The Whole Counsel of God: December 2008
Table of Contents
What Wondrous Thought
What raised the wondrous thought;
Or who did it suggest?
That we, the church, to glory
brought,
Should with the Son be blest.
O God! the thought was Thine
(Thine only it could be),
Fruit of the wisdom, love divine,
Peculiar unto Thee:
For, sure, no other mind,
For thoughts so bold, so free,
Greatness or strength, could ever
find:
Thine only it could be.
The motives, too, Thine own,
The plan, the counsel, Thine!
Made for Thy Son, bone of His bone,
In glory bright to shine.
O God! with great delight
Thy wondrous thought we see,
Upon His throne, in glory bright,
The bride of Christ shall be.
Sealed with the Holy Ghost,
We triumph in that love,
Thy wondrous thought has made
our boast,
“Glory with Christ above.”
G. V. Wigram,
Little Flock Hymnbook, #330
The Secret Counsels of God
“O depth of riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable His judgments, and untraceable His ways! For who has known the mind of the Lord, or who has been His counsellor? or who has first given to Him, and it shall be rendered to him? For of Him, and through Him, and for Him are all things: to Him be glory forever. Amen” (Rom. 11:33-36 JND).
All created intelligence has reason to stand in awe of its Creator, who, according to His sovereign counsels, has chosen to display His glory in His Son, the Man Christ Jesus.
What creature could ever give good counsel to God on anything? God is unlimited in His wisdom and knowledge. The creature knows a tiny amount. What can a creature give to God that would make God obligated to the creature? Nothing!
God is supreme and sovereign in all His plans and purposes. He needs no help and none are able to give any. Everything He purposes to do must happen. In nothing can He fail. Everything must flow from Himself according to His own nature as light and love, and everything must be “of Him” and “through Him” and “for Him.”
“Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ” (Eph. 1:3).
Theme of the Issue
The Counsels of God
The Epistle to the Ephesians gives us the richest exposition of the blessings of the saints individually and of the assembly, setting forth at the same time the counsels of God with regard to the glory of Christ. Christ Himself is viewed as the One who is to hold all things united in one under His hand, as Head of the assembly. The assembly is placed in the most intimate relationship with Him, as those who compose it are with the Father Himself. The heavenly position is dispensed to the assembly by the sovereign grace of God. Now these ways of grace to the assembly reveal God Himself, and in two distinct characters: He is the God of Christ, when Christ is looked at as man; He is the Father of Christ when Christ is looked at as the Son of His love. In the first character the nature of God is revealed; in the second, we see the intimate relationship which we enjoy with Him who bears this character of Father. It is this relationship to the Father, as well as that in which we stand to Christ as His body and His bride, that is the source of blessing to the assembly of God.
The Secret of the Assembly’s Place in the Counsels
The secret of all the assembly’s blessing is that it is blessed with Jesus Himself, and thus — like Him, viewed as a man — is accepted before God, for the assembly is His body, and enjoys in Him and by Him all that His Father has bestowed on Him. Christ stands in two relationships with God His Father. He is a perfect man before His God, and He is a Son with His Father. We are to share both these relationships.
The two relationships between man and God are the relationships in which Christ Himself stands. He ascended to His God and our God, to His Father and our Father. We share all the blessings that flow from these two relationships. He has blessed us with all spiritual blessings; not one is lacking. But this flows from the heart of God Himself, from a thought outside the circumstances in which He finds us in time. Before the world was, this was our place in His heart. He purposed to give us a place in Christ. He chose us in Him. Paul begins in Ephesians entirely with God, His thoughts and His counsels, not with what man is.
A Sufficient Object
for God’s Counsels
What blessing, what a source of joy, what grace, it is to be the objects of God’s favor, according to His sovereign love! Take special notice here of the way in which the Holy Spirit keeps it continually before our eyes, that all is in Christ — in the heavenly places in Christ — He had chosen us in Him — unto the adoption by Jesus Christ — made acceptable in the Beloved. He is completely and adequately the delight of God. The heart of God finds in Him a sufficient object on which to pour itself out entirely, towards which His infinite love can all be exercised. It is with Himself and before Him, to gratify Himself, to satisfy His love.
