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The Stewardship of the Mystery - Volume 2

by T. Austin-Sparks

VOLUME 2

"Unto me, who am less than the least of all saints, was this grace given, to preach to the nations the unsearchable riches of Christ" (Eph. 3:8).

First published as a book in 1966. This differs from the book published in 1939 with a similar title, "The Stewardship of the Mystery Volume 2 - The Mystery".

Contents

Foreword

Chapter 1 - Introductory

Chapter 2 - The Man in the Message

Chapter 3 - Spying Out the Land

Chapter 4 - The Unsearchable Riches

Chapter 5 - The Tragic Interlude

Chapter 6 - The Era of the Hidden Secret

Chapter 7 - The Secret Revealed

Chapter 8 - The "Mystery" Revealed

Chapter 9 - The Church Local

Chapter 10 - The All-Inclusive Goal

Chapter 11 - Conclusion. The Basis of All

Foreword

In the year 1939 we published two volumes on The Stewardship of the Mystery. Volume 1, the larger of the two, covered wider ground under the title All Things in Christ. This latter was reprinted and republished and is still available. Volume 2 was more specific in relation to Paul's ministry and the Church. This second volume has been out of print for some time, and although we have had so many requests for it, there has been a strange restraint from reprinting it in its original form. But there has been a growing burden to put into writing the essence of that particular ministry of "The Mystery" and, under this pressure which we believe to be of God, we have written this volume which, although changed in various respects from the former Vol. 2, is a concentration of that "Revelation" to the Apostle. In the overwhelming presence of so great an unveiling it would be an impossible thing to give an adequate presentation and, although so burdened and urged, the end finds us with a deep sense of failure. We can do no more than 'cast this bread upon the waters' and trust that it may reach some prepared hearts as a message from God in a timely way. It is not an exposition that is needed, but a revolution similar to that which took place in the Apostle when 'it pleased God to reveal His Son in him.' May the prayer in Ephesians 1:1721 be answered in the case of many readers.

T. Austin-Sparks

Forest Hill, London.

1966

Chapter 1 - Introductory

Near the Journey’s End

The last phase of his pilgrimage has arrived. The end of the journey is in sight. The course has been well-nigh run; and what a course it has been! The faithful servant, the war-scarred warrior, the greatest of Christ’s missionaries, church builders, and stewards of the heavenly riches, will soon receive “the crown of life” laid up for him. His “journeys oft” are soon to give place to “the rest that remaineth.” His “labouring more abundantly” is practically over. He gives expression to a hope that he may yet visit some of his most beloved converts (Phil. 2:24). (Some believe that this hope was realized, and that, for a short period of release, he travelled still further afield. But we have no definite record of this in the New Testament.) He is now in imprisonment in Rome, and Luke concludes his record with the period there “in his own hired house.” This man, who saw the sovereignty of God in every vicissitude of his life, did not fail to do so in this arrival in Rome and sojourn there, so different from what he had hoped for and expected (Rom. 1:15).

Disappointment and God’s Appointment

Taking stock of his situation, he was not long in arriving at the conclusion that, in that Divine sovereignty, this would make possible the realization of another strong desire that had been in his heart, but which could not be fulfilled while on his many travels. Letters, longer or shorter, he had written, each of which had been written in relation to some particular need and situation. Not one of them went—other than by a passing reference—outside of that special demand. During his long journeys, when plying his trade to support himself and make it impossible for critics to rightly say that he lived on his converts; and by special and extraordinary experiences, such as being “caught up into the third heaven (in a vision or dream) and hearing unspeakable things” (2 Cor. 12:1–4); not omitting that two years in the Arabian Desert; several years alone in Tarsus soon after his conversion; and a long imprisonment in Caesarea; all this gave him much time for meditation and for the Lord to speak to him. In this way an immense accumulation of spiritual knowledge became stored up in his heart. Being so sure, as he often said, that this “revelation” was a “stewardship” for “the Body of Christ,” he would doubtless be hoping for a time when he would have leisure and detachment enough to unburden his spirit in writing. We now know that such a time and opportunity just had to come, for the fruit of that has been an unspeakable blessing to the Church during these many centuries.

Well, as we have said, strange as the Providence may have seemed when first he looked round his apartment, and, not least, his Roman guard and chain, he soon realized that this could be the great opportunity for which he had been waiting. It would very strongly appear that as this realization came to him, and perhaps in the long nights when visitors had gone, he became almost overwhelmed by the uprush of that store of revelation. We so conclude from the way and manner, as well as the substance of what he then committed to writing. He had those churches in Asia immediately in mind (though the Lord had much greater intentions) and what he wrote was intended to be circulated among them; probably a blank space being left for filling in with the particular name, such as: “to the saints which are at...” (the name “Ephesus” does not occur in earliest manuscripts). There is little doubt, however, that this overflow of heart had a special direction for that so great and spiritually influential church at Ephesus. This may be of secondary importance in view of the so-much-greater Divine intention by this inspiration.

The Overflowing Heart

It is his manner that means so much as a first impression. Our sub-title is an example of that manner. The Letter (to the Ephesians, so-called) is written in terms of the superlative. Look at some of these superlatives: “The exceeding greatness of His power” (1:19); “the fulness of Him that filleth all in all” (1:23); “the exceeding riches of His grace” (2:7); “the unsearchable riches of Christ” (3:8); “the breadth and length and height and depth,” “the knowledge-surpassing love of Christ,” “all the fulness of God” (3:18,19); “exceeding abundantly above all that we ask or think” (3:20); “far above all the heavens, that He might fill all things” (4:10); “the fulness of Christ” (4:13); “a glorious church, not having spot or wrinkle or any such thing” (5:27).

Are we not right in saying that the man was just unable to contain his fulness? Then, not only his phrases, but his grammatical form. He will start on a course, and then, when an extra thought comes into his mind, he will diverge and go off at a tangent, not picking up the earlier thread again until some way after. The longest sentence, without a “period” or full stop, in the New Testament occurs in this Letter. He is too full and too eager to stop for literary technicalities. The flood-gates are open, and, like a torrent, he is pouring out this fulness so long pent up. When we come to consider the nature of his revelation we shall understand better why he was so expressive in superlatives. At the moment we are just registering the force of his anxiety to get it out at last.

To dwell a little longer on this Letter.

Some may not agree with us, and some may think that we are exaggerating when we say that this Letter is

The Greatest Document Ever Penned

We shall have to substantiate that opinion, but we shall not have altogether failed when we have finished.

When we say “greatest,” of course we do not mean in length, but in intrinsic value and content.

This is the crown and consummate essence of Paul’s ministry. It is the climax of his mission.

Here are a few comments of outstanding Christian scholars:

For one such it is “the consummate and most comprehensive statement which even the New Testament contains of the meaning of the Christian religion, blending as nowhere else its evangelical, spiritual, moral and universal elements.”

Or from another:

“The sublimest communication ever made to men was made from a Roman prison by one who in his own esteem was ‘the very least of all the saints.’ ”

“This Epistle is one of the noblest in the New Testament.”

“A divine Epistle glowing with the flame of Christian love, and the splendour of holy light, and flowing with fountains of living water.”

“The most heavenly work of one whose very imagination is peopled with things in the heavens.”

“In this, the divinest composition of man, is every doctrine of Christianity; first, those doctrines peculiar to Christianity; etc.”

“It is emphatically the Epistle of the Ascension. We rise in it, as on wings of inspiration, to the divinest heights. Word after word—and thought after thought— now “the heavenlies,” now “spiritual,” now “riches,” now “glory,” now “mystery,” now “plenitude,” now “light,” now “love,” seem, as it were, to leave behind them “a luminous trail” in this deep and shining sky.”

“It is the most advanced, the most sublime, the most profound, the most final utterance of Paul’s Gospel.”

Let us hasten to say that our own appraisal is not the result of reading such estimates as the above, for these are of much later discovery. We have reached our own conclusion after many years of reading and meditating in this Letter, and Paul’s ministry in general. But we are so glad to have our judgment confirmed or checked by men of so much greater knowledge than our own.

Thus far we have only introduced the Letter. Its content, teaching and message will occupy the main space, while still remaining so vastly beyond our comprehension. Before we take our plunge into those deeps, and never get much further than the surface, we shall have of necessity to give some attention to the man himself, and to how the man and his ministry are one thing. Before so proceeding, let us remind our readers of one or two obvious, but impressive facts.

When the Apostle Paul set himself to write this Letter, he had no idea that he was writing Holy Scripture—the Bible (in part). His sole thought and desire was to confirm and supplement that “whole counsel of God” which he “had not shunned” to declare to—and through—Ephesus and Asia Minor during the two years that he was there (Acts 19). It was a Letter that—in his own mind—he was writing, and that to a location and a need. It could never have occurred to him that what he was writing would be read by an ever-growing number of people through nearly twenty centuries; that it would go into a world the size of which he knew nothing; that people of every race under heaven would have it translated into their own language or dialect; that it would divide Christendom world-wide into the largest opposing schools of theology and interpretation; that people of God in every time and realm would feed eagerly upon it; that bookstores in every country would have their shelves growingly bulged with “Expositions,” “Commentaries,” “Sermons,” etc., on this “Letter”; and that, finally, such appraisals as we have given above would be attached to that piece of personal correspondence! He would not only never have imagined this as possible, but would have had a shock of astonishment if he could have foreseen it. What a vindication of his testimony! What a justification of his sufferings! What an unveiling of God’s sovereignty and grace! What an inspiration and strength this should be to any who may be suffering in fellowship with Christ, and what a proof of the truth of his own words: “Your labours are not in vain in the Lord!”

Chapter 2 - The Man in the Message

This is not intended to be a “Life of the Apostle Paul,” but has rather to do with the particular significance of this servant of Jesus Christ. While there are those vital and essential factors in his case which must be true of every servant of Christ, and which are basic to every fruitful ministry (as we shall later mention), everything about Paul indicates that he was indeed “a chosen (elect) vessel,” foreknown, foreordained and selected. This was true particularly in the nature of the ministry for which he was “apprehended.” The same nature of ministry may—in measure—be the “calling” of others, but it was pioneered in Paul. All the Apostles stood on common ground where the fundamentals of the faith were concerned: the Person of Christ; the work of Christ; redemption; justification; sanctification; the world commission to preach salvation in Christ to all the world; the coming again of the Saviour, etc. They had the same foundation. Each one may have had “grace according to the measure of the gift of Christ”; that is, according to their personal gift, whether Apostle, Prophet, Evangelist, Pastor or Teacher, each had “grace”—anointing, enablement—corresponding to the responsibility, but on “fundamentals,” i.e. foundation matters, they were agreed and one. Whatever we may say in distinguishing Paul, we would not for a moment take one small fragment from the great ministry of John, or Peter, or James, or others. Never could our New Testament suffer the loss of those ministries, and elsewhere we have gloried in them. When all has been said as to their value—and it would be an immense “all”—we still have to affirm that there was, and is, that which is unique and particular in what came through Paul. Let us hasten to say a very significant and helpful thing before we proceed.

It would never have been possible for Paul to understand his pre-conversion life until he came under the hand of Jesus Christ. That vocation with which he was called when Jesus became his Lord throws so much illumination upon the sovereignty of God in his past history. This is a principle which will help so many people and servants of God, and it shows how immensely important it is that Jesus shall be—not only Saviour— but Lord. We shall see this more fully later. Paul’s Jewish birth, upbringing, training, education and deep embeddedness in something from which he would be extricated by the power of God, and something which was going to be shown no longer to be what God needed, is in itself of tremendous educative value. Why God, in His foreknowledge, should put a man deeply into something which does not ultimately represent His mind contains a point to be noted. Many there are who argue that, because they have ample reason to know that God put them into a certain way, work, form, association, there they are to abide for ever, willy nilly. Paul’s history says No to that argument. God’s ways in his case came to show that He may do a thing like that, and all His sovereignty may truly be in it, but only for a purpose, and a temporary purpose; namely, to give a deep and thorough first-hand knowledge of that which is really at best a limitation upon the full purpose of God. It is necessary for an effective servant of God to have personal knowledge of that from which people are to be delivered. Abraham must know Chaldea; Moses must know Egypt; David must know the falsehood of Saul’s reign. So Paul must know the proscribed Judaism, so that he can speak with authority, the authority of personal experience. Were we the Psalmist, we should put “Selah” there. “Think of that!”

