Ephesians 3

Ephesians — Steve Gregg

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Ephesians 3

EphesiansSteve Gregg

In this message, Steve Gregg delves into Ephesians 3 and discusses the mystery of God's grace and the stewardship of gifts. He touches on the dispensational view and emphasizes the importance of reading the Old Testament in light of the New Testament. Gregg also highlights the prayer in verse 16, where Paul prays for the inner man to be strengthened through the power of the Holy Spirit. Though he does not know the full content of the mystery referenced in verse 9, Gregg emphasizes the tangible presence and work of God's grace in our lives.

Transcript

The third chapter of Ephesians now. The first three chapters make up the first major section of the book. It's at the end of chapter 3 that Paul begins to give the practical application of the theology that he's giving here.

Really, most of the theological material in the first three chapters is found in chapters 1 and 2, which we've already covered. And only a little bit more is found in chapter 3, and that's almost by accident. Because Paul begins chapter 3 by saying, for this reason, I, Paul, the prisoner of Jesus Christ, for you Gentiles.

And then he breaks off. He doesn't finish that sentence. He starts to pick it up again in verse 14.

He says, for this reason, but really he doesn't pick it up and carry it forward until chapter 4, verse 1. I, therefore, the prisoner of the Lord. Now, therefore means for this reason. So when Paul says in chapter 3, verse 1, for this reason, I, Paul, the prisoner of the Lord, it's identical in meaning to chapter 4, verse 1. I, therefore, the prisoner of the Lord, beseech you.

It seems like in chapter 4, he really gets on with saying what he planned to say at the beginning of chapter 3. And what he planned to get on with was giving the practical instruction. So he almost started chapter 4 at chapter 3, which would suggest that chapters 1 and 2 contained what he originally planned to be his whole doctrinal section. And when he finished chapter 2, he was about ready to get on with the material that we have in chapter 4, but he got sidetracked.

He starts to do in chapter 3 what he did in chapter 4. For this reason, I, Paul, the prisoner of Jesus Christ, for you Gentiles. But then he gets distracted, as Paul sometimes does. And really, he realizes when he says, for you Gentiles, that there's some special things he wants to say about his Gentile mission and the gospel as it pertains to Gentiles that he has not said in the first two chapters.

And he decides to go ahead and say it at this point. It's the reference to for you Gentiles that gets him going on to this tangent. He says, if indeed you have heard of the dispensation of the grace of God which was given to me for you, that is for the Gentiles.

Paul was an apostle to the Gentiles, and that's what he's saying. The dispensation of the grace of God, again the word dispensation means stewardship, literally. And therefore, it says, if you've heard that I have a stewardship of the grace of God which was given to me for you.

Now, to have a stewardship of the grace of God suggests that the grace of God is something to be stewarded, something to be managed. Just like money, you can be a steward of money, or you can be a steward of your time, or a steward of your talents, or you can be a steward of the grace of God. God gives you grace, and you become the steward of that grace.

Let me show you something. Peter has, in 1 Peter, a similar idea of being a steward of the grace of God. And by that grace of God he means a gift, a particular gift and calling of grace that God has given.

In 1 Peter chapter 4 and verse 11, actually 10 and 11. 1 Peter 4, 10 and 11, Paul says, as each one has received the gift, minister it to one another as good stewards of the manifold grace of God. Now notice, if you have a gift, whatever your gift may be, it's an aspect of the manifold grace of God, a gift of grace, a charisma.

And that's a gift of grace. And your gift you are supposed to use to minister to one another. If you do that with your gift, then you are stewarding the grace that God has given you well.

You are a good steward of the grace of God that has been given to you. He gives examples in verse 11. If anyone speaks, let him speak as the oracles of God.

If anyone ministers, let him do it as the ability of which God supplies. So these are different gifts, speaking gifts and service gifts. If you do it as the oracles of God, or as the ability that God gives, you are being a good steward serving one another with the grace that God has given you.

So Peter talks about the need to be a good steward of the grace of God that's given you. And by that he means the gift, the calling that God's given you. God gives you certain abilities and calling that you are then responsible to use for him.

Now, remember in the parables of stewards that Jesus told, there were stewards who turned one talent into two talents, and stewards who turned one talent into five talents. If God gives you a certain gifting and grace, your use of it can be more or less productive, depending on the degree of your faithfulness and stewardship. Let's say you have, well, for example, you were born in a country where the Bible is accessible to you.

Well, you can be a good steward of that opportunity. That's a gift of God to be able to know the Bible. Now, it may be that your calling will not be in teaching the Bible, and you may have other graces that you have to steward more, and your time will be devoted more to it.

But one could argue that if you have access to the Bible, you can spend more or less energy devoting yourself to knowing it so that you can teach others. Some people be more, and others less faithful or diligent in their study, and therefore their ministry that God has given them the grace for will be better or worse, depending on that. If you have a gift in helps of some kind, in service, then you can produce more or less fruit for the kingdom, depending on how you use it.

There are people who have musical ability, for example, Christians, who, to my mind, squander some of it. Just in going out and trying to make a living in music, and maybe even playing secular music. I don't think there's a sin in playing secular music.

I think it's a poor use of talent for a Christian. I don't think it's the best stewardship that they can put it to. They may have some fruit.

I know some Christians who make their living in secular music, and then they also have some Christian music they do on occasion that they do as a ministry. Well, that's better than nothing, I guess. I suppose it's better than a person who has musical talent and doesn't use it for God at all.

But if God has given you a grace, an ability, a gift, your stewardship of that gift will be... It's a personal matter, really. No one can tell you how much you should or should not use it in a certain way. But you will stand before God someday as a steward who has been either faithful or unfaithful, or very faithful or a little bit faithful.