What God Can Take Delight in
God could find His moral delight only in Himself and in that which morally resembles Him. This is a universal principle. God could not endure that which is in opposition to His holiness, since, in the activity of His nature, He must surround Himself with that which He loves and delights in. Christ is this in Himself. He is personally the image of the invisible God. Love, holiness and blameless perfection in all His ways are united in Him. And God has chosen us in Him. He brings us into His presence. The love of God must do this in order to satisfy itself. The love which is in us also must be found in this position to have its perfect object. It is there only that perfect happiness can be found. This being so, it is needful that we should be like God. He could not bring us as we were into His presence in order to take delight in us. He has therefore chosen us in Christ, that we should be holy, without blame before Him in love. So God takes delight in us, and we, possessing a nature like His own as to its moral qualities, are capable of enjoying His nature fully and without hindrance, and of enjoying it in its perfection in Him.
Counsels of Love
God our Father, in His sovereign goodness, according to His counsels of love, chooses to have us near Himself. The Father chooses to have us in an intimate relationship with Himself as sons. We are sons to Himself by Jesus Christ, according to the good pleasure of His will. If Christ is the image of the invisible God, we bear that image, being chosen in Him. If Christ is a Son, we enter into that relationship. These then are our relationships, so precious, so marvelous, with God our Father in Christ. These are the counsels of God. All the fullness of this grace reveals itself in His ways towards us — the original thoughts, so to speak, of God. These counsels have no other source than Himself, and in and by which He reveals Himself, and by the accomplishment of which He glorifies Himself.
If it is in Christ that we see our position according to the counsels of God, it is in Him also that we find the redemption that sets us there. We have redemption through His blood, the remission of our sins. Those whom He would bless were poor and miserable through sin. He has acted towards them according to the riches of His grace. The Spirit brings out in this passage the eternal counsels of God with regard to the saints in Christ, before He enters on the subject of the state from which He drew them, when He found them in their condition of sinners here below. In His counsels He has revealed Himself; He is glorious in grace. In His work He thinks of our misery, of our wants, according to the riches of His grace; we share in the counsels, as being their object in our poverty, in our need. He is rich in grace.
God Reveals His Counsels Concerning His Son
God, having placed us in this intimacy, reveals to us His thoughts respecting the glory of Christ Himself. This same grace has made us the depositaries of the settled purpose of His counsels, with regard to the universal glory of Christ, for the administration of the fullness of times. This is an immense favor granted us. We are interested in the glory of Christ as well as blessed in Him. Our nearness to God and our perfectness before Him enable us to be interested in the counsels of God as to the purposed glory of His Son. And this leads to the inheritance. God our Father has given us to enjoy all blessings in heavenly places ourselves, but He would unite all things in heaven and on the earth under Christ as Head, and our relationship with all that is put under Him, as well as our relationship with God His Father, depends on our position in Christ; it is in Him that we have our inheritance.
Counsels for Time
and Counsels for Eternity
The good pleasure of God was to unite all that is created under the hand of Christ. This is His purpose for the administration of the times in which the result of all His ways shall be manifested. In Christ we inherit our part, heirs of God, joint-heirs of Christ. Here the Spirit sets before us the position, in virtue of which the inheritance has fallen to us, rather than the inheritance itself. It will be a grand spectacle, as the result of the ways of God, to see all things united in perfect peace and union under the authority of man, of the second Adam, the Son of God, ourselves associated with Him in the same glory with Himself, His companions in the heavenly glory, as the objects of the eternal counsels of God. The eternal state, in which God is all in all, is another thing. The administration of the fullness of times is the result of the ways of God in government; the eternal state is that of the perfection of His nature. We, even in the government, are brought in as sons according to His nature. Wonderful privilege!
The Inheritance? Not yet.
Concerning the inheritance, the Holy Spirit is but an earnest. We do not yet possess anything of the inheritance. Then we shall be to the praise of His glory. The glory of His grace is already revealed. Thus we have here the grace which ordered the position of the children of God — the counsels of God respecting the glory of Christ as Head over all — the part which we have in Him as Heir — and the gift of the Holy Spirit to believers, as the earnest and seal (until they are put in possession with Christ) of the inheritance that He has won.
The Inheritance of
the Whole Universe
The inheritance of the whole universe, when it shall be filled with glory, belongs to Him, but He inherits it in the saints. It is the riches of the glory of His inheritance in the saints. He will fill all things with His glory, and it is in the saints that He will inherit them. By the calling of God we are called to enjoy the blessedness of His presence, near to Himself, to enjoy that which is above us. The inheritance of God applies to that which is below us, to created things, which are all made subject to Christ, with whom and in whom we enjoy the light of the presence of God near to Him.
