We have now the Holy Spirit leading the apostle into a remarkable prayer flowing out of the subject (or, at least, a part of it) already brought before us. It will be found that all is in the most orderly connection which it is possible to conceive, even when revealed to us; an order that we never could have conceived, unless God had made it known, but which, once communicated, approves itself immediately to the spiritual judgment. For the blessing which the enraptured apostle had poured out in the earlier verses flows, we have seen, from a twofold title of God: “the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ” (vs. 3).
Accordingly in this epistle there are two prayers, answering to this double title. The first prayer is given in the portion now before us, and pertains to His title as the God of our Lord Jesus Christ; and in chapter 3:14 we have a corresponding prayer, which answers to the second title, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. Both clearly have Christ as the foundation and center; but, then, Christ regarded in a wholly different point of view. In the former of the two Christ is viewed as man, as one who calls God His God; in the second of them, Christ is regarded in His still more intimate relationship as Son, who therefore brings before us the Father. We, too, have communion with God in both respects; we have to do with Him as God and as Father. It is said in John 4, “The hour is coming and now is, when the true worshippers shall worship the Father in spirit and in truth.” But then our Lord adds, “God is a Spirit, and they that worship Him must worship Him in spirit and in truth” (John 4:2424God is a Spirit: and they that worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth. (John 4:24)). There is an immense difference between the two things. As the Father He is seeking worshippers, communicating the unspeakable favor of bringing them to the knowledge of His love. He forms their hearts after the display of Himself in Christ, causes them to overflow with thanksgiving and praise, and thus constitutes them worshippers in spirit and in truth. But then it is added, that God is a spirit. Whatever the form in which He might have manifested Himself in Judaism, for special reasons—whatever displays of His judicial majesty, in tangible ways, Himself properly hidden, He is a spirit, and consequently He must have spiritual worship. Thus it is not merely the exceeding love that is seeking and making and gathering our worshippers, but it is the necessary character of the only worship that He admits now. From the moment that He reveals Himself fully, He can own nothing but real worship in the Spirit. The day of forms, rites, and ceremonies is totally passed. Hence it is not only that He does not look for them, but He scorns them; He treats them as a libel upon His nature, a slight on His Son, and Satan’s substitute for the power of the Holy Spirit. They that worship Him must worship Him in spirit and in truth. I think it important to bring out the connections of the blessed Word of God so as to show that the distinction pointed out is not imaginative. Alas! that men should be beguiled to invent, in presence of the untold treasures of the Bible. All we have to do is to bow before what is given us there. We may have, no doubt, to learn; but where the truth is known, what a mercy to be entirely delivered from the vain desire or the need of any invention! It is natural to unsatisfied man to seek out exciting novelties. But God is infinitely above man, and His Word rich beyond all thought; so that all we have to do is to submit our souls to Scripture, assured, too, that the revelation of God, old as it is, offers practically that which is ever new to the heart.
In this epistle we have these two prayers; the first of them introduced by the apostle, who says, “Wherefore I also, after I heard of your faith in the Lord Jesus, and love unto all the saints” (vs. 15). Now, inasmuch as our love would bring in the thought of something on man’s part that would give importance to us, although he is about to speak of love to the saints, he introduces the matter by “faith,” because this throws us not so much on our love to Him as His love to us. “Wherefore,” he says, “I also, after I heard of your faith in the Lord Jesus,” (vs. 15) and then gives the consequence of this, “and your love unto all the saints.” This is a very important word in judging of our love. We are all apt to form a circle, even among the saints of God—to have those that we prefer, those that suit us best, whose thoughts, feelings, habits, are more or less the same as our own, or, at least, are no great trial to us. But, then, this is not love to the saints. There is more love to ourselves in it than loving them. The flesh likes what is agreeable to us—what does not cause us pain, what is, perhaps, a gratification to the amiabilities of nature. All that may be where there is really no exercise of the new nature, no mighty power of the Spirit of God working in our hearts. We have always to test our souls, and ask how we stand in this. Is the prominent motive and object of our hearts the Lord Jesus? Is it with Him and for Him that we think of and feel towards all the saints.
