On the closing verse or two of the portion last before us, I did not comment. A few words now, therefore, on verses 12, 13. The apostle having alluded to Christ as the One in whom, exalted on high, the eternal purpose of God has now been revealed by the Spirit, adds that in that same person, “We have boldness and access, with confidence by the faith of Him. Wherefore, I desire that ye faint not at my tribulations for you, which is your glory” (vss. 12-13). Now it is very sweet to find how, even in so vast a subject as that which was occupying his heart, and which he desired to press upon the saints, he can link on with the highest and deepest counsels of God the very simplest of the fundamental truths on which the believer rests. This is most instructive: because while, on the one hand, we saw before now that it is quite in vain to enter into the nature of the Church without having a simple, clear, and full understanding of the peace which Christ has made, and which He is for us in the presence of God; on the other hand, when we do seize in any measure the character of the Church, when we see the astonishing privileges which are ours as being made one with Christ, we regard with a more intense enjoyment the first elements, and we realize the amazing stability of the foundations on which our souls are privileged to stand. Thus one sees God would take care that peace of conscience and of the heart, too, should be kept up practically. There is nothing that is merely given for the wonder of our minds. I do not say that there is not endless matter for admiration, or that there is not an infinity to learn; but every step, and, indeed, the highest attainment of the knowledge of God’s purposes in Christ, is intimately linked with the confidence of our souls in His love. So that while we cannot apprehend aright the nature of the Church until we have known simple peace with God, when we do enter into it, that peace is brightened in the heavenly light of the privileges into which the Holy Spirit has been leading our souls. We come back with renewed understanding and deeper enjoyment of the boundless grace which is ours in Christ. Hence it is that having ushered us into this wonderful expanse of God’s love and purposes, he for a moment glances at certain practical consequences in us. “In whom,” says he, “we have boldness and access with confidence by the faith of Him” (vs. 12). It is not only peace, but “we have boldness,” (vs. 12) which refers more particularly to our speech in addressing God: being able, as it were, to say anything to Him; because of our confidence in His love. And “access with confidence,” (vs. 12) which is not merely what we utter, but the drawing near to Him, even where there may be no positive going forth of heart in the way of formal prayer; but there is the enjoyment of nearness, “access with confidence by the faith of him” (vs. 12). “Wherefore I desire that ye faint not at my tribulations for you, which is—your glory” (vs. 13). There is another practical fruit of this blessed truth. We saw before how he introduces the unfolding of the Church along with the fact that he was a prisoner of Jesus Christ. At the very moment when he was under the hand of the power of this world, and with the possibility of death before him, the Lord is pleased to bring out through the apostle the glorious calling of the Church. And He reminds them of this again. They might have been cast down at his sufferings. He says, on the contrary, you should not faint; tribulation ought to be rather that which would exercise and strengthen your faith. In 2 Corinthians 1 the apostle speaks of being pressed out of measure, above strength, so that he despaired even of life. But when the Corinthians needed comfort, he had it from God, and was able to give it out to them. Now he was under the world’s power and in prison, and there God unfolds the glory of the Church. They would, no doubt, be called to suffer too, and would have to know what tribulation was. So that the apostle, in the fullness of his own enjoyment of the truth which enabled him to rejoice even in his sufferings, calls upon them not to faint. So entirely has the Spirit of God united together the saints, not only with Christ, but also with one another, that what Paul was suffering was their glory, not his only, They had a common interest in it as being members of the same body.
“For this cause I bow my knees unto the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, of whom the whole family in heaven and earth is named, that He would grant you, according to the riches of His glory, to be strengthened with might by His Spirit in the inner man” (vss. 14-16). Here we are on perceptibly different, and I may say higher, ground than that of chapter 1. It is one of the two great relationships in which God stands to Christ, and, consequently, to us. For God now acts toward Christ, in view not merely of His person, but of His work. The consequence is that the work efficaciously puts us in the same place before God which belongs to Christ as man, yea, to Christ as man risen from the dead and in heaven. I carefully guard against saying all that Christ is, for this would not be true. We never can share what pertains to Him as the Son of the Father from all eternity. It were impossible, and even if conceived, it would be irreverent. No creature can overpass the bounds which separate him from God, neither would a renewed creature desire it. For in truth it is the joy of the most exalted creature to pay the lowliest homage to Him who is above him. Therefore I have little doubt that, in heaven among the angels of God, the highest is he who shows the deepest reverence. So, in earthly things, it is plainly the duty of every one to mark respect to the sovereign; but the one who has the place next to the sovereign has the largest opportunities and the strongest obligation to mark what the sovereign is in his eyes. So with us now in things spiritual.
