The fragments of Scripture around which our thoughts are gathered at this time are found in the fourth chapter of the letter to the Ephesians.
He that descended is the same also that ascended far above all the heavens, that He might fill all things.
— Ephesians 4:10
This morning we are going to place alongside of that the complementary counterpart in Ephesians 1:23:
He put all things in subjection under His feet, and gave Him to be head over all things to the church, which is His body, the fullness of Him that filleth all in all.
— Ephesians 1:22-23
“That He might fill all things.” His body, “the fullness of Him that filleth all in all.”
We are going, as the Lord enables us this morning, to consider those two statements along four lines: firstly, the purpose which they indicate; secondly, the means by which the purpose has its realization and fulfilment; thirdly, the method by which the means will fulfil its vocation; and, finally, the obligation that rests upon those concerned.
Perhaps I could say here at once, by way of getting help for myself and getting you adjusted mentally, that these gatherings are for solid and sound instruction. We trust that our hearts will be really touched, and that we shall be drawn out in spirit in praise and worship. Those things must be, or should be, the result of any ministry.
But we are not here at this time just to say pleasant things, to make one another feel comfortable and happy. We are here to be instructed, and as soundly as the Lord will do it, that we may have solid ground under our feet in our life of faith.
Having said that, I trust you will adjust to it and realize that it is work, and not play, for which we are together.
Now I am coming to these complementary words which we have read, beginning with the purpose that is indicated. You have this letter to the Ephesians in your hand—so called, “to the Ephesians.” You can just cross that out, because it was not in the original letter at all. There was a vacant space in the original letter for the name of a church in Asia to be put in there. It was a circular letter.
That is by the way, but it is useful to have a handle by which to use this document. Because Ephesus was one of the places to which it went—perhaps the first place; we do not know—that name has been attached to it for a very long time.
When we take up this letter, this mighty document, we find that, as we read through it, we are moving in the realm of sovereign purpose. That is an unmistakable characteristic of the letter and of its language.
There are three phrases or words which constantly recur in this letter and which indicate that, when we come here, we are in the presence of something very positive, very definite, and very purposeful.
The first phrase is “His will.” His will. You must look upon that not just as something willing, but as an object. It is a very definite thing. This will of God is something very concrete.
You can look at the letter and move with me in these connections:
Having foreordained us unto adoption as sons through Jesus Christ unto Himself, according to the good pleasure of His will.
— Ephesians 1:5
“The good pleasure of His will.” Then, in Ephesians 1:9:
Having made known unto us the mystery of His will, according to His good pleasure which He purposed in Him.
— Ephesians 1:9
And again, in Ephesians 1:11:
In whom also we were made a heritage, having been foreordained according to the purpose of Him who worketh all things after the counsel of His will.
— Ephesians 1:11
All this comes so quickly in this letter, at its very beginning, in the laying of the foundation for all that is to follow. Each phrase carries its own significance, and surely it impresses us with this fact: we are here in the presence of something tremendous—the good pleasure of His will, the counsel of His will.
Then in Ephesians 5:17:
Wherefore be ye not foolish, but understand what the will of the Lord is.
— Ephesians 5:17
Of course, daily and continually we ask that we might know the Lord’s will. But in doing so, we are usually thinking in relation to many details of our lives. We want to know the Lord’s will as to whether we should go here or not go here, do this or not do this, and so on.
That is specific and particular in its application, and quite right. But that is not what the apostle is talking about here. Understand that this letter comprehends the church. Individual lives come into that, but it is the church that is in view; and it is that will—write it with a capital W, if you like—which is behind everything here.
Then there is that word “purpose,” as you know, which is characteristic of this letter. We have just read the first appearance of it in Ephesians 1:11: “having been foreordained according to the purpose of Him who worketh all things after the counsel of His will.”
Then, in Ephesians 3:11, we read:
According to the eternal purpose which He purposed in Christ Jesus our Lord.
— Ephesians 3:11
The margin says, “the purpose of the ages.” His will; the purpose of Him; His eternal purpose; the purpose of the ages.
