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Scripture Reading: 1:9-10, Eph. 1:17, 1:22; 3:2, 9, 3:11, 3:14-19; 4:4-6b-23; 2:15-16; 4:22-24; 5:25, 32; 2:20-22
Ephesians is the most complete book revealing the church, the Body of the universal man. All Bible students know that this book is about the church. What is revealed and mentioned in Ephesians is a deep matter. The thoughts contained in it are the deepest thoughts in the New Testament. Nearly all the main points in this book are beyond our concept. In our natural concept we do not have the kind of thoughts revealed here. It is easy to have certain concepts about religion, morality, and doing good. We may easily have thoughts about certain doctrines, teachings, knowledge, work, and service. Our minds are busy with these thoughts because these things are so familiar to the natural mentality. However, this book contains something that is one hundred percent different from all these things.
Therefore, in order to understand this book, we need spiritual revelation. This is why in the first chapter of this book, at the very outset, the writer offers a prayer asking that the Lord would grant us a spirit of wisdom and revelation that we may fully know not religious things, moral things, or mere doctrines and teachings but the things of God’s eternal purpose (1:17). Please notice that the spirit mentioned in this prayer, strictly speaking, is not the Holy Spirit. Today Christians talk much about the Holy Spirit but almost entirely neglect the human spirit.
We need not only the Holy Spirit; even more we need our human spirit, which is able to cooperate with the Holy Spirit. We may illustrate this with sunshine and electricity. The sun may shine brightly, but what we need is a clear window to receive the sunlight. The sunshine itself is no problem, but there may be a problem with the window. Likewise, there may be no problem with the electricity, but there may be a problem with the light bulb. Although electricity is installed in a building, we still need a proper light bulb. Without the proper bulb to cooperate with the electricity, the electricity cannot be applied to perform its function. After the day of resurrection and the day of Pentecost, the Holy Spirit in all His aspects was given to the believers. He was imparted into the church and poured out upon the church. Therefore, with the Holy Spirit there is no problem. The only need is with us, and this need is a matter of our spirit. However, we may pay much attention to the Holy Spirit while neglecting our human spirit, which is where the real need is.
Ephesians 1:17 says, “That the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give to you a spirit of wisdom and revelation in the full knowledge of Him.” It is very good that many versions of the Bible use the word spirit here without capitalizing it. It is difficult to discern whether the word spirit in passages such as this one refers to the human spirit or the Holy Spirit, but in this passage it refers to our spirit more than the Holy Spirit. We need a spirit, not only a heart, of wisdom and revelation. In order to understand the book of Ephesians, our mind is of secondary importance. The primary matter is that we need a spirit of wisdom and revelation. Therefore, we should know the difference between the spirit and the heart, and we should try to exercise our spirit so that it may be strengthened, clean, alert, and one of wisdom and revelation. Then we can realize the things revealed in this book in a spiritual way, not in a religious, moral, or ethical way or merely in the way of knowledge.
I hate to see that Christians know the Scriptures merely in the way of ethics. The disciples of Confucius always take the way of ethics to understand religious books. Even when the Holy Scriptures come into their hands, they understand them in an ethical way. Today, many regenerated Christians try to do the same thing. In order to know the Scriptures, we need to be delivered from this way. Our understanding and realization must be delivered from understanding the Scriptures in the way of ethics. The way of ethics belongs one hundred percent to the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, not to the tree of life. Rather, we must have a spirit of wisdom and revelation. A spirit of wisdom and revelation is related to the tree of life.
In order to realize something from the book of Ephesians, we must exercise our spirit. We must forget about our natural mentality, natural concepts, mere doctrines and teachings, our religious understanding, and the way of ethics. If we give up all these things, it will be easy to have a spirit of wisdom and revelation. Then we will see the things concerning God’s purpose in God’s light. We will understand the things mentioned in this book in an accurate way.
The best way to realize the sketch of Ephesians is to identify its main points. First, this book reveals God’s eternal purpose. Many Christians have never noticed that in the New Testament there is such a special term, the eternal purpose. Even after I had been a Christian for nearly fifteen years and had studied the New Testament and read the book of Ephesians many times, I did not yet see this matter of God’s eternal purpose.