In this portion, then, we have the second of the two great titles of God in relation to Christ and to us. It is not here, as in chapter 1, the God, but the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. The God of Christ brings out Christ more as the glorious man which He is—the glorified man in God’s presence, the center of all the counsels of God’s power, who is even now exalted in the highest seat in heaven, and all things put under His feet. But it is plain that Christ has that which He values more than all that is set under His dominion—the love and delight of His Father in Him. Even our hearts are capable of understanding and enjoying this in the Holy Spirit. Indeed the time comes in most men’s history, even where the world has counted them greatest and happiest, when they find a void that nothing can satisfy. But in Christ’s case glory will not be the withering plant that human handling makes it. We know that in His hands it will be equally bright and holy, because God will be the object of it all; and everything, consequently, will be turned to His praise; as it is said, “Every knee shall bow and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father.” But then no possession of the universe, no expulsion of evil, no righteous judgment, no blessed control of everything to the glory of God, could possibly satisfy the heart. There will be the salt of the everlasting covenant of God in it: the constant maintenance of God’s will and glory will be felt. But there is something sweeter than any power, let it be ever so glorious or howsoever administered; and this we have here. It is the Father’s love which is above all. The effect of the one prayer is, that you look down upon the immense scene that is put under Christ; and it is intended of God that you should. But the effect of the second is rather, you look up in the enjoyment of the love that is the secret of the glory—and the glory the effect and fruit of the love, and that which evidences what the love must have been that has given such glory. But blessed as glory is, the love that gives the glory is still deeper and better. And hence, when our Lord in John 17, prays for the saints—when He says, “The glory which thou gavest me I have given them,” (John 17:2222And the glory which thou gavest me I have given them; that they may be one, even as we are one: (John 17:22)) what is it for? “That the world may know that thou hast sent me, and hast loved them as thou hast loved me” (John 17:2323I in them, and thou in me, that they may be made perfect in one; and that the world may know that thou hast sent me, and hast loved them, as thou hast loved me. (John 17:23)). This is the object of it. All are made perfect in one in that glory; but the end of that manifestation of glory is that the world may know how much the Father loved them. Thus, the glory that is seen, blessed as it must be, is not the end of everything. There was love before there was glory. And while I would not assert that there will be love after there is glory, still I do say that what produces, gives, and maintains the glory, is better than the glory itself. Aye, and there is nothing in all the thoughts of God more wondrous than that God can love such as we are with the same love wherewith He loves His Son. And He does so love; I know it for myself, and dishonor His word if I do not know it. If He says it, is it not that I may believe it and take it home to my heart, and enjoy it now in this world?—that I may use it as my constant buckler against everything that flesh or world or Satan can insinuate against me? He loves us as He loved Him. Do not say it is too high a thing. I know nothing so humiliating—that so convicts us of being nothing—as this that so loved, we should so little feel it; that so loved, we should so feebly return it; that so loved, we should yield to the cares, the vanities, the thoughts, the pursuits, anything, in short, that is not according to that love. It is the delight and, if we may so say, the desire of God that those who are His should enter into the greatness of His love. For no glory, nor sense of it, nor confidence, nor waiting for it, ought to be enough even for such hearts as ours. It is a most wonderful thing, to think that we are to share the glory of Christ: but we have the same love too. The same God that gives us the glory of Christ, will have our souls enter even now by the Holy Spirit into the community of the same love; and such is the grand central thought of this prayer. “For this cause I bow my knees unto the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ” (vs. 14).