If we want a third emphasis, we come to this word, “foreordained.” Ephesians 1:5 speaks of our having been foreordained according to the good pleasure of His will; and Ephesians 1:11 says that we were made a heritage, having been foreordained according to His purpose.
His will—His great will. His purpose of the ages. Foreordained accordingly.
If all this refers to the church, and we are in that, then certainly we are moving in the realm of tremendous, overmastering purpose: something laid down, fixed, irrevocable, unalterable, and established before the foundation of the world.
One thing, dear friends, from which we—all the Lord’s people, and we might say all men—need to be delivered is the sense, and the growing, intensifying sense, in this universe and in this creation, of futility. Futility. Meaninglessness.
There is a growing fatalism over men’s hearts because they cannot explain; they cannot get the meaning. And fatalism is a most soul-destroying thing.
Fatalism just says, “Well, if it is to be, it will be. If it is not to be, it will not be. That is all there is to it, so you had better give it up and take your hands off. It is going to be; you cannot alter it. It will happen.”
I say that is at the very heart of weakness, looseness of life, uncertainty, indefiniteness, insecurity, and aimlessness. It takes every sense of purpose and meaning out of existence. And that is a growing thing.
Why is it that over this world today there is a wave of suicide such as has never been known in civilized history before? We will not dwell upon that. You may not be acquainted with it. Some of you from the Continent know very well, especially from Northern Europe, where it is like a terrible wave.
It is because of this very thing: this feeling of futility and faithlessness, of hopeless impotence in the presence of forces which men cannot control and which they cannot understand. This fatalism, as we call it, is the most disintegrating thing in anyone’s life or in any society. There is no cohesiveness about it, no holding together.
And you know that is right in the heart of this letter: “In Him all things hold together.” The answer is in Him. But here we are, poor Christians, or the church, in the presence of something that is so much the opposite of all that—such a contradiction to all that.
His will is concrete, definite, positive, settled, and established from all eternity. It cannot be defeated, deflected, or in any way frustrated in its full and final realization. His fixed purpose stands.
According to it, you and I, and all who are in this body of Christ, are foreordained. That is fairly solid ground, is it not? And is it not true that it is the greatest thing to be on solid ground in days such as these?
Over against all this state of things, which we have only touched upon so lightly, is God’s fixed and established purpose—something that God has fixed and kept. In relation to it, it says here, “He chose us in Christ before the foundation of the world.”
The purpose, then, begins with His Son. The thing which God has settled in His unalterable, unchangeable, irrevocable will is that His Son shall ultimately fill all things.
This is the fact. This is the Word of God. And, of course, we are confronted with whether we believe the Scriptures when we read things like that.
You wonder, perhaps, why such a thing is said, because you all do believe. I venture to say, dear friends, that in the awful upheavals and shakings of the end times, the faith of the most devout believer will be shaken as to the Scriptures, as to the Word of God.
Forgive me if that sounds a wrong thing to say. Whether you can endorse it by your own experience or not, there is a tremendous shaking going on amongst Christians today as to whether the Bible can really be relied upon.
Here is the statement, positive because it comes right from God Himself: that He has, in His eternal counsel, settled it. With full knowledge of all that would rise against it, with full knowledge of all history, of the work of evil and its seeming conquests, He has nevertheless laid it down from eternity: in the end, My Son shall fill all things.
But alongside of that, He has just as definitely, positively, categorically, and finally decided and determined that a certain body of people should be the medium, vessel, channel, and instrument for the fulfilment of that determined purpose concerning His Son.
That elect body is known to us by various names, but in general it is the church. Here in Ephesians, it is “the church, which is His body”—an elect body, an elect company.
That leads us, then, to the second thing: the means—the church, the elect, the body of Christ.
The fact needs no further labouring: God has foreseen this body and chosen this body before the world was, in Christ. It is set down here in the Scriptures as a fact, a divine fact.
