The letter to the Ephesians is like a hymn to the grace of God. The first two chapters instruct in the doctrine of the gospel, laying out the ground for that revelation of grace. With the third chapter Paul, recalling his three years of gospel labor in Ephesus, goes from exposition to prayer, interceding for the believers there. He recalled his tribulation for them (v. 13; compare Acts 19; 20:19; “I have fought with beasts at Ephesus,” 1 Cor. 15:22). His emphasis from the outset has been on the gospel of God’s grace, a movement from God toward men, His loving, choosing to save people like us in Christ. Now he goes from exposition into fervent prayer for these people to whom he has been bringing the gospel—these doctrines must move our souls, as they did his. For these people, he pleads for “inner strength.” We are often accused of being “one-sided,” preoccupied with doctrine. We need to teach the doctrine, but that must move us to pray for the grace that we preach. Paul’s prayer to God is that “the people may be strengthened with might by His Spirit in the inner man. That Christ may dwell in (their) he arts by faith that (they) may be ·~ rooted and grounded in love.” “Though I . . . understand all mysteries, and all knowledge . . . and have not love, I am nothing” (1 Cor.13:2). Only so may they “be able to comprehend with all saints what is the breadth, and length, and depth, and height; and . . . know the love of Christ, which passeth knowledge, that (they may) be filled with all the fulness of God.” We believe what we cannot ultimately understand. Although we may not know what this means, it is a reality, possible in the believer‘s experience.

Paul prayed “with many tears” for the Christians of Ephesus, the Ephesus of idolators, magicians, fortune-tellers and wicked books—so like the contents of many of today’s magazines–there he saw “a great door of opportunity” among “many adversaries.” The gospel ministry continues to be full of such opportunities in the short time which we have. To understand something of the power of the Reformation in Scotland, we must take account of the urgent prayer of its great Reformer, John Knox, for its people. Our whole western society is crumbling because it needs the power of the grace of God, and it needs men who will similarly “spend and be spent” in the service of God.

Paul urged the Ephesians to “put on the whole armor of God, that ye may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil” (6:11). The speaker had seen only too many ministers whose ministries in our time were (sometimes through “counseling”) “cut to the ground by the power of hell” in the form of temptations to which they succumbed. Therefore this “putting on the whole armor of God” is the more urgent. With a view to all of the sins and temptations of Ephesus, Paul was driven to his knees to pray that the Lord would “fill them with His fulness” so that they could stand.

Then be looks away from the Ephesians and their problems upward to the God of all grace, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, “unto him that is able to do exceeding abundantly above all that we ask or think according to the power that worketh in us.” Paul “is persuaded that he is able to keep” (2 Tim. 1:12). He is dealing with gospel immensities! He “is able to do above all that we ask”—more“ abundantly above all that we ask” even more than that—“exceeding abundantly above all that we ask” in fact—“above all that we ask or think”! This is the gospel of God’s “extravagant” grace. Stop worrying about what people think of your sermon; think of what they think of God! The prayer goes into a benediction, “Unto Him be the glory in the church by Christ Jesus throughout all ages, world without end. Amen.” Let our expectations and prayers be grand, beyond the people’s needs, as big and broad as God’s omnipotent grace. 

Tapes of these Banner of Truth Conference addresses are available from Reformed Baptist Tapes, 3181 Bradford N.E., Grand Rapids, MI 49506 at $2.00 each. Douglas Mac Millan is Professor of Church History at the Free Church of Scotland College at Edinburgh, Scotland. This is a summary of his second address at the May 1987 conference at Calvin Theological Seminary.