The 8 Aspects of Redemption - Part 3 — T. Austin-Sparks

The fourth chapter of the letter to the Ephesians, we read a whole section in order to come on our particular fragment in verse 8, wherefore he said when he ascended on high he led captivity captive and gave gifts unto men.

Now this he ascended, what is it but that he also descended to the lower parts of the earth? He that descended is the same also that ascended far above all the heavens, that he might fill all things, that he might fill all things, that is a consummate statement.

Into it, as you will see by the whole context, the eternities and the ages are gathered up as to divine purpose. We know that this letter was a circular letter sent to certain churches in Asia and in this circular letter the apostle poured like a torrent the very quintessence of his spiritual knowledge, knowledge which had come to him by what he in other places called the revelation of Jesus Christ or it pleased God to reveal his son in me, that revelation to and in the apostle was very full indeed, the knowledge derived from experience, experience which began on the Damascus road, what a knowledge broke upon this servant of the Lord at that time, in that event, knowledge which drew him to the desert to think about it, to examine its significance, try and fathom something of its depth, kept him there in the desert for two years, breaking of a new world of spiritual knowledge upon him.

Later he said that there had happened in his life history another mighty opening of heaven, said he was caught up into the third heaven and shown unspeakable things which it is not lawful for a man to utter.

An unfortunate word, that word lawful because it does not exactly convey what the apostle really said, he really said or meant which it is impossible for a man to utter. Unspeakable things which it is impossible for a man to utter, that must have been a wonderful fullness of knowledge and we know that on several other occasions the Lord Jesus came to him, stood by him, spoke to him and out of all this experience his knowledge was growing.

It's not possible for the apostles in those days to take journeys swiftly as we can today, they had to travel and traverse long distances on foot, spending many hours in that way and nights aside and no doubt the apostle was much in meditation as he went on his way from place to place over weeks and months and years and this inspired meditation was building up this wonderful spiritual knowledge in him.

From time to time in relation to specific needs and requirements here and there, particular situations he embodied in letters some fragments, mighty fragments of this revelation which had come to him and was all the time coming to him.

Where did the apostle get all that that we have, for instance in the latter part of what in our arrangement is the eighth chapter of the letter to the Romans, where did he get it? Going right back before the world was, telling us what happened by divine act when Adam brought the creation into bonding and it was subjected to vanity, where did he get all that about for ordination to be conformed to the image of God's Son and the much more that is there that you and I are quite sure no man could ever find by searching, by studying, however great a grade he might have.

Those latter verses of Romans 8 are a mighty fragment of revelation. Again that 15th chapter of the first letter to the Corinthians, where did he get it? All about the diversity of glorified bodies in resurrection, the nature of the body of resurrection of believers, it's a very rich chapter there.

We have explored it long and deeply but we know that we haven't fathomed it. In his letters to the Thessalonians, how did Paul come to know just exactly what would happen when the Lord returned? What is happening to the saints who have already left this earth?

What is going to happen to the saints who are here when the Lord comes? Where did he get it all? It's rich, it's deep, it's full, but it's only a fragment of the whole of that wealth of spiritual knowledge.

But now at last he's free from all his traveling and all the diffusion of many activities here and there. At last he is able to do what he had been unable to do before and if this letter suggests or indicates anything, he is able to do now what he has longed to do, what he has waited for the opportunity to do.

Just pour out of that fullness which has been accumulating through the earth. Just pour out of his spiritual fullness. You're not surprised that that word fullness is very characteristic of this letter.

Through it's the fullness of Christ but the apostle has been brought into much of that. So at long last he is able to sit down and open up the floodgates of that spiritual store and pour it into this letter.

Like the physical imprisonment of the apostle at this time, his great store of life, spiritual knowledge had been circumscribed and confined. But now the sovereign law had ordained that the physical imprisonment should make possible the release of the light for the church, for the whole of this dispensage.

But the release, the release, you cannot read this letter carefully and watchfully and feelingly without feeling that it's like the release of a busting dam. You meet that feeling in the language which is crowded into this brief letter.

The breaking of all grammatical barriers and the vastness of the concepts that are here. Think alone of the many superlatives in language which he uses. We will refer to the repetition of the word fullness.

You could really sense the feeling of the apostle at this time would understand why that word dropped from his pen so often. Fullness. Exceeding, exceeding, the exceeding greatness of his power. The exceeding riches of his grace.

It's a superlative. Exceeding the riches, the riches of his inheritance. The riches of his grace. Riches and glory. Underline the word glory in this letter. See how it is constantly coming out. Glory, glory, glory everywhere here.

