Ephesians 4

Chapter 4. The Spirit of Illumination and RevelationI keep asking that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the glorious Father, may give you the Spirit of wisdom and revelation, so that you may know him better. I pray also that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened in order that you may know the hope to which he has called you, the riches of his glorious inheritance in the saints, and his incomparably great power for us who believe. That power is like the working of his mighty strength, which he exerted in Christ when he raised him from the dead and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly realms, far above all rule and authority, power and dominion, and every title that can be given, not only in the present age but also in the one to come. And God placed all things under his feet and appointed him to be head over everything for the church, which is his body, the fullness of him who fills everything in every way. (Ephesians 1:17-23)In the previous context the apostle referred to the Holy Spirit as the Deposit of our inheritance, the foretaste and pledge of the glory yet to be revealed. In connection with this Paul now unfolds more fully the way in which the Holy Spirit makes known to us the riches of our great inheritance, and opens our eyes to see and realize all that is laid up for us in Christ in the heavenlies. The first step in any spiritual experience must necessarily be to apprehend and understand it; then we shall be able to appropriate and enjoy it. The Spirit’s first work, therefore, is to make known to us all the fullness of the blessings of the Spirit in the heavenlies. The little mouse that enters the splendid cathedral has no eyes for the beauties of the architecture, no ears for the harmonies of the music, and no soul for the inspiration of the message given. All it sees is the crumb which is to satisfy its hunger, and all the rest is lost upon it. To the quickened mind and the spiritual heart there are higher things to perceive and receive. But we must have eyes to see them and hearts to understand them. “Where there is no vision, the people perish” (Proverbs 29:18). Poor Hagar, weeping yonder in the desert because her boy is dying of thirst, knows not that the fountain is flowing just at her side. All she needs is the voice of the angel to tell her to lift up her eyes, and, lo, there is deliverance and supply. The tears of sorrow are exchanged for smiles of thankfulness (see Genesis 21:14-19). Moses standing beside Marah’s bitter well did not need any new creation to remedy the misery. All he had to do was to lift up his eyes and behold the branch which was growing in the thicket by his side, and to cut it and cast it into the springs of Marah, and, lo, the waters were healed (see Exodus 15:23-25)! Elisha’s servant standing by his side on yonder mountain, trembling and quaking as he saw the Syrian squadrons closing round them, needed only to have his eyes opened to behold the angel battalions of horses and chariots all around the mountain, protecting them. Then his fears were changed to confidence and peace (see 2 Kings 6:15-17). So many a heart, like Hagar, is famishing for the waters of life, and needs only to see the fountains of grace to be saved and satisfied. Many a suffering body is standing at Marah’s bitter fountain, needing only to behold the branch of healing to be set free. Many a troubled life would change its groans and wails of doubt and fear, for shouts of praise if God would but open the eyes of spiritual vision and enable them to see that the angel of the Lord is encamping round about them to deliver and preserve (see Psalms 34:7). Oh, that the Holy Spirit would open our eyes, and that we would let Him! What God said to Abraham He is still saying to us: “All the land that you see I will give to you” (Genesis 13:15). We must see it first, and then we can take it. The vision comes before the victory. So in this great epistle, before we can enter into all the blessing of the Spirit in the heavenlies, the apostle puts to our eye the telescope of celestial vision and touches our sight with the eye salve of divine anointing. Then He bids us look, and look, and look until we see and fully understand all the meaning of the hope of our calling and the riches of the glory of our inheritance. The Agent of This New Vision “The Spirit of wisdom and revelation” (Ephesians 1:17). The Holy Spirit is the source of this new light, and He gives it in two ways: first, by giving us knowledge of the truth; and, secondly, by giving us a direct touch of revelation, a distinct flash of celestial light that makes it all vivid and real to our spiritual senses. It is not enough merely to know the truth, but we must have the quickening of God to make it real to us and to cause it to live within our spiritual consciousness. There is a place of revelation