Calling
A Written compostion of the Heavenly Calling Network Study Group
Chapter
18
This manifold wisdom of God has been
revealed and is being revealed to heavenly beings, principalities, and
powers. Ephesians 3:10 To the intent that now to the principalities and
powers in heavenly places might be known by the church the manifold
wisdom of God, 11 According to the eternal purpose which he purposed in
Christ Jesus our Lord: ... We have seen that the scriptures are not
just a half hazard work. It is a work of plan or purpose. In which the
eternal God had been please to reveal His plan. And what a great thing
it is to get an in site of that divine plan. And also to know, where we
come in, if we are His children by grace, where do we fit into this
revealed plan? Well, we can know, for the scriptures are written to
guide us and to give us that information. To give us that revelation so
that we might have that assurance. And isn't it wonderful that we are,
even though it is so small in and of ourselves, that we are not lost,
as it were, amongst the crowd. You think of all the other Millions of
the people of God and all this great plan that is embracing heaven as
well as earth. How can it be that little specs of dust, as it were,
like we are, are known by God. Oh that is true. Because we cans see in
2Timothy, Paul said that our salvation was according to plan. He has
called us by a holy calling. Now that wasn't by chance. It was
according to His purpose in Christ Jesus.
Oh how we thank God for His revealing and for the who stooped in His
great love to die for us so that we can have a glorious path in it. So
he goes on, and in verse 12 ... In whom ... That is in Christ. ... we
have boldness and access with confidence by the faith of him. ... Oh,
what a verse. You see it starts and ends with Christ. In whom, that is
referring to the Lord Jesus Christ. And it ends with the faith of Him.
The faith of Christ. And it is good for us to keep that right in the
fore front of our minds. How could it be said of us, frail creatures
that we are, that before this great being, that we call God, we can go
in, that is the word access, in His presence, and we can do it without
cringing. We can do it without knocking at the door and wondering if we
can get in. We've got confidence. And to pile it on, as it were, he
uses the word boldness. Boldness. Access. Confidence. All these things
we are being reminded of. Not because of anything that we are but
because of all He is and what He has been made to be for us.
It is good that we get these things clear in our minds. If we forget
Christ and don't put Him in the rightful place in God's plan then we
have no boldness at all. In fact we have no access. Because the
scriptures make it abundantly clear that Christ is the only way back to
God, for sinners. That is what He said, I am the way, the truth and the
light, No man comeths to the Father except through Me. So there we are.
No other way back to God except through Christ. And because we have
excepted Him as our personal Saviour, and we know the joy of sins
forgiven, because He has born them for us on the Cross at Calvary. We
are also told, and it is made clear to us in God's word, that the
righteousness of God through that one sacrifice is reckoned ours. Now
that is why we can have absolute confidence in coming before a Holy
God. That is why we can come boldly to the throne of grace. Not because
we can swagger in because of anything we are. But we can come in boldly
because of all He is. And that is a conscience ness that we must keep
in front of us all the time.
So lets thank Him, that in Christ we have boldness and access. Oh that
is something that God's earthly people never had. Symbolically they had
His presence with them in the tabernacle. That tabernacle, that tent,
was placed right in the center of their camp where all the tribes were
gathered around it. And God's presence was there in the pillar of a
cloud by day, and the pillar of fire by night. And right in the Holy of
holies in that tent divided into half as it was. One place was the most
Holy place where resided the great blazing Shakinah glory of God. But
no one ever went in there except Aaron the high priest. No Israelite
ever went into the tabernacle. They went in to the court to bring the
sacrifice for sin. But they never went in. Only the priestly tribe of
Aaron went in. And only the chief priest, the high priest, went in to
God's immediate presence once a year. If you would have said to the Jew
in the Old Testament, do you know that you have got access anytime?
Access to God? He would have been amazed. He would never have
understood you. In fact, he would have thought you irreverent. But you
see how all this has been reversed in this glorious heavenly calling.
The One who was the Way hadn't come yet in Old Testament times. The Way
hadn't been opened. It was only there typically. That is all.
Till when at least He'd come. Oh, the way is wide now for all who will
come through Him. So we thank God for what Christ has been made to us.
And we believe that we can now, through Him, we haven't got to say
please or can I come. No, we have got that welcome at any time. And
further more, what foolish people we are if we don't come and linger.
Because there we have this welcome. And there we have the strength, and
the peace, and the joy that we shall get when we come to Him. It is all
resident in our Saviour. We are glad to read then, the glorious truths
that are wrapped up in the twelfth verse.
