Ephesians 3

To be sunning ourselves in the light of God's countenance. Then the saints shall know that love of Christ which passes knowledge (Ephesians 3:19). From this glorious manifestation of God's love, will flow infinite joy into the souls of the blessed.

4. It is the holy seed of which grace is formed: it is semen fidei, the seed of faith (Psalm 9:10). It is Radix Amoris, the root of love (Ephesians 3:17). Being rooted and grounded in love.

If our hearts be not rocks, this love of Christ should affect us. Behold love that passes knowledge (Ephesians 3:19). Branch 2. See here the wonderful humility of Christ: Christ was made flesh.

Christ had hard travail upon the Cross, yet he does not repent of it, but thinks his sweat and blood well bestowed, because he sees redemption brought forth to the world. O infinite amazing love of Christ! a love that passes knowledge (Ephesians 3:19), that neither man or angel…

His fullness is an infinite fullness; and he is infinitely sweet as well as infinitely full: if a conduit be filled with wine, here is a sweet fullness, but still it is finite; but God's is a sweet fullness, and it is an infinite. He is infinitely full of beauty, of love, his ri…

Saint Paul had assurance; is he proud of this jewel? No. (Ephesians 3:8) To me who am less than the least of all saints. The more love a Christian receives from God, the more he sees himself a debtor to free grace, and the sense of his debt keeps his heart humble, but presumptio…

So God having put his sanction, the stamp of his authority and institution upon faith, this makes it to be justifying and saving. 2. Because faith makes us one with Christ (Ephesians 3:17). It is the espousing incorporating grace, it gives us coalition and union with Christ's pe…

God can with a word unpin the wheels, and break the axletree of the creation. He can do [〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉], more than we can think (Ephesians 3:20). He can suspend natural agents: he sealed up the lion's mouth, made the fire not burn; he made the waters stand upon a hea…

6. Our love to God must be constant, like the fire the vestal virgins kept in Rome, which did not go out. Love must be like the motion of the pulse, it beats as long as there is life (Song of Solomon 8:7): Many waters cannot quench love, not the waters of persecution (Ephesians…

So God sometimes makes a deliverance fly swiftly upon the wing, and on a sudden he turns the shadow of death into the light of the morning. As God gives us mercies above what we can think (Ephesians 3:20), so sometimes before we can think of them (Psalm 126:1). When the Lord tur…

The bee may suck a little honey from the leaf; but put it in a barrel of honey, and it is drowned. The wicked are thus characterized (Ephesians 3:19). They mind earthly things.

He who causes bowels of affection in others, must needs have more bowels himself; quod efficit tale: The affections in parents are but marble and adamant in comparison of God's love to his children, he gives them the cream of his love, electing love, saving love; (Zephaniah 3:17…

8. That Christ should love us with such an entire transcendent love. The apostle calls it a love which passes knowledge (Ephesians 3:19). That he should love us more than the angels: he loves them as his friends, believers as his spouse.

First, God is to dwell with you here. God takes up the soul for his own lodgings (Ephesians 3:17): "That Christ may dwell in your heart." Therefore the soul must be consecrated.

The soul cannot be lovely to God, till it has Christ's image stamped upon it, which image consists in righteousness and true holiness (Ephesians 4:24). The soul must especially be kept pure, because it is the chief place of God's residence (Ephesians 3:17). A king's palace must…

The body of the sun is in the firmament, but the light of the sun is in the eye. Christ's essence is in heaven, but he is in a believer's heart by his light and influence (Ephesians 3:17). That Christ may dwell in your heart by faith.

