Ephesians 4:7-16; Christ fills the believer with His life.

Class Outline:

Thursday July 8, 2021

 

COL 3:1-4

If then you have been raised up with Christ, keep seeking the things above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. 2 Set your mind on the things above, not on the things that are on earth. 3 For you have died and your life is hidden with Christ in God. 4 When Christ, who is our life, is revealed, then you also will be revealed with Him in glory.

 

We must have wisdom to diligently follow the way of the truth. But we must also know that we are united with the truth - Christ who is the word. His life is now our life.

 

When we learn God’s wisdom we are learning of things that we have been made. At regeneration our new nature was made of wisdom and all the other things that Christ is. When we learn we are changing or maturing in that nature, being supernaturally molded as the clay in the Father’s, the Potter’s, hands.

 

We are not so much given laws to follow as we are given the life that follows the law.

 

We’re going to be looking at the rules or laws of the way, and we must never forget that we are not given laws to follow so much as we are given the life that follows that law. Do you see the difference? God desires us all to be of a certain type, through and through, inside and out, being always what we are and what we love. Pray about it and meditate on it and make sure that you understand this, for it is vital to maturing in the Christian way of life.

 

God is able to do “according to the power that works within us” (EPH 3:20; 6:10).

 

EPH 3:20

Now to Him who is able to do exceeding abundantly beyond all that we ask or think, according to the power that works within us,

 

EPH 6:10-11

Finally, be strong in the Lord, and in the strength of His might. 11 Put on the full armor of God

 

There is very real divine power in every believer. Christ fills “all things” (EPH 4:10) and fills the church (EPH 1:23).

 

Paul’s prayer and conclusion in EPH 1:15-23 reveals that the church is full of Christ and so the church must know fully its calling and inheritance and power. She must be wise in these things, and she cannot gain knowledge by the word alone or the Spirit alone, but that we must put the two together. God reveals His truth to us and the Holy Spirit illumes our minds to its understanding as we learn and live in it. We learn by the Spirit and walk by the Spirit and so gain wisdom. All the while we put our faith in what we learn. Faith and reason are not separate. They must go together. We have to learn the truth revealed in the scripture for ourselves and this will require our own reason (spiritual reason, if you will) in working things out. What is then revealed as true from much study of the word is united with faith, taking faith higher.

 

Knowledge learned is the ladder by which faith climbs higher (EPH 4:12).

 

EPH 4:12-13

for the equipping of the saints for the work of service, to the building up of the body of Christ; 13 until we all attain to the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to a mature man, to the measure of the stature which belongs to the fulness of Christ.

 

As Paul prays in Eph 1, there is an immeasurable greatness of God’s power towards us who believe, which He brought about when He raised Christ from the dead. Faith reaches out to take hold of God’s power, and more so as our faith in this way continues to search out more. Thus, knowledge and faith need each other. Faith cannot grow without a firm basis of knowledge; knowledge is sterile if it does not bring forth faith.

 

Christ fills all (universe), but in this wonderful way He fills us - giving us wisdom, inheritance, and power accompanied by the word and the Spirit. Have faith in what you do not see.

 

This fulness includes each believer and the church as a whole. We are complete in Him.

 

Christ’s ascension means that the universe and all in it must reach its final correspondence with the divine ideal. Nothing and no one are going to stop the complete fulfillment of God’s good pleasure for His world and the race of men.

 

Think of the regions He has traversed, the range of being through which the Lord Jesus passed in descending and ascending. Heaven, earth, Hades, and back again: on the descent, willingly subject to powers, and on the ascent, above all things, the one first resurrected human able to walk the earth, awaiting His glorification in ascension to the celebration of angels and all heaven, and with it, the enemies of God defeated and doomed.

 

His descent and ascent finalized bringing all things under His dominion, not by omnipotence, but by inhabitation and self-devoting love.