Abundantly exceeding, abundantly above. Surpassing the knowledge, surpassing love of Christ. This is an attempt, an attempt to express himself in language which calls for every kind of superlative at his command.

And yet he's defeated. And as for the grammar, perhaps you haven't worried yourself very much about that if reading the letter. But if you have tried to study it and reduce it to something simple, you have found yourself quite defeated.

For instance, there's the longest sentence without a period in the New Testament at the beginning of this letter. And as for breaking the barriers of language, he starts off along a line and then goes off at a tangent and puts something altogether irrelevant it seems in a long paragraph.

And then he comes back to where he broke off or where he started. That's not very helpful, you know, if you're trying to follow closely a sequence of thought. Yes, he's full of tangents and interruptions in his statements here.

And then as to the concepts, the concepts, these fragments, before the foundation of the world, chosen in Christ, before the foundation of the world, in the heavenly, five times repeated. And by the way, you may need your mentality adjusting on that word.

He is not talking about the heavens. He's talking about the heavenlies. And the difference is, heavens are a realm, a, if you like, a geographical realm. Heavenlies are a spiritual concept. The letter is based upon a spiritual concept of things, not a geographical.

There's five times repeated heavenlies. What a concept that is. What it brings to us. Christ's place in a spiritual position. Our place with Christ in a spiritual position called the heavenlies. That is the church's place.

These celestial principalities and powers looking on and learning from the activities of God in the church now unto the principalities and powers in the heavens. And then the diabolical forces in the heavenlies.

What concepts are here? How tremendous this all is. And that very phrase itself, principalities and powers and world rulers of this darkness and ghosts of wicked spirits in the heavenlies, the spiritual realm.

That, dear friend, goes beyond all our power to understand. Foreordained. These words which have been the bane and the trouble of the theologians all through the centuries. Foreordained, predestinated, adoption.

What a wealth there is in every one of them. And what about this sixfold repetition of the word mystery, mystery. And then to come to our mighty friend that he might fill all things. Are we not seeing, are we not right in seeing that the apostle is too full for words?

That the gates have burst and this mighty torrent of spiritual knowledge is breaking out almost beyond control. Beyond his control. What is it all about? What is all this? And the answer? No, it's not just doctrine.

Not just life teaching. The explanation is that for Paul, Christ had burst all the bounds of this universe. All this was but his hopeless attempt at bringing Christ into view as he had come to see him.

To understand him, to know him. Yes, it was an impossible task. And we would be right in concluding that no one felt it more than the apostle who made this mighty effort to bring the greatness of his Christ to the church.

Christ, who for him had outranged all bounds of time, took him back into the ages of eternity past, before the world was, carried him on as he uses the phrase unto the ages of the ages. Christ for him had outranged all time limits, had outbounded all limits of space.

He ascends into the highest heaven. Christ is there into the deepest depths and Christ has fathomed and plumbed them. Christ had compassed the all above and the all beneath of space. And as he had embodied all the divine fullness, it pleased the Father that in him should all the fullness dwell.

And more, Christ had transcended all other authorities and all other rules. Every principality and power and every name. Christ was above all. Greatness of his Christ led him to make this, which we have said, he perhaps more than anyone else felt to be a hopeless act, defeating all language, to bring Christ as he really is in his dimension and fullness into view.

But that, of course, is not all. With this, and set over against any idea that might come into our minds, the minds of the Lord's people, that all this about Christ was exclusively isolated to himself, that is to Christ, Paul had seen that an elect body chosen in Christ was bound up with and included in all this that he had seen in Christ.

Here he calls the church the very complement of this Christ, which is the fullness of him. The real word is the very complement, the completion of him, that filleth all in all. Paul had seen this elect body bound up with this immensity of Christ and that accounts for this sublime thing in the letter.

Thirteen times, thirteen times he uses the word grace. Grace, the unspeakable greatness of Christ, the immeasurable greatness of Christ, transcendent glory of Christ, the inexplicable significance of Christ in God's universe from eternity to eternity.

And then he says, and you, when you were dead in your trespasses, did he sing together with you. We were chosen in him before the foundation. We are brought into this as our inheritance in union with him.

No wonder the word grace falls over itself in this letter. Again and again and again. Grace, oh the riches of his grace, the riches of his grace. Whether you and I are moved by this. Please turn the tape over now and continue listening at this point on track two.

Do not fast wind the recorder in either direction.