Well, my dear friends, here we are once
again, and at the outset let me tell
you I have a good deal of humanitarian
sympathy with the students.
You have been coming through exceedingly busy and
exacting days, and here we are in this
conference which has a fuller program than the
normal weeks here, and if some of you
are a little bit sleepy, don't think that
our Lord is angry.
One of the greatest blessings that ever came
to me was when I learned that I
was dealing with a sympathetic Jesus.
So if you find your eyelids a little
bit heavy and you just close them for
a few minutes, and if I happen to
catch you, I won't be angry either.
I'll just politely throw a hymn book at
you.
Well now, let me give you a pleasant
shock.
It is my happy ambition this morning to
take you, if I can, right through one
of Paul's epistles.
If I don't finish this morning, don't worry.
I shan't.
We'll finish off tomorrow, if you're still here.
Now, the epistle is not Paul's longest, but
by general consent, in its breadths and lengths
and depths and heights of spiritual and theological
grasp, it is perhaps the profoundest thing that
Paul ever wrote.
You're quite right, it's his epistle to the
Ephesians.
Will you kindly turn to Ephesians?
And as you are doing so, let me
put your minds at rest.
When I talk about going right through this
epistle from start to finish, I do not
mean to attempt the ludicrously impossible task of
going through it verse by verse from beginning
to end.
If we were to tackle that, we would
still be on with it through the Great
Tribulation and still on into the millennium.
Nevertheless, I do want to go right through
this epistle, and I'll tell you how and
why.
First of all, this Ephesian document is a
very methodical product.
In our English presentation of it, it runs
in six chapters.
Those six chapters quite obviously divide into two
main parts consisting of three chapters each.
That is, part one consists of chapters one
and two and three, and part two consists
of chapters four and five and six.
Now, part one, the first three chapters, is
emphatically doctrinal, and part two, chapters four, five,
and six, is equally conspicuously practical.
By doctrinal, of course, we mean truth stated.
By practical, we mean truth related or applied.
The subject of the doctrinal first half, beyond
any puradventure, is the believer's wealth in Christ.
And the subject of part two, the practical
half, is the believer's walk in Christ.
My dear Christian brother, sister, if you want
to know what a spiritual millionaire you are,
if you want to know your spiritual wealth
in Christ, familiarize yourself with Ephesians part one.
If you want to know how to use
that wealth in your daily walk, familiarize yourself
with Ephesians part two.
Now, I mustn't expatiate on that.
That's all I need to say about about
the basic structure of this methodical Pauline letter.
But this Ephesian document is marked not only
by obvious systematic thought and presentation.
Ephesians and the first epistle of John, more
than any other writings in the New Testament,
are remarkable for what we call chain themes,
c-h-a-i-n, chain theme.
Link by link, certain great truths are expounded
and expanded until, by the time you come
to the last of the links, you have
a wonderfully complete presentation of some aspect or
another of evangelical truth.
Well now, I want to go through Ephesians
on one of those link or chain studies.
If I were giving a title to my
address this morning and tomorrow morning, if we
have to overlap until then, it would have
to be the Ephesian doctrine of the Holy
Spirit.
Have you ever gone right through this Pauline
letter, picking out and underscoring and reflecting upon
its references to the Holy Spirit?
Well, that is what I want us to
do this morning.
Now preliminarily, let me tell you, the Holy
Spirit is mentioned in Ephesians just twelve times.
Six times in part one, the doctrinal half,
and six times in part two, the practical
half.
Indeed, I can be more precise than that.
The Holy Spirit is mentioned just twice in
each of these chapters.
Did you happen to have noticed that?
If not, let me eagerly point it out
now.
Well, that's that.
And now for our exploration, and especially in
part one, we are going to pass through
some of the most magnificent scenery in the
epistolary area of our New Testament.
Ephesians 1 and 2 and 3, the Holy
Spirit mentioned six times, twice in each chapter.
Now let me look at you.
Are you really wide awake enough?
Are you?
Are you ready then?
All right.
Oh, wait a minute.
Have you brought your New Testament or your
Bible?
If you've come without, let me quickly glower
at you.
Never let it happen again.
Right, after that kindly word, we'll start.
The first reference to the Holy Spirit in
this letter is chapter 1, verse 13, or
verses 13 and 14.
In whom, that is in Christ, ye also
trusted, do you notice the word trusted is
italicized?
That is because it does not come in
the original Greek, in which there is a
grammatical ellipsis, and you are to supply the
word by the force of the context.
