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Scripture Reading: Eph. 1:15-23 Hymns: #885, #890
I. The apostle’s prayer for the believers — Eph. 1:15-20a:
А. Thanking God for their faith in the Lord Jesus and their love to all the saints — vv. 15-16a.
B. Asking God, the Father of glory — vv. 16b-20a:
1. To give the believers a spirit of wisdom and revelation in the full knowledge of Christ — v. 17.
2. To enlighten the eyes of their heart that they may know — v. 18a:
а. What is the hope of God’s calling — v. 18b.
b. What are the riches of the glory of His inheritance in the saints — v. 18c.
c. What is the surpassing greatness of God’s power toward the believers, according to the operation of the might of God’s strength, which God caused to operate in Christ — vv. 19-20a.
II. Christ’s transcending — vv. 20b-22b:
А. Raised from the dead — v. 20b.
B. Seated at God’s right hand in the heavenlies — v. 20c:
1. Far above all rule, authority, power, and lordship — v. 21a.
2. Above every name that is named not only in this age but also in that which is to come — v. 21b.
C. Having all things subjected under His feet — v. 22a.
D. Given to be Head over all things — v. 22b.
III. Christ’s transmitting — vv. 22c-23:
А. To the church, His Body — v. 23.
B. Transmitting:
1. His accomplishments in His incarnation, crucifixion, and resurrection.
2. His victory in His resurrection.
3. His attainments and obtainments in His ascension.
C. Consummating in His heavenly ministry of:
1. The Lord of all — Acts 2:36a.
2. The Christ of God — v. 36b.
3. The Leader of all the rulers — 5:31a.
4. The Savior — v. 31b.
5. The High Priest — Heb. 4:15; 7:26.
6. The Advocate — 1 John 2:1b.
7. The Intercessor — Heb. 7:25.
8. The Mediator of the new covenant — 8:6.
9. The surety of the new testament — 7:22.
1. The Life-giver — John 10:10b.
11. The Comforter — 14:16-17.
12. The Lamb-God — Rev. 22:1b.
I am so grateful to the Lord that we can touch the intrinsic revelation of Ephesians 1. This revelation is altogether wrapped up in God’s threefold dispensing — the Father’s dispensing, the Son’s dispensing, and the Spirit’s dispensing. These are not three kinds of dispensings. This is just one dispensing, which is threefold. First, the Father chose us, predestinating us to be His sons in holiness (vv. 4-5). This implies the Father’s dispensing. If the Father had not dispensed Himself as the holy nature into us, how could we be holy? In the whole universe there is only One who is holy — God Himself. Furthermore, if the Father had not dispensed Himself into us, how could we become His sons? We are His sons not by adoption but by birth. Birth implies dispensing. Our Father begot us. In that begetting He spontaneously dispensed His life into us. So in the Father’s dispensing we all were made His sons in sanctification.
Also, as lost ones we needed redemption, so the Son came to redeem us out of Adam (vv. 7-12). Adam was the sphere and the element into which we fell. But Christ came in the flesh as a man, went to the cross, and died an all-inclusive death to rescue us from Adam and bring us into Christ Himself as another realm. Now we are in Christ. In the New Testament this is a strong phrase — in Christ. To be in Christ is a great thing. We have been redeemed into a sphere, into a realm, and also into an element. This element is living, organic, and working. Christ is the life into which we have been redeemed.
Now Christ as the life-giving element is working within us. Any kind of life works and operates. When the divine life works, this is the working of the life-giving Spirit. Christ as the last Adam became a life-giving Spirit (1 Cor. 15:45b). This means that the Spirit works with Christ as life to transform us. In this transformation we are being made right-side up. We were in Adam, altogether upside down in a situation of collapse. In the whole universe there is nothing but collapse, and we were a part of that collapse. But Christ redeemed us out of the collapse into Himself as life. Now this life element is working within us to adjust us, to bring us back to the divine order.