The Father of Christ is that relationship which brings out the love, just as the kingdom of Christ is connected with His conferred or human glory. In the one case it is what He is going to do for us. If we think what He did for Adam, what His purpose was about man, what will He not do for the last Adam, even Christ? And all that He does for Him as this blessed, glorious man, He will share with us. But more than that. The love that the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ bears to Him, He bears also to us. We know how He expressed it when His Son was here—at what striking moments He brought out His love—how jealous He was lest man should suppose that He was indifferent to His beloved Son. Suffering allowed is no proof that He does not love; yea, rather, the contrary—a proof of how much not only He trusts our love, but how much also He would have us to trust His: confiding in Him, that, spite of all appearances, He loves us as He loves His Son. We may be exposed to all that Satan can array against us; but we are only in the same scene which the Son of His own love has trodden before us. But when men might have thought, from this or that, that Jesus was no more than any other man, see how God vindicates Him. Thus, it was not only that John the Baptist tried to hinder the Lord Jesus from being baptized, as if He needed to confess anything—for that baptism was a confession of sins; and therefore did John show his astonishment that there should be even the appearance of confession on the part of such an one as Jesus. But God had deeper thoughts, and allows that there should be that which unbelief might torture into the insinuation of evil, but which faith lays hold of, and for which only we adore Him and the Lamb yet more. So it was that the Father, when His beloved Son rose out of the Jordan, where all others were confessing unrighteousness—where He was fulfilling all righteousness—where He who had no unrighteousness to confess, still would not be severed from those who were doing that which became their unrighteousness—who were owning the God whose rights had been forgotten—and in sympathy with the holy feeling that led them there, He would be with them there: then it was that the Father declared, “This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased” (Matt. 17:55While he yet spake, behold, a bright cloud overshadowed them: and behold a voice out of the cloud, which said, This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased; hear ye him. (Matthew 17:5)). It was just at the right moment, and with the fullest wisdom; but with what love the Father uttered these words! He that served Him as He never was served before—He that glorified Him as God never had been glorified on this earth—He that finished the work which God had given Him to do—was God likely to betray the smallest turning aside of His heart from Him? But yet we know that at the moment when He most of all needed it, when all else was against Him, then, crowning all, God forsook Him. If sin was to be judged and put away forever, it must be judged in all its reality. There must be no sparing, nor mitigating the wrath of God about sin. The whole judgment of God fell upon Him—the work was done—sin was put away by the sacrifice of Himself.
And now all the love which the Father had towards that blessed One can flow out to us on the ground of that work. It is there that the apostle puts us, brought into the place of sons with the Father; and he bows his knee to the “Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, of whom every family in heaven and earth is named.” The expression “the whole family” (vs. 15) is jumbled up with people’s notions about the church, as if part were meant as in heaven and part on earth. But the real force is “every family.” There is no reference to the unity of the church here. On the contrary, he means that when we look at the Father of the Lord Jesus Christ, we rise sufficiently high to take in every class of creatures that God has made. Supposing you look at God as He made Himself known of old, it was as Jehovah to Israel. Does every family in heaven and earth come under this title? Not a single family in heaven, and only one family on earth. Under the title of Jehovah there is a separate relationship in which God reveals Himself to the Jews. He was their God in a sense in which He was not the God of any other people. As Creator, He is the God of all; and thus in some scriptures the term “God” is used, not Jehovah, because of a certain dealing with Gentiles. But where it concerns the ancient people of God, he uses the term Jehovah. Nay, in the second book of Psalms, when the Holy Spirit is contemplating the godly Jew worshipping God far from His temple, we have not Jehovah prominent, but “God”—for they are not able to enjoy what is specially given to Israel. He never will cease to be God, and they find their blessing in this—come what may—God cannot deny Himself. They are outside the special place in which He had promised to bless them; but God was God everywhere. So that if they were cast out of the Holy Land, and could not go up to the temple to worship according to the law, God could never cease to be God. It is the very same principle of grace that Christ was bringing down the poor Syrophenician woman to—that we must always come to our true position; and the same thing in substance is verified in every real conversion. I must always be brought down to the truth of what I am, as well as to the truth of what God is, and then there is no limit to the blessing.