Now I'm not being hypercritical, but I doubt
whether that word trusted is the one that
should be there.
I won't argue it, but I think he
should probably read, in whom ye also obtained
inheritance.
I won't press that.
After that ye heard the word of truth,
the glad news of your salvation, in whom
Christ also, after ye believed, ye were, here
it is, ye were sealed with that Holy
Spirit of promise, which is the earnest.
Now the Greek word translated here as earnest
means an inward experiential foretaste.
No doubt about that.
Which is the inward guarantee, the earnest, of
our inheritance, oh I told you inheritance was
the burden of the context, which is the
inner pledge of our inheritance until the actual
redemption of the already purchased possession unto the
praise of his glory.
So then, according to this Ephesian letter, the
first operation of the Holy Spirit in born
-again Christian believers is to seal them.
Now there are not a few quite engrossing
ideas wrapped up in that metaphor of the
seal, but always the two predominating ideas in
the seal are a.
Ownership and b.
Security.
Now dear fellow sister Christian, you and I
are here this morning supernaturally sealed with that
invisible divine seal, the Holy Spirit.
And the first meaning of that is that
you and I are not our own.
We belong to one who bought us by
his precious blood, and that inward sealing from
heaven is the mark of our Lord's ownership.
He is our Lord and Master and Owner.
I don't know whether you sing it over
here in Canada, but in dear old England
we sing a hymn, Jesus is our shepherd,
we to him are dear.
Folded in his bosom, what have we to
fear?
Only let us follow whither he doth lead,
through the thirsty desert or the dewy mead.
And verse three says this, Jesus is our
shepherd, for the sheep he bled.
Every lamb is sprinkled with the blood he
shed, then on each he setteth his own
secret sign.
These that have my spirit, these saith he
are mine.
It's not only beautiful poetry, it is magnificent
reality.
Now of course the world does not perceive
this seal upon us, and we needn't be
surprised at that.
The very maker of the universe once walked
the streets of this earth, and this world
in its blind wisdom didn't even recognize its
creator.
He was in the world, and the world
was made by him, and the world knew
him not.
So you needn't be surprised if this invisible
spiritual seal is not recognizable by this spiritually
blind and dead world in which we live.
But God sees that seal and loves it,
and our Lord sees that seal and prizes
it.
You and I are members of the aristocracy
of heaven.
That seal means that we belong to the
king.
Now even though you are a bit sleepy,
just pause for a minute as you sit
there, and say to yourself, oh how wonderful.
I'm sealed.
It means that he will never let me
go, and never let me down, and never
give me up.
That's what it means.
We are his.
And then of course as I was saying,
there is that further meaning of the seal,
namely security.
From times almost immemorial, kings and potentates and
rich men have affixed their seals to their
purchased properties as a mark of preservation, security.
Is there a doubting Thomas here this morning,
or a doubting Thomasina?
You are a Christian believer.
You are trusting Jesus as your savior.
You would never dream of trusting anyone or
anything else other than Jesus.
But you don't have what our forefathers used
to call the assurance of faith.
You sit in the ribs of the ark,
and you hear the tumultuous waters bashing against
the ark, and you wonder whether the ark
will last, or whether your salvation will really
hold out.
Dear, poor, naughty, doubting Thomas.
And so because you don't have assurance, there's
something missing from your Christian experience.
You're up and down, on and off, sometimes
trusting, sometimes doubting, and therefore sometimes singing, and
sometimes sighing, sometimes leaping, sometimes limping, sometimes rejoicing,
other times refining, sometimes exulting, sometimes almost expiring.
The Lord never meant that up and down,
on and off, never quite sure experience.
He meant us not only to be saved
and to be safe, but to know it.
Yes he did.
Our salvation doesn't depend upon us, fragile fluctuating
little creatures that we are.
He has sealed us, are you listening Thomas?
He has sealed us with the Holy Spirit,
that we may know that we are saved
and saved forever.
Now why doesn't somebody say hallelujah?
It's a great truth you know that isn't
it?
Yeah, well that's that.
The Holy Spirit seals believers.
But now reference number two in this Ephesian
document is in that same first chapter, verses
17 and 18.
Verse 17, Paul prays that the God of
our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory,
may give unto you the Spirit, please give
the capital S if you're using the King
James Version, which is my own preference.
That and the American Standard Version, I think,
are the two finest versions ever put into
English.