But we must underline two aspects of this principle. We are referring to what was definitely within the Divine ‘working of all things after the counsel of His own will,’ and “according to His purpose.” Paul was not changing his God at conversion, Jehovah was his God for ever. The change was in the method of God. It was still God working. We say this because no one can say that, because they were born and brought up in this or that, therefore “Providence” (meaning God) intended that to be their way for always. We must be as we are and where we are by the sovereignty of God, and we must know that any major change is equally definitely of God, and the only alternative to making it is clear disobedience to the presented will of God. It has to be a must, or a missing of the way. It certainly will make demands upon faith’s walk with God, because the element of apparent contradiction may be present. We do not know what mental and soul battles Paul had. It is not recorded that in facing the immense revolution he reasoned with the Lord—‘Well, Lord, by Your own sovereignty I was born a Jew, and that with more than general terms: “of the stock of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of Hebrews... a Pharisee.” And now, Lord, you are requiring me to take a course which repudiates all that and contradicts it. It is not like You, Lord, to contradict Yourself; it seems so inconsistent. It is not as though I have not been God-fearing and have been without faith in You.’ The change was so revolutionary as to seem to be two contrary ways in the same God. Here was a very big occasion to “trust in the Lord with all thine heart, and lean not upon thine own understanding.” We could cite the cases of many servants of God who have been brought to such a crisis between reason and faith when God was demanding a decision which seemed to contradict all His former leading. Some of these have come to be very greatly vindicated by obedience. Some have lived to be examples of having missed the way, or God’s best.

All this has had to do with God’s sovereign preparation and equipment of a servant so that that servant should truly know by deep experience what he is talking about and what the differences are. This then, in brief, as to his Jewish relationship.

But this man was elected and destined to be God’s special messenger to the nations, not just to a nation. The nations were mainly under Roman government and Greek culture and language. Through his father Paul inherited Roman citizenship and Freemanship, and by his birth and upbringing in Tarsus he had both the Greek language and a first-class familiarity with Greek life and culture. These three things—Jewry, Roman citizenship and Greek language—took him with facility and ease into practically the whole world. But, added to all this natural qualification was that without which Paul would never have been the real factor that history testifies to; he was anointed with the Holy Spirit. Sometimes the anointing has made up for much natural deficiency in education and birth, and men have made spiritual history who would never have been recognized on merely natural grounds. The Lord took very real care that Paul could never make his natural advantages the ground of his true success. This was implied or indicated in the first recorded words of the Lord about him (to Ananias) after his conversion: “I will show him how many things he must suffer for My name’s sake” (Acts 9:16).

The sovereignty of God is many-sided and has many ways. It is only when the full story is told that a true explanation is seen. At the beginning and in the course there can be room for many a “why?” A Moses and a Jeremiah may start off with what they are convinced is a definite handicap and contradiction, but history justifies God and in the end His wisdom is vindicated. When God says “He is a chosen vessel,” He knows all about the clay of which the vessel is made. As we go on, the two implicit things just referred to will become increasingly apparent. One, that the messenger and his message are one thing; the message is in the man’s constitution and very history under the hand of God. And two, the man is not just recognized for his natural qualifications alone, but pre-eminently because God has anointed him for his position and work. No man can be in any but a completely false position who speaks without what he says being born out of real experience. Only, for instance, may a man speak of brokenness if he himself has been broken. Paul’s ministry throughout came from a continuous history with God in deep and usually painful experiences of conflict. It was “the spoil of battle.” It is absolutely imperative that it should be obvious and manifest that any position, function and ministry on the part of anyone in relation to Christ should be by anointing, and that the impression made and the conclusion drawn by others is that “that man is clearly anointed for that job!” Anointing simply means that God is most evidently with the person concerned in what they are doing and in the position that they hold. To be out of position is to be out of anointing in that particular. We cannot select, choose, decide our place and function. That is an organic thing, and just as it is awkward for a leg to try to do the work of an arm in the human body, so there will always be something wrong when we assume a work or position for which the sovereignty of the Spirit has not chosen us. With all the adversities and oppositions, it is the most helpful thing to know that we are where we are by Divine appointment and not by our own will. It is a good thing when we know what our function is, and what it is not, and act accordingly! There are sufficient functions in the body corporate for every member to have a quite definite one under the one anointing, and the function will as naturally express itself as an eye sees, an ear hears, a hand grips, and so on, if the head (the Head) is in full and right control. Paul, then, has much to teach us on this matter, first by his life and then by his writings. At this point we are brought back to where we diverged from the message to the man, and we must now consider that differentiation of function for which Paul was particularly chosen and apprehended.

Paul’s Distinctive Vocation

That there was a difference and peculiar importance in Paul’s ministry has a number of strong evidences and attestations. He knew it himself and often referred to it, both as to its substance and the way in which he received it. This is expressed in such words as these:

“the stewardship (R.V. margin) of that grace of God which was given me to you-ward”;

“how that by revelation was made known unto me the mystery... whereby... ye can perceive my understanding in the mystery of Christ”; “Unto me... was this grace given... to make all men see (bring to light—R.V. margin) what is the stewardship of the mystery” (Eph. 3:2–4, 8, 9).

While Paul does not say that he alone had the “mystery” made known to him, he does claim that, as a stewardship, a ministry, it was revealed to him in a distinctly personal and direct-from-heaven manner. He claimed that he was divinely apprehended for this particular ministry. What that revelation was has to spread itself over all that we shall yet write. At the moment we are concerned with the fact of Paul’s specific vocation.

Not least among the evidences of this was the fury, invective, hatred, malice and murderous cruelty of the devil and his forces focused upon this man, relentlessly. It was surely because of what was coming through him and not just because of his personality. It began and broke loose on the same issue before Paul was the apprehended vessel of it. To see and understand this we have to go back to the one man who had previously seen what Paul was shown. We refer to Stephen as the first Christian martyr and we are deeply moved when we read the account of his death. But how little Stephen has been understood, and how blind we have been to the real meaning of his death—his destruction by Satan-controlled men.

Stephen—the Precursor of Paul

A thoughtful consideration of Stephen’s discourse before the Jewish Sanhedrin will show that Stephen was like a ‘preface’, an introduction, to Paul’s ministry. If Stephen had lived, there is little doubt that he and Paul would have been in a mighty partnership in the Stewardship of the Mystery. This, of course, supposes that the Lord did not foresee that Stephen would die, and that, in that foreknowledge, He did not mark down Paul for the alone steward of this ministry in its fulness. The Divine sovereignty has rarely been evidenced more than in Saul’s presence with Stephen at the time of the latter’s death, although an accomplice in it. As we move with Stephen through that long discourse, following his mind from Abraham through Isaac, Jacob, the Patriarchs, Joseph, Israel, Moses, Egypt, the Exodus, Sinai, the Tabernacle, the Wilderness, Joshua, David, Solomon, the Temple, the Prophets, up to Christ, the “Righteous One,” there is one thing that is in Stephen’s mind throughout, and that one thing is the key to everything and that which—more than anything else—explains, defines and characterizes Paul and his ministry. That one thing is that God is ever, from eternity to eternity, pressing on to an all-comprehending goal. Through human failure, human and Satanic obstruction and attempted frustration; by a variety and multitude of ways, means, and persons, in all generations and ages, God is ever going on. His desired and selected instruments may become a hindrance rather than a help. Nations, empires and systems may oppose and obstruct; circumstances may seem to limit Him, but—given time— He is found not to have given up, but still to be going on. He has set Himself a purpose and a goal, and that goal will be reached. Let Jewry “always resist the Holy Spirit” as Stephen says; so much the worse for Jewry. That is the tremendous upshot of Stephen’s discourse. Within that inclusiveness there are other features. God’s purpose is a heavenly one, a vast one, a spiritual one, an eternal one. Neither the Tabernacle, with all its inner beauty and symbolic embodiment of Divine thoughts; nor the Temple of Solomon with all its magnificence and glory; nor Solomon himself with his stunning wisdom and overwhelming wealth—says Stephen—can remotely approximate to that toward which God is moving in relation to His Son. That is not “made with hands.” That is not of the earth. That is not God’s House (Acts 7:48,49). The Holy Spirit—says Stephen, in effect—is moving on, ever on to this so-much-greater in every way. Stephen, in one glorious hour met the devastating force of that with which Paul contended all his life, namely the incorrigible disposition of God’s people to bring what is essentially heavenly down to earth and fix it there; to crystallize spiritual things into man-made systems; to lay hands upon what is of God and make it something of man, something exclusive and legal under man’s control. Stephen’s stand for, and testimony to, this “Heavenly Vision” (that became Paul’s phrase) brought him into the most violent and vicious hatred of vested religious interests, so far as systems were concerned, and Satan’s fiercest jealousy behind all. Touch religious traditions and established orders and you will find the same thing that Stephen met, a jealousy which issues from blindness to the vastly greater purpose of God. In some way you will be stoned! by ostracism, exclusion, closed doors, suspicion and misrepresentation, all of which are traceable in the case of Paul.

Have we said enough about Stephen to justify and establish our statement that he was—so to speak—Paul in advance? Stephen himself is an example of God going on in spite of hell and men, as Paul was the going on of God in fulness when men put Stephen away. We look back to our beginning statement that a major evidence of the particular ministry for which Paul was chosen is the vehemence of Satanic antagonism.

All that we have said, and much more, will, of course, come out in our consideration of the ministry of Paul himself, but I am sure that we are beginning to see something of his significance.

Still ahead of our contemplation of the crowning and consummate ministry of Paul the Apostle, there are several matters of considerable value which may make a brief chapter of helpfulness by themselves.

Chapter 3 - Spying Out the Land

On two occasions, when Israel was contemplating entering the Land of the Covenant and Promise, spies were sent over beforehand. The first was disastrous because it was the decision of the people governed by self-interest, and although Moses complied and the Lord acquiesced, the secret motive was eventually betrayed. After long and deep discipline the principle of “the delight of the Lord” was present and faith triumphed. The spies can go with approval and blessing when the motive is that of the Lord’s glory, not man’s. We would believe that the move from First Corinthians chapter ten to Ephesians, Philippians, Colossians, corresponds to that change from the first to the second spying out of the Land. May ours answer to the second as we contemplate the glorious Land!

Of the preliminary considerations these are some:

(1) Paul himself was—when writing—aware that what he had been shown by the Lord was beyond his power of utterance. The very phrase “unsearchable riches” implies this. It could be correctly translated “untraceable,” or “unexplorable.” Beyond tracing, beyond exploring, beyond searching out. Paul knew himself to be attempting an impossible task. He requested these believers in Asia to pray for him “that utterance may be given unto me in opening my mouth, to make known... the mystery...” (Eph. 6:19). He was labouring to speak the unspeakable, to fathom the unfathomable, to comprehend the incomprehensible. The paradox of preaching the unpreachable characterizes these final Letters. If that was true of that man, what can we do more than behold at a distance!

(2) What Paul did and did not set himself to do. Paul—in these final writings—did not set himself to write a treatise on this or that theme, subject, or doctrine. There is all the difference in this respect between “Ephesians” and “Galatians” or “Romans.” No particular threat to the faith led him—as in those Letters—to write this the greatest of all, although that may have been partly true of “Colossians.” In “Ephesians” Paul is not “reasoning,” arguing, debating. He is not setting down his “Philosophy of Christianity.” He had a wide and rich knowledge of the philosophies and religious ideas of the world in which he had moved. But he is not minded to deal with these or to compare the other religions with Christianity. What Paul did do in this Letter to Asia and, through Asia, to all whom Asia touched (and unconsciously to us) was to make a mighty proclamation. Here we have a man making a proclamation. He is just giving out, with a heart too full for articulation, an “utterance.” It is like an imperative broadcast for which the microphone is too small and inadequate. This is not something that he had thought out and was the product of his great brain. He attributed it to a “revelation” given him by the initiative of God. This that he is penning is a vital and, in a sense, a consummate presentation of the long process of God’s self-disclosure, and it embodies God’s full and final revelation of His eternal purpose. It is because it is of this nature that Paul falls on his knees and prays a special prayer for his readers (1:15–17). It is because of a fixed and unalterable law and principle which he has enunciated so clearly and emphatically elsewhere (1 Cor. 2:14–16) that spiritual things, things of the Spirit, can only be understood by spiritual people, people of the Spirit. We have to come on this later, but all that is before us in this Letter will be little or not more than written mysteries if we do not pray this same prayer on this same necessity before we go any further.

(3) The last Letters, being so inclusive in substance, naturally gather up in allusion, if not in restatement, many of the matters touched on incidentally in former Letters. So, in allusion, we have vital points in Romans, Corinthians, Galatians, etc. It would require much time and space to trace and tabulate the instances. Some great words will be indicative, such as “Redemption,” “Spiritual,” “Sons,” “Grace,” “Adoption,” “Foreordained,” etc.