But if we got on to verse 13, Why I desire that you faint not at my
tribulations for you, which is your glory. Now Paul is in prison but he
wasn't in prison because he had done something wrong. He was in prison
because of the faithful stand he was making for the truth. If he would
have been a man like Nicodemus, who kept quiet about his faith, he
possibly would have gone on quite well and never would have been in
prison. Because of this man's faithfulness, giving such a wonderful and
whole hearted testimony to the things that Christ had given him, he
landed up in jail. And of course he isn't the first one with an
experience like that. And he reminded Christians, now don't forget I am
there for you, on your behalf. The Lord has given me this truth to pass
on to you and I need to be faithful and pass it on. And he said, this
is where I am. He said, don't faint over it. The Lord is with me. And
when he writes his next letter to the church of Philippi, oh he said
marvelously that the Lord stood with him in prison. And he said, even
those who seek to upset me by preaching a Christ of contention, seeking
to add affliction to my bonds, yet that didn't upset him either. So
near was he living to the Lord Jesus Christ. So near was that
realization that Christ was with him all the time.
Even when he writes his last letter, the second letter to Timothy, he
records the fact saying, that all men forsook me, but the Lord stood
with me and strengthened me. All the fellow Christians that should have
stood with me when I needed them they all left me. Left me in the
lurch. If you read the new English translation that is the way they
translate it. At my first appearance in court no one stood with me they
all left me in the lurch. That was an awkward experience wasn't it. But
he goes on, never the less the Lord didn't leave me in the lurch. No,
He stood with me and strengthen me. And we shall find that to. The same
one who stood with the Apostle Paul is the same one who has promised
that He will be with us right to the end. I will never leave thee nor
forsake thee. So it is on faith that these things are going through.
On the other hand he didn't want them to hold them cheaply. He ended
his message to the Colossian church, remember my bonds, Don't forget.
Of course they could have forgotten. But that would not due, would it,
if this man is undergoing this for their sake. So that they might
rejoice in the truth. Do remember to what it must have been like to
have been in a Roman dungeon. There was none of these humanitarian
treatments of prisoners like we see today. It was a shocking
experience. Yet joyfully, this man excepted it as the Lord's will. And
what a witness he gave there. He said, they may imprison me but the
word of God isn't bound. They can bind me. They can bind the messenger
but they can not bind the message.
And you see, what was happening was this, the Roman guard that was
guarding him was chained to him day and night and must have come to
know the Lord too. You couldn't live with a man like Paul day and night
without knowing exactly where he stood, and what Christ was. They knew.
Here was a man that was really living out the Christian message. Not
only talking about it, but living it. And the profound effect it must
of had on some of these Roman soldiers. And it is quite obvious that
many came to know the Lord and then they would pass it outside. It got
circulated around and so his witness was spreading abroad about the way
he was standing and what Christ was doing in and through him.
When you come to verse 14 you will note that it is the same as the
opening words in verse 1. So what he has really done is to come back
again. For this cause I bow my knees to the Father ... For this cause I
began to pray, in other words. But it started off in verse 1 of the
third chapter, For this cause, which also shows us that we ought to
have no chapter break at all but we should read back into the end of
the chapter 2. We should say to ourselves, for what cause? The end of
the second chapter ends as a tremendous climax of truth. The wonderful
fact that out of such an unlikely material, strangers and foreigners
and aliens and enemies, you see? Such as we were by nature He saved and
He is molding a building into a Holy Temple, a home for Him to dwell
in. What a climax that is.
Now he says, when I think of that it has one effect on me, because of
this, for this cause, I bow my knees to the Father. That is what he was
going to say, but he said, Ephesians 3:1 For this cause I Paul, the
prisoner of Jesus Christ for you Gentiles, ... Having made that
statement he leaves the subject for a moment and explains it. What you
have got in verses 1 to 13 is the explanation of his prison ministry
and how it was for Gentiles. That was a very exceptional thing in that
day wasn't it. After all the people of Israel have been in the fore
front up till now. And Peter had been sent to the men of Israel. Peter,
James, and John were sent to the circumcision, Israel. But this man was
an exception. He was picked out by the Lord Jesus Christ and sent to
the pagan world. To the Gentiles. He said, I am the Apostle to the
Gentiles. He was the only one who could claim that. Oh, there were
others who stood with him, like Timothy and Silas and Apollos and so
on, but he was preeminently the sent one. The Apostle of the Gentiles.
A messenger from Christ risen to the Gentile world with the truth that
He now wishes Gentiles to know that the people of Israel have been laid
aside in unbelief at the end of the Acts.
Having made that statement, he tells you why he was the prisoner of
Jesus Christ for the Gentiles. And how this wonderful revelation of the
mystery, the secret hid in God, had to do with Gentiles which you see
in verse 6. That Gentiles should be fellow heirs, or joint heirs, and a
joint body, and joint partakers. Now that he has explained all that,
now he is coming back to what he would have said had that title not
been used. What he would have said is this, Having told us that we are
built together, verse 22 of Chapter 2, for a dwelling place, an
habitation of God through the Spirit, Ephesians 3:14 For this cause I
bow my knees to the Father ... He starts to pray. So that is the
explanation.