Ephesians 3:11 says, “According to the eternal purpose which He made in Christ Jesus our Lord.” The word eternal in Greek is derived from aion, meaning “of the ages,” that is, “eternal.” Ephesians speaks of the eternal purpose, and here purpose equals plan; both terms are correct and meaningful. Therefore, we may speak of the eternal plan that God planned in Christ. Verses 9 and 10 of chapter 1 also refer to the divine plan, the eternal purpose. Why is this plan called the eternal purpose? It is because this purpose was planned in eternity past and for eternity future. Therefore, it is the purpose of eternity, that is, the purpose of the ages. However, it must be accomplished in time. Between the two ends of eternity there is an interval, which is the bridge of time. Time bridges the two ends of eternity, and upon this bridge there is a process in which God’s purpose is accomplished. God’s purpose in eternity past and for eternity future is now being completed on this bridge of time.
Ephesians also uses the term economy. Ephesians 1:10 says, “Unto the economy of the fullness of the times.” In the King James Version this word is translated as “dispensation.” However, it does not refer to a period of time. It refers to a way of dispensing, thus an arrangement or management. In different translations this word is rendered “dispensation,” “arrangement,” “administration,” “stewardship,” or “government,” but the best word is “economy.” Because God has an eternal plan, He needs an economy, a dispensation, arrangement, administration, stewardship, and government.
In chapter 3 the same Greek word is used twice. Verse 2 says, “If indeed you have heard of the stewardship of the grace of God which was given to me for you.” The grace of God may be compared to the capital in a business. In order to fulfill God’s plan, God has an operation, and the grace of God is the spiritual and divine capital in God’s operation. Just as a corporation needs an economy for its capital, God’s operation requires an economy, a stewardship.
Ephesians 3:9 says, “To enlighten all that they may see what the economy of the mystery is, which throughout the ages has been hidden in God, who created all things.” The King James Version follows a less trustworthy manuscript to translate economy as “fellowship.” According to the better manuscripts, the Greek word here is “economy.”
The second main point in Ephesians is the aim, the goal, of God’s eternal purpose. The church is a great matter; it was planned by God, and strictly speaking it is the very economy of God for His plan. God’s economy is wholly related to the church. What God planned and what He is operating to carry out is the church, so the church is the very center of God’s economy. This is the reason that this book particularly speaks of the eternal purpose of God and the economy of God’s grace. In order to understand the church, we must realize that it is the center of God’s plan and the very substance of His economy.
We may say that the aim of God’s eternal purpose is to have the church, but this is too general. If we study Ephesians with a spirit of revelation, we will realize that the aim of God’s plan is to have an expression of Himself in Christ the Son by the Spirit through a Body composed and built up with many regenerated and transformed people by the mingling of Himself with humanity. If we read Ephesians with the foregoing sentence in view, we will see exactly what is in this book.
In no other book is the Triune God revealed as much as in Ephesians. Of course, we do not have here the word Trinity, but we have the reality, the fact, of the Divine Trinity. Of the seven “ones” in chapter 4, three relate to the three of the Divine Trinity. Verses 4 through 6 say, “One Spirit...one Lord...one God and Father.” There are other passages in this book that contain the thought of the Divine Trinity. Verse 3 of chapter 1 says, “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenlies in Christ.” This verse speaks of the Father and Christ the Son. In addition, every spiritual blessing is related to the Holy Spirit. Therefore, this verse speaks of the three of the Godhead.
In chapter 3 Paul says, “For this cause I bow my knees unto the Father, of whom every family in the heavens and on earth is named, that He would grant you, according to the riches of His glory, to be strengthened with power through His Spirit into the inner man, that Christ may make His home in your hearts through faith, that you, being rooted and grounded in love, may be full of strength to apprehend with all the saints what the breadth and length and height and depth are and to know the knowledge-surpassing love of Christ, that you may be filled unto all the fullness of God” (vv. 14-19). These verses once again mention the three of the Divine Trinity — the Father, the Son, and the Spirit — yet They are one God. The three work together to cause us to realize the fullness of this one God. The Father is the source, the fountain, from whom all the families in the heavens and on earth are named; the Spirit is the working means; and the Son is the very object for whom the Father planned and the Spirit works. These three cooperate with one another for us to realize the fullness of God, that is, to make the fullness of God one with us. In this way, these verses show us the Divine Trinity.
