Episode Transcript
[00:00:07] Speaker A: Hi and welcome to the unveiling. I'm Tim, one of the hosts, along with Ajay and Mark. We are three guys discussing the one true gospel. We hope you're encouraged by this episode. Let's dive right in.
[00:00:21] Speaker B: Okay, Ajay, we're back. We're gonna keep going because we're getting more out of this than we're given, that's for sure. So, okay, let's. So let's. We're going to start now from Ephesians 1:7.
Okay. And once again, for those who weren't here last week, please go back and listen to episode one, which is the first half. We're going through the book of the chapter, Ephesians 1. So now we're at Ephesians 1, verse 7.
In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins, in accordance with the riches of God's grace that he lavished on us with all wisdom and understanding. He made known to us the mystery of his will according to his good pleasure, which he purposed in Christ to be put into effect when the times reach their fulfillment, to bring unity to all things in heaven and on earth under Christ.
Bam.
I posted this on our signal thread last week. I'm like, this is so chock full of power here.
Called it a desert island scripture. If you're going to go to a desert island, you can only have one section of scripture. You could chew on this for the rest of your life. It's so good.
[00:01:44] Speaker C: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Mark, you know, again, you know, if I can point out a couple of things here.
In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins, according to the riches of his grace which he has made to abound towards us in all wisdom and prudence.
I would like to stop here. Again. There's so much, right? First of all, in him, not outside of Christ. Like we said, in Christ we have redemption, even the forgiveness of sins. It doesn't say we will get, but we have. Like you said, it's our present reality is we have the forgiveness of sins.
And it's not according to the riches of our good works, according to the riches of our hard work, but according to the riches of his grace.
So this forgiveness that we get, that we have even right now, is according to the riches of his grace that he freely bestowed upon us.
Right? It's not according to the riches of our works. We don't need to do anything. If it is by grace, it cannot be by works. So we cannot earn this forgiveness.
We cannot work for this forgiveness. We cannot pray and Fast for this forgiveness.
We cannot turn from our sins for this forgiveness. But it is purely by grace. And he gave it according to the riches of his grace. And it says which he has made us abound towards us in all wisdom and prudence.
You know, one more thing. You know, grace is the greatest wisdom of God.
You know, many people think, you know, godliness is law, keeping the commandments.
Even unbelievers have a conscience. You know, nobody need to tell them, lord, I don't do this, don't do this.
That's not the wisdom of God. The wisdom of God is his grace.
A holy God can freely forgive sinners.
A holy God can justify ungodly people.
That is the grace of God. That is the wisdom of God. And this happened through the cross. So we always talk about this.
The greatest wisdom of God is the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ. No human being could have invented cross. There are so many religions in this world.
If you take out the cross, Christianity is no different from other religions.
Other religions pretty much invented everything that is in Christianity, all the commandments, all the morals, do this, don't this, do good, get good, do bad, get bad.
But nobody, nobody invented the cross. And in fact, unless the Holy Spirit opens our eyes, nobody can receive grace.
There are many, many great people in other religions like Gandhi and all that. You know, he could never accept grace because his thinking was if I sin, I must be punished. It doesn't make any sense to me that if I sin someone, an innocent man should be punished.
So he could not accept grace. So grace is the highest wisdom of God.
[00:05:04] Speaker B: Awesome point, Ajay. And I love what Paul in this paragraph is saying about God's grace. First he tells us that God gave, gives it to us. It brings him pleasure to show us this grace. And he says that it's a glorious grace. This grace is just beaming with glory. And then he goes on and here he says, in accordance with the riches of God's grace, this is a rich grace of great value. And then your kjv, new KJV said that he's given us this rich grace, he's freely bestowed it on us. What I like about the NIV is it says the riches of his grace that he lavished on us. What a great word, lavished. We are just, I just imagine standing under a beautiful waterfall, having the water just washing over you, lavishing his grace on us. That's such a beautiful picture. And in my opinion, Ephesians 1, and I've said this for years, is one of the most beautiful chapters of scripture in the Bible. It's just so filled with the beauty of God's love and grace and the gospel and being in Christ.
[00:06:18] Speaker C: I would like to add one more thing. Mark, you said many things about grace, right? You know, riches of his grace, glorious grace. You also mentioned glorious grace.