You know, God’s facts are very awkward things and very stubborn things. You come up against God’s facts, and that is the end of all argument. Here is the fact: God has done this. He has declared it to be so in the Scriptures of truth.
But God has not only fixed it from eternity; He has given the revelation of it in time. The Holy Spirit has come from God, from heaven, for this specific purpose of making known this very thing.
First, He has given the revelation of it by sovereign means—wonderfully sovereign means: raising up chosen vessels, preserving vessels, anointing vessels, enabling vessels through untold opposition and adversity and numerous difficulties.
He has enabled vessels to fulfil this ministry of bringing to the church, to the people of God, the knowledge of this very thing. The revelation has come.
Dear friends, we have not measured, and probably in time we shall never be able to measure, all the tremendous triumphs that lay behind this one instance of Paul at last being able to give this revelation.
That man ought to have been silenced a hundred times, if the devil could have done it. He would have had that man absolutely neutralized again and again, not only by evil powers but by men. His battles were tremendous. Everywhere his steps were dogged and his path was followed. This man was marked out for destruction and for the entire and final discrediting of him and his ministry.
Yet at last we have it on record in this fullness which we are seeing. The revelation—this little thing that looks like a pamphlet, does it not? There it is: the letter to the Ephesians. But what does it amount to—an ounce of paper? Yet it is the greatest document that has ever entered into this creation.
It is the embodiment of the exceeding greatness of God’s power in a man’s life, for a ministry, and through a ministry: the revelation of this eternal purpose of God for the church.
I say God has sovereignly done this thing: given it to the church, to make known that there is an elect body in existence in the eternal counsels of God, and that this elect body is the object of this dispensation, particularly to be called out of the nations.
All the difficulties and problems, of course, arise there theologically, for God does not say who belongs to the elect. He has never yet said to you and to me directly and personally, “Look here, I chose you. You belong to the elect.”
He does not do that. This problem exists everywhere. Most people wonder, “Am I one of the foreordained and predestinated? Have I reason to question whether I belong to that?” You know all the difficulty, because God has not just said to individuals directly in this way that they are elect. But God works on this line.
We may touch this more intimately presently, but you are familiar with this sort of thing. When the Lord brings to many people the light, the revelation, and the truth of this letter—when it comes their way, or they come its way by the sovereignty of God—you see, either literally or metaphorically, their mouths open and their eyes are opened.
“This is what I have been wanting. I did not know what it was, but I have had a great longing for something, and this is it. This is it. This just answers to something in me which has prepared me for this.”
“Something has been going on. Even in my unconverted days, I knew that there was something more in life than I had. I was dissatisfied, and I went here and went somewhere else to find it. I could not find it. But this is it. This is it.”
Is that not true? Well, that is our experience—our own experience, and the experience of many. God just works, you see.
When the revelation and the light come, there has been a preparation—perhaps an unconscious preparation very largely; that is, an unenlightened preparation, in darkness, in distance, far away from God. Yet something has been drawing: some hunger, some longing. And then the calling comes, and it is just as though the hand goes into the glove. “This is it.”
That is how the sovereignty works in relation to election. You may not have seen it in every case that you have met yet. Do not give it up. You may think of people who are not like that and show no signs of it, but the end is not yet.
The day may come when, through the experiences of a very suffering history, their hearts will be prepared and the truth will find its response. That is all we need say about this matter of election and foreordination. God works accordingly.
But I want to put in here this word, to remind you and point out to you that in this letter we have before us the gospel and the eternal purpose united. That is a very important thing to remember.
Some people, I am afraid, have got the idea, “Well, the gospel—the simple gospel of our salvation—is one thing, and all this is another.” Indeed, we have known very strong reactions which say, “All right, you can have all your deep teaching. You can have all that sort of thing if it appeals to you. We are satisfied with a simple gospel.”
The Lord have mercy upon such people. Here you have the profoundest document, as I have said, that has ever been given from God to man—not as two different and separate things, but as joined right in: the gospel and the eternal purpose.
Look at the word “gospel.” Paul speaks of this ministry which was given to him—this full, rich, profound ministry—as his gospel. He was chosen for this gospel.