Now we all are in His Body being headed up under Him. In the past we did not have any head. Rather, we made ourselves the head. Consider today’s society. Everyone is their own head. In today’s modern families the children even become heads. Today’s universe, today’s world, today’s America, and today’s society are a collapse. But we have been redeemed out of this collapse into Christ, our realm, our element, and our Head. He is now working within us all the time by transforming us.
We are now in Christ to be transformed all the time. As we remain in Christ, we experience the sealing of the Spirit. The Spirit today is not just the Spirit of God. He is the Spirit of Jesus Christ (Phil. 1:19), the life-giving Spirit, and this life-giving Spirit is Christ Himself. Such a life-giving Spirit is the consummation of the Triune God. The entire Triune God has been consummated in this Spirit. In this Spirit there are the Father, the Son, the Spirit, Christ’s divinity, His humanity, His incarnation, His human living, His crucifixion, His resurrection, and His ascension. All these are compounded in this consummation of the Triune God, which is the life-giving Spirit, and such a Spirit came to seal us.
Sealing is a matter of saturation, a matter of soaking. The sealing ink has a spreading effect. I like this phrase spreading effect. Eventually, the entire piece of paper is saturated with the sealing ink. Such a spreading effect is a finer dispensing. When we were saved, we were sealed, and this sealing will continue until our body is redeemed (Eph. 4:30). This sealing came upon us to spread finely within us in everything — in the way we think, in the way we talk, in the way we deal with people, in the way we cut our hair, etc. We need to realize that even the way we cut our hair impresses people with who we are. We should bear the Lord’s testimony and expression in everything we do and in everything related to our person.
When I came to this country in the sixties, I observed the hippies with their long hair, beards, and wild clothing. A number of young people who came into the recovery in the sixties were like this. While I was ministering the word, some of them sat on the front row in their bare feet. But thank the Lord, they all got saved. After a short time their clothing began to change, their long hair and beards were cut off, and they began to wear shoes. Who adjusted them? I did not say a word to them. They changed from being hippies to gentlemen because of the sealing of the Spirit. The sealing Spirit moves within us to soak us and saturate us, transforming us metabolically.
This sealing is unto a result, and this result is the redemption of our vile body, the transfiguration of our vile body, which is our glorification. In the first fourteen verses of Ephesians 1 we see the threefold dispensing, from the Father’s choosing to our being brought into glory. This is the completion of God’s dispensing. God brings us fallen sinners from the heap of collapse into Christ to be sealed under the gradual, fine dispensing day by day for the full course of our Christian life. Eventually, as we remain under this dispensing, we will be matured and made ready to be transfigured in our body. Then we will be in glory.
Such a dispensing issues in a spiritual, divine constitution. This constitution is the church as the Body of Christ. The church is not an organization. It is an organism, and this organism is a constitution. It is constituted with the Triune God mingling Himself with His chosen people in humanity. In Ephesians 4:4-6 there is a record, or a portrait, of this constitution. Verse 4 says, “One Body and one Spirit.” The one Body is the structure, the frame, and within this frame there is the one Spirit, who is the essence. The one Lord is the element (v. 5), and the one Father is the source (v. 6). The Spirit as the essence, the Lord as the element, and the Father as the source are constituted into this frame of humanity. A group of chosen human beings becomes the very structure, the very frame, of this constitution, and they are constituted with the Triune God as the essence, element, and source. In the universe there is such a wonderful constitution, and this constitution is the church as the organism of the Triune God for Him to move, to act, to fulfill His purpose, and to express Himself.
We human beings created by God became fallen, so God came to redeem us to carry out His choosing and accomplish His purpose. Then He dispensed Himself as everything into our being to create a spiritual, heavenly, divine constitution, that is, the Body of Christ as the church. This is wonderful, yet there is something more.
We need to realize that in the universe there are four layers of opposition, four layers of trouble. The first layer is Hades with death. This is the bottom layer of trouble. Hades with death retains people. Hades even sends out death to gather and grasp people. When death comes, no one can resist it. So death captures people and brings them into Hades. Hades becomes a prison, and the gates of Hades retain people. No one can open these gates, and no one can overcome them. Within these gates there are many dead persons, and no one can come out of them. But the Lord Jesus said, “I will build My church, and the gates of Hades shall not prevail against it” (Matt. 16:18). In the universe there is a struggle going on between the gates of Hades and the dead ones. Lazarus and the rich man are there (Luke 16:19-31). The rich man was struggling to get out of Hades, but the gates would not release him. This is the first layer of the problem in the universe.
