Ephesians chapter 4 and verse 10, He that
descended is the same also that ascended far
above all the heavens, that he might fill
all things.
We have been seeking already to see that
into that last clause of a parenthesis, the
Lord's servant has packed the mighty fullness
of his apprehension of Christ.
We have tried to enter into the tremendous
emotion in which the apostle set himself
to write this circular letter, and having at
last the opportunity to be free from all
his travellings and journeyings and on the spot
occupations with affairs of churches, being now detached
and shut up in his imprisonment, he found
it the occasion for which his heart had
doubtless often longed for giving expression as far
as he could to some of that mighty
store of accumulated spiritual knowledge of the Lord
Jesus, and this letter is an opening of
those flood gates pouring out superlative
upon superlative and a daggering of language to
find some way of expressing what Christ had
become revealed to him.
Here in this fragment, mighty fragment, there is
a summing up of it all, final vision
of that wonderful Lord, he might fill all
things, his Lord Jesus at last filling all
things.
We have seen that this one, this great
he to whom the apostle refers is the
subject of the whole Bible, we have traced
the unveiling of him, the seven great stages
of that unveiling from eternity past through time
to the ages of the ages, in each
stage of which the apostle has been seeing
depths of meaning.
Well now, we come from that wide range,
that vast scope and seek to fasten down
on one or two particular emphases as we
go on, and firstly, quite clearly, this phrase
is itself indicative of the greatness of the
Lord Jesus, that he might fill all things,
the final all things.
It's impossible to get outside of that, that
is final, there is no more that can
be added, all things, just means what it
says, everything, just all things, and
this eternal divine determination and design, it has
been revealed to the apostle to be that
Christ does fill all things, it is a
predeterminate counsel of God, that he shall.
God has, it is said elsewhere, designated a
day in which he will judge the world
in the man whom he has appointed, that
is this Lord Jesus, it is therefore indicative
of the greatness of Christ.
How can one person fill, fill all things?
Well it's not so difficult a question, you
will not go to any part of this
world in all its length and breadth without
you will find traces of the evil one.
Wherever you will go, you will find that
which indicates and betrays that the evil one
has been there, evil by the evil one
fills this world, anywhere, everywhere, and we may
say in its natural condition, he the devil
has filled all things, but though you do
not see him in personal form, you know
he's been there, and very often you know
that he is there.
He has filled this world with his evil
self and his evil marks, a trait, he
has filled the very atmosphere with himself, he
has done it.
That is unchallengeable I think, that one, anywhere,
in anything, in the creation which he has
kept from Adam.
Alright, is that true?
You meet him in his nature, you meet
him in his disposition, you meet him in
his evil atmosphere, in exactly
the same way Christ is going to fill
all things, that thing is going to be
purged out by eternal fire.
Completely purged out, no trace of it will
be left or found when God has done
his work in this creation, but it will
not be avoided.
His Christ is the one who is destined
so to fill all things, that you may
go anywhere in his created universe and know
him, by his foot, sense him, feel him,
recognize him, but what a difference.
What a different atmosphere, now this present time
in which we live, though so poorly serving
that purpose, is a time in which just
some little reflection of what is to be,
can be found.
It is a very blessed thing to be
where Christ is, it is a good atmosphere
to be in when he is present and
he is filling all hearts.
There is a behavior, a conduct and a
disposition that is so different when he has
his place in a company, in life.
We don't have too much of what is
sometimes called heaven on earth, there is a
lot of room for more of that, but
we here tonight know just a little, very
little of this changeover.
The enemy is still present and about to
spoil, to mar everything, if only the Lord
has people in whom really he has his
lordship expressed, his place fully given.
It is a very blessed place to be
in and condition to enjoy the little of
it in this world already, would there were
more, but there it is, what I am
saying is leading to something else of course.