And Paul sees his ministry to the Gentiles that way. He's exerting all his energy to be a good steward of that grace which God has given him as an apostle to the Gentiles, and to use his opportunities and his gifts to win the Gentiles. So he says to them in chapter 3, verse 2, If indeed you have heard of the dispensation or the stewardship of the grace of God which was given to me for you, how that by revelation he made known to me the mystery, as I wrote before in a few words, by which when you read you may understand my knowledge of the mystery of Christ, which in other ages was not made known to the sons of men as it has now been revealed by the Spirit to his holy apostles and prophets, that the Gentiles should be fellow heirs of the same body and partakers of his promise in Christ through the gospel, of which I became a minister according to the gift of the grace of God given to me by the effective working of his power.

So the gift of the grace of God that was given to Paul is in the form of God's effective power working through him to reach the Gentiles. Now here's a concept that Paul brings up, and it's in verses 3 through 6, namely that there was a mystery that God knew and which no one else knew. In verse 5 it says, In other ages it was not made known to the sons of men.

But the other side of this concept is that this hidden thing, this thing that God alone knew for ages, has now been disclosed to the holy apostles and prophets, it says in verse 5, and among them was Paul, according to verse 3, how that by revelation he made known to me the mystery. He's one of those apostles and prophets to whom this has been made known. Now the idea that God had a secret in the Old Testament times, he didn't reveal it until the apostolic days, suggests that there were prophets in the Old Testament and godly people who just didn't have access to this information.

It was a mystery that God had not yet revealed. Now Paul tells us what that mystery is, namely verse 6, that the Gentiles should be fellow heirs of the same body and partakers of his promise in Christ through the gospel. That is, the mystery and the secret of God was the church, and particularly that element of our understanding of the church, that the Gentiles would have an equal place with the Jews in it, that they would be sharers in the same privilege as the Jews in one body, not as proselytes becoming Jews, but as Gentiles, never becoming Jews, never being circumcised, never becoming proselytes of the Jewish faith, but as Gentiles having a full share of God's mercy and grace and benefit and privilege with the Jews.

This is the church that he was describing in the previous chapter, the middle wall of partition being broken down between the Jew and the Gentile and making one new man. That was a mystery. It's been revealed to Paul and to the other apostles and prophets in these last days, he says.

Now, this idea that the gospel, or that more properly, the church, was a mystery, hidden in Old Testament times but revealed now, is found elsewhere in Paul's writings and also in Peter's. Another point of parallel with Peter, in 1 Peter chapter 1, verses 10 through 12. 1 Peter chapter 1, verses 10 through 12.

Peter said, of this salvation, the prophets have inquired and searched diligently who prophesied of the grace that would come to you. To who? The Gentiles that he's writing to. The grace that would come to the Gentiles.

Paul said the mystery was that the Gentiles would be included with the Jews in one body. The prophets spoke about this, by the way. You can read it in the prophets.

They talk about the Gentiles coming in. But it was not clear to the Old Testament readers or the prophets who spoke exactly what the nature of this coming in of the Gentiles was. The Jews all thought this meant that Gentiles would all become proselytes to Judaism.

They didn't understand the mystery that both Jews and Gentiles would give up their former identity to become one new man in Christ. That's the mystery. But this grace that would come to you, the prophets spoke of.

And it says of the prophets in verse 11 that they were searching what or what manner of time the Spirit of Christ who was in them was indicating when he testified beforehand the sufferings of Christ and the glories that would follow. The glories that would follow would not just be the resurrection of Christ, but the church that was the product of his suffering. His the glories that would follow his suffering.

So the church, the sufferings of Christ and the church that were produced through those labor pains was the subject matter that the prophets in the Old Testament wrote about, but they didn't understand it. They were searching to understand more about it. But it says in verse 12, to them it was revealed that not to themselves, but to us, they were ministering the things which now have been reported to you through those who have preached the gospel to you by the Holy Spirit sent down from heaven, which things the angels desire to look into.

We're going to find that Paul says in Ephesians 3 that the angels look into this too. So Peter and Ephesians have a close connection here. The idea is there were mysteries that even the angels didn't know.

No man knew. The sons of men were not informed. The angels didn't know.

But now in these last days in Christ, God has been doing it. And it's a marvel to the angels, and it's a marvel to all, and it was not for the prophets to know. The prophets inquired about such things, but they were told it wasn't for them to know.

They were told it was not for themselves that they were ministering. It was for us, that is those of us who now live after the time that this mystery has been made clear through the preaching of the apostles. Those who preach the gospel to you, Peter says, through the Holy Spirit.

So Peter is saying here the same thing Paul is saying, that the prophets, though they spoke of the mystery of the church, did not understand what they were writing about. And when they inquired, they didn't learn the answer. God said, sorry, that's not for you to know.

That's for a later generation to know. Now Paul makes the same observations, namely that this mystery was hidden before but revealed now to the apostles in at least three other epistles. In Romans chapter 16, just as he's about to close down that epistle, he makes this same observation.

Romans 16, 25 and 26, he says, Now to him who is able to establish you, according to my gospel and the preaching of Jesus Christ, according to the revelation of the mystery, which was kept secret since the world began, but now has been made manifest, and by the prophetic scriptures has been made known to all nations, according to the commandment of the everlasting God for obedience to the faith. Now this message, this revelation, he said, was kept secret since the world began but has now been made manifest. Same idea.

He says it over in Colossians, not surprisingly also, since there's so many parallels between Ephesians and Colossians. In Colossians he words it a little differently. Colossians chapter 1, verse 24 and following says, I now rejoice in my sufferings for you and fill up in my flesh what is lacking of the afflictions of Christ for the sake of his body, which is the church, of which, that is of the church, I became a minister, according to the stewardship from God, which was given to me for you to fulfill the word of God.

