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The epistle to the Ephesians and chapter one. I shall in these studies be reading principally from the English Revised Version. That may account for any differences that you may from time to time notice in the translation. I say principally because I reserve myself, with your permission, I reserve myself the right here and there to make my own alterations. But now we read the Epistle to the Ephesians, chapter one and beginning from verse one. Paul, an apostle of Jesus Christ, through the will of God, to the saints which are at Ephesus and faithful in Christ Jesus.
Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ, even as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blemish before him, in love, having foreordained us unto adoption as sons through Jesus Christ unto himself, according to the good pleasure of his will, to the praise of the glory of his grace, which he freely bestowed
upon us in the beloved, in whom we have our redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of his grace, which he made to abound toward us in all wisdom and prudence, having made known unto us the mystery of his will, according to his good pleasure, which he purposed in him, with a view to a dispensation of the fullness of times, to sum up all things in Christ, the things in the heavens and the things upon the earth.
In him, I say, in whom also we were made a heritage, having been foreordained according to the purpose of him who worketh all things after the counsel of his will, to the end that we should be unto the praise of his glory, we who had before hoped in Christ, in whom you also, having heard the word of the truth, the gospel of your salvation, in whom, having also believed, you were sealed with the Holy Spirit of promise, which is an earnest of our inheritance, until the redemption of God's own possession, until the praise of his glory.
Thus far our reading, and may God under- give us true understanding of his holy word. Two things among very many fill me with happiness as I stand here before you this evening. The first and not the least of them is the memory of your warm-hearted kindness and hospitality to me in those days when I was with you for the last series on the book of judgments. The encouragement of your fellowship lingers yet in my memory, and I thank God and you for it once again.
The second thing that causes me some happiness is the knowledge that some of you at least have been studying the Epistle to the Ephesians seriously over many weeks in recent times. And that, of course, relieves me of a considerable burden, for I am no longer so much under necessity to explain every detail of this rich and wealthy epistle, being assured that you have already plumbed its depths and gathered its riches. What I must do, perhaps, for my small contribution to your studies, is to gather up what you have learned in detail and attempt to show how it hangs together as a whole, to show what this part has to do with that part, and to put the book as a whole and its individual details against the background of their context, in order the better to bring out its ultimate significance.
We have, of course, only eight sessions to be together, and it would be impossible for us to dwell here on every word or phrase, as would be appropriate if we were conducting a seminar together. Therefore, as I say, I shall be attempting more of a bird's eye view of the major movements of thought of this book. And then, of course, the memory, the knowledge that you have been studying it in detail encourages me wonderfully, because two things will accrue to me, I wear benefit and dividend from your study.
But where you see I am amiss in my interpretation, and that could be in many places, you will, of your kindness of heart, seek to come aside me and help me to correct my erroneous views, and I mean that sincerely. This is the epistle that tells us that in order to come the depth of the great mystery of God, its height, length, breadth, and extent, we need the help of all our fellow saints, that together with all saints we might know what is the length and breadth and height and depth, and to enter into the love of God that passeth knowledge. Then, of course, in those many places that I missed points that glow with riches and the gold of divine grace, I trust you will not be niggardly with what the mort has shown you, much as you will add to my small store by your kind communication.
But because my purpose is primarily to give you a bird's eye view of the major sequences of thought in the book, I have prepared this little handout that some of you may be within sight of. If you are not within sight of it, don't worry too much. Uh, we shall see that you get your individual copy tomorrow. On the other hand, if you don't like this kind of thing anyway, well, you can afford to forget it and go to sleep for the next five minutes while I explain what it's about, and then I will signal the time when you are supposed to wake up and listen. Here you will see I have put before you a slight, a very slight table of contents of this book. Not, of course, a complete table of contents.
What I have done simply is to indicate that as I read it, there are three major movements of thought in the book. And each of those three major movements of thought itself is composed of three minor movements. And I have called the first movement God's purpose in creation. And the second major movement, as you'll see, the role of Christ, the ministry of the Messiah in history. And then the third movement I have called the new man, who is supposed to live as an imitator of God and Christ.