But here is the indication of what the
Lord intends and one says that dear friends
because you will understand that we very much
dislike living in abstractions and visionariness, words, beautiful
ideas, that sort of thing, that realm of
imagination.
We must always, we must always have some
practical ground on which to build these great
conceptions and so when we speak about the
time when he will fill all things with
himself in this way of character, of nature,
of disposition, of conduct and behavior.
When we speak about that, we must have
something to put our feet down for the
present and so it is that the great
delight of Christian hearts is found in that
kind of fellowship and relationship where Christ is
everything.
And it is a real thing, it is
a real thing, it is possible to know
that now, is it not?
But I have said it is all too
small, it is not by any means in
all things, but that is the determinate counsel
of God that so it should be that
he, the beloved son shall fill all things
with himself, his own wonderful character, divine character.
Now here is something that sounds perhaps difficult
to grasp and understand, but do you notice
the context of this phrase?
He that ascended is the same also that
descended.
He that descended is the same also that
ascended far above.
It was never necessary to have the incarnation
if God wanted to fill all things as
God, as deity.
God could very well clear everything out and
just fill everything with himself in sheer deity,
sheer Godhead.
But this statement, he descended and ascended in
order that he might fill all things indicates
this, it indicates the incarnation.
How did he descend?
Well we know by incarnation he came down
in flesh, in humanity.
He humbled himself and took the form of
a servant and being found in fashion of
a man.
That is his descent into humanity, into the
incarnation.
Why?
That he might fill all things humanity wise.
In other words, have people in whom and
through whom he would fill all things.
Have a race of human beings through whom
he will fill all things.
Who will be his fullness and who will
minister and transmit his fullness.
Now that is one of the great arguments
of this letter you remember.
The church which is the fullness of him
that filleth all in all.
It is to have people, people, human beings
for the expression of his fullness in his
whole created universe.
You and me.
That is why he descended first and then
ascended.
That he might fill all things.
In order that he might fill all things.
This great cycle of the deepest descent to
touch the heart and root and core of
all the trouble down to its very day.
And his ascent far above all.
Far above all.
There should be no realm left where he
is not its fullness.
He did that through incarnation which itself means
by way of human life in order to
have human life like that.
Well now this is very great.
Indeed it is the greatness of this one
who is able to do that.
He must be very great.
But that leads us to this law which
governs all spiritual history and experience.
There is a law governing all our spiritual
history and experience.
Our spiritual history and experience is not just
something that is of its own free will
happening to us.
It is under this law.
It is controlled and governed.
The experience that we are having spiritually.
The history that is being made in our
case spiritually is held by this law.
And the law is that he might fill
all things.
If it is this matter of men, of
people, of humanity, of human life then there
must be something in, behind and over what
happens to us when we get into God's
hand.
And this is what it is.
God is taking us the way in which
he is taking us with this one object
in view that his son Jesus Christ shall
fill us.
Shall fill us.
Shall fill all things.
But you know he can't start from zero
with us unfortunately.
We are already so full aren't we?
We are already so full.
So full of our own ideas, of our
own desires, of our own ambitions, of our
own interests, of our own strengths.
Oh brother a lot there is of which
we are full.
You see that's just the trouble.
That's where it began with Adam.
Adam made this great bid to have all
the fullness in himself.
In himself.
Well the Lord let him have it.
And Adam is more than one person who
lived so many centuries ago.
Adam is a very big corporate person who
has filled the world.
And is still making a bid to have
everything in himself.
He is very full.
Very full of himself.
Very full of his own cleverness, ability, power,
wisdom and what not.
He is filling himself more and more with
his own fullness.
Well let that be as it may with
the big Adam.
But what about the little Adams that we
are?
You and I.
Well we don't know and we wouldn't believe
it until the hand of the Lord comes
upon us just how much there is of
us in the picture.
And when the Lord begins to work upon
us we begin to discover there is a
lot more of us than ever we would
have suspected or acknowledged.
Indeed this is an endless matter.