The mystery, which has been hidden from ages and from generations, but now has been revealed to his saints. To them God willed to make known what are the riches of the glory of this mystery among the Gentiles, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory. Now by the way, Christ in you can be translated Christ among you.

And since he's writing to Gentiles, it's possible that his statement is that the mystery here is that Christ would be living among the Gentiles, as well as the Jews, in other words. Remember in Ephesians he said the mystery was that the Gentiles and the Jews would be one body in Christ. Here he's talking about the same mystery that was hidden and now revealed.

And he states it differently, whereas in Ephesians, when he tells us what this formerly hidden but now revealed mystery is, he says in Ephesians 3, 6 that the Gentiles should be fellow heirs of the same body. In Colossians he says this mystery is that Christ in you or Christ among you, that is among the Gentiles, is their hope of glory. That the Gentiles also share in Christ, that he is also among them, not just the Jews.

That they are one body with the Jews in Christ. And so this idea of a hidden thing may manifest in the time of the apostles, through the apostles. It's found in Romans 16, it's found in Ephesians 3, the idea is found in Colossians 1, it's found in 1 Peter 1. It's also, I believe, what Paul is talking about in 1 Corinthians 2. In 1 Corinthians 2, again he talks about the mystery.

He says in verse 7, but we speak the wisdom of God in a mystery. The hidden wisdom which God ordained before the ages for our glory, which none of the rulers of this age knew. And then he goes on in verse 10, but God has revealed them to us through his spirit.

So we've got the same idea, a mystery, a wisdom that no one knew before. But God has revealed it to us, that is to the apostles and prophets, through his spirit. So this idea is a major theme for Paul.

He brings it up at least four times in his writings, and Peter picks it up also and says it. Now, what is the reason for emphasizing this, that it was hidden before? Well, the reason seems to be so that we will not try to interpret the gospel in terms of the misconceptions the Jews already held. He's saying what the Jews thought was wrong, it wasn't revealed to them.

Don't try to take their preconceptions and apply them as an interpretive grid for what the gospel is. Because they didn't know. It wasn't revealed to them.

It was a secret. Even the prophets who spoke to them didn't know. They wanted to, but God said, sorry, it's not for you to know, it's for a later generation.

Peter says, we're that generation. We are the ones who know. Because God has revealed it to us through the spirit, through the apostles and so forth.

Now, the value of knowing this is simply that. If you would read the Old Testament, you would get an impression of what God's plan and purpose of the ages is. And it would be very strongly Israelish, you know.

The Jews certainly got the impression that God's purpose in eternity was to work with Israel, the nation. But it is not made as clear in the Old Testament as one could wish, that the Gentiles who will be brought in, who are frequently mentioned as coming in, in the Old Testament, especially in Isaiah and Psalms, it's not made clear that they will not become Israel. That is, they won't become natural Israel.

The Jews thought of the Gentiles simply becoming part of Israel by proselytization. We become part of a spiritual Israel, and the remnant Israel becomes part of that spiritual Israel. So there's a new Israel, a new man, a new phenomenon that is not made clear in the Old Testament, but is made clear in the New.

It's not that it's not found in the Old Testament, it's there. It's just the interpretation of the Old Testament required that Jesus open the understanding of the apostles that they might understand the Scriptures. And once they did, they saw what could not be understood without that understanding.

Now, today, of course, in the study of the Old Testament, or of the Bible in general, there is a great difference between what we call the dispensational approach and the non-dispensational approach. The dispensational approach seems to miss this point, because according to the dispensationalist hermeneutic, you must interpret the New Testament through the lens of the Old Testament. Now, those who are not dispensationalists take just the opposite approach.

We interpret the Old Testament through the lens of the New Testament. That is to say, now that we have the New Testament, we can know what the Old Testament was really saying, because the inspired apostles have now given us God's clear and final word on the matter. And when we know what the final word was, and we know how the story ends, if you read a Sherlock Holmes mystery, and you don't know how it ends, you're looking at all the clues as you read through, and you often reach false conclusions.

In fact, sometimes the story is written in just a way as to put you on a false lead, that you think, oh, this guy is probably the culprit, and then there's a surprise ending, it's somebody else. But once you've read the story, and you know how it ends, and you know who really did the crime, and why and how, then if you read the story again, the earlier clues make sense in a different way. And you won't go off on this false sense that they're trying to put you off on.

The Bible is like that, too. The Old Testament had clues, but there's a mystery. And the mystery wasn't revealed until the New Testament.

Now that the mystery is solved, when we go back and read the Old Testament, we read it in light of what the New Testament tells us the final outcome is. That's the correct way to study the Scripture. The dispensationalists take the opposite view.

They say, no, we need to figure that when we read the New Testament, we should read it through the eyes of a Jew who was schooled in the Old Testament. And therefore, since a Jew who has not read the New Testament, and only the Old Testament has these ideas about the destiny of Israel and so forth, we need to transport these into our study of the New Testament. And even though the New Testament doesn't teach any of these things, we need to bring them in as if it was taught there, because it's in the Old Testament.

And you interpret the Old Testament predictions, the Old Testament theology, in light of the Old, says the dispensationalists. The question, of course, is simply put in its simplest form this. Which testament provides the interpretive grid for reading the other testament? And the dispensational view is that of the Jews, that you take the Jewish grid of the Old Testament.

What did the Jews understand the prophets to say? Well, they were correct. Now we need to impose their view on the apostles as if the apostles must believe that too. Therefore, when you find the apostles saying something that doesn't sound very much like what the Jews said, you just kind of reinterpret what the apostles said to fit what the Jews would have thought, along with their Old Testament misunderstandings, you see.