And I have put just a few little jottings from each part of these great movements of thought on this paper before you, so that you should notice at once certain similarities between these major movements of thought. Notice it at first, how that each of those three major movements comes to its climax in a tremendous burst of triumph of God over the opposition. I would like you to notice that, and not merely notice the fact coldly stated on a page, but even now to begin, by God's grace, to grip it with your heart, the tremendous sense of triumph, of victory, of the overcoming of the opposition that God has achieved in his great purposes of redemption and salvation for each one of us.
If in the first movement we are thinking of God's purpose in creation, and his purpose for us that we might be before him and that we might be his sons, when we come to what I have called part 1C, that is chapter two verses one to ten, we shall be reminded of the desperate opposition that there had come to be against the plan of God. How that every one of us, instead of being alive and sparkling with the vigor of God's created life, were in fact dead in trespasses and in sin, and more than dead, like prisoners in a prison yard doing our exercises under the control of a guard, we walk day in and day out, regimented in our thought patterns by the prince of the power of the air.
One utter disaster when you think of God's original creation. And the glorious message of triumph of this first movement of thought, as it comes to its finale, is the tremendous triumph that God has wrought. He has submersed the bonds of death. He has made us alive in Christ. He has burst the chains of the patterns of thought that the god of this world had forged to keep us thinking exactly as he wanted us to keep on thinking. And God has broken them. Set us at his own right hand with Christ in the heavenlies, and he's not merely promising to do it, he has done it.
The very first movement of thought, as it comes to its climax, echoes the opening bars of triumph. Blessed be God. Why blessed? Because he's done what he planned to do. Did he choose us before the foundation of the world? Did he plan certain things before the foundation of the world? Then praise be God, God has done it and blessed us with those blessings, such as he purposed even before the world began. And so I ask you even to use, if you care, this little scrap of paper with a little ink thereon to observe that the first movement comes to this great climax of God's triumph over the opposition.
Let it flood our hearts with encouragement as we begin our studies together these eight sessions. And similarly is it you perceive, if you look at the end of the second great major movement of thought, that movement I'm going to suggest to you, and we shall see the details later, concerns itself with the role of Messiah in history. Not so much now the purpose of God in creation, but the role of Messiah in the course of history and where we fit into that. And I ask you to notice again the tremendous triumph with which it finishes.
God's great plan of development in history is to have a temple. In the course of history, like the very good architect God is, God has had some prototype models that he's made and put them up, so folks might begin to get some idea of the splendid building that one day shall be, and indeed is being. I dare say, if you have, um, uh, been along to some architect's office, some civil service department that engineers our roads and bridges and buildings and things, they have showed you with pride that that terrible mess you see down the Antrim Road, and you think is utter chaos, is in fact proceeding according to a well-designed plan.
They have the model in the department, and there it sits. Of course, the model isn't the real thing. When looking at the model, you can understand what the real thing is going to be like when it's finished, only it's going to be in a bigger dimension of reality. So has God down the ages had his prototype model of this great temple that, in fact, is already in building. Call it a temple, if you will, call it a body, if you will, it is both things. But then notice, as we come to the end of that particular movement, that there are forces arrayed against the completion of God's project within history.
What the apostle calls the wiles of men, their craftiness, their slight, as they seek to pervert the pure doctrine of Jesus Christ our Lord, and lie in wait to catch innocent babes in Christ and lead them astray into this or that newfangled heresy. And anybody that has attempted to preach God's truth, whether it be in his gospel to the unconverted or to expound the same to the believer, whether here or abroad, will be have become aware that when you stand to preach the truth of God, you are not merely engaged in imparting information, you are in the forefront of a battle for men's minds, a battle for their spirits, battles in a war that will never be finished until the Lord comes.
But when we think of the opposition, and we shall have to think of it in some detail later on, and all Satan's attempts by men's heresies to oppose God's truth and plan, when we think of the opposition, let's start by thinking of the triumph. Let's think of him who ascended far above all. And this that he ascended, of course, implies that first he descended to the lower parts of the earth, and rising again, he led captivity captive and overcame the opposition. And in his sovereign triumph has dispensed gifts to men that under his exalted control are this very moment the world through, ministering to the body of Christ the gifts of the triumphant head until the whole great project comes to its glorious conclusion.