The second layer is the human world. Ephesians 1 says that when Christ ascended to the heavens, He transcended above all the human names, names at His time and names in the ages to come (v. 21). History tells us that since Christ’s time, many big names have risen up against Him and against the church. Caesar Nero was the strongest one. Napoleon was one, and Hitler became one. But Christ ascended far above every name that is named. First, He rose up from the dead. Many dead persons were struggling to get out of the gates of Hades. They could not do it, but Christ could. He rose up, the gates of Hades opened for Him, and He came out of Hades. He resurrected from the dead to overcome Hades. Then in His ascension He transcended above all the names, not only the big names opposing Him and His church but also the small names. We were there among the small names opposing Him. He transcended above us. This is another layer of trouble that Christ overcame. In Russia, Lenin began a kind of revolution against God and against the church. Eventually, after just seventy years, who defeated whom? Christ defeated Lenin. Jesus transcended above all the names. No one can oppose Jesus on this earth without being defeated.
The third layer of trouble is in the air. In the air is the power of darkness — the rulers, the authorities, the power, and the lordship in the air (v. 21). In the air among the angelic race there are rulers, authorities, power, and lordship, good ones and bad ones. Even on the earth among human beings there are also the rulers, authorities, power, and lordship (see footnote 211).
We also need to see that the fourth layer of trouble is in the third heaven. Even the third heaven was polluted by Satan’s presence. The book of Job tells us that Satan appeared in the third heaven before God at a heavenly council, accusing God’s people (1:6-12a; 2:1-6). Thus, even the third heaven needs to be under the feet of Christ. Hebrews 4:14 tells us that Christ passed through the heavens, and 7:26 tells us that He has become higher than the heavens. He is not only higher than Hades, than the earth, and than the air but also higher than the heavens. Therefore, Christ actually passed through four layers: Hades, the earth, the air, and even the third heaven. Christ had to ascend through Hades, through the earth, through the air, and even through the third heaven to reach a place that is far above even the third heaven. Hebrews 7 tells us that today Christ is higher than the heavens. He is there as the highest One to transmit not only His authority but also His transcending power to the church so that the church may be formed.
We should not think that the universe is so simple. We are speaking of things that are not visible to the eyes of worldly people, but they are visible to us. This is why Paul, before sharing this portion of the Word, prayed, asking the Father to give His people a spirit of wisdom and revelation that they may have the full knowledge of Him (Eph. 1:17). What Paul spoke in Ephesians 1 cannot be understood by the people of this world. Even I am greatly concerned that among the Christians, very few are clear in their spirit. Many do not even admit that they have a spirit. How poor this is. But Paul prayed, “Father, give Your chosen people a spirit of wisdom to understand and of revelation to see.” We need a spirit of wisdom to understand all these mysterious things and a spirit of revelation to see them.
Formerly, we may have been veiled concerning God’s eternal purpose. Now the veil has been taken away, and a revelation has been presented to us. We can see that in this universe there are four layers of trouble. The bottom layer is Hades, the second layer is the earth with all the troubling persons, and the third layer is the air with Satan’s power of darkness and all his rebellious angels. The good angels are also there, and the Bible tells us that they sometimes fight with the bad angels (Dan. 10:13, 20). The highest layer is the third heaven, which was polluted by Satan’s presence.