Oh, if only our gospel were richer and fuller, we should have much better results. But do not divide these things. Remember, this is the gospel. What is it? It is the good news: chosen in Him before the foundation of the world; there is an inheritance.
We need to link purpose with salvation in our preaching, not leaving salvation as something in itself, something smaller than it really is, but always linking purpose with salvation. I do not think we shall get very far with the kind of person we ought to be until we have attended to that weakness, remedied it, and brought into relation to salvation the full purpose of God.
We come, then, to the method: the purpose, the means—the church, the elect—and then the method.
Let us remind ourselves again that the apostle is particularly occupied with the church in this letter. This runs throughout, and then it emerges in one sublime definition, which he calls “this mystery is great.”
You must look upon familiar words to us in the light of the whole letter, the whole revelation. In Ephesians 5, we must read it:
Wives, be in subjection unto your own husbands, as unto the Lord.
For the husband is the head of the wife, as Christ also is the head of the church, being Himself the Saviour of the body.
But as the church is subject to Christ, so let the wives also be to their husbands in everything.Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ also loved the church, and gave Himself up for it;
that He might sanctify it, having cleansed it by the washing of water with the word,
that He might present the church to Himself a glorious church, not having spot or wrinkle or any such thing;
but that it should be holy and without blemish.Even so ought husbands also to love their own wives as their own bodies. He that loveth his own wife loveth himself;
for no man ever hated his own flesh; but nourisheth and cherisheth it, even as Christ also the church;
because we are members of His body.For this cause shall a man leave his father and mother, and shall cleave to his wife; and the two shall become one flesh.
This mystery is great: but I speak in regard of Christ and of the church.
— Ephesians 5:22-32
I say that is the sublime issue to which the apostle leads, gathering up everything that is in this letter.
We do not know all that was in the mental background of the apostle. We know that he had a very full, deep, and thorough knowledge of the Old Testament, which was his only Bible. Whether it was in his full consciousness or in his subconsciousness, we do not know; but the Holy Spirit knew whether, behind what was being written here, there was an Old Testament story.
Whether it was so or not, when you come to think about it, it does seem that there is an Old Testament story gathered into one little Old Testament book: the book of Esther.
Now, whether what I am going to say is the right interpretation to put upon that book or not, I am not very concerned about that at the moment, because I believe that it does serve as a very good illustration of what we are now considering: the method by which this means—the church, the body—is to fulfil its eternal vocation of bringing the fullness of Christ into expression.
I hope you remember the story. It is not necessary for me to take you through it thoroughly. It opens with a picture of the happenings in the great Medo-Persian kingdom, with Ahasuerus there in all his glory and authority.
He is having a banquet lasting for a long time for all the rulers, princes, and governors of his great domain—from India to Ethiopia. It was no small thing, gathering all these representatives and having this wonderful time of feasting, revelry, and the display of his glory.
Then, when that great gathering is over, he gathers his more intimate company and counsellors for seven days of further feasting. In the midst of all this pageantry, Ahasuerus gives commandment to his eunuchs to bring in the queen—Queen Vashti.
She was beautiful, and he wanted to display her beauty to those who were assembled. Here I must put in a parenthesis: naturally, on natural grounds, I have a prejudice in favour of Vashti. I have a great deal of sympathy with her. But that has just to be said by the way.
There is a spiritual side to this which makes it necessary for us to let go our partialities and prejudices. Vashti refuses to come in to obey the king’s command. She stays away.
The king is angry. He appeals to his counsellors: “What does the law say in a case like this?” You know their answer. They say, “Well, it is not only against the king that she has done mischief. All our wives will begin to behave like that if you let her off.”
Well, of course, that is persuasive. The result is that the king strips Vashti of her royal rights and sets her aside. She is no longer his queen.
There is a vacancy. There is a blank. There is an emptiness. But how long it lasts, we do not know. That emptiness must be filled if the king is to have a queen. That is true.