I fully admit that love towards the saints cannot, and ought not, to take the same shape towards all. It must be in the energy and intelligence of the Spirit, varied according to the call upon love. While one ought to love even a person who is under discipline, it would be a very great mistake to suppose that your love must be shown in the same way as if he were not. You do not cease to love him; indeed you never are in a position and spirit to exercise discipline with the Lord where there is not love; righteous hatred of the sin, indignation it may be, but real charity to the person. It would be better to wait upon God if it be not so in our hearts, till we can take it up in the spirit of divine grace. There must be, of course, a dealing in righteousness; but even in dealing with one’s child there ought not to be such a thing as chastening in a passion. Anything that merely arises out of a sudden impulse, is not a feeling that glorifies God about evil. Therefore, in cases of discipline, there ought to be self judgment, and great patience, too, unless it be something so flagrant that to hesitate about it would be culpable weakness, or want of decision and jealousy for God; for there are some sins so offensive to God and man that they ought, if we are sensitive to His holiness and obedient, to be met with grave energy and, as it were, on the very spot. The arena of the sin God would have to be the scene of its judgment according to His will.
Supposing something done in the public assembly, false doctrine in the midst of God’s people, if there were the power of God, and a heart for His rights, it might be due to His majesty to deal with it without delay. This is sufficiently plain from the Word of God, where in a case of direct hypocrisy and lying against God, we find the promptness of the Holy Spirit through the apostle, in the very presence of the Church, which at once judged the fraud that was attempted to be practiced upon Him who dwelt there. I deny there was want of love in this: rather was it the necessary accompaniment of divine love acting, through the Holy Spirit’s might in the assembly, or at least, by Peter, as the special instrument of His power therein. It was a stern judgment, doubtless; but it was the fruit of intense desire for the saints of God and of horror that such a sin should get a footing and shelter among them, and the Holy Spirit should be thus foully dishonored, and be grieved with the whole Church, if it were connived at. But in ordinary cases the same love would wait, and let time be given for the fault to be owned and repented of. In nine cases out of ten mistakes arise from precipitancy, because we are apt to be jealous for our own reputation. O how little have we realized that we are crucified and dead with Christ! We feel the scandal, or something that affects the public mind: this is not the power of the Holy Spirit, but the selfish egotism that is at work in our hearts. We do not like to lose our character, nor share the sorrow and shame of Christ in those who bear His name. Not, of course, that one would make light of what is wrong: that never could be right about anything either great or small. We ought never to justify the least wrong, whether in ourselves or in others, but accustom our souls to the habitual clearing of the name of the Lord, even if it be about a hasty word. If we begin to be careless about little offenses, there is nothing to preserve us from great sins but the mere mercy of God. If love unto all the saints were working in our hearts, there would be less haste.
We sometimes misconstrue things, and endeavor to give, as we take, a very somber impression, where evil was but in appearance. Let us beware of judging according to the first blush, where the reality may prove to be otherwise: it is not righteous judgment. We should seek to judge things by a higher standard, and in the light of God. In these serious matters we are bound to be sure, and never to yield to suspicion. All judgment, if it be according to God, must proceed upon what is known and certain, not upon what is a surmise—too often the effect of an unfounded pretension to superior spirituality. We find the importance of this constantly; and were our souls more simple about it, fewer mistakes would be made.
Christ has the first place where the heart is true; and next, “all the saints” become the object of our love. If there are two cases of persons in fault, and the one were a prime favorite, and the other but little liked, the latter is in imminent danger, I need hardly say, of going to the wall. My object of aversion would labor under a cloud which obscures the truth, no matter how evident it might be to the dispassionate; whereas, on the contrary, the favorite would derive that which outweighs the proofs of guilt, from the unwillingness on the part of his friends to pronounce anything wrong about him. Both these feelings are thoroughly at issue, in such circumstances, with the mind of God. Indeed, both favoritism and prejudices are utterly condemned by His blessed Word. “The wisdom that is from above is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, and easy to be entreated, full of mercy and good fruits, without partiality, and without hypocrisy” (James 3:1717But the wisdom that is from above is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, and easy to be entreated, full of mercy and good fruits, without partiality, and without hypocrisy. (James 3:17)).
