Ephesians overview – 3:14-19, Pauls prayer (inner man), part 8.

Tuesday March 24, 2020

 

Paul prays for the inner man to be strengthened by the Holy Spirit so that we may be able to see the Person of Christ fully. This seeing would produce worship and obedience.

 

Eph 3:14-17

For this reason, I bow my knees before the Father, 15 from whom every family in heaven and on earth derives its name, 16 that He would grant you, according to the riches of His glory, to be strengthened with power through His Spirit in the inner man; 17 so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith;

 

The New Testament records the final revelation of the sublime holiness and glory of God, and that in the person of the God/Man Jesus Christ.

 

Hence, the power of the Holy Spirit within us, strengthening us in the way of living as Christ, opens the eyes of our hearts to the revelation of God in the person of Christ.

 

We will have to do a more formal doctrine of the Holy Spirit, but a few words at this time.

 

There is a direct association in scripture between creation and redemption. God created the world and redeemed it from darkness in Gen 1:1-2. The judgment of the flood put the earth back under water, but as we noted was prophesied by Lamech that his son Noah would give them rest from the curse, so God redeemed the human race through Noah and again brought up dry land from the waters. Eventually Noah, the new Adam, along with his family, started a new life, but now with grateful worship. Still, with them and their children, things went very wrong. The motif of water in judgment was also used with Egypt where God used to the Red Sea to redeem His own people and destroy those judged.

 

Then also, the Holy Spirit has a role in all of this. We find the Holy Spirit “moving over the surface of the waters” in Gen 1:2, and as the Spirit was in creation, so He is in salvation.

 

After the Spirit moved, God said, “Let there be light” out of chaos and darkness and then new life was formed.

 

2Co 4:6

For God, who said, "Light shall shine out of darkness," is the One who has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ.

 

Light shone out of darkness, and now, for all the redeemed, the issue of good and evil, clean and unclean, sin and righteousness become real distinctions.

 

God’s work of redemption through the cross of Christ is in fact a new creation, for the Lord re-creates the spiritual life by breathing His Spirit into the human heart and making the redeemed conform to His image.

 

2Co 5:16-17

Therefore from now on we recognize no man according to the flesh; even though we have known Christ according to the flesh, yet now we know Him thus no longer. 17 Therefore if any man is in Christ, he is a new creature; the old things passed away; behold, new things have come.

 

2Co 3:18

But we all, with unveiled face beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory, just as from the Lord, the Spirit.

 

Those who are new creations, that is, the redeemed, enter into God’s eternal rest, that Sabbath rest that was first introduced at the culmination of creation, since all the work was complete.

 

So we see the combination of redemption and creation. The worship of God is therefore as Creator and Redeemer. What He has done and why He has done it is for God, unlike in humans, the exact representation of His nature.

 

God brought forth light and then the provision for life on earth. In God, all of this is holy, meaning untarnished and unblemished by any sin. In the Tabernacle and later the Temple, God had a golden almond tree, the candlestick in the Holy Place giving its light and lighting up the Table of Showbread. God’s light shone upon God’s provision in the place of perfect holiness, where no sinner or sin may approach, unless he be made holy.

 

When we live and walk in God’s work done for us, living as He has called us to do, holiness, we come to see His nature and we worship Him for who He is.

 

Eph 1:3-4

Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ, 4 just as He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before Him.

 

We are to spend our daily lives worshipping God in all things, not just in the church building. What does it therefore mean to worship Him?

 

To worship God is to live in the reality of our relationship with Him, moved by Him, taught by Him, responding to Him with praise and thankfulness, revealing Him to those around us, living with His hope and love within us, always resting by faith in Him, unafraid. This is what it means to worship God, and it is not restricted to the time you spend in your local assembly.

 

Every day we do that, we see more and more of the full revelation of God in Christ Jesus.

 

The second person of the Trinity was revealed in glory to various men and women in the OT. And now, through the Spirit within and the complete revelation of God’s word, the complete revelation of Him may be seen by us. There is something we should note about the witnesses of Him.