Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of Ephesians 3:16

That he would grant you, according to the riches of his glory, to be strengthened with might by his Spirit in the inner man;

16. according to the riches of his glory ] I. e., as He can do Who is Lord of the resources of an Eternal Nature and Heavenly Kingdom. (See on Eph 1:18 for the phrase “riches of glory” in another reference.) The glory of God is, in brief, Himself, as the Infinite and Holy One, with all results, for Himself and His creatures, of His being such.

to be strengthened ] The Gr. verb is elsewhere used with ideas of spiritual firmness and vigour (Luk 1:80; Luk 2:40; 1Co 16:13). So it is here. The saints are to be so strengthened as not to fear things of which nature is afraid; even the felt indwelling of the Holy One, and His absolute dominion in the inmost heart.

with might ] The power of God.

by his Spirit ] The Holy Ghost; everywhere present in the doctrine of this Epistle. He is so to deal with “the inner man” as that the presence of Christ shall be permanent in the heart. Cp. Rom 8:9-10, where observe the transition from, “the Spirit of God dwelleth in you”, to, “Christ is in you.” And see, too, the Lord’s words, Joh 14:16; Joh 14:18; Joh 14:21; Joh 14:23; Joh 16:7; Joh 17:11. There we find that while He is “no more in the world,” and it is “expedient that He go away,” yet “the Spirit of Truth” shall not only come, but so come that the disciples shall not be “left orphans”; their Lord shall “come to them”; His Father and He will “make Their abode” with each faithful believer. We thus get fragments of a Divine comment on the glorious passage now before us; to the effect that this Presence, this permanent Indwelling, of the Saviour, is essentially a Presence in and by the Spirit, mediated by the Spirit; not physical, or quasi-physical, or under any mode other than, and different from, a Presence through the Spirit’s agency upon the “inner man.” Where the Spirit “permanently abides,” there, and therefore, does the Saviour so abide; with just this difference, or condition, that we are to think, in the passage before us, of the indwelling Spirit as directing His agency expressly and specially in the direction of making the Saviour’s Presence a permanent reality to the “heart.”

Compare further the Seven Epistles of the Revelation, where the voice of the glorified Saviour is identified, in every instance, with that of the Spirit.

in the inner man ] Lit., “ into the inner man”; as if to say, “ deep in it”; “penetrating far into it.” “ The inner man ” : see for the same phrase, Rom 7:22 ; 2Co 4:16. Here it means, practically, the regenerate human spirit. In itself, the phrase may mean no more than the invisible as against the material in man; but the three N. T. passages thus before us indicate its actual reference, in St Paul’s vocabulary, to the regenerate self.

Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

According to the riches of his glory – According to the glorious abundance of his mercy; see Phi 4:19. Out of those stores of rich grace which can never be exhausted. The word riches, so often used by Paul, denotes abundance, and the idea here is, that his grace was inexhaustible and ample for all their needs.

To be strengthened with might – To be powerfully strengthened. That is, to give you abundant strength to bear trials; to perform your duties; to glorify his name.

In the inner man – In the heart, the mind, the soul; see the notes on Rom 7:22. The body needs to be strengthened every day. In like manner the soul needs constant supplies of grace. Piety needs to be constantly invigorated, or it withers and decays. Every Christian needs grace given each day to enable him to bear trials, to resist temptation, to discharge his duty, to live a life of faith.

Fuente: Albert Barnes’ Notes on the Bible

Eph 3:16

That He would grant you, according to the riches of His glory, to be strengthened with might by His Spirit in the inner man.

The measure of Gods power

The man of the world is full of what he can do; the Christian of what he cannot do. Here, we have the inward power for which we may ask to supply our deficiency.

I. The measure of this power.

1. Measured by Himself. His perfection, His excellence. Man measures by his imperfection and poverty.

2. Measured by the extent of Himself. Man measures by his own ideas of his own need. God, who forgives according to the riches of His grace, makes known upon the forgiven the riches of His glory.

II. The nature of the supply, culminating in the indwelling of Christ.

1. The character of the indwelling (Col 2:7).

(1) Christ, the essence of love, dwelling in us, and so filling our hearts with true love.

(2) Faith working by love.

2. The effects of the indwelling. Able to comprehend or grasp (see Php 3:12-13)–

(1) Breadth of promise and blessing. Length–reaching to the end. Depth–going down to the lowest. Height–raising up to heavenly places.

(2) To know the love of Christ, which passeth knowledge. Known only by those taught by the Spirit. Known only by those in whom it dwells.

(3) Filled with all the fulness of God. God gives Himself to us all, according to our size. Here meet mans measure and Gods. (J. H. Rogers, M. A.)

Spiritual strength

There are five significant terms here–keys by which we may partly unlock this divine casket, so that its precious contents, the riches of the Fathers glory, may be set free and shed abroad.

I. Faith. You are to be strengthened with might. The seat of the strength imparted is the inner man; it is the strength, not of outward propping, but of inward peace and power. The agency by which it is imparted is that of the Holy Spirit; for He alone has access directly and immediately into the inner man; He alone, the Spirit of God, can deal effectually with spirits of men. The essence of it is Christ dwelling in your hearts; Christ living in you; Christ in you, the Lord your righteousness, the Lord your strength; Christ in you, the hope of glory. And the means or instrument of your receiving it is your simple hearts faith.

II. To faith succeeds love. You are to be rooted and grounded in love. These images or figures suggest the ideas of a grove and a building. You are to be rooted as the trees that constitute a grove, and grounded as the stones and pillars of a building. Love is the soil, rich, deep, and generous, and withal, homogeneous all through, in which all the trees are rooted. It is also the soft and tender lime or mortar, the close-drawing and close-fixing cement, in which, through successive layers, the stones are deposited or imbedded.

III. Faith and love lead on to comprehension, or taking in; a comprehensive survey of something very vast; and vast in all directions. I find myself mow, first strengthened as a believer, so as to be fit for standing alone; but at the same time, secondly, having all over me, and all through me, love; love being my soil and cement. I find myself thus introduced into a grand hall; a glorious amphitheatre, a temple of immeasurable dimensions; thronged and crowded with all the saints, all the holy ones, angels and men, into whose society I am strangely and of grace admitted. In company with them, and in full sympathy with them, I look behind, before, below, above; and see nought but one well-nigh boundless room and home for all the elect, all the saved. I comprehend its breadth and length and depth and height.

IV. Through this process of faith, love, and comprehension, we reach a marvellous knowledge; the knowledge of the unknowable–to know the love of Christ, which passeth knowledge.

V. There remains one other great and final consummation which the apostles prayer would fain have you to reach: that ye might be filled with all the fulness of God. (R. S. Candlish, D. D.)

The Spirits gift of strength

I. The Christians need of strength.

1. The region where strength is required: the inner man. It is in the moral and spiritual nature that reinforcement is required–to do the duty, to withstand the temptation, to stand steadfast although outwardly alone. To this end he wants stronger convictions and motives, clearer principles of action, and confirmed habits of well-doing.

2. Why does the inward man require this?

(1) It is new born, and requires to grow.

(2) It is an opposition principle.

(3) It has a great work to accomplish.

II. The source whence this strength is derived. It is the gift of God: not by growth and development within itself, or adaptation to its circumstances merely, but through the direct influence of the Holy Spirit.

III. The law of its bestowment. Through faith, i.e., the exercise of faith.

1. Directly towards God.

2. Indirectly through the believer obeying the impulses and directions of the Holy Spirit. (A. F. Muir, M. A.)

Christian strength

1. The Christian needs to be strengthened with might in the inner man.

2. The might which the Christian needs is conveyed through the agency of the Holy Spirit.

3. This might is obtained in answer to prayer.

4. This might should be sought as from an inexhaustible source. (G. Brooks.)

Spiritual weakness prejudicial

It was an amusing distortion of a good hymn, but there was not a little sound philosophy in it, when the old negro preacher said–

Judge not the Lord by feeble saints.

And yet this is precisely what the great majority of unconverted men are doing all the time. They will not go to the Bible and give heed to what God Himself says. They have no ear for His voice of mercy that offers them salvation for the taking. They do not pay any attention to the solemn warnings that the Scriptures utter. They judge the Lord by feeble saints. They attempt to feed their starving souls on the imperfections of Christians–poor feed enough they find it! Because Gods people are not all they ought to be, therefore these cavillers will keep aloof from the religion which they confess. (American.)

Strength by feeding upon Christ

Now this lamb they were to eat, and the whole of it. Oh! that you and I would never cut and divide Christ so as to choose one part of Him and leave another. Let not a bone of Him be broken, but let us take in a whole Christ, up to the full measure of our capacity. Prophet, Priest, and King, Christ Divine and Christ Human. Christ loving and living, Christ dying, Christ risen, Christ ascended, Christ coming again, Christ triumphant over all His foes–the whole Lord Jesus Christ is ours. We must not reject a single particle of what is revealed concerning Him, but must feed upon it all as we are able. (C. H. Spurgeon.)

Strength through the Spirit

When I was a student at Princeton, Professor Henry had so constructed a huge bar of iron, bent into the form of a horseshoe, that it used to hang suspended from another iron bar above it. Not only did it hang there, but it upheld four thousand pounds weight attached to it! That horseshoe magnet was not welded or glued to the metal above it; but through the iron wire coiled round it there ran a subtle current of electricity from a galvanic battery. Stop the flow of the current for one instant, and the huge horseshoe dropped. So does all the lifting power of a Christian come from the currents of spiritual influence which flow into his heart from the Living Jesus. The strength of the Almighty One enters into the believer. If his connection with Christ is cut off, in an instant he becomes as weak as any other man. (T. L. Cuyler, D. D.)