Did the thought cross your mind as you saw this ink on the page? Oh, this is going to be one of these complicated things, these difficult things. I wish I hadn't come. Oh. What a pity. Take courage, my brother. Of course it's going to be difficult. What do you think? You think this is Red Riding Hood or something? A little pastime, an innocent play? Dealing with the great purposes of God through the ages of history. We're dealing with the God of the far-flung galaxies of time and space.
We're dealing with the very oppositions of his satanic majesty and hell itself, against the purposes of God. Of course, it's going to be complicated. What did you think? You didn't want a salvation that was a kind of a cotton-hatney little novel, did you? But if you find it difficult, oh, get hold even now of some of the sense of triumph, difficult as it is, the God who has chosen you to be saved and has decided what you must know about his salvation, has provision to overcome all the opposition in his ascended Christ, who this very minute looks upon us seated here and takes notice of our small hearts and smaller brains, and is able to communicate God's truth and will do it.
So you too take your fully developed part in the body of Christ and take your part in a glorious temple that shall express the praise and the personality of God for all eternity. And then, of course, it is similar when you come to the third great movement in this epistle. I have called it, um, the new man imitator of God and Christ, and that's a kind of a shorthand. You will see perhaps at once what the third movement's got to do with the other two.
For if the first one bids us think from time to time of creation, we shall remember that the first man, Adam, at creation was made in the image of God. Thus he started. But then we shall remember that history had, not long perhaps, started its course. What man who was made originally in the image of God fell into disgrace and rebellion and sin. And the image of God was sadly marred and perverted. Put movements one and two together and think first of God's plan before the foundation of the world, and then think of the great developments in history, and think finally of the great work of the redeeming Messiah within history, and then you come to a new start.
A new man. A new creation. A new phenomenon in the entire universe. The like of which neither archangel nor demon had ever seen before. It's a new kind of a thing. The Bible calls it the new man. We shall find, as we study that great movement of thought in its detail, that this new man goes about his way of living by imitating his creator God, by learning to imitate his redeemer, Christ.
A wonder of wonders. Of course, there is opposition, as always. But now, instead of it being thus that God himself and Messiah himself take on and engage the foe. This new man in Christ is invited by God to enter the heavenlies and himself take part in the great battle of the ages and fight in the very armies of God against the rebels of God. In a fight that by God's good grace and the wise strategies of the Messiah shall issue in triumph.
But a fight that, for all that, at this present time is a bitter and hard fought fight in which people get hurt, and some of them wounded, and some nearly, but never perish. Three great movements of thought then. Why, the merest, uh, little glance at the epistle will show it. And each ends on this notice of triumph. Let's leave it there for the moment, but promise ourselves a great treat, as God, uh, later on in these studies is able to show us, um, um, um, the glory of the triumph.
Oh, I didn't mean leave the sheets aside. We're here a little more to look at them. I was just leaving the triumph aside, yes? Ha. You might just care to notice before you fold them away altogether, that, of course, hmm, the middle lot in the, uh, minor sections, what I have called one B and two B and three B— Did you notice there are no, no monetary prizes for noticing it? It's too obvious to them, but please notice it nonetheless. Did you notice how all those passages talk of illumination? Why, when Paul thinks of the purposes of God in creation, he then prays that God would grant us a spirit of wisdom and knowledge in the revelation of him, the eyes of our hearts being enlightened.
And if Paul thought it necessary to pray for people that he himself tells us were already believers, if he felt it necessary to pray for people, let me repeat it, that he tells us are already believers, if he finds it necessary to pray for them that God would give them a spirit of revelation, then we would be wise believers to reckon that we too could do with a spirit of revelation, that our eyes too be illumined to take in what God's great purpose is in fact about.
I shall do my best to make simple what I understand this epistle to say. Through my imperfections, it will on times, I'm afraid, be obscurer than it might be. But let us one and all remember that when the preacher has done his best, suppose the preacher were Paul himself or the archangel Michael, these things would still be difficult, if not impossible, to understand, unless God by his spirit did a work in our hearts and illumined our eyes, so that we depart not merely with more knowledge in our heads, but a spiritual revelation in our hearts.
