Ephesians; 1:3 – every spiritual blessing in the heavenlies, part 8.

Class Outline:

Wednesday October 17, 2018

 Ephesians; 1:3 - every spiritual blessing in the heavenlies, part 7.

 

Faith is the art of the worthless.

Faith is not reason.

 

Faith based on human reason will always die. Human reason, meaning the determination of a hypothesis without basis is divine revelation, is always flawed in some way. Some human hypotheses are better than others, some far better, but without the truth from God, they all eventually fail.

 

Faith based on divine revelation will withstand the gates of hell.

 

Life is far too short to wait on striving to live by faith in the spiritual blessings from the Father.

 

PSA 90:1 A Prayer of Moses the man of God.

 

Lord, Thou hast been our dwelling place in all generations.

 

PSA 90:2 Before the mountains were born, Or Thou didst give birth to the earth and the world, Even from everlasting to everlasting, Thou art God.

 

PSA 90:3 Thou dost turn man back into dust, And dost say, "Return, O children of men."

 

PSA 90:4 For a thousand years in Thy sight Are like yesterday when it passes by, Or as a watch in the night.

 

PSA 90:5 Thou hast swept them away like a flood, they fall asleep; In the morning they are like grass which sprouts anew.

 

PSA 90:6 In the morning it flourishes, and sprouts anew; Toward evening it fades, and withers away.

 

PSA 90:7 For we have been consumed by Thine anger, And by Thy wrath we have been dismayed.

 

PSA 90:8 Thou hast placed our iniquities before Thee, Our secret sins in the light of Thy presence.

 

PSA 90:9 For all our days have declined in Thy fury; We have finished our years like a sigh.

 

PSA 90:10 As for the days of our life, they contain seventy years, Or if due to strength, eighty years, Yet their pride is but labor and sorrow [Hebrew: aven - vanity or sin]; For soon it is gone and we fly away.

 

PSA 90:11 Who understands the power of Thine anger, And Thy fury, according to the fear that is due Thee?

 

PSA 90:12 So teach us to number our days [short and potentially sinful], That we may present to Thee a heart of wisdom.

 

PSA 90:13 Do return, O Lord; how long will it be? And be sorry for Thy servants.

 

“Do return” does not mean the Second Coming. It means a return to grace, favor, and mercy.

 

“Do return” - return to favor. “be sorry” - repent.

 

We know that God cannot change. Yet something happens at the incarnation, cross, and resurrection that look like changes to us. These are the fulfillment of Moses’ prayer.

 

1SA 15:29

“And also the Glory of Israel will not lie or change His mind [nacham]; for He is not a man that He should change His mind [nacham].”

 

1SA 15:35

And the Lord regretted [nacham] that He had made Saul king over Israel.

 

Either Samuel is confused or God’s regret or change over making Saul king is not the kind of repentance that men have. God said the same in Numbers, “I’m not a man that I should repent.”

 

Elected and rejected Saul - gave David.

Preserved and rejected mankind - gave Noah.

Set to destroy Israel, changed - gave Joshua and children.

Knew fall of man would mean wrath - gave Himself.

 

We must be careful here not to ascribe to the character of God something false. God rejecting Saul but preserving the monarchy through the great David, God rejecting mankind just before His judgment of the flood and yet preserving him through Noah, God not destroying Israel but preserving the next generation, and God not bringing wrath upon mankind but becoming a man and dying for us may all look like changes to us, and on our finite and limited level, they are, but to the wise, the humble before God’s revelation, we know that they are not.

 

These wonderful things that look like changes or repentance to us, are a part of the eternal and beautiful character of God.

 

It’s not enough to say that God knew that they would happen and so made adjustments. God is foreknowledge, but He is more than foreknowledge. He is the very decree-er of all of it, but yet forces no man to sin or good. Plus, He’s not in time. The whole of it is to Him as one day is to us. There’s more here, and I imagine an infinite depth of more things involved, but knowing it is impossible for us. It is wonderful and beautiful. It’s like looking at and admiring a beautiful painting or symphony. I haven’t a clue how to make one or even how it could possibly be done, but I know it’s magnificent because God has given man alone of all the creatures of the earth the ability to comprehend the magnificent.

 

We haven’t got a clue how it all works, but God has given us spiritual eyes to behold its magnificence.  

 

EPH 1:18

I pray that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened, so that you may know what is the hope of His calling

 

God reveals Himself to us in a way that we can perceive, and He warns us, “What may look like change isn’t. What may look like repentance is something unchanging and eternal. Use your faith My son and accept what I say. I never change and you can count on that!”

 

Jesus, the Man, the Son of God, is the revelation of the invisible Father to us.

 

HEB 13:8

Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today, yes and forever.

 

PSA 90:13 Do return, O Lord; how long will it be? And be sorry for Thy servants.

 

“be sorry” meaning repent is Moses’ call for God to change from wrath to grace. Moses can only understand the way of the Father as we do. As great a man that he was and as close to God that He was, he is just a finite man who must live by faith. In Christ, we know more of God and are closer to God than Moses could have ever dreamed, yet we still must walk by faith.

 

God did just as Moses prayed:

 

HEB 2:9

But we do see Him who has been made for a little while lower than the angels, namely, Jesus, because of the suffering of death crowned with glory and honor, that by the grace of God He might taste death for everyone.

 

He who was rich became poor. There was nothing compelling Him to do it. He did it out of love and compassion. That sounds like grace to me.

 

God became a man. He added humanity to Himself. That is definitely a change, but we know the only-begotten Son to be eternally begotten by revelation. It looks like a change, but somehow, it’s not. God the Son was the Son from all of eternity. Only begotten Son is an eternal title.

 

We cannot understand all the mysteries of the Trinity or the duel nature of Christ, and yet God, in this passage written by the great man of God, Moses, who spent the last forty years in the wilderness learning of God and man, describes it with the common Hebrew word nacham, repentance. It is a phenomenal use of the word.

 

God is so much higher than us that He speaks and acts in human ways (anthropopathisms) in order to breach the chasm. He’s not pretending. He actually does it this way.

 

The ultimate anthropopathism is the incarnation. God bows to our level in order to reveal Himself to us and save us. He bows, yet without sin.

 

Verse 13 is really the incarnation and the cross. And with that accomplished by God, that which Moses could only look forward to and long to see, he completes his poem.

 

PSA 90:13 Do return, O Lord; how long will it be? And be sorry for Thy servants.

 

PSA 90:14 O satisfy us in the morning with Thy lovingkindness, That we may sing for joy and be glad all our days.

 

PSA 90:15 Make us glad according to the days Thou hast afflicted us, And the years we have seen evil.

 

PSA 90:16 Let Thy work appear to Thy servants, And Thy majesty to their children.

 

This is fulfilled ultimately by the cross where the work of God appeared, fulfilling all prophecy and declaring to all ages since.

 

PSA 90:17 And let the favor of the Lord our God be upon us; And do confirm for us the work of our hands; Yes, confirm the work of our hands.

 

Show us, the redeemed possessing eternal life, Your work Lord and how wonderful it is and confirm our own. Teach us righteousness.

 

He ends with an anadiplosis, the last word of one line is repeated as the first word in the next, “Yes, confirm.” It shows Moses’ childlike devotion and awe of God.

 

Life is short and we are forgetful. Faith for life must be renewed day by day. The word of God must be read and learned very consistently.