In Ephesians 1 we find that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ (looked upon here as the exalted and glorified Man) had raised Him from among the dead and “set Him at His own right hand in the [heavenlies]... and hath put all things [in subjection] under His feet, and given Him to be the head over all things to the church, which is His body, the fullness of Him that filleth all in all.” Thus we find Him raised and seated in the heavenlies, as the glorified Man, all things not yet visibly put under Him, but His title declared, and while, as the expectant Heir, He is seated there, a work is going on of quickening, raising up and seating together with Him the second Adam in the heavenly places, the joint-heirs of all His glory. What a magnificent work that not only are we blessed through Him and His work on the cross, but we are blessed with Him! He has conferred upon us every dignity, glory and honor that has been conferred upon Christ Himself.
God is the source of such infinite blessings, our Lord Jesus Christ is the measure of them, and we—believers who were dead in trespasses and sins—are the objects of them.
The work of quickening, raising up and uniting to Him as joint-heirs is the work of the Holy Spirit since His descent at Pentecost. Though, since the fall of man, sinners have been born again by the Holy Spirit through the Word of God, such individual salvation is not the same as the church of God.
The Place Occupied by the Church
Collectively, the church occupies a place beyond all that which went before and is peculiar to the interval in which we live. It was reserved for the time of Christ’s humiliation, death, resurrection and ascension as man to God’s right hand in glory to bring out the mystery which from the beginning of the ages had been hid in God the mystery of “Christ and the church.”
In Matthew 165And when his disciples were come to the other side, they had forgotten to take bread. (Matthew 16:5) the Lord declares the foundation of this work in Himself, as Son of the living God. He speaks of the church as that which was to come. Though Peter, to whom the Lord was speaking, learned afterward the true meaning of the foundation He had declared (see 1 Peter 2:55Ye also, as lively stones, are built up a spiritual house, an holy priesthood, to offer up spiritual sacrifices, acceptable to God by Jesus Christ. (1 Peter 2:5)), the revelation of the mystery of Christ and the church is entrusted alone to the Apostle Paul.
When the Lord was here, He had disciples. But they were not yet baptized into one body (and that with Gentiles) and united by the Holy Spirit to a glorified Man in heaven. Until the cross, the middle wall of partition between the Jew and the Gentile had not been removed.
The Church in the Counsels of God
In Ephesians 1 Paul speaks of the purpose and counsel of God and adds His future purpose to be executed in the dispensation of the fullness of times when all things have been gathered together in heaven and earth under the headship of Christ.
In Ephesians 2 Paul sees both Jew and Gentile dead in trespasses and sins, as children of the first Adam and, speaking of the favored Jew, writes, “Among whom also we... were... children of wrath, even as others.” Going on we find that Christ “hath made both one, and hath broken down the middle wall of partition... for to make in Himself of twain one new man, so making peace; and that He might reconcile both unto God in one body by the cross, having slain the enmity thereby.” Thus we find that the cross itself is the foundation of this unity of Jew and Gentile in one body by the presence of the Holy Spirit come down from heaven. By the presence of the Holy Spirit indwelling individually every believer, He unites all Christ’s members collectively in one body in Christ.
The Work of the Holy Spirit in the Church
It is important to understand that the Holy Spirit wrought before He came. He came at Pentecost, having never dwelt here until redemption was accomplished. Though there were believers before His descent, still it was on believers, as such, that the Holy Spirit was to be bestowed. (See John 7:37-3937In the last day, that great day of the feast, Jesus stood and cried, saying, If any man thirst, let him come unto me, and drink. 38He that believeth on me, as the scripture hath said, out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water. 39(But this spake he of the Spirit, which they that believe on him should receive: for the Holy Ghost was not yet given; because that Jesus was not yet glorified.) (John 7:37‑39).)
We find an example of this in Acts 19. Long after the Pentecostal gift of the Holy Spirit, Paul finds certain disciples at Ephesus. He asks them, “Have ye received the Holy Ghost since ye believed?” They reply, “We did not even hear if the Holy Spirit was come” (vs. 2 JND). After learning that they had been baptized to John’s baptism of repentance that they were believers as far as they had heard, though they had not as yet received the Holy Spirit Paul lays his hands on them and the Holy Spirit comes upon them.
The Holy Spirit Indwelling and Presence
Not understanding the difference between the Holy Spirit’s presence upon earth and His indwelling each believer, uniting them to Christ in glory, is the reason for the low spiritual state of many Christians. Many think that Christianity is a sort of spiritualized Judaism and that saints, as to their state, are only a little in advance of those before the descent of the Holy Spirit.
Such misunderstanding leads many true believers today to wrongly (though in earnest reality) utter the prayer of David, “Take not Thy holy spirit from me.” Other true believers today are continually praying for the Holy Spirit to be poured out upon them.
But a saint truly instructed in Christianity could not use such prayers. He knows that he has received the Spirit now as he has eternal life from God and by faith and consequent upon redemption.
Though a Christian, by unfaithfulness, might grieve the Holy Spirit very much (even so as to think he had never had the Spirit at all), he could never with the least intelligence in Christianity say, “Take not Thy holy spirit from me.” We see in Romans 8 that the Spirit is the principle of our relationship with God. Christian life is life in the Spirit life dependent upon accomplished redemption.
F. G. Patterson (adapted)
(to be continued)