But actually, Paul gives us the view that they didn't know in the Old Testament. So why take their opinion as the basis for interpreting anything? They were in the dark. The light came on when Jesus came, and the apostles and prophets received revelation of this mystery that was not known before.

And therefore, we read the New Testament to figure out who done it. And then the mystery is solved. The answer is given.

Then when we read the Old Testament, we can see the clues in the light of the solution, rather than trying to follow the clues without any light, and trying to make our own conclusions, which sometimes will lead us off in a false sense. And the Jews sometimes were led off in a false direction, because they tried to deduce from what was stated, but not taking into account what was hidden. And they reached conclusions prematurely that were of a wrong sort.

Well, Paul is saying this mainly in Ephesians for the sake of expanding on the fact that he has a ministry to the Gentiles. It's his stewardship. He's an apostle to the Gentiles.

And the reason that he's so enthusiastic about reaching the Gentiles is because he's got a revelation of this mystery, that the Gentiles have as much a part in God's plan as the Jews do, and on the same grounds, in the same terms. And that gives him a vision for reaching these Gentiles that God has intended to include. And that's what he says here.

Now, let's go on. Verse 8. To me, who am less than the least of all the saints, this grace was given, that I should preach among the Gentiles the unsearchable riches of Christ. Now, his commission to preach, he calls that a grace that was given.

That's because he's speaking of it as a gift. It's his calling. It's his vocation.

God has gifted him and called him to go to the Gentiles. That's a grace that was given to him, enabling him to be effective among the Gentiles where others might not. Paul did not have such a great grace toward the Jews.

That is to say, he did not have an effective ministry toward the Jews, like he did among the Gentiles. Every time he tried to placate the Jews, or make them happy, or go into the synagogue and try to reach them, they usually end up throwing him out of the synagogue and then out of town, too. Fortunately, some Gentiles got saved in the process, but the Jews generally rejected him.

He didn't have a grace upon his life, an anointing to reach the Jews, but he did to reach the Gentiles. And he says, this grace has been given that I should preach among the Gentiles the unsearchable riches of Christ, and to make all people see what is the fellowship of the mystery, which from the beginning of the ages has been hidden in God, who created all things through Jesus Christ. Now, he's preaching among the Gentiles the unsearchable riches of Christ to make known to all people, that would be the Jews and the Gentiles, what is the fellowship of the mystery.

Now, the word fellowship actually means something like oneness or communion. And that being so, we can see that Paul has the view of the oneness of the Gentiles and the Jews in the church. The fellowship of the mystery is kind of a strange expression, but the mystery he's already identified is the church.

The church is the mystery. And therefore, the fellowship of the mystery, the oneness or the communion of the mystery is the oneness of the Jews and Gentiles. And so, Paul preaches among the Gentiles so that all people can see that these Gentiles are accepted by God in one communion with the former saints, the Jews.

And that Paul can demonstrate by the inclusion of Gentiles the truth of this mystery, of this oneness. This mystery which was, he says, from the beginning of the ages has been hidden in God. Of course, he's already made that statement in verse 5. But he then says, it was hidden in God who created all things through Jesus Christ to the intent that now the manifold wisdom of God might be made known by the church to the principalities and powers in the heavenly places.

According to the eternal purpose which he accomplished in Christ Jesus our Lord. Now, here he puts another angle on it. He said earlier in chapter, in verse 5, that it was hidden from the sons of men but is now made known to the sons of men through the holy apostles and prophets preaching.

But then he says it was hidden in God, but now is revealed to the principalities and powers. That is to say, it was not only concealed from men and now is revealed to men, it was formerly hidden even from angels. It was hidden in God, in his secret counsels.

Not only did men understand it, but angels didn't understand it. The principalities and powers in the heavenly places. But now, at the same time that he's making it known to men through the preaching of the apostles and prophets, he's making it known to the angels as well.

That is to say, that through the church, God is making his manifold wisdom known to the principalities and powers. They didn't even know all of this. Now, this is no doubt where Peter's statement, which things the angels desire to look into, parallels here.

That's 1 Peter 1.12, after he talks about the prophets didn't know, but it was revealed to them that it was for a later generation, which is us. And then he says, which things the angels desire to look into. It sounds like Peter is following Paul's thought here right along.

It's not only us who now have the new revelation of this mystery, but the heavenly inhabitants, the angels in heaven, are seeing it as well and learning something from it. They're learning how wise God is. They're learning of the manifold wisdom of God.

Now, manifold means many-sided or having many aspects. The manifold grace of God means that it's a grace of God that has many sides, many aspects to it. The principalities and powers in heaven certainly were not unaware of God's grace, but they weren't aware of how many aspects of God's grace there were until they saw him include the Gentiles with the Jews.

The angels throughout the Old Testament period watched as God worked with Israel. And they saw his grace working with Israel, but he was overlooking the Gentiles to a large extent, doing nothing among them. And the angels saw God mercifully putting up with Israel's sins and rebellions and giving them another chance.

And they saw the grace of God at work there in Israel, but they didn't know how varied his grace was until they began to see the Gentiles allowed to come in and be included in his mercy, so that his variegated or many-sided grace and wisdom is now made known to the principalities and powers in the heavenly places, which was hidden from them even before. He says, It was according to the eternal purpose which he accomplished in Christ Jesus our Lord. You know, once again, not to pick on the Dispensation in particular, but this is an area of concern to me.

The Dispensationists believe that the Church really is sort of an afterthought for God. I mean, that's not really how they put it, but it's a parenthesis in God's dealing. God is dealing with Israel primarily in history, and Israel rejected his salvation when Jesus was here, and so he took it away and he'll bring it back later for them and set up the Millennial Kingdom for them when he comes back.

