses.
We are struck at once by the name of the writer, Paul.
Thirteen New Testament epistles begin with the word "Paul." Another one is
undoubtedly from Paul, but begins with the magnificent word "God." I refer to
the Epistle to the Hebrews. Do we stop to inquire as often as we should how
this man ever came to be called Paul? That was not his name originally. His
name in the first place was Saul. He was a Benjamite, and bore the name of the
first king, who came from the tribe of Benjamin. For many years this man was a
haughty, self-righteous Pharisee, proud of his genealogy, of his religion, of
his personal devotedness, until one day he had a meeting with our Lord Jesus
Christ. Have you had such a meeting? From that moment on everything was changed
for him. He could say:
"I was journeying in the
noontide,
When His light shone o'er my road;
And I saw Him in the
glory,
Saw Him, Jesus, Son of God.
Marvel not that Christ in glory
All my inmost soul hath won;
I have seen a light from heaven,
Far
beyond the brightest sun."
It was that vision of Christ that
changed Saul the Pharisee, into Paul, the humble, lowly servant of Christ. He
did not use the new name immediately, you remember. It seems to have been taken
after he won his first outstanding Gentile convert in the Isle of Cyprus -
after the conversion of Sergius Paulus; and it appears to have been given him
in recognition of his apostolic ministry. It means "the little one," a
wonderful name for one who once thought himself so great; but that is what
Christ does for one. "What things were gain to me, those I counted loss for
Christ. Yea, doubtless, and I count all things but loss for the excellency of
the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord: for whom I have suffered the loss of all
things, and do count them but dung, that I may win Christ" (Phil. 3: 7, 8). All
that Saul gloried in, Paul flung away for Jesus' sake; and he was content to be
little, "less than the least of all saints," that in him Christ Jesus might
show forth all long-suffering.
I remember going to a coloured
camp-meeting, and the dear black folk were singing a little ditty that went
like this:
"The quickest way up is down,
The
quickest way up is down;
You may climb up high, and try and try,
But
the quickest way up is down."
How long it takes some of us
to learn that! We are always trying to become somebody, and forgetting that,
"Whosoever will save his life shall lose it: and whosoever will lose his life,"
says Jesus, "for My sake shall find it" (Matt. 16: 25). Blessed it is when the
princely Saul becomes the little Paul as he bows at the Saviour's feet.
Paul calls himself an apostle. Just what is an apostle? The word might be
translated "a messenger," "a sent one," "one sent on a mission," and so there
is a certain sense in which every missionary is an apostle. But there is a
higher sense in which the word "apostle" refers to those who were specially
commissioned by our Lord Jesus Christ to go forth in the world and carry the
truth through which the Church was instituted. Paul was not among those who
knew the Lord on earth, but he was ordained an apostle to the nations by His
personal appointment when the risen Christ appeared to him that day on the
Damascus turnpike. He said to him, "I have appeared unto thee for this purpose,
to make thee a minister and a witness both of these things which thou hast
seen, and of those things in the which I will appear unto thee" (Acts 26: 16).
And so Paul could go forth, the apostle of the Lord Jesus Christ, saying:
"Christ the Son of God hath sent me
Through
the midnight lands;
Mine the mighty ordination
Of the pierced
hands."
He was an apostle of Jesus Christ by the will of
God.
I do not like to touch upon critical questions in connection with
these studies, and yet I must do so here. Some people do not notice divine
names carefully, and that is the reason why those who copied the manuscripts
were not always particular whether they wrote "Jesus Christ," or "Christ
Jesus," but here it should be "Christ Jesus." Peter, James, John, and Jude
spoke of our blessed Lord as "Jesus Christ." Why? Because "Jesus" is His human
name and in resurrection He was made Lord and Christ. They knew Him on earth as
"Jesus," the self-humbled One. But Paul never knew Him in that way; he never
knew Him as "Jesus" on earth; he had his first sight of Him in the glory, and
his soul was so thrilled with what he beheld that he never thought of Him as
other than the glorified One. So he invariably writes in the original text,
"Christ Jesus," and his message is in a peculiar sense called "The gospel of
the glory." The other disciples walked with Him on earth, and delighted to
dwell on what He was when here, and so they speak of Him as "Jesus Christ." Any
critical version will make this distinction clear.