in the spiritual life; not the revelation of new doctrines and truths, but the revelation to us of the principles and doctrines already given. It was by such a revelation that we saw our sins and were convicted of our guilt. It was by such a revelation that we saw our Savior and accepted Him. It is by such a revelation that we behold the deeper life He has for us through the indwelling of the Holy Spirit. The apostle speaks of this when he says, “It pleased God… to reveal his Son in me” (Galatians 1:15-16). There is a living Holy Spirit, and there is a light He gives which the eyes of the earthly mind or the most cultured scholar never see. Let us ask Him for it. Let us not rest short of it. The Organ of the Vision “The eyes of your heart may be enlightened” (Ephesians 1:17). This is very different from the eyes of the intellect. A cultivated mind may see the truth while the heart is cold and still untouched. Men see very much what they look for. The mere scholar looks for literary beauties or defects in the Bible. The saint looks for the face of Jesus. Each finds what he is able to perceive. An English traveler was telling a missionary that all the time he was in India he never saw a convert. He did not believe there were any there. The missionary asked him what he saw. He said he saw tigers, lots of them. “What did you go for?” said the missionary. “Well,” he said, “I went to hunt tigers.” “Then you got what you were looking for. I never saw a tiger all the years I was in India, but I saw thousands of converts. You went for tigers and you found them. I looked for converts and I found them.” The mere powers of the human intellect cannot find God. There is a deeper spiritual nature which must be awakened, educated and divinely quickened. It is the heart. It is something like the intuition of the bird which, knowing when winter is coming on, sets its bosom toward southern skies, and detects by inward instinct the poison berry which the botanist may fail by all his senses to discover. There is an inner life born of the Holy Spirit to which He can speak, and through which He can show a world of living realities which “No eye has seen, no ear has heard, no mind has conceived what God has prepared for those who love him— but God has revealed it to us by his Spirit” (1 Corinthians 2:9-10). The Object of the Spiritual Vision “That… God… may give you the Spirit of wisdom and revelation, so that you may know him better” (Ephesians 1:17). He is the object of this vision. It reveals to us the person and love of the Lord Jesus Christ. It is not mere ideas, truths or even blessings that form the center of vital Christianity, but it is the personal presence and love of Jesus Christ Himself. This is something which the cold intellect cannot understand, and which a correct aesthetic taste may even despise. You may call it sentiment or mysticism if you please, but it is something which the saints of every age have had in common, that deep, intense personal affection which led Mary to sit at Jesus’ feet and pour out upon Him her precious gift; which led Paul to say, “for Christ’s love compels us” (2 Corinthians 5:14); which led Faber to sing: O Jesus, Jesus, dearest Lord, Forgive me if I say For very love Thy sacred name, A thousand times a day. And which finds its simple heartfelt fervor in the response that often bursts from your lips unconsciously with a hallelujah of praise. It is the secret of the saint. It is the mystery of love. It is in an infinitely higher form than that vast, wondrous thing which fastens the eye of the babe upon its mother, and the mother’s glance of absorbing love upon her babe; which explains the soft endearments and the tender interchanges of personal affection in private friendships and sacred home affections of life. These things would be ridiculous if others looked at them. They could not stand exposure or repetition, but they have a deep reality for loving hearts that will never cease as long as life and love will last. So in the higher realm of spiritual things there is a place for tender, affectionate fellowship between the soul and the Savior. There is a revelation of Him, an intimacy with Him, a personal knowledge of Him of which we can only say, The love of Jesus what it is, None but His loved ones know. The Greek word here translated “know” is an intensive word, and denotes the intimate and full knowledge of Him. It is derived from the Greek word “know” (gnosis) prefixed by the preposition epi. The difference between the two words may be seen in 1 Corinthians 13:12, where the word gnosis is used in the first clause, “Now I know in part.” But in the second clause a form of the word epignosis is used in both places: “Then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known.” In this sense the Holy Spirit would have us “fully know” the Lord in that deep intimacy and fellowship divine which