It's a bottomless pit.
All the trouble is there.
Something there that has got to be got
rid of and got out of the way.
Is it true?
Our simplest troubles with the Lord are on
that basis.
And our biggest and most complex.
And so if he is to fill all
things with himself there has got to be
a history, a deep history of making room
for him completely by an utter emptying of
us of everything that is not Christ.
It is not just negative.
It sometimes seems negative.
Emptying, undoing, breaking and all that.
But this law is operating.
It's a law in nature.
God put every tree in the garden into
the hand of Adam.
He got to cultivate it.
And it wasn't necessary for there to be
evil presence in order that the pruning knife
should be used.
That was a natural process.
To produce something better you have to get
rid of something not that much good.
To produce something more you have to reduce
a great deal.
It's a law in nature.
You see it everywhere.
Unto the better and unto the more there
is always a process of reduction.
What looks like destruction we know that in
the long run it is not.
It is constructive.
Truthfulness.
That law operates everywhere.
But here in the spiritual realm justice.
God has written this law in the creation
in spiritual experiences like this.
He is working dear friends with you and
with me.
On the one side emptying, breaking down, cutting
off, emptying us of that other fullness which
is in his own way and not his
fullness.
But always with this object more of Christ.
More of Christ.
Now perhaps you see, some of you may
say well there ought to be a very
great deal of Christ if that is the
explanation because I am having a pretty bad
time.
But here is where faith and patience are
called for.
And we may take it or you may
take it as a fixed law that any
kind of walk on his path which has
an emptying effect, an undoing effect, a weakening
effect where we in our self and self
life is concerned is determined by God to
produce more of his son.
It is going to be.
It is the eternal law.
It is the law which is governing.
Now you can see that the Bible is
a record of this very thing.
We have seen that Adam let in all
the trouble of this self fullness which is
the curse of humanity.
The curse of humanity.
And it is going to prove the utter
undoing of humanity.
You may get a mistake about it.
A little indication of this almost weekly.
The cleverness of man can be his undoing.
What he calls his wisdom and knowledge increasing
can just be to his own hurt.
However leave that as it may be.
But Adam opened this door to let in
this accursed self sufficiency.
Self sufficiency.
Now whenever you find that God comes on
to the scene in relation to his end,
his eternal end and puts his hand upon
any man or any instrument.
He takes that instrument or that man through
a history which for a long time is
a thoroughly undoing history.
Who comes to mind?
Well let's start with Abraham.
We have every evidence that Abraham or Abram
was a great man in Caldia.
A great man in
Caldia.
A great man in Caldia.
A great man in Cal All his own.
Ostwild's fullness and sufficiency was gradually removed.
Gave him not a foothold in it.
No, not any place in it.
A tent and moving from place to place.
No continuing city.
Life of utter dependence upon God.
He's being empty.
Notice the various stages of God's dealing with
him.
Right up to the point of requiring him
to offer his Isaac.
Did ever a man get nearer to the
great heart of Calvary in the utter self
-emptying when Abram was asked to give what
to him was his all and his lot?
In Isaac.
Now this man's being empty.
Very well.
But God appeared unto him.
If you can count the land of the
seashore, so shall thy sea be.
Lift up thine eyes to the heavens, if
you can count the vast constellations of the
heavenly body, so shall thy sea be.
Emptying, emptying unto vast for the spiritual history.
That's no mere teaching.
Truth.
Ask Abraham.
Jacob.
Jacob is elect, destined, marked to build the
tribes of Israel by his twelve sons.
Fullness is to come that way.
Tremendous fullness.
This seed of Abraham.
It's got to come through this man Jacob.
Alright.
Jacob as we meet him is a man
very self-sufficient.
Full of his own cleverness and artfulness.
He can do it.
He is sufficient for the situation.
And for the twenty years of his life
with his uncle Laban, that's the kind of
life he was living.
Pricking and triumphing by his own self-cleverness
and artfulness.
