Ephesians overview – 3:14-19, Filled by God due to grace (Rom 5:12-21), part 2.

Thursday August 13, 2020

 

As we see in Paul’s prayer, our being filled with God does not come by some procedure, but by comprehending the love of Christ for us.

 

Eph 3:16-19

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 [the] Christ may dwell [at home] in your hearts through faith; and that you, being rooted and grounded in love, 18 may be able to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, 19 and to know the love of Christ which surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled up to all the fullness of God.

 

 

Eph 4:12 for the equipping of the saints for the work of service, to the building up of the body of Christ;    

Eph 4:13 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 fullness of Christ.  

 

Eph 5:17 So then do not be foolish, but understand what the will of the Lord is.    

Eph 5:18 And do not get drunk with wine, for that is dissipation, but be filled with the Spirit,

 

Comprehension, knowing, and faith are the keys to having a life filled up to the fullness of God. Faith and understanding will cause you to dwell on the magnificence of God, and your relationship to that magnificence through the sacrifice of Christ, rather than your problems or yourself. It will cause you not to look with gloom at your surroundings, though they are sometimes darkened by the sins and evil of man, but rather to look at the beauty that is always around, in some people, in nature, in life itself when it is given by God. It will cause you to not become despairing at your own sin and shortcomings, but to sigh in satisfaction though your heart that loves God may hate its own failings. Only God gives a repentance without regret. It will cause you to look at the people in your life with love and compassion. It will fill you with purpose. It will give every day something meaningful to do, making even the mundane meaningful.

 

Comprehension, knowing, and faith in the purpose and love of God will fill our lives thanks to the obedience of Christ.

 

All the human race are born fallen sinners due to Adam’s sin. Christ gave justification, righteousness, a righteous kingdom, and eternal life as a free gift by grace to all who would receive it by faith.

 

This is why we can be filled up to all the fulness of God. It is not because of our works or anything we could do, but by grace as a free gift. God desired to save us out of His love and from that same love He desires to fill our lives with Himself. His life fills ours, and that despite anything the enemies of God, both human and angelic could do to us.

 

Rom 5:12

Therefore, just as through one man sin entered into the world, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men, because all sinned [when Adam sinned]— 

 

Adam made us all mortal and perishable and sinners.

 

1Co 15:54

But when this perishable will have put on the imperishable, and this mortal will have put on immortality, then will come about the saying that is written, "Death is swallowed up in victory.

 

Adam became mankind. He became mankind under the curse of death and so all from him would be born the same, sinners under the curse of death. Paul reveals this by evidence when he states that all died from Adam until Moses without God’s Law being charged to man. So it is not a matter of Adam sinning and all of us concluding that we would have eventually eaten the fruit as he did, which is likely true, but not the point. It is the matter that Adam became the father of a human race under the condemnation of sin and death making all of us mortal and perishable.

 

We were all born sinners before we committed one sin.

 

Vv. 13-17 are a long parenthesis.

 

Rom 5:12

Therefore, just as through one man sin entered into the world, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men, because all sinned [when Adam sinned]—

 

Paul writes his parenthesis and then repeats vs. 12 (the protasis) in a slightly different way so that he can present the apodosis.

 

Rom 5:18 So then as through one transgression there resulted condemnation to all men, even so through one act of righteousness there resulted justification of life to all men.