7. If God keeps us to a spare diet, if he give us less temporals, he has made it up in spirituals; he has given us the Pearl of Price, and the holy anointing. 1. The Pearl of Price, the Lord Jesus, he is the quintessence of all good things; to give us Christ is more than if God…

Nor will, or does, or can, flesh and blood reveal or understand Jesus Christ to be the Son of the living God, unless the Father reveal him, and instruct us in the truth of it (Matthew 16:18). The way to come to the acknowledgement of these things, is that described by the Apostl…

The next and principal ends of all instituted worship in respect of believers, are the increase of the grace of God in them, their edification in their most holy faith, and the testification of the good will of God to them (Ephesians 4:11, 12, 13, 14, 15): "And he gave some Apos…

The principles of mutual, spiritual love among believers, arise from their relation to one Father (Matthew 23:9): "One is your Father which is in Heaven," who gives to all them that believe in Christ, power to become the sons of God (John 1:12). And their being all children of t…

(4) Revelation 8:3, 4; Hebrews 4:14, 15, 16; Chap. 6:20; Chap. 10:20, 21, 22. (5) John 14:13; Chap. 15:16, 22, 26; Ephesians 3:14, 15. Qu. 36. May not the Church in the solemn worship of God, and celebration of the ordinances of the Gospel, make use of, and content itself in the…

Q. You have spoken of the person, offices and actions of Christ; you are now to shew the benefits that come by Christ, and how we are made partakers of Christ and of his benefits? A. We are made partakers of Christ and all his benefits by faith alone (John 1:12 and 3:16, 18, 36…

They learn daily. This the good angels are said to learn by the church what they never knew before of the mysteries of the gospel (Ephesians 3:10). And though these species in them and their manner of knowing corporeal things differs from ours, yet they are analogical with ours.

Ephesians 2:12. You were at that time without Christ, and had no hope, and were atheists or without God in the world. Ephesians 3:5. The mystery of Christ in other ages was not opened to the sons of men, as it is now revealed to his holy Apostles. Psalm 147:19-20. He shows his w…

The second fruit of their faith is noted in these words; And believed them: where, by believing, we must understand not so much the act of faith, for that was noted before, as the growth and increase of their faith; for the word imports a confirmation of their hearts, and a reso…

Truth was stored up in the prophecies, promises, and institutions of the Old Testament; but so stored up, as it was in a great measure hidden also; but was brought forth to light, and made manifest in the Gospel. For whereas it is said, that the great mystery of the manifold wis…

And this Love to the Saints is towards the name of God on three accounts: (1) Objectively: Because the name of God is upon them; They are the Family that is called after his name. Of him the whole Family of them in Heaven and Earth is named (Ephesians 3:15). They are the Family…

The work that he wrought in offering himself a sacrifice and making atonement for sin, has the highest unconceivable impression of divine wisdom upon it (John 3:16; Acts 20:28; Revelation 5:8; Ephesians 5:2). And so also has the grace that is from there administered by him and f…

For God designed not the erecting of his Kingdom among one party or sort of mankind. That it should be otherwise, that the Gentiles should become the children of Abraham, and be made heirs of the promise, was a great mystery under the Old Testament (Ephesians 3:4, 5, 6). And we…

Therefore God will now secure all the good things of this Covenant, both as to grace and glory, in a third hand, in the hand of a Mediator. Hereon the Promises are made to him, and the fulness of grace is laid up in him (John 1:14; Colossians 1:17; Chapter 2:2; Ephesians 3:8; 2…

By the spiritual light which is given to believers into the mystery of God in Christ. This the Apostle affirms to have been hid in God from the beginning of the world (Ephesians 3:9). It was contrived and prepared in the counsel and wisdom of God from all eternity.