Then the story opens to Esther. You are familiar with it. There is Esther, a captive exile, an alien in that kingdom. She is there, but we do not know all the details. Somehow or other, the sovereignty is at work.
The sovereignty of the throne is at work, and Esther is known, focused upon, chosen, and marked out for this high position—to fill this vacancy.
She is given everything to furnish her, adorn her, and make her suitable for that position. She is clothed with royal apparel, enriched with royal jewels, released, redeemed from her exile and captivity, and brought in as one who is richly royal.
We are not told of any marriage ceremony, but undoubtedly there was something by which she had to commit herself to a covenant of loyalty, devotion, and faithfulness—to be what Vashti had refused to be: alive only for the king and not for herself.
There are many more details, but we are moving on to the great and glorious end of all this sovereignty: the release and redemption of a whole race.
It does not require a very great deal of insight to see a spiritual meaning in all this. It seems to me to have a double application.
God chose man at the beginning for this very thing. Adam was created for this very thing and brought into that glorious association with God. But he did everything not for God, but for himself; not for the glory of God, but to retain the glory for himself.
The result was repudiation. And that story is written in the phrase found in the book of Esther: the reign of vanity. Life without the purpose of God, all the meaning of life gone.
Only imagine what Vashti may have been thinking and feeling after this, as she saw Esther coming into her place. Oh, there would be many emotions. But the fact is that there was a reign of vanity for her—meaninglessness in life, all the meaning gone.
Is that not the human race in Adam? Given potentially all things, and then taking it into its own hands and refusing to hold it only for God’s glory, but holding it for itself. Set aside, there follows this long, long-drawn-out period of meaninglessness in humanity.
But that is one application. This chosen people, called to the kingdom—called in the Old Testament the wife of the Lord—were called to that high position, and then took it all to themselves, all to themselves, and did not hold it for God.
The great challenge of the coming of God in the person of His Son into this world had this very issue bound up with it: would they hold everything for God, or would they hold everything for themselves?
Well, we know what happened: “Away with Him! We will not have this Man.” Holding everything for their own glory, they were set aside. And there has been a long two thousand years of vanity since then—the Vashti cut off, set aside. A sad, sad story, is it not?
When the race in Adam failed, God had His Esther somewhere, quietly hidden in heaven, in His eternal foreknowledge and counsels. She was there. When Israel failed and was set aside in this manner, He brought in the church to take her place.
All the vanity of this rivalry is reversed in the church. Perfectly reversed.
Now then, what does this all mean? If only by way of illustration, here is the letter to the Ephesians: chosen in Him. That is Esther.
The element of sovereignty is at work, bringing in this vessel—foreknown, foreseen, and foreordained; known, chosen, and then, blessed be God, called to Himself.
Redeemed from vanity, redeemed from alien nations, redeemed from exile and captivity—that is the story of the church, is it not? Released from the terrible embargo of the rejected world, the rejected race, the rejected Gentiles.
Esther—called. What a New Testament word that is: called, redeemed.
And here, then, right at that point, there rushes in the word which is so prominent in this letter: grace. Thirteen times the apostle uses that word in this letter. Grace: “that we should be to the praise of His glory”; grace; “the riches of His grace.”
But is that not it? Who was she? What was she? Where was she? What fitness did she have for the next place in the kingdom? None at all. She was an exile.
Yet, from the royal store, there was brought to her everything required which she did not have—not one fragment of which she had in herself. Everything was brought to make her suitable for that most august position.
Clothed, provided with everything, made suitable—what a story of grace that is, dear friends. What a light comes in at that point!
What is this church in nature, or when we come to ourselves? What are we, if we know anything about ourselves at all? We are prepared to say anything and everything but that we are suitable for such a calling.
No hope, no chance, no possibility whatever of our appearing in His presence as we are in ourselves. Far off, exiles, in captivity, alienated.
And He brings us in, clothes us with the garments of salvation and the robe of righteousness, and lavishes upon us the wonders of this word, riches. Have you traced it through this letter? “The riches of His grace”; “the unsearchable riches of Christ.”