Christ and the Members
Raised From the Dead
Christ raised up from among the dead is set at the right hand of God, far above all power and authority, and above every name that is named among the hierarchies by which God administers the government of the world that now is, or among those of the world to come. God has established Him as Head over all things, uniting the assembly to Him as His body, and raising up the members from their death in sins by the same power as that which raised up and exalted the Head. Thus the assembly, His body, is His fullness. He fills the universe with His glory, but the Head is not isolated, left, so to speak, incomplete as such, without its body. It is the body that completes it in that glory. Christ is the Head of the body over all things. He fills all in all, and the assembly is His fullness. We may observe that it is when Christ having accomplished redemption was exalted to the right hand of God, that He takes the place in which He can be the Head of the body.
Unsearchable Riches
The riches of Christ were unsearchable. No one could trace to the end the accomplishment of the counsels and the revelation of the nature of God. They are the incomprehensible riches of a Christ in whom God reveals Himself, and in whom all God’s thoughts are accomplished and displayed. These purposes of God with regard to Christ, the Head of His body, the assembly, are now made known and being accomplished. God, who created all things, had this thought, this purpose before creation, in order that, when He should subject all creation to His Son, that the Son should have companions in His glory, who should be like Himself, members of His spiritual body, living of His life.
He who had created all things, as the sphere of the development of His glory, had kept this secret in His own possession, in order that the administration of the mystery, now revealed by the establishment of the assembly on earth, should be in its time the means of making known to the most exalted of created beings the manifold and various wisdom of God. They had seen creation arise and expand before their eyes; they had seen the government of God, His providence, His judgment, His intervention in loving-kindness on the earth in Christ. Here was a kind of wisdom altogether new, a thing outside the world, hitherto shut up in the mind of God, hid in Himself. It was a new creation, a distinct manifestation of the wisdom of God, a part of His thoughts which until then had been reserved in the secret of His counsels, the actual administration of which was made known on the earth in time by the Apostle’s work, in the wisdom of God according to His settled purpose, according to His eternal purpose in Christ Jesus.
The Practical and Proper Effect
of the Counsels
The proper and immediate effect is the perfecting of individuals according to the grace that dwells in the Head. Christ has been revealed in all His fullness. It is according to this revelation that the members of the body are to be formed in the likeness of Christ. He is known as filling all things, and as the Head of His body, the revelation of the perfect love of God, of the excellency of man before Him according to His counsels, of man the vessel of all His grace, all His power, and all His gifts.
With this precious object of the ministration of grace for the growth of each member individually unto the measure of the stature of the Head Himself, each member being in its place to the edifying itself in love, ends this development of the counsels of God in the union of Christ and the assembly. The assembly has the double character of the body of Christ in heaven and the habitation of the Holy Spirit on earth. These truths cannot be separated, but each has its distinctive importance, and reconcile the certain immutable operations of grace in the Head with the failures of the assembly responsible on the earth.
J. N. Darby, excerpts adapted
from Synopsis on Ephesians
The Secret Counsels of God
The church is the body and bride of Christ. It occupies an exceptional place in God’s dealings, being heavenly in calling, and differs from everything related to or foretold in the Old Testament. Not only did the church not exist in Old Testament times, but it was not foretold. Though God’s purposes about it were formed “before the foundation of the world,” they were hidden “from ages and from generations” till His own time for revealing them.
These secret counsels of God are called mysteries in Scripture. In the language of the New Testament, a mystery is simply a secret revealed only to initiated persons. God had reserved a secret to be communicated to us — a secret which He had not made known even to the most favored ones in past ages. How sweet to see this! God has adopted us as His children, Christ has purchased us as His bride, and the secrets, hidden even from the most honored of His servants and friends, are now breathed into the ear and heart of the church.
This Mystery
These mysteries relate partly to the kingdom and partly to the church. That there would be a kingdom of the heavens, in which evil would be allowed during its formation, was a secret unknown to the prophets. This is the mystery disclosed in the parable of the wheat and the tares. But there is also a secret connected with the church or assembly. We read that God “did visit the Gentiles to take out of them a people for His name” (Acts 15:14), for He had announced by the prophets that His name would be called upon by the Gentiles. But the Scriptures are quoted here only to prove that God had never intended to confine His blessings to Israel. In writing to the Romans, the Apostle says, “I would not, brethren, that ye should be ignorant of this mystery, lest ye should be wise in your own conceits; that blindness in part is happened to Israel, until the fullness of the Gentiles be come in” (Rom. 11:25). It had been revealed that God would be merciful to the Gentiles, but that God was setting aside the Jews for the very purpose of gathering a people out of the Gentiles, and that until this was fully accomplished the blessing of Israel must be postponed, was a “mystery” on which the Old Testament Scriptures were wholly silent.