All the time getting the advantage himself simply
because he could do it.
Very well.
What about Jabbok and Peniel?
No.
One of those theophanies of which we were
speaking this afternoon met him there and said
now then we are going to settle this
matter once and for all.
I have allowed you plenty of scope.
Plenty of rope.
Given you all these years to extend yourself.
But I've chosen you for something better than
that.
Now then.
The issue is up.
Tonight we settle this.
Jacob started out again to try it on
the Lord.
He found he'd met his match and more
than his match.
No.
That story is told very often.
It's put the wrong way.
But Jacob wrestled.
He never did until the angel wrestled with
him.
There came a man and wrestled with him.
God took the initiative in this matter.
God took this thing into his hands.
It was God who said we are going
to settle this mighty issue before you go
back to that place.
A covenant.
A promise.
Jacob for the Lord.
Oh what an emptying that night.
Not all at once perhaps.
For there are still some traces of Jacob
after that.
But when at last you meet him in
the presence of Pharaoh.
What a poor poor creature he is as
he talks to Pharaoh.
Few hard have been the days of my
life.
Leaning upon his tarp.
A very empty man.
A very broken man.
Now the Lord can do something.
A very empty man.
A very broken man.
Now the Lord can do something.
The Lord can do something.
Out of that will come the purpose of
God.
We just mentioned it.
It's so patent isn't it.
What about Joseph?
Well first introduction to Joseph.
Good and nice young fellow in many ways.
Pet of his father.
Not more but very conceited.
Very indiscreet.
Telling his brother about his dreams and implying
you are going to be the ones who
bow down to me.
Promoting the situation which was God's sovereign opportunity
of starting up this work of emptying.
A dungeon
is not much of a place to live
in for thirteen years.
Being forgotten and enduring all the hardships and
difficulties of such a life.
So that it is written that the iron
entered into his soul.
You learn about the iron entering into your
soul under the discipline of God's hand.
Well we need not enlarge.
Here's this man indeed being emptied isn't he.
Of all his conceits but at last what
fullness.
Fullness for Egypt and fullness for his own
brethren and for the rest.
It's the way.
What about Moses?
Now Moses was learned in all the wisdom
of the Egyptians.
What a man Moses was in the first
forty years of his life.
How full of everything.
How full.
So full that he thought he could do
it.
He smote the Egyptians.
Challenged the Hebrews.
He thought he could do it.
He's very full.
Forty years the backside of a desert is
well calculated to empty you of that sort
of thing.
And you're not surprised.
In our eighteen years I, I, am and
I will sin.
Same story.
What an emptying unto us really.
Israel.
Well we dare not dwell upon Israel as
a nation.
The Lord's hand upon Israel.
Passed to David.
One thing about the Lord's dealing with David
is this.
The working of this Lord.
Of emptying, humbling and making so utterly dependent
in order to bring him to the highest
place of Israel's fullness in the Old Testament.
There it is.
And so it goes on.
Only taken out those illustrations of things.
Dear friends, the Lord is working by this
law.
He's working toward this end.
That he might fill all things.
But unto that how we have to be,
how we have to be empty.
What an emptying what he has to do.
There is nothing that stands in the Lord's
way more than self-sufficient.
Only another way of saying pride.
Pride.
That stands in the Lord's way.
When he has done with us there will
be no room or ground for any pride.
No more.
Down there.
So far as we are concerned.
But oh look at the end.
The divine end.
The increase that he may fill all.
Now this we note as we close this.
This reversing of things from whatever fullness there
is in ourselves.
To make way for his fullness has to
have a crisis.
It has to have a crisis.
Truly as the Lord met Jacob that night.
As truly as the Lord met Moses in
a crisis.
As truly as the Lord met Saul of
Tarsus in a very real crisis.
There has to be a crisis.
There has to be a time and a
place where you and I come before the
Lord over this matter of self-life and
Christ life.