There is no need for us to know the Divine Trinity for the purpose of mere doctrine and knowledge. Rather, the Divine Trinity is for our experience, that we may realize the fullness of the Godhead. Verses 14 through 19 tell us that the Father grants us to be strengthened through His Spirit. The issue of this is that Christ, the very central One, may make His home in our heart by the working of the Spirit according to what the Father planned. Then the fullness of God becomes our experience; that is, we are filled unto all the fullness of the Triune God, the fullness of the Godhead. Therefore, the Divine Trinity is a matter of experience, not a matter of doctrine. In doctrine we can never understand the Divine Trinity in a proper way. Moreover, no one can explain the Divine Trinity. How can we say that the three are one God? Whenever the Scriptures mention the Divine Trinity, it is for our experience.
Matthew 28:19 tells us to baptize people into the name, not into the names, of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. To baptize the repenting and believing ones is to cause them to experience the Divine Trinity. Similarly, 2 Corinthians 13:14 says, “The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ and the love of God and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all.” This is a matter not of doctrine but of experience. In the same way, throughout the book of Ephesians there are many verses referring to the Divine Trinity, but they are for our experience. As we have seen, 1:3 speaks of the Father who has blessed us in the Son with every spiritual blessing; this also is not for doctrine but for our experience. According to doctrine alone, we can never understand the Divine Trinity, but by our experience we can realize that the three are one God in actuality.
Several verses in the New Testament tell us clearly that the Holy Spirit today is in us. No one can argue with this. John 14:17, for example, says that the Spirit of reality would be in the disciples. There are also several verses that tell us that Christ is in us, such as Romans 8:10. In Galatians Paul says, “It pleased God...to reveal His Son in me” (1:15-16), “It is Christ who lives in me” (2:20), and “Christ is formed in you” (4:19). These verses do not speak of the Spirit of Christ or Christ in the Spirit; they clearly indicate that Christ Himself is in us. If Christ and the Spirit are not one, then there must be two who are in us, but to say this is heresy. How can we say that we have two in us? That there is one who is in us indicates that Christ is the Spirit. This illustrates that the Divine Trinity cannot be understood doctrinally. He must be realized by our experience. In our experience the three of the Godhead are actually one. This is not merely my word; it is the word of the Bible.
Not only are Christ and the Spirit in us, but the Father also is in us. Ephesians 4:6 says, “One God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all.” On the one hand, the Father, Son, and Spirit are three. Then are there three in us, or is there one in us? That there is one in us indicates that the Father is the Son and the Son is the Spirit; otherwise, there must be three in us. Again this illustrates that we can realize the Divine Trinity only by our experience. We can never define the Divine Trinity in the way of knowledge because our knowledge is too limited. In reality, in our experience, the three are one.
In the Scriptures it is clear and unarguable that the Spirit is in us, Christ is in us, and the Father is in us. All three today are in our spirit. We do not believe that the three are separate and not one. Therefore, in Ephesians 3 the three of the Godhead work together to fill us unto all the fullness of God. This means that the fullness of the Godhead is mingled with us. We are filled with the Triune God, and the Triune God mingles Himself with us. This is divinity mingled with humanity. We sometimes speak of the seven wonders of the world, but these are not the real wonders. In the entire universe the unique wonder is the Triune God in us. What a wonder that the Triune God is working Himself into us! We need to read Ephesians again, forgetting about traditional theology. Traditional theology damages us and hinders us from understanding the things in Ephesians. We must put all the above points together like a jigsaw puzzle. Then we will see the whole picture that the Father is in the Son, the Son is realized as the Spirit, and the Spirit is within us.
