Fourth chapter of the letter to the Ephesians,
we read a whole section in order to
come on our particular fragment in verse eight,
wherefore he saith when he ascended on high
he led captivity captive and gave gifts unto
men.
Now this he ascended, what is it but
that he also descended the lower parts of
the earth?
He that descended is the same also that
ascended far above all the heavens that he
might fill all things, that he might fill
all things.
That is a consummate statement.
Into it, as you will see by the
whole context, the eternities and the ages are
gathered up as to divine We know
that this letter was a circular letter
sent to certain churches in Asia.
And in this circular letter the apostle poured
like a torrent the very quintessence of his
spiritual knowledge.
Knowledge which had come to him by what
he in other places called the revelation of
Jesus Christ or it pleased God to reveal
his son in me.
That revelation to and in the apostle was
very full indeed.
The knowledge derived from experience, experience which began
on the Damascus road, what a knowledge broke
upon this servant of the Lord at that
time in that event.
Knowledge which drove him to the desert to
think about it, to examine its significance, try
and fathom something of its depth kept him
there in the desert for two years, breaking
of a new world of spiritual knowledge upon
him.
Later he said that there had happened in
his life history another mighty opening of heaven.
He said he was caught up into the
third heaven and shown unspeakable things which it
is not lawful for a man to utter.
An unfortunate word, that word lawful because it
does not exactly convey what the apostle really
said.
He really said or meant which it is
impossible for a man to utter.
Unspeakable things which it is impossible for a
man to utter.
That must have been a wonderful fullness of
knowledge and we know that on several other
occasions the Lord Jesus came to him, stood
by him, spoke to him and out of
all this experience his knowledge was growing.
It is not possible for the apostles in
those days to take journeys swiftly as we
can today.
They had to travel and traverse long distances
on foot, spending many hours in that way
and nights aside and no doubt the apostle
was marching meditation as he went on his
way from place to place over weeks and
months and years.
And this inspired meditation was building up this
wonderful spiritual knowledge in him from time
to time in relation to specific needs and
requirements here and there.
Particular situations he embodied in letters, some fragments,
mighty fragments of this rich revelation which had
come to him and was all the time
coming to him.
Where did the apostle get all that that
we have?
For instance in the latter part of what
in our arrangement is the 8th chapter of
the letter to the Romans, where did he
get it?
Going right back before the world was, telling
us what?
By divine act, when Adam brought the creation
into bondage and it was subjected to vanity.
Where did he get all that about foreordination
to be conformed to the image of God's
Son and the much more that is there
that you and I are quite sure no
man could ever find by searching, by studying
however great a grade he might have.
Those latter verses of Romans 8 are a
mighty fragment of revelation, again that 15th chapter
of the first letter to the Corinthians, where
did he get it?
All about the diversity of glorified bodies in
resurrection, the nature of the body of resurrection
of believers, it's a very rich chapter there.
We have explored it long and deeply but
we know that we haven't fathomed it.
In his letters to the Thessalonians, how did
Paul come to know just exactly what would
happen when the Lord returns?
What is happening to the saints who have
already left this earth?
What is going to happen to the saints
who are here when the Lord comes?
Where did he get it all?
It's rich, it's deep, it's full, but it's
only a fragment of the whole of that
wealth of spiritual knowledge.
But now at last he is free from
all his travelling and all the diffusion of
many activities here and there.
At last he is able to do what
he had been unable to do before and
if this letter suggests or indicates anything, he
is able to do now what he has
longed to do.
What he has waited for the opportunity to
just pour out of that fullness which has
been accumulating through the years, just pour out
of his spiritual fullness.
You are not surprised that that word fullness
is very characteristic of this letter.
Through it the fullness of Christ but the
apostle has been brought into much of that.
So at long last he is able to
sit down and open up the floodgates of
that spiritual store and pour it into this
letter.
Like the physical imprisonment of the apostle at
this time, his great store of life, spiritual
knowledge had been circumscribed but now the sovereign
Lord had ordained that the physical imprisonment should
make possible the release of the light.
For the church, for the whole of this
dispensation.
But the release, the release.
