We have looked at the difference between intercourse with the glory of God, and communion of the soul with God Himself. Communion with God surpasses everything else.
We saw in chap. 1, many things displayed by God, and the recording of them brings before our souls things really glorious. What a glorious thing that Saul the persecutor was made a partaker of the call of the Father of glory! What a glorious thing that such an one as I should know what the hope of that calling is for my own soul! God might have called us, and yet never have revealed what was in His mind about that call; hut He has abounded toward us in all wisdom and prudence in making known to us the mystery of His will. I can turn to many scriptures and show you plainly what the hope of His calling is. Again, He has revealed to us the riches of the glory of His inheritance in the saints. As He inherited the promised land, and called it His land, and never gave up His claims, so as to us the heavens are to be filled with His glory. We are to be His inheritance in which He will display the riches of His glory. Again, He makes known the exceeding greatness of His power. He displays it in Christ as man in raising Him from the dead, and in setting Him far above all principality and power; and this power is displayed in us too. This is something come out from God—which human nature cannot lay hold of. It knows nothing of being crucified, dead, buried, quickened, raised up, seated in heavenly places in Christ. This it cannot understand. It is beyond the region of man’s thoughts—not contrary to nature or reason, but beyond them. It knows nothing of this. It cannot understand that I am identically one with Christ. But God has said so, and faith receives it. When the soul is quickened, it says, I am the very opposite of Christ in everything. Light has shone in, and revealed the contrast; but the light also discovers that I am reckoned by God, crucified, dead, and buried with Christ. There is a connection directly, there is faith in the soul between the death of Christ eighteen hundred years ago and the believer, so that God can say of a Saul of Tarsus, and of sinners like ourselves—dead, buried, raised up, and made to sit together in heavenly places in Christ. The call has come down to where I am. The glory of the inheritance cheers me in the wilderness. The Man Christ Jesus is found where a Saul was found, dead, and so we are quickened together with Christ.
Now, the second prayer is not concerning things to come forth from God. The prayer turns upon communion. The eye of Paul is up above, not looking at certain things, however glorious, but at the source and fountain whence those glories flow. It is communion with God Himself. The eye fixed upon Christ in heaven, so that He dwells in the heart. The soul rooted and grounded in love, so that it knows the love of Christ which passeth knowledge. The soul is up above, and it is not certain glories, but an object that meets the mind. The Person of Christ is before the eye, with all the display of the Father’s love in Him there; and the saint down here tasting His love, being in communion with this love of Christ.
Now, I cannot compare anything with the love of Christ. It is beyond all other blessings. In fact, I have no blessing at all, without I know His love. I am not speaking of our love to Him, though I would to God there was more of it in our hearts. But what a blessed thing to be able to look up into heaven, and to say to the Lord Jesus, “Lord, I am indeed a poor, cold thing. I am ashamed of my want of love, my leanness, my slowness of heart in learning Thy love; but, nevertheless, Lord, Thou knowest all things, Thou knowest that Thou lovest me.” What would I like to put in comparison with Christ’s love? There is nothing like it. There is nothing so sweet as being able to say to one’s soul, “I am loved in heaven;” and this love of Christ not known by a certain description of those He loves, but Christ loves me individually. I know it; and unless we know the love of Christ, we cannot say, it passeth knowledge. If you do not know His love—if it has not been made good to your soul by the Holy Ghost—you cannot say it passeth knowledge. If our hearts are in heaven, we shall know the wellings of this fountain of the love of the Lord Jesus Christ. We shall know it perfectly when we are with Him. It will not be any effort then, but now I have to give the lie to sense in learning the love of Christ. We shall see the glory then. Our eye will take in the display of the riches of the inheritance then. But will there be no expression of this love to us then? Oh yes. The love of Christ will be known personally there. The glory will not occupy us like the love.
Now, looking on to the end of verse 19, we shall see the result of knowing this love of Christ, “that ye might be filled with all the fullness of God.” This is a thought of communion. It is not fullness of glory, but the fullness of God in the soul.