And again, we think, you know, God's glory is like, you know, again, we take it back to, you know, we do something great, God gets glory.
But if you look deeper into the gospel, you can also read John, chapter one, it says, our Lord Jesus Christ is full of grace and truth. So God's grace is his glory.
[00:06:48] Speaker B: Yeah, that's a great point. Great point.
And our past podcast, the unveiling, we did a whole episode on glory and that the only glory that exists in all the all of creation is the glory of God. We have no glory of our own. All we can do is reflect that glory back to him. So when it's become. It's become almost a verb, you know, like glorifying God, give God glory. And what that means to many people who don't, understanding, who are not understanding that we have no glory is. It means working hard, giving lots of money, not sinning, you know, doing something to the utmost excellence. You know, it becomes about us. And that's not what glory is. It's just a reflection of who Christ is in us. Being in Christ really the main way, the only way we can ever reflect glory to God because it's his own glory.
[00:07:52] Speaker C: In fact, we cannot give glory to God. Like you said, we have no glory to give.
We can only receive glory from God. In fact, Bible says in second Thessalonians, the Gospel is about, you know, we are called to share in the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ.
[00:08:07] Speaker B: And was it John 14 or 15 where Jesus was praying to the Father and he said that he was giving
[00:08:16] Speaker C: us the glory that he had?
[00:08:19] Speaker B: Yeah, God gave him his glory to give to us.
[00:08:22] Speaker C: Yep. John 17.
[00:08:24] Speaker B: 17 it is. Okay. Yeah, that's. So Jesus himself right from his mouth is telling us.
[00:08:29] Speaker C: Yeah, yeah.
[00:08:31] Speaker B: Okay. So shall I take it from 11 now?
[00:08:35] Speaker C: Yep.
[00:08:36] Speaker B: Okay.
In him we were also chosen, Heaven being having been predestined according to the plan of him who works out everything in. Let me start that reading again. I'll edit it out.
In him we were also chosen, having been predestined according to the plan of him who works out everything in conformity with the purpose of his will, in order that we who were the first to put our hope in Christ might be for the praise of his glory and you want me to stop there or keep going?
[00:09:10] Speaker C: Yeah, I think we can stop here real quick, Mark.
So in New KG it says in him we also have attained an inheritance being predestined according to the purpose of Him. So he is relating back to what he said above. We read about it earlier in the first episode.
So we said the predestination is to sonship. And here he is saying that in him we have obtained an inheritance being predestined. So the idea here is what do sons have?
Sons get an inheritance, right? By default we have an inheritance. So what he's saying is because we are his sons, we have an inheritance.
And again he's saying who works everything according to the counsel of his will. Again relating back to the will in verse five, his will is our sonship, right? So according to his good pleasure of his will, he predestined us to be his children.
And because we are his children, we have obtained an inheritance. Then he is saying that we who first trusted in Christ. He is referring to those who first trusted in Christ here to be the praise of his glory. Again, when we talk about glory, we are not talking about going and doing great things from God. Of course, you know, when we do great things, God will get glory, other people will praise Him. But here the context is to the praise of the glory of his grace.
[00:10:49] Speaker B: And it says right here might be for the praise of his glory.
Yeah, you know, he's ref. And he never says to the praise of our glory.
[00:10:58] Speaker C: Yep. Yeah.
[00:10:59] Speaker B: So, all right, let me go on from 13.
And you also were included in Christ when you heard the message of truth, the gospel of your salvation, when you believed you were marked in him with a seal, the promised Holy Spirit, who is a deposit guaranteeing our inheritance until the redemption of those who are God's possession, to the praise of his glory.
[00:11:29] Speaker C: Amen. Amen. So here it's talking about the audience, right? He's talking about Ephesians here.
So here before he said, we who first trusted whoever first trusted in our Lord Jesus Christ, they should be the praise of the glory. And again, he's talking about you also, after you believed, right? You also are sealed with the Holy Spirit of promise. So what happens is when we put our trust in our Lord Jesus Christ, Holy Spirit takes us and seals us in Christ.
So I imagine an envelope, right? So like a seal, you put something in a letter inside an envelope and then you seal it.