You cannot read this letter carefully and watchfully
and feelingly without feeling that it is like
the release of a busting dam.
You meet that feeling in the language which
is crowded into this brief letter.
The breaking of all grammatical barriers and the
vastness of the concepts that are here.
Think alone of the many superlatives in language
which he uses.
We will refer to the repetition of the
word fullness.
You could really sense the feeling of the
apostle at this time and understand why that
word dropped from his pen so often.
Exceeding.
The exceeding greatness of his.
The exceeding riches of his grace.
The superlative.
Exceeding.
The riches.
The riches of his inheritance.
The riches of his grace.
Riches.
And glory.
Underline the word glory in this letter.
See how it is constantly coming out.
Glory.
Glory everywhere here.
Abundantly.
Exceeding.
Abundantly.
Above.
Surpassing.
The knowledge surpassing love of Christ.
This is an attempt.
An attempt to express himself in language which
calls for every kind of superlative at his
command.
And yet he is defeated.
And as for the grammar, perhaps you haven't
worried yourself very much about that if reading
the letter.
But if you have tried to study it
and reduce it to something simple, you have
found yourself quite defeated.
For instance, there is the longest sentence without
a period in the New Testament at the
beginning of this letter.
And as for breaking the barriers of language,
he starts off along a line and then
goes off at a tangent and puts something
altogether irrelevant, it seems, in a long paragraph.
And then he comes back to where he
broke off or where he started.
That's not very helpful, you know, if you
are trying to follow closely a sequence of
things.
He is full of tangents and interruptions in
his statements.
And then as to the concepts, the concepts,
he is fragments before the foundation of the
world.
Chosen in Christ before the foundation of the
world.
In the heavenlands.
Five times repeated.
And by the way, you may need your
mentality adjusting on that word.
He is not talking about the heavens.
He is talking about the heavenlands.
And the difference is, heavens are a realm,
a, if you like, a geographical realm.
Heavenlands are a spiritual concept.
The letter is based upon a spiritual concept
of things, not a geographical.
This five times repeated heavenly, what a concept
that is.
What it brings to us in a spiritual
position.
Our place with Christ in a spiritual position
called the heavenlands.
That is the church's place.
These celestial principalities and powers looking on and
learning from the activities of God in the
church now and to the principalities and powers
in the heavens and then the diabolical forces
in the heavenlands.
What concepts.
How tremendous this all is.
And that very phrase itself, principalities and powers
and world rulers of this darkness and hosts
of wicked spirits in the heavenlands, the spiritual
realm.
That, dear friend, goes beyond all our power
to understand.
Foreordained, these words which have been the bane
and the trouble of the theologians all through
the centuries.
Foreordained, predestinated, adoption.
What a wealth there is in every one
of them.
And what about this sixfold repetition of the
word mystery and then to come to our
mighty friend that he might fill all things.
Are we not saying, are we not right
in saying that the apostle is too full
for words?
That the gates have burst and this mighty
torrent of spiritual knowledge is breaking out almost
beyond control.
Beyond his control.
But what is it all about?
What is all this?
And the answer?
No, it's not just doctrine.
Not just light, truth, teaching.
The explanation is that for Paul, Christ had
burst all the bounds and bonds of this
universe.
All this was but his helpless attempt at
bringing Christ into view as he had come
to see him, to understand him, to know
him.
Yes, it was an impossible task and we
would be right in concluding that no one
felt it more than the apostle who made
this mighty effort to bring the greatness of
his Christ to the church.
Christ, who for him had outranged all bounds
of time, took him back into the ages
of eternity past, before the world was, carried
him on as he uses the phrase unto
the ages of the ages.
Christ for him had outranged all time limits,
had outbounded all limits of space.
He ascends into the highest that Christ is
there, into the deepest depths that Christ has
fathomed and plumbed to death.
Christ had compassed the all about and the
all beneath and as he said had embodied
all the divine fullness that it pleased the
Father that in him should all.
And more, Christ had transcended all other authorities
and all other rules, every principality and power
and every name.
Christ was above all.
The greatness of his Christ led him to
make this which we have said he perhaps
more than anyone else felt to be a
hopeless act, defeating all language
to bring Christ as he really is in
his dimension and fullness into view.