It is in this Triune God that we are all regenerated, transformed, composed, and built up as a Body for Christ with humanity mingled with divinity. This is a real wonder! In order to understand the church, we have to know the church in the way of one God, one Lord, one Spirit, and one Body (4:4-6). How can fallen people be the Body? It is by faith and baptism (v. 5). By faith we believe into the Triune God, and by baptism we are separated from the old things. However, we are still in the old creation with an old body, so we also need one hope of our calling (v. 4).
The one God is in the one Lord, the one Lord is the one Spirit, and the one Spirit is in the one Body. Now we share in this one Body by faith and baptism. This is the reason that everyone must believe in the Lord Jesus and be baptized. To believe in the Lord Jesus is to be identified with Christ and united with Him. To be baptized is to be buried, to have a clearance, a complete severance from the old living, the old creation, and all old matters. It is by faith and baptism that we have been transferred out of Adam into Christ. In this way we become the Body of the Triune God. However, we need something more because we still live in the old creation. In our spirit we are in the new creation, but our old body still remains in the old creation. Therefore, we hope in one thing — that Christ will return to saturate our body. By His life He will swallow up death, and by the newness of life He will swallow up all the oldness of the old creation. This is our hope. All the above verses show us the church in the Triune God, which is the aim of God’s eternal purpose.
Now we may see what the church is in God’s intention. This is the third main point in Ephesians. In Ephesians there are at least seven different titles assigned to the church. First, it is the church and the new man. Ephesians 2:15 tells us that Christ created one new man in Himself out of two peoples, the Jews and the Gentiles. Our natural concept may be that the new man is an individual. Accordingly, we may think that there are many new men. However, the new man is not an individual man but a corporate man, because verse 15 says that it was created from two peoples.
Strictly speaking, when 4:22-24 says to put off the old man and put on the new man, it refers to the Body. We know this from 2:15b-16a, which says, “He might create the two in Himself into one new man, so making peace, and might reconcile both in one Body.” This indicates that the one new man is the one Body, and the one Body is the one new man. The church is the new man, and this new man is the Body of Christ.
According to 1:23, this Body is also the fullness of the One who fills all in all. In addition, the church is the bride, the counterpart, of Christ, just as Eve was the counterpart to Adam (5:23-32; Gen. 2:21-25). These four aspects of the church — the new man, the Body, the fullness, and the bride — form a group. The new man is the Body, the Body is the fullness, and the fullness is the counterpart. Besides these four aspects, the church is also God’s habitation, His dwelling place in spirit (Eph. 2:21-22), and the soldier, the warrior (6:10-20). The warrior is not an army but a corporate Body to put on the whole armor of God. The whole armor of God is one item and not many. The one Body is one person who wears the whole armor.
Now we may see some of the details of the different aspects of the church. When a man is born, he has a human life. If we did not have the human life, we could not be a man. That the church is the new man means that the church has a new life, and this new life is Christ. Christ is life to us because He is the very embodiment of the Father and is realized as the Spirit. This life, therefore, is the Triune God, who is typified by the tree of life. Originally, we were the old man because we had only the old life, the created life of man, but through Christ’s crucifixion and resurrection He has regenerated us. Regeneration is simply the imparting of the Triune God into us. Through the processes of incarnation, crucifixion, and resurrection the Triune God has imparted Himself into us as life. Now we have a new life, the divine life. This life is God Himself in Christ as the Spirit. In this way we become the new man.
Moreover, this new man is the Body. The new man is a matter of life, and the Body is a matter of expression. Without a body a person can have no expression; no one could know him or recognize him. We are known and recognized by our body as our expression. That the church is the Body of Christ means that it is the very expression of Christ, and Christ is the life within the church.
The Body is the fullness of Christ. A head without a body is poor; it is without a fullness. Similarly, a disjointed body is not the fullness of the head. Only a proper body is the complete fullness of the head. In the four Gospels the Lord Jesus is the Head without the Body. Therefore, in the Gospels there is no fullness of Christ. In the book of Acts, however, Jesus is duplicated thousands of times. Hence, in Acts we can see the fullness of Christ. The church is composed of many members, and every member is a duplication, a living copy, of Jesus. These living members composed together form the Body.