(4) Our method will be different from that usually employed in studying these (and other) Letters. In order that Bible students may obtain a quick, easy and simple grasp of the books, the Letters are usually reduced by Bible teachers to outlines according to the content and subjects mainly mentioned. This is a very valuable and helpful method. So we have such helpful outlines and analyses (of Ephesians) as Dr. Campbell Morgan’s The Church—1. The Heavenly Calling. 2. The Earthly Conduct, each of these two sections being divided into three more. Or we have Miss Ruth Paxon’s The Wealth, Walk and Warfare of the Christian; or that little book by Watchman Nee, Sit, Walk, Stand. We have not an idea that we can at all improve on such, but that is not the method which we are employing, and we hasten to say so. From the following you will not be given a “bird’s eye view”, as we usually describe a general look at things; unless it is an eagle’s eye which sees vast ranges from great altitudes. In this sense “Ephesians” does take up the eagle aspect of the Cherubim—mystery and heavenliness. Our method will be—as it were—to hover over some of the eminences rising from this landscape, or, to keep to our title, to stand and gaze with wonder at some of “the unsearchable riches of Christ” which are presented in these final writings, especially in “Ephesians.”

This, then, is what we meant by “Spying out the Land.” At most we can but glimpse the greatnesses which are embodied in this Letter. But if we could see them; free from all prejudice, bias and natural influences, we should return with the same wonder and assurance as did the spies of the second investigation.

Chapter 4 - The Unsearchable Riches

We shall not get very far into the practical meaning and import of this great unveiling until we have the key in our hand. Once we have that key everything will be explained as to its purpose and value. Strangely enough, that key is in the form of a small prefix which—unfortunately—does not appear in our translations. It occurs twice in “Ephesians” (in major connections); four times in “Colossians”; once in “Philippians”; in both letters to Timothy; and in “Hebrews” (whether Paul actually wrote “Hebrews” is not discussed, but we have no hesitation in saying that his influence and conception are definitely in it). In our translation we have the word knowledge in Ephesians 1:17 and 4:13; in Colossians 1:6,9,10; 3:10; and in Philippians 1:9. But in these and the other letters mentioned the word (in the Greek) has the little prefix epi. Epi means “full,” and while “to know” occurs alone in many places in the New Testament, it means— usually—the beginning of knowledge, such as “This is life eternal, that they should know Thee the only true God, and Him Whom Thou didst send, Jesus Christ” (John 17:3). But when we have moved on from the beginning and are come to the more mature state as in Paul’s later Letters, that which is set before us is “Full Knowledge” (Epi-gnosis). What Paul prays for therefore in Ephesians 1:17 is that believers who have already advanced in knowledge may still come to full knowledge. That is the word of maturity. This then is the key to all that is presented here, and what is presented is that which constitutes full knowledge. All that we will add until later is that this knowledge, or full knowledge, is not mental, intellectual, academic, obtained by reading, study, hearing (although it might come through such), but, as Paul emphasizes, it is by revelation of the Holy Spirit. For us now, since the Scriptures were completed, revelation is not something extra to the Scriptures, but revelation or illumination as to what is in the Scriptures; and that is inexhaustible. Back to that later.

Let us note some of the

Major Features of the Ultimate Disclosure

As to how the Apostle came by the full knowledge which he had, we can only say two things which are made known. One was the more general, “a spirit of wisdom and revelation in the full-knowledge of Him, the eyes of your heart being enlightened...” etc. That is the birthright of every believer, but it belongs to obedience to all truth or light already given. It is what John refers to: “the anointing which ye received... teacheth you concerning all things” (1 John 2:27). But, in Paul’s case, because of his special “stewardship” he was given special revelations, as when he was caught up (in vision, dream or trance) into the third heaven and heard unspeakable things (2 Cor. 12). If we follow this illumined and inspired mind of the Apostle, we shall be led into and through “ages” from eternity past to eternity yet to be. We shall be given a glimpse of what took place in each of these eras, and what the characteristic of each was, is, and will be.

There are four of these eras referred to:

1. “Before times eternal”;

2. from creation to Christ—the Old Testament era;

3. from the Incarnation to the consummation of the age;

4. “the age of the ages.”

Between 1 and 2 there is an event which has affected the whole course and character of things from 1 to 3, as we shall see.

Before Times Eternal

It is to be noted that the Apostle had barely begun this Letter (to the “Ephesians”) and opened the flood-gate of this pent-up revelation, than he carried his readers away back past all time and landed them in what he called “before the foundation of the world.” It is language which he used more than once: “before times eternal” (2 Tim. 1:9; Titus 1:2). Having taken that long flight back over centuries and millennia, he intimated what in that dateless past took place. Two things are indicated and stated. In the counsels of the Godhead, the Son of God was designated and appointed the eternal Sphere of all that would be of God. “In Him” is the definition (Eph. 1:4). Two hundred times the Apostle uses that term in varying forms in his writings. The writer of the Letter to the Hebrews states the same thing in precise words: “Whom He appointed heir of all things” (Heb. 1:2). This is not knowledge exclusively Paul’s. Both John and Peter speak of the same thing as to the eternal position of the Son of God. But Paul unfolds so much more of that designation. There, then, first in the “before times eternal”, the Son of God—now given the name which became His so long after, “Our Lord Jesus Christ” (Eph. 1:3)—was determined the inclusive realm of all that which would belong to God. As a race would be “in Adam” (1 Cor. 15:22); as a nation would be in the single seed of Abraham (Rom. 4:13, etc.); and as the harvest is in the single grain of wheat, so the Son of God would be the content of all that which would eventually be of God. So the Apostle links with the Person the persons: “He chose us in Him.” This was in the Divine deliberations. We are not unfamiliar with this concept. Jesus Himself made reference to it: “for the elect’s sake...,” “...so as to lead astray, if possible, even the elect” (Matt. 24:22,24; ASV). “Shall not God avenge His elect...?” (Luke 18:7), etc. Peter also uses the term (1 Pet. 1:1). In those eternal counsels there was determined and secured a “people,” a “body,” a “nation,” which just had to be to justify the appointment of the Son. No, we are not going to launch into a discussion of “predestination” or “foreordination.” All that we will say just at this point is that two things govern this matter of the Divine election. One is that it is corporate; it is a “Body” and, just as a physical body was prepared for God’s Son in incarnation—“a body didst Thou prepare for Me” (Heb. 10:5)—so a corporate “Body” was prepared for Him. It was as essential as it is for a spirit to have a body for all practical purposes. (More on this later.) The other governing thing is that this election is not to salvation, willy nilly, but to purpose. This is fundamental to this whole Letter to the “Ephesians.” See how large and powerful a place the “eternal purpose” has in Paul’s mind and writings. It is that “purpose” that determines so much in God’s ways! The exhortations, the admonitions, the encouragements, the warnings, the entreaties, are all related to “His purpose” in salvation. How vastly much there is bound up with that drawing aside of the veil upon those eternal counsels! Out of them come the deliberations and activities of God: “Who worketh all things after the counsel of His will,” “according to the good pleasure of His will” (Eph. 1:11,5, etc.). See also Romans 8:28–30.

We must, however, remember that there is one absolutely pre-eminent and predominant matter which determines everything and from which and to which all things are related. This is the one thing which explains everything which is in this Letter and all Scripture. It is the place of God’s Son. That indeed does explain the Calling, the Conduct and the Conflict. This, then, in and from eternity past, stands over all time and eternity to be; affecting, determining, governing “all things.” To substantiate this it is only necessary to pass an eye through this Letter and to note how often the Lord Jesus is actually mentioned. His personal name is mentioned some forty-four times, in addition to which note the many pronouns—“He,” “Him,” “His” and “Whom.”

It has often been said that the criterion by which truth or error in any system of religious teaching is determined is the place that it gives to the Son of God, Jesus Christ. That is a very sound criterion.

Chapter 5 - The Tragic Interlude

We have mentioned that between the “before times eternal” and the first era of time there took place something which has affected in a tragic way the whole course of events. The Bible has much to say in relation to that, but Paul in his final three Letters (excluding those to Timothy, Titus and Philemon) gives a very strong place and meaning to that event. We refer to the invasion into the universe of

The Great Schism

As to the particular Letter with which we are occupied, there are three allusions to this cosmic disruption.

The first, and this is a supreme factor in the significance of Christ, is in a very brief phrase. The fuller context is this (chapter 1:9,10): “having made known unto us the mystery of His will, according to His good pleasure which He purposed in Him (Christ) unto a dispensation of the fulness of the times, to sum up all things in Christ, the things in the heavens, and the things upon the earth; in Him, I say....” The clause we want is “to sum up all things in Christ.”

The word (one long Greek compound) “to sum up” means “to bring back and to gather around the main point”, that is, “in Christ.” It is to re-gather the “all things.” In the companion letter, Colossians, Paul says: “For in Him were all things created, in the heavens and upon the earth” (1:16). This means that originally all things were in God’s Son. That it should be necessary to say that in the fulness of the times all things would be re-gathered or brought back into Him clearly means that something happened to take things out of Him, or away from Him. Oh, what a lot there is that points to that! Jesus said that He came “to seek and to save that which was lost.” He gave a parable of wicked husbandmen who slew the heir in order to appropriate the inheritance. He said that “All that came before me are thieves and robbers” (John 10:8). It is an aspect of truth which has an immense amount of teaching in the Scriptures. Something was done to rob God’s Son of His place and rights in the eternal purposing of God, making it necessary to re-gather, re-cover, re-unite. Back to that later.

The second thing pointing to that great event and breaking in of disruption is the state, the condition against which the purpose revealed in this Letter stands. It is a horrible picture.

“Dead through your trespasses and sins,” “Ye walked according to... the prince of the power of the air, of the spirit that now worketh in the sons of disobedience... in the lusts of our flesh... by nature children of wrath” (Eph. 2:1–3). “At that time separate from Christ (note that) ...having no hope and without God in the world” (2:12) ...as the Gentiles also walk, in the vanity of their mind, being darkened in their understanding, alienated from the life of God... being past feeling... lasciviousness... uncleanness...” (4:17,19). How did all this come about when all things were in God’s Son originally? All this is outside of, and apart from, Christ! Surely we can say of this: “An enemy hath done this.”

Very well: let us pass to the third thing in this Letter indicative of the great schism. How well known the words are, but how little known their vast, sinister context. “Our wrestling is not against flesh and blood, but against the principalities, against the powers, against the world-rulers of this darkness, against the spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places.” “Stand... withstand... having done all, stand” (Eph. 6:12–14).

Relations between the Son of God and some evil Power and his hosts have been so ruptured and disrupted that there can be no appeasement, no compromise, no fellowship, until that evil system has been destroyed beyond remedy. That great schism began somewhere outside of this earth; it then invaded the earth, and it has been the source and cause of all the schisms and disruptions in history. The Bible labels that responsible one Satan, the Devil.

For some time rationalism, liberal theology, psychology and certain philosophers ridiculed the existence of a personal Devil, and what the Bible attributes to him was explained as just neuroses and complexes; that is, evil is not anything to do with evil spirits or a “Satan,” it is nervous disorder, or at most good in the making. Demonology is only a form of mythology. So, Satan played a master trick by persuading men to believe that he does not exist. But the world has had some shocks in recent history and there has been a positively terrible unmasking of the most awful malignity in this world and in human behaviour. Not only in those realms which are called “savage,” “uncivilized,” and “backward,” but for sheer devilry, wickedness and calculated cruelty, nothing has ever been worse than that among what have been thought to be “cultured” and “advanced” peoples. Their very scientific “advancement” (?) has been employed for the most unspeakable horrors. We could write many pages on this line, but we refrain. The Bible is terribly vindicated as the course of this world proceeds, and not least in its unveiling of an evil personal power which is ill-disposed towards mankind and particularly to those who have allied themselves with God’s Son. The battle for unity is a painful and heart-rending conflict. The disruption of nations proceeds apace, and among God’s people there is nothing too sacred to escape this cosmic determination to disrupt the smallest approximation to Divine fellowship. Of course, there are many “societies” and “fraternities” which are left alone, but it is no compliment if Satan is not disturbed. Let us make no mistake about this matter. The Bible leaves us in no doubt that, at the end of the age, every element in the universe will assume unmistakable features of intensification. This, of course, is only logical if the end is fulness in every connection. Whatever your interpretation of Revelation twelve may be, we have to note that Satan’s shortening tenure of power is marked by his coming down to the earth with great wrath (Rev. 12:12).