Christ ascended far above all the layers of trouble. America spent billions of dollars to build something to land on the moon. But compared to where Christ landed in His ascension, landing on the moon is like taking one step on a very high stairway. Paul prayed that we would see the surpassing greatness of God’s power, which operated in Christ to raise Him from the dead out of Hades and to seat Him on high at God’s right hand in the heavenlies (Eph. 1:19-20). Christ died; He was there in Hades. But after three days He came out of Hades. Then He ascended through the heavens, and He is sitting on the throne of God. By doing this He is above all the rulers, authorities, power, and lordship, good ones and bad ones among the human race and also among the angelic race. He is above all names in this age and in the coming age. These names include yours and mine. I was opposing Christ for some time, but one day I was subdued by Him. Many of us are ex-opposers of Christ. We all were subdued by Him because He transcended above all of us in His transcending power.
This power subjected all things under His feet (v. 22a) and gave Him a gift for Him to be the Head over all things (v. 22b). Now Christ is sitting on the throne. He has come out of Hades, and He is above all the things on the earth and in the air, and He is higher than the heavens with all things subjected under His feet. He is the Head over all things. What a picture! Who can resist this Head of all things who has become the very Head of the church? Who can oppose this One? And who can oppose His Body, the built-up church? This is why He said in Matthew 16, “I will build My church.” Christ is building the church in His heavenly ministry as He is sitting on the throne with all things subjected under His feet as the Head over all things. The gates of Hades cannot prevail against such a built-up church. History tells us that the Caesars, including Nero, rose up against Christ and the church. Later, Hitler and Mussolini were opposing Christ, but they were defeated. Who is prevailing today? The transcending Christ and the Body of this Christ are prevailing today.
I was raised up by the Lord as a little servant to Him. But from the first day that I rose up to speak for Him in His recovery, opposition came. Before that day people warmly welcomed me to speak to them. But a number of my inviting friends became my opposers when I took the Lord’s way in His recovery. The denominations rose up against me in my city. I have also experienced opposition from the political circle. When the Japanese invaded China, I was arrested and put into their prison twice. The second time I was in prison for thirty days. At that time it was nothing for the invading army of Japan to kill a Chinese person, but the Lord preserved me. Later, I came to this country, and I put out messages on Christ as the Spirit and on our human spirit. Then some evil books were published to oppose these truths. The opposition is always there to try to blockade us, but Christ has transcended. The Lord’s recovery is still going on, and the Lord will not stop until He has accomplished His purpose according to His heart’s desire.
Now we need to see the transmitting of the transcending Christ. The power plant does not dispense a little electricity in a gentle and fine way. It transmits the electricity strongly. If more power is needed, the amperage can be turned up. This is not dispensing but transmitting. The ascended Christ, the transcending Christ, not only dispenses but also transmits. Seemingly, He is hiding Himself. But actually, Christ is very active. The power plant does not need propaganda to tell people that it is acting. The power plant is very quiet, but the transmission is going on.
The church is now spreading over the whole earth because of the transmission of the transcending Christ. He is transmitting His great power to us. This is the power that raised Him up from the dead and that caused Him to transcend above all human beings and above all the angelic race, including all their leaders, rulers, authorities, power, and lordship. This is the power that seated Him at the height of the universe, the power that subdued and subjected all things under His feet, and the great power that gave Him to be the Head over all things. In the transmission of this power, He builds up the church.
On the day of Pentecost, the outpouring of the Spirit was not a dispensing; it was a transmission. The coming of the Lord’s recovery to this country and our being caught for the Lord’s recovery were due to the transmission of the transcending Christ. The divine dispensing is for constituting the Body of Christ, and the divine transmission is for forming the Body of Christ. Day by day we enjoy the fine, gradual, mild, gentle dispensing in the Lord’s dealings with us. The Lord in His dispensing tells a brother not to talk to his wife in a certain way. In His dispensing He tells a sister not to spend twenty-five minutes to comb her hair in a certain way, when she says that she does not have even five minutes to pray. Through His dispensing He impresses a brother not to wear a certain tie that is too loud. To bear a proper testimony a pursuer of Christ should be so proper in what he wears. This fine dispensing in the Lord’s dealings with us constitutes the Body of Christ, whereas His transmitting brings forth the Body of Christ.