Have you not found by experience it is possible to attend the preaching of God's word and to go away unmoving? For it not really to take hold and grip and last? The secret lies here, does it not? That for these great purposes of God to become realities and not mere words to us, we do need here what Paul prayed for, the granting of a spirit of wisdom and revelation and the illumination of the eyes of our heart.
So that we might know what his purpose is. You will see quite clearly, will you not, that if we are thinking of Christ's mission and role in history, then in paragraph two B Paul prays once more, yet another prayer, and this time too a prayer for knowledge, which prayer can scarce be granted. Unless there come a work of God's spirit constantly in our hearts, strengthening us in the inner man, so that we might know.
And finally, when Paul comes to speak to us about the new man and his responsibility to live by imitating God the Creator and Christ the Redeemer, then Paul reminds us of that flood of light that there is in Christ, saying, you once were darkness, but now you are light in the Lord. Walk as children of the light. And have done with the darknesses of this ungodly world. Have done with the darkness of unreality in life.
Learn to wake up and open your eyes to what is God's reality. And if need be, awake thou that sleepest and rise from the dead, and Christ shall shine upon. So that we should all of us do well in these studies, not merely to prepare ourselves by reading the text, but to find time to pray. These very self-same prayers.
That these days of waiting on God in his word may prove to be times of illumination. Not the counting of the nice points that the preacher makes. Let's hope he makes some, but an experience of God's revelation to the heart. For these are great matters, and they talk about, as I have already indicated, three great major themes.
God's plan and purpose in creation, both for us and the universe at at large. The role of Christ in history. The pattern of life for the new man, God's new viceroy, living in imitation of God and Christ. But then again, before we actually get down to the text, and you can put your piece of paper away if you like now, it's quite safe. Says somebody perhaps, but why do I really need to bother myself about creation?
You say, my dear brother, I have been saved out of the world, and I'm going home to glory. Oh, what a lovely thing when I say goodbye to this poor old creation and never see it again. Really? Is that how you feel about creation? Well, I hope you've got the right kind of salvation. The Bible, the salvation the Bible talks about, you'll have to see a lot more about this creation yet. Because God isn't going to ditch it in that fashion. I know it is a poor old creation, and it groans in travail until now, but God is going to release creation from the bondage of corruption.
God will not admit defeat. Is that how you feel about creation? Well, I hope you've got the right kind of salvation. The Bible, the salvation the Bible talks about, you'll have to see a lot more about this creation yet. Because God isn't going to ditch it in that. I know it is a poor old creation, and it groans in travail until now, but God is going to release creation from the bondage of corruption. God will not admit defeat, even when it comes to the creation around us. He yet will have his way done.
It yet will be released from its bondage to corruption. And it waits. That great new stage of liberation and development waits. For the manifestation of the sons of God, for the completion of your spiritual education, my dear brother and sister. I hope you weren't thinking that you were going home to see the last of creation forever. But creation is waiting for you. The end product, or one of the end products of your very salvation, is one day to administer this creation along with Christ.
Why should I think about creation? Because you couldn't possibly conceive fully of what salvation means unless you started by observing that you are part of creation, aren't you? That was a very high-minded thought of yours a minute ago, or was it mine? That now you're saved, you're going to say goodbye to creation forever. I hope not to the lot of it, because you're a part of it, aren't you? Aren't you? Why, let the chemists get at their body and dissolve it in a test tube or two, and we should discover that you are very much a part of this creation, made of the very dust of the ground. They tell me, I know not with what accuracy, that the chemistry of the universe is consistent to, right to the end.
Well, if that be so, you're a part of that very chemistry. What you are, in part of you. And the salvation that comes of God, the Creator, must by definition have something to say about creation, and if it doesn't, it would raise a very serious doubt whether it comes from the creator at all. And you only have to look at man eating his porridge over breakfast time or going out to work when you see again that man, ah yes, man occupies a very important, indeed a unique place in creation.
There grow the carrots, but they grow for man, don't they? There come up the weeds, there is man the farmer to deal with them. There are the fish in the sea and the beasts of the field, and man manages them. Such as we try in all our little planet, we haven't yet come across an intelligence higher than we are, and it is evident even in the streets of Belfast, let alone Los Angeles, that it is man that is the governing principle of the organization of life on this planet, isn't it? So that if you're going to think of our salvation, you will be obliged to ask the question, and how does this relate to the great, uh, creation around us?