Israel’s Blessing
The Old Testament, which unfolds God’s plans concerning the world, shows the converse of this. There God is dealing with His earthly people Israel, and the Gentiles are used to provoke them to jealousy. But the New Testament reveals God’s heavenly purposes. The gathering of the church, instead of occupying a mere gap in God’s earthly designs, is the grand object of all His counsels. In the Old Testament, Gentile blessing is named, but as waiting upon God’s thoughts about Israel. In the New Testament, Israel’s blessing is named, but as waiting upon God’s thoughts about the church. The Old Testament shows a people who were the objects of God’s counsels “from the foundation of the world,” but the New Testament shows a people who were the objects of God’s counsels “before the foundation of the world” (Matt. 25:34; Eph. 1:4). In God’s earthly plans, everything yields to the former; in His heavenly plans everything yields to the latter. But as the heavenly people had the first and highest place in God’s thoughts, the earthly people must stand aside until His purposes concerning these are fully accomplished.
The Dispensation of God
In writing to the Colossians, Paul speaks of “the dispensation of God which is given to me for you, to fulfill [complete] the word of God, even the mystery which hath been hid from ages and from generations, but now is made manifest to His saints; to whom God would make known what is the riches of the glory of this mystery among the Gentiles: which is Christ in [or among] you, the hope of glory” (Col. 1:25-27). The mystery was therefore needed “to complete the word of God.” It was the presence of Christ in or among believers, as the hope of glory. The word does not say that the mystery was the presence of Christ among the Gentiles, but “among you” — that is, in the church. Christ’s presence among the Jews was foretold, but now His presence is revealed in an assembly outside Judaism, where Jew and Gentile were unknown.
More than this, Christ’s presence, foretold by the prophets, was not a hope of glory, but glory itself. When Christ reigns among the Jews, He will be their glory — “a light to lighten the Gentiles, and the glory of Thy people Israel” (Luke 2:32). Now, however, instead of glorifying those among whom He has taken His abode, He only gives them “the hope of glory.” At present they are members of His body. But the sufferings of that body are not yet filled up, and believers are now called out to fellowship with His sufferings, though with the blessed and assured hope of soon sharing His glory. This is another feature of the mystery now revealed to the saints.
Fellow-Heirs — One Body
In Ephesians the mystery is thus described: “That the Gentiles should be fellow-heirs, and of the same body, and partakers of His promise in Christ by the gospel” (Eph. 3:6). This is called “the mystery of Christ.” What, then, does it teach? We learn from the immediate context what this body is, in which Jew and Gentile are incorporated, and find that it is none other than the body of Christ Himself. “He is our peace, who hath made both one, and hath broken down the middle wall of partition, having abolished in His flesh the enmity, even the law of commandments contained in ordinances, for to make in Himself of twain one new man” (Eph. 2:14-15). Both Jew and Gentile are taken out of their old condition and brought into an entirely new one. The two classes of Jew and Gentile still exist in the world, but God has taken a number out of each and has formed a new class, the body of Christ, in which all distinctions are done away. The three divisions which God now owns are the Jew, the Gentile and the church of God (1 Cor. 10:32).
Afterwards, in the same epistle, Paul writes, “We are members of His body, of His flesh and of His bones. For this cause shall a man leave his father and mother, and shall be joined unto his wife, and they two shall be one flesh. This is a great mystery; but I speak concerning Christ and the church” (Eph. 5:30-32). Here, then, the mystery is expressly stated to be the union of Christ and the church, so that they are “one flesh,” and so that believers are “members of His body, of His flesh and of His bones.”
Distinguishing Features
of the Mystery
In whatever light, therefore, the church is regarded, it is spoken of as a mystery. Whether as the thing which God is now doing among the Gentiles during the time of Israel’s rejection, as the place in which Christ now makes His spiritual abode, as the body in which Jew and Gentile are alike incorporated on an entirely new ground, or as the bride, joined in one flesh with Christ Himself, it is a new thing, a secret “hid from ages and from generations.” This mystery is outside the sphere of God’s earthly dealings and reserved for the ear of those whom God has brought into relationship with His Son in heavenly glory.