This is the Dispensational feud. In the meantime, since Israel's kind of stubborn and not coming around very quick, God is doing something else in between. From the time that Israel rejected Christ to the time that they accept him and he comes back to them, he's got another project on the side, and that's the Church.

And the Church is treated as if it's sort of a second project, an afterthought, a sideline that God's kind of keeping himself occupied with until the time that Israel comes around. I'm saying it more crassly than most Dispensationalists would, but they use the word parenthesis, that the Church is a parenthesis in God's dealings with Israel. Paul apparently was unaware of this, because Paul said that the Church is God's eternal purpose.

The eternal purpose which he had, which he accomplished in Christ Jesus our Lord, the Church was accomplished by Christ. What was it that he accomplished? That the Jew and the Gentile had become one new man in Christ. That's the Church.

That was God's eternal purpose. It's not something on the side, it's not a parenthesis in his larger purpose. This is it.

The purpose of eternity that God had. Everything God has done forever has been leading up to this high point of creation, of a new man in Christ, made up of Jew and Gentile, in whom we have boldness and access with confidence through faith in him. Therefore I ask that you do not lose heart at my tribulations for you, which is your glory.

Now, it's possible that verse 13 is the original intended end of verse 1. Remember verse 1 didn't finish the sentence. For this reason I, Paul, the prisoner of Jesus Christ for you Gentiles. And then there's all this other stuff we've been covering.

He might have intended to close that sentence with verse 13. I ask you do not lose heart at my tribulations for you, which is your glory. That would be a logical close of that sentence.

It's not clear whether that's the original intended close of that particular sentence, because Paul never really finishes the sentence. But what happens in verse 14, he says, For this reason I bow my knees to the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, from whom the whole family in heaven and earth is named. That, and then he gives a prayer.

Now, Paul not infrequently has prayers that he records for his readers. This is what I'm praying for you. I'm praying this for you.

This epistle, however, has two. The first one was in chapter 1. In verse 15 it says, Therefore I also, after I have heard of your faith in the Lord Jesus and your love for all saints, do not cease to give thanks for you, making mention of you in my prayers that, and then he gives his prayer, that God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give you the spirit of wisdom, etc. etc.

We've already talked about that one. But now he's got another prayer that he prays for them, that he mentions here. A rather involved prayer.

But in verse 14 he says, For this reason. Now, for what reason? That's how he began verse 1 of this chapter also. For this reason.

Now, in chapter 3, verse 1, the reason certainly must be because of all that truth that he's laid out in chapter 2, or chapters 1 and 2. It seems to me that these two prayers are called for and inspired by the contemplation of certain truths. The truths that he laid out in Ephesians 1, 1 through 14, a very detailed theological tangle, in a way, I mean, a very long, complex sentence, but full of important truth. It is because of that truth in Ephesians 1, 1 through 14, that he prays the prayer of Ephesians 1, 15 through 23.

Therefore, I make mention of you in my prayers. Because of these truths, I pray for you. Now, in what way did those truths call forth that prayer? Well, the truths were that there's a real deep thing that God is doing.

And it has to do with his election, it has to do with an inheritance, it has to do with the manifestation of his wisdom, and all of this. And he says, I pray, therefore, that you'll have understanding of these things, that God will open your understanding, that you'll have revelation in the knowledge of him. That prayer came forth because he was talking about things that were so deep, he thought perhaps they might have trouble understanding them.

And so because of that, he prayed for them. Then there's additional truth in chapter 2, about the church and about all the various ways in which the church is viewed in these various metaphors. And that too calls him to prayer.

And very possibly, in chapter 3, verse 1, he says, for this reason, because of these truths, I pray for you. But he gets sidelined in verses 2 through 13, he just gets back to it in verse 14. For this reason I bow my knees to the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.

That is because of the truths in chapter 2, which he almost started to say in verse 1. In other words, there's several possible places where Paul might resume the thought that he broke off in verse 1. It's hard to tell which of them is the right one. But it makes sense that the prayer of verses 14 through 21 in chapter 3 would be called forth by contemplating the truths of chapter 2. Let me read the prayer for you and I'll tell you why. For this reason I bow my knees to the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, from whom the whole family in heaven and earth is named, that he would grant you, according to the riches of his glory, to be strengthened with might through his Spirit in the inner man, that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith, that you, being rooted and grounded in love, may be able to comprehend with all saints what is the width and length and depth and height, to know the love of Christ which passes knowledge, that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.

Now to him who is able to do, exceeding abundantly above all that we ask or think, according to the power that works in us, to him be glory in the church by Christ Jesus throughout all ages, world without end. Amen. Now there's his prayer.

This prayer, I think, is related to the truths he brought out in chapter 2, just like the prayer at the end of chapter 1 is related to the truths that he had mentioned earlier in chapter 1. The truths in chapter 2 were that God has created in the church a new man who is also a new temple. And the bottom line of this prayer is that in verse 19, you may be filled with all the fullness of God. The temple of the Holy Spirit, which is the last thing he was talking about in Ephesians 2, is to be filled with the glory of God, filled with the fullness of God.

Likewise, in verse 21, he says, to him be glory in the church. The glory of God filled the temple. Because we are the temple, because we are the new body of Christ, we must be filled with God as Christ was filled with God, and filled with glory as the temple is filled with glory.

And so he prays for the church that these things will be so. Now there are some interesting things about this prayer I want to observe. First of all, who does Paul pray to? Does he pray to Jesus? Nobody in the Bible prays to Jesus, except Stephen, when he says, Lord Jesus, receive my spirit.

And John, in the final prayer in Revelation, even so come quickly, Jesus, Lord Jesus. Now, those two prayers, of course, were uttered by men who were looking at Jesus. They actually were having revelations of Jesus and spoke to him.