So seal it with the seal of king.
And nobody, nobody can touch it because it is sealed. Nobody can take it like that, you know, our Lord Jesus, the Holy Spirit, the moment we trusted in our Lord Jesus Christ, he took us and sealed us in Lord Jesus Christ. That's why. Because we are joined to Christ, because we are united with Christ, because we are in Him.
Whatever belongs to Christ becomes ours.
Not someday, but even now, we have that.
And then here he also is talking about, you know, the Holy Spirit is a guarantee of our redemption.
It's a guarantee of our inheritance until the redemption of the purchase position to the praise of his glory. So here, until the redemption. We can go into this later, but here it's talking about our physical bodies. So when we are born again, we receive a new spirit and we receive a new heart and a new nature. But obviously, Mark, I think your body is still the same before and after. Mine is also the same.
The last time I checked my body before salvation and after salvation is the same.
So we will get our new bodies on the day of resurrection.
Until then, he is saying the Holy Spirit is a guarantee, so we are guaranteed to get new bodies.
I was just saying, you know, how do we know that? Here he is talking about the bodies.
It is in Romans 80 he talks about, to wit, the redemption of our bodies. So he is talking about there are two redemptions that happened. Like one redemption is the Lord purchased us, right? And then he gave us His Spirit. He delivered us from the dominion of darkness, from the power of Satan, from the power of sin, and he delivered us from death.
Then he gave us a new life, right? We are placed in Christ.
We receive His Holy Spirit and we are born again. And we receive a new heart and a new mind and a new spirit.
But the only thing that we did not yet receive is the body. So one redemption that already happened, that is the redemption of our spirit and soul. And there is a future redemption that is a redemption of our bodies.
[00:14:27] Speaker B: I love how you pointed out that when you believed. What a key statement. When you believed all these things that Paul's been talking about in this first chapter became ours. When we believed on that moment, not when we believed and then repented of our sin, cleaned up our lives, started going to church, you know, it's when you believed you were marked with him, marked in him with a seal. Bam. A giant stamper comes down. And that seal is the seal of the King, as you pointed out. But it's not like in the old days where they'd pour hot wax and the King would take his signet ring and put a stamp in it. This seal is the Holy Spirit himself. Who is the Spirit of Christ. Which is why we can say we are in Christ and Christ is in us. And I love it. A deposit guaranteeing. It's a guarantee.
People who are afraid that they can lose their salvation, it ain't going to happen.
You've already been sealed. You can't break that seal. God's already given you a deposit guaranteeing that you are his child and you are inheriting eternal life and many other things. All those spiritual blessings he's already talked about. And there's another scripture, I can't read the address offhand where Paul says that we're given the Spirit as a deposit guaranteeing what is to come.
Our futures are guaranteed. We don't have to worry and fret every night when we go to bed about what's going to happen tomorrow, what's going to happen in a year, three years. Our futures are guaranteed and no one can take that away from us.
[00:16:16] Speaker C: Yeah, that's an awesome truth mark you just pointed out. You know, those who worry that we may lose our salvation here it is clearly saying that Holy Spirit is a guarantee. Until when? Until the redemption of the purchased possession. So until we get our new bodies in the day of Resurrection, he is our guarantee. That means there is no way we can lose our salvation when we purchase a new home. We put a down payment.
And once we put the down payment, there is no way they can back off. It's illegal for them to. After receiving the down payment, that guy can't back off and say, hey, I'm not going to sell you the house.
Similarly, you know, Lord has put Holy Spirit as a down payment for our redemption of our bodies. So there is no way we can lose our salvation. So many people who are afraid that they will lose our salvation or again, they are throwing their good works into the mix.
They are not realizing that everything, this whole guarantee of inheritance, the deposit of the Holy Spirit, everything is by grace. We did not do anything to obtain the Holy Spirit, right, or to inherit the Holy Spirit. It is given to us freely. If we did not do anything to get Christ, we cannot do anything to lose him either.
[00:17:38] Speaker B: Yeah, great point, great point. And I love in 14 here it calls us the believer is God's possession.
Who's going to steal something from God? I mean, Jesus said, I will lose nothing. None of those the Father has given me. No one can steal us from his hand.
