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Scripture Reading: Eph. 3:16-21
In this chapter we will consider the second prayer of the apostle Paul in the book of Ephesians. In the previous chapters we have seen that in Paul’s first prayer, the key is our spirit. Now in the second prayer, the key is the inner man. The spirit is for our seeing, for the revelation, and the inner man is for the experience. Our spirit is for us to use as an organ to see the things of the church, but the inner man is not just an organ. The inner man is a person. By this person we can experience Christ so that the church may come into being. Actually, the inner man is simply our spirit with something added. When Christ as life comes into our spirit, it becomes a person. The inner man is our regenerated person with God’s life as its life.
We all have to see the difference between the spirit as an organ and the inner man. According to 1 Thessalonians 5:23, man is of three parts: spirit, soul, and body. Our soul is our human life. This is why in the New Testament, the same Greek word psuche is translated “soul” in some cases (Luke 12:20; Acts 2:43) and “life” or “soul-life” in others (Luke 12:22-23; John 12:25). Because our human life is in our soul, our soul is our person, our being, and our self. Therefore, the Bible refers to people as souls. In Acts 7:14 seventy-five persons are called seventy-five souls. A soul is a person because a human being’s life is in the soul, but the spirit by itself is merely an organ. Just as our body is an outward organ to contact the outward, physical world, our spirit is an inward organ to contact the spiritual world. Before being saved, each of us was a soul, a being, a person, with two organs: the body as an outward organ and the spirit as an inward organ. But now Christ has come into our spirit as life, and this life is not psuche, the soul-life, but the divine life. Whenever the New Testament in the original Greek speaks of this life, it always uses the word zoe (John 1:4; 1 John 1:2; 5:12). Zoe is the divine, eternal, uncreated life of God, which is Christ Himself. Christ is our life in our spirit (Col. 3:4; Rom. 8:10). Without this life our spirit would only be an organ, not a person. As saved ones with Christ as life in our spirit, our spirit has become a man, a person, a being. It is not merely an inward organ, but it is now an inner man. This is the inner man referred to by Paul in Ephesians 3:16.
Before we were saved, we had only one life, the soul-life, but now we have another life, the divine life in our spirit. Because we now have two lives, we have a problem. By which of these lives will we live? If we live by the soul-life, psuche, we will be soulish, but if we live by the divine life, zoe, we will be spiritual. We should all desire to live by the life in our spirit, by the new divine life, zoe, and not by the old human life, psuche.
In Ephesians 1 our spirit is revealed as an organ for us to receive revelation concerning the church. In Ephesians 3 our spirit is a person, the inner man, for us to experience Christ for the church. Because chapter 1 refers to our need to see the spiritual revelation, it reveals the spirit as an organ. Chapter 3 shows us that we have to live according to what we have seen. For this we need the inner man, a person. As a person, our spirit is for us to live by and for us to experience what we have seen.
For us to see, we need revelation in our spirit, but in order to live and experience what we have seen, our inner man needs to be strengthened, empowered. Many of us have to admit that our soul, our outward man, is stronger than our spirit, our inner man. This is why Paul prayed in Ephesians 3:16 that we would be strengthened “with power.” Power in this verse is the same Greek word for power in 1:19. We need to be strengthened with resurrection power, transcending power, subduing power, and overruling power. If there is any amount of deadness around us not yet conquered, it is hard for our inner man to be strong. Therefore, our inner man needs to be strengthened with the resurrection power to conquer all deadness. For this we have to be desperate that the resurrection power may swallow up all our death. If anything of death remains around or within us, we are weakened in our inner man.
We also need to be strengthened with the transcending power. If anything still suppresses or oppresses us, we are weakened. We have to be desperate and pray, “Lord, where is Your transcending power? I should not be suppressed or oppressed by anything. Regardless of my situation, I should be transcendent.”
Then we need the subduing power to put all things under our feet. The hardest thing for us to subdue is our temper. If our temper could not be subdued, our inner man could never be strengthened. The thing that weakens our inner man the most is our temper. Suppose you lose your temper four times in a week. When you come to the meeting, how strong would your inner man be? You will be too weak to function in the meeting. If someone would ask you why you did not function, you may say that you did not have the anointing or the Lord’s leading, but these answers are untrue. The only reason you did not function is that you were so weak in your inner man. Your inner man was fully weakened by your temper. If you are going to be strong in your inner man, you have to subdue your temper, and if you can subdue your temper, you can subdue everything. You cannot subdue your temper in yourself and by yourself. Only by God’s subduing power within you can you subdue all things. You have this subduing power within you. It is with this subduing and overruling power that our inner man is strengthened.
Paul prays in Ephesians 3 that we would be strengthened with power. This power is the power revealed in Ephesians 1. We all have to realize that it is with this power—the resurrection power, the transcending power, the subduing power, and the overruling power—that our inner man is strengthened. We need to be strengthened into our inner man with the power that raised Christ from among the dead, that seated Christ at the right hand of God in the heavenlies, that subjected all things under His feet, and that gave Him to be Head over all things to the church. Today our inner man is weak because we are not desperate. We need to be desperate to experience this power that is within us so that our inner man might be strengthened.