Paul is a messenger,
a sent one of Christ Jesus "by the will of God." It was no mere idle thought of
his that sent him forth on this mission. It was not that he concluded it would
be the best way to spend his life. He who saved him commissioned him, and sent
him forth to be a teacher of the Gentiles in faith and verity; and so he
insists on the divine character of his commission, "An apostle of Christ Jesus
by the will of God."
A simple cobbler was being introduced to a rather
dignified clergyman, and when the cobbler said, "I didn't get your name," the
clergyman replied, "The Reverend Doctor Blank, by the will of God." The cobbler
said, "And I am John Doe, cobbler by the will of God; I am glad to meet you,
sir." It is a great thing, whatever your station in life may be, to recognize
it as "by the will of God." Am I a preacher of the gospel? It should be only
because I have heard a divine call urging me forth and thrusting me out. Am I a
merchant? Has it been given to me to make money for the glory of God? Then let
me re-member that I am a merchant by the will of God, and I should be sure that
I am where God's will has placed me, and should seek to be faithful to
Him.
The apostle addresses himself, though not to two classes of people
as one might suppose, "To the saints which are at Ephesus, and to the faithful
in Christ Jesus." That might suggest that the term "saints" took in all
believers and that "the faithful" included a spiritual aristocracy, but it
might better be rendered, "To the saints which are at Ephesus, even the
believers in Christ Jesus." In other words, it is faith in Christ Jesus which
constitutes a person a saint. Are you a saint? You say, "I wouldn't like to go
so far. I am not sinless yet." A saint is not a sinless person; a saint is a
separated person, separated to God in Christ Jesus. People have an idea that if
you live a very saintly life, eventually you may become a saint. God says, "Do
you believe in My Son? Have you trusted Him? Well, then, I constitute you a
saint; be sure that you live in a saintly way." We do not become saints by
saintliness, but we should be characterised by saintliness because we are
saints.
In verse 2 we have the apostolic salutation, "Grace be to you,
and peace, from God our Father, and from the Lord Jesus Christ." He is not
referring at all to the grace that saves. These people were already saved. He
tells them, "By grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves:
it is the gift of God: not of works, lest any man should boast" (Eph. 2: 8, 9).
It is a great thing to have that settled. So many of us never seem to get
anything settled. We come to Christ, but lack positive conviction and definite
assurance. That comes out in a great many of the hymns we sing. How hard it is
to get hymns that are absolutely scriptural. In a meeting some time ago I was
giving a message on "The Indwelling Holy Spirit." At the close of the service,
the dear pastor stood up and said, "In the light of this splendid address, let
us sing, 'Holy Spirit, faithful Guide, ever near the Christian's side,'" and I
felt my heart sink as I thought, "After I have spent forty minutes trying to
show them that the Holy Spirit is not merely at our side, but dwells in us,
they haven't got it yet." Then they came to that last gloomy verse, and I said,
"Please don't sing such words as these:
"'When our
days of toil shall cease,
Waiting still for sweet release;
Nothing left
but heaven and prayer,
Wond'ring if our names are there;
Wading deep
the dismal flood,
Pleading nought but Jesus' blood.'"
What a mixture! I refuse to sing it. I know my name is there!
I do not
understand how it is that Christians are so slow in laying hold of divine
truth. Here in our verse the apostle means grace to keep, to preserve us, not
grace to save. For the believer that is already settled for eternity, but we
need daily grace for daily trials.
How does one obtain this grace? "We
have not an high priest which cannot be touched with the feeling of our
infirmities; but was in all points tempted like as we are, yet without sin. Let
us therefore come boldly unto the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy,
and find grace to help in time of need" (Heb. 4: 15, 16). We Were saved by
grace, we began with grace, but we need grace every step of the way that we
might triumph over the world and over the natural propensities of our poor
hearts; for as Christians we have the nature of the old man in us still, and it
will readily manifest itself if not subdued and kept in place by grace
divine.