[00:17:58] Speaker C: Yeah, yeah. Who stronger than God.
Yeah. There is so much here. Again, I just want to make this point also, like I think you are bringing up really really great points. We are God's position, right?
So God owns us.
God owns us as children, right? You know, when, when we talk about ownership, right, people imagine like, owning somebody as a slave.
God is not a slave owner. He owns us as his children, just like we own our children.
Nobody can dare lay their hands on our children. Like, we can tolerate anything, but we cannot tolerate someone messing with our kids.
We own our children like that. And we are God's position. And the stark contrast is before we were saved, before we were redeemed, before we were rescued, sin possessed us, devil possessed us, death possessed us.
Now we are transferred from a slave owner.
To a father.
Ownership of a father, right? If you go back to the prodigal son, when he left his father, he was serving somebody, right? He was serving a master. He does not own him as a son, right?
So the picture there is the prodigal son was serving sin and death and misery.
But once he comes back, the ownership has changed. Now his father owns him, but he owns him as a son, not as a slave. So because we are God's position, sin has no power over us, death has no power over us. Devil has no power over us. So all the claims of sin, devil, and death over us are totally eradicated forever.
And now we belong to our Father, a loving Father, and He owns us.
[00:19:59] Speaker B: Amen. And amen on that one.
Okay, let us move on now. Ajay, we finally got to our Paul's prayer here, but this context is awesome. So that's why we, before going into that prayer, we spent an episode and a half just talking about the context for which Paul is going to now pray for believers, for the church, for specifically the people he wrote this letter to.
He says, for this reason, ever since I heard about your faith in the Lord Jesus and your love for all God's people, I have not stopped giving thanks for you, remembering you in my prayers. I love that. I love this. For this reason here, for all these things we just spent an episode and a half talking about that we have as an inheritance, and when do we get them? When we believed, Paul said, from the moment we believed, all these spiritual blessings, all this grace, rich grace that's been lavished on us, our adoption to sonship. He spends all this time saying how rich we are in the Lord. And he says, because this is true of you and because I know it's true, because I've heard about your faith in the Lord Jesus Christ and that you love one another, out of that relationship with Christ, I can't stop giving thanks for you. Remembering you in my prayers.
And once again, I want to remind us of what we started out this episode with, talking about who Paul is aiming this letter to, that it's people that are mature Christians, that are holy, that love one another, that have a strong faith, a faith in the Lord so strong that they have a reputation for that.
He's saying for this reason, because I know you have all these things, I have not stopped giving thanks and praying for you. Is there anything you'd like to add to that? Ajay, before I start the.
[00:22:04] Speaker C: No, keep going, keep going.
[00:22:06] Speaker B: So Paul begins his prayer here then, for these mature believers that have just the unbelievable riches of Christ's glorious inheritance. He says, I keep asking that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the glorious Father, may give you the spirit of wisdom and revelation so that you may know him better.
I'm going to stop there.
[00:22:33] Speaker C: Yeah, I think. Keep going, Mark.
[00:22:35] Speaker B: I think I want to stop there because I want to talk about this for a moment because this is like a first thought. And from then on, Paul starts enumerating.
[00:22:46] Speaker C: Okay, okay.
[00:22:47] Speaker B: What I love about this is here are people that he's already told us have been given the Spirit as a deposit. They already have all these riches.
And what is Paul's prayer for them?
That that same spirit might give them wisdom and revelation so that they may know God even better. God has even more for them than what they've already been given. More of himself for them to know and to experience, and more inheritance for them to receive.
There's an aspect of it that when we come to Christ, he just pours out into us. But then now we've entered on this new adventure where our greatest joy and our very inheritance, our portion, our reward, is knowing Christ himself. And he's praying that that spirit that we now have as a deposit is going to give us greater wisdom and revelation to know God better.
[00:23:48] Speaker C: Yeah. I wanted to point out the two things that popped out at me is like he mentioned two things, the spirit of wisdom, like you mentioned, and the revelation in the knowledge of him.
So these are two things like wisdom. Bible talks about a worldly wisdom, and there's a wisdom of God we talked about.
Cross is the ultimate wisdom of God.
