That He Might Fill All Things - Part 1 — T. Austin-Sparks

Ephesians 4 and the Ascension of Christ

In 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 saith, when he ascended on high, he laid captivity captive, and gave gifts unto men.

Now this, he ascended, what is it but that he also descended 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 is a consummate.

Into it, as you will see by the whole context, the eternities and the ages are gathered up as to divine purpose. This letter was a circular letter to certain churches in Asia. And in this circular letter, the apostle poured like a torrent the very quintessence of his spiritual knowledge.

Knowledge come to him by what he, in other places, revelation of Jesus Christ. He's gone to reveal his son in me. That revelation to and in the apostle was indeed. The knowledge derived from 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 drove him to the desert to think about it, examine its significance to 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. He was caught up into the cloud heaven and shown unspeakable things which it is not lawful for a man to utter.

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 is not possible for the apostles in those days to take what 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 marching 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 rich revelation which had come to him and was all the time coming to him.

Paul's Revelation in Romans, Corinthians, and Thessalonians

Where did the apostle get all that we have? For instance in the latter part of what in our arrangement is the 8th 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 Bondi and it was to vanity.

Where did he get all that about 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, glorified bodies in resurrection, the nature of the body of resurrection, our believer.

It's a very rich chapter that 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 returns?

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.

Paul's Imprisonment and the Release of Spiritual Light

But now at last he is free from all his traveling, 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 accumulated through the years. Just pour out of his spiritual fullness. You are not surprised that that word fullness is very characteristic of this letter.

Through it 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 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 Lord had ordained that the physical imprisonment should make possible the release of the light for the church for the whole of this dispensation.

The release. You cannot read this letter carefully and watchfully and feelingly without feeling it is 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.

Could really sense the feeling of the apostle at this time and understand why that word dropped from his pen so often. Fullness. Exceeding. Exceeding. The exceeding greatness of his power. The exceeding riches of his greatness.

It is a superlative. Exceeding. The riches. The riches of his inheritance. The riches of his greatness. 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. A knowledge surpassing love. This is an attempt to express himself in language which calls for every kind of superlative at his command.

And yet he is defeated. 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 is 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 are trying to follow closely a sequence of thoughts. Yes, he is full of tangents and interruptions in his statements here.

The Heavenlies and the Church's Spiritual Position

And then as to the concepts, the concepts, fragments. Before the foundation of the world. Chosen in Christ. Before the foundation of the world. In the heavenless. Five times repeated. And by the way, you may need your mentality adjusting on that word.

He is not talking about the heavens. He is 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.

This five times repeated heavenly, 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 and to 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 hosts of wicked spirits in the heavenlies, the spiritual realm.

That, dear friends, 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 saying, are we not right in saying that the apostle is too full for word?

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 and bonds of this universe. All this was but his helpless interview as he had come to see him, to understand him, to know him.

Yes, it was an impossible, 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, into the highest heavens is there, into the deepest depths, and Christ was fathomed and plumbed. He had encompassed, and as he said, had embodied all the divine, for it pleased the Father that in him should all the fullness dwell.

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

Christ and the Church as His Fullness

But that, of course, is not all. With this, and set over against any idea that might come into our minds, or 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.

Grace and the Church's Eternal Inheritance

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

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 or not, we have said that it was very true, the apostle could not contain himself any longer.

Seeing that no sooner had he got into that imprisonment, and between the times when the visitors were coming, he just gave himself up to this two-fold object. Setting forth on the one hand the greatness of Christ as he had seen it, and on the other hand the greatness of grace in calling him and the church into that divine world.

Grace. Grace only begins when, and you, when you were dead in your trespasses and sins, did he quicken? That's the beginning of grace. Union with Christ in his new risen life. But trace grace through this letter and see how grace is leading on and on until at last it sees this church in the ages of the ages together with him in his ultimate and final fullness.

His eternal and universal fullness. What grace, what grace. So we are led, dear friends, to our fragment that he might fill all things. This incomprehensible he. He, the center of all things. Look at some of these other fragments in that connection.

Christ as the Center of Creation and Redemption

You remember John himself spoken about this. First chapter of his gospel. He tells us that all things were created by him. All things were created by him. You turn to the companion letter. The letter to the Colossians.

Chapter 1, at verse 16. For in him were all things created. In the heavens and upon the earth. Things visible, things invisible. For the thrones or dominions or principalities or powers. All things have been created through him and unto him.

And he is before all things. And in him all things hold together. He is the head of the body, the church. Who is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead. That in all things he might have the preeminence.

And through him to reconcile all things unto himself. The letter to the Hebrews may not have come actually from the pen of Paul. Undoubtedly from the influence of Paul. Chapter 1, verse 2. As at the end of these days spoken unto us in his son.

Whom he appointed heir of all things. Through whom he made the world. Chapter 2. For it became him for whom are all things. And through whom are all things. In bringing many sons unto glory. This phrase, all things.

Of which Christ is the very essence and substance. Now it is about this one that we are thinking. On him we are concentrating. This center of all things. Jesus Christ. The Bible is a progressive history of this one.

The Progressive Revelation of Christ in Scripture

The beginning of this mighty he who is to fill all things. That history begins with an intimation. Just an intimation. Very often missed and overlooked. That history ends with this passage, all things.

The intimation. In the beginning God. That is where the Bible begins. But that name God as you know is in the plural form. It is in the plural form indicating that there are more than one presence. There is another.

And a third gathered into that form. The name of God. And as the story grows. The second one intimated as being present there. Becomes more and more dishonorable. Not long before he assumes a name. And is seen and is heard by men.

He appears to men in the many theophanies of the Old Testament. Sometimes at the beginning they describe him as a man appearing. But when he goes they speak of him as the Lord. You will recall to mine those occasions.

This one the Lord in those divine appearances is becoming known by men. Later he takes human form in a specific incarnation. And lives and moves and walks and teaches among men. Later still in a still more intimate way.

He reveals himself in a resurrection body to individuals, to groups, to companies. And they are in no doubt about it. Whereas at the beginning they had questions. Wondered whether they had seen him. They had no doubt.

They knew who he was. They could say we have seen him. We know him. And then finally he is seen by all creatures in heaven and earth. So that every eye beholds him.