Christians have often very imperfect thoughts of communion. Their intercourse with God consists often in telling Him their troubles, their needs, their desires. It is all one-sided. All is from themselves. They wait not to receive the fullness of God too. But receiving is more our place than giving. As an instance, there was a clergyman, who was in a low, desponding state, telling out to God all his complaints, and more than once his servant remarked, “Master, had you not better say something of Christ now.” It is when we are receiving God’s thoughts about His fullness, that we can say, in any sense, we are filled with the fullness of God. In the glory there will be no room for self. We shall be filled with God alone. God will be all in all. Filled unto (as it should be rendered) all the fullness of God. A little vessel filled unto the vast ocean, so that there is within and without the fullness of God. We are poor, leaky vessels; but if we are always in the sea, we shall always be filled unto all the fullness.
I often think what a wondrous thing it is, that I can tell God about the glories and beauties of the Son of His love. Who am I to speak to Him of such an One as His Son? I who was a poor, vile sinner—the chief of sinners! Ah! the answer is—But a son now, beloved now. It is the grace of God which places us before Him in communion. He would have us occupied with the love of Christ; having fellowship with Him in the thoughts He has about the Son of His love. How little are Christians occupied with Christ in glory! How little there is of the groaning of the Spirit in us after this glory! There is plenty of the realization of the sorrows of the wilderness, the groanings of the creation, the trials of the way; but how little groaning after the glory, which should fill our souls with unutterable longings after it! Surely we are leaky vessels, letting this love of Christ slip out of our hearts!
This is the eternal fullness of the blessing with which we are inseparably connected. Is that passing through my soul, “Well, God has to do with me”? I do not think God’s people enter into this, or think sufficiently of it. God has taken me up; and within and without I am filled into all the fullness of God. It is nothing mystical to be filled unto all the fullness of God. It is simple if I realize who the Christ of God is, whose love I know. Surely it is the fullness of God. It is not a mystical thought if I know His loving heart, and who He is, and the taste of His love in my soul. I can say, Lord, I know Thy love, and I count it to be the fullness of God.
In verse 20, we get into entirely another world. Oh, you say, I must stop here. If ever I get to know this love of Christ, and to be filled into all the fullness of God, I shall have all I want. But Paul could not stop, the Spirit led him to say in this verse, I cannot in any way express the thoughts of God about you. Nothing that could be asked or thought, could measure the love of Christ. Christ Himself, when on earth, did not find human language nearly large enough. On the Cross He said, “Why hast thou forsaken me?” but language left untold all that that forsaking was to Him.
The Queen of Sheba found her heart faint within her at the display of Solomon’s glory. And when the Holy Ghost brings any part of the love of Christ to our souls, we find a freshness and power which makes us feel as if we had never known it thus before. Paul could not—when writing by the inspiration of God—at all express the Father’s love for you, or the love of the Son, or the Spirit’s desires for you. Can you express God’s desires to bless you? Christians think of their desires for blessing, but forget God’s desires for them. After all you ask or think, God is able to do exceedingly abundantly beyond it all. But we are not lost in this immensity, for as Paul adds, it is “according to the power that worketh in us.” We have tasted that which we know not how to express. The power which is able to do exceeding abundantly above all that we ask or think, worketh in us. I can say to such an one as Paul, though I am less than the least of all saints, the same power works in me as in you. The honorable member and the least honorable have the same power working in them. The result of all these blessings is praise. It ends in worship. “Unto Him be glory in the church by Christ Jesus throughout all ages.”
It is not praising God, because of the suitability of Christ to me; but praising God because of what Jesus Christ is to Him. The Father’s thoughts about His Son revealed to the church are the theme of her worship. Neither is the worship individual. It is family enjoyment. “By the church” the praises are offered.
Thus have we communion with God. Having the divine nature, we have tasted the love of His own beloved Son, and we can say, “To Him be glory in the church, by Christ Jesus, throughout all ages, world without end. Amen.”