The Gospel According to Paul # 11

The Gospel According to Paul # 11

The Work of the Holy Spirit Within, continued -

The Apostle speaks about the fruit of the Spirit. "The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, meekness, self-control" (Gal. 5:22,23). The Spirit, you see, is inside, and He is the Spirit of Christ within to cause that the fruits of Christ shall be born in us, or, shall we say, the fruit of Christ which shows itself in all these many ways. The fruit of Christ is "love, joy, peace, longsuffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, meekness, self-control," the fruit of the mighty energy of the Spirit of Christ within.

And what about law? Yes, the Spirit works according to law. Before he is through, the Apostle says that tremendous thing, that terrible thing: 'Be not deceived: God is not mocked: for whatsoever a man soweth, that shall be also reap. For he that soweth unto his own flesh shall of the flesh reap corruption; but he that soweth unto the Spirit shall of the Spirit reap eternal life' (Gal. 6:7, 8). The law of the Spirit, you see, is this. Sow, and you reap: what you sow, you reap. Sow to the Spirit, and you reap life everlasting. If you sow to the Spirit - that is only saying, in figurative language. If you conform to the Spirit's energy, the Spirit's law, the Spirit's government, or to Christ in you - you will reap Christ, you will reap life. There is a law here, and 'free from the Law' does not mean that we are set free from any necessity for recognizing that God has constituted His universe, our bodies and souls, upon principles; but it does mean this, that Christ in us makes it possible for us to obey the principles, whereas otherwise we should be violating them all the time.

"The gospel which I preach", says Paul: 'after all, it amounts to this - after all your arguments about legalism and Judaizers and the rest, it amounts to this: "Christ liveth in me". That is good news, that is hope - everything is possible!

In His Letter to the Ephesians

Read: Ephesians 1:13; 3:6,7; 6:15; 6:19, 20

When we come to consider the Gospel according to Paul in the Letter to the Ephesians, we find that we have the word "gospel" in the noun form four times. We have it also, on one or two other occasions, in verb form, as in chapter two, verse seventeen -

"...and He came and preached peace to you that were far off..."

You notice the margin says "preached good tidings of peace". Now that is just an English way of juggling with a Greek word. The Geek word is the verb of which 'the gospel' is the noun; and, as I have tried to point out before, what it really says - it cannot be translated literally into English - is: "came and good-tidinged or good-newsed peace". That is impossible in English, but it is just the verb of the noun "gospel". It occurs again in chapter three, verse eight -

"...to preach unto the Gentiles the unsearchable riches of Christ..." - that is, "to good news unto the Gentiles, "to proclaim unto the Gentiles the good tidings of..." It is the verb again for "gospel". I think that gives us ground for saying that this letter is about the gospel!

Many people have the idea that when you reach the Letter to the Ephesians you have left the gospel behind, you are further on than the gospel, you must really now have got a long way beyond the gospel. I do not think we can get further than this letter, so far as Divine revelation is concerned: as we shall see, it takes us a very long way indeed in Divine things; but it is still the gospel. The gospel is something very vast, very comprehensive, very far-reaching indeed.

A Letter of Superlatives

This leads us to note that the Letter to the Ephesians is the letter of superlatives. An expressive adjective has come into vogue of recent years, by which people try to convey the idea that a thing is very great, or of the highest quality. They say it is a "super." Now here, in this letter, everything is - may I use the word? - "super!" The whole letter is written in terms of what is superlative; and I must take it for granted that you can recall something of what is here. Superlatives relate to almost everything in this letter.

There is the superlative of time. Time is altogether transcended: we are taken into the realm of timelessness. By this letter we are taken back into eternity past, before the foundation of the world, and on into eternity to come, unto the ages of the ages. It is the superlative of time - transcending time.

There is the superlative of space. One phrase runs through this letter - "in the heavenlies". When you come into the heavenlies, you are just amazed at the immensity of the expanse. In the natural realm that is true, is it not, even of the very limited 'earthly heavens', as represented by the earth's atmosphere. If you travel a good deal by air, you pas through the airports and see the planes coming and going, coming and going, every few minutes, all day long and all night long and day after day - and yet when you get up into the air you rarely meet another plane. It is quite an event to pass another plane in the air, so vast are the heavens in their expanse. And this letter is written in the realm of the superlatives of space, in the spiritual heavenlies, altogether above the limitations of earth.

Again, it is written in terms of the superlative of power. There is one clause here, to familiar to us, which touches that: 'the exceeding greatness of His power to usward who believe" (Eph. 1:19). There is much about that power, superlative power,and its operation, in this letter.

~T. Austin-Sparks~

(continued with # 12)