And the Bible also says, you know, the wisdom of God is foolishness to this world and the cross, the preaching of the cross is foolishness because people don't have this wisdom. So unless we receive this wisdom, you know, you can be the smartest person in the world.
You might have 10 Nobel prizes, but that Kind of smartness does not help you figure out the cross.
We need the wisdom from God that opens our eyes to the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ. And the second one is also like revelation in the knowledge of him. So unless something is revealed to us from God, we really cannot understand. So there are people, in fact, Muslims read the New Testament, especially the book of John, a lot more than Christians, basically, to argue against deity of our Lord Jesus Christ.
I mean, if we are not strong in the Word, they can easily come and trip us.
So there are people who can read the Bible, the Gospel itself, all day long, 24 7.
But they really do not come to the knowledge of the truth.
That's because they don't have a revelation. So I think the thing that we want to pray, and that's why Paul is also praying, we want to pray for ourselves and our audience, is that God gives us the wisdom and the revelation of knowledge of him. If somebody doesn't have the revelation, you can argue with them all day long using logic and you can. I know I kind of, I have nothing against apologetics, but just using some intellectual logic to convince unbelievers about the existence of God, this and that, you know, that's not going to work there.
Eyes need to be opened to what?
Not just creation, not just existence of God, but their eyes need to be open to the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ.
And that comes only by revelation. It's not by just intellectual arguments.
[00:26:17] Speaker B: That's a great point. A. I still think though, there's some value to apologetics in that it might get some people into the door to hear the gospel and have the opportunity to believe. They might have some very rational questions that need to be answered and then they'll be willing to come in and hear what the Gospel is. Now, as you mentioned, I think it was. I can't remember if it was Paul or Jesus himself who said that spiritual things are only discerned by the Spirit. If you don't have the Spirit, if the Spirit is not working in your life, you're not going to understand. The cross will be foolish, as Ajay said.
[00:27:01] Speaker C: Yeah, so Mark. Yeah, thanks for pointing that out. You know, I'm not saying there is no value in apologetics, but even in those apologetics as they're going through that process, still it's the Lord who has to give them the revelation to lead them to our Lord Jesus Christ. You know, God can use anything, right? So he can use apologetics. He can use one word that people say, but the revelation has to Come. When the Word is preached through any means, unless God gives us revelation, we cannot understand it.
[00:27:31] Speaker B: I have a good friend who's got a couple sons that are college age, and though he and his wife are believers and tried to raise them in the Lord, they've kind of strayed away.
And he recently sent a letter out to a bunch of his friends asking to help him kind of debate his son and talk about dinosaurs and creationism and answer all these hard things. And nowhere in this very long letter, and I don't mean this to sound judgmental, he never mentioned Jesus once.
And it's like, okay, so you believe God exists. The devil believes God exists. You know, it's all about Jesus.
You know, Paul said that he vowed to forget all else but Christ and Him crucified.
You know, I don't care if you believe in dinosaurs or not. I don't care if you believe if the earth was created in a literal seven days or not. All I care is that you believe that Christ loves you and died for you. He's taking care of your sin. He forgives you. He wants you as his child.
That's all. You don't need to know all the, how the earth was made and, you know, things like that. Those are interesting subjects for talk, but they're kind of a side, can be a sidetrack.
[00:28:58] Speaker C: Yeah, that reminds me of the question that the Lord asked Peter.
You know, he said, you know, who do you. What do people say about me? Right? And then Lord asks them, who do you say I am? Then Peter says, you are the, the Son of living God. You are Christ, the Son of living God.
And he said, you know, flesh and blood did not reveal it to you, but my Father in heaven. So unless you come to that point of seeing Jesus as Christ, the Son of living God, nothing will help. Yeah, you can believe in it. It's a good first step, right? Believing in the existence of God.
But that does not save you. You have to believe who Lord Jesus Christ is. He is Christ, the Son of living God. And you have to believe in what he did for us.
[00:29:49] Speaker B: Okay, I will go on now from verse 18. So Paul just began his prayer by asking that the glorious Father might give us the spirit of wisdom and revelation so that we may know him better. And then he goes on to say, I pray that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened in order that you may know the hope to which he has called you. The riches of his glorious inheritance in his holy people and his incomparably great power for Us who believe.