And we say this is settled.
So far as position is concerned.
So far as acceptance is concerned.
So far as the foundation is concerned.
Now is settled.
God helping me once and for all that
it is to be no longer I.
No longer I but Christ.
Amen.
It is to be for me to live
is Christ.
It's a crisis.
Everything doesn't happen in the crisis but the
position is secure.
Ground is taken.
And it must be.
No doubt many of you know that.
Many of you know there was a time
more or less extended.
May have been a day, a night.
Or it may have been a period.
But it was a time in your life
when the crisis was raised as to the
self-life and the Christ.
But from the crisis process begins.
Process of the Christian life under the hand
of the Lord is just this.
All the way along.
Deeper and ever deeper.
If it is so, take heart.
Let us try and take all the comfort
we can from it.
Deeper and deeper is this self-empty to
bring to the greater fullness of Christ in
us.
It's a process going on.
And dear friends it seems to me both
from the word and experience that at the
end there won't be much of us left.
There won't be much of us left in
any way at all.
If the Lord isn't everything, God help us.
That's what we're coming to.
It's going to be the Lord or nothing.
He's working that way but He's working that
way.
And when He works by that process, He
intends it to be according to His predetermined
counsel that He might fill all things.
A crisis, a process, God blessed be God
a climax.
Word reveals this very letter which we are
occupying reveals that day.
That glorious day of the climax when it
shall be glory in the church unto all
ages forever and ever.
Now if what we have said is true,
there is another thing that we ought to
think about at least.
It is this.
That measure now is going to determine hereafter.
Going to determine the measure hereafter.
What the Lord is doing with us is
not just an arbitrary thing.
The Lord is creating capacity for spiritual thinking.
Creating capacity.
All the fullness of what is spiritual lies
ahead in the hereafter, the ages of the
ages.
The measure in which that fullness is expressed
in us will be the measure of the
capacity which the Lord has been allowed to
develop in us now.
It matters you know.
I don't understand the New Testament at all.
This New Testament of mine is a perfect
enigma if what I am now saying is
not true.
Why all this in the New Testament?
If willy nilly we are going to come
into all the fullness.
If it doesn't matter at all about now
we are going to have it all if
we are the Lord.
About whom the Lord loveth each day.
All this about discipline and suffering.
If it doesn't matter we are going to
have it.
You see what a situation that raises.
It certainly says this most powerfully.
The measure in which the Lord gets his
way with us now is going to determine
our measure in the glory.
Our measure in the glory.
And none of you who know anything about
the difficulty and suffering of the Christian life
fails to see the Lord is seeking by
painful means to enlarge, to enlarge us, to
enlarge us.
We start out with a very little spiritual
capacity for having, receiving, knowing, understanding.
Very little capacity for spiritual things.
The Lord gets to work upon us.
And this stretching business is awful difficult.
Very hard, this enlarging.
The psalmist said in pressure hast thou enlarged
me.
But the Lord is working to increase our
capacity.
Thank God this is true.
Although it is so imperfect we feel we
haven't made very much progress in this yet
at best.
Some of us can see today we can
understand.
We do know in an intelligent way what
at one time was altogether outside of us,
beyond us.
We are learning.
We are growing in understanding.
We are becoming more and more capable of
receiving the things of God.
Like that, well that's the normal Christian life.
Quite normal.
What the Lord is doing with us.
This law we are seeing of Christ ultimately
filling all things is governing our spiritual history
and our spiritual experience day by day.
What then is to be done?
Well we are concerned.
Well it's the old matter of applying our
hearts very definitely and very earnestly to learn
the lessons of our suffering.
To learn the meaning of our trials and
adversities.
To find out where more are to come
in by this breaking of ourselves.
That is cooperation with God.
Toward his end he descended.
Came right down here to take us in
our humanity.
And has ascended far above all.
Both things are governed by this purposive statement.
In order that he might fill all things.