Esther was brought in and adorned with all that was necessary for his presence and for his service: “that He might present the church unto Himself a glorious church, not having spot or wrinkle or any such thing.”
At the end of the story, what is the method by which the church will fulfil this high vocation? It is a marriage relationship with the Lord, actually—with all that that means. That is Ephesians 5:22 and onward: a marriage relationship.
“I speak in regard of Christ and of the church.” Married to Christ—this spiritual marriage. Oh, the more wonderful it becomes the more you think about it: married to the Lord, joined to the Lord, one spirit.
In the natural realm, these two become one flesh; but in the spiritual realm, these two become one spirit. “He that is joined unto the Lord is one spirit.”
One flesh, one body, one life. There is no figure in all creation that sets forth oneness and identity in the thought of God more than the marriage relationship, where it is according to God—heart answering to heart.
That is how God intended it to be. More or less, it is like death in humanity, but sometimes one cannot and does not live without the other. Sometimes we open our morning paper and look down the column of departures, and we see two notices: the woman is gone, and within a few days the husband has followed.
That is not to say that it ought always to be so, but it is the idea. There is something there, is there not? When it is according to God.
“I speak of Christ.” I ask you, dear friend: can you live without Christ? Can you? Can you?
Listen: He cannot live without you. It is stated here: “the church, which is His body, the fullness of Him.” The literal meaning is, “the fulfilment of Him.”
For His own fulfilment, we must have, desperately, a marriage relationship. That is the matter. That is us.
Oh, what a lot we ought to say about it. But our time for the moment is gone. We just come to the last thing: the obligation.
If this is a matter of truth, if this is God’s revelation, if this is not some beautiful story, some spiritually or religiously romantic story—if this is spiritual truth—then may God lift it right out of the realm of mere teaching and mere words.
I am told so often, “Oh, it is only words. It is only teaching. You are simply spending your time giving a lot of teaching.” God help me. God help you. That is all. But, dear friends, if this is God’s truth, there is an obligation surely resting upon us.
“I beseech you therefore… walk worthily of the calling wherewith ye were called, with all lowliness and meekness.” The obligation.
If this is more than a beautiful picture, if this is something that really comes to answer God’s Word to us today, in this time, it puts us under a great obligation as to our demeanour and our conduct.
“With all lowliness.” That is the thing. The people who are called to such a high calling—oh, no, no, no—there is no room here, you can see, for spiritual pride. No room for us to take the glory to ourselves and hold it to ourselves. That is the way of Vashti.
No: all lowliness and meekness. God’s church and God’s people ought to be like that in conduct.
Every relationship in this life is lifted by this concept of marriage relationship with the Lord. Husband and wife must come up onto a higher level, must they not, if that relationship is to be a reflection and presentation of Christ and the church?
Children and parents; servants and masters—every relationship is touched by this great concept: what the church is in its high, noble, honourable position, its wonderful dignity before God.
That dignity, you know, comes down through all the phases of our conduct and our relationships. We are talking about the court—not that I know what it was, but the greater thought of heaven. We have a word in the New Testament: courtesy. “Be courteous.”
Surely that is a very low-level beginning: good manners, perhaps etiquette. That comes into this. In the court of heaven, good manners amongst those who make up this royal company.
I fear, dear friends, that we often say, “Common courtesy.” It is true. Good manners. Very often there are better manners amongst the people of the world than there are amongst Christians. That is a terrible thing to say.
Our conduct, in every relationship of life, must be touched by this high concept, which is not merely a dream or a teaching but is stated as a fact: “I speak in regard of Christ and of the church.” Even as husbands and wives, servants and masters, should act—even as Christ.
It is challenging. It is practical. How are you going to do it? What are we going to do?
Are we going to say, now, right away, “Well, I determine that from this moment, by the grace of God, I will live up to that level of life, that holy, sublime calling. By the grace of God, I will do something about it. I will watch, my dear; I will be careful of my speech; I will keep a guard upon how I react”?
There is an obligation. Well, thank you. The Lord.