You want to start with this one, Ajay?
[00:30:25] Speaker C: Read the next one also. Next verse also.
[00:30:28] Speaker B: Well, can I. Can I break here then? If you don't want to. Because I want to.
[00:30:32] Speaker C: Yeah, go ahead.
So no, I was going to address both at the same time, but it's okay. You can.
[00:30:38] Speaker B: Yeah. Because the next line is really an explanation of what that great power is. So. So Paul is. Paul is kind of saying this. You tell me what you think, Ajay. I'll be interested to get your take. So Paul just prayed for us to have the spirit of wisdom and revelation to know him better. To me, he's kind of repeating the same thing in different words. He's saying, I pray that the eyes of your heart, heart may be enlightened by the spirit of wisdom and revelation, obviously, because that's what we just talked about. In order that you may know the hope to which he's called you. Do you see, that line is just a restating somewhat that the spirit would open the eyes of our heart.
Enlighten it.
[00:31:25] Speaker C: Yeah.
In my version, it says like this. The God and the Lord of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father, Father of glory, may give you the spirit of wisdom and revelation, the knowledge of him, the eyes of your understanding, being enlightened that you may know what is the hope of his calling. So like you said, the spirit of wisdom is the one that gives us understanding. So when we receive the spirit of wisdom and revelation, our understanding is opened. The eyes of our understanding or the eyes of our heart are enlightened. So it's the spirit that enlightens us and gives us understanding.
So it is the effect of receiving the spirit of wisdom.
[00:32:04] Speaker B: Yeah, I like the way the KGV couples those together.
You know, the spirit of wisdom, revelation and the eyes of your heart may be a light and that makes it. They put some together more. I like that. So that does answer the question for us that I was raising. So he's praying for the spirit of wisdom and revelation and that the eyes of our heart are enlightened so that we may know God better and that we may also know the hope to which he's called us.
Okay, and now I feel like these next two lines, he's telling us what that hope is. He's saying that you may know the hope to which he's called you. The riches of his glorious inheritance in his holy people and his incomparably great power for us who believe. I'm interested to hear the KJV because that could be a listing of 40. Let's see, that could be a listing of hope, glorious inheritance, incomparably great power. Or he could be saying hope and then telling us what the hope is, that it's the riches of our glorious inheritance and is in comparably great power. Why don't you read it in the KJV for us?
[00:33:15] Speaker C: Yes. So I'm reading from verse 18 that the eyes of your understanding being enlightened, that you may know what is the hope of his calling, what are the riches of the glory of his inheritance in the saints, and what is the exceeding greatness of his power towards us who believe?
[00:33:33] Speaker B: Great, Great. That completely clears it up. And I want to raise this point because we've talked about it a number of times.
There's great value in reading different translations. And it's not that they're like saying different things, it's that because of sentence structure that it brings out the meaning clearly. And so when you weigh things like this, one could have been interpreted two ways. Now that's telling us that it's three different things that are part of the hope. Right. Because they say the here it makes it sound like the hope. It says the riches, where in yours it says what the riches are. It's naming and listing different things that we have.
[00:34:17] Speaker C: Yep.
[00:34:18] Speaker B: So that's really good. So we know then that we have hope, we have the riches of his glorious inheritance, and we have an incomparably great power for us to believe. And now I'll read on if I might. And Paul goes on to define that power a bit. He says that power, this incomparably great power that you have, he says, is the same as the mighty strength he exerted when he raised Christ from the dead and seated him at the right hand in the heavenly realms. I'm going to stop right there because that's the end of kind of the thought. One thing I want to point out, and then I'll throw it over to you, Ajay, is that this great power is the same power that resurrected Christ. It's resurrection power. That's what we have as believers. It's our inheritance.
It's been given to us. But one thing that I, for years I never realized is he's not saying here. We just have been given resurrection power. It's the same power that caused Christ to ascend to the right hand of the Father in the heavenly realms. We have resurrection power and ascension power.
[00:35:34] Speaker C: Yep.
[00:35:35] Speaker B: And I think there's a, you know, resurrection brings us from the dead, from, from dead death to life. Ascension power brings us to the presence of God.