constitutes the highest happiness of a Christ-filled soul. Dearly beloved, have you not often longed to have Christ real to you, and to be conscious of His presence in a sense as deep, at least, as you are conscious of other objects and other friends? Have you not often prayed, Lord Jesus, make Thyself to me A living bright Reality. This is the prayer of our text. This is one of the blessings of the Spirit in the heavenlies. This is the very business of the Comforter, to reveal Christ and make Him actual in your life. Claim it. Follow on until you know Him in all His fullness and you shall not seek His face in vain. The Outlook of the Vision “That you may know the hope to which he has called you, the riches of his glorious inheritance in the saints” (Ephesians 1:18). The life of every human being is largely bound up in the future. Hope is an instinctive aspiration of the human breast. Men are constantly investing large sums from which they expect no immediate return, but they see in the distance immense results, and with farseeing enterprise they plant the seeds for future fortunes. Now God wants us to catch the foregleam of the coming glory and to realize the fortune laid up for us beyond, and let it become the incentive to faith, sacrifice and undiscouraged toil, knowing that in due season we will reap if we faint not. Most people are living under the power of the present. The things immediately around them color their thought and feeling so strongly that a present trifle outweighs the future crown. God wants to break the power of the present. Christ died for us that we might be redeemed from this present evil world and learn to live under the power of the age to come. The Holy Spirit alone can make this real. He can paint upon the chambers of imagination the picture of the celestial city, the inviting crown, the unending day, the life where death and sin and sorrow shall come no more, the thrones and principalities that we have conquered, and the realization of all the hopes, longings and outreachings which the things of time have only mocked and which must often find their satisfaction there. The heart needs the inspiration of hope, the uplift and attraction of the heavenly vision. Bunyan’s pilgrim was wisely taken at intervals along his way to the house of vision, where he was permitted to see from the Delectable Mountains the towers of the Celestial City and the glorified beings who had reached their great reward. Even Christ Himself, midway to the cross, turned aside that from the Mount of Transfiguration so He and His disciples might have a glimpse of the glory yet to be revealed. In the strength and inspiration of this vision He went forward to the cross scorning its shame for the joy set before Him (see Hebrews 12:2). Oh, when we see it, realize it, claim it as our own, the world has lost its power to draw our hearts aside and our triumphant soul can sing: Should earth against my soul engage And hellish darts be hurled; Then I can smile at Satan’s rage, And face a frowning world. Let cares like a wild deluge come, And storms of sorrow fall; May I but safely reach my home, My God, my heaven, my all. The Power Revealed by This Vision “His incomparably great power for us who believe” (Ephesians 1:19). After all, the greatest need of our life lies in the present, and for this real conflict we need actual resources and practical power. And so the last vision revealed in this divine illumination is, “His incomparably great power for us who believe.” This vision of power is so immense that our strength fails, through the vastness of the vision, adequately to take it in.

1. It is described by a combination of nouns, adjectives and adverbs quite unexampled even in the intense style of Paul himself. First, we have the three words for power: one denoting strength, another authority and another extraordinary power, which is our word dynamite. Then we have supporting it this qualifying phrase, “His incomparably great power.” He piles mountain upon mountain in order to reach the height of this transcendent vision. We know something of these words from what we see around us. The power of dynamite, the strength of man’s explosive may be seen in the fearful effects of modern military and naval warfare. A shell of heavy weight can be hurled miles, and in its very explosion shatter the most powerful armorplate in the world to pieces. A torpedo has but to touch that massive ship with steel plates more than a foot thick, and it is twisted and torn into fragments, its living freight hurled into an awful death. Mightier than these are the forces that work the spring and swing the planet around its solar center. These are but lessons of that surpassing might which quietly and constantly is going forth from the hand of Him who sits upon the throne as our Savior and our living Head, and that each of us may claim for every need of life.
