I’m still in AZ … until Tuesday and we are still doing the “fullness of God” in Paul’s prayer for the Ephesians. Last week we offered a thought on the subject in lieu of our regular GN-SR. This week we would like to do the same plus offer last week’s comment, edited!
There is another very important aspect of this passage requiring our attention. The translation,”filled WITH all the fullness of God” give us the sense that we can be filled with all that God is. This is not what the Greek text wants to convey. It is generally agreed by scholarship that what is intended is “with respect to God.” In other words man can not contain all that God is but there attributes of God that can be conveyed to people while others cannot. For example, God is everywhere at the same time while man cannot experience this state of being. God is immutable, unchangeable, while people are not only fickle but change to accommodate their knowledge and God is already all knowing.
Paul’s prayer for these saints is that they might be strengthened with power through the Holy Spirit so that Christ might be able to dwell in their inner being so that they have the strength to comprehend the dimensions of Christ’s love which surpasses our knowledge and be filled with God's likeness. Viewed in this larger context, it easier to see the comprehensive nature of Paul’s prayer and how these smaller pieces, Paul deals with here, must be understood in order to grasp his larger meaning. This is why I shared last week what I did about our boundaries which in Christ dissolve and stream into the eternity which is Jesus Himself. Let me insert here what we shared last week, edited:
"In Chandler, AZ sitting at daughter Kristin’s kitchen table feeling a little remiss for not turning out a GN for 01/11/15.
To relieve my guilt I thought I would just share a current thought.
The internal probing of our eternal soul is, for most of us, a life time journey. On the surface this appears to be an oxymoron, a contradiction in terms. Anything “internal” must by definition have external boundaries and not limitlessly eternal. Yet, this contradictions is reality for the person in Christ.
We are within the "limitless boundaries” of the fullness of God. A friend reminded me at Starbucks this week that we are physically born, finite with a beginning which our eternal Father is not. We are, therefore, not eternal … but the scripture says we are … in Christ. John tells us in his first letter that as Christ Jesus now is, so are we in this world.
I had a gentleman at “In-N-Out” (burgers) ask me this week what I mean by “in Christ”. How can we explain the reality of contradiction true believers experience by the very presence of God ministering to the soul of man; no, let me change that: ministering in the soul of people who are by faith learning the “internal” boundaries of something that has become eternal and without boundaries.
This is how we must measure the fullness of God. It is our limitless God who reduces Himself to fill our size of Christ’s life continuing to grow in us as long as we have natural, finite bodies. What happens when our body dies and we enter His eternal presence? Do we take the size of the soul we have nurtured? There are questions not given us to know the answers. It is enough that we are righteous in Him and He, the author of all, has pledged His love to us because we believe in Him. How can we ask for anything more!"
Let me add to last week’s comment above, Paul’s reference in Ephesians 4:11ff. All who are in Christ are called to pursue a ministry quest. He tells us we are all gifted with spiritual gifts crafted for the purpose of ministry, “for building up the body of Christ, until we all attain to the unity of faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to mature manhood, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ.” This is the same fullness we have in Paul’s prayer in chapter 3.
We are redeemed! That is, we have been bought by the blood of Christ and made righteousness white by the red blood of Christ on the cross. Having been blessed by this grace, we are to go on and do the work of Christ by putting to death the sin in our body so that we can experience the fullness of God in our flesh allowing the living life of Christ seen in our flesh by others in its resurrection power. This is the holy task we have been called to pursue while still living on this earth in this sinful flesh.
What Paul prays for in Ephesians 3, he is explaining in Ephesians 4. Paul is not praying for us because have God’s fullness but because we have God’s grace to acquire it by faith. We need God's strength and wisdom to acquire what He has already promised to provide. Sound familiar? Elijah!
Hopefully, we will resume our look at this in the life of Elijah next week.