But ordinary praying in the Bible is never directed to Jesus. Jesus told us to pray to our Father. He didn't tell us to pray to him, he said to pray to the Father.

Jesus says in John 16, the day is coming when you will ask me nothing, but you'll ask the Father in my name, and he'll give it to you. So, Jesus did not indicate that prayer to him was ever to become normative. And Paul, as, you know, keeping with the whole New Testament teaching, prays to who? I bow my knees to the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.

I ask these things of the Father. And therefore, really, normal Christian praying is to the Father. Praying to Jesus is simply not a biblical pattern, or commanded, or taught in the Scripture.

Now, of course, when the disciples were with Jesus on earth, they spoke to him. And also Stephen and John, when they saw visions of Christ. And I'm not going to suggest that if you speak to Jesus, he can't hear you.

It's just that there's no precedent or teaching in Scripture to support the idea of praying to Jesus. Jesus did not come to replace the Father for you. He came to bring you to the Father.

He came to reconcile you to the Father. God was, in Christ, reconciling the world to himself, that is, to the Father himself. The problem before Jesus came was that man was alienated from God.

And Jesus came to redress that situation and to restore that relationship, so that we now can have a relationship with the Father, which was the original intention. And so many people are still as uncomfortable with God the Father as they would have been if Jesus had never come. But they're comfortable with Jesus.

They somehow think Jesus is more amenable to them, more favorable to them than the Father, more friendly or something. And this is just a lie of the devil. Jesus is no more on our side than the Father is.

It's God who so loved the world that he sent his only begotten Son. It's the Father who loved us and sent his only begotten Son as a propitiation for our sins. And therefore, it seems like Christians need to get adjusted back to the biblical ideas of relationship with God.

It's with the Father, through Jesus. And for this reason, Paul prays to the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. Verse 15 says, "...from whom the whole family in heaven and earth is named." Now the word family there in the Greek is actually fatherhood.

"...from whom all fatherhood in heaven and earth is named." And it's not entirely clear how that is to be used, so translators sometimes just render it family. But fatherhood and family are not exactly the same word, or even the same concept. If he's just saying the whole family, then he's introducing again another metaphor for the church.

The church is a family. It's a body. It's a new man.

It's a temple. It's a community. It's this, that, and it's also a family.

There's a bride later on in chapter 5, a wife. But it's entirely possible that family could be what Paul means when he says, "...from the Father the whole family in heaven and earth is named." A family derives its name from the Father in the family, not from the mother. My wife's maiden name was different than my last name.

And when we got married, she took my last name, and the whole family has ever since had my last name. That's normal. That's how God set up families.

And it's a picture of something. And that is that the whole family of God takes its name from the Father. We are God's family.

But I'm not sure if that's what Paul is saying. And if he is saying that here, he at least gives us this much vision, that the family is partly in heaven and partly in earth. The whole family in heaven and earth.

You know, many Christians have already died. Maybe most Christians have. It's hard to know because some say there's more people alive today who are saved than on all of history combined.

I don't know if that's true or not. Of course, no one but God knows how many real Christians there are. But the fact is that a huge percentage of the family is now in heaven, whereas another percentage of the same family is on earth.

It's all one family. We're interconnected with those who have lived before as part of the same. We're just siblings, you know, in a family.

It's as if a couple of parents could live a few hundred years and could have children over a period of hundreds of years, but their children lived out normal lifespans so that the parents might still be having babies after their older children are dead, but still the same family, even if their siblings died before they were born. And God has been having children for thousands of years, but he's the same God, the same family. Some of the family's gone on to heaven, some of it's still on earth.

And that's the vision of the church he gives us. It's an ongoing reality through the centuries, through the millennia. But if the word family were translated fatherhood, which is really the more proper translation, from whom the whole or all fatherhood in heaven and earth is named, it would be giving maybe a slightly different idea, that the validity of fatherhood itself derives from the fatherhood of God.

But it's not clear why Paul would make that point here, but it would be more the meaning of his Greek words that he used. I must confess that this statement has always been perplexing to me because of the wording he uses, it doesn't make it real clear what the point is he's trying to get across in verse 15. But he does pray to the Father, and he prays this in verse 16, that he would grant you according to the riches of his glory.

Now, the riches of his glory is sort of God's storehouse of all that he is and possesses, I guess. Elsewhere, Paul says to the Philippians, My God shall supply all your need according to his riches in glory by Christ Jesus. That's Philippians chapter 4 and verse 19.

My God shall supply all your need according to his riches in glory. Your physical needs, if God provides them, it's out of his storehouse of riches of his glory. Likewise, here Paul is talking about God bestowing something to us out of his riches of glory, but not physical things here.

That he would grant you according to the riches of his glory, be strengthened with might, the word might there is dunamis, power, through his Spirit. We know that the Spirit is supposed to give power. You shall receive power after the Holy Spirit has come upon you, Jesus said in Acts 1. So, he prays it will be strengthened with his power through his Spirit in the inner man.

Now, this is an important thing, because when we think of the empowering of the Holy Spirit, it's possible that we're thinking mainly of sensational gifts, miracle working, healings, and so forth. If the power of the Spirit is present in a meeting, many people interpret such a statement as meaning that peculiar things are happening in the meeting, that external phenomena of a sensational sort are going on, and that is the power of the Spirit manifested. Well, Paul prays that the power, the dunamis of the Spirit, would be manifested through the strengthening of us in our inner man.

That is, the power of the Spirit is principally concerned about working something inside, in the inner man. Now, probably, I don't know about the NIV or some of the newer translations, but they say in the inner person, because they would object to the use of the masculine man, since obviously women... Do women have an inner man? Actually, they do, believe it or not. The psychologists say you have an inner child.