"Grace be to you, and peace." This is not peace with God which
was made for us by the blood of Calvary's cross. Every believer in the Lord
Jesus should know what it is to have peace with God, "Being justified by faith,
we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ" (Rom. 5: 1). But this is
the peace of God, garrisoning our hearts as we move along toward our heavenly
home, the same peace that filled the heart of Jesus when here on earth. May I
use an illustration of Dr. W. I. Carroll's right here? Jesus said to His
disciples in the ship, "Let us go over to the other side." Where were they
going? To the other side. When they got into the boat, He went to sleep in
perfect peace, and in the middle of the night the elements raged, the devil
stirred up a terrific tempest, but it could not drown Him. It was impossible
that the boat in which He sailed should founder; but the disciples were
terrified and they aroused that Holy Sleeper and said, "Master, carest Thou not
that we perish?" Jesus, wakened from His sleep, looked at them, and said, "0 ye
of little faith." Little faith! With the thunder roaring, the lightning
flashing, the wind blowing a gale, and the sea raging, why, you surely could
not blame men for being afraid! But you see, Jesus did not say to them, "Let us
go out into the middle of the lake and get drowned." He said, "Let us go over
to the other side," and they should have rested on His word. They would have
had the same peace that He had if they had believed His word.
Do the
trials of the way sometimes test your soul? Do you wonder what will become of
you? This is what will become of you: If worst comes to worst and you starve to
death, you are going Home to heaven! Thousands of people are dying and going to
a lost eternity, but no matter what comes to you, if you are saved, you are
going Home! As we realize that we are in His hand, the peace of God, like a
military garrison, keeps our hearts and saves us from all doubt and
fear.
"Grace be to you, and peace, from God our Father." Do you love to
dwell on those words, "From God our Father"? The blessed Lord came to reveal
the Father, and the Holy Spirit gives us to know the Father, and one of the
first evidences that a man is born of God is that he lifts his heart to heaven
and says, "Father." This is a different thing from the God of the Lodge Hall,
from the God of the Modernist, from the doctrine of the universal Fatherhood of
God and brotherhood of man. That is not what the apostle is talking about. He
has been addressing saints, believers in Christ Jesus, and when he speaks to
them, he says, "God our Father." It is only by regeneration, only by the second
birth, that we enter into this blessed relationship. Scripture declares that
those who have never been regenerated are of the flesh, they are not the
children of God, and our Lord Jesus said to certain ones, "Ye are of your
father the devil, and the lusts of your father ye will do" (John 8: 44). That
does not sound very much like the universal Fatherhood of God and the
brotherhood of man! People tell me that is what Jesus came to teach. I defy
anyone to find any such thing anywhere in all the teaching of our Lord Jesus
Christ. He said to Nicodemus, "Except a man be born again, he cannot see the
kingdom of God" (John 3: 3). In that very verse He Jlenies the universal
Fatherhood of God and brotherhood of man. I know all men are brothers in Adam
and we are one in sin, but it is only by a new birth that I become a brother of
the saints and a child of God.
"Grace be to you, and peace, from God
our Father, and from the Lord Jesus Christ." How the Holy Ghost delights to
give Him His full title, "the Lord Jesus Christ." He is Lord of all, and
therefore all men are called upon to subject o themselves to Him. Notice verse
3, for in this we properly begin the study of the epistle:
"Blessed be the
God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ." He has said before that God is our
Father, and now points out that in a peculiar sense God sustains that
relationship to the Lord Jesus Christ. He is the God of our Lord Jesus Christ
because Jesus became Man, and as Man He looks up to the Father as His God. He
is the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ because Christ is God the Son from all
eternity. What a wealth of instruction is bound up in that expression, "The God
and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ." It was not until the resurrection that He
revealed this blessed relationship. He said to Mary, "Go to My brethren, and
say unto them, I ascend unto My Father, and your Father, and to My God, and
your God" (John 20: 17). He does not say, "I ascend to our God and our Father."
His relationship is different to ours. He was not simply a man brought into
union with God, but He was the Son of God, come down to earth in grace, who
became Man for our redemption.
Farther on in this epistle there are two
prayers, one in the last part of this chapter, and the other in chapter three,
and they accord in a very striking way with these titles. In chapter 1: 17 Paul
prays that "the God of our Lord Jesus Christ" may do certain things; and then
when we turn over to chapter 3: 14 we read, "For this cause I bow my knees unto
the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ." Why the difference? Because in the first
prayer he is speaking of the divine counsels and power, and so he addresses
himself to God. In the second prayer he takes into consideration our
relationship to God and addresses himself to "the Father of our Lord Jesus
Christ." Scripture is wonderfully accurate.
