Q. Is the Jordan a type of this?
Jordan is an illustration of it, but it is simpler to take it, as it is here stated, by itself. Why I can see it in Jordan, in a certain sense, is because the Ark went down—there was no smiting with the rod. I have no Ark in the passage of the Red Sea. Here I am dead in sins, and He put them away in coming and taking them through death.
Q. What is the great moral difference between the Red Sea and the Jordan?
The Red Sea is deliverance from Egypt (the world and all that was against me). Jordan is entrance into the land along with the Ark (Christ).
(V. 6.) I now get power accomplishing counsels. So far as these counsels are realized, they are real to me; and so far as they are not realized, there is no present enjoyment. You must take care and not take it as present enjoyment only, because you would then lower the counsels.
I say you are holy and without blame before Him in love. You say you are not, you have lost your place; the moment you take it as present enjoyment you lose it. I cannot take that as the sense of the passage. It is all God here, exercising the power. I have man as nothing, except dead in sins.
I have God who has taken Christ out of death and put Him at His own right hand, and God has taken me and put me there too.
In the first chapter it was counsels only, here it is the working of power.
(V. 10.) “We are his workmanship.” The whole thing is a new creation, we are created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them. I believe that the works foreordained are quite as much part of the counsels, as what has gone before. The works of the Christian are just as much foreordained as the place He has brought him into in sovereign grace. To walk as Christ walked. When you come to the exercise of this from chapter 4, 5:17, this is brought out.
V. 11. They have no part in the old promises, they were “aliens” from all Jewish favors, but now made nigh by the blood of Christ (v. 14). “Broken down the wall.” The twain are made one new man. This is their reconciliation together by the cross, and then both are joined together by God through it. He then comes preaching peace to you who were afar off (Gentiles), and to them who were nigh (Jews). It is entirely by this that the “middle wall” is broken down. There is a double reconciliation in verses 16-17. The Church could have no place till the middle wall was broken down. This necessarily excludes Old Testament saints from the Church. It is all the thought of God preaching peace by Christ.
Q. Why is the Spirit left out of this chapter? Because it is God’s counsels and the power to bring them about, therefore it is God. I should say as a general principle that the Spirit is brought in in Ephesians. You have Him as the sealing of the individual (1St chap). At the end of this chapter He dwells in the collective thing—the Church. The quickening is not said to be by the Spirit, because he is talking about what God has done.
I have the dead man and God the workman. It is what is the exceeding greatness of His power to us-ward who believe ... when He raised Him from the dead. No doubt the Spirit was there, but it is God who is in question. You have not the Father at all yet.
(V. 21.) Now I have association with Him as a building; as in ch. 1, I had it as a body in the counsels of God; Christ, head over all things to the Church, which is His body. Here I have the present operation of God. It is the body of Christ, but the habitation of God through the Spirit. I do not say it is on earth, here: this is true in other parts of Scripture.
The moment I get it as counsel, I get it as God’s mind. We see Him as Head over all things to the Church, but we do not see Him yet as Head over everything. In Ephesians I have the thoughts of God as to individuals and the thoughts of God as to the body. Christ raised from the dead as Man, and Christ Head over the Church, and it as His body, as a glorified Man.
The operations in chap. 2 Perfect the counsels of chap. 1. I get the building as growing to a holy temple in the Lord. When I get hold of this neither the body nor the temple is finished. In other places it is looked at as complete, but not here. I ask whether we are holy, without blame before God? You say, No. Then that is not fulfilled. We are so in Christ. But it does not say in Christ in chap. 1, but it is going to be an actual thing; that is the counsel of God. When I get the building growing, it is not supposed to be finished. Christ says; “I will build my Church;” (Matthew 16) this building is not finished. Peter says “To whom coming as unto a living stone.... ye also as living stones are built up,” &c. (1 Peter 2:44To whom coming, as unto a living stone, disallowed indeed of men, but chosen of God, and precious, (1 Peter 2:4).) But the building is not finished. Till you get into the counsels of God, you do not get the first principle of the Ephesians.
He has chosen us in Him that we should be holy and without blame before Him, carefully leaving out present or future. It is another question how far this is realized.