Did you know you have an inner man, you women? I don't believe in the inner child, but I certainly believe in the inner man. Peter says, in 1 Peter 3, to the women, verses 3 and 4, Do not let your beauty be that outward adorning of arranging the hair, or wearing gold, or putting on apparel, but let it be the hidden man of the heart. New King James says person of the heart.

But let it be the hidden man of the heart, which is incorruptible, the ornament of a gentle and quiet spirit, which is very precious in the sight of God. The women's ornamentation is found in their inner man, in the hidden man of the heart. Now, obviously man is not meant to be specifically masculine, it is person, and that's why the New King James renders it person.

But there is the inner man and the outer man. And Paul said, remember in 2 Corinthians 4, Though the outer man perishes, the inner man is renewed day by day. That's in 2 Corinthians 4.16. The outer man and the inner man are set in dichotomy.

You know, there are some debates that rage among theologians. They may not interest you at all. But they have to do with whether man is basically a dichotomy or a trichotomy.

Whether man's nature is in two parts or three. We are familiar mainly probably with the trichotomy view, that we are body, soul, and spirit, three parts. There are many scholars who argue that we're really only two parts, that the soul and spirit are essentially synonymous.

That we are the body, on the one hand, and then in the body is the soul slash spirit. This could be spoken of as the inner man and the outer man. And the body is the outer man and the soul slash spirit is the inner man.

And that when the soul is spoken of or the spirit is spoken of, they're just interchangeable terms. It's very difficult to decide that question. There are places where the body, soul, and spirit are mentioned independently from each other.

Well, not very many though. We have 1 Thessalonians chapter 5 as the principal text on this. 1 Thessalonians 5.23 says, Now may the God of peace himself sanctify you completely.

May your whole spirit, soul, and body be preserved blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. This is about the only place in the Bible that speaks of the spirit, the body, and the soul as all separate. There is another place though that is thought to teach a distinction between the spirit and the soul.

And that's in Hebrews chapter 4 verse 12. Hebrews 4.12 says, For the word of God is living and powerful and sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing even to the division of soul and spirit, and of joints and marrow. So if there's able to divide between the soul and spirit, there must be a difference between soul and spirit.

Now, those who believe in the dichotomy view and believe that the soul and spirit are the same, they simply think that the writer of Hebrews is saying that the word of God divides between the inner man and the outer man. The inner man is the soul and the spirit. The outer man is the joints and the marrow.

And the word divides between the soul and spirit on the one side, and the joints and marrow on the other side of that division. And that's a possible rendering too. So it's really almost impossible to be certain which view is correct.

And sometimes the debate is hot. One thing we can say that whether there's three parts or two parts, we know there's at least two parts. Whether that inner man can be divided into spirit and soul, two different entities, or whether it's one complex entity is perhaps a matter of splitting hairs that are not necessary for us to split for the purpose of godly living.

We do need to know, however, that the outer man is not to be identified with the inner man. The outer man is perishing. The inner man is renewed day by day.

In Romans 7.22, Paul makes a distinction between the values of his inner man and his outer man. He says in Romans 7.22, For I delight in the law of God according to the inward man, but I see another law in my members as my body, my outward man, warring against the law of my mind. My mind is the inner man.

My body is the outer man. And in the inner man I have certain values. My outer man is somewhat not agreeable.

But, of course, if the inward man is strong, it rules the outward man. If the outward man is strong, it rules the inward man. And perhaps that is why Paul rejoiced in his infirmities in 2 Corinthians 12.

Because when he was weakened in his outer man, he was renewed in his inner man. The outward man perishing, the inward man renewed day by day. Our light affliction works for us, he said.

Far more exceeding an eternal weight of glory. The inward man. Now Paul prays here for the inward man.

He talks about the power of the Holy Spirit. But he doesn't speak of the power of the Holy Spirit in terms of power encounters with demons and with unbelievers and showing miracles and signs and so forth. Not that Paul doesn't believe in any of that.

He certainly does. Paul worked all of those kinds of miracles. But his prayer is not that the church will have more of these kinds of miracles through the operation of the power of the Spirit.

His prayer is that the power of the Spirit will do its most important and most challenging work. And that is the renewal of the inner man. And the strengthening of the inner man against the temptations of the outer man.

He says, I pray that you would be strengthened with power through the Spirit in the inner man. Secondly, verse 17, that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. Now, Christ dwelling in our hearts is... Here we have an interesting shift in Paul's thinking.

Because in chapter 1, particularly, he was talking about us being in Christ. Not Christ being in us. It's in Christ, in Christ, in Christ, in Christ.

Corporately, we are in Christ. We are in the corporate phenomenon, the corporate reality that God has created in Christ. But, individually, Christ is in us.

And his Spirit is in our inward man. And we are filled with the fullness of God, verse 19. We can see that Paul has both things in mind.

Not only are we in Christ, but he's also in us. The Spirit is in our inner man. Christ is in our hearts.

And the fullness of God fills us so that he is glorified. His glory is in the church. The church is in him, but he is in the church, too.

And so we have the other side of this, emphasized in this prayer. Paul knows that we are in Christ, but he prays that Christ will be in us. That he will dwell in our hearts through faith.

Now, that's an interesting thing, because the word dwell means, of course, to live there. And to remain there. To make a home there.

If a person has faith, does Jesus come into their heart? Apparently, in this sense that Paul is talking about. We know that really Christ, Jesus himself, is at the right hand of God, the Father. He's not inside of us.

The resurrection body of Jesus has flesh and bones. And if you dissect a Christian, you won't find an additional set of flesh and bones in there of another person living there. Jesus is at the right hand of God, the Father.

And the church awaits his return. But through his Spirit, Christ dwells in our hearts. Through faith.