I have just referred to this, by the way, for the purpose of illustrating by contrast the phrase “every family in heaven and in earth.” When God was revealing Himself in special relationship with Israel, it was as Jehovah. In Daniel we hear not of Jehovah, but the God of heaven, he is clearly in contradistinction to God revealing Himself on the earth to a certain people that He gave a peculiar land to, and privileges that no other nation shared along with them. They go after false gods: He takes His place in heaven, and falls back upon what never could be denied, and as “the God of heaven” (ch. 1:3) He says, I will choose now whom I will. I will take the very worst people in the whole world, and will give them the empire of the earth. So He chose the enemy of the Jew—the Babylonians. If God is acting thus sovereignly, as the God of heaven, the vilest may have the power here below. But “there is a God that judgeth the earth,” (Psa. 58:1111So that a man shall say, Verily there is a reward for the righteous: verily he is a God that judgeth in the earth. (Psalm 58:11)) and when the day comes to verify that, it will be in the midst of His people as Jehovah. Looked at in this way, He has only one family that stands in covenant relationship to Himself: “You only have I known of all the families of the earth” (Amos 3:22You only have I known of all the families of the earth: therefore I will punish you for all your iniquities. (Amos 3:2)). But here we have the contrast. He is revealed not merely as Jehovah, having Israel, His people, upon earth, but as “the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ” (vs. 14). The moment He speaks in such a relationship as this, it is expressly in association with one who made everything, as was said before, “who created all things by Jesus Christ” (vs. 9). All creatures therefore come into view, and finding their due place with Him as the Father, because the Lord Jesus is He that formed all, and for whose glory all was made. Hence all families in heaven and earth, let them be principalities and powers, angels, Jews or Gentiles, as well as the Church of God, all come under “the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ” (vs. 14). The title Jehovah is restricted to a particular race: the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, is unlimited in its range, and brings in every class of beings that God has made. This puts the Church in a most remarkable position, taking us away from all that is local or temporary. We ourselves may have the most special place within this display of divine glory, but still we have to do with a God and Father who is the proclaimed and supreme source of everything else. We may be, we are, if we understand the calling of the Church, near to Him, in a place that none can share, a nearness that no angel enjoys. I mean by “we,” all the members of the Church of God. We have by grace a place of association with Christ before God, which none others enter. But as He is revealing Himself in connection with Christ as the Father of the Lord Jesus Christ, so He brings in other classes of beings that He has made for the purpose of His giving blessing in their suited measure. He has brought out the heir and center of all His purposes, and there is not a single class of beings that He has made for His praise, but what are put in their proper place before the Father of the Lord Jesus Christ. It is in contrast with the peculiarity of the Jew as being the sole possessor of the privileges God gave to them as Jehovah. The Father is Jehovah, and so is Jesus; but it is not thus that we have to do with Him; nor is this our intelligent character of addressing Him. It is to the Father of the Lord Jesus Christ that the apostle is here bending his knees. And we ought to be conscious that we are drawing near to Him in the full nearness that such a title implies. He takes in within His eye and heart all creation as that which He means to bless with Christ. But there are those that have rejected Christ, and remember the very same love of Christ which means to bless the creation through Christ, will maintain His glory against those who despise Him. This is a solemn truth. There is nothing more intolerant of evil than love, and the gospel of God has, as its background, the eternal condemnation of every soul that despises Jesus the Son of God. It must be so. The sonic disciple that was the favored one of God to bring out love as none other had done, is the one who brings out the eternal death of those who refuse His love. The revelation, therefore, of the endless ruin of those that despise Christ, is in the closest possible connection with the love that brings out the everlasting blessedness of those that cleave to Him. Thus we have this universality brought in, “Of whom every family in heaven and earth is named” (vs. 15).
But there are, by grace, those that will have that which is most peculiar, which is nearest to His heart in the midst of this scene of love and glory; and here they are—“That He would grant you, according to the riches of His glory, to be strengthened with might by His Spirit in the inner man: that Christ may dwell in your hearts by faith; that ye, being rooted and grounded in love, may be able to comprehend with all saints what is the breadth, and length, and depth, and height” (vss. 16-18). He does not say what of—he leaves yet there without any ending to the sentence. He brings you into infinity. I do not believe that it means the breadth, length, depth, and height of the love of Christ. The passage is often quoted so, and oftener so understood; but the “and” of the next verse indicates another sense distinctly?—“And to know the love of Christ which passeth knowledge” (vs. 19). The love of Christ is evidently an additional thought. What then is the meaning? I would not be bold to fill up an outline which the apostle has left thus vaguely, but I venture to think that what he puts before us here, with such singular marks of undefined grandeur, is the mystery of which he had been speaking, and assuredly not Christ’s love, which he immediately adds. He had shown how every family in heaven and earth is ranged under the fatherhood of the Lord Jesus Christ. In connection with this he prays, “That you may be able to comprehend with all saints what is the breadth, and length, and depth, and height.” It is in relation to the heavenly counsel of God the Father, once secret but now disclosed. All things were for the glory of His Son—the whole creation, heavenly and earthly—and the saints are to have the very highest place with Him over it all.