Paul also prays that we would be strengthened with power “through His Spirit” (3:16). This power is one with the Spirit. You can never separate the power from God the Spirit. Strictly speaking, God’s Spirit is this power. We need to be strengthened with this power through His Spirit in our spirit. Here Paul adds the phrase into the inner man (v. 16). We need to be strengthened with power through His Spirit into the inner man. This word into indicates transmission. You are receiving the divine transmission of this fourfold power, the resurrection power, transcending power, subduing power, and overruling power. In chapter 1 this power was toward us, but in chapter 3 the strengthening is with this power into our spirit, into our inner man. This power for the strengthening is not only within us but also in the heavens being transmitted into us. With electricity, when you turn the switch off, the flow stops. When the electrical switch is on, the current of electricity is flowing. This current is not only in the building. It is also being transmitted into the building. God’s power is not only something within us but also something in the heavens being transmitted into us. The strengthening, strictly speaking, does not originate from within us; it comes from the heavens, from the throne, and is being transmitted into us. This strengthening is something living, transmitting, and flowing. Many times we have the feeling that there is something within us strengthening us. With this strengthening, there is the flowing of the Spirit within us. Something is being transmitted and imparted into us by this flowing. This is the strengthening with power through His Spirit into the inner man.
The issue of this strengthening is “that Christ may make His home in your hearts” (v. 17). Not only is Christ in our spirit, but also, as a person, He must inhabit our whole inward being, our heart. The heart is composed of the three parts of the soul—the mind (Matt. 9:4; Heb. 4:12), the emotion (John 16:6, 22), and the will (Acts 11:23; Heb. 4:12)—plus the conscience (10:22; 1 John 3:20), a part of the spirit. The heart includes all our inward parts. This means that when we are strengthened into our inner man, Christ will take over our entire inward being. When we are strengthened into our inner man, into our spirit, it will be easy for Christ as the indwelling Spirit to saturate every inward part of our being. It will be easy for Christ as the indwelling Spirit to take over our mind, our emotion, and our will. Then Christ can settle down in our being, making His home in our hearts.
Christ is in us, but He may not be settled in us. If I come to your home as a guest, I am in your home, but I am not settled there. I can only go where you would allow me. I have seen your home, but I have not made my home there. In the same way, Christ is in us but not settled in us. This is because our inner man has not been strengthened. Our inner man needs to be strengthened with the fourfold power. If all our deadness has been swallowed up, if all the rebellious factors have been conquered, if all the troublesome things have been subdued, and if we exercise the overruling power, we will be so strong in our spirit, in our inner man. Then our whole being will be opened up to Christ as the indwelling Spirit, making it easy for Him to get into our mind, emotion, and will, into our every inward part, to take possession of all our being. He will be able to make His home in our hearts. The church life comes out of Christ making His home in our hearts.
After the strengthening of the inner man and Christ’s making His home in our hearts, there is a third item: “That you may be filled unto all the fullness of God” (Eph. 3:19). When our inner man is strengthened, there is a free way for Christ to take full possession of our entire being, making His home in our hearts. God in the Son, as the life-giving Spirit, will take over and possess our whole being, making us one with God. Then we will be filled, not with doctrines or knowledge but with the riches of Christ unto all the fullness of God. All this fullness dwells in Christ (Col. 1:19; 2:9). Through His indwelling, Christ imparts the fullness of God into our being. Eventually, whatever God is in His fullness will be our content. We are becoming a people filled up with the Triune God and saturated with the riches of Christ unto all the fullness of God. This is the issue of the transmission of God’s power, and this is the reality of the church life.
Then Paul says, “To Him who is able to do superabundantly above all that we ask or think, according to the power which operates in us” (Eph. 3:20). Again, this power is the power in 1:19. It is the power that accomplishes the spiritual things for the church within our inward being. The word operates in this verse refers to the inward energizing of this power. If you mean business with the Lord, if you are desperate, something within will be energizing you, but if you are indifferent, the power within you will not operate. If you are indifferent toward the meetings and if you are indifferent toward your lack of fruit, how can this power within you operate to energize you? But if you pray to the Lord in a desperate way, you will immediately experience the inner energizing. God is able to do superabundantly above all that we ask or think, but He is able only according to the power that is operating in us. How much this power can operate to energize us depends upon how desperate we are. We all have this power within us. With some it really works, but with others it does not work. This is because some are desperate and others are indifferent. The secret to the operation of this power is that we need to be desperate. God needs our human cooperation. If we do not cooperate with Him, He can do nothing. May the Lord be merciful to us so that, from now on, we would be desperate. We need to have the deep feeling that we cannot go on being an indifferent Christian. We must consider this a matter of life and death. If we become desperate, we will have the realization that something within is energizing us and that something from the heavens is constantly being transmitted into our being. Then there will be glory to Him in the church (3:21). Today there is not much glory to the Lord in the church because of our indifference. We all have to realize our need for the inner operating, the energizing, of this power for the strengthening of our inner man.
May we never forget these two prayers in the book of Ephesians. We need a spirit of wisdom and revelation in order that we may see the church, and we need our inner man to be strengthened so that we may live and experience all that we have seen. The revelation of the church and the experience of Christ for the church issue in the genuine church life.