Vigorous spiritual life

By the inward man Paul means our central and highest life; and he prays that the life itself–not any particular portion of it–may be strengthened. Life is a mystery in its lowest as well as in its loftiest forms; but I suppose that we all attach a more or less definite conception to words which describe life as vigorous or feeble. When we say that a mans physical life is energetic we do not mean to say that any particular organ is strong, that he has great muscular force, can lift heavy weights and walk long distances; we mean to describe something which appears to us to lie within and beneath the physical organization, and which inspires the whole. When we speak of a mans intellectual life as strong or weak, we do not mean that some particular faculty is admirable or the reverse of admirable; a particular faculty may be singularly vigorous, and yet the man may give us the impression of intellectual feebleness; a particular faculty may be very deficient in vigour, and yet he may give us the impression of intellectual strength. If we say that a man is remarkable for his intellectual energy, we think of him as having in the very centre of his intellectual life a free and inexhaustible fountain of force and activity. It is the same in the spiritual life. There is a certain imperfection in many of us which I do not know how to describe except by saying that, though at times particular spiritual faculties may appear to be vigorous, the central life is weak. There are men whose zeal for the evangelization of the world is often very real and very fervent, but who give us no impression of spiritual strength. There are others who are often inspired with a passion for Christian perfection, but in them, too, there appears to be no real vigour. There are others who seem spiritually weak, though their vision of spiritual truth is very keen and penetrating. There are others who seem capable of very lofty devotion of awe, of vehement religious emotion, of rapture in the Divine love, and in the hope, of glory, honour, and immortality–and who yet give us the impression that they are wanting in those elements of life which constitute spiritual energy. In every one of these cases, to use language which suggests rather than expresses the truth, the vigour is not derived from the central fountains of life, but from springs that are more or less distant from the centre. The man himself is wanting in force, though there are spiritual forces at work in him. Those of us who are conscious that this is our condition should pray to God that we may be strengthened with power through His Spirit in the inward man. (R. W. Dale, LL. D.)

Strength of character

To those who have the misery of weakness–who never keep their better resolves, whose hearts are so divided, who are not really happy, because they have no concentration–to such it may be of immense comfort to know that real religion always gives strength–strength of character. It embraces, it unites, it consolidates, it makes real, it makes a man a man, it makes a Christian a Christian. How comforting, how apposite, how true, how deep, how full the words to those who feel their weakness–strengthened with might by His Spirit in the inner man. Let us look at them a little more accurately.

I. Notice, first, that it is all in the inner man. You have been trying often to change the outer man, your conduct, your way of speaking, your appearance in peoples eyes! some sin you endeavour to overcome, some outward inconsistency, some habit that you contracted. That wont do. You must go deeper, much deeper. It must be the inner man. And what is the inner man? I look first to conscience. You must take care that your conscience is a true conscience, an active conscience, and a conscience rooted. Next, motives. These must be pure. Then, thoughts–those little springs that swell into oceans, those germs of everything. Think reasonably, accurately, scripturally, thoughtfully. And affections–the likes and dislikes; those excellent servants, but horridly bad masters. And, above all, the inner working of the Holy Spirit, which goes on low down in the innermost chambers secret communion with God, intercourse with the Invisible. These make the inner man, the real essence of a mans being; and all the rest–all we do and all we say, all we suffer and all we enjoy–these are only the outsides, only the reflections of that inner man. In that inner man the strength, then, must be found–conscience, motives, thoughts, affections, silent teachings, spiritual converse, and the trafficking of the soul with God. In secret, there the strength must be found.

II. And how? By the Spirit; by the Holy Spirit. Nothing more we need, nothing less can do it. It must be a supernatural power. The Holy Ghost must enter, and He will do it. Everything will go to give strength.

III. And what will be the result? Might, true might, ever increasing might; might in prayer; commanding prayers; might in the spiritual battle, might in the battle with that wicked heart; might with the devil; might over daily self, might, might in work. Do your work, whatever your work may be, patiently, thoroughly, trustfully, effectually. Might in power, that great power, holiness; that silent witness, that most eloquent of all things, holiness. And, in union the hidden mystic union of God, which is the secret of it all; in which He is, who makes life, the essence of all which is worth the living; a real life, the life of your being. Oh that we might all know the strength that gives that might. How is it to be attained? What must I do? Begin at the centre, not at the circumference; not with outsides. Do not begin by trying to change the life outside; change the motive spring. (J. Vaughan, M. A.)

The wealth of God–rich in glory

In the very title of such a subject it is already proclaimed to be inexhaustible. Other topics may be compassed and disposed of in a certain way, but who shall grasp and estimate this? It is a sea of glory, and we have no line to fathom it. It is a mountain of gold, and we have no arithmetic to compute its value. It is a domain of beauty, and we have no adequate language in which to speak of it. It is a field of truth, and the end of all our searching is to discover that it is unsearchable. Happy are they who receive a few crumbs from this rich table, or a few glimpses of this glory! The riches of His glory. The glory of God is the forthshining of His being, the necessary splendour of His revelation of Himself. The glory of an object is that bright medium in which it stands revealed. The glory of the sun is the effulgence of light which it pours forth from its golden urn, revealing itself and all the worlds around. Painters seek to represent the glory of a saint by drawing a circle of light around the head. The glory of a king is seen when he sits upon his throne, crowned and sceptred, surrounded by his nobles, and canopied with banners, that speak of his victories. God is revealed in nature, and therefore the heavens declare the glory of God. God is revealed in providence, and therefore He is said to lead His people with His glorious arm. God is revealed in redemption, and therefore Jesus Christ is the brightness of His Fathers glory, and the express image of His person. The riches of His glory. How rich the expression! Language labours to utter all that is implied here. God is not only glorious, He is rich in glory. Notwithstanding all that He has revealed of Himself in the past, there still remain in Him for evermore depths of splendour unrevealed. All that we know of God, as compares with that which lies hid, is but as the first yellow streak of dawn which breaks the darkness of night to the full brightness of noonday. We may speak of the riches of God under three aspects–first, the riches of His power; second, the riches of His wisdom: and, third, the riches of His goodness; and, as it is the blended and harmonious attributes of God that make up His highest glory, the view of His riches under these three aspects may enable us to see something of the riches of His glory.

I. The riches of his power.

1. This is seen in the power to create. If a man could create in the highest sense of the word, how rich he would soon become! For his own wants he would have an immediate supply. When he was hungry he would create bread. When he wanted money he could turn everything he touched into gold. It is in the ability to produce that the source of wealth is found. The rich gift lies in the possession of the faculty to invent or make. Now, God has the power to create. He alone has that mysterious energy which called everything we see out of nothing. From all eternity God was sufficient for Himself, full of life and joy, and under no obligation, either from without or from within, to create a single world. His great and inconceivable act of creation, then, was a demonstration of His perfect freedom and His boundless power. It was the overflowing of the riches of His power.

2. But the riches of God are seen in the preservation of all things in existence as well as in their creation. The sublime act of creation did not exhaust or weary God. From day to day, from year to year, and from century to century, the whole universe is upheld in its primeval freshness and power.

3. The riches of the Divine power are seen not only in creation and preservation, but in recreation. We are taught in Scripture that a wondrous transformation must pass over the present world–that forms of being now around us will be dissolved in a deluge of fire, and that from this second deluge will emerge a new heaven and a new earth, wherein dwelleth righteousness. We are also taught that the bodies of men will be raised from the dust of the ground in a new and higher form. What marvellous exhibitions, then, has the future still in store of the riches of the power of God!

II. The riches of his wisdom. Wisdom is commonly said to lie in the use of the best means in order to the best ends; and many things might be said as to the adaptation of means to ends in nature. We can scarcely look at any work of God with an intelligent eye, but we begin to discover uses and harmonies and proofs of design in it. From what we already know in this direction we may conclude that the whole of nature is one vast and intricate design manifesting the wisdom and goodness of God; and we are expressly told that all things are working together for good. How manifest the traces of His wisdom in the way in which the earth has been fitted to develop and support man, and in the manifold provision made for mans education and comfort. But what we have to notice more particularly here is, not merely the wisdom of God, but the riches of His wisdom; and these are seen, not only in the original adaptation of means to ends, but in the way by which God can bring good out of evil. The machinist would be wise who could invent and construct a machine which, by the simplest movements, could produce mighty results; but he would be rich in wisdom, who, out of that same machine, when marred and broken, could produce still mightier results. A general is wise who can conduct a great campaign to a successful issue; but he is rich in wisdom who has always in his mind a plan beyond the last stratagem of the enemy, and can therefore turn the tide of battle when all seems to be lost, and pluck from the heart of widespread disaster a glorious victory. It is from this point of view that the riches of the Divine wisdom are seen–not merely in producing good, but in bringing good out of evil; not merely in producing beauty, but in bringing beauty out of deformity; not merely in producing harmony, but in bringing harmony out of discord; not merely in producing life, but in bringing life out of death. If the power of God is seen in the creation and preservation of all things, His wisdom is seen in making all things work together for good; and what a wealth of wisdom is implied in bringing out of the most contradictory and deleterious elements a vast, harmonious, and unspeakably valuable result! In a machine, a great variety of movements and powers contribute to one result. Wheels of different sizes revolve in different directions. There are perpendicular movements and horizontal movements; zig-zag movements and elliptical movements;–a swift and bewildering involution and evolution of forces, and a warring multitude of sounds–hissing and hammering, grinding and thumping; and yet there is the utmost harmony, and the most delicate and precise balance of action throughout the whole.