The Father of glory may give unto you
the Spirit, capital S.
Our King James Version was naughty there, putting
the small s, for it says the Spirit
of wisdom and of revelation in the knowledge
of himself.
There's only one Spirit of wisdom and revelation
in the knowledge of God, and that is
the Holy Spirit.
The third member, that mysterious, glorious being, the
Holy Spirit, who is with the Father and
the Son, God forever.
May give unto you the Spirit of wisdom
and revelation in the knowledge of himself, the
eyes of your understanding being illumined, that ye
may know.
Now in the Greek, it's the, uh, it's
the Greek word, eidenei, that's the Greek form,
and it means, more literally, to see, going
with the word eyes.
The eyes of your understanding being illumined, that
ye may inwardly see what is the hope
of his calling, and what the riches of
the glory of God's inheritance in the saints.
Fancy the infinite God condescending to have an
inheritance in you and me.
That's a subject I'd like to talk about
sometime, but not this morning.
And what is the exceeding greatness of his
power to usward who believe, and so on.
So first of all, the Holy Spirit seals
believers, and now we find the Holy Spirit
illumines believers.
And what a wonderful ministry of illumination this
indeed is.
Uh, I don't want to refer to the
Greek unnecessarily, because it can sometimes make those
who read only in English think they are
not getting the full truth.
It's only just when it can be of
real use that I like to go back
beyond the English to the Greek.
And let me point out that the Greek
word translated here as wisdom, the spirit of
wisdom, is epinosis, and it really means insight.
Insight.
May give unto you the spirit of insight,
and of revelation.
Now there the Greek word is apocalypsis, which
means revelation.
What a wonderful title for him.
The spirit of insight, and of unveiling.
Unveiling.
It means that the Holy Spirit gives to
all the blood-bought, spirit-born members of
the true ecclesia, the church of our Lord,
he gives them a supernaturally in-wrought insight
into spiritual truth.
He gives them a supernaturally in-wrought insight
into spiritual truth.
And you know, friends, every bit of spiritual
truth that you and I have ever learned
has come to us not by processes of
logic or reasoning.
Every bit of truth you and I know
in Christ we owe to this dear, dear,
patient, persevering, sympathetic Holy Spirit.
How we ought to love and revere the
Holy Spirit.
But besides being the spirit of insight who
gives us new inward eyes with which to
see, as I said, he's the spirit of
unveiling, apocalypsis.
You get the point, don't you?
First of all, he gives us new eyes
with which to see, and then he unveils
the truth which our new eyes are meant
to see.
But even that isn't all.
We need something else.
Suppose this meeting, instead of being a morning
meeting, were at night, and in the middle
of the meeting suddenly the electric circuit failed
and all the lights went out, and not
a glimmer came in from outside, and we
were all in total darkness.
And suppose we all had perfect natural vision
and didn't need to wear glasses.
Even so, in that total darkness, could even
the best pair of eyes see anything?
I noticed a year or two ago in,
I think it was in the Reader's Digest,
someone had written into the editorial faculty, is
it true that a cat can see in
total darkness?
And the editorial reply was, no, it is
not true.
No animal has ever been found which has
eyes that can see in total darkness.
Ladies and gentlemen, if the Reader's Digest says
it, that settles it.
No, you see, we need three things.
First, we need the new eyes with which
to see, and then we need the truth
unveiled that we are meant to see, and
then we need, and this is what the
Holy Spirit does, we need to have the
truth flashlighted for us.
And that is just the threefold ministry of
the Holy Spirit in illumining believers.
He gives us new inward faculty of vision,
then he unveils the truth that we are
meant to apprehend, and then he floodlights it
so that it becomes luminous to the mind
and vivid in the heart.
What a wonderful ministry that is, isn't it?
Are you giving the Holy Spirit his full
opportunity to effect within you this ministry of
supernatural illumination?
Well, that's the second thing.
Now, the third thing.
First of all, the Holy Spirit seals believers,
then the Holy Spirit illumines believers, and now
in chapter 2, verse 18, the Holy Spirit
unifies believers.
This is what it says, for through him,
Christ, we both, that is, both Jew and
Gentile, have our access by one spirit, the
Greek preposition is in one spirit, we both
have our access in the one spirit unto
the Father.
Now, here we find the Holy Spirit fusing
all Christian believers into one wonderful spiritual whole.
He unifies believers.
I wonder if we get the tremendous implication
there.
I needn't say to an audience of this
caliber that the true Christian church is not
merely an organization.