But to return to “Ephesians,” the great summary of spiritual history. We must note particularly that the Apostle brings out in full and definite statement that the Church—the Body of Christ—is involved in this war of the ages and all that he has written he heads up in this. It is as though he would say: “All that I have been saying regarding the eternal counsels of God; the place and purpose of the Elect—the Body of Christ; the redemption of that Body and its uniting with its Head; its life, character, walk, and work in this dispensation; and the great goal and established purpose of God to ultimately reunite all things in Christ is the object and occasion of an immense, untiring, and ever-intensifying cosmic conflict, in which unseen and countless evil forces are bitterly antagonizing the purpose and all related thereto.” Paul says that it is because of the ministry committed to him to make all this known that he is in bonds and imprisonment. He shows that this antagonism of spiritual intelligences will be levelled at all that relates to that stewardship, and implies that if ministries are not just “departments” or aspects of Christianity, but all of a corporate whole, solidly bent upon a single object (Eph. 4:13), this corporate character will constitute the most serious menace to that evil kingdom as to draw out its venomous and every-sided effort to break it up and neutralize it. The Apostle defines this opposition as “wiles of the devil.” He then sets over against each other the armour of God and the wiles of the devil. It is God’s provision for meeting Satanic “wiles.” By symbolic means he shows the nature of the “wiles”. On the positive, Divine side the points of attack are shown to be “Truth,” “Righteousness,” “Peace,” “Faith,” “Salvation,” “The Word of God.” Against every form of subtle lying God provides the girding of the Spirit of TRUTH. Against accusations and condemnations of the heart, He provides “The RIGHTEOUSNESS of God which is through faith in Jesus Christ.” Against fear which makes the going, the feet, unsteady and unsure He provides “the PEACE of God, which passeth all understanding.” Against the suggestions, ideas, thoughts, imaginations and reasonings which assail the mind—the head, He provides SALVATION by Grace. Against the attacks upon the trustworthiness of the promises of God He supplies the Holy Spirit to answer back and retaliate with the sure WORD. “Over all,” and related to all, He says ‘in all your taking, take the big shield of FAITH.’ But note, God does not put all this provision on His people; He provides it and then says to them, “Take unto you.” There must be an act on their part, for the element of passivity is not consistent with such warfare. Would to God that, when these fiery darts began to fly, we instinctively reached for the appropriate weapon of defence! Perhaps we ought consciously to have them always on.

As we have said that in his last Letters Paul gave a strong place to this conflict of the ages, we cannot close this chapter without a reference to “Philippians.” In “Colossians” it is obvious (see 1:13,20; 2:15), but in “Philippians” it is more by inference and allusion. We believe that when Paul, writing of the self-emptying of the Son of God, said that “although He was equal with God, He thought it not something to be grasped (held on to) to be equal with God, but emptied Himself” (2:6), the Apostle was alluding to the ambitious pride of “Lucifer” to be like the Most High (Isa. 14:14; Luke 10:18). If this is a right interpretation (cf. 2 Pet. 2:4 and Jude 6), then the scene in Philippians two, in keeping with so much other teaching in the New Testament, is that of the Son of God becoming the Son of Man, taking man-form to fight out this battle with the usurper.

“A final Adam to the fight

And to the rescue came.”

And Paul, a “good soldier of Jesus Christ,” in the same letter (Phil. 3) goes on to show that the way of victory is the way of “counting all things as loss.”

Let us sum up.

“Before the foundation of the world” Divine counsels took place which are called “The good pleasure of His will,” “The mystery of His will,” “The purpose of Him Who worketh all things after the counsel of His will,” “The eternal purpose” (Eph. 1:4,5,9,11; 3:11). In those deliberations certain very definite decisions were made. These decisions were two-fold.

1. The Son of God was “appointed heir of all things.” The sphere and realm of all things (Heb. 1:2; Eph. 1:10,11).

2. An Elect people was “chosen” in the Son to be the complement of Him; to be the corporate vessel of His expression and administration, termed His Body, His Bride, His Church, etc.; vocation being the idea of that election and predestination (Eph. 1:4,23; 5:25–32; 4:1).

3. Subsequent to that two-fold appointment and election, a revolt took place among heavenly beings in great number, led by one in very high position, probably very near the top. Pride and jealousy over the Son’s appointment were the causes of this revolt, the place of “equality with God” being aspired to by that high one. The one, and the hosts in complicity with him, were cast out of heaven and “kept not their first estate” (Jude 6, A.V.). The schism, rupture, and division in heaven with the wrath of God upon them inspired an eternal and deathless enmity in that leader against God’s Son, and mankind as the intended and potential vessel of His glory. So mankind was struck at early after creation, and the special enmity was focused upon the line of those who maintained faith in God and bore any characteristic features of God’s Son. As primarily, so through all the ages, the one object and activity of that evil adversary has been to disrupt, divide, disintegrate humanity, and most particularly the “elect,” the people of God. By such an object the purpose is to neutralize God’s purpose and its appointed and chosen vessel. In this intensifying battle the true Church is shown to be deeply involved. God has made a full provision for the Church to meet and stand against that great enemy. That is a general summary of the actual teaching and implications of one aspect of this “Letter to the Ephesians.”

Chapter 6 - The Era of the Hidden Secret

“In other generations was not made known unto the sons of men.”

“From all ages hath been hid in God” (Eph. 3:5,9).

“Which hath been hid from all ages and generations” (Col. 1:26).

It will be noticed that we have chosen the alternative word to the one in the relevant Scriptures, that is, “Secret” instead of “Mystery.” Our reason for so doing is to avoid the necessity of spending a lot of time in explaining that Paul was not thinking in terms of the pagan mystery religions and making Christianity another such, with differences. Neither was he thinking of something mysterious. We have heard people speak of “mystical Christianity” and of “the mystical Body of Christ.” Such terms, we feel, are dangerous, because they open the mental door to mysticism which is false spirituality. Mysticism leads multitudes of people into a wholly false and deceived position as regards Christianity. We want to say here with great emphasis that, contrary to many false definitions of the Letter to the Ephesians, that Letter is in another world altogether from mysticism! It is intensely real and practical, and there are no illusions about it. To use the word “Secret” is to be easily understood, whereas “mystery” suggests to the ordinary mind something remote from comprehension. By “Secret” the simple meaning is that something was not made known, but hidden, or kept in reserve. This will be more fully defined as we go on. In this chapter we are mainly concerned with the fact of the secret, not with the nature of it, which will be the subject of the chapter to follow. As to the fact, by that we mean that it did definitely exist and was ever and in all things the great reality in the mind of God. Indeed, it was implicit, if not explicit, in all the ways and means of God. It was no myth, but a positive reality. It was the hidden meaning of God’s ways, and of the means that He employed. We, to whom the “secret” or “mystery” has now been disclosed, find it very difficult indeed to use the Old Testament without giving that meaning. But to the people of that dispensation, with a few exceptions of partial enlightenment, only the events, the instruments, and the objects were known. They did things and employed things because they were commanded to do so. Their entire system—given by God —was objective, outward. Even where and when there was sincerity, devoutness, reverence, and zeal, it was to an outward form and with outward means. The heart could be in it, and there could be strong conviction that it was right, and yet, withal, true spiritual understanding was absent. That lack of spiritual understanding could—and often did—mean misunderstanding, and that misunderstanding led to hard and even cruel behaviour.

This fact comes out in a glaring way in the days when God’s Son was here in the flesh. It would almost seem that the Spirit of Truth had—among other things —the deliberate intention in inspiring the Gospels to expose this terrible fact that men could be fiercely and utterly committed to the outward and objective things of tradition, ritual, dogmas, etc., and at the same time be utterly remote from their spiritual meaning and value. The Apostle of whom we are speaking just now was formerly one of these people. He said that he ‘verily thought that he ought to do many things contrary to Christ,’ and he did vehemently what he believed his understanding of his Bible demanded. It is just at this point that the Apostle focused his revelation as to the change in the Divine economy from one era to another. This is the significance of his words regarding the mystery being hidden from ages and generations. He knew, and no one knew better than he, the nature and features of that Old Testament economy. It was an economy of externals; ritual, vestments, liturgies, formalities, particular places, e.g. buildings and localities; men dressed differently from other men; names and titles, religious classes, and the thousand-and-one other things which went to make up the religious system; orders, adornments and procedure. It was the system of the visible, tangible, temporal, and palpable. Very wonderful, elaborate, attractive, impressive; the processions of high priests, priests and attendants, with robes, mitres and censers, etc. It was so familiar to Paul in his former life, and it was just the things, beside which there was nothing comparable.

Now, something had happened which made it all a system of shadows without the substance: it had—for him—receded from reality, and it belonged to a past and disposed of childhood. Yes, so he described it in his Letter to the Galatians. For him, any carry-over of that kind of thing was failure in apprehension of God’s mind; failure in “growing up”; failure in spiritual understanding; a clinging to childish things: in a word, contradiction to the very meaning of Christ and the advent of the Holy Spirit. With Paul the revolution was radical and, while he loved the people in that prescribed system, he felt keenly the falsehood of their position. It will be in our next chapter that we shall seek to show what it really was that was hidden from the people of that era and from those who carried the features of that era beyond God’s appointed time into a new and completely different era, even to our own time.

We are at present dealing only with the inclusive fact of the hiddenness. There are one or two matters to which we must refer in particular. One has to do with what was not hidden in that era. This is necessary in order to arrive at the essential “Secret.”

The coming and expectation of the “Messiah”, the “Christ” (the same word in different languages) was certainly no mystery. That “Seed” had been foretold immediately sin entered (Genesis 3:15) and Moses had prophesied the rising of the Prophet (Deut. 18:15). References to the Coming One are many: His birth, His life, His anointing, His sufferings and His glory.

Then there was no secret as to salvation being preached to the Gentiles. That is not an exclusively New Testament truth, nor a part of the Mystery now revealed. The same is true as to the Kingdom of God. That is not made known as a fact for the first time in the New Testament. There are other things also in the New Testament which are quite apparent in the Old.

One other thing needs to be emphasized as not changing with the two eras. It is the basic law of all that relates to God. Some confusion has come into the minds of many in relation to the change from law to grace. When everything has been rightly said as to our being no longer under the Law, but now under grace, the idea has slipped in that the fundamental principle has changed with the dispensations. This is not so. The principle, or law, which is the same in every era is faith. Faith was no less the governing law in the Old Testament than it is in the New; and no more in the New than in the Old. In that age it was not the works by themselves that justified. Neither in Abel, Enoch, Noah, Abraham, nor any other of the army mentioned in Hebrews eleven was it what they did that found the way through to God (although there was a significance in what they actually did), it was faith in God that was virtuous. Works without faith are as ineffective as faith without works. There is no conflict between Paul and James. They are only the two sides to one thing. (Perhaps James was more of a legalist than Paul.) The key to every approval in the Old Testament is “He believed God.” It is so very clear that God placed this law beneath and behind everything. Very big changes exist in the two dispensations, it is true. In the old, God blessed in temporal and material ways. Obey God; be faithful to God’s commands, and blessing will be upon “thy basket and thy store”; your family and your field. Prosperity will be on your labours and there will be facilitation of your success. But underneath all that there was the law of faith. It is unchanging with times and economies. Paul has not been shown a new principle. This has nothing to do with his “revelation” in particular. The “secret” lies beyond that, although his doctrine of justification was admittedly revolutionary and upsetting. He really only made faith in the finished work of Jesus Christ dominant and thereby its closure of an old order of things. Of course, much time and space is required to elucidate Paul’s doctrine of justification, but that he has done for us. We are saying that “the mystery” as revealed to Paul particularly is not a new idea as to the law of faith, although the basis of faith may be literally changed from men’s works to Christ’s finished work. Works themselves do not justify, but the justified man works the works of faith.

It is important and helpful to know that, in the old era, God was not working with a different mind from that which belongs to this present era. His mind is unchanging in its nature and purpose. If His method and means change, His thoughts and object remain the same from eternity to eternity. Because in one era He hides these essential concepts, it does not mean that they are not implicitly in all that He chooses and uses. What comes to light in the subsequent dispensation is not new in the sense of never having been before in the goings of God. It is only what God has been consistently working toward all along. So, when the secret is out, we are able to see it in the ways of God with persons and people and things from the beginning. There are no after- thoughts with God.

“The sovereign rule of heaven is like A TREASURE which A MAN found in a field, and HID it, and in his joy he sold everything that he had, and BOUGHT that field” (Matt. 13:44—Free translation).

Chapter 7 - The Secret Revealed

“...it hath now been revealed unto His holy apostles and prophets in the Spirit”;

“According to the purpose of the ages (R.V. margin) which He purposed in Christ Jesus our Lord” (Eph. 3:5,11).