Such, then, was the mystery now revealed to the church. Doubtless there are other mysteries disclosed in the New Testament also. There is “the mystery of iniquity,” “the mystery of godliness,” and the mystery of Christ’s special and separate return for His saints. In these as in other cases where the word is used, it is some new revelation suited to the heavenly character of the church, or to the present nature of God’s dealings viewed as an interruption of the course of earthly events foretold in the old prophets.
Heavenly and Earthly
But this special mystery committed to the Apostle Paul — why was it kept a secret? Because it is a heavenly thing — the subject of God’s heavenly counsels, whereas the purpose of the Old Testament prophecies is to make known His earthly counsels. This is of great importance as showing how completely the church lies outside the world. It has a different origin, it is revealed at a different time, it cherishes a different hope, it belongs to a different sphere. Instead of inheriting the Old Testament promises and fulfilling the Old Testament prophecies, it forms the most absolute contrast with them that the mind can conceive. So different are they that the two cannot exist together. While God’s purposes about the earth were being unfolded, the mystery of the church was hidden. When the mystery of the church was unfolded, the purposes about the earth were suspended. The church is associated with Christ in heaven; Israel is associated with Him on earth. The church knows Him in His sufferings and patience; Israel will know Him in His exaltation and power. The church rejoices in Him as the bride in her bridegroom; Israel will rejoice in Him as a nation in her sovereign. The church looks for Him to take her to heaven; Israel looks for Him to establish her in the earth. Such is our heavenly portion in contrast with even the most favored of the earthly people.
Paul’s Ministry
Earnest as Paul was in seeking souls, this magnificent subject of “the mystery of Christ” was never absent from his heart. If he prayed for the establishment of saints, it was according to the mystery. If he would have them “knit together in love, and unto all riches of the full assurance of understanding,” it is “to the acknowledgment of the mystery.” If he requests their prayers, it is “that God would open unto us a door of utterance to speak the mystery.” If he would have the real character of the truth committed to him understood, it is that God had by revelation made known unto him the mystery. Surely if our hearts were more in tune with the mind of God and with the affections of Christ, this wondrous theme would fill us with never-ceasing worship and delight.
T. B. Baines, adapted
Coming Glory
The vision of coming glory, as revealed in the Word, sustains the believer in the path of faith. He lives in a new atmosphere, with new thoughts, new hopes, new pleasures. We know that Christ is “head over all things to the church, which is His body” (Eph. 1:22-23). The knowledge of resurrection’s glory with Christ strengthens the inward man, so that we faint not, knowing that “our light affliction, which is but for a moment, worketh for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory” (2 Cor. 4:16-17).
The church, united to Christ in glory, is absolutely heavenly in calling and hope. We are now gathered to a rejected Christ (John 12:32). At His coming we shall be gathered to a glorified Christ (Eph. 1:10). The life we have received is heavenly in its source (1 John 1:13). The object of that life is Christ in glory (Phil. 3). The hope of that life is our being “glorified together” with Him (Rom. 8:17). The church will be the Eve in His paradise, the Queen on His throne, the richest and brightest glory of the inheritance He has won. In calling any out of the world, He entrusts them to His Son, to be one with Him in thought, desire and hope now, and eventually to be glorified together with Him in His glory! Oh, let us not lose in our souls the preciousness of what the church is to Him! Let us rejoice in being gathered as members of His body, bearing His reproach, because of our heavenly calling, as we remember Him in His death, while living in daily expectancy of His coming for His bride. While rejoicing in our individual blessing, may we hold fast and rejoice in the rich revelation of the truth that “Christ . . . loved the church and gave Himself for it” (Eph. 5:25).
H. E. Hayhoe
The Operation of the Mystery
Now, what is the operation of the mystery? It is “to the intent that now unto the principalities and powers in heavenly places might be known by the church the manifold wisdom of God” (Eph. 3:10). This reminds us of Colossians 1:25, for Paul’s ministry was “to fulfill [or fill out] the Word of God.” Does this mean that it is above the ministry of Christ? Yes, dispensationally, it is. The ways of God shine brighter and brighter unto the perfect day. What light we stand in! We are in the light as God is in the light. The multiform, variegated wisdom of God is now told out in all its forms of beauty. That which I now get is the high calling into fellow-heir-ship; I am one body with the Lord of glory. I have reached the very Head itself and sit down in sight of the coronation of Christ and His elect. So I have completed it; I have reached the manifold wisdom of God. Then the Apostle comes down a little: “In whom we have boldness and access with confidence by the faith of Him.” He loves to put that foundation under our feet! If we are in the light where God dwells, we are in the citadel of strength which God has erected. It would not do to be in the light if we were not surrounded by the citadel.