And when you read the wonders of truth that is the effect that it
should have on all of us. It should drive us, as it were to the throne
of grace. If it does no more than make us go to Him and say, oh thank
you, thank you for what You have done, saying that from all our hearts.
It ought to have that effect shouldn't it. If it doesn't make us praise
and thank Him then after all is said done what finger do we have in the
pie in this. Nothing. He is telling us what He has done for us in
Christ. And all the riches attached to it, all we can do is to say Amen
to it and believe it, and say thank you. And let the actions of our
lives reflect it to.
So he prays and you get the second of these wonderful prayers of the
Apostle in this letter. You have seen the first, in the first chapter.
And now you are coming to another tremendous comprehensive prayer. What
model prayers these are. Mind you, none of the prayers in scriptures
are given to us to repeat parrot like. Even what we call the Lord's
prayer can be miss used. It can be said so many times and known so well
by heart that it ceases to move us and we don't know what we are
saying. We are just saying it parrot like. You often here children
talking like that. And they are just rushing through it as to what it
means. And we grown ups can be just the same. But prayers are given to
us as a guide on how to pray because if we are honest we would have to
say with the Apostle Paul, we know not what to pray for. And these two
prayers are written to guide us.
The first prayer takes us right up to where Christ is enthroned at the
right hand of God. And it ends with the desire that the Ephesians might
know the might power, in verses 19-21 in chapter 1, which He wrought in
Christ when He raised Him from the dead and seated Him at His own right
hand in the heavenly places. The Ephesians are now directed to think of
Christ in His ascension seated far above all. Now the direction of the
second prayer is the opposite. The One who is so high is now willing to
come and stoop down. He has already done that once. He did that when He
came down to Bethlehem and went to the cross. He has now gone back to
glory. But in this second prayer he says now you pray that Christ may
dwell in your hearts by faith. So He is coming down again, as it were,
to make an abode in the hearts of His own redeemed children.
Ephesians 3:14 For this cause ... For the wonderful climax at the end
of chapter 2 ... I bow my knees to the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ,
15 Of whom the whole family in heaven and earth is named, ... The
revised version is better. Every family in heaven and earth is named.
God has a family in heaven. He has got a family on earth. And you read
in the epistle to the Colossians of heavenly beings who are part of
that family. You read in Colossians of principalities and powers who
have been reconciled by the work on Calvary. That enlarges our vision
of reconciliation doesn't it. Because normally, we think of sinners
being reconciled. That is part of the gospel. Yes. But the scriptures
tells us that principalities have been reconciled to. So it goes far
wider than merely the salvation of sinners. And those principalities
and powers are on Christ side, as it were. We also read as well of
principalities and powers who have been triumphed over by Christ. Their
enemies. It looks as though they sided with satan after satan's fall.
They have been defeated by the cross. Christ has been triumphant over
them. They haven't been reconciled. They are defeated foes.
So you see, God has a family in heaven. God's got a family on earth.
And they, all of them, every family, have this great name of Father
risen over them. Because they have all been touched by the redeeming
work of the Son. The redeeming work of Christ is to bring all into
family relationship with God. Never let us forget that. This is blurred
over by what is called the universal Fatherhood of God and the
universal brotherhood of man. The universal Fatherhood of God is not
taught in scripture. We are children by salvation. We are not children
of God by birth. You say, that is an outstanding statement. But that is
what the gospel of John tells us. As many that has received Him, that
is Christ, to them gave He the right to become children. That is what
it says. Even to them that believed on His name. No one else has the
right or the privilege of saying Father to God. If they haven't come in
to family relationship through His Son. You've got to receive Christ.
And then you are born, a new birth, into the family of God. Others may
have a relationship to God as creator, but that is another matter. But
not as Father.
This wonderful relationship of Father and child is bought by
redemption. Redeeming love and redeeming grace. And it doesn't matter
what section of God's family you belong to, whether it is Israel, who
are presently going to be saved and restored, or the church which we
see is going to glory, all part of a redeemed family.
Don't get to familiar in the wrong sense with this word Father, because
when you reflected over what this word Father embraces. It embraces
everything. There are many marvelous titles of God in scriptures. God
revealing Himself to men, calling Himself by different names, to make
us understand something of His greatness. And supposing you added them
all up together of what you found in the Old Testament and the New
Testament. Of course you wouldn't get the Son of God then because He is
beyond all these titles really. But you can sum them all up in one
word. And the closest and the warmest of all, Father. Oh, He has more
majestic titles, King of kings, Lord of lords, and the Eternal God, and
so on, but to think He is all that. But He is as close to us now as
Father.
It can't be more wonderful, that this great being who is totally beyond
us 20:26