III. The riches of his goodness. We use the term goodness as a general expression to embrace the mercy, the compassion, the benignity, and the love of God. All the attributes of God culminate in love. God is first and last a God of love. The whole universe and the plan of redemption is summed up in love. It is the want of love, it is the selfishness and hatred, that is the curse and woe of the world. God comes to fill up the sorrowful void with His own rich heart. Think of the love of God in creation. He needed not to create anything in order to consummate His own happiness; but, if we may so speak, the joy and love of Gods being were so great that He could not keep them to Himself. He was rich in love; and His goodness overflowed. He created other beings that He might lavish upon them the grandeurs of His mind and the felicities of His heart. He created them, too, although He foresaw their fall, rebellion, and ingratitude. He created them, because He saw beyond the dark sin of man, and knew that His love could snatch from sorrow and the grave a new creation still. It is to the riches of the love of God, therefore, that we owe our very existence. Think of Gods love in providence. God would have been rich in love had He done nothing more than created man, and after that, when man had sinned, displayed the glory of His justice in crushing him forever. But God has not only created us; He has also preserved us, even in the midst of our deep depravity and alienation. But preeminently in the work of redemption do we see the riches of His goodness. There we behold God not only working and waiting, but making a great sacrifice for the salvation of man. How little do we know of the greatness of that gift, and of the depth of that sacrifice! How little do we know of that mystery of sorrow that seems to enter into the very Godhead, and all to save such a creature as man! Rich as is the power of God, man could not be saved by mere power. Rich as is the patience of God, man could not be saved by the mere lapse of time. God might have given away everything He had made; He might have emptied the exchequer of heaven; but the price would not have purchased the redemption of a single soul. He might have waited and pleaded with man for ages, explaining to man his sin and ingratitude; and yet man might not have relented. Something more had to be given, something more had to be done, and God gave that–God did that. He delivered up His only begotten Son, the Son of His love, that eternal One in comparison with whom the universe itself is worthless. Measure, then, Gods love to man by His regard for His own Son! By all that is beautiful and holy, by all that is deep and rapturous in the relation of Father and Son, measure the sacrifice involved in the death of Christi

1. God alone is rich. He alone is absolutely self-sufficient. He alone is the true possessor of everything. He alone can create. He alone can hold forever that which He now possesses. He alone has enough and to spare.

2. Every man in himself is poor. Sin reduces the soul to utter destitution, and all have sinned. It matters not that many say, We are rich, and increased with goods, and have need of nothing; not knowing that they are wretched, and miserable, and poor, and blind, and naked. Let a man labour ever so hard, let him pile his earthly treasures ever so high, he can never with his own puny hand fill the dark and sad abyss within himself.

3. He who was rich became poor for us (2Co 8:9).

4. It is a blessed thing to know that we are poor (Mat 5:3). The discovery of our own poverty implies some apprehension of the wealth of God, and hence its blessedness. We have, then, an ear for the word which says, I counsel thee to buy of Me gold tried in the fire, that thou mayest be rich. So great is the capacity of the soul, that if a man had the whole universe he would still be poor, being destitute of God. But with God he has all, and abounds; for the earth is the Lords and the fulness thereof.

5. Beware of despising the riches of God (Rom 2:5). (F. Ferguson, D. D.)

Strengthened with might

Let us consider that great thought of the Divine strength-giving power which may be bestowed upon every Christian soul.

I. First, then, I remark that God means, and wishes, that all Christians should be strong by the possession of the Spirit of might. I do not know what Christianity means, unless it means that you and I are forgiven for a purpose; that the purpose, if I may so say, is something in advance of the means towards the purpose, the purpose being that we should be filled with all the strength and righteousness and supernatural life granted to us by the Spirit of God. It is all well that we should enter into the vestibule; there is no other path unto the Throne but through the vestibule; but do not let us forget that the good news of forgiveness, though we need it day by day, and perpetually repeated, is but the introduction to, and porch of the Temple, and that beyond it there towers, if I cannot say a loftier, yet I may say a further gift, even the gift of a Divine life like His, from whom it comes, and of which it is in reality an effluence and a spark. The true characteristic gift of the gospel is the gift of a new power to a sinful weak world; a power which makes the feeble strong, and the strongest as an angel of God. I would maintain, in opposition to many modern conceptions, the actual supernatural character of the gift that is bestowed upon every Christian soul. My reading of the New Testament is that as distinctly above the order of material nature as is any miracle is the gift that flows into a believing heart. There is a direct passage between God and my spirit. It lies open to His touch; all the paths of its deep things can be trodden by Him. You and I act upon one another from without, He acts upon us within. We wish one another blessings; He gives the blessings.

II. Now notice, next, that this Divine strength has its seat in, and is intended to influence the whole of the inner life. As my text puts it, Strengthened with might by His Spirit in the inner man. That, I suppose, does not mean the new creation through faith in Jesus Christ; what the apostle calls the new man, but it means simply what another apostle calls the hidden man of the heart, and only refers to the distinction which we all draw between the outward, visible, material frame, and the unseen self that animates and informs it. It is this inner self, then, in which the Spirit of God is to dwell, and into which He is to breathe strength. The leaven is hid deep in three measures of meal until the whole be leavened. And the point to mark is that the whole inward region which makes up the true man is the field upon which this Divine Spirit is to work. It is not a bit of your inward life that is to be hallowed. It is not any one aspect of it that is to be strengthened, but it is the whole intellect, affections, desires, tastes, powers of attention, combination, memory, will. The whole inner man in all its corners is to be filled, and to come under the influence of this power, until there be no part dark, as when the bright shining of a candle giveth thee light. So for this Divine Indweller there is no part of my life that is not patent to His tread. There are no rooms of the house of my spirit into which He is not to go. Let Him come with the master key in His hand into all the dim chambers of your feeble nature; and as life is light in the eye, and colour in the cheek, and deftness in the fingers, and strength in the arm, and pulsation in the heart, so He will come and strengthen your understandings, and make you able for loftier tasks of intellect and of reason, than you can face in your unaided strength; and He will dwell in your affections and make them vigorous to lay hold upon the holier things that are above their natural inclination, and will make it certain that their reach shall not be beyond their grasp, as alas! it so often is in the sadness and disappointments of human loves. And He will come into that feeble, vacillating, wayward will of yours, that is only obstinate in its adherence to the low and the evil, as some foul creature, that one may try to wrench away, digs its claws into corruption and holds on by that, He will lift your will and make it fix upon the good and abominate the evil, and through the whole being He will pour a great tide of strength which shall cover all the weakness. He will be like some subtle elixir which, taken into the lips, steals through a pallid and wasted frame, and brings back a glow to the cheek and a lustre to the eye and a swiftness to the brain, and power to the whole nature. Or as some plant, drooping and flagging beneath the hot rays of the sun, when it has the scent of water given to it, will, in all its parts, stiffen and erect itself, so this Divine Spirit will go searching every corner of the inner man illuminating and invigorating all.

III. And now, lastly, let me point you still further to the measure of this power. It is limitless with the boundlessness of God Himself. That He would grant you, is the daring petition of the apostle, according to the riches of His glory to be strengthened. There is the measure. There is no limit except the uncounted wealth of His own self-manifestation, the flashing light of a revealed Divinity. Whatsoever there is of splendour in that, whatsoever there is of power there, in these and in nothing this side of them, lies the limit of the possibilities of a Christian life. Of course there is a working limit at each moment, and that is our capacity to receive, but that capacity varies, may vary indefinitely, may become greater and greater beyond our count or measurement. Our hearts may be made more and more capable of God; and in the measure in which they are capable of Him they shall be filled by Him. (A. Maclaren, D. D.)

The strengthening of the inner man

We are beings of a complex nature. We testify this fact in our common talk. We speak of body, soul, and spirit belonging to us. We describe our body by its various limbs and organs. We describe our mind as possessing emotional parts, intellectual parts, volitional parts. Each of these parts we describe in various ways, according to the numerous feelings and motions our inward nature is accustomed to. So complex is our nature that it is hardly possible to give an account of it sufficiently simplified to be plain to an unobservant man.

I. The text speaks of the inner man. It gives no definition of what the term includes. Does it mean by the inner man all the parts of our being which are not bodily? Or does it mean especially the part which we call the spirit, by which, when it is made active within us, we discern hidden and eternal realities? Or are both these meanings embraced by the term? Probably, I should say, both. The thinking and feeling faculties, the marvellous soul which perceives, searches, imagines, desires, loves, hates, resolves, and so forth–is not to be omitted from the inner man, which the Spirit of God visits and renews, inhabits and ennobles. Yet the spirit has a special place in the inner man, for it is the crown and glory of our being. Having our spirit born from above, endowed by the Spirit of God with its proper life and power, and applying ourselves to its exalted exercises, we live in connection with two worlds–the world of sense, and the world of spirit. This, then, is the first care for us–not only that our body be living in health, however congenial and helpful this may be; not only that our mind be alive to all our earthly concerns, and strong to attend to them, however lofty and important they may be: but that our spirit be alive, active, and enthroned in the world within us, having some conception of, and some participation in, the share which God would give us with Himself, in His own thoughts and purposes, His own joys and griefs, His own ways and works. This is our prime concern. This ought to be our prime passion. This is, for us, the glory that excelleth. This is our way to the priesthood and princeliness which the redeeming God bids us come up to and exercise. Be it our first care that we are born of the Spirit, and living in the Spirit.