J. G. Bellett, adapted
The Plan of the Man Who Chose Paul
“The Lord said unto him, go thy way: for he is a chosen vessel unto Me, to bear My name before the Gentiles, and kings, and the children of Israel: for I will show him how great things he must suffer for My name’s sake” (Acts 9:15-16).
The Lord Jesus Christ, the risen Man in glory, sent Ananias to Saul of Tarsus as the man of the moment to reveal the whole counsel of God to us. At that time he was the person most opposed to the gospel, but God would make him the vessel to magnify His grace in him and reveal to us through him His secret plan. We do well to consider both the revealed plan and the way the Lord has chosen to reveal it to us.
God in Old Testament times successively revealed many things concerning Himself, but the full manifestation came when Jesus Christ, the Son of God, became man. The four Gospels preserve to us a record of this. However, the last chapter of God’s plan could only be communicated after the Lord Jesus accomplished redemption and returned to heaven as a Man, sending the Holy Spirit down to dwell in His people. Paul, who was Saul of Tarsus, was chosen by the Lord Jesus to reveal that last chapter to us. Ananias said it succinctly to Paul: “The God of our fathers hath chosen thee, that thou shouldest know His will, and see that Just One, and shouldest hear the voice of His mouth. For thou shalt be His witness unto all men of what thou hast seen and heard” (Acts 22:14-15). Paul had a sense of this when he said, “A necessity is laid upon me; yea, woe is unto me, if I preach not the gospel! For . . . a dispensation of the gospel is committed unto me” (1 Cor. 9:16-17).
All Truth
Shortly before the Lord was rejected by His earthly people, He told his disciples while in the upper room, “I have many things to say unto you, but ye cannot bear them now. Howbeit when He, the Spirit of truth, is come, He will guide you into all truth: for He shall not speak of [from] Himself; but whatsoever He shall hear, that shall He speak: and He will show you things to come. He shall glorify Me: for He shall receive of Mine, and shall show it unto you” (John 16:12-14). The disciples needed the Holy Spirit before they could receive and appreciate those communications. The natural man does not understand spiritual things. After Pentecost when the Holy Spirit came down to dwell in the disciples, they preached the resurrection of Jesus Christ and forgiveness of sins to the Jews, but the stoning of Stephen closed the doors of blessing to Israel. This was the final rejection of the testimony of the Holy Spirit as spoken through Stephen. This sets the stage for the Lord to open His counsel of blessing to the whole world, including the Gentiles. The Apostle Paul is the one chosen to do this, as he says in Galatians 1, “I certify you, brethren, that the gospel which was preached of me is not after man. For I neither received it of man, neither was I taught it, but by the revelation of Jesus Christ” (vss. 11-12). Paul gives us what the Lord could not reveal while He was on earth. He further states in the following verses, “It pleased God, who separated me from my mother’s womb, and called me by His grace, to reveal His Son in me, that I might preach Him among the heathen” (vss. 15-16).
Paul a Pattern
Not only are all the counsels of God revealed through Paul, but as the chief of sinners, he is a pattern of Christian blessing, as he says, “According to the glad tidings of the glory of the blessed God, with which I have been entrusted. And I thank Christ Jesus our Lord, who has given me power, that He has counted me faithful, appointing to ministry him who before was a blasphemer and persecutor, and an insolent overbearing man: but mercy was shown me because I did it ignorantly, in unbelief: but the grace of our Lord surpassingly over-abounded with faith and love, which is in Christ Jesus. Faithful is the word, and worthy of all acceptation, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, of whom I am the first. But for this reason mercy was shown me, that in me, the first, Jesus Christ might display the whole long-suffering, for a delineation of those about to believe on Him to life eternal” (1 Tim. 1:11-15 JND). God is always consistent with Himself in what He does, and in how He does it.