It is a spiritual organism.
But there's more than that.
Are you listening?
We Christian believers are a family.
We all have the same life within us
from the same divine progenitor or parent, the
Holy Spirit.
And we are all in the one spirit
because, blessed be his wonderful name, that one
and the same spirit is in all of
us.
And therefore we have family affinity.
We are drawn to each other.
You know, modern psychology has told us many
wonderful things about family affinity, even in the
natural family.
You know what I mean.
All the members of one family have the
same cast of feature, the same contour of
eyebrows, the same shape of nose, the same
kind of legs, and very often the same
sort of walk.
And sometimes they have the same way mentally
of looking at things.
Family affinity.
But however wonderful it is in the natural
family, it is measurelessly more wonderful in the
spiritual family of God in Christ.
We are brothers, sisters, members of the same
family.
Friends, I beg your pardon, brothers and sisters,
how we ought to love each other, how
we should be careful before we gossip about
each other, how anxious we should be to
help each other.
The world doesn't love us.
It doesn't understand us.
The followers of the Lamb will never be
popular with the seed of the serpent.
The world didn't love our Master and it
doesn't really love you and me.
And because we have the same life, all
of us, the same life in us from
the same Holy Spirit, how we should love
each other, shouldn't we?
Say yes, or out you go.
By the way, friends, I can't help pointing
out, you know, this is a wonderful climax
in a grand bit of Pauline context.
You see, in the first half of chapter
2, Paul has been lamenting our pitiful plight
when we were still alienated from God and
were outside of Christ.
But beginning with that divisive but at verse
13, he begins to exult in our wonderful
privileges and blessings now that we are in
Christ.
Let me just read quickly.
Verse 13.
But now in Christ Jesus, ye who sometimes
were far off are made nigh by the
blood of Christ.
So first of all, by his calvary death,
our Lord has destroyed distance.
The far off are made nigh.
He has destroyed distance.
Read on.
Verse 14.
For he, Christ, is our Jew and Gentile
peace.
So he has not only destroyed distance, he
has destroyed dissension.
He is our peace.
Read on.
Who hath made both Jew and Gentile one.
So he has also destroyed disunion.
Read on.
And hath broken down the middle wall of
partition, the law of commandments contained in ordinances.
He has destroyed division.
And finally, for to make in himself of
the twain of the two, that is Jew
and Gentile, one new man.
He has destroyed all distinction.
Now, friends, those are the five negative aspects
of our Lord's calvary work.
He has destroyed one, distance, two, dissension, three,
division, four, disunion, and five, all distinction.
And having pointed out those five negative aspects
of our Lord's calvary work, Paul crowns them
with three wonderful positives.
Read on again in verse 16.
And that he might reconcile both, that's both
Jew and Gentile, unto God in one body
by the cross.
So first, he reconciles both Jew and Gentile
to God.
Emphasis on the preposition to God.
Now verse 17.
And he came and proclaimed peace to you
which were afar off, that's the Gentiles, and
to them that were nigh, that's the Jews.
So first he reconciles both Jew and Gentile
to God.
Then he comes and preaches peace to Jew
and Gentile from God.
And now finally, for through him, Christ, we
both, Jew and Gentile, have our access in
one spirit unto God.
No, not just to God, but to the
Father.
It's a family.
Have you got it?
Let me see if you're excited enough.
Yes.
What's the time?
Oh, we're doing not too badly.
We'll not finish this morning, but somehow I
didn't think we would.
But all right, first the Holy Spirit seals
believers, then the Holy Spirit illumines believers, and
then the Holy Spirit unifies believers.
And now reference number four, chapter two, verse
22.
In whom Christ, ye also are builded together,
now isn't this wonderful, for a habitation of
God.
You think how big this universe is.
If you can, but you can't.
And then think of the unimaginable, infinite, magnitudinous
greatness of God.
And you and I are builded together with
other saints for a habitation of God through
the Spirit.
Here the Holy Spirit occupies and sanctifies believers,
making them nothing less than a habitation of
God through the Spirit.
By the way, Mr. Chairman and friends, I
simply can't help it.
I am a preacher, you know, and of
a sort.
And when I come across verses like this,
I can't help looking at them in their
context.
And you know, once again here, we have
a wonderful climax to a wonderful context.
Have you ever studied the Apostle Paul's therefores
and wherefores?
I love Paul's syllogistic form of reasoning.