“Love unto all the saints” (vs. 15) is enjoined because they are saints. To love them because God has separated and brought them into an eternal relationship with Himself, is the only true and Christian love to such. Our great difficulty always is that our thoughts, feelings, actions, should flow from this ground. Do not mistake me. I do not mean that it is wrong to have friends. Our Lord had. He loved John as He did not love the others, and yet there was a sense in which He loved them every one alike; as His saints, they were beyond comparison precious in His sight. He might prize the faithfulness of some of His servants; He might have to encourage, reprove, correct all round; and we must leave room for all these things. There is the grand basis of love to all the saints; but it is clear we are not bound to open out matters of a personal nature to every one because he is a saint. For example, saints are not always the wisest of men; and while we are not to disown their saint ship, we are not bound to lay bare our difficulties, or to seek counsel in what may require ripe spiritual judgment from those who could render no help whatever in the case. Love there must be always. This brings in the value of that divine principle, “esteeming others better than ourselves.” This I hold to be true of all saints. It might be a man that had not two ideas, and yet have Christ before his soul. He might be very ignorant and very foolish—hasty perhaps in spirit, strong in prejudice, weak in his sympathies, and worthless as a counselor; but if there is evidently a soul that cleaves to Christ, and values Him above everything, can I not, should I not, esteem him better than myself? Do not I see there is that which admonishes my soul—which refreshes and edifies so much more than if he were merely the staunchest friend and the wisest adviser? In the least saint of God there is that which both cheers and humbles the heart. I am not to esteem a person for a quality which he may not possess: God does not, could not, put such a phantom before us. On the other hand, it is well to bethink ourselves of the preciousness of every saint as such. Show me the very weakest and most trying of them all—yet we may and ought to cultivate a real, genuine respect for them as God’s children. There is not only God for them, but what is of Christ in them; and this may commend them above all other considerations to Him who values communion with the Father and the Son.
On the contrary, in thinking of ourselves, ought we not to feel how much there is that is unlike Christ? May we ever be especially alive to that in which we break down and grieve the Spirit of God! This would have the effect of lowering and putting down our own self-esteem. Could we think so highly of ourselves, if we felt as we ought our exceeding and, alas! frequent failure, in presence of the rich, perfect grace of God to our souls? Whereas, if we had before us in others, not their failure, but Christ’s love and life on and in them, and the glory to which they belong, what would be the effect? “Love unto all the saints” (vs. 15). It is Christ discerned in the saints, which is the power of the love He would have going out towards them. Under certain circumstances, with a person whom you trusted God might bring out as a saint—whom you have prayed for, and whose good you have sought in any way, yet at the given time it might be a sin to associate as a Christian. I am speaking of one who had by filthiness of flesh or spirit brought dishonor upon the name of the Lord. But though we may for the time abstain from all the expressions of loving intercourse, yet love always finds a place in which to show itself, though sometimes it may be only in the presence of God, and not manifestly to the human eye. So that, as to the manner of showing love, we must search the Word of God. But the general principle cannot be doubted, that God would lay upon our hearts all the saints. He has them all upon His own heart, and He will have us to cultivate this largeness of family affection.
Accordingly Paul, who entered into this in a measure which even the saints addressed perhaps knew little of practically, adds, “Wherefore I cease not to give thanks for you, making mention of you in my prayers; that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give unto you the spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of Him.” There is the title so often referred to—“the God of our Lord Jesus Christ” (vs. 3). He is about to speak of the divine dealing with man and even with Christ as man; for of course it is only in that sense that one could so speak. But if dealing with us accordingly, working mercies through the risen man and fresh blessings suited to this character, yet He is “the Father of glory” (vs. 17) as being the great Head and Fountain of all heavenly blessedness, the One from whom it all came to His own name and praise. This at once lets us into the secret of the prayer. Glory is the main thought—not the only, but the most prominent, feature of the prayer. Hence then the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, purposes and works by Him to give certain blessings to us; and it will be found that the basis of the bright pillar of blessing is Christ risen and glorified at the right hand of God. If you look at the prayer in chapter 3, there is not a word about His being there exalted, “far above all principality, and power, and might;” (vs. 21) for its subject is not glory at all—not what God has done: it is not anything conferred upon Christ, but Himself and His love, the sum and substance of my blessing; as it is said there “that Christ may dwell in your hearts by faith” (ch. 3:17). Here the prayer in chapter 1 is the contrast in every way of that in chapter 3.
In the latter, love is the parent idea, and not glory. It is well to bear in mind always this wonderful connection of love and glory; because the one would not do without the other. And although glory be its bright manifestation and effect, yet love is still deeper and is never fully known except in the immediate presence of our Father. The kingdom is not the evidence in our case of the love of God; the proof of it on our behalf is that we are to be with the Son in the Father’s house, and that we shall appear with Christ in glory. Who brings us there? The world knows nothing about the Father’s house. It is a scene outside the earth that no eye of man here below can possibly enter into. But He will also display us to the world.
