PAUL’S SECOND PRAYER FOR THE EPHESIANS.
BY C. M. W.
Ephesians iii:14-21.
What was the
experience, the inner life, of these Ephesian Christians, that Paul could open
to their enlightened understandings so great visions of the heavenlies, and
call them to dwell therein? Twice while filling the scroll which Tichicus, the
beloved brother and faithful minister, was waiting to carry to the saints, he
breaks forth in prayer-such prayer as we might rejoice to have made for us, and
when we may be assured may be fulfilled in us, if we love the Lord Jesus
Christ so as to continue His word.
He had told them
of that grace of God given to them, that mystery of Christ of which he was made
a minister, hidden in God from all eyes, but now through the Church to be made
known to the principalities and the power in the heavenly places; that mystery
of the household of God, of the holy temple in which Gentiles and strangers
builded together with apostles and prophets, upon the chief corner-stone,
Christ Jesus, were to be a habitation of God through the Spirit.
Now, how should
he help them to fill well their place in this spiritual temple? How help them to
shine as lights on this distant hill?
Paul was
thoroughly at one with these disciples. Having sown in them the seed of their
divine life, he knew their needs and their dangers, their joys and their glory
as fellow-citizens and fellow-heirs, for he had lived a life grown from the
same divine root. So, as his heart is filled with their past history and their
present need, he pours himself out again in prayer for them.
“Strengthened
with might… by His spirit.” The source of their power was God. The channel of
its communication was Christ. The strengthening with might in the inner man was
by His Spirit-the Holy Ghost. This was not power for service (that would come
in its place), but power for that
assimilation of Christ that would ever make fuller space for Him, would bring
more complete allegiance and more constant development, and that would give a
more assured manhood.
“Faith” is the
necessary step to such a life and its foundation. A faith that covers not only
single words of promise and claims them in fullness, but a faith that grasps
that relation to Christ which gives power to become one of the sons of God, and
to live that life, though not knowing what we shall be when He appears, save
that we shall be like him. It is faith in a promise that brings the Promiser,
and the growing faith that holds Him, hold all His gifts, to be realized as
needed.
We know that
Christ dwells in our hearts, and, knowing this, begin to live His life as it
opens to us, while the “rooting and grounding” of love goes on. Little can we
tell, as we look at the outer show of leaves and stems, of trunk and branches,
of the wondrous grasping and assimilating power which is being developed in the
darkness under ground! Reliance and firmness and strength are being received
there that is to support the tree in its external grandeur of growth.
By this
indwelling of Christ the rooting and grounding of the stain is to go on till he
knows the length and breadth, the height and depth of love-yea, till he knows
the love of Christ that passeth knowledge. That love toward man that in deepest
self-sacrifice emptied itself to take in a world of sinners! That love toward
God that made the oneness that knew no thought, no desire save to know and to
do His will.
This is the
height set before us, this the depth. Only shall we apprehend it as, day by
day, we walk in simple, trusting obedience. For it is exceedingly above all we
can ask or think, and only to be given or taken according to His power-the
power that worketh in us both to will and to do.
***
Salvation is not
offer to us upon any condition, but freely, and for nothing. We are to do
nothing for it; we are only to take it. This taking and receiving faith. Faith
cannot be called the condition of receiving, for it is the receiving itself.