On the day of Pentecost a rushing wind came (Acts 2:2). That was the transmission to form the Body of Christ. But that Body formed by the transmission of the transcending Christ needs much dispensing. After the church was formed in Acts 2, problems came in. In Acts 5 there was a couple who deceived God the Spirit (vv. 1-11). In Acts 6 there was murmuring among the saints (v. 1). The divine dispensing was needed to clear up all those things. The church is here, but it may not be so peaceful. Transmission transpired, but dispensing still needs to continue, to go on.
I am speaking something that I have learned. I learned these things mostly from listening to Brother Watchman Nee. He helped me a lot. I worked directly with him for eighteen years. Before those eighteen years I corresponded with him for seven years. Thus, my relationship with him lasted twenty-five years. He was only two years older than I. What could keep us for such a long time without one bit of dissenting? Just before Brother Nee died in prison, he told his prison roommate who was saved through him, “When you get out, find a brother by the name of Witness Lee, and let him know that I never gave up my faith...When you see him, you see me. And his word is my word.” What kept Brother Nee and me in such a oneness? The continuous dispensing. We experienced the transmission of the transcending Christ, but day after day for many years we were kept in one accord by the finer dispensing of the sealing Spirit. The consummation of the Triune God as the life-giving Spirit is all the time sealing us with His fine dispensing to transform us. We are here in one accord by His gracious dispensing of grace.
I hope we can see that the church was formed and came into being by His transmission. This is the transmission of the transcending One’s great power that raised Him from the dead in Hades and that caused Him to transcend to the Father’s throne above all the human race and the angelic race. This is the great power that subdued and subjected all things under His feet and that gave Him to be Head over all things to the church. This great power is toward us who believe (Eph. 1:19) and to the church (v. 22). This indicates that the divine power is transmitted into us to cause the church to come into existence. After the church comes into existence, daily, hourly, and moment by moment, by His mercy and grace, we must learn the lesson to be supplied with His gradual, slow, and fine dispensing in a threefold way by the Father, the Son, and the Spirit. This is the revelation in Ephesians 1.
Christ’s transmitting is to the church, His Body. The surpassing greatness of God’s power, which operated in Christ, is toward us. God subjected all things under His feet and gave Him to be the Head over all things to the church. This shows the divine transmission. He is transmitting all His accomplishments in His incarnation, crucifixion, and resurrection into us. He also transmits His victory in His resurrection. Finally, He transmits all His attainments and obtainments in His ascension.
This consummates in His heavenly ministry. He is in His heavenly ministry in the following twelve statuses:
Ephesians 1 is on the church as the issue of two matters. The first matter is the threefold dispensing of the Divine Trinity. This matter is deep and fine, but it is not very hard for us to get into it. The second matter is the onefold unique transmission of the transcending Christ. This matter is very difficult to see. This is why after the mentioning of the first matter, Paul did not go on directly to the second matter. Instead, he prayed. He realized that we are short of the capacity to understand and to see, because the transmitting of the transcending Christ is so high, far above all.
In order for the church to come into existence, two steps are necessary. First, the materials must be produced, and then these materials need to be formed into a constitution. The transmitting of the transcending Christ is not to produce the church but to form the church. We may use the formation of a nation as an illustration of this. First, the nation needs the people. Over three hundred years ago, many people immigrated to the United States. But these people were not yet a nation. For people to immigrate here was somewhat hard, but for these immigrated people to be formed into a nation was very hard. This needed ability.
Throughout the history of the church, many lovers of the Lord stopped at the first matter, at the producing of the saints, the constituents, but they would not care for the second matter, the constitution and the formation of the church. Today it is the same. Many spiritual giants would not care for the church. They say that if you care for the church, you will have trouble. This is really true. If you only bring people to Christ, everybody will welcome you and highly appraise you. But when you do something to follow the transcending Christ to form the church through His transmitting, you will have trouble.
In the four Gospels, through three and a half years, Christ gathered a group of people. He touched many thousands of people, even feeding five thousand at one time. But eventually, He gained only one hundred twenty (Acts 1:15). These one hundred twenty were the produce of the Father’s choosing, of the Son’s redeeming, and of the Spirit’s sealing. In the book of Acts they were ready to be something, but even they themselves did not know what to be. They waited for seven weeks, from the day of resurrection to the day of Pentecost. On the day of Pentecost, the transcending Christ transmitted His transcending power to these one hundred twenty.