This was the whole mystery of the wisdom of God for the redemption and salvation of the Church by Jesus Christ. This is that which is declared in the Gospel, being before hid in God from the foundation of the world (Ephesians 3:8, 9, 10). Of these things did God grant a typical…

So are they here represented in a posture of admiration and adoration. And in their overshadowing of the mercy-seat with their wings, they declared how this mystery in the fullness of it was hid from the eyes of all men (see Ephesians 3:8, 9, 10, 11, 12). The ground was original…

And in the same spirit he complains of his Corinthians, for their want of proficiency in spiritual things, so that he was forced in his dealing with them to dwell still on the rudiments of religion (1 Corinthians 3:1, 2). In all his epistles he is continually as it were pressing…

The whole work is therefore expressly called the wisdom of God, because of those characters and impressions thereof that are upon it, and because it is a peculiar effect thereof. So our Apostle tells us, that Christ crucified is the power of God and wisdom of God (1 Corinthians…

Therefore as God engages his omnipotency or all-sufficiency as the foundation of all his covenant actings towards us (Genesis 17:1), so he often pleads the same power to assure us of the accomplishment of his promises (Isaiah 40:28, 29). And it is expressly asserted as the princ…

The grant hereof is called God's gift. So is the gift of Christ used also (Ephesians 4:7): according to the measure of the gift of Christ, that is, according as he is pleased to give and grant of the fruits of the Spirit to men; see (Romans 5:15, 17; Ephesians 3:7). Sometimes it…

This he had purposed from eternity, to the praise of the glory of his grace. How this might be effected and accomplished, God had hid in his own bosom from the beginning of the world (Ephesians 3:8, 9), so as that it was beyond the wisdom and investigation of all angels and men…

There are some such; but persons do never come to be such, until they come to see themselves. See what Paul says of himself (Ephesians 3:8): he calls himself, less than the least of all saints: and it was no complement; he speaks his heart in those words; and every one that sees…

And in a Christian's ordinary course, wonted assistance may now and then be withdrawn, on the same account. 2. An abasement of soul: a person is brought to be poor in spirit: he has a low esteem of himself (Ephesians 3:8), is exceeding vile in his own eyes (Job 40:4). Faith inde…

We fear that to say this, would be to the dishonor of God's holiness and glory. And plain it is, that it is the same kingdom of God, that is, the same church-estate for substance and kind, which is taken from the Jews, and given to the Gentiles (Matthew 21:43), and therefore the…

Experimental knowledge, is that which they get by observing the dealings of God in the whole world, but specially in the church. And thus Paul says, that to principalities and powers in heavenly places is known the manifold wisdom of God by the church (Ephesians 3:10). 4. And as…

By espousing godliness, we are better than others (Ecclesiastes 7:8). And richer, being possessed of a golden mine; that is, The unsearchable riches of Christ (Ephesians 3:8). We have from Christ the riches of justification, and consolation, and glorification; we are as rich as…

As Zeba and Zalmunna said of Gideon's brethren, "They each one resembled the children of a king": so all these are spiritual kings, that live the noblest and freest life in the world. And as we have a glorious Master, so consider your fellow-servants; the glorified saints and we…

Their looking downward figured their desire to see into the mystery of Christ's incarnation and our redemption by him — as Peter, alluding no doubt to this type in the Old Testament, says in 1 Peter 1:12: Which things the angels desired to behold. And Paul says in Ephesians 3:10…

For they complete their understandings by the sight of the methods of infinite wisdom in the perfecting his gracious designs. And it is God's intent that they should grow in the knowledge of his great mystery by their employment (Ephesians 3:10): To the intent that now to the pr…

To be filled with the Spirit (Ephesians 5:18). Yes, to be filled with all the fullness of God (Ephesians 3:19). So it is expected of the Saints, that they should be filled with all the fullness of God: Oh! how contrary is this to emptying?

This heavenly doctrine, moreover, requires such a nature, state, and condition in all those who would receive it or make use of it toward its proper end. But what innate knowledge of God and of His will those angels who kept their own principality and habitation possessed, and w…

But whether this is always the case, or only sometimes — I do not think the learned men will say it is always so, since they are able to produce but a single example where "thus" seems capable of being taken in that way; concerning "if perhaps" they are silent. "If perhaps" perh…

3. By this you may know who thrives and profits best under the gospel, even those that learn most of Christ, which consists not in telling over words. But first in actual improving of Him, as it is (Ephesians 3:20): you have not so learned Christ, but so as to improve what is in…