As we now arrive at the very heart of the whole matter, it is necessary to repeat, firstly, that the Apostle Paul does not claim exclusiveness in the revelation of the long hidden mystery. While he certainly and positively does claim that it was revealed to him in a specific and particular way, and that this revelation constituted him a particular “steward,” and that he was chosen and dealt with by the Lord in a way which especially related to this purpose, yet he includes “His holy apostles and prophets” in the knowledge of the long-hidden, but now unveiled, secret. It is evident that Paul did have a fuller “understanding” and perhaps a unique apprehension of it, but it is not difficult to find at least partial traces of this knowledge in Peter and John, as it was also true in Stephen.

We must also emphasize that Paul’s was not a different Gospel from that preached by the others, and certainly Paul did not have two Gospels, one concerning “Salvation” and the other concerning “The Mystery.” How often have we heard Christians say that they are only interested in “the simple Gospel,” “the Gospel of salvation,” and that they are not interested in “deeper teaching or truth.” Paul would have been both surprised and grieved to hear such language, for his “Gospel” was one, and he would say that the fullest and deepest revelation is the Gospel. There can only be tragic and grievous loss and weakness resulting from failure to see that “the whole counsel of God” is the Gospel. The position so much to be deplored in great numbers of Christians is so largely due to fallacy: the fallacy that it is unwise, if not futile, to give the greatness and immensity of God’s revelation in Christ to either the unsaved or to young Christians. Let them be made aware of the vastness of that to which they are called! A little Christ and a little Christianity will produce little Christians! Some of the best and strongest Christians that we have known came to the Lord in gatherings where the greatness of Christ was being unfolded to Christians, and Christians in responsibility. “Back to the simple Gospel” can be a snare and a sop to those who do not really mean business with God!

At the time of writing this we are in the midst of having work done on our present home. Hammers and drills are making such a noise as to almost deafen. The workmen are explaining, “This house is well built. The bricks are not just put together with ordinary sand cement, but with concrete, and it is very hard work to make a hole.” God’s building is like that, whereas men build—not for eternity—but for the present. But, mark you, it is not just deep teaching that we advocate, but Holy Spirit unveiling of Christ.

That brings us to the message and substance of this letter in particular. Standing before it we find ourselves facing some of the greatest questions and problems with which men have been, and still are, wrestling in the realm of Christianity. This letter answers them, but how few there are who see the answer, and fewer still who—if they glimpse it—are prepared to follow it. In a time of well-nigh worldwide war there have been those countries which have taken no share in the conflict and have missed the honours because “they were not free to participate.” Internal complications, divisions, and commitments bound their hands and made them neutrals. Fear, self-interest, and failure to recognize the great moral interests kept them as “isolationists.” Let us at once affirm that “The Letter to the Ephesians” represents the greatest religious crisis in the history of the world. It tells us that, out from the past eternity has come the revelation of a secret which God had kept hidden from all previous ages. The revelation has introduced and inaugurated a dispensation of greater importance and significance than any age before it. It tells us that for the ministering of this revelation God chose, prepared and appointed an instrument of a particular kind; one formed by God in a particular way. This instrument—Paul—was never ordained or appointed to this work by men, although he was recognized and “sent forth” by the Church. He was never taught or prepared for his work by man. He received everything direct and at first hand from Heaven. He was dealt with by the Lord in a way that wholly corresponded with the purpose for which he was chosen. The Letter which is before us goes to the heart of a matter which has been growingly occupying the most serious consideration of all Christendom and is the matter which is perhaps more to the fore today than any other. It is the matter of very real consequence to all Christians but, unfortunately, it has been lifted above the ordinary person by a highbrow term which is so widely employed. The word or term which has been so much used since about the year 1900 is “Ecumenical,” a word from another language. Of course, something impressive is lost if its simple meaning is employed, which is “worldwide”; and its present instrument is what is known as “The World Council.” This “Council” is laboriously applying itself to discover a solution to the chaos and complications of divisions in Christendom. For centuries the various sections—called “Denominations” or “Churches”—of Christendom have tenaciously held to the position that they were each originated and justified on a basis of Scriptural authority. Every division has made that claim, and finds its strength in that conviction. Now the slogan of the “World Council,” or Ecumenical Movement, is “these man-made divisions” which must be got rid of. For one of its great convocations the subject chosen was “The Order of God and the Disorder of Man.” This was subsequently changed to “Man’s Disorder and God’s Design.” But every attempt to resolve this problem, whether it be in general or even among evangelicals, meets with unsolvable difficulties, and the only recourse is to tolerate or compromise on matters of serious account. So a number of compromises has to be introduced into the programme for unity. The great problem of divisions in Christianity is as hopeless of solving by human recourses as are the many inter-racial problems.

This, then, is the tremendous situation which this Letter deals with and answers. We have already seen that this great spirit of schism had its beginning far back at some dateless point in Heaven, dividing angelic hosts into two irreconcilable camps; later it involved the earth and has had a long, long history, gaining momentum in ever multiplying and intensifying wars. Then it invaded Christianity and the entail is grievous indeed. So, it is no small thing that this Letter deals with and to which it gives the answer.

We have also seen that the heart of this whole matter is reached and touched by one phrase which sums up the purpose of God at the end. That phrase is: “Unto a dispensation of the fulness of the times, to sum up (reunite) all things in Christ, the things in the heavens, and the things upon the earth; in Him, I say...” (Eph. 1:10). But, while we may embrace that as the end, beyond this age, our concern is for this age. Is there no way or hope for at least an approximation to that now? The Letter would surely leave us in our dilemma if it only pointed to a future age and had no answer to the present tragedy. But it has the answer. This answer is given by several means and ways. Perhaps the simplest, most direct, and most helpful way will be to let Paul himself be the answer. Seeing that the Apostle makes such strong and categorical claims as to his own personal revelation, it will be best to examine that revelation, and what it did in this man’s life. We noted at the end of chapter four that the personal name of Jesus Christ is mentioned some forty times in this short letter, plus all the pronouns “He,” “Him,” “His,” “Whom.” This, in itself, is the strong clue. In his Letter to the Galatians Paul made the statement in these words:

“An apostle (not from men, neither through man, but through Jesus Christ, and God the Father...)”;

“Neither did I receive it from man... but through revelation of Jesus Christ”;

“It was the good pleasure of God... to reveal His Son in me” (Gal. 1:1,12,15,16).

In the Letter to the Ephesians which is our present consideration the Apostle makes much of revelation; indeed, he bases all the “full knowledge” upon a “spirit of wisdom and revelation.” Very well, then; the answer to this great question which is before us and which is the occasion of all this feverish discussion and deliberation in Christendom is found in the revelation and apprehension of God’s Son. It is wholly a question as to whether or not God’s Son has been really seen by an operation of the Holy Spirit.

The kind of seeing to which we refer is an epoch, an encounter, a revelation, a crisis. There is no power on this earth which could have changed that rabid, fanatical, bigoted Saul of Tarsus, a “Pharisee of the Pharisees,” into “the apostle of the Gentiles” (Rom. 11:13; A.V.); the fierce and intolerant persecutor and destroyer of everything and everybody related to Jesus of Nazareth into His greatest friend, advocate and devotee! Argument would not have done it. Neither persuasion nor persecution nor martyrdom would have effected it. But it was done! That “conversion” stood the test of all the persecutions, sufferings, and adversities possible to man for the rest of his life. Moreover, it provided the substance of the greatest of all apostolic ministries; so intrinsic as to have extended and exhausted all efforts, through many centuries, to fathom, explain and comprehend. What did it? Paul would answer, “It pleased God... to reveal His Son in me”; or, in other words, “I have seen Jesus Christ.”

Right at the foundation and root of this man’s life was a “seeing” which split his life in two and emancipated him from the tightly bound fetters of a mighty tradition. He said, ‘The God of the great creative fiat Who said Let light be, and there was light, shined into my heart, and in that act and light I saw the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ’ (2 Cor. 4:6). In that face Paul saw God’s eternal purpose as to man. He saw God’s method of realizing His purpose. He saw the vast significance of God’s Son in creation and in the universe: and he saw—in that One—the Church as His Body.

We cannot make too much of this matter of revelation, illumination, seeing. It is basic in salvation (Acts 26:18). It is essential to effective ministry (2 Cor. 4:6) and it is indispensable to full knowledge and full growth (Eph. 1:17). Jesus made a tremendous amount of spiritual seeing, as a reading of John’s Gospel will show. “Eyes” were—in His teaching—a criterion of life or death. Indeed, a fundamental and pre-eminent work of the Holy Spirit has to do with spiritual enlightenment and that supremely as to the significance of God’s Son, Jesus Christ. It is all in the Scriptures, but still our eyes may be holden. Let us be quite categorical in stating that we can never see the Church until we have seen the Son of God, and we cannot truly see the Son of God without seeing the Church. This is the point in the incident at Caesarea Philippi (Matthew 16:16–18). Leave all your debate of whether Peter is the Rock on which the Church is built and light on the real key to what Jesus said: “Flesh and blood hath not revealed it unto thee, but My Father which is in heaven.” ‘My Father in heaven revealed it’; revealed what? “Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God.” What then? “Upon this rock I will build My church; and the gates of Hades shall not prevail against it.” Can anything built upon Peter, even converted Peter, withstand the power of hell or death? It is Who Jesus Christ is, revealed from heaven, that is foundational to the Church, and “other foundation can no man lay” (1 Cor. 3:11).

“Ephesians” is tremendously contemporary, that is, up-to-date. In our time it is customary, practically instinctively, for Christians meeting for the first time to ask, or be asked, “what denomination, or mission, or society do you belong to?” Some such question is almost inevitable. The “Church”(?) is designated by a national, a doctrinal, a colour, a “State,” a “Free,” a personal name (e.g. Wesley, Luther, Calvin, Mennonite, etc., etc.) title. If the Apostle Paul were to step into Christendom today and be asked such a question as to “association,” membership, he would open his eyes wide and look with pained astonishment and say, “Oh, brother, I have seen Jesus, the Son of God, and in seeing Him I have seen the Church, and in that only true Church there is not this mix-up of nationalities, colours, names, social or cultural differences and distinctions.” “In Christ Jesus... there can be neither Greek nor Jew, there can be neither bond nor free, there can be no male and female; for ye are all one man in Christ Jesus” (Gal. 3:28). “...where there cannot be Greek and Jew, circumcision and uncircumcision, barbarian, Scythian, bondman, freeman; but Christ is all, and in all” (Col. 3:11). He would add, “there cannot be Paul, Apollos, Cephas, or any other name.” The very least that such a seeing of Christ would do would be to revolutionize our phraseology, our manner of speaking.

A little incident might be to the point here. The writer heard it told by a well-known servant of God. In one of the southern states of America in the 1960's the street cars were divided for “Coloured” and “White” travellers, and the rule of separation was strict. A car was about to start from the stopping-point and the “coloured” section was quite full. The “white” also was full, but for one place. That place was next to a well-dressed and apparently well-to-do lady. An old, feeble and very poor coloured man hobbled to the car and begged the conductor to let him on because his son was seriously ill and he must get to him quickly. The conductor pushed the old man away, saying there was no room. The old man begged again to be allowed on, and was hardly treated by the conductor. The lady turned to the conductor and said, “Let him come and have this seat by me.” The conductor objected, saying that it was against the law. But the lady insisted and enforced her wish. When the old man got off, another woman said indignantly to the lady, “Why did you allow that black man to come into our section?” The lady answered, “I am a servant of Jesus Christ, and my Master is colour-blind.” A simple and touching story, but a profound exposition of the New Testament doctrine of The Body of Christ.

Paul’s revelation of Christ is “there cannot be....” Not, “all these are in the Body as what they are on this earth.” Given that all are truly born again and “baptized in one Spirit into one body,” there is the foundation for gathering above the very real problems of the natural. Of course, there really is no other true Church. We remind you again of the very great place that Christ holds in Paul’s very being and in his Letters, and, of course, this will determine everything.

How many things to which we give such importance would lose that importance and just recede from a first, or even secondary, place if truly we saw the Lord! What change in manner of speech and conduct would just happen without effort if we truly saw Him in the Spirit! Costly, yes costly. All true light costs. So the man in John nine found, but ask him whether he would exchange his new sight for the old acceptance. Read again Paul’s evaluation of his revelation of Christ in Philippians 3.