II. The life of our spirit, however, being begun, may be in the feebleness of infancy. It may be enfeebled when it ought to be maturing through disorders preying upon it from our inferior desires. Indeed, we cannot be strong in spirit if we divide the supremacy between higher, and lower interests. All wilful sin injures our spiritual life, enfeebles its conceptions of God, dulls its sense of His presence. The confusion of soul into which we may fall by having received the vivifying and enlightening of the Holy Ghost, and having afterwards overruled the spiritual life within us by the lower life it was beginning to reduce and subject, is indescribable. We say, What shall we do? We are tempted to doubt Gods power to restore us with the imagination that He has cast us off. We may even come to look down tremblingly into the horrible abyss of despair. And all this misery and confusion of soul is often aggravated by a misinterpretation of those dark words of Scripture which are written concerning backsliders who have utterly fallen away, and have eschewed the blessing of the life they once entered. And I ask anyone who has ever fallen into such misery and confusion of inward strife after he had tasted the peace of Christs salvation, whether he did not learn in it his powerlessness to recover himself, and did not perceive that the best resolve and effort he could make would be no more than the galvanising of a dead limb unless another strength should be given him, and given him by the same Divine Spirit who before quickened him into a spiritual birth, unless God would hear the prayer which is no more than a broken wail of wretchedness and a struggling desire for healing? If the apostle wrote for any hearts thus fallen he might well write that he prayed for them. The text is a prayer. What else could it be to be sufficient? It is an intercessory prayer we should pray for one another in the gloomy hours of our brothers fall. It is a prayer to the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, of whom the whole family in heaven and earth is named, who is the only Father who has riches enough in His glory to be able to strengthen us with might in our inner man when we have sapped its power by infidelity to His gift of the Spirit. If in any of us the spiritual power has ebbed and fallen, let this prayer be ours. And let us humbly believe that it is the prayer Christ prays with us, moved by a consistency in love, and hope, and saving energy which we so sorely lack.

III. Having dwelt thus far on the supreme importance of spiritual life, and of the extreme need of its Divine strengthening which is occasioned and evinced by falls, let us in the next place seize a truth which we have barely touched yet. Let it be certain to us that this gift of strength to our spirits by the Spirit of God is our perpetual need. It is our need not only in that extremity of which we have spoken, but it is a need inherent in our nature, which was in us at birth, which will abide with us through death. Our inner man, our innermost man, wants a life and a strength which is not human but Divine. It wants a strength which is not ethereal but real. It wants a strength which will not lie idle, but will be diffused through our whole man, and be available for our whole life. It wants power of spiritual thought, spiritual perception, spiritual emotion, spiritual control, spiritual activity, spiritual endurance, spiritual influence, such as we see pervading and flowing from the whole character and conduct of Christ. The prayer of the text must be our prayer, because it asks for the power which is our perpetual need, which is the perpetual need of our children and brethren.

IV. Let our attention dwell next on this–the apostles prayer for his fellow Christians at Ephesus is a prayer for a gift of power from the Spirit of God to the spirit of man. It supposes a communication with us when we are spiritual which is no less than Gods own communion with us. There is a spiritual Divine touch, which is such as Christs touch that healed leprosy and raised the dead. There is a supernatural influence, and energy of the Divine Spirit in our spirits, which may become so real and manifest within us that the physical miracles of Christ rank beneath it. (J. E. Gibbert.)

The inner man

Everyone has an inner man, a better self, a potential perfection within him, which will awake and begin to flower when he feels in his soul the touch of God. There is laid down in the being of each man, or deposited there in germ, an ideal, a Divine ideal, which ought to become, under the nourishing powers of redemption and providence, the real. But there are so many outer men put on by some–one, another, and another yet–that the real inner man might seem to be hopelessly buried.

I. Let us look, now, at some of these outer men put on, worn from year to year, so as effectually to enclose, imprison, bury out of sight, the inner man which God and angels wait for, and would bring to the light with rejoicing.

1. Dress. The first thing one human being sees of another, when they are approaching each other, is the dress. A man is known–a woman is known–by the dress. But the sad thing is that in some instances that is all that you will see, even when you meet, nothing but the dress. All the active powers of the man, the woman, are concerned chiefly about that–the dress of life–what to wear on the person, in the house as furniture, in the garden as adornment, on the road as equipage. Exterior show is with them life, and they are always dressing. They are never away from the glass. The whole surrounding world is to them a mirror in which they see only themselves.

2. Manners. The manners are beneath the dress, come through the dress, make the dress more or less expressive, impressive, and beautiful. Nothing of an exterior nature can be more charming than graceful, polished, easy manners. Now, the Christian teaching nowhere leads us to despise manners. Quite the contrary. But we are regarding manners just now not as an expression of the Christian principle of feeling, but as a substitute for it. Not as a beautiful clothing by which the inner man speaks and makes itself known, but as one complete outer man, which muffles, hides, and sometimes buries out of sight, the glorious inner man of God. Just as life is to some all dress, so it is to some all manners.

3. Mind. Go deeper still, and you will find another outer man, which may go by this denomination–mind; indicating strong intellectual life, love of truth, i.e., natural truth; which presents itself to us in the form of fact and law–the scientific spirit. All this may be with a slumbering inner man. Knowledge is power. But it is not in the deepest sense life.

4. Morals. We are still going inwards in search of that great something of which our text is the name. Now we come into the great ethical region of human nature. Now we look at a moral man–a man who distinctly recognizes the great moral law of God, that stretches over the world and runs through and through it. He recognizes it distinctly, but of course very imperfectly, if yet the inner man, under all this moral action going on above it, lies in the main asleep. Asleep; by fits and starts perhaps awaking, and then falling into slumber again. This, too, as in the other cases, is the sad possibility.

II. The inner man. How is this to be discovered? How does a man reach the centre and fountain of his own being? find himself? recover himself? bring himself home again to God? There are great varieties of experience. But perhaps these things, or something like them, will be found in all.

1. First–what may be called a soul consciousness–a consciousness of having, or being, a soul. Not merely an animated something, to be covered with dress and beautified with manners. Not merely a thinking something, to be informed by knowledge and guided by morals. But a something spiritual, vast, deep, related to eternity, related to God.

2. The next thing is, the conscious relation to God. In that beautiful parable of the prodigal, touching as it does at so many points the actual experience of sinful men, we find that the wandering son no sooner comes to himself than he begins to think of his Father, and to talk of Him there, in those barren fields among the swine; and of His house, the beautiful home of his youth, and of His hired servants, and of the bread loading His tables–until his soul and his eyes are so full of the beauty and the peacefulness of other days, that the wilderness becomes more dark and dreary and horrible, and he says, I will arise, and leave all this, and go home again to my Father.

3. The next thing, or the thing which goes along with this very often, is the consciousness of sin. When the inner man is found, sin is found in it, or cleaving to it very closely.

4. Then, further, he becomes conscious of goodness as well as of sin. Not the old formal goodness; but goodness that is fresh and new and living: with love in the heart of it, gratitude lending it a glow and a lustre, faith building it up. This new life of goodness begins just with the other things we have named. Not after them, but with and in them. We are too apt to conceive the religious life as consisting in a series of consecutive exercises, the beginning of the one waiting for the completion of the other. First repentance, then cleansing and forgiveness, then gratitude, then filial love, then active goodness. Not so. The moment a man comes to himself, all these things begin together, and go on together. Some trees in early spring are yet covered with last years leaves; all withered now and begrimed. What says the new vegetation to these? I must wait until God sends winds strong enough to sweep them away; rains heavy enough to wash the tree clean in every branch? Not at all. That new vegetation, that fresh leafage, comes out and pushes them off, and clothes the tree with virgin green, drawing food and beauty from the mould of the earth, from the wandering wind, from the passing cloud. So goodness throws off sin, and dresses and adorns the soul in the beauties of Gods holiness. Then what becomes of all the outer men, such as those we named? They all fall in, and, so to speak, become parts of the found and ransomed inner man, which now needs them, which now uses them, for its own development, outcome, manifestation. They cease to have a separate and independent existence. They are controlled, in a measure absorbed, by that central grand something which now becomes the ruling power. It is as when a number of substances lie together in a chemists vessel, each separate from the others, each refusing to enter into combination with the rest, until some final element–with affinities for them all, with a power to blend them all into something else–is added. Then each yields, is altered, combines, and makes the one grand product that is sought. So a regenerate inner man will not throw aside these outer men altogether, but transform them, mould them to its own uses, make them speak its meanings and flash out all its lights. (A. Raleigh, D. D.)

Fuente: Biblical Illustrator Edited by Joseph S. Exell

Verse 16. That he would grant you] This prayer of the apostle is one of the most grand and sublime in the whole oracles of God. The riches of the grace of the Gospel, and the extent to which the soul of man may be saved here below, are most emphatically pointed out here. Every word seems to have come immediately from heaven; labouring to convey ideas of infinite importance to mankind. No paraphrase can do it justice, and few commentators seem to have entered into its spirit; perhaps deterred by its unparalleled sublimity. I shall only attempt a few observations upon the terms, to show their force and meaning; and leave all the rest to that Spirit by which these most important words were dictated. In the mean time referring the reader to the discourse lately published on this prayer of the apostle, entitled, The Family of God and its Privileges.