And we know that when Paul talks about Christ dwelling in our hearts, he's actually got the same idea in mind as the Holy Spirit. The Spirit of Christ in our hearts. He makes that very clear in Romans 8. Where he says in Romans 8, 9 and 10.

In Romans chapter 8, verses 9 and 10. You are not in the flesh but in the Spirit, if indeed the Spirit of God dwells in you. Now, if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, he is not his.

And if Christ is in you. Now, notice that he says, if the Spirit of God dwells in you. Which is the Spirit of Christ.

And therefore, if Christ is in you. The Spirit of Christ in you is Christ in you. Now, his body, his resurrection body as far as I know, is seated at the right hand of God, the Father, according to the Scripture.

But his Spirit is in me and in you. And therefore, he is in us. Christ is in us through his Spirit.

So the Spirit strengthens our inner man. And is Christ in us. The Spirit of Christ is in us.

So that Christ's life can be manifest in us and lived out through us. Through faith. That you being rooted and grounded in love may be able to comprehend with all saints what is the width and length and depth and height.

Now, it's been observed here that there are four dimensions mentioned. The width, the length, the depth and the height. Well, there are only really three dimensions in the natural world.

And yet, Paul mentions four dimensions. And some have suggested that Paul is deliberately trying to say that the love of Christ, which we are to know, is supernatural. Its dimensions are more than the dimensions of the natural world.

And therefore, to know the love of Christ requires revelation. It requires supernatural comprehension. He says in verse 18 that we would be able to comprehend with all saints what is the width, the length, the depth and the height.

Now, it may be that Paul isn't thinking of four dimensions particularly. He may just be running on, you know, at the pen. Just talking about every dimension he can think of.

What is it though? Is it the love of Christ that has these dimensions? It's hard to say because he introduces the love of Christ with a different clause. To know the love of Christ. It's as if he doesn't finish verse 18.

He just says that you'd be able to comprehend with all saints what is the width, length, depth and height of what. But he doesn't say of what. He then goes on and says, and to know, almost as a separate issue, to know the love of Christ.

Now, probably the love of Christ is what he has in mind in both cases. To comprehend and to know are similar ideas. What I find interesting is that he's praying that the church will comprehend it with all the saints.

That is that all Christians will comprehend this together. In a church that's as badly divided as the visible church is in our day, it's hard to imagine all saints comprehending anything together. Everyone has their own little system.

Everyone has their own denominational doctrines and so forth. And it's hard to imagine a time when the church would be so unified as that all together they comprehend all the dimensions of God's love. But that can be done, of course, so long as only one thing has made the issue, and that's Jesus himself, instead of a whole lot of other doctrines.

It's not that the whole church has to comprehend all doctrinal truth the same. But if they would comprehend all the love of Christ, then doctrinal truth would become, on some peripheral issues, not the central concern. But just loving one another would be the concern.

That's what Paul prays that the church will do. I don't know if the church is doing that now or shall do it in the future. In a sense, it sounds like he's praying for something that is yet the destiny of the church in the future, that we would all together come to know the love of Christ which passes knowledge.

How can you know something that passes knowledge? Well, that's just the point. He's praying for a supernatural revelation. It surpasses natural knowledge, but it can be known by experience.

It can be known by revelation. That you may be filled with all the fullness of God. It's really hard to know all the wealth of what Paul has in mind by these expressions.

He certainly has something specific in mind. He didn't just rattle off phrases that meant nothing to him. But it's not clear what it means to be filled with all the fullness of God.

Does that mean that the church is part filled with part of the fullness of God now? I don't know. But I think it does mean this, that the church, when complete, you see, he said it's a building that's under construction. It's growing into a holy habitation of God through the Spirit.

When the building is complete, then all the fullness of God can be manifest there. Just as when Moses finished the tabernacle, the visible shekinah glory of God filled the place. And when Solomon finished the temple, the visible shekinah glory of God filled that place.

When God finishes with the church, and it reaches its destiny, God will take up visible residence. His glory will be seen there. Remember in the New Jerusalem, described in Revelation, which is a picture, I believe, of the church and its ultimate destiny, it says there's no sun or moon or stars to give light to it because the glory of God and of the Lamb are the light of it.

The light that fills the church will be the glory of God. And Paul is probably, you remember Paul was caught up in the third heaven and he heard things he couldn't repeat. And I think sometimes he alludes to some of them, but he doesn't give us enough to really know what all he knows.

He's got something on his mind that's got more depth than I'm able to grasp. I can see that it's a very lofty vision, but I don't know what all of its content is because Paul doesn't say all that he knows, isn't allowed to in fact. But based upon his rapture that he feels about this subject, he says in verse 20, Now to him who is able to do exceeding abundantly above all that we ask or think, according to the power that works in us, to him be glory in the church, my Christ Jesus throughout all ages, world without end.

Amen. Now if it seems as if the church so splintered and divided as it is now could never possibly come into a unified voice and be a unified body and temple that would exhibit to the world the glory of God. If that seems like an impossible dream, Paul says that's okay.

God is able to do more than you ask or think. If you don't think he can do it, he can do more than you think. He prays not for what is impossible for God, only what may be impossible for man.

Nothing is impossible for God, and he says that God is able to do more than you think according to the power that works in us. This Holy Spirit that strengthens us in our inner man and that works within us is a powerful power, a powerful spirit, and that spirit is capable of being more than any of us really think or know or could guess. And the result that he prays for is that Christ or God actually would be glorified in the church by Christ throughout all ages.

Now Paul's prayers I hope can come true even if we don't understand all that they mean because there's a lot of content there. But we won't explore it any more deeply. And though this is an early time to stop the class, I don't want to get into chapter 4 and not have time to cover it.

And so I'm going to stop the class. We're going to have a shorter class right now and surprise everybody. And we'll come back next time to chapter 4.