2. Next, he illustrates this power by the resurrection of Jesus Christ. It raised Him from the dead. That is more than man’s might can do. Man can kill his millions, but he cannot give back life to a fluttering insect. Look at that sealed stone and guarded tomb, that lifeless clay with the marks of the nails and the spear. Look again! The guard has fled! The seal is broken! The stone is rolled away! The Lord is standing in the Easter morning with the light and glory of the resurrection on His countenance, saying to His wondering disciples: “All hail!” That is the power we may claim, stronger than the grave.
3. It is next illustrated in His ascension. He “seated him at his right hand in the heavenly realms” (Ephesians 1:20). Man has found no power as strong as gravitation. He has tried to build a tower to scale the heavens, but he has not yet reached the height even of earth’s shallow atmosphere. But look at yonder form gently rising from the hills of Bethany, His hands stretched out in blessing, His face shining with love, His tender parting words still falling upon their ears. Gradually, majestically He rises into space without an effort. The law of gravitation has lost its power, for He is the center of gravitation now. Higher and higher He ascends, while they gaze with rapt wonder until a little cloud intervenes, and then He pauses! He waits long enough to send one more parting message down, and then He sails away through the ether ocean to some distant world, which God has made the metropolis of His empire. There He sits down calmly, triumphantly, at the right hand of the eternal throne. It is the attitude of repose, of dignity, of absolute resistless power. Beloved, that is the power that He would reveal to you, and that He is waiting to share with you for the smallest need and the greatest extremity of your life.
4. Still further is this power emphasized by comparison with the objects that it has surmounted. He has ascended “far above all rule and authority, power and dominion, and every title that can be given, not only in the present age but also in the one to come” (Ephesians 1:21). Here every kind of superior being is named. There are high names and mighty dominions even of this earth, but He is far above them all. Nebuchadnezzar, Herod—all are but subjects of His will, and at His bidding must sink into abasement or corruption. There are greater names in the spiritual realm, wicked spirits, swift and terrible as the lightning which Christ saw fall from heaven; great principalities of evil rising in successive ranks until they reach that mighty personality himself, the god of this world and the sovereign of an empire of innumerable spirits far mightier than the loftiest human mind. In modern times spiritualism is beginning to uncover some of the mysteries of this underworld which can almost imitate the miracles of God Himself. But there is one Power who is far above them all, Jesus Christ, the King of kings and Lord of lords, the glorious and only potentate. Even the laws of nature themselves are subject to His will. Even the forces of life and death and the things which seem so uniform and unchangeable are liable to His intervention and suspension whenever our needs may require. His ascension is a protest against every other force, and it is according to the power of His ascension that we may now claim His help.
5. The vision of His power is further strengthened by the relation which He sustains at once to the universe and to us. This is the crowning picture: “Head over everything for the church, which is his body” (Ephesians 1:22-23). He is not only Head over all things, but He is Head for the one purpose of blessing us. He holds His high throne wholly on our behalf. He has entered heaven as our Representative. He has left the other half of Himself behind on earth. He is but a Head. We are His body, and He reigns yonder and here for the sake of that body. The wheels of the universe are moving entirely for the sake of His Church. The forces of nature and providence are subject to the need and help and blessing and glory of His little flock, His glorious bride. This gives us the right to claim His fullness. Not as gratuity, but as a primary claim, and the very object for which He has ascended to His mediatorial throne. Beloved, will we rise to this celestial vision? Will we gaze upon it until it blinds our eyes to every other object, and burns into our consciousness the realization of our boundless resources? Then will we come back in the light of that vision to set it over against the things that have been too hard for us? As we look at temptation, sin, Satan, the world, sickness, sorrow, guilt, enemies, earth’s attractions or Satan’s hate, the inveterate weakness of souls we love, or even the helplessness of our own poor, weak hearts will we henceforth say, “Christ, my living and ascended Lord, is far above all these things, and what is Christ’s is mine, for I am part of His body, and He is my living Head, my other self, my all in all?” Lord, show us the vision, then help us to claim it, to prove it, to bring it down into every moment of a victorious life in Jesus’ name. Amen.