Hence it is that in John 17 you will find that the glory which the Father gives the Son and which the Son gives to us because of His all—perfect love—this glory is in order that the world may know that the Father sent the Son and loved us as He loved the Son. But mark, the glory there, as here, is set prominently forward. As we have the prayer of glory in Ephesians 1 and the prayer of love in Ephesians 3, so the glory that is given in John 17 is to prove what otherwise would not have been so clearly made known to the world. Men here below may see the glory, but they cannot enter into the love. The world will gather from our being in the glory with the Lord Jesus that we were loved with the same love wherewith the Lord Jesus was loved. Glory expresses itself outwardly, but love goes deeper still and brings into the scene where the Father reveals Himself in His beloved Son. This is what I may call an intimate, family scene outside the world, the heavenly rest and home. It is not merely brightness, glory, majesty, or power. All these things will have their full display; but there is something deeper than all and which lies at the root of all. It is the love, though it be the least entered into, yet at the same time was really before all, and that to which all will turn. It is the highest of all, and it is eternal. The kingdom may terminate—the love never. The display before the world will have a beginning and an end. But as the love will never end, so it always was in the bosom of God the Father.
Thus we have the prayer that “the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give unto you the spirit of wisdom and revelation in the full knowledge of Him.” There might be a little difficulty if it were simply “the knowledge of Him” (vs. 17). The proper meaning of the word is “the full knowledge of him” (vs. 17). They already knew Him, but He prayed that they might know Him more. He wanted them to be fathers in Christ, and what constitutes a father is a deep and growing knowledge of Christ Himself. The Spirit of God alone could give them this entrance into it; but it was in the full knowledge of Him. “The eyes of your understanding being enlightened, that ye may know what is the hope of His calling, and what the riches of the glory of His inheritance in the saints, and what is the exceeding greatness of His power to usward who believe.” We have three things here brought before us. First, “the hope of His calling” (vs. 18).
Now I conceive that there he is referring in measure to what we have already found in the early part of the chapter. “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who hath blessed us with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ, according as He hath chosen us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before Him in love” (vss. 3-4). At any rate, I think verse 4 is before his mind’s eye here. Verse 5 brings in His place as Father. “The hope of His calling” (vs. 18) is founded on the full blessedness that pertains to us according to that purpose of God which is already ours in Christ—already made known to us and received by our hearts—the calling of God that we should be holy and without blame before Him in love. But then if this be the hope of His calling (for everything is made to flow from God Himself), he adds, “and what the riches of the glory of His inheritance in the saints” (vs. 18). There clearly he refers to what we found in the body of the chapter: the inheritance and not only the calling. The calling was the effectual work of God’s grace, and the riches of the inheritance rather the glory suited to such a calling. But, besides this character of glory, there is first the hidden portion suitable to being chosen to be holy and without blame before Him in love—called to be the reflection of His own holy, loving nature, which, of course, we have got in the life of Christ, and which we shall have perfectly developed when changed into His image, from glory to glory. For His calling has its own proper hope of what we shall enjoy in His presence.
Then there is, secondly, the inheritance. He wished them to know the riches of its glory, to know it better. But he uses a remarkable expression—“the riches of the glory of His inheritance in the saints” (vs. 18). You must carefully guard against prevalent error on that subject, namely, that the saints mean the inheritance. This is not at all the force of the phrase; nay, I have no hesitation in saying that it would falsify the chief blessedness of the Church’s calling. If we look at the Old Testament, we find that Israel was His inheritance and His people; and that God, by virtue of Israel, took possession of the land. When the day comes for God to be king, and more than king, when He takes under His government the entire universe, how will this be done? Will it be by Israel? No; but by virtue of His heavenly saints—the Church of God. The expression seems to be purposely large. Most decidedly it means the saints changed or risen that are in the likeness of Christ, in an entirely heavenly condition. Such is the mode in which God will challenge and assume the inheritance by and by into His own hand. When He took Canaan, He did not come down and possess it by heavenly power, but by means of His people. But when God expels the wicked spirits from any connection with the heavenly places—when He puts down all power upon the earth—everything that contradicts Himself, and reduces the whole universe into subjection to the name of Christ, what people will take it in His name as Israel entered on the land of Canaan? The risen saints. Hence the meaning of the words, “the riches of the glory of His inheritance in the saints” (vs. 18). The common notion that the saints constitute the inheritance is unscriptural. For most carefully throughout the New Testament, the saints are always represented as (not the inheritance, but) the heirs, “heirs of God and joint-heirs with Christ” (Rom. 8:1717And if children, then heirs; heirs of God, and joint-heirs with Christ; if so be that we suffer with him, that we may be also glorified together. (Romans 8:17)). They are nowhere treated as the inheritance, but, on the contrary, what is revealed as the inheritance, means the things in heaven and things on earth; and the Church is always sedulously separated from them. This I consider to be a point which cannot be left as an open question; the testimony of the Word is too abundant and precise. We ought never to allow what is clearly revealed in Scripture to be debatable or uncertain, because doubt always has an injurious effect upon the spirit, no less than it insults God and grieves His Spirit. Another’s certainty will not do for us; but we need not hesitate to speak plainly where we have no doubt of God’s mind upon a subject. And when we look at it in this point of view, it quite falls in with the structure of the chapter. As we have found “the hope of His calling” (vs. 18) in the first clause answering to what we had in the earlier verses, so the “glory of the inheritance” answers to the middle verses of the chapter. God means to have the whole universe blest and happy under Christ; not merely glory given to Him in heaven, or a people subject to Him here below. We have here an incomparably larger view of what God intends. Christ is to have universal blessedness and glory, all things in heaven and earth being put under Him; and we have obtained in Him this inheritance.