"Blessed be the God and
Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who hath blessed us with all spiritual
blessings in heavenly places in Christ." Notice, "He hath blessed us." The
apostle is not speaking of something that may be ours when we get to heaven,
but right here and now I have been blessed with every spiritual blessing in
Christ Jesus. People often ask me if I have obtained the second blessing yet,
and I generally say, "Second blessing? Why, I am somewhere up in the hundreds
of thousands as far as that goes, if you refer to experience; but actually I
obtained every blessing that God has for a redeemed sinner when I put my trust
in the Lord Jesus Christ." He does not just give us a little now and a little
later, but gives us everything in Christ. It is all yours. Enter into it and
enjoy it. It is one thing to have the blessings and another thing to make them
yours. I read recently about a man in Montana for whom search had long been
made. Some years ago a British nobleman died, leaving an estate which, as he
had no children, would go to the nearest heir. This man away out west was the
nearest heir, living in poverty, and just eking out a struggling existence when
they found him and gave him the news that the estate was his. It was his all
the time, but he did not know it. What did he do when he found it out? Did he
say, "Well, it is a good thing to know that I have something to fall back on
and some day I will go and look into it?" No, he went down town, and on the
strength of it bought himself a new suit and a ticket, and started to Great
Britain. I read an interview which the reporters had with him. They said,
"Where are you going?" He answered, "To take possession of my estate." You and
I are richer far than he was, but do we really take possession by faith of the
things that are ours in Christ? You may say, "But name some of these things
that are ours." He has blessed us with the blessing of forgiveness of our sins,
with justification from all things, with sanctification in Christ, with a robe
of perfect righteousness, with a heavenly citizenship, by giving us a place in
the Body of Christ, by making us heirs of His riches in Christ Jesus! And yet
how some of us struggle along, eking out a poor, wretched, miserable existence!
We act as spiritual paupers when we ought to be living like
millionaires.
"Who hath blessed us with all spiritual blessings in
heavenly places in Christ." God has made Christ Jesus to be unto us wisdom,
righteousness, sanctification, and redemption, and yet for six years after I
was converted I was still seeking righteousness and sanctification. But one day
I woke up to the fact that it was all mine in Christ Jesus, and that I had
simply to appropriate and enjoy it.
Now notice he says, "In heavenly
places." My blessings are all yonder, and He calls me in the Spirit to rise to
my heavenly citizenship and live in this world as a heavenly man should live,
drawing from the glory all the resources I need that I may be more than
conqueror day by day, as I pass through this scene.
Notice how
carefully you have to read Scripture. "Who hath blessed us with all spiritual
blessings in heavenly places in Christ." What a mistake it would be to
translate that, "with Christ." Do you see the difference? How often we hear
people misquote it, and say, "He hath raised us up together, and made us sit
together in heavenly places with Christ Jesus." Nothing of the kind. We are not
seated together with Christ; we are seated in Him. He is there as our
representative, and that is an altogether different thing from being seated
with Him. We have "everything in Jesus and Jesus everything !" Mark, this does
not mean that we are only blessed and seated together in Christ when we have a
real, good, happy, spiritual meeting. Sometimes when we have a good meeting and
the people think they have been helped, some well-meaning brother closes in
prayer and says, "0 Lord, we thank Thee that we have been sitting together in
heavenly places in Christ Jesus this morning."
I say to myself, "The
dear brother hasn't got it yet. He thinks because there is a glow in his heart,
because he feels happy, that means he is sitting in heavenly places in Christ."
But I am sitting in heavenly places in Christ just as truly when I am oppressed
with the trials of the way, as I am when I am flourishing and have everything
that heart could desire. It is a question of fact: Christ is there in the
heavenlies, and God sees me in Him. I am blessed in Him and all the treasures
of heaven are at my disposal, and I am to draw upon them as I have need in
order that I may be happy, in order that I may rejoice as I go forth in His
service down here.
End of Chapter One