That he would grant you-You can expect nothing from him but as a free gift through Christ Jesus; let this be a ruling sentiment of your hearts when you pray to God.

According to the riches of his glory] According to the measure of his own eternal fulness; God’s infinite mercy and goodness being the measure according to which we are to be saved. In giving alms it is a maxim that every one should act according to his ability. It would be a disgrace to a king or a noble-man to give no more than a tradesman or a peasant. God acts up to the dignity of his infinite perfections; he gives according to the riches of his glory.

To be strengthened with might] Ye have many enemies, cunning and strong; many trials, too great for your natural strength; many temptations, which no human power is able successfully to resist; many duties to perform, which cannot be accomplished by the strength of man; therefore you need Divine strength; ye must have might; and ye must be strengthened every where, and every way fortified by that might; mightily and most effectually strengthened.

By his Spirit] By the sovereign energy of the Holy Ghost. This fountain of spiritual energy can alone supply the spiritual strength which is necessary for this spiritual work and conflict.

In the inner man] In the soul. Every man is a compound being; he has a body and a soul. The outward man is that alone which is seen and considered by men; the inward man is that which stands particularly in reference to God and eternity. The outward man is strengthened by earthly food, c. the inward man, by spiritual and heavenly influences. Knowledge, love, peace, and holiness, are the food of the inward man; or rather Jesus Christ, that bread of life which came down from heaven: he that eateth this bread shall live and be strengthened by it. The soul must be as truly fed and nourished by Divine food as the body by natural food.

Fuente: Adam Clarke’s Commentary and Critical Notes on the Bible

The riches of his glory; i.e. the abundance of his power: see Rom 6:4.

To be strengthened with might; further degrees of spiritual strength, proceeding from Gods power as the fountain.

By his Spirit; as the immediate worker of all inherent grace.

In the inner man; the reasonable powers of the soul as renewed by grace, the same as heart in the next verse, and spirit, 1Th 5:23; see 2Co 4:16.

Fuente: English Annotations on the Holy Bible by Matthew Poole

16. according tothat is inabundance consonant to the riches of His glory; not “accordingto” the narrowness of our hearts. Col1:11, “Strengthened with all might according to Hisglorious power.”

byGreek,“through“; “by means of His Spirit.”

inThe Greekimplies, “infused into.”

the inner man (Eph 4:22;Eph 4:24; 1Pe 3:4);”the hidden man of the heart.” Not predicated ofunbelievers, whose inward and outward man alike are carnal. But inbelievers, the “inner (new) man,” their true self, standsin contrast to their old man, which is attached to them as a body ofdeath daily being mortified, but not their true self.

Fuente: Jamieson, Fausset and Brown’s Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible

That he would grant you according to the riches of his glory,…. Or according to, and out of that rich, plenteous, and glorious fulness of grace and strength in Christ Jesus.

To be strengthened with might by his Spirit in the inner man; this is the petition which the apostle puts up on his bended knees to the Father of Christ, that he would strengthen these saints, that so they might not faint at the tribulations which either he or they endured. Believers in Christ need fresh supplies of strength to enable them to exercise grace, to perform duties, to resist Satan and his temptations, to oppose their corruptions, and to bear the cross, and undergo afflictions cheerfully, and to hold on and out to the end: this is a blessing that comes from God, and is a gift of his free grace; a “grant” from him who is the strength of the lives of his people, of their salvation, of their hearts, and of the work of grace in their hearts: the means whereby the saints are strengthened by God, is “his Spirit”; who strengthens them by leading them to the fulness of grace and strength in Christ, by shedding abroad the love of God in their hearts, by applying the promises of the Gospel to them, and by making the Gospel itself, and the ordinances of it, useful to them, causing them to go from strength to strength in them: the subject of this blessing is the “inner man”, or the Spirit, or soul of man, which is the seat of grace; and this shows that this was spiritual strength which is here desired, which may be where there is much bodily weakness, and for which there should be the greatest concern; and that this strength is not naturally there, it must be given, or put into it. This last phrase,

in the inner man, is joined to the beginning of the next verse in the Arabic, Syriac, and Ethiopic versions, “in the inner man Christ may dwell”, &c.

Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible

That he would grant you ( ). Sub-final clause with and the second aorist active subjunctive of , to give. There are really five petitions in this greatest of all Paul’s prayers (one already in 1:16-23), two by the infinitives after (, ), two infinitives after (, ), and the last clause . Nowhere does Paul sound such depths of spiritual emotion or rise to such heights of spiritual passion as here. The whole seems to be coloured with “the riches of His glory.”

That ye may be strengthened (). First aorist passive infinitive of , late and rare (LXX, N.T.) from , late form from (strength). See Lu 1:80. Paul adds (with the Spirit). Instrumental case.

In the inward man ( ). Same expression in 2Co 4:16 (in contrast with the outward , man) and in Ro 7:22.

Fuente: Robertson’s Word Pictures in the New Testament

Might [] . Rev., power. Appropriate to the succeeding phrase the inner man, since it signifies faculty or virtue not necessarily manifest. In the inward man [ ] . The force of the preposition is into : might entering into the inmost personality. Inward man : compare outward man, 2Co 4:16. It is the rational and moral I; the essence of the man which is conscious of itself as a moral personality. In the unregenerate it is liable to fall under the power of sin (Rom 7:23); and in the regenerate it needs constant renewing and strengthening by the Spirit of God, as here. Compare the hidden man of the heart, 1Pe 3:4.

Fuente: Vincent’s Word Studies in the New Testament

1) “That he would grant you” (hina do humin) “In order that he may give to you,” or dole out freely. It is the longing of the aged saint and always a mark of Christian maturity to yearn for God’s blessings upon the worker, Gal 6:1; Php_1:1-5.

2) “According to the riches of his glory” (kata to ploutos tes dokses autou) “According to or based upon the riches (plutocracy) of his glory,” Eph 1:7; Eph 2:4; Php_4:19. This refers to the inexhaustible riches of Him most glorious in whom all holiness of being and actions exist, Mat 5:48; Heb 12:14; 1Pe 1:15-16.

3) “To be strengthened with might” (dunamei krataiothenai) By dynamic power to become mighty.” In matters of patience, longsuffering, Christian joy, etc. Paul prayed that the Ephesian brethren might become spiritually empowered and sustained, Col 1:11; as also in Eph 6:10.

4) “By his Spirit in the inner man” (dia tou pneumatos autou eis ton eso anthropon) “Through his Spirit with revelation to the inward man.” When the spiritual nature of the inner man radiates, activates, controls, or keeps the outer man under subjection, great good and glory is returned to the Lord, Eph 4:3-4; Eph 4:30; Gal 5:16; Gal 5:22-25.

Fuente: Garner-Howes Baptist Commentary

16. That he would give to you. Paul wishes that the Ephesians should be strengthened; and yet he had already bestowed on their piety no mean commendation. But believers have never advanced so far as not to need farther growth. The highest perfection of the godly in this life is an earnest desire to make progress. This strengthening, he tells us, is the work of the Spirit; so that it does not proceed from man’s own ability. The increase, as well as the commencement, of everything good in us, comes from the Holy Spirit. That it is the gift of Divine grace, is evident from the expression used, that he would give to you This the Papists utterly deny. They maintain that the second grace is bestowed upon us, according as we have individually deserved it, by making a proper use of the first grace. But let us unite with Paul in acknowledging that it is the “gift” of the grace of God, not only that we have begun to run well, but that we advance; not only that we have been born again, but that we grow from day to day.

According to the riches of his glory. These words are intended to express still more strongly the doctrine of Divine grace. They may be explained in two ways: either, according to his glorious riches, making the genitive, agreeably to the Hebrew idiom, supply the place of an adjective, — or, according to his rich and abundant glory. The word glory will thus be put for mercy, in accordance with an expression which he had formerly used, “to the praise of the glory of his grace.” (Eph 1:6) I prefer the latter view.

In the inner man. By the inner man, Paul means the soul, and whatever relates to the spiritual life of the soul; as the outward man denotes the body, with everything that belongs to it, — health, honors, riches, vigor, beauty, and everything of that nature. “Though our outward man perish, yet our inward man is renewed day by day;” that is, if in worldly matters we decay, our spiritual life becomes more and more vigorous. (2Co 4:16) The prayer of Paul, that the saints may be strengthened, does not mean that they may be eminent and flourishing in the world, but that, with respect to the kingdom of God, their minds may be made strong by Divine power.

Fuente: Calvin’s Complete Commentary

(16) To be strengthened with might by his Spirit in the inner man.From the Father, as the source of all life and being, St. Paul passes on to the Spirit, proceeding from the Father, as the giver of life to men. His prayer here, as in Eph. 1:17, is for the gift of the Spirit, but under some difference of aspect. There the prayer is for illumination, here for strength to grasp the mystery, to be rooted in love, and be filled up to the fulness of God. Accordingly, there the inner man is represented only by the eyes of the heart; here (as in Rom. 7:22; 2Co. 4:16) we hear of the inner man in his entirety, including all facultiesintellectual, emotional, moralwhich make up his spiritual nature. And St. Paul emphasises this prayer very strikingly by asking that the gift may be according to the riches of His glory, unlimited as the illimitable glory of the Divine Nature itself. Moreover, a greater closeness of communion is clearly indicated here. For light is a gift from without; strength comes from an indwelling power, making itself perfect in weakness, and continually growing from grace to grace.