But let us insist and stress very strongly that, although Christ in all His fulness has been revealed and presented in the New Testament, that same New Testament makes it very clear that, through the Word and by the Holy Spirit, that objective presentation has to have a subjective counterpart in the heart—the spirit—of the believer. It will tell us that it was for this purpose that the Holy Spirit came; for this very purpose we have the indwelling Spirit. Paul earnestly prayed for already well-taught believers that they might be given a spirit of revelation in the full knowledge of Christ. This open-heaven endowment and given spiritual faculty is meant for all believers. But remember, the demand is for an absolutely pure and honest spirit and a preparedness to accept and go through with all that is involved. Here, the Cross, that is, Christ crucified, in its deepest application to self-interest in every form is the Rock of Offence, or the Chief Corner Stone; stumbling and falling or building and rising. Any pride, prejudice, or reserve will find us out sooner or later in that we shall have been side-tracked from the fullest intention of God in calling us. It will be a tragedy if, in the end, we are found to be in a “backwater,” a cul-de-sac; perhaps snug and free from all the stresses of the battle, but—from heaven’s standpoint—out! Such a possibility was an ever-present dread of Paul. “Lest, having heralded to others, I myself should be rejected;” and there is much more like that. “If by any means...,” he says.

We must return to the great matter of the “Mystery,” for there are things related thereto in our Letter which need clarifying. In all his Letters Paul uses this word some twenty times.

1. The mystery (secret) of the blindness which has happened to Israel. Rom. 11:25.

2. The mystery of the wisdom of God. 1 Cor. 2:7.

3. The mysteries of God. 1 Cor. 4:1.

4. The mysteries in speaking in tongues. 1 Cor. 14:2.

5. The mystery of the Rapture and change of body. 1 Cor. 15:51.

6. "The mystery of His will." Eph. 1:9.

7. The mystery made known to Paul. Eph. 3:3,4.

8. The fellowship of the mystery. Eph. 3:9.

9. The mystery of the union between Christ and the Church. Eph. 5:32.

10. The mystery of the Gospel. Eph. 6:19.

11. The mystery which hath been hid. Col. 1:26.

12. The mystery of Christ within or in the midst. Col. 1:27.

13. The mystery of God—Christ. Col. 2:2; 4:3.

14. The mystery of iniquity. 2 Thess. 2:7.

15. The mystery of the faith. 1 Tim. 3:9.

16. The mystery of Godliness. 1 Tim. 3:16.

(Some of the above are duplicated.)

It looks as though there are many mysteries, but if we look again we shall find that, at least in the majority of cases, the mystery relates—in some way—to Christ and the Church. There are very few exceptions to this, and when it comes to Paul’s particular conception it is not in the plural, but “The mystery,” and invariably it is connected with Christ personal and Christ corporate.

The next thing that we must take account of in this connection is Paul’s particular viewpoint. It is from above. Five times in this Letter to the Ephesians he uses the phrase “in the heavenlies” (1:3,20; 2:6; 3:10; 6:12) and in that form it is found nowhere else. This is one of the most difficult of Paul’s phrases for any of us to understand. We are not altogether helped by other phrases referring to heaven, such as “every knee should bow, of things in heaven...” (Phil. 2:10). The translation “in the heavenly places” is not too fortunate. But let us look at the various references.

1. The present realm and nature of the believer’s blessings is in the heavenlies. 1:3.

2. Christ is now seated in the heavenlies “above all rule, and authority, and power, and dominion, and every name...” 1:20,21.

3. The position of Christ is said to be that also of the Church. 2:6.

4. There are principalities and powers in the heavenlies which are having made known unto them, through the Church, the manifold wisdom of God. 3:10.

5. The warfare of the Church is not now in the realm of flesh and blood, but in the heavenlies with principalities and powers, etc. 6:12.

Very well, then, what have we? Just this: there is a realm or sphere above and around the material, the sense and tangible realm, where spiritual interests are supreme, where rival spiritual activities go on. Great forces are at work in that realm, and they have a constitution, system or organization suitable to this purpose. It is a divided realm between celestial and demonic principalities. On the one side there is both interest in and co-operation with Christ’s interests in the Church. On the other side there is not only bitter and relentless hostility to those interests, but an impact upon this world, “this darkness,” which is intended to destroy both the people and the earth as the inheritance of God’s Son. We know that natural elements above the earth have a powerful influence upon the physical life here. In the same way there are spiritual intelligences and forces which exert a tremendous influence upon the moral and spiritual life in this world. It is in this realm that Paul sees several things belonging to “the Mystery.” One, that, amidst the strife, confusion and all that seems to the contrary, God is working out a “Purpose” which, because He is absolute Lord, will not just have to contend with adverse forces, but will both show His superiority and make the adverse forces serve the furtherance of that Purpose. This is the long view and the above view of the heavenlies.

Then, because Christ risen and exalted is “seated at God’s right hand,” He is in that position representatively and inclusively of the Church. The Church, therefore, is “seated together with Him in the heavenlies”; that is, in the present and ultimate good of His sovereignty.

Further, the blessings of believers are now, not as under the old economy, temporal, material, sentient, but “spiritual.” “The riches of His grace”; “the riches of His inheritance”; “the riches of His glory”; “the unsearchable riches of Christ,” etc.—these are all phrases in “Ephesians.” These blessings are for a Church and its members who have—through union with Christ in His death and resurrection—been spiritually delivered and emancipated from “this present evil world” as the sphere of their natural life, ambition and resource, and whose hearts are “set on things above” (Col. 3:1–3). If you have really come into the good of such “riches,” then you have proportionately come into the heavenlies. While we are right in mentally conceiving of “the heavenlies” as being a realm, we must not confine the idea to geography. Like “the Kingdom of Heaven,” it is a sphere or realm in which spiritual factors, principles or laws and conditions obtain and take pre-eminence. That is why we used the word “proportionately.” Geographically we are, or we are not, in a realm, a country; but spiritually we can be more or less in the nature, character and good of that realm. It is not a matter of definition of terms, but of spiritual accord, harmony, adjustment, agreement. In a time of great blessing we can just say, “It was as though we were in heaven.” It is a spiritual position in oneness with spiritual realities. While it seems so difficult to explain, it is really only the fact and development of that which every truly born-again believer knows without explanation; namely, that something has happened by that new birth which has changed their consciousness of belonging and gravitation, so that a break has taken place in them with one realm and what belongs to it, and a union has come about with an entirely new realm and its content. They sense that they belong somewhere else and that there is a spirit in them which gravitates there and to those things. The New Testament has all the language and words for this, but it is the inward awareness that is the ground of learning the meaning. The development of that “law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus” (Rom. 8:2) by discipline—maybe trial and error—or triumph, is the way of the “transforming by the renewing (making anew) of the mind” (Rom. 12:2). It is the Church’s and the believer’s normal course.

But we have not yet brought the present aspect of Paul’s revelation into sufficiently clear relief. So as not to overload this chapter we will divide it, and continue in a separate one.

Chapter 8 - The "Mystery" Revealed

In the wonder and amazement of this unveiling we must be clear as to its exact nature and meaning. To do this we must put our finger upon key phrases which precisely embody and define it. We have found the statement which gives the ultimate and consummate issue: it is in Ephesians 1:10. Can we find in that same Letter a phrase which brings that end into history, that is, the operation leading to that end? I think that we can. It is a fragment in the section marked as verses 13 to 22 of chapter 2: “one new man.” That whole section is an enlargement of that fragment and it should be carefully read as such. There have been hints of this in other Letters of Paul, but here he gathers all together, and not only so but—as we should expect if his mind was ranging the “ages” and the secret hidden in them—the whole Bible is comprehended.

As to other hints, we have such classic and impressive instances as Romans 5:12-19. Here the two generic and racial heads are set over against one another—the “one man” Adam, and the “one man” Christ; and the context shows the significance of each. Another tremendous instance is set in that chapter of amazing enlightenment, 1 Corinthians 15. It is at verse 45: “The first man Adam became a living soul. The last Adam became a life-giving spirit” (see the immediate context). In “Ephesians” the Apostle first refers to the personal Christ, and then proceeds to the corporate “one new man.” In an earlier passage both of these aspects have been mentioned: 1 Corinthians 12. In verse 3 “Jesus” and “Jesus is Lord” is personally mentioned; in verse 12 the phrase “so also is the Christ” (the article is in the original) makes the members and the Head identical for the practical purpose of expression (context): “Now ye are the body of Christ” (verse 27). The uniting is by the “One Spirit” on Head and members.

It is in “Ephesians” that this “One new man” is revealed fully. If this is “the mystery hid from ages and generations,” although existent all the time, we can now see, in the light of “the making known,” how this has been the governing concept all through the Bible, that is, Manhood according to Christ.

At the beginning God said, “Let us make man”— MAN. The Psalmist cried, “What is man?”—MAN? In the Incarnation Christ’s favourite designation of Himself was “Son of Man.” In redemption there is “one mediator also between God and men, Himself Man” (1 Tim. 2:5). In reconstitution there is the Pattern “Second Man” (1 Cor. 15:47). In exaltation and glory the Psalmist’s question is answered in Jesus: “What is man?” (Psalm 8:4; Heb. 2:6). In consummation there is “One new man”—Man. There are foreshadowings in the Old Testament. Adam was “a figure of Him that was to come” (Rom. 5:14). “The man Moses” (Num. 12:3). David was “a man after God’s heart” (Acts 13:22). These are only instances taken from many, and their character or function bears respectively features of Christ.

So, over all the Bible history, there is the shadow of a Man, both individually and corporately. The Divine concept of MAN governs all God’s ways: in creation, Incarnation, mediation; in the Cross as setting aside one type of man to make way for another; in the resurrection as the New Man—the “firstborn from the dead”— accredited; in the exaltation of Jesus as the New Man instated; in the coming again of “The Son of Man” to remove the remnants of Christ-rejecting humanity and establishing the new order; in the Church in terms of corporate manhood, the vessel and vehicle of Christ’s completeness and manifestation. All this is what Paul saw in “the face of Jesus.”

The Church itself is not the “Mystery” revealed to Paul, but the Church as the Body of Christ—The One New Man—in which all distinctions other than Christ are non-existent; this was the revelation. It had to be a revelation from heaven for such a rabid, committed, fanatical Jew, with all his ancestry, descent, “birth,” tradition, training and “blood” to come genuinely to the place where he could say with conviction ‘where there is neither Greek nor Jew, etc.; where all walls of partition are broken down; where there is neither circumcision nor uncircumcision; where there are no “children” and “dogs,” but “all are one in Christ Jesus” (Greek: “One person in Christ Jesus”—the gender is masculine).

How very much of the New Testament is illuminated in the light of this “New Man” concept! Indeed, it covers all of the meaning of true Christianity. It gives the real meaning to the new birth (John 3). It explains the Person and character and work of Christ. It is what the Apostle meant when he said, “If any man is in Christ, there is a new creation” (2 Cor. 5:17; R.V. margin). And it explains those consummate words in Romans eight and verse twenty-nine: “...foreordained to be conformed to the image of His Son;” and Ephesians one and verse five: “...foreordained unto adoption as sons through Jesus Christ.” All this and much more indicates what is the specific purpose, work and nature of this present dispensation. The work in the “groaning creation” is with a view to “the manifestation of the sons of God” (Rom. 8:19–23).

Comprehensively, the Spirit of God Who ‘brooded upon the face of the waters’ (Gen. 1:2) is now at work upon a “new creation in Christ.” But with a profound and significant difference. In the old creation everything began and proceeded from the outside toward the centre—Man. In the new creation everything begins and proceeds from the inside, and the “outer man,” the body, is the final phase of redemption and new creation: “The redemption of our body” (Rom. 8:23; 1 Cor. 15, etc.).

The work of the Spirit of God has four aspects in this dispensation.

1. The securing of the new man. This is the evangelizing and apprehending of the individuals. In evangelism the ultimate purpose should ever be kept in mind, otherwise there will be weakness in the “converts” due to an inadequate motive.

2. Through the securing, the rebuilding of the new man. In the old creation God built up the man—“formed out of the dust of the earth.” (“The first... is of the earth, earthy”—1 Cor. 15:47). In the new creation God begins with the spirit of man, proceeds to the soul and completes with the body. Everything in the new creation is basically and essentially spiritual. See 1 Corinthians 2. The “inward man” is the renewed —born anew—spirit of man, to be “renewed day by day.” Here enters all the teaching on the Holy Spirit and the believer’s life in the Spirit, as having been “born of the Spirit,” and “is spirit” (John 3:6).

3. Then follows all the discipline, training and growth of the new man. The Spirit of God works to a Pattern—“the image of His Son”; “until Christ be (fully) formed in you” (Gal. 4:19); “God dealeth with you as with sons” (Heb. 12:7). It is a long and hard transition from the “old man” to the “new,” but the end governs all God’s dealings and ways with His own, namely the “image” or “likeness” which was the primal concept in man’s creation. “Let Us make man in Our image, after Our likeness” (Gen. 1:26); “I shall be satisfied, when I awake, with Thy likeness” (Ps. 17:15).

