After chapter 1 (v. 19), I get the working, the exceeding greatness of His power to usward who believe, [not to the elect who do not believe.] It is in Him I have got it, but not in result yet. I cannot speak of the counsels of God going on. They are a perfect and complete thing in God’s mind.
When will the counsels of God be complete as to you? The final result is kept before us in the chapter. I quite admit that, in a sense, it is my place before God, but it is not true of me as it will be. We must not confuse between standing and counsel. We know it is all in Christ.
What is predestination to the adoption of children? (chap. 1:5.) I am a son, no doubt, yet I am waiting for the adoption, to wit, the redemption of the body. You are wrong in bringing in the present thing if you are interpreting the passage. It is present and future in one sense. In chapter 2 I am sitting in the heavenlies in Christ. God has put me into Christ, and in that day we shall be, sitting with Him; that is not carried out yet. He therefore puts before us the apprehension of these things. In the second chapter I get the two characters of the Assembly. It is the habitation of God through the Spirit, and it is growing to a holy temple in the lord. So you have the present and the future thing.
I believe that when you come to the habitation of God in all the earth, you get wood, hay, and stubble in. Professors are not let in here, but from other Scriptures I learn that man has corrupted what God has set up. The moment I get man’s responsibility I get the wood, hay, and stubble. God set it up for the habitation of God. Man is put in responsibility and fails utterly, as always Adam in the garden of Eden. Noah, in the government after the flood, first gets drunk and cannot take care of himself; the law is given, and they make a golden calf; under the priesthood, they offer strange fire the first day; royalty set up, fails in Solomon; Nebuchadnezzar, ruling the Gentiles, sets up idolatry, and becomes a beast. I get everything as having come to nothing in man, and yet all set up in Christ in perfection in one shape or another. Here, in Ephesians, I get it as God has set it up. It is its true, proper character, but, like everything else put into man’s responsibility, failed.