The remaining point is “the exceeding greatness of His power to usward who believe, according to the working of His mighty power, which He wrought in Christ when He raised Him from the dead, and set Him at His own right hand in the heavenly places.” Why not draw attention to the power that was put forth when He made the world? When Israel are addressed, He speaks of Himself as the Jehovah-God who clave the Red Sea, and brought His people out of Egypt with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm.
But what to us is the Red Sea crossed? The resurrection of Christ; not the incarnation nor even the cross of Christ, though we could not do without either. The cross, though the most essential of all things for God’s glory and our need, does not give us the power of God. It shows us what God calls His weakness, and if I look at Christ there, He was “crucified through weakness” (2 Cor. 13:44For though he was crucified through weakness, yet he liveth by the power of God. For we also are weak in him, but we shall live with him by the power of God toward you. (2 Corinthians 13:4)). It was One who submitted to everything, who put Himself in the power of His creatures; who went down under the judgment of God and sank even under the puny hand of man. But when we look at the resurrection, all trace of weakness is forever past away and nothing is seen but the most triumphant power of God; a power far beyond anything connected with either the law or creation. It was a question of going down into the grave not merely of a man, but of that man who had borne in His person the sins of every soul that believes in Him. And so completely was God glorified about these sins that He takes up the despised, rejected, forsaken man from under the unheard-of burden, and puts Him at His own right hand in the heavenly places.
We have there the astonishing contrast between the grave in which Christ lay and the glory into which He is now exalted, still as man—the glorified man, far above all creatures, be they ever so high or blest: above creatures which were far above man in one sense and never known taint or fall: above the principalities, authorities, dominions, powers on high, the heavenly orders, and every name that is named, not only in this age, but in that which is to come. There will be the display of angelic hosts then, when the Son of man shall come in His glory and all the holy angels with Him. But He is raised above them all now. To be above them as God would be nothing new; He is so always. But He has carried humanity above them; He is there exalted in our nature—risen, of course, but still the nature of man. He has given us present association with the throne of God. For the application of all this is given to us here—“the exceeding greatness of His power to usward who believe, according to the working of His mighty power which He wrought in Christ, when He raised him from the dead.” It is not merely the exceeding greatness of His power towards Christ, but towards us in Christ. The power that wrought in our deliverance from Satan, that gave us our place of saints before God, is the self-same power that raised up Christ from the dead and put Him in the most glorious place in heaven. Is there anything difficult after this? If we knew we had at command the power which called the world into being, should we not laugh at impossibilities? But we have an energy greater than that—no less than what raised up Christ from the dead. The word of God positively tells us so. Why then are we so weak? Because we so feebly believe it. The great mass of God’s children never hear about it at all. But even they, who through the mercy of God have heard, how little do they enter into it! It is one thing not to deny it doctrinally, another to apply it and live in it, not only for great straits or heavy blows, but for the ordinary train of daily duty, of that which becomes us as saints, subjecting ourselves to the will of God. We forget, if we are in circumstances of difficulty, if in the midst of foes, if we have to do with unseen enemies, what it is the apostle prays for us. That we may know the exceeding greatness of His power towards us who believe, which He wrought in Christ when He raised Him from the dead. If the power of the Holy Spirit so wrought in Paul, it was but the answer of the servant to the Master’s heart, who was so pleading above, that we might know the power that is above all obstacles. No saints could know this till after the resurrection was accomplished. It is to usward who believe—strictly to the New Testament saints, called in after the Lord’s death and resurrection. Supposing that a deliverer were expected for anything at all, it would be perfectly right to cry for that deliverer—to feel that he was long in coming. But when he came, do you think it would be proper and suitable to urge him to come? It is the mistake people make now. They take up the language of the Psalms and apply it to Christian experience. But you could not have in the Psalms the revelation of that which we have here. God’s love you surely have previous to the resurrection of Christ; but there was no such thing as that power at work which raised up Christ from the dead. Their mistake is profound who pervert the Old Testament so as to make it the language of our experience. It would be a sin if one did not use the Old Testament for our own profit and good; but that would be abusing, not using, it.