But that of course is not all.
With this, and set over against any idea
that might come into our minds or the
minds of the Lord's people, that all this
about Christ was exclusively isolated to himself, that
is to Christ.
Paul had seen that an elect body chosen
in Christ was bound up with and included
in all this that he had seen.
Here he calls the church the very complement
of this Christ which is the fullness of
him.
The real word is the very complement, the
completion of him that filleth all in all.
Paul had seen this elect body bound up
with this immensity of Christ and that accounts
for this sublime thing thirteen times.
Thirteen times he uses the word great.
First, the unspeakable greatness of Christ, the immeasurable
greatness, transcendent glory of Christ, the
inexplicable significance of Christ in God's universe from
eternity to eternity.
And you, when you were dead in your
trespasses, we were chosen in him.
We are brought into this as our inheritance
in union with him.
No wonder the word great falls over itself
in this letter again and again and again.
Whether you and I are moved
by this or not, we have said that
it was very true that the apostle could
not contain himself any longer.
Seeing that no sooner had he got into
that imprisonment and between the times when the
visitors were coming, he just gave himself up
to this twofold object.
Setting forth on the one hand the greatness
of Christ as he had seen it and
on the other hand the greatness of grace
in calling him and the church into that
divine grace.
Grace only begins when, and you, when you
were dead in your trespasses, that's the beginning
of grace.
Union with Christ in his new risen life.
But trace grace through this letter and see
how grace is leading on and on until
at last it sees this church in the
ages of the ages together with him in
his ultimate and final, his eternal and universal
fullness.
What grace!
So we are led, dear friends, to our
fragment that he might fill all things.
This incomprehensible he.
He, the center of all things.
Look at some of these other fragments in
that connection.
You remember John himself spoken about this.
First chapter of his gospel.
He tells us that all things were created
by him.
All things were created by him.
You turn to the companion letter, the letter
to the Colossians, chapter 1, verse 16.
For in him were all things created.
In the heavens and upon the earth, things
visible, things invisible.
For the thrones or dominions or principalities or
powers, all things have been created through him
and unto him.
And he is before all things.
And in him all things hold together.
He is the head of the body, the
child, who is the beginning, the firstborn from
the dead, that in all things he might
have the preeminence.
And through him to reconcile all things unto
himself.
The letter to the Hebrews may not have
come actually from the pen of Paul, but
undoubtedly from the influence.
Chapter 1, verse 2.
As at the end of these days spoken
unto us in his son, whom he appointed
heir of all things, through whom he made
the world.
Chapter 2, verse 10.
For it became him for whom are all
things and through whom are all things in
bringing many sons unto glory.
This phrase, all things, of which Christ is
the very essence and substance finally.
Now it is about this one that we
are thinking.
On him we are concentrating, this center of
all things, Jesus Christ.
The Bible throughout is a progressive history of
this, an unfolding of this mighty he who
is to fill all things.
That history begins with an intimation, just an
intimation.
Very often missed and overlooked that history ends
with this passage, his filling all things.
The intimation, in the beginning, God.
That's where the Bible begins.
But that name God, as you know, is
in the plural form.
It's in the plural form, indicating that there
are more than one present.
There's another and a third gathered into that
form, the name of God.
And as the story grows, the second one,
intimated as being present there, becomes more and
more dishonorable, not long before he assumes a
name and is seen and is heard by
men.
He appears to men in the many theophanies
of the Old Testament.
Sometimes at the beginning they describe him as
a man, but when he goes they speak
of him as the Lord.
You recall to mine those occasions, this one,
the Lord, in those of divine appearance becoming
known.
Later he takes human form in a specific
incarnation and lives and moves and walks and
teaches among men.
Later still, in a still more intimate way,
he reveals himself in a resurrection body to
individuals, groups, companies, and they are in no
doubt about it.
Whereas at the beginning they had questions, wondered
whether they had seen a spirit, in the
end they had no doubt.
They knew who he was.
They could say, we have seen him, we
know him, and then finally he's seen by
all creatures in heaven and earth, so that
every eye beholds him.