Fuente: Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers (Old and New Testaments)

16. Riches of his glory An affluence too abounding for any one race alone. Strengthened with might For the immense attainments of Eph 3:18-19. In Rather, into; implying the inpouring of the might of the divine Father. This favours Meyer’s thought, that Paul’s prayer for their might is antithetic to their faintness, in Eph 3:13. Their faintness did, indeed, (as Eadie objects,) take occasion from the mere “personal wrongs” of St. Paul; nevertheless it was a spiritual weakness unmanning their whole Christian might. He might well pray, therefore, for the whole wonderful energizing expressed in the following verses; for spiritual power is in sum total what he asks.

Inner man The spirit, in antithesis to the body, the outer man. And also, perhaps, the spirit, as the ethical Ego, in which all spiritual operations are centered, in distinction from the anima, or soul, in which the animal and secular intellectualities reside. So Rom 7:22: “I delight in the law of God after the inward man.” Yet the Holy Spirit in the inner man sheds his purifying power through body and soul as well as spirit. Note on Mat 5:8, and 1Th 5:23.

The phrase inner man is found in a similar sense in Plato; but there is no reason for supposing it borrowed by Paul directly from Plato. It was probably current among thinkers in Paul’s day, as such terms become in periods when men deeply reflect.

Fuente: Whedon’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments

Eph 3:16. The riches of his glory, His glorious riches: the glorious abundance of graces which he has to bestow.

Fuente: Commentary on the Holy Bible by Thomas Coke

Eph 3:16 . ] (see the critical remarks) introduces the design of the . . ., and therewith the contents of the prayer. Comp. on Eph 1:17 .

] i.e. in accordance with the fact that His glory is in so great fulness. Comp. on Eph 1:7 . It may be referred either to or to what follows. The former is the most natural; comp. Eph 1:17 . According to His rich fulness in glory, God can and will bestow that which is prayed for. The , namely, embraces the whole glorious perfection of God, and can only with caprice be limited to the power (Grotius, Koppe, and others) or to the grace (Beza, Calvin, Zachariae, and others; comp. Matthies, Holzhausen, Olshausen).

] instrumental dative: with power (which is instilled) to be strengthened ; opposite of , Eph 3:13 . That which effects this strengthening is the Holy Spirit ( ). Comp. Rom 15:13 . According to Harless, it is dative of the form (comp. , Xen. Mem. ii. 7. 7), so that the being strengthened in power is regarded as opposed to the being strengthened in knowledge, or the like. But to what end would Paul have added ., if he had meant such special strengthening? The strengthening is to concern the whole inner man; hence the reference to a single faculty of the mind (Olshausen refers primarily to the will ) has no ground in the context. Others have explained it adverbially: in a powerful manner (Beza, Vater, Rckert, Matthies). See Bos, ed. Schaef. p. 743; Matthiae, p. 897. In this way would be power, which is applied on the part of the strengthener . Comp. Xen. Cyr. i. 2. 2. But our interpretation better accords with the contrast of , which implies a want of power on the part of the readers .

] , not for (Vulgate, Beza, and others), but in reference to the inner man , containing the more precise definition of the relation. See Khner, II. 557, note I. The inner man (not to be identified with the ) is the subject of the , the rational and moral ego , the essence of man which is conscious of itself as an ethical personality, which is in harmony with the divine will (Rom 7:16 ; Rom 7:25 ); but in the case of the unregenerate is liable to fall under bondage to the power of sin in the flesh (Rom 7:23 ), and even in the case of the regenerate [186] needs constant renewing (Eph 4:23 ; Rom 12:2 ) and strengthening by the Spirit of God, whose seat of operation it is ( ), in order not to be overcome by the sinful desire in the , of which the , the animal soul-nature, is the living principle (Gal 5:16 f.). The opposite is (2Co 4:16 ), i.e. the man as an outward phenomenon, constituted by the (Col 2:11 ), which, by reason of its psychical quality (1Co 15:44 ), is the seat of sin and death (Rom 6:6 ; Rom 7:18 ; Rom 7:24 ). The inner man in and by itself is by virtue of the moral nature of its , as the Ego exerting the moral will, and assenting to the divine law (Rom 7:20 ; Rom 7:22 ) directed to the good, yet without the renewing and strengthening by the Holy Spirit too weak for accomplishing, in opposition to the sinful principle in the , the good which is perceived, felt, and willed by it (Rom 7:15-23 ). We may add, it is all the less an “ absurd assertion” (Harless), that the conceptions and are derived from Plato’s philosophy (see the passages from Plato, Plotinus, and Philo, in Wetstein, and Fritzsche on Rom 7:22 ), inasmuch as for the apostle also the in itself is the moral faculty of thinking and willing in man; inasmuch, further, as the Platonic dichotomy of the human soul-life into ( ) and is found also in Paul (1Th 5:23 ; comp. Heb 4:12 ), and inasmuch as the Platonic expressions had become popular (comp. also 1Pe 3:4 ), so that with the apostle the Platonism of that mode of conception and expression by no means needed to be a conscious one, or to imply an acquaintance with the Platonic philosophy as such.

[186] It must be decided exclusively by the connection on each occasion, whether (as here and 2Co 4:16 ; comp. 1Pe 3:4 ) the inner man of the regenerate is intended, or that of the unregenerate (Rom 7:22 ). The man is regenerate, however (in opposition to the evasive view in Delitzsch, Psych . p. 380 f.), only of water and the Spirit (Tit 3:5 ).

Fuente: Heinrich August Wilhelm Meyer’s New Testament Commentary

16 That he would grant you, according to the riches of his glory, to be strengthened with might by his Spirit in the inner man;

Ver. 16. According to the riches of his glory ] That is, of his grace; so 2Co 3:18 . See Trapp on “ 2Co 3:18 “

Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)

16 .] that (see on after words of beseeching, &c., note, 1Co 14:13 . The purpose and purport of the prayer are blended in it) He may give you, according to the riches of His glory (specifies , not what follows: give you, in full proportion to the abundance of His own glory His own infinite perfections), to be strengthened with might (the dative has been taken in several ways: 1) adverbially, ‘ mightily ,’ as , Xen. Cyr. i. 2. 2, to which Meyer objects, that thus would be strength on the side of the bestower rather than of the receiver, whereas the contrast with (?) requires the converse. This hardly seems sufficient to disprove the sense: 2) dative of the form or shape in which the . was to take place (Harl, al.), as in , Xen. Mem. ii. 7. 7, to which Meyer replies that thus the would only apply to one department of the spiritual life, instead of to all. But this again seems to me not valid: for ‘ might ,’ ‘ power ,’ is not one faculty, but a qualification of all faculties. Rather I should say that such a meaning would involve a tautology ‘strengthened in strength.’ 3) the instrumental dative is maintained by Mey., De W., al., and this view seems the best: ‘ with (His) might ,’ imparted to you) by His Spirit (as the instiller and imparter of that might) into (not merely ‘in,’ but ‘ to and into ,’ as Ellic.: importing “the direction and destination of the prayed for gift of infused strength.” , , Schol. in Cramer’s Catena. Similarly Orig., . . . . , ib. Both rightly, as far as the idea of infusing into is concerned: but clearly wrong, as are the Gr.-ff. in general, in taking . . . with what follows, thus making . . tautological, or giving to the meaning, ‘ through the faith which is in your hearts ,’ which it cannot bear) the inner man (the spiritual man the noblest portion of our being, kept, in the natural man, under subjection to the flesh (reff.), but in the spiritual, renewed by the Spirit of God) that (continuation, not of the prayer merely, not from , as the strong word , emphatically placed, sufficiently shews, but from , and that as its result (see Orig. above: not its purpose, .). See a similar construction Col 1:10 ) Christ may dwell (emphatic; abide, take up His lasting abode: ‘summa sit, non procul intuendum esse Christum fide, sed recipiendum esse anim nostr complexu, ut in nobis habitet,’ Calv.) by your faith (apprehending Him, and opening the door to Him, see Joh 14:23 ; Rev 3:20 and keeping Him there) in your hearts (“partem etiam designat ubi legitima est Christi sedes; nempe cor: ut sciamus, non satis esse, si in lingua versetur, aut in cerebro volitet.” Calv.), ye having been (Beza, Grot., al., and Meyer (and so E. V.), join the participles with the following , justifying the trajection by Gal 2:10 ; 2Th 2:7 ; Act 19:4 al. But those cases are not parallel, as in every one of them the prefixed words carry especial emphasis, which here they cannot do. We must therefore regard the clause as an instance of the irregular nominative (see ch. Eph 4:2 ; Col 2:2 , and reff. there) adopted to form an easy transition to that which follows. Meyer strongly objects to this, that the participles are perfect , not present, which would be thus logically required. But surely this last is a mistake. It is upon the completion, not upon the progress, of their rooting and grounding in love, that the next clause depends. So Orig., Chrys., all., and Harl., De W., and Ellic.) rooted and grounded (both images, that of a tree, and that of a building, are supposed to have been before the Apostle’s mind. But was so constantly used in a figurative sense (see examples in Palm and Rost sub voce) as hardly perhaps of necessity to suggest its primary image. Lucian uses both words together, de Saltat. 34 (Wetst.), . ) in love (love, generally not merely , as Chrys., nor ‘ qua diligimur a Deo ,’ Beza; nor need we supply ‘in Christ’ after the participles, thus disconnecting them from ., as Harl.: but as Ellic. well says, “This (love) was to be their basis and foundation, in (on?) which alone they were to be fully enabled to realize all the majestic proportions of Christ’s surpassing love to man”), that ye may be fully able (ref.: , Strabo, xvii. p. 788 (417 Tauchn.)) to comprehend (reff. “many middle forms are distinguished from their actives only by giving more the idea of earnestness or spiritual energy: , Thucyd. iii. 20: , . Plato.” Krger, griech. Sprachlehre, 52. 4) with all the saints (all the people of God, in whom is fulfilled that which is here prayed for) what is the breadth and length and height and depth (all kinds of fanciful explanations have been given of these words. One specimen may be enough: . , , ; , , , , , , . Severianus, in Cramer’s Catena. Similarly Origen, ib., Jer., Aug., Anselm, Aquin., Est. (‘longitudo temporum est, latitudo Iocorum, altitudo glori, profunditas discretionis’). Numerous other explanations, geometrical, architectural, and spiritual, may be seen in Corn.-a-lap., Pole’s Synops., and Eadie. The latter, as also Bengel and Stier, see an allusion to the Church as the temple of God Chandler and Macknight to the temple of Diana at Ephesus. Both are in the highest degree improbable. Nor can we quite say that the object of the sentence is the love of Christ (Calv., Mey., Ellicott, al.): for that is introduced in a subordinate clause by and by (see on below): rather, with De W., that the genitive after these nouns is left indefinite that you may be fully able to comprehend every dimension scil., of all that God has revealed or done in and for us (= . , Col 2:2 ) though this is not a genitive to be supplied , but lying in the background entirely) and ( introduces not a parallel, but a subordinate clause. Of this Hartung, i. p. 105, gives many examples. Eur. Hec. 1186, | , , | , : Med. 642, , . So that the knowledge here spoken of is not identical with the above, but forms one portion of it, and by its surpassing excellence serves to exalt still more that great whole to which it belongs) to know the knowledge-passing ( , genitive of comparison after ., as in , Herod. viii. 137, , Plato, Tim. p. 20 A. See Khner, ii. 540. are chosen as a paradox, being taken in the sense of ‘ mere,’ ‘bare’ knowledge (ref.), and in the pregnant sense of that knowledge which is rooted and grounded in love, Php 1:9 ) Love of Christ (subjective genitive; Christ’s Love to us see Rom 5:6 note, and Rom 8:35-39 not ‘ our love to Christ .’ Nor must we interpret with Harl. (and Olsh.), “ to know the Love of Christ more and more as an unsearchable love .” It is not this attribute of Christ’s Love, but the Love itself, which he prays that they may know), that ye may be filled even to all the fulness of God ( abides in Christ, Col 2:9 . Christ then abiding in your hearts, ye, being raised up to the comprehension of the vastness of God’s mercy in Him and of His Love, will be filled, even as God is full each in your degree, but all to your utmost capacity, with divine wisdom and might and love. Such seems much the best rendering: and so Chrys. (altern.), .

