Ephesians

In Ephesians 3 we have both the Apostle Paul’s profoundest teaching and, at the same time, possibly the most experimental chapter in all his Epistles. Certainly the fervour of his great pastoral spirit is nowhere more evident. The record he here gives us of his own calling to preach Christ, and of his fervent prayers for these Ephesian Christians, leads to one of the sublimest and most moving statements that he ever wrote.

The intrinsic value of Ephesians 3 demands attention at all time, but it is particularly relevant to the condition of the Church today when a stronger experimental emphasis is urgently needed. Not for the first time in Christian history there are teachings abroad which dislike any emphasis upon experience. Sometimes these teachings appear in the form of an emphasis on “faith” only. Sometimes it is argued that, because of the assertion of Ephesians 1:3, Christians have no need to seek any further blessing. This third chapter of Ephesians gives us a direct answer to such teaching for Paul prays that these Ephesians, who had already believed and received so much, should receive so much more “even to being filled with” all the fullness of God.

With the Puritans we must distinguish between believing in what is possible for the Christian, and the appropriating of that possibility. Any teaching which fears a greater experience of the love of God can never deal with the greatest trouble in the Church today, namely our lack of spirituality and of a true knowledge of God.

We can never know too much concerning the great doctrines of the Faith, but if that knowledge does not lead to an ever deeper experience of the love of Christ, it departs seriously from the apostolic pattern. We are to ‘grow in grace and in the knowledge of the Lord’.

This volume is the third in a series of eight volumes.

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