It's a very interesting thing. And nowadays scientists, at least some scientists, are beginning in the name of science to tell us. What a unique place man holds in this great universe around us. Professor Torrance, in one of his recent books, has reminded us, called our attention to what, uh, the famous astronomer Lovell says, the Bernard Lovell, in one of his books. Lovell, as you may know, is an astronomer who holds that when God created this world by his fiat and said, let there be light, that the physical counterpart of that action was what he is pleased to call the Big Bang.
That set our great universe traveling at colossal speeds, expanding in all directions. Lovell has made the point that if you measure the rate at which the thing is expanding, you will find as follows, that if it had been expanding at a slightly smaller speed in those early first days, the thing would have collapsed in upon itself, and human life would have been impossible. And, says the learned astronomer, if the thing had expanded at a slightly faster rate, then again conditions would have been impossible for human life in the universe.
And the philosopher, according to his path of approach to these matters, concludes that the evidence is that somehow the very expansion of our universe is controlled, critically controlled, to make possible the appearance of human life in our universe. It is the fact that in man, the great universe has become conscious of itself. What a marvel you are, aren't you? I'm not flattering you in particular, but what a marvel we all are, made of the very dust of the ground, like a cabbage.
Made of the same chemicals as the bee, largely speaking, not altogether, thank the Lord. And yet, in you, the universe has become self-conscious, and you can reflect upon it and organize it. And in you, creation has been given a spirit that can understand its creator and even talk to its creator.
Magnificent feat of creation it is. I was in a shop this afternoon, a gallery, looking at pictures that I couldn't afford. I do that sometimes, and the picture gallery man, he pays the rent, and I suppose he buys the pictures, I don't know, and I go and enjoy them, and that's a fair division of labor. And I was looking at these paintings that I admired but couldn't afford, when I spied an artist that I happened to know, and we fell to talking. And he told me how he had just completed a commission to paint the portrait of a famous personage in this province, and how difficult it was to paint the portrait of this particular personage because he wouldn't look at you straight in the face.
And he says, you know, when I paint somebody, I like them to look at me, and I get them talking, and uh, uh, you see, when they start communicating back, it altogether transforms them, and I can catch it on the, on the canvas, you see. And if I can catch it, then whoever looks at the picture will catch it, you see, I hope. But this man wouldn't look you at the- in the face. I said he's like some people in a congregation, uh, how you see, they won't look you in the face either, and it's very difficult to preach to them, but that was by the way, not here. You see. And I saw what he didn't notice, perhaps, in the artist's heart and eye, the wonder of creating a portrait.
And as he looked at it, he could almost speak. Ah yes, but only almost. Only almost. What a magnificent artistry has been the artistry of creation that created man so that he not merely almost, but could actually talk back to God. Not just like an old computer can talk back to you if you first program it what to say, but could talk back to God of its own free will.
And tell God what God could never say in the same way to himself. God, I love you. Oh, what a wonderful thing you are even as a creature of God. And salvation that couldn't tell me how it was related to the great purposes of God in creation. I say again, would raise serious questions of whether it came of God at all. We must and will listen to God, our Creator, as he takes us into his confidence now as redeemed men and women and tells us the purpose he had in creating our universe.
The purpose he had for us. And the purpose he had for creation itself. Yes, but when we come to the second movement of thought, it will be concerned with history. Oh, you say, oh no, no, please not, no. I'm a New Testament man, stick to the New Testament, please do. The Old Testament, you know, it's all right. We wouldn't think about cutting it out of our Bibles, of course not, not for a moment, but you know it is old. What's it got to do with that anyway? I've heard preachers say, says somebody, that in the New Testament we've got something better than the old.
Well, that of course is marvelous. Who wants to know about the old? We never lived in those old times anyway. It's like telling me that the modern bicycle is better than the penny farthing. Well, of course it is. I'm not interested in penny farthings. I never had to buy one, thank the Lord. And therefore, what's the sense of telling me that the modern bicycle is better than a penny farthing bicycle? I know that. I don't want to go and study the engineering of penny farthing bicycles. Why should I bother about Noah and Abraham and David and Solomon and tabernacles and sacrifices and all that host of things? I've got something better. What do I need to know about them? Hm. I should think you got saved somewhere about nineteen seventy, didn't you?