There's something mentally satisfying as well as spiritually
edifying about it.
Now, the climax of this chapter begins at
verse 19, with the final paragraph.
Just look at it.
Verse 19.
Now therefore.
Ah, here's one of his therefores.
There's something big coming.
Now therefore, ye are no more strangers and
foreigners, but fellow citizens with the saints, and
of the household of God.
What does that mean, fellow citizens with the
saints?
Do I need even to start explaining to
a company of students and friends at PBI?
Why, just about as far B.C. as
we are now living A.D., Patriarch Abraham
looked for a city whose builder and maker
is God.
And the Hebrews epistle tells us that for
all the saints of the Old Testament days,
God hath prepared for them all a city.
Isaiah caught wonderful flashes of that apocalyptic city,
and Ezekiel in advance saw some of its
flashing glories, so did Zechariah, so did others
of the prophets.
And when you turn to the New Testament,
you find recurrent references to it, until at
last you come across this.
Here we Christians have no continuing city, but
we seek one which is to come.
And then you turn on to the last
book of the Bible, the Apocalypse, and in
the last two chapters, you have in full
photography the new Jerusalem coming down out of
heaven from God and adorned as a bride
for her husband.
Friends, we are fellow citizens in that city.
We are anticipatedly enfranchised in that never-ending
new Jerusalem, not the old Jerusalem which is
to be built up in the millennium, but
the new Jerusalem amid the new heaven and
the new earth.
There's coming a time when you and I,
hell-deserving sinners though we are, having been
washed in the wonderful blood of God's Lamb
and born again by the heavenly Spirit and
sanctified and glorified and presented perfect before the
throne of the heavenly majesty, we are going
to sit down in that city with Abel
and Enoch and Noah and Abraham and Isaac
and Jacob and the prophets and the patriarchs
and the martyrs and the saints and believers
of all the ages.
Oh, it's a big thing to be saved,
you know.
But friends, what's that compared with the next
thing?
Now, therefore, you're no more strangers and foreigners,
but fellow citizens with the saints and of
the household of God.
I mustn't dilate on this.
Every one of these clauses and phrases is
just packed full of meaning, but you see,
our enfranchisement in that city speaks of our
dignity and privilege.
But when I read that I'm a member
of the family and that God is my
father and that Christ is my elder brother
as well as my savior, that speaks of
affectionate intimacy, sacred familiarity, communion heart to heart
with God.
What that's going to mean, it will take
all the ages of eternity to unfold to
us.
Read on.
Now the third thing, and are built upon
the foundation of the apostles and the prophets,
that's the New Testament prophets, Jesus Christ himself
being the chief cornerstone, that's the great solid
block which is both the base and the
bond of the whole building.
So we are all citizens of the one
city, all members of the one heavenly family,
and all securely founded on the one immovable
foundation, Jesus Christ.
And now the fourth thing, in whom all
the building fitly framed together groweth, isn't this
beautiful, unto an holy temple in the Lord.
We are all living members of that one
indestructible spiritual building, the ecclesia, the church.
And finally, in whom ye also are builded
together for a habitation of God through the
Spirit.
You get the five things there.
One, all citizens of the one heavenly city.
Two, all members of the one redeemed family.
Three, all securely founded on the one imperishable
foundation.
And four, all living stones in the one
glorious spiritual building.
And five, all indwelt and sanctified by the
one heavenly Holy Spirit.
Friends, I don't know whether it's good news
or not, my time is up.
Hmm.
Have I tired you?
No.
Well, I didn't think I had, but I
thought I'd better ask.
Don't you think we ought to continue this
tomorrow morning?
And I'll make a promise, shall I?
Yes, I'll make a promise.
I will finish tomorrow.
And do you know, friends, I think after
a little interview I had with one of
the students last night, I think we'll continue
all this week on different aspects of the
Holy Spirit's deeper ministry in the Christian.
Don't you think that would be good for
us?
Now, it's due to that student that I'm
taking this line.
I had come here this week with a
great ponderous series of highly concatenated theological disquisitions.
But after my little talk with her ladyship
last evening, I thought, oh, some of them
are so tired.
I can't expect them to concentrate on something
that needs a lot of focused attention.
I think it will do us good to
come here prayerfully, but just come resting in
our Savior's sympathy.
And let these morning sessions be a time
of inward relaxation.
Enjoy the Word.
It'll do you good.
And you know, friends, we have a dear,
dear Savior, don't we?
Yes, we do.