(1) First, the Apostle prays that the Ephesians may be " strengthened with power through " God's " Spirit in the inward man." And how can we be " filled unto all the fulness of God " except by His Spirit filling us ? We believe, with the whole Church, that the Holy Spirit is God. If then the Holy Spirit dwells in the inward man, God dwells there. " To be filled with the Spirit " is to be filled with God.
^ The Life and Letters of Frederic Shields, 30, * David Smith.
EPHESIANS III. 19 201
^ The Spirit is the Spirit of power — " strengthened with power through his Spirit in the inward man." This means that the whole moral nature must be in touch with God, and so strengthened by that contact as to be the expression of God's power.^
(2) But if God's Holy Spirit does dwell within us, then we shall have faith ; then Christ will dwell in our hearts by faith. This is the second blessing asked for in the Apostle's prayer. Faith, like every other grace, is the fruit of the Spirit. It is not of ourselves, " it is the gift of God." And behold then how by faith we are " filled unto all the fulness of God." For Christ, who is God, dwells in our hearts by faith. Faith is the faculty within us which receives the Saviour. He cannot come where there is no faith. The door is, as it were, shut against Him. And the greater our faith, the more fully and constantly will Christ abide with us. True faith sets the door wide open for the Saviour to pass in. But how do we speak of Christ dwelling in our hearts by faith ? In two ways : Both because He really visits and abides in the heart which has faith to receive Him, and because that faith feels and realizes His presence.
\ Perhaps we are venturing where God means us not to enter, when we seek to understand the manner of Christ's indwelling presence. It is a Divine mystery ; and we believe it, because it is revealed to us. Yet we may perhaps say this much, that, when in one place we read of Christ dwelling in our hearts, and in another place of having the Spirit of Christ, these two ex- pressions declare the same thing, and that to have Christ dwelling in us is, in truth, to be filled with the Spirit of Christ. It is this that St. John speaks of when he says, " Of his fulness have all we received, and grace for grace." Yet to have Christ dwelling in us must mean, after all, something more than to be filled with the Holy Ghost, — the Spirit, which proceedeth from the Father and the Son. It must at least mean to be so filled with that Holy Spirit as to be fashioned like unto Christ, — to have Christ formed in us, — to have in us that mind which was also in Christ Jesus. And I think it must also mean to possess the priceless blessing of Christ's special love and favouring presence. And this we both possess and know by faith. Faith receives the Saviour. And Faith realizes the Saviour's presence. By Faith we feel His love. His nearness, His ever-present help. By Faith
1 E. Trumbull Lee.
202 OUR HIGH CALLING
we contemplate His purity, and holiness, and perfect example. By Faith we trust in His merits, His sacrifice, His prevailing intercessions. And thus Christ dwells in our hearts by Faith; and we are " filled unto all the fulness of God." ^
(3) There is a third way in which we may be " filled with all the fulness of God." It is by being "rooted and grounded in love!' Surely we can see that unless we are filled with love we can in no wise think that we are filled with God. For " God is love ; and he that dwelleth in love dwelleth in God, and God in him." Faith receives the fulness of God. Love is the fulness of God.
Strange as it may seem, it is undeniably true that the sovereign method for the deepest, fullest spiritual life is constant and ap- preciative remembrance of the love of God — its length, its breadth, its height, its depth. There is nothing a soul is to do but try to comprehend that love, in all its features and in all its expressions, and then make it the permanent, continuous, and controlling power of all its thought and feeling. To study God's love, to get the fact of it, the greatness of it, the sweetness of it, the constancy of it, the comfort of it into one's heart is to feel the nearness, dearness, and blessedness of God Himself. The mind that with each oppor- tunity for leisure turns to the consideration of God's love, that believes in that love for itself, that sees life in the light of that love, and that lets that love flow in upon it with ocean-fulness, will have such a sense of the presence, beauty, and power of God as will make that heart a holy of holies ; God Himself will be in it, and His glory will fill it.