4. Then, finally and fully, the Spirit of God is working to constitute the “one new man,” Christ corporately expressed; “the body of Christ,” “the fulness (complement) of Him”; “the measure of the stature of Christ,” “the fullgrown man.”

All this comes out at last in full and clear revelation in that Letter of finality, “Ephesians.” It is the Man concept from eternity to eternity, and that concept has, like a shadow, been over all God’s history with man and man’s history with God. Hidden from their eyes in all the strange, inexplicable and mysterious ways of God in individual men of faith and a peculiar people and nation, it has now been revealed to the sons of men, in Christ, that

“God having foreseen some better thing concerning us... apart from us they should not be made perfect (complete)” (Heb. 11:40).

Chapter 9 - The Church Local

It is of considerable importance to note that, although the “Letter to the Ephesians” is a majestic presentation of the Church in its entirety, ranging every dimension of the eternities and realms and ages and setting forth the profound councils of God, the Letter was sent to local churches. This fact has some very challenging and searching implications. We must remind our readers that there is such a thing as a positive and definite revelation of what the Church is and therefore of the basis of its unity. It may be something to take note of that there is such a worldwide concern for and activity in relation to the unity of Christians, and such concern should find us in full heart sympathy with it. The big difference is between a massive effort on the one hand to solve the problem from the outside by trying to stick all the broken pieces together and in some way make them fit, and on the other hand a concern to recover the spiritual power which will make for a spontaneous coming and fitting together. The one is the organized, composite collection and assemblage, as of a machine; the other is the organic, spontaneous relationship of a corporate life. The former will come unstuck repeatedly. The latter will eventually emerge “a glorious Church, not having spot or wrinkle or any such thing.”

But what about the Church as locally represented? We must remember that when Paul wrote this Letter and sent it to the churches in localities, he was very well aware of the trends, or even the actual movements toward “departure” and breakdown in the churches. He had foretold it as to Ephesus when he left the elders of that church near the ship on his way to Jerusalem: “I know that after my departing grievous wolves shall enter in among you... and from among your own selves shall men arise... to draw away... after them” (Acts 20:29,30). That was incipient division. But here from his prison in Rome he will write, “all that are in Asia (in Asia) turned away from me.”

Two Letters will soon be written to Timothy (who was probably in Ephesus) which will deal with the beginnings of the change from primal Christianity to all that it has become now. They were intended to warn against the ecclesiasticism, clericalism, ritualism, sacramentalism, etc., which have invaded the Church and changed its primitive character. No, Paul’s head was not in the clouds and his feet off the earth when he deliberately wrote this Letter as to what the Church is. No doubt his reference to the spiritual warfare was because he knew so well that the battle was on in particular relationship with this very matter, showing of how great a consequence it is to the Satanic forces. It is impressive how any stand for a true expression of the Body of Christ is fraught with more conflict than anything else. If it is a congregation, that is, a number of individual Christians resorting to a given place for “Public Worship,” without any corporate Church life and order; or if it is a Mission Hall mainly for preaching the Gospel to the unsaved; or, again, if it is a preaching centre where people go to hear a well-known preacher—all these will go on in the quiet way with little opposition from within or without. But, let there be a movement in the direction of a real corporate expression of a Holy Spirit constituted testimony to Christ corporate, then the battle is on and nothing will be untried to break that up, discredit it, or in some way nullify that testimony.

The Book of Nehemiah is a very good illustration of this many-sided hostility. Again we point to “Ephesians” as relating vicious spiritual antagonism to the essential purpose of the Letter. In this first particular, the universal is transferred to the local, and the local takes character from the universal. A true representation of the elect Body of Christ is a standing menace and ominous sign to the Satanic Kingdom because it is the Church which—at last—is going to dispossess and supplant the “world-rulers of this darkness” and govern with Christ. Would to God that God’s people would view all their divisions and internal troubles in this light, instead of always attributing them to “second causes!” This is the first implication in Paul’s passing to local churches the whole immense revelation of “The Mystery.” There are several other features and factors in this Letter which carry such tremendous significances. There is that factor which the Apostle mentions with one of his superlatives. “The exceeding greatness of His power to usward who believe, according to that working of the strength of His might which He wrought in Christ, when He raised Him from the dead...” (1:19). “And you did He quicken, when ye were dead” (2:1). The church locally represented should be and should embody the testimony to “the power of His resurrection.” It should, in its history and constant experience—as more than doctrine— declare that Christ is risen.

The impression primarily given should be one of livingness. The testimony should be that, although you may be jaded, weary, too tired even to make the journey; disheartened and despondent; physically, mentally and spiritually drained—you come away renewed, refreshed, reinvigorated and lifted up. The activity of Divine life has just resulted in a spiritual uplift. Note the way in which that has been said: “the activity of Divine life.” We have not said: “the life of human activity.” There is an illusion or delusion in much Christianity and in many “churches” that activity is essentially spiritual life. Hence, stunts, programmes, attractions, “special efforts,” and an endless circle of “specials.” All this is too often with a view to giving the impression of life, or even creating or stimulating “life.” It may be the life of works, and not the works of life. Life will work, but works are not always life. That was the indictment of the church at Ephesus: “I know thy works... but...” (Rev. 2:2). Divine life is spontaneous and not forced. The dead (spiritually) are raised, and not by artificial means. The Lord of the Church is the risen Lord, and His attestation is resurrection life. So “the power of His resurrection” should be the hallmark of a truly New Testament church. So often we quote our Lord’s own words, almost as a formula: “Where two or three are gathered together in My name, there am I.” At the same time the atmosphere may be heavy, uninspiring and devoid of a ministration of Divine life. Is this really consistent with the presence of the risen Lord?

We proceed with the implications of this Letter. If the church local is a true microcosm of the Church universal, then this Letter will show us that in the local representation there should—and can—be abundance of wholesome and upbuilding food. Our Letter has fed and stimulated believers through many centuries, and still the food-values are unexhausted. The ministry in a true local expression of the Body of Christ should be an anointed ministry, and because it is such, no hungry soul should ever go away unfed. Not just studied and ‘got up’ addresses or discourses, but a message from heaven making it possible for people to say, “we have been truly fed today.” This means that the Lord’s people, being nourished, are growing in spiritual stature, capacity, and responsibility. Not just increasing in mental knowledge or doctrine, but really knowing the Lord. The criterion of a church’s value is the measure of Christ Himself in His members. This is not mere idealism, it is the normal state of a truly Holy Spirit constituted church in any place. Paul’s use of the word “riches” in this Letter indicates how spiritually wealthy any company of the Lord’s people should be.

We have earlier shown that the man behind the Letter is, in his spiritual history, identical with his message. We shall now seek to show that, in several respects, the history of the Church, universal and local, should follow that spiritual history of the Apostle.

1. The church in any locality should be born out of heaven. It is the aggregate or corporate fellowship of born-from-above believers. What, then, is to be true of every individual believer must be true of the corporate company. That goes right to the very root of the Church conception, and it will be as well if we settle it here and now that, in the Scriptures, no other such thing is known or recognized as having a right to that name—Christian Church. That will sift our consideration down from an immense amount that takes the name but is not the true thing. Christendom or Christianity has become a colossus of a thing which is the home of every kind of bird in creation. To try to make a unity of such is a trick of him whose “fowls of the air” they are; naturally, some better, some worse, but far from all born again or from above (John 3:5–13). This just means that every local company of believers, right at its beginning as such, should be something done by the sovereign Holy Spirit. Inasmuch as the Church takes its character from its “Head,” its “Firstborn,” its “Chief Cornerstone,” the “Foundation,” it must in every representation have its origin in heaven and embody the life of heaven. That means that formation by man’s action is ruled out. It is not an “institution,” it springs out of life. It should be possible to say of any local church—or the Church in any locality—“That was an act of God.” Mark you, we are seeking to get right to the root of this matter of what the Church is, and what it is not. The former is our real concern. Study what—in the Gospels—Jesus said about Himself and about men, and you have the key to what the Church really is.

2. That leads to the next thing as to the “local church.” If the Church was born of the Holy Spirit, it was born out of the travail of God’s Son; then the law of travail must lie right at the origin of any true representation of both. In the New Testament the Church universal and the churches local came out of real travail. The travail, agony, and pain of Christ gave birth to the Church at Pentecost. Those who were its nucleus were baptized into His passion. They suffered the breaking of their souls when Jesus died. Hence their ecstatic joy when He rose again. John 16:21,22 was literally fulfilled in their case. That needs no enlarging upon. But what of the churches? Can we put our finger upon a New Testament church which was not born out of and into suffering? Immediately such a church was in view the battle for its very life, its very existence, began. Stonings, imprisonments, lashes, chasings, intrigues, slanders, persecutions of every kind lay at the emergence of every such potential representation of Christ corporately. Someone had to pay a price and the churches were the price of blood and tears. When power is lost, perhaps through neglect, foolishness, strife, division, formalism, or the loss of the sense of the value of the truth, or for any other reason, the only way of recovery will be that of a fresh baptism into sorrow, remorse, tears and travail. This is surely the right interpretation of the Second Letter to the Corinthians after the First. This also surely is the key to the situation in most of the churches in Revelation 2-3. It is definitely implied in the case of Laodicea. A church which does not suffer for its life is, by all the laws of nature and grace, a weak and ineffective church.

3. Still pursuing the line of Paul’s history and the Church, we have to say that a local expression of the Church—and all its members—must be the result of an encounter with God in Christ. Any corporate or personal ministry which is to be as fruitful as was Paul’s, even in a more limited degree, must have such an encounter at its beginning. The Cross and the Resurrection of Christ were such for the nucleus, the representative company. The Cross was devastating and desolating to all the self-sufficiency, self-assurance, self-confidence, pride, ambition, and presumption of man. The Resurrection was the invasion and taking over of the life of Another. This is so clearly seen in the case of the man who, more than any other, represented that nucleus, namely Simon Peter. He was a man broken and shattered by the Cross, but reconstituted on another basis by the Resurrection. As to the great unveiling of the “Mystery” of Christ and His Body—the Church—Paul’s devastation and very survival was by this encounter on the road to Damascus. Such an encounter, sooner or later, personal and collective, must lie at the foundation of a true corporate life. It may be at the beginning or it may be later. It may be a recovery necessary after failure. Many a church, and many a servant of God, has had history cut in two by such an encounter. Before it, an ordinary, limited and comparatively powerless ministry. After it, a release and enlargement, with much spiritual fruitfulness. A little book published by the Moody Press, Chicago, called Crises Experiences in the Lives of Noted Christians is an example of this in a number of instances.

4. If the Church universal is above all earthly differences, then the local church ought to be super-national, super-denominational, super-interdenominational, in spirit, fellowship, and outreach. We have often said that Christ cannot be confined or fitted exclusively to any category that is of this world. His temperament overlaps all the categories. His nationality, time, teaching and person suit and meet the need of all, but He cannot be the sole property of any. We have seen works of man’s artistic imagination purporting to depict the great scene in Revelation five: “And the number of them was ten thousand times ten thousand, and thousands of thousands.” In the artist’s portrayal, with all the good meaning in the world, the artist painted in people of every nation, colour, physique, dress, complexion, age and stature. Well, as we have said, the motive and intention was good, but who can describe resurrection bodies? “Fashioned like unto His glorious body” (Phil. 3:21, A.V.); “It is raised a spiritual body” (1 Cor. 15:44). We can be quite sure that everything that has come in as the result of man’s failure, causing estrangement and what is ‘foreign,’ will be gone for ever.

The point is that if Christ and what is of Him by the Holy Spirit is the constitution of the Church, then our meeting, our fellowship, our communion must be on the ground of that which is of Christ in all believers. We are referring to the basic life of all true Christians. When it comes to the work of the Lord, there may be things which we cannot accept, while we still hold to the ground of one life. This is surely the meaning of the Lord’s Table. In “Ephesians” Paul sees only one Church, while he knows all about the many churches. There may be a million loaves and cups and tables in true evangelical Christianity in every nation under heaven. But the Lord only sees one loaf and one cup. Even when the local loaf is broken and “divided among yourselves,” the Lord still only sees one loaf. Christ can be shared but not divided; He remains one Christ in “ten thousand times ten thousand” believers who share His life. When the Lord does something in us and thereby changes our mind about former acceptances, the temptation and battle can so easily be to become separate in spirit from those who —as yet—have not been so changed, and then the almost incorrigible inclination sets in to make a “sect” of that particular complexion or experience. While there may be real values and vital values in God’s dealings with us which we strongly desire all others to know and experience, we must never make our experience a wall between us and all true children of God. The only way of hope and prospect is to shut our eyes to much that may offend our spiritual sensibilities (providing it is not sinfulness in the life) and to get on with the positive course of as much fellowship in Christ as is possible by the grace of God, always avoiding like the plague any attitude or talk which can be justifiably interpreted as spiritual superiority. Misunderstandings because of ignorance, prejudice or insufficient investigation are inevitable, but even such must not be allowed to close our hearts and turn us in on ourselves. While the wall of the New Jerusalem does mean a definite limit to and demarcation of what is “within” and what is “without” as to Christ, we must remember that it is “twelve thousand furlongs” in every direction, which symbolism is intended to signify how great Christ is and, therefore, how great His Church is.

