7. The Apostles Prayers
The Apostle’s Prayers
"Ye sought for David in times past to be king over you," was Abner’s message to the elders of Israel; "now then, do it." This is the point now reached in these studies in Ephesians. The purpose of concentrating now on these prayers is not only to seek to understand them and their requests, but also to say, "Now then, do it." The two prayers are given in 1:17-19 and 3:16-19, and it should be a help to us in making these our own prayers to note exactly what they ask for. In 1:17, the prayer begins by asking of the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Originator of all that is truly glorious, that He will also impart the full knowledge of it. Every word and phrase of the opening section underline the fact that, although this kind of knowledge can be learned, we are dependent on God for this learning by His Spirit. "May give unto you the spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of Him" is closely parallel with Isaiah 11:2 about Messiah: "the spirit of the Lord shall rest upon Him, the spirit of wisdom and understanding, the spirit of counsel and might, the spirit of knowledge and of the fear of the Lord." God has given His Spirit, but this request is for the wisdom, revelation, and knowledge, which are some of His mighty works. We ought never to be afraid to pray for knowledge, the right kind of knowledge, coming to us from the right source. A very special light is cast on this knowledge by what follows: "the eyes of your heart being enlightened." It is idle to make anatomical distinctions between head and heart and the approximate distance between them. All knowledge must in fact involve the brain, that is, in the popular phrase, be head knowledge. The bearing of "the eyes of your heart" can only be, following the insistence that it comes from God by revelation of His Spirit, that this knowledge is also in a special way bound up with the affections. In other words, the meaning is akin to the condemnation of knowledge in 1 Corinthians 8:2; 1 Corinthians 13:2 as well as in 1 John 4:8. Knowledge separated from divine love in the heart, is knowing nothing as we "ought to know."
Definiteness in praying this prayer will be helped by noting exactly the three points to be seized by this kind of knowledge. They are knowledge of:
· the hope of His calling · the riches of the glory of His inheritance in the saints · the exceeding greatness of His power to us-ward Is it possible to exaggerate the importance and effectiveness in practical life of the maturing and stabilising of knowledge (as implied by "full knowledge") on these three points? Let us attempt a paraphrase:
· the certainty of attainment of what God has called us to · the wealth of the quality of our Canaan · the power of God to effect this in the face of every obstacle, shown already in the resurrection of Christ. In our prayers we can go straight on to 3:16-19 which asks for our heart’s response to the knowledge given. It is, of course, not desirable, or indeed possible, to pretend to certainty on such a subject, but it is practically helpful to prayer to see the golden words "that Christ may dwell in your hearts by faith" as the single request of the prayer. What precedes is leading up to this, and what follows are the consequences, and can only be the consequences, of Christ dwelling in the heart. To cast the mind back over the epistle and see the tremendous extent of splendour and wealth in Christ as there set forth, and then to grasp the fact that the prayer proposes no less amazing an experience than that this glorious Being should take up His abode in our hearts, is indeed sufficient to make this the request. This dwelling in hearts by faith implies the enshrining of Christ in the love of His people. It is an intensely practical matter of conscious experience and in no sense positional only. For this dwelling it is necessary that the inner man (shown to be of God in character in Romans 7:22, but without strength in itself) must be strengthened by God’s Spirit. The two consequences of the dwelling are seizing the breadth and length and depth and height and knowing the love of Christ. In this latter, we have seen earlier the heart of the epistle.
It is not difficult to see that if Christ is the centre of God’s universe, then those in whose hearts Christ is dwelling are placed at the centre because He is there. This seems to be the bearing of the four dimensions. Only from the centre can the outlook include all four, breadth, length, depth and height. And it is at the centre of all that they know the love of Christ which passes knowledge. The love of Christ, and the extent of His down stooping and of His uprising, as well as the "all things" He now fills, provide dimensions for the thoughts of God. Like a flower unfolding, so the knowledge of the love of Christ opens up out of the indwelling of Christ, and finally these experiences are seen to be the filling into all the fulness of God. Our experience of these great matters will be limited, and therefore even our requests will not reach up to the extent of the thoughts of God, but, God can do above what we ask or think. In addition to all the other motives in all the other epistles, the things asked for in this prayer become from 4:1 the "therefore" of lives lived worthy of the calling. "Now unto Him that is able to do exceeding abundantly above all that we ask or think, according to the power that worketh in us, unto Him be glory in the Church by Christ Jesus throughout all ages, world without end. Amen."
J. S. Blackburn