But there was something still deeper than this, and which needed to be known along with it. Therefore he adds, “And to know the love of Christ which passeth knowledge, that ye might be filled with all the fullness of God” (vs. 19). Glorious as all these prospects are, still the love is deeper than it all: the best wine is kept to the last. “To know the love of Christ which passeth knowledge” (vs. 19). It may seem to be a paradox to say so, but a blessed one. It does not mean that we shall ever know it perfectly, but there may be the knowing more and more of that “which passeth knowledge” (vs. 19). He supposes us launched upon that sea where there is no shore: we can never get to the end of it. Yet he adds, “To know the love of Christ which passeth knowledge; that ye might be filled with all the fullness of God” (vs. 19). You could no more get to the end of the love, than you could get to the end of God Himself. Nothing can be more wonderful than this prayer. He adds further, “Now unto Him that is able to do exceeding abundantly above all that we ask or think” (vs. 20). He does not say, above all that we can ask or think. The Holy Spirit takes particular care not to say so. There is a great difference between what we do ask and think, and what we can ask and think. There is no limit to what we may ask. God is above anything that we can ask of Him, and He loves to hear us asking more and more. He would exercise us in asking more abundantly. “Now unto Him that is able to do exceeding abundantly above all that we ask or think, according to the power that worketh in us” (vs. 20). Whose power is that? It is God’s. God Himself dwells in every Christian. It is God Himself who makes every saint, that is, every Christian, to be His temple. Therefore, however poor and weak a Christian may be, looked at as he is, yet what cannot God make such an one to be? He is the temple of God. God will always be above him, higher than any man’s expectations of His love; but it is taken into account that there is a power which has wrought in us, as well as a power which has wrought for us, to which we can see no limits. As to the power that wrought for us, we see it in chapter 1. That was the power which raised up Christ from the dead; and it is the same power that works in us in connection with entrance into His love. Do we remember that this is precisely the thing in which we most fail? For there is many a soul constantly saying, I do not think of this power; I am apt to be murmuring, and tried by the very things which, if I only had the sense of His love, I should bless Him for. “To him that is able to do exceeding abundantly above all that we ask or think, according to the power that worketh in us, unto him be glory in the church by Christ Jesus throughout all ages, world without end. Amen” (vss. 20-21). There he gives us the Church in this most special point of view. He intimates that there will never be a time when the Church will not have its own peculiar place. But it is not only true that the Church will have a wonderful introduction into the love of Christ and the fullness of God, by His power that works in us now; but it would appear also that there never will be a time, in all the ages to come, when there will not be an unique and blessed character of relationship between the Church as such and God Himself—the God and Father of the Lord Jesus Christ. And this is confirmed by the beautiful scene in Revelation 21, where we have no longer nations and kings, but God with men. But it is not said simply, “Behold, the dwelling of God is with men,” but “the tabernacle.” It is not only that God comes down to dwell with men, but “the tabernacle of God is with men” (Rev. 21:33And I heard a great voice out of heaven saying, Behold, the tabernacle of God is with men, and he will dwell with them, and they shall be his people, and God himself shall be with them, and be their God. (Revelation 21:3)). It seems exactly the same thing that is here called the Church. God, dwelling in the Church, will take up His place with men; so that there will abide the peculiar dwelling-place of God in the Church, even when the scene is an eternal one. Thus, when the heavens and earth have passed away, after the great white throne, and when all the saints will be in their resurrection bodies, then not only will God be in face of men, but “the tabernacle of God” (Acts 7:4343Yea, ye took up the tabernacle of Moloch, and the star of your god Remphan, figures which ye made to worship them: and I will carry you away beyond Babylon. (Acts 7:43)) will come down to be with men—God dwelling with them in His own tabernacle, which tabernacle I believe to be that which is here called the Church. So that the Church, even in eternity, when all enemies and things shall be subdued, will enjoy the sweet and amazing privilege of being the home or dwelling-place of God. What manner of persons, then, ought we to be in holy conversation and godliness?