We have both those powers. They're similar, but I think they have a little bit of a different connotation. What do you think about that?
[00:35:55] Speaker C: Yeah, yeah, absolutely agree, Mark. And here I am looking at the scriptures again. The listing of here, it says that you may know. So the key word is that you may know when we have the revelation, right? It's not just intellectual knowledge, right? You know, you read a book and you can tell what the book talked about, right? The theory of the book or, you know, the book talked about New York or it's a story of Chicago or whatever story of Vikings, you know, you can intellectually tell. But here it's talking about knowing. You know, when we have this revelation, when we understand the word of God, a deep knowing comes within us. And that knowing no one can take away. Once we have that knowing, we will automatically start experiencing what we have in Christ. So that's why he is saying that the eyes of our understanding may be enlightened, that we may know these things.
The hope of our calling, right? We are called to this glorious hope, right? Christ in us, the hope of glory.
So we are called to glory. We are called to sonship.
And then what are the riches of the glory of his inheritance? Again, we talked about it before.
This word comes two, three times, the word inheritance. And then if you go all the way back to first two or three verses, it starts with, he predestined us to adoption as sons.
It's sons who has the inheritance, right?
Nowadays, you know, you can just randomly give your inheritance to people if you want, but throughout the ages, if you're a son, you have inheritance by default.
So because we are sons, we have an inheritance. And then our inheritance includes all this, the riches of the glory of the inheritance. And then he talks about one of the things he wants us to know.
It's not just intellectual understanding, but a deep knowing on the inside the that we may know what we are called to and we may know the glory of our inheritance. And then like you pointed out, the exceeding greatness of the power towards us who believe. Like we said before, whoever believes, they have. Whoever believed in the gospel, when we say who believe, it's not talking about generally just believing this and that. Whenever in the new covenant, it talks about believe. What do we believe?
We believe in the gospel. So whoever believed in the Lord Jesus Christ and his finished work, they have this exceeding greatness of power. The same resurrection power that raised Jesus from the dead and seated him in heavenly places.
The same resurrection power is operating in us.
But the thing is, you know, it's not just intellectual knowledge, it's not just saying things over and over again, but as we hear the gospel and as we look into His Word. Right. And as we see Christ and his finished work, there will be a deep knowing on our inside that the same power that raised Jesus from the dead is the same power that is available to us on a daily basis.
[00:39:05] Speaker B: Wow. Yeah, that is.
That's some truth there. That can just transform our lives. Can it?
[00:39:12] Speaker C: Yeah. Yep.
[00:39:13] Speaker B: And all these things that we've talked about so far, Ajay, these are things that Christ himself revealed to Paul, and now Paul is revealing them to us.
That's important to remember.
And once again, here, as Paul is telling us the things that Jesus told him he can't contain himself, he starts to praise here. And he says that when he raised Christ from the dead and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly realms, far above all rule and authority, power and dominion, and every name that is invoked not only in the present age, but also in the one to come. And God placed all things under his feet and appointed him to be head over everything for the church, which is his body, the fullness of him who fills everything in every way.
What I love. He just can't contain himself. He's just. He's just praising Jesus for who he is, for his position as the Son of God over everything, the name over every other name. That's why it just blows me away that so many churches spend so much time talking about anything else but Jesus.
[00:40:37] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:40:38] Speaker B: Paul is saying here that the church is his body. He's himself as the fullness. He's the one that's supposed to fill that church in every way.
All things are under his feet. He's been appointed over the head over everything for the church. So when we come together as a church, as Paul said, we need to forget everything but Jesus Christ and him crucified. Because everything else, there are other things that are good.
It's not a bad. It's not bad for a pastor to stand up there and give you advice on how to be a good dad or a good husband, or how to be a good worker in the marketplace or how to be a generous giver, fill in the blank. Those aren't bad things. But when you compare them to turning your eyes to Christ.
And like we just experienced in Ephesians 1 here, there's. There's no comparison.
[00:41:33] Speaker C: Yep, yep, yep. Yeah. I would like to point out a couple of things. I know we are Coming to a close here.
So in verse 21 it says, you know, he raised our Lord Jesus Christ and seated him at his right hand, far above all principality and power, and gave him a name, right?