The Body is the very expression of Christ, just as a person’s physical body is his expression. This Body is also the fullness. Ephesians 1:23 does not speak of the fullness of Christ, the fullness of the Son of God, or the fullness of the Lord Jesus; it speaks of the fullness of the One who fills all in all. It is difficult to understand what the fullness is; this is too profound, and our understanding is too limited. We also cannot explain how Christ fills all things. We can only say that this term shows how great Christ is. Today His fullness is a universal fullness because as the One who fills all in all He is unlimitedly great. He fills not only all but all in all. Christ is unlimited, and such an unlimited Christ needs a universal Body to be His fullness. Although the church on the earth may sometimes appear to be a mess, it is still in the principle of the fullness of Christ. Christ is in the United States, Europe, Africa, Asia, and in every place on the earth. The church as the Body is the universal fullness of Christ in both space and time.
This fullness is also the counterpart of Christ, just as Eve was a counterpart to Adam to match Adam. That a wife is one with her husband typifies that the church is one with Christ; this is the great mystery in Ephesians 5:32. A husband and wife are like two halves of a watermelon. When the two halves are put together, they become a whole. One half needs the other half to match it. In the same way, the church is a part of Christ, the counterpart of Christ, to match Him. A wife is the fullness of the husband; in Genesis 2 Eve is both the counterpart and fullness of Adam. When Adam was a bachelor, he had no fullness, but when he was given a wife to match him as his counterpart, she became his fullness. Hence, the church in life and nature is one with Christ. The two have one life and one nature, so the church becomes a part of Christ to match Christ.
The church is also the dwelling place of God. A person’s body is his dwelling place. Strictly speaking, we do not live in a house; we live in our body. This is why the Scriptures liken our physical body to a dwelling place. In 2 Corinthians 5:1 Paul calls our fallen body an earthly tabernacle dwelling, a temporary dwelling, in contrast to a dwelling not made with hands, which will be our resurrected body in the future. Just as our body is the place in which we exist, our habitation, so the church is the Body of Christ to contain Christ and to express Him. Hence, it is the dwelling place, the habitation, of the Triune God.
As we have seen, the church as the new man is a matter of life, the church as the Body of Christ is a matter of expression, and the church as the bride of Christ is a counterpart. To speak of the church as the dwelling place of God, however, conveys the central thought of building. We need to be built up; this thought is very much revealed in Ephesians, as in 2:20-22 and 4:12 and 16. The church is the temple of God because it is God’s habitation, God’s dwelling place.
God dwells in the temple, but more specifically He dwells in the inner chamber of the temple. His shekinah presence is in the Holy of Holies. The Holy of Holies is a type of our human spirit. Man is a temple of three parts, and our spirit is the innermost part. If we know how to discern and exercise our spirit, we can realize God’s presence, which is His indwelling in the church. If we do not know how to use our spirit, to say that God is in the church is mere doctrine. We must learn how to discern and exercise our spirit in order to experience God’s presence more and more in our spirit and in the church. We do not need doctrines but the conscious exercise of our spirit.
In Ephesians there are two prayers. The first prayer is a prayer for revelation (1:15-23), and the second prayer is a prayer for experience (3:14-19). At the beginning of this book we need a prayer for us to have revelation. Then, after we receive revelation, we need another prayer for us to experience what we see. Paul’s first prayer is for us to have a spirit of wisdom and revelation in the full knowledge of Christ, and his second prayer is that our inner man would be strengthened with power that we may experience Christ in a full way, that Christ may make His home in us, that we may be filled unto all the fullness of the Triune God. This is the real experience of God being present in the church, particularly in our inner man.
Verse 16 says that we are strengthened not in the inner man but into the inner man. This means that the Holy Spirit deals with our inner man by working more and more of Christ into it. This requires us to practically discern, know, and exercise our spirit. However, the matter of our spirit is overlooked and even opposed by many Christians today. When we minister to people about Christ in our spirit, many of them are surprised; they have never heard this. Although they may receive much help from Christian workers to know the Word, memorize the Word, and understand the Word, they may never have been told how to exercise their spirit to experience Christ as the Spirit. To exercise our spirit is a very vital matter.
