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…

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.

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…

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…

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…

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…

Or inward renovation contradistinguished to the external ministry, that can only hold out His will in a book, and speak it to the ear. Third, this may be cleared and confirmed from the nature of the work of grace, which is such a mighty work and so powerful, as it is impossible…

And for the strength of tenderness of love, the same place pleads; Many waters cannot quench love, neither can the floods drown it. And Paul asserts, (Ephesians 3:18) The breadth, and length, and [reconstructed: depth], and height of it. 5. There is required a submission under s…

That Christ's so fair hands should stoop to wash such black-skinned and defiled sinners, in either free justification, or in purging away the rotten blood, and filth of the daughter of Zion, in regeneration, makes clear that (to the free love of Christ, that which is black is fa…

Argument 6. Christ's Lordship and Princedome through his resurrection, is in turning of hearts (Acts 5:31; Romans 11:23). Grace is stronger than devils, sin, hell and death (Romans 14:4; Ephesians 3:20; Jude 24; 1 John 2:14; 1 John 4:4). Arg. 7. If it must lie at our door more t…

What Christ bought with his blood, that he gave out, and so much the places alleged by Mr. Moor the Arminian proves just contrary to himself (John 4:42): he is the Savior, not of himself to save God, and justice, and the Law; but the Savior of the world, of poor sinners, not of…

Indeed, as Luther said, Take away sin, and you take away Christ a Saviour of sinners; how little acquainted with, and how great strangers to their own hearts are they in writing so. There is a fullness (I confess) and an all-fullness, and all-fullness of God (Ephesians 3:19). Bu…

Christ's redemption is not merely a price or ransom equivalent, or making due satisfaction according to the just desert of sin, but it is plenteous redemption. There is an abundance of the gift of righteousness (Romans 5:17) and unsearchable riches of Christ (Ephesians 3:8). Ind…

So far as God's intention to show mercy does reach, (and who knows the end of those riches?) so far does Christ's disposition to bestow it. Ephesians 3:19 The Love of Christ, God-man, passes knowledge. It has not lost, or been diminished by his going to heaven.

Physicians know it, and they therefore set it down in their books, they know it is so. Things that we gather from sense and experience, we are said to have the knowledge of; now this experience does not only give us confidence but knowledge, for by the unction that we have recei…

He sometimes calls himself, the least of all the Apostles (1 Corinthians 15:9-10), and yet other times, not inferior to the very chief of them. Sometimes he calls himself, the least of all Saints (Ephesians 3:8), and yet sometimes, not inferior to the very chief Apostles; and th…

No heirs of a crown have such guards as they have. Christ dwells in their hearts as on a throne (Ephesians 3:17): "That Christ may dwell in your hearts by faith." The Holy Spirit guards them against all cares and fears (Philippians 4:7): "And the peace of God which passes all un…

1. They delight in the preaching of the Gospel, and the explication of the mysteries of godliness (1 Peter 1:12). Which things the angels desire to look into (Ephesians 3:10). To the end that now to the principalities and powers in heavenly places, might be known by the church t…

1. Consider how amiable God has represented himself in Jesus Christ, and how near he is come to us: and within the reach of our commerce there is a new and living way, through the veil of his flesh, (Hebrews 10:20). So that though our God be a consuming fire, yet there is a scre…

Or shall we think to go our own errand? Lord, forgive this gross ingratitude: Oh Christians, whatever your constraint or enlargements be, make use of him, who is at God's right hand, lay your sacrifices on this golden altar; lay the whole stress of your acceptance upon Christ's…

Answer: 1. Faith, and confidence, properly are distinct gifts of God: and confidence is the effect, or fruit of faith. For Paul says, that we have entrance to God with confidence by faith (Ephesians 3:12). And reason declares as much, for a man cannot put his confidence in Chris…

To believe, is the first grace in us that concerns our salvation: and when we begin to believe, we begin to receive the spirit: and when we first receive God's spirit, we begin to believe. And thus by our faith we receive the spirit: and thus also the spirit dwells in us by fait…

For they which are Gods children, receive the spirit crying Abba: and this crying argues affiance or confidence in God. By faith we have confidence in God, and entrance with boldnesse, Eph 3:11. and boldnesse is opposite to feare, and excludes doubting in respect of our selues.…

And hence it is, that Paul calls the forbidding of marriage, and of meats, with obligation of conscience, a doctrine of devils (1 Timothy 4:1). The third freedom is a liberty to come to God the Father in the name of Christ, and in prayer to be heard (Romans 5:2; Ephesians 3:12).…

The Gospel is not known by nature, neither was it ever written in man's heart, before, or after the fall, as Paul says (1 Corinthians 2:9), Those things which the eye has not seen, nor the ear heard, nor the heart of man conceived, are they which God has prepared for them that l…

He shows what true faith is, and what worship God approves of, to wit, when we have not only a bare knowledge of him, or think in our hearts that there is one God, but when we also feel what a one he is to us. Whoever he be then that contents himself with a naked apprehension of…

I grant it was a thing incredible; in fact, prodigious: but thus the Lord is wont to work far above the reach of man's reason. Saint Paul calls it a secret hidden (Ephesians 3:9) from the foundations of the world, and is yet unknown to the very angels (1 Peter 1:12) further fort…

Ans. For, in regard the Jews were to endure a tedious and long captivity, the Lord protests he will not suffer them to languish any longer in exile, neither will he any longer defer his help, but will hear them — yes, before they cry. This promise principally belongs to Christ's…

The meaning, therefore, is the apostleship was not bestowed on account of any human merits; but, by the free mercy of God, persons, who were altogether unworthy of it, were raised to that high rank; and thus was fulfilled what Christ says on another occasion, "You have not chose…

Each of us, trusting to the grace of Christ, will thus attain confidence in prayer, and will venture freely to call upon God “through Jesus Christ our Lord, in whom (as Paul says) we have boldness and access with confidence by the faith of him,” (Ephesians 3:11,12.) But, as we a…

But this benefit derived from Christ is that on which Paul chiefly dwells, when he says that by faith in him we have boldness to approach God with confidence (Ephesians 3:12). This passage shows also that the true test of faith lies in prayer.

Neither does he set down here an intricate or doubtful faith, but the certainty or assurance which our minds conceive of his fatherly love and goodness, while by the Gospel he reconciles us to himself and adopts us for his sons. By this confidence only we have access to him: as…

Experience of the reality, excellency, power, and efficacy of the things believed is an effectual means of increasing faith and love — every taste that faith obtains of divine love and grace adds to its measure and stature; and it is the Holy Ghost who gives believers all their…