And every name that is named not only in this age, but also in that which is to come.
So it is far above all principality, power and every name that is named. That means Jesus authority, right? He has authority over everything.
His name has the highest authority.
And he is seated above everything, every power, every dominion and every name that is named not only in this age, but also the age to come.
And it says he put all things under his feet and gave him to be head over all things to the church. So if we put all these things under his feet and we are his body, where are all these things?
They are under our feet too.
So the same authority that Jesus has, because we are his body and all these things are under his feet, we are also placed above every principality, every power, every might and every dominion.
So that is why Paul wants us to have this Revelation knowledge. Because even though we have all this, we don't realize it, you know, we think that, you know, we are still under the power of this devil. We are under the power of sin, we are under the power of sickness, Satan.
We are not. So the more we understand this, the more we have the Revelation knowledge, the more we see that, you know, just like not only Lord Jesus Christ, not only Lord put all these things under the feet of Lord Jesus Christ, but they are also under our feet. And he says here, you know, the church which is the Body, the fullness of him who fills all in all. Think about it. Here it says, we are the fullness of Christ. Can you believe it? His fullness is displayed through us. What a privilege. So that is why we need the Revelation knowledge. You know, we can read these things, but we need to let this go deep inside us. We need to hear, we need to meditate until that knowing becomes the revelation of Christ, becomes so big on the inside that it becomes an automatic knowing, right? You know, I know right now, okay, tomorrow I walk out, the sun will rise on the east, right? There is no doubt about that. Similarly, all these realities are as real as sun rises in the east every day. So as we look into the Word and as we have this Revelation knowledge, we will start seeing all the things that are ours in Christ.
And we not only see them, but we'll walk in the possession of those things. Then no devil can scare us.
[00:44:47] Speaker B: Great, great.
And now that we've finished the chapter, I Just want to remind us of the reason we wanted to talk about this prayer in this chapter was because it is our desire that this would be the heartbeat of this podcast, of this ministry that God would give Ajay and me give you that are listening. In fact, give every believer in this world the spirit of wisdom and revelation to know him better, that he would enlighten the eyes of our hearts to know the hope to which we've been called, that we would know the riches of our glorious inheritance in Christ and the incomparably great power for us who believe, which is the same power that he used to raise Christ from the dead and to seat him in the heavenly realms far above all rule, authority and dominion. These things are available to us. But so if there's one prayer we ever pray, it's, Father, give us the spirit of wisdom and revelation so that we may know you better. I couldn't think of a better prayer than that because it kind of fulfills every need. So you want to put a final thought in Ajay and then we'll sign off?
[00:46:04] Speaker C: Yeah, Mark, you know, I 100% agree with you. This is my prayer for me, for us, and for every believer on this planet, that the Lord may give us the spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of Him. In fact, once we come to the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ, saving knowledge, and once we are saved and come to understand his grace, what we are called to do is grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. We never graduate from grace.
We never graduate from knowing Christ, increasing in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. Now, sometimes people think, yeah, now I know grace. Okay, now I understand. It's all free. Okay, that's it. And then they look for something more and they pivot to just talking about works again. So there's nothing else to pivot to from grace. You know, if you're not in grace, you are just going back to works. There is no middle ground.
So once we have come to Christ, we are supposed to be established in grace.
So our entire life journey throughout all eternity is simply growing in the grace and knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ, knowing who we are in Christ and being thankful in our heart. And so my prayer and our prayer is that the revelation of Lord Jesus Christ becomes bigger and bigger and bigger until nothing else matters to us.
[00:47:27] Speaker B: It is true.
Well, everybody, we just want to thank you for being with us this week. We hope you are blessed, encouraged, and uplifted by the glorious gospel of God's grace, Jesus Christ and Him crucified.
Pray you have a great week and we'll see you again next week. God Bless.
[00:47:46] Speaker A: Thanks for listening today. We hope you were encouraged and uplifted. If so, we encourage you to subscribe and share our podcast with your friends and family.
You can listen and subscribe on most popular podcast apps.
Well, that's it for us today. As always, God Bless and we will talk to you the next time.
[00:48:06] Speaker B: You my days Lord, I will delight in you days of my life.
You I will delight you I will light.