. then is the possessive genitive. The other interpretation taking as a genitive of origin, and for , ‘ut omnibus Dei donis abundetis,’ Est., is not consistent with (see above), nor with the force of the passage, which having risen in sublimity with every clause, would hardly end so tamely).

Fuente: Henry Alford’s Greek Testament

Eph 3:16 . : that He would grant you according to the riches of His glory . The introduces the subject of the prayer, representing it, however, also as the thing which he had in view in praying and which made the purpose of his prayer (see under Eph 1:17 above). For the of the TR (with [327] [328] [329] , etc.), the RV (with LTTrWH) gives as in [330] [331] [332] [333] [334] , 17, etc. (see under Eph 1:17 above). For (TR, with [335] 3 [336] [337] , etc.) read again to , with [338] [339] [340] [341] [342] [343] , etc. The is the whole revealed perfections of God, not merely His grace or His power ; and the clause belongs more fitly to the than to the following . The measure of the gift for which Paul prays on behalf of the Ephesians is nothing short of those perfections of God which are revealed now in their glorious fulness and inexhaustible wealth ( cf. Eph 1:7 ; Eph 1:18 ; Eph 2:4 ; Eph 2:7 ). : to be strengthened by power through His Spirit . The is taken by some as the dat. of manner , or as an adverbial expression = mightily . But the former mention of the suggests that the power is regarded here as in the subjects rather than as put forth by God. Others make it the dat. of reference , or take it to denote the particular form in which the strengthening was to take effect, viz. , in the form of power as contrasted with knowledge or other kinds of gifts. But there is nothing to suggest limitation to one special capacity. Such limitation indeed would be inconsistent with the comprehensive . It is best understood as the dat. instrum. The strengthening was to take effect by means of power imparted or infused, and this impartation of power was to be made through the Spirit of God. : into the inward man . The “inward man” is viewed here as the recipient , that into which the strengthening was to be poured, or the object towards which the gift was directed. The , therefore, has its full force of “into,” and is not to be reduced either to “in” (RV), or to “in regard of” (Mey.). The phrase has certain parallels in classical Greek, e.g. , (Plato, Rep. , ix., p. 589), (Plotin., Enn. , v., 1, 10); and it is conceivable that these philosophical expressions had become popularised in course of time, and had penetrated even into the common speech of Jews, or at least into the vocabulary of educated Jews. But the question is What is the force of the phrase in the NT itself? The two terms , denote the two sides or aspects of the nature of man, soul and body, real and phenomenal, enduring and perishable ( cf. the contrast in 2Co 4:16 ); as the terms , ( ) denote his twofold moral nature. The itself occurs only thrice in the NT, and all three occurrences are in the Pauline Epistles (Rom 7:22 ; 2Co 4:16 ; Eph 3:16 ). It has different shades of meaning there, but the same general sense, viz. , that of the personal subject , the rational, moral self , somewhat similar to the in Rom 7:23 , and the of 1Pe 3:4 . In this the goodness of the law of God can be recognised so that one can delight in that law. But there is another law that wars against it and brings it into subjection (Rom 7:19-23 ). Hence the has to be regenerated, and so becomes “the new man,” , that is created after God ( , Eph 4:24 ), or , that is renewed ( , Col 3:10 ). The strength , therefore, which was to be communicated by the impartation of new spiritual power through the Holy Spirit was a gift to enrich and invigorate the deepest and most central thing in them their whole conscious, personal being.

[327] Codex Claromontanus (sc. vi.), a Grco-Latin MS. at Paris, edited by Tischendorf in 1852.

[328] Codex Mosquensis (sc. ix.), edited by Matthi in 1782.

[329] Codex Angelicus (sc. ix.), at Rome, collated by Tischendorf and others.

[330] Codex Vaticanus (sc. iv.), published in photographic facsimile in 1889 under the care of the Abbate Cozza-Luzi.

[331] Codex Sinaiticus (sc. iv.), now at St. Petersburg, published in facsimile type by its discoverer, Tischendorf, in 1862.

[332] Codex Alexandrinus (sc. v.), at the British Museum, published in photographic facsimile by Sir E. M. Thompson (1879).

[333] Codex Ephraemi (sc. v.), the Paris palimpsest, edited by Tischendorf in 1843.

[334] Codex Augiensis (sc. ix.), a Grco-Latin MS., at Trinity College, Cambridge, edited by Scrivener in 1859. Its Greek text is almost identical with that of G, and it is therefore not cited save where it differs from that MS. Its Latin version, f, presents the Vulgate text with some modifications.

[335] Codex Claromontanus (sc. vi.), a Grco-Latin MS. at Paris, edited by Tischendorf in 1852.

[336] Codex Mosquensis (sc. ix.), edited by Matthi in 1782.

[337] Codex Angelicus (sc. ix.), at Rome, collated by Tischendorf and others.

[338] Codex Sinaiticus (sc. iv.), now at St. Petersburg, published in facsimile type by its discoverer, Tischendorf, in 1862.

[339] Codex Vaticanus (sc. iv.), published in photographic facsimile in 1889 under the care of the Abbate Cozza-Luzi.

[340] Codex Alexandrinus (sc. v.), at the British Museum, published in photographic facsimile by Sir E. M. Thompson (1879).

[341] Codex Ephraemi (sc. v.), the Paris palimpsest, edited by Tischendorf in 1843.

[342] Codex Claromontanus (sc. vi.), a Grco-Latin MS. at Paris, edited by Tischendorf in 1852.

[343] Codex Augiensis (sc. ix.), a Grco-Latin MS., at Trinity College, Cambridge, edited by Scrivener in 1859. Its Greek text is almost identical with that of G, and it is therefore not cited save where it differs from that MS. Its Latin version, f, presents the Vulgate text with some modifications.

Fuente: The Expositors Greek Testament by Robertson

EPHESIANS

STRENGTHENED WITH MIGHT

Eph 3:16

In no part of Paul’s letters does he rise to a higher level than in his prayers, and none of his prayers are fuller of fervour than this wonderful series of petitions. They open out one into the other like some majestic suite of apartments in a great palace-temple, each leading into a loftier and more spacious hall, each drawing nearer the presence-chamber, until at last we stand there.