On the day of Pentecost, Peter became different from the way he had been in the four Gospels. In Matthew 16 he spoke something very high (v. 16), but he spoke mostly in a nonsensical way in the Gospels (Matt. 16:22-23; 17:4-5, 24-27; John 13:6-10). But in Acts Peter became right-side up. On the day of Pentecost the transcending Christ transmitted His transcending power into the one hundred twenty, and they became the church. So in Acts 2 it was not Peter standing alone to speak; it was Peter standing with the eleven (v. 14). The eleven spoke with him. This indicated that it was not one person speaking but the church speaking, so the power was there.
Throughout the history of the church and even today, not many would care for the church. Christ said that He would come quickly, but He does not come quickly according to the way that many Christians think. Without the church being built up, how could Christ come back? This is why seventy years ago the Lord did something with Brother Nee to take care of the church. This is what is called “the recovery.” The taking care of the church had been lost and missed for centuries. But on this earth a young man named Watchman Nee was raised up by the transcending Christ. When he stood up in China, all things rose up against him. Today it is the same. We are still encountering Hades, the earth, the air, and the evil one, who would even go to the third heaven.
All of us need to see this. This is why we need Paul’s prayer for the Father to give us a spirit of wisdom with the capacity to understand, to comprehend, and a spirit of revelation with the view. In order to have the view, we need the light. The eyes of our heart need to be enlightened that we may see three things: God’s calling, God’s inheritance, and God’s power. We need to see not only the power but also the surpassing greatness of the power that operated in Christ to raise Him from Hades through the earth, through the air, and through the third heaven to the top of the universe, in order that He might transmit there all that He has obtained and attained to His chosen, redeemed, transformed, prepared people to form them into the church.
(1) The triune dispensing of the Father, the Son, and the Spirit in the Father’s choosing and predestinating, in the Son’s redemption and transformation, and in the Spirit’s sealing and pledging issues in bringing forth God’s many sons, in producing a heritage of worth to God, and in the transfiguration, glorification, of the regenerated and transformed saints, which is the participation in God’s sonship to the fullest. Such a triune dispensing unveils the rich details of the Triune God’s dispensing. Yet it has not been consummated to its highest degree. It is the transmitting of the transcending Christ that consummates the divine dispensing to its highest degree. The dispensing of the processed Triune God has issued in the many sons of God, in the heritage of worth to God, and in our fullest participation in the divine sonship, but it has not yet issued in the church, in the Body of Christ. It is the transcending transmission of Christ that issues finally in the church as the Body of Christ. The many sons of God, the heritage of worth, and the divine sonship to its fullest extent are all for the church, the Body of Christ. Yet there is still the need of a consummation. The transcending Christ’s transmission fulfills this consummation.
Since the transcending Christ is the embodiment of the Triune God, His transcending transmission includes all the rich dispensing of the Triune God. The Triune God’s threefold dispensing is included in the transmission of the transcending Christ and is completed and consummated in the all-inclusive transmission of the transcending Christ.
(2) Such an all-inclusive transmission brings us into union not only with the incarnated and crucified Christ but also with the resurrected and transcending Christ. In union with this transcending Christ, we have surpassed all the negative things and transcended them all. The incarnated and crucified Christ has brought God to man and has accomplished an eternal redemption for us. But the power of Hades and the rule, authority, power, and lordship in the air are still the frustration to the God-chosen people in their participation in what Christ has done for them in His new covenant. Through His resurrection and ascension, Christ has conquered the power of Hades and surpassed and transcended all the power of darkness in the air. In union with such a Christ, we are participating all the time in all His success in His resurrection and ascension.
(3) The transcending Christ’s transmission also brings us into Christ’s heavenly ministry in His twelve statuses, as listed above, which He has attained and obtained in His ascension. What a rich source of the bountiful supply, into which Christ’s transcending transmission has brought us!
