Read part 1 here.
Ephesians 1:3 says, “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenlies in Christ.” The blessings in this book are related to God’s speaking. But to be more precise, this blessing is not just the Lord’s speaking; it is the Lord’s illumination, the Lord’s enlightening, the Lord’s shining—and not just physical shining. Verse 18 says,
“The eyes of your heart having been enlightened, that you may know what is the hope of His calling, and what are the riches of the glory of His inheritance in the saints…”
When we say “enlighten,” we are not talking about a religious or philosophical enlightenment. In Greek, it is the word photizo, a very specific, special kind of enlightenment—full of experiential understanding and applicable reality. In the original Greek New Testament, the word only appears very few times in the perfect tense, which means it is something that has already happened, once and for all; the word photizo gives us a very absolute, perfect, “done-deal” sense of this revealing and shining to become experiential and subjective!
When we have this process of enlightening—or of transforming—spontaneously, there is the glory of God’s grace, which is God experienced by us. Verse 1:6 says, “To the praise of the glory of His grace.” What a wonderful phrase! This phrase can only be found in the book of Ephesians. Grace, or God experienced by us, is not just the doctrinal understanding of predestination, sanctification, justification, crucifixion, resurrection, and ascension, but a heavenly revelation with subjective experience. Grace is this very God who went through the process to mingle with us so that we can enjoy, experience, realize, own, and be one with Him. This is grace, and it is a pleasure—a pleasure that we can enjoy through the mingling of ourselves with God. When we eat a very delicious meal, there is a very distinct pleasure. It is a pleasure to know and enjoy what we are eating! When we are in the book of Ephesians, we should enjoy the pleasure of the full, 12-course meal of man eating God and mingling with God and God eating us and mingling with us!
“Making known to us the mystery of His will according to His good pleasure, which He purposed in Himself” (Ephesians 1:9).
This pleasure comes from a very specific source: God’s will. The book of Ephesians is all about satisfying God’s will, and God’s will renders that pleasure. There is something that pleases, satisfies and motivates Him in the completion of His will. Before the creation of man, God’s will was not complete. Thus, He had a council among the Trinity, and out of that council there was an execution: God’s economy, issuing straight from the heart of God. Out of this economy, we find a beloved One who can make God happy. God wants to be satisfied. Who can satisfy Him? Can we live a life to be pleasing to God? What is the way for God to find pleasure in us? The answer is simple! Through this will, we are mingled with Him, and we can experience photizo—the enlightening, the shining—which renders us pleasing to God, bringing pleasure to both God and man.
The execution of this will renders pleasure, and the pleasure spontaneously renders praise. “Praise” is not a religious way or practice of worshiping God. It is the spontaneous and vital result of God’s pleasure, of that mingling of His Spirit with ours. It is not about how loudly we shout or how fervently we pray; there is just a heavenly character that is produced from our mingling with Him. The praise is specific and abundant, bringing us into a “cause to abound” condition (1:8). This praise is not just because we have been saved from our sinful life. In this mingling with Him, we realize that the “redemption” in the book of Ephesians is not just about our iniquity and our failure, but is now an open praise, an open demonstration, an open display: I am the praise of God, I am God’s heart’s desire, I am the pleasure of God. This is what has been hidden in God’s heart from the past eternity to the coming eternity, now revealed, and is well pleasing to God. That pleasure found in the Lord gives us the reality of praising. We, through heavenly mingling, are the praises! Every cell of our body is praising Him, and nothing can cover His glory shining forth from us. This is the subjective experience of glory to us; through God’s organic full salvation, we arrive at glorification. Today, He is the glorious One in us, worthy to be praised!
(Above is part 2 of a series compiled from notes of fellowship taken from a gathering on 9/11/20, not reviewed by the speaker. Read part 3 here.)