“Now to him who is able to do far more abundantly than all that we ask or think, according to the power at work within us, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, forever and ever. Amen.”
“A doxology is an expression of adoration which rises above the level of ordinary speech, being more the language of ecstasy. It is a fervent utterance of praise: yet it is not so much the act of praise as it is the realization of the praise which is due to God and the consciousness that He is due infinitely more than we are capable of rendering to Him.”
Tozer is accused of being a mystic by his critics. He understood A.W. Pink! The evangelical community focuses on being “in Christ” but scripture also teaches Christ being “in us”. There is a harmonic correspondence between the new creation God plants within the believer and the eternal reality which is the Divine Nature of Himself. Growing spiritually has to do with cultivating the esoteric spiritual union between the believer’s spirit and God through the resurrection power of Jesus Christ. This is His Spirit joined with our spirit, 1 Corinthians 6:17, Romans 8:16. The doxology is the expression of this spiritual union.
Doing a Drill Down exercise on our Ephesian doxology may provide some clarity. But first we must provide brief context for this scripture which is a prayer for the Ephesian church. This extraordinary prayer requests knowledge for the dimensions of God’s love and requests being filled with all of His fullness. On the surface it appears to be quite impossible for the creature to be filled with all the fullness of the creator … or to have knowledge of God’s love which is obviously beyond the creature’s scope. Implicitly this doxology speaks to the expectation of this request being realized by the recipients of God’s grace. Imagine being able to know and understand the love of Christ and being filled with all the fullness of God! This trail of sanctification leads to glorification.
The answer to this quest lies in the doxology itself, “Now to him who is able to do far more abundantly than all that we ask or think”. What seems impossible merely reflects our vantage point, not sovereign capacity. But this is the context, sovereign capacity exceeding our imagination! It is a request to do within us what is necessary to make us compatible to His fellowship. In other words, the request is to what He has already called us to do. This is, after all the point of His love, to give Him pleasure by our participation in Him. We are called to function beyond the limits of our design. We are not called to accomplish faith or grace on our own! Have you noticed love is bilateral? The relationship between believer and God through Jesus is a love relationship. The whole spiritual normal is love.
Lets Drill Down these two verses and ask for divine discernment. There are sixteen phrases we need to isolate: 1. Now to Him, 2. Who is able, 3. To do, 4. Far more, 5. Abundantly, 6. Than all that we may ask, 7. Or think, 8. According to the power, 9. At work, 10. Within us, 11. To Him be glory, 12. In the church, 13, and in Christ Jesus, 14. Throughout all generations, 15. Forever and ever, 16. Amen.
This is a good example of why we need to practice Drilling Down. These two verses can be viewed as one big oxymoron. God is doing what we are called to do but it is in love where contradiction is often found to be the norm.
- Now to Him. The spiritual substance within us flows out of the mind and will of a created person to his Creator. This person (God) has love so inexhaustible to extravagantly open our possibilities making us look like fools to believe while receiving our puny offerings with dignity to us. This suits His purposes just fine. His glory is so much greater because He takes the weak and small to make it strong and whole.
- Who is able.
- a. By the power that enables him even to subject all things to himself, Philippians 3:21b
- b. He is able to guard until that Day what has been entrusted to me, 2Timothy 1:12b.
- c. God is able to make all grace abound to you, 2Cor. 9:8
- d. (He) is able to keep you from stumbling and to present you blameless before the presence of his glory with great joy, Jude 24.
- e. He is able to keep those who are being tempted, Hebrews 2:18.
- f. He is able to save to the uttermost those who draw near to God through him, since he always lives to make intercession for them, Hebrews 7:25.
- To do. We are quick to recognize God is able but slow to believe He is willing when it comes to doing it for us personally. God sent His own Son into the veil of flesh to make this very thing possible. Why then would He not do what He has proposed to do? We stumble over His willingness to do in us what we know He is able to do when this is what He wants us to do. Remember it is God the Holy Spirit doing the work, knocking on the door of our faith, to let it happen.
- Far more. Jesus, our resurrected Lord, wants to reveal Himself to us in us but not just in terms of our expectation. He wants us to experience Him far more than our expectation. Our experience of Him beyond our expectation enlarges our horizons of who He is.
- Abundantly. This should be an immense encouragement to us. God has already demonstrated His love to us by coming into our low estate so that we might come into His high estate. Here we are shown He wants and desires us to enter into all that He is while we try to satisfy ourselves in our low estate. He will not only do far more but abundantly far more.
- Than all we may ask. Our acquaintance with God is too casual. We secretly question His willingness to participate in our heart’s desire because we are not confident where we stand with Him. Our requests are often trite and petty because our relationship with God is at this low level. These are signs of our unbelief.
- Or think. Here is where humility should sink in! God is not only able and willing to meet our need but bring us to places we are incapable to consider beyond self. Our feeble partitions should embarrass us but, should we be bold enough to enter the throne room of the King, prostration with our face on the floor is certainly fitting.
- According to the power. Here is the kernel that challenges us. God speaks to Cyrus in Isaiah 45, “I will go before you and level the exalted places, I will break in pieces the doors of bronze and cut through the bars of iron … I am the Lord and there is no other. Besides me there is no God. … I made the earth and created man on it; it was my hands that stretched out the heavens and I commended all their hosts.” This is the same power that brought Jesus back from human death to resurrected, glorified life. This is the same power “at work within us”. Our secret doubting of His power within us is a primary hindrance to our faith.
- At work. This should be instruction for us! We are so occupied by our human perspective we buy into the idea of God’s withdrawal from us because we are “out of fellowship”. Nothing could be further from the truth than this big lie. Nothing can snatch us out of God’s hand, not even our own self. We have been purchased out of the slave trade forever. We are His sheep and He is forever the faithful shepherd regardless of our condition. Today God is still faithful to the seed of Abraham and Jacob. What He has started He will continue to perform in spite of our unbelief and idolatry.
- Within us. What a comfort to realize the very God of all creation provided each of us participation in His divine work. All too often we consider our relationship with God to be external to who we are. We tend to regard Him as our helper, someone who is external to us and part of our circumstances. We should put Philippians 2:12-13 on our Drill Down list.
- To Him be glory. The exaltation of Christ is the righteous execution of Who He is in us. One of the divine mysteries is how He as God became human and the “Son of Man”. He died as the Son of Man so that human mankind could take on righteous attributes of His own absolute Truth. When Jesus was glorified He was both God and Man and became glorified in His God-Man resurrected Person. This is why we can become joined to Him and become as He is. “As he is so are we in this world”, 1John 4:17b.
- In the church. We can view Israel in the Old Testament as a type of the New Testament church. We read in Isaiah that God will be their glory and then in 60:21 we read, “Your people will all be righteous; they shall possess the land forever, and the branch of my planting, the work of my hands, that I might be glorified”. It is the Church, the collective body of believers who become the “Bride of Christ”.
- And in Christ Jesus. The reference above draws our attention to this emphasis. The expression of glory to Jesus our redeemer, shepherd and King is totally inadequate coming from us who are also the object of His glory. Who only can express what is ours than the very One who became the Son of Man, veiled in humanity, experienced our sin and took with Him to glory the provision for our salvation providing us access to His glory.
- Throughout all generations. Paul’s expression of praise was not satisfied by the expression of Jesus in all the hundreds of thousands of believers in the church but was pressed to extend his acclamations to remind us of all generations of churches.
- Forever and ever. And if that wasn't enough Paul’s heart continues, forever and ever!
- Amen. SO BE IT!
May we also know the dimension of Christ Jesus’ love and be filled with all the fullness of God!
Amen.