Ah. How rather late in the day to get saved, wasn't it? Nineteen seventy. that's getting on for two thousand years since Jesus was here anyway, to start with. So what was happening all that time before Jesus Christ came into our world? Was there no salvation from death? So, not suggesting, are you, that you've got a salvation that is good for those in nineteen seventy one to eighty one bracket, but couldn't care less what happened to people in times BC. How would that kind of salvation be of God anyway?
Would you be comfortable in a heaven worshipping a God who had said, well, I was interested in the people that lived on the Newton North Road between the years of nineteen seventy one and eighty one, But as for those other multitudes that never heard of Jesus, I couldn't care less. Well, I tell you what, there isn't such a God to start with. Indeed, one of the great marks of the reality of the salvation that you have in Christ is that it isn't some newfangled philosophy that, uh, somebody thought up in recent times. There's the hallmark of, of genuineness because it is the final stage of the great, great historical process.
But And anyway. if you're going to understand what the final goal is that history is moving to, you better understand all the architect models. They tell me that some of these models they make of buildings and roads and things like that in the surveyors' offices cost themselves hundreds upon hundreds and hundreds of pounds. You say, why do they bother to spend all that money on making a model? Because they want to know where they're going.
In spite of all appearances, it is not so that the road makers through Belfast decide to go and then get in three quarters of the way and say, where shall we go now? I haven't thought now, where shall we take it out? Well, this way? And now, now, half a minute, we're building this road. Where's it meant to be leading to? Anybody know if there is anything out there that it's meant to be leading to? Oh no. The designers have got, uh, an idea in their head before they start. They know exactly where they're going. Which raises the point. Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, January, February, March, and all the rest of them, and the thousands of years that have been and are.
Tell me, is there any progress in history? Paul the schoolboy says, yes, sir. Progress, yes. What? Your own example of penny farthings answers that. Once upon a time, our grandfathers, could they afford it, wrote penny farthings for the earth. Ha ha. We don't like penny farthings. Once upon a time, illustrious men went to the infants' classes and wrote with chalk upon slates with the encouragement of a little stick. Not now. We're aiming to have desk computers on every desk, and they're not in the, it's not in the infants yet in the primaries.
Progress, my dear man. Believe it or not, I come from an age long since past when if an airplane went over school, I ran out in the playground to see the thing, and so did the teacher. What amazing progress. Ah, yes, but tell me, is it getting anywhere? When's it going to end? Is it all going fut? Or is there a purpose in history that's leading us somewhere.
I'm not being melancholy, I hope, when I remind you that soon, very soon, by the looks of some of you, your little time will soon be finished. Mine too. Will that mean that all this great wonderful progress that's going on, we shall have been born that little bit too early to take the full benefit of it, but when it... Say, what is there, and is there a purpose in it? We cannot possibly grasp the full significance of our individual salvation unless we're prepared to put it against the background of God's way.
It has to. And finally, when we come to the third division of this epistle, and we shall find, we shall find it full of exhortations of how we are to walk and behave, and indeed there are many helpful commentaries, far more helpful than my lectures will be. Helpful commentaries that point out that in all the epistles and so in Ephesians, there is first the doctrinal part that gives you the theory, and then there is the practical part, so that when we learn the doctrines, then we learn the practical thing. The doctrines say what wonderful things God has done for us.
The practical bit says, now pull up your socks and behave like a Christian. Yes. Well, that is true. There's somewhat more to it than that. What does it mean to behave like a Christian? But they generally be good. Don't cheat. Don't lie. Is that all? Why shouldn't you lie, old boy? Some Christians do, I regret to say, to the income tax inspector, notably. Why shouldn't you cheat?
Why shouldn't you backbite, engage in envy and jealousy and spite and evil speaking. Why shouldn't we? Or we shall have to observe, when we come to this third major movement, it isn't just a question in the world's terms of just being good. Great appeal will be that we learn to open our eyes to the reality. It is the fact that God has invented and produced a marvelous new thing in this universe, the likes of which wasn't before, not even before Pentecost.