Five Revelations
The following five scriptures show distinctly the revelations Paul received from the Lord in heaven:
1. The gospel of the grace of God: Galatians 1:12.
2. The rapture: 1 Thessalonians 4:15.
3. The mystery: Ephesians 3:3.
4. The Lord’s supper: 1 Corinthians 11:23.
5. The resurrection from among the dead: 1 Corinthians 15:51.
May the Lord give us to understand the blessings He has planned for man. May we not be content with an oversimplified understanding of the counsels of God revealed to us. “The secret things belong unto the Lord our God: but those things which are revealed belong unto us and to our children forever, that we may do all the words of this law” (Deut. 29:29).
D. C. Buchanan
Paul’s Gospel
There are two expressions in Romans which indicate the special character of Paul’s ministry. “The gospel of God” (Rom. 1:1-17) clearly points to the source of the gospel, while “my gospel” (Rom. 16:25), introduced in a sort of doxology, speaks of a blessed revelation which distinguished the Apostle’s teaching from that of the other apostles. It would be difficult to estimate our loss if we fail to grasp these two important truths. Today many are perplexed by the condition of things both in the political and religious world. In the minds of many an idea exists that God has sent the gospel to improve the world, to make it a more congenial place for men to live in. To find the world more hopelessly evil than ever, after strenuously preaching its improvement, has dismayed many a preacher and thrown his listeners into confusion and despair as to the outcome of what they thought was the gospel. Scripture has been misapplied to support the teaching that gradually the gospel preached must permeate the world and result in the establishment of the millennium.
Justification
Nowhere do we find the apostleship of Paul placed on more positive ground than in Romans. He had not yet been at Rome, but, as the apostle of the Gentiles, he would fulfill his mission which he had received from the Lord Himself for the Gentiles (Acts 26:17-18). According to God’s administrative order, Peter was specially commissioned to the Jews; Paul to the nations or Gentiles (Gal. 2:7-8). As recorded in the Acts, Peter preached forgiveness of sins through faith in Christ, but did not associate with this the truth of justification, while Paul, in his first recorded sermon, added this blessed truth (Acts 13:38-39). The gospel was not about man, though it was sent to man; there was nothing joyous to say about him — in heathenism, wantonly corrupt; in philosophy, hypocritical; under law, a transgressor — every mouth was stopped and all the world was shown to be “guilty before God” (Rom. 3:1). God’s Son is the blessed theme of the gospel, and the glad tidings are concerning Him. He is presented in a twofold way: (1) in connection with the promises, “Seed of David according to the flesh,” and (2) “Son of God with power” by resurrection of the dead (that is, “dead ones”). The gospel of God had been announced by the prophets in the Old Testament, and thus every possible objection which might be raised should be silenced before the unfolding of what God’s gospel is. In the person of the Son, God has found One able to accomplish all His purposes and make known all His thoughts of love for men. He alone could solve the problem that man raised by sin in the Garden of Eden and settle it to God’s eternal glory. What marvelous grace that He should enter the dark domain of death where man lay in ruin and exposed to eternal wrath, taking upon Himself all the weakness of man, once and forever rob the enemy of his spoils, and completely triumph in resurrection over all the enemy’s power.
New Life
The new life received by the believer is a life given and founded on the eternal value of what has been accomplished by the Son of God. In this blessed gospel God reveals a righteousness for man who has none —the righteousness of God, on the principle of faith. This is the grand theme of the epistle. In Romans the believer is looked at as justified, righteousness being imputed to him through the death and resurrection of the Lord Jesus, that he may walk here in this world in the power of the risen life of Christ, having the glory in view. This epistle, and that to the Ephesians, are the only two written by the Apostle to the saints which are not corrective; the others had in view certain existing conditions to correct. In these two epistles we have the unfolding of positive truth: the former laying the sure foundation, and the latter giving the blessed structure built thereon.
J. W. H. Nichols, abridged
Paul’s Doctrine
The revelation of God up to the point of Paul’s ministry included creation, the law, redemption, the person of Christ, the ways of God, and His government. There was but one thing lacking now, and that was the revelation of the mystery of the church, which, when given, completed or filled up the Word of God.
Some of the features of the doctrine of Paul are: Christ — the Son of David and heir of his throne — rejected by the Jews and by the world; crucified and slain; raised up again by the power of God and by the glory of the Father, seated in the heavens in the righteousness of God, having answered God’s righteous judgment against sin, death, judgment, wrath, the curse of a broken law, all borne and passed through to the glory of God; sin put away, sins borne; the “old man” judicially dealt with, and set aside forever; a man — the Second man — the last Adam — in heaven in divine righteousness. The Holy Spirit is personally on earth witnessing to the righteousness of God and to the justification of the believer according to its full display. Eternal life by and in the Spirit and its conscious possession is communicated to the believer by the Holy Spirit.