This, then, is the measure of the power at work towards us—the same power that wrought in Christ. How are any of these things to be known according to God? “In the full knowledge of him” (vs. 17). You will never learn any truth in power excepting in the deepening knowledge of Christ. It is the lack of this which is the cause of weakness among us; bare doctrine is not connection with Christ. When the flower is separated from that which is its source, its sustenance and support, it becomes a dying flower from that time. We have that which is lovely and full of blessing in Christ; but if we are to know it such, to prove its truth, to enjoy it always, it must be in taking these things as connected with Christ. Let me look at Christ, and I see there the very life that God has given me, and the hope of it too, even as to the inheritance. Who would dare to say, it is presumption for Christ to have it? Nay, but it is what is due to Him. God loves and delights in Him as man so well, that He could not keep back a single thing that He has made from Him. He is the heir of it all; and we, hidden in Christ, can enter into the fullness of His calling, and into the inheritance, because we merge in union with Christ. And as you can only know the calling and the inheritance in this full knowledge of Christ, so it is also with “the exceeding greatness of His power” (vs. 19). The measure of that power is, what God put forth when He raised up Christ “from” the dead, “and set Him at His own right hand in the heavenly places” (vs. 20). He has given Him the supreme seat of glory. No matter what could be conceived of the highest angel or archangel, Christ has received a higher dignity, and this place He holds in present association with us while we are here. It is One who not only owns us and is kind to us, and uses the greatness of His glory for our good, but far more. The sovereign that is exalted to the throne can use the throne for the good of his subjects, and the glory of those whom he desires to honor; but there is no positive, immediate, personal association with him. This is what the Christian has with Christ. Nothing less than to be one with Christ is what we have here. Therefore it is added, that this blessed One, under whose feet God has put everything, He has also given to be head over all things to the Church. It is not said, “head over the Church,” (vs. 22) but “Head over all things to the Church.” The Church shares His place of headship over all; as His body, but still in inseparable union with Him. The glorified Man has universal exaltation over all the creatures of God; and this He shares with us, and will soon manifest as our portion with Him. The Christian is now a member of Christ’s body; now, therefore, by the Holy Spirit, in the most intimate association with Christ, not only as having life in Him, but as enjoying oneness with Him who is the supreme exalted Head over all. He is a member of His body; and although it was not to Eve directly that God gave the dominion, yet did she share it by His will. It was given to Adam, but by association Eve had it along with Adam. So the Church has it as the dependent and associated Eve of the heavenly Man, the last Adam. This gives us at once a bright view of what our calling is, and why God looks for complete separation from the world. In the time of the Protector in this country, it would have been improper for any one that held to the royal family to seek or even accept a post of honor. So with the Christian now. We belong to One who is hidden away from the earth—exalted now into this universal headship. The world that we see is not yet put under Christ practically, though to faith all things are; but we know that He is exalted, “head over all things to the church” (vs. 22).
We belong to Him, and He would have our hearts lifted up above all the present scene. The Church is “His body, the fullness of Him that filleth all in all” (vs. 23). It is the complement, or that which fills up Christ, looked at as man risen from the dead. As Son of God He, of course, requires nothing to complete His glory; but as man He does. He would no more be complete in His resurrection-glory without the Church, than Adam would have been without Eve. And God has, in the counsels of His glory, so ordered it. He meant, from all eternity, that when His Son became this blessed, glorified man, He should share for His own honor and praise all the glory He had as the risen man, with those who were by nature poor, dead sinners, but now delivered from their sins, and made one with Christ on high. By the Spirit now given He communicates the knowledge of it to them while in the world, that they might be in spirit and ways entirely above the world.