God has invented, and at this moment is in process of developing, a vast new scheme, a new kind of an entity. It is called the body of Christ. It is a magnificent reality. It's ain't theory, it's real. That did rather sitting down there in those corduroy trousers, you look at him at the moment. Don't tell me afterwards he's theory, he will you. And this body of Christ that God has invented is ten thousand times more real than he is.
Because it's a special kind of a body, the limbs of which each is a personality in its own right. And every cell of it is a personality in its own right. And yet it co-gives because it is one living entity and organism. Don't run away with the idea that that's theory. It's real! And if you'll be in the body of Christ because you have trusted Christ, and the man next door to you and the woman the other side are also in the body of Christ, between you, and in you, and around you, is none other than God, the Holy Spirit.
He isn't theory either. Any schoolboy will tell you that an atom of stuff is composed of a nucleus and particles and largely empty space, but it's the tremendous forces between those particles that keep them together. And this great body of Christ is made up of personalities that are like members of a body kept together because the vast, incalculable, infinite power and grace of God the Holy Spirit keeps them together. It is because that is the reality that we have the urgent need to open our eyes and open our hearts, so that we live daily recognizing it is a reality.
Tell me, let me ask you. I have known men, I have known some housewives to get very vexed with themselves. Oh, I've known them to smite their head and smite their breasts and stand there and say, what a fool I am. Huh? I have never known housewife or man myself. I've known it happened. I know there have been rare cases when it's happened, but only a few among the demented. I've never known a man or woman get so angry with himself he's got the carving knife and cut off his ear, unless it be that famous painter, or cut off a toe, cut off an arm, or plunge it into his heart.
Why don't people do that? People say, but they're members, you see, of the body. And the body is real. I wish I could say the same thing about the body of Christ, but you can't live. You can't live in this world. You can't live in Northern Ireland or in England. You can't travel other parts of this world and inquire about the Lord's work without finding that Christians, born-again Christians, are prepared to take the knife of their tongue and stab one another with it.
It would break your heart if that was her. To see the work of God in foreign parts flourishing until there comes a great explosion in the assembly, and petty jealousies brew up until they explode, and people are prepared to break the work of God. How's that? They don't believe in the body of Christ. That's why. If, well, if they do, it's in the bit that's called fear. They haven't got around to seeing this bit of reality. They might as well be cutting off their own arm, which they'd never think of doing, as to behave the way they're behaving towards their fellow believers.
But then it's so natural for us to behave that way, that short of God opening our hearts by the illumination of his spirit, we should go on acting like that. Thinking we're justified in doing it. Unaware of the injury we inflict upon the great reality, which is the body of Christ, and the grief we do to the Holy Spirit whose life that body lives by. Why, says Paul in his practical words, you never found a man, did you, hating his own flesh?
Of course you did. That's why married men always get on so well with their Christian wives, isn't it? Because they've come to see what the reality is, that their wives are part of themselves. But that's really carrying up to extremes out of my depth completely. Let us bring our first study to an end just there. And all we've been doing is just taking a bird's eye view of the book and thinking of the three simple but profound movements of thought that go up to make that book.
In coming sessions, God willing, we should get down to some of the detail and read it against that background. Shall we? Our Father, now humbly, gratefully, we thank thee for thy holy word and for the great vistas that there unroll themselves before our eyes and before our imagination. But our hearts, we are conscious so vividly of it. Our hearts and minds and concepts are so grievously small that it is difficult for us to comprehend what is the length and depth, height and breadth of a great purposes for man.
Therefore, as by thy grace we have begun these studies, we pray that same grace to be upon us tonight and in the coming days, if it is so thy will. That thou will grant us a spirit of revelation and wisdom in the knowledge of thee. That the eyes of our heart be illumined, that we might know what is the hope of thy call, what the riches of thine inheritance in the same, and what the exceeding greatness of thy power towards us who believe. Thus do we pray thy spirit's illumination, that thy word living and creative in our hearts may bring us steadily nearer that great reality that thou art performing, nearer the end that thou hast desired.
And this all we ask in the name and for the sake of Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