When Paul set himself to write the First Letter to the Corinthians, he knew that he was going to deal with the partisan and sectarian spirit. He therefore opened the Letter with the true ground and range of Christian fellowship: “Sanctified in Christ Jesus, called saints, with all that call upon the name of our Lord Jesus Christ in every place, their Lord and ours.” In this same dimension he closed the Letter to the “Ephesians”: “Grace be with all them that love our Lord Jesus Christ in uncorruptness.”

5. If it is true, as we have been trying to show, that Paul’s history embodied the principles of the revelation that became his “Stewardship,” one further feature of that history must be noted and taken up in the church local. That is, an overmastering apprehension of Christ. “I was apprehended by Christ Jesus” (Phil. 3:12). The word “apprehended” is a strong word. It means to be arrested, overpowered, appropriated and brought under control. It is the word used in John 1:5 regarding light and darkness: “And the darkness overcame (apprehended) it (the light) not.” It is also used in relation to the power of demons in possession. As the outcome of this apprehending, Paul always spoke of himself as “the prisoner of Jesus Christ” and “the bond-slave of Jesus Christ” and as ‘bearing branded in his body the marks of Jesus.’ This experience, born of an event, meant for Paul the loss of all independence, self-direction, self-government, and the rule of the world. It meant the absolute Lordship of Christ. Here was a man who had one overmastering concern for Jesus Christ. Not for a this or a that, but for a Person. His first ejaculation on the encounter was “Who art Thou, Lord?”, and in capitulation he followed up with “What shall I do, Lord?” That Lordship was no mere doctrine to him, it was a complete mastery. Very personal; for of the many double calls in an encounter with God,—such as “Abraham, Abraham!” “Jacob, Jacob!” “Moses, Moses!” “Samuel, Samuel!” “Martha, Martha!” “Simon, Simon!”—the last was by no means the least: “Saul, Saul!” Such a real sense of being called with a purpose must be a constituent of and in any true local church. To lose the sense of vital vocation, purpose and destiny is to lose dynamic and to become an existence rather than an impact.

Chapter 10 - The All-Inclusive Goal

“Till we all attain unto... the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ” (Ephesians 4:13).

Everything before this and after it in this Letter has its focus upon this clause. Do you ask, “What is this whole Letter about?” The answer is in four words: “The Fulness of Christ.” The two usages of this word “Fulness” by the Apostle in this Letter not only sum up the whole Letter, but present the most wonderful and remarkable thing in this wonderful document and, indeed, the most wonderful thing in the Bible. In chapter 1, verse 23, the astounding statement is that the Church, which is the Body of Christ, is “the fulness of Him That filleth all in all.” That seems clearly to mean that Christ can no more be full as Head without His body to make Him complete: that He needs and depends upon His body for His self-realization and self-expression. Closer still: He “filleth all in all” and yet requires His body in order to fulfill His filling. The body is the fulness, the completing of Him. In 4:13 the finality of that truth is pushed along a line to a future climax. “Till we all attain” is linked with a vari-sided provision of functions. We are informed that, on His return to heaven—“When He ascended on high” —the Lord Jesus forthwith “gave gifts unto men.” These were personal gifts, or gifts as persons, and they were men taken captive by Him. But these men were the expression of various functions: ‘Apostles, Prophets, Evangelists, Pastors and Teachers’— different functions, each one given “grace according to the measure of their gift,” but all together bound and energized by one object. The Apostle—inclusive; the other three (Pastors and Teachers being one function) making up one interrelated and interdependent ministry. These are not different “Schools” or categories working apart, but only different aspects or functions of one body. There has to be mutual recognition, mutual evaluation and mutual co-operation. The separating of these functions can only result in an unbalanced condition, and lack of balance always results in weakness and loss. To give an unbalanced emphasis to evangelism is only to have immature Christians. To give out-of-proportion weight to teaching may result in the introversion which is divorced from objective concern for men’s salvation.

In a local assembly, constituted by the Holy Spirit, for its full-growth, all of these functions should be present. Those who minister should know what their particular gift, grace and anointing is; and the assembly also ought to know it. Things are thrown into confusion when there is a trying to be and do what the anointing is not meant for. What pathetic, and even tragic, situations come about when men try to be that for which they are not anointed! A leader must be obviously anointed for that function, and the anointing must be accepted and acknowledged. The same must be true of all other parts of the one ministry. But each personal gift must—and this is absolutely imperative—must keep the one inclusive goal in view, and definitely contribute to it—“The fulness of Christ,” because it is a “measure of the gift of Christ.” The question may arise as to knowing what our particular function is. The answer in general will, of course, be that as we seek to be a responsible member of the body, in the local church, we find that the Holy Spirit “burdens” us and exercises us in a particular way. Note: this is not official. That is, it is not by our being appointed by men, or by our assumption, but by our spontaneous and voluntary exercise in concern for Christ’s interests in His body. The Lord save His body, and its ministering members, from the pathetic scene of ministries which are not the definite projecting of “He gave...”; He gave; not man chose, appointed, or “opened the platform” to anyone who would take it. The “giving” of the ascended Lord is selective, specific and deliberate.

We must here indicate something very precious and helpful in this connection in New Testament procedure. It is indicated in First Timothy, chapter four, verse fourteen, and implicit in various other instances. “Neglect not the gift that is in thee, which was given thee by prophecy, with the laying on of the hands of the presbytery.” The “Presbytery” here does not necessarily mean special Apostles, but surely 1 Timothy 5:17—“Let the elders that rule well.” True, Paul did speak of “the gift of God, which is in thee through the laying on of my hands” (2 Tim. 1:16). It would seem clear that, at some time, there was a praying over the members of Christ’s body, and in the praying the Holy Spirit constrained to ask for some particular qualification by which the persons concerned would make a specific contribution to the ministry in the body. Elsewhere Paul exhorted Timothy to “do the work of an evangelist, make full proof of thy ministry” (2 Tim. 4:5; A.V.), and to Archippus he sent a specific message that he should “take heed to the ministry which thou hast received in the Lord, that thou fulfil it” (Col. 4:17). It might be a very good thing if all ministries were the result of such specific action in prayer! There would be a much greater “attaining unto the fulness of Christ,” and much less of the ineffective and unprofitable “wisdom (or otherwise) of men.”

Our passage in Ephesians 4:13 indicates that the body, whether universal or locally represented should, by the ministries, be making progress toward the ultimate fulness. The words are “the building up of the body of Christ.” “Edifying” in the Authorized Version is misleading because it conveys the idea of “headifying.” While it is corporate growth, it, of course, must be true of each member. While Paul mixes his metaphors, at one time speaking of a Temple and the next of the body, he eventually comes down fully on the body as “the full-grown man,” and what he means by building up is seen in 4:14: “no longer children.” It is the transition from childhood in which the persons concerned are always having to be nursed and, like children, draw attention all the time to themselves, to becoming such as can take spiritual responsibility and care for others, with the outward-looking concern for the other members of the body. It is a matter of coming into an increasing measure of Christ.

“Till...” represents process and progress; “we all attain” is the corporate object; “the fulness of Christ”— the goal reached.

From chapter 4, verses 10 to 15, we are thrown backward to the election, the calling, and vocation, to the relevant conduct and walk, and onward to the conflict and the demand for “standing.” Everything relates to and focuses upon “Attaining unto the fulness of Christ.”

Chapter 11 - Conclusion. The Basis of All

Having pointed to the inclusive goal, we cannot close without a further special emphasis upon the inclusive basis. The question that will be in most minds is, How shall all this be made good in the Church, the churches and the individual? There is an answer, but it will challenge us to the depth and at every point in our lives. Much—perhaps everything—will depend upon how seriously we are concerned for God’s purpose, and therefore how ready we are to put aside all prejudice, superficiality, scepticism, familiarity and perhaps our traditions. It is the universal resort of the Apostles. Were things other than they should be in their days? Was there a condition in the church in Rome that demanded such a tremendous corrective as that great Letter to them? Was there a state of things in Corinth—divisions, carnalities, disorders, rivalries, dissensions, and worse, calling for such a corrective as the First Letter to the church there? Was there an incipient movement of reprobation from grace to legalism with all the entail of loss of glory in Galatia? Was there a “fly in the beautiful ointment” at Philippi? Was there a threatening of a false spirituality in the form of mysticism at Colossae? Yes, all this and other things, threatening the testimony of the churches and their influence in the world. The Apostles did not excuse, condone or accept it. Their whole attitude was “These things ought not to be.” How did they approach these situations? Had they one common basis and means of approach and remedy? Yes, they had! In every case it was the same.

To Rome it was: Romans 6:3–10; 12:1,2.

To Galatia: Galatians 2:20; 5:24; 6:14.

To Philippi: Philippians 2:5–8.

To Colossae: Colossians 2:11,12; 3:3.

Well, there it is, plain, clear and positive: the Cross of Jesus Christ brought by the Holy Spirit right to the root and foundation of the life of every believer. A foundational crisis and thereafter an inworking and an outworking. “We,” “Ye,” “I”—all the pronouns of direct application. Christians believe in the Holy Spirit. Very many desire to know the Holy Spirit as a reality and power in their lives. But it should really be understood and recognized that the Holy Spirit is committed and wedded to the Cross. His coming awaited the work of the Cross. Only after the symbolic representation of the Cross in death, burial and resurrection with Christ in baptism—so understood—did the Holy Spirit take His place in power in the lives of the first believers. Because the tap-root of everything that the Cross was meant to deal with is the self-life, the self-principle, the New Testament word for which is “the flesh,” the Holy Spirit leads those under His government into the experiences which are calculated to expose and bring to the Cross the self-life of the child of God. It is a primary and inseparable part of the Holy Spirit’s business to make good and real the meaning of the Cross.

This is not popular to the flesh, but it is the gateway to spiritual fulness, and the deeper the Cross, the greater the measure of resurrection life, power and light. This touches the whole realm and range of Satan’s authority. Power over him is inseparable from the Cross. Therefore he will do everything possible to undercut, set aside, belittle and discredit the Cross. The Person of Christ and the Cross of Christ have been the ground of the most bitter controversy in the history of Christianity. Of course, they are really one thing. It is the Person Who gives the Cross its real meaning and value, and it is the Cross that vindicates the Person; provided that by the Cross is meant the death, burial and resurrection to glory. The Scriptures cited earlier and many others make it quite clear that the Cross of Christ is something more than an historic event of long ago. It is something that has to become very real in the experience, and not only in the doctrine, of the Christian. But who could survive the Cross in what it meant in the case of Jesus Christ? It rent, devastated and desolated Him, soul and body, heart and mind. For Him it was a going out into outer darkness and forsakenness. All the eternal agony was concentrated into a few hours and a last terrible moment. There is no other creature in God’s universe who could go through that and survive. Thank God, no other creature is ever required to go all that way: He went it for us. And yet there is an aspect of that which concerns our being “united with Him by the likeness of His death” (Rom. 6:5) and “always bearing about in the body the putting to death of Jesus” (2 Cor. 4:10 Margin) and a “fellowship of His sufferings”; a drinking at the cup which He drained. This working of His death in the Church and in the believer will be progressive. The law of nature, which is only another way of speaking of the law of God, is more life, more fruit, more growth, by recurrent Winter and Spring, alternating experiences of death and life, every cycle unto increase. This is the law of the Cross (John 12:24). God is not a God Who believes in theories; He is immensely practical.

One of the greatest enemies to fulness is superficiality. This is an age of “quick returns,” easy gains, least trouble, everything with as little effort, trouble and cost as possible. Depth is a lost dimension. Stamina is a minus quality. That is why God allows wars and nature’s upheavals and difficulties. Heaven is only going to be entered through tribulation—tribulation is the principle of the Cross which God is sustaining before men’s eyes. It will be those who share His travail who will share His reign.