The Holy Spirit acts as the power of this life in the believer’s walk, guiding, directing, controlling and rebuking him. The believer in Jesus is sealed with the Spirit, his body is a temple for His indwelling, uniting him to Christ — a Man in glory — and thus the bond of union with one another and with Christ. His presence and baptism constitutes “one body,” composed of such, here in this world. God dwells among His saints here, as a habitation, in Spirit, not in flesh. The Holy Spirit is the power for the exercise of the gifts that Christ, when He rose and ascended up on high, received as man, and bestowed on men — members of His body. He is “dividing to every man severally as He will,” reproducing too, “Christ,” the “life of Jesus,” in the mortal bodies of the saints. The Holy Spirit is the power also of worship, communion, joy, love and prayer, teaching the saints to await the hope of righteousness by faith, even the glory itself. He is leading them to wait for Christ and producing the longing of “Come” in the Bride, while her Lord delays, for He is the One who is the object of her hope as the Bright and the Morning Star. Meanwhile, the Holy Spirit is transforming the saints into Christ’s image by unfolding in the liberty of grace the glories of Him in whose face shines all the glory of God!
After Epaphras saw Paul and learned the deep and paramount importance of that knowledge for which Paul was a minister, he was so fully convinced of the value and importance of their meaning that he himself likewise labored earnestly in prayer for them that they might “stand perfect and complete in all the will of God.”
May the Lord open the understanding of His beloved people, that in the midst of the confusion and corruption of such an evil day when men are saying, “What is truth?” and yet not caring for the reply, they may find that there are such principles in the Word of God as no amount of man’s failure can ever touch, and which can always be practiced by those who desire to walk with God and to keep the word of the patience of Jesus till He comes. May we all learn to walk together in unity and peace and love in the truth, for His name’s sake.
F. G. Patterson, adapted
Christ, the Center of God’s Counsels
The revelation of the ways of God in Ephesians 1 presents Christ to us as man raised up by God from the dead, in order that we should be raised up also to have part with Him. Chapter 3 presents Him as the center of all the ways of God, the Son of the Father, and the center of the counsels of God. The Apostle now addresses himself to the Father of our Lord Jesus. “Every family” brings all under this name of “Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.” Under the name of “Jehovah,” only the Jews were in relationship with Him. “You only have I known of all the families of the earth.” But under the name of “Father of Jesus Christ,” all families are included, the assembly, angels, Jews, and Gentiles. All the ways of God in that which He had arranged for His glory are co-ordained under this name and are in relationship with His counsels. The Apostle prays that they would be enabled to apprehend the whole import of those counsels and the love of Christ which formed the assured center for their hearts.
Strengthened by the Spirit
For this purpose he desires that the saints should be strengthened with all might by the Spirit of the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, and that the Christ, who is the center of all these things in the counsels of the Father, should dwell also in their hearts, and thus be the intelligent center of affection to all knowledge. This center finds no circle to limit the view that extends itself in an infinitude which God alone can fill — length, breadth, height, depth. Christ is the center of all the display of divine glory, and He dwells in our hearts so as to set them, so to speak, in this vantage point, and make them look out thence on all the glory displayed. At the same time, the saints have a sure place, a support immovable and well-known, in a love which is as infinite as the extent of the glory of God displayed around them. “That Christ may dwell in your hearts.” Thus He, who fills all things with His glory, fills the heart Himself, with a love more powerful than all the glory of which He is the center. He is to us the strength which enables us in peace and love to contemplate all that He has done, the wisdom of His ways, and the universal glory of which He is the center.
Christ Filling Our Hearts
He who fills all things fills all our hearts. God strengthens us according to the riches of that glory which He displays before our wondering eyes as rightly belonging to Christ. He does it with tenderest affection, and He is the strength of our heart. Thus embracing His affections and thoughts, we are rooted and grounded in love — all the saints being the objects of His love. It is as being filled with Him, and ourselves as the center of all His affections, and thinking His thoughts, that we lunge into the whole extent of God’s glory, for it is the glory of Him whom we love. And what is its limit? It has none; it is the fullness of God. We find it in this revelation of Himself. In Christ He reveals Himself in all His glory. He is God over all things, blessed forever.
J. N. Darby, adapted from
the Synopsis on Ephesians