Roughly speaking, the prayer is divided into four petitions, of which each is the cause of the following and the result of the preceding-’That He would grant you, according to the riches of His glory, to be strengthened with might by His Spirit in the inner man’-that is the first. ‘In order that Christ may dwell in your hearts by faith,’ ‘ye being rooted and grounded in love’-such is the second, the result of the first, and the preparation for the third. ‘That ye may be able to comprehend with all saints … and to know the love of Christ which passeth knowledge,’ such is the third, and all lead up at last to that wonderful desire beyond which nothing is possible-’that ye might be filled with all the fulness of God.’

I venture to contemplate dealing with these four petitions in successive sermons, in order, God helping me, that I may bring before you a fairer vision of the possibilities of your Christian life than you ordinarily entertain. For Paul’s prayer is God’s purpose, and what He means with all who profess His name is that these exuberant desires may be fulfilled in them. So let us now listen to that petition which is the foundation of all, and consider that great thought of the divine strength-giving power which may be bestowed upon every Christian soul.

I. First, then, I remark that God means, and wishes, that all Christians should be strong by the possession of the Spirit of might.

It is a miserably inadequate conception of Christianity, and of the gifts which it bestows, and the blessings which it intends for men, when it is limited, as it practically is, by a large number-I might almost say the majority-of professing Christians to a simple means of altering their relation to the past, and to the broken law of God and of righteousness. Thanks be to His name! His great gift to the world begins in each individual case with the assurance that all the past is cancelled. He gives that blessed sense of forgiveness, which can never be too highly estimated unless it is forced out of its true place as the introduction, and made to be the climax and the end, of His gifts. I do not know what Christianity means, unless it means that you and I are forgiven for a purpose; that the purpose, if I may so say, is something in advance of the means towards the purpose, the purpose being that we should be filled with all the strength and righteousness and supernatural life granted to us by the Spirit of God.

It is well that we should enter into the vestibule. There is no other path to the throne but through the vestibule. But do not let us forget that the good news of forgiveness, though we need it day by day, and need it perpetually repeated, is but the introduction to and porch of the Temple, and that beyond it there towers, if I cannot say a loftier, yet I may say a further gift, even the gift of a divine life like His, from whom it comes, and of which it is in reality an effluence and a spark. The true characteristic blessing of the Gospel is the gift of a new power to a sinful weak world; a power which makes the feeble strong, and the strongest as an angel of God.

Oh, brethren! we who know how, ‘if any power we have, it is to ill’; we who understand the weakness, the unaptness of our spirits to any good, and our strength for every vagrant evil that comes upon them to tempt them, should surely recognise as a Gospel in very deed that which proclaims to us that the ‘everlasting God, the Lord, the Creator of the ends of the earth,’ who Himself ‘fainteth not, neither is weary.’ hath yet a loftier display of His strength-giving power than that which is visible in the heavens above, where, ‘because He is strong in might not one faileth.’ That heaven, the region of calm completeness, of law unbroken and therefore of power undiminished, affords a lesser and dimmer manifestation of His strength than the work that is done in the hell of a human heart that has wandered and is brought back, that is stricken with the weakness of the fever of sin, and is healed into the strength of obedience and the omnipotence of dependence. It is much to say ‘for that He is strong in might, not one of these faileth;’ it is more to say ‘He giveth power to them that have failed; and to them that have no might He increaseth strength.’ The Gospel is the gift of pardon for holiness, and its inmost and most characteristic bestowment is the bestowment of a new power for obedience and service.

And that power, as I need not remind you, is given to us through the gift of the Divine Spirit. The very name of that Spirit is the ‘Spirit of Might.’ Christ spoke to us about being ‘endued with power from on high.’ The last of His promises that dropped from His lips upon earth was the promise that His followers should receive the power of the Spirit coming upon them. Wheresoever in the early histories we read of a man who was full of the Holy Ghost, we read that he was ‘full of power.’ According to the teaching of this Apostle, God hath given us the ‘Spirit of power,’ which is also the Spirit ‘of love and of a sound mind.’ So the strength that we must have, if we have strength at all, is the strength of a Divine Spirit, not our own, that dwells in us, and works through us.

And there is nothing in that which need startle or surprise any man who believes in a living God at all, and in the possibility, therefore, of a connection between the Great Spirit and all the human spirits which are His children. I would maintain, in opposition to many modern conceptions, the actual supernatural character of the gift that is bestowed upon every Christian soul. My reading of the New Testament is that as distinctly above the order of material nature as is any miracle, is the gift that flows into a believing heart. There is a direct passage between God and my spirit. It lies open to His touch; all the paths of its deep things can be trodden by Him. You and I act upon one another from without, He acts upon us within. We wish one another blessings; He gives the blessings. We try to train, to educate, to incline, and dispose, by the presentation of motives and the urging of reasons; He can plant in a heart by His own divine husbandry the seed that shall blossom into immortal life. And so the Christian Church is a great, continuous, supernatural community in the midst of the material world; and every believing soul, because it possesses something of the life of Jesus Christ, has been the seat of a miracle as real and true as when He said ‘Lazarus, come forth!’ Precisely this teaching does our Lord Himself present for our acceptance when He sets side by side, as mutually illustrative, as belonging to the same order of supernatural phenomena, ‘the hour is coming when the dead shall hear the voice of the Son of God and they that hear shall live,’ which is the supernatural resurrection of souls dead in sin,-and ‘the hour is coming in the which all that are in the graves shall hear His voice, and shall come forth,’ which is the future resurrection of the body, in obedience to His will.

So, Christian men and women, do you set clearly before you this: that God’s purpose with you is but begun when He has forgiven you, that He forgives you for a design, that it is a means to an end, and that you have not reached the conception of the large things which He intends for you unless you have risen to this great thought-He means and wishes that you should be strong with the strength of His own Divine Spirit.

II. Now notice, next, that this Divine Power has its seat in, and is intended to influence the whole of, the inner life.

As my text puts it, we may be ‘strengthened with might by His Spirit in the inner man.’ By the ‘inner man’ I suppose, is not meant the new creation through faith in Jesus Christ which this Apostle calls ‘the new man,’ but simply what Peter calls the ‘hidden man of the heart’ the ‘soul,’ or unseen self as distinguished from the visible material body which it animates and informs. It is this inner self, then, in which the Spirit of God is to dwell, and into which it is to breathe strength. The leaven is hid deep in three measures of meal until the whole be leavened. And the point to mark is that the whole inward region which makes up the true man is the field upon which this Divine Spirit is to work. It is not a bit of your inward life that is to be hallowed. It is not any one aspect of it that is to be strengthened, but it is the whole intellect, affections, desires, tastes, powers of attention, conscience, imagination, memory, will. The whole inner man in all its corners is to be filled, and to come under the influence of this power, ‘until there be no part dark, as when the bright shining of a candle giveth thee light.’

There is no part of my being that is not patent to the tread of this Divine Guest. There are no rooms of the house of my spirit into which He may not go. Let Him come with the master key in His hand into all the dim chambers of your feeble nature; and as the one life is light in the eye, and colour in the cheek, and deftness in the fingers, and strength in the arm, and pulsation in the heart, so He will come with the manifold results of the one gift to you. He will strengthen your understandings, and make you able for loftier tasks of intellect and of reason than you can face in your unaided power; He will dwell in your affections and make them vigorous to lay hold upon the holy things that are above their natural inclination, and will make it certain that their reach shall not be beyond their grasp, as, alas! it so often is in the sadness and disappointments of human love. He will come into that feeble, vacillating, wayward will of yours, that is only obstinate in its adherence to the low and the evil, as some foul creature, that one may try to wrench away, digs its claws into corruption and holds on by that. He will lift your will and make it fix upon the good and abominate the evil, and through the whole being He will pour a great tide of strength which shall cover all the weakness. He will be like some subtle elixir which, taken into the lips, steals through a pallid and wasted frame, and brings back a glow to the cheek and a lustre to the eye, and swiftness to the brain, and power to the whole nature. Or as some plant, drooping and flagging beneath the hot rays of the sun, when it has the scent of water given to it, will, in all its parts, stiffen and erect itself, so, when the Spirit is poured out on men, their whole nature is invigorated and helped.

That indwelling Spirit will be a power for suffering. The parallel passage to this in the twin epistle to the Colossians is-’strengthened with all might unto all patience and long-suffering with gentleness.’ Ah, brethren! unless this Divine Spirit were a power for patience and endurance it were no power suited to us poor men. So dark at times is every life; so full at times of discouragements, of dreariness, of sadness, of loneliness, of bitter memories, and of fading hopes does the human heart become, that if we are to be strong we must have a strength that will manifest itself most chiefly in this, that it teaches us how to bear, how to weep, how to submit.

And it will be a power for conflict. We have all of us, in the discharge of duty and in the meeting of temptation, to face such tremendous antagonisms that unless we have grace given to us which will enable us to resist, we shall be overcome and swept away. God’s power given by the Divine Spirit does not absolve us from the fight, but it fits us for the fight. It is not given in order that, holiness may be won without a struggle, as some people seem to think, but it is given to us in order that in the struggle for holiness we may never lose ‘one jot of heart or hope,’ but may be ‘able to withstand in the evil day, and having done all to stand.’

It is a power for service. ‘Tarry ye in Jerusalem till ye be endued with power from on high.’ There is no such force for the spreading of Christ’s Kingdom, and the witness-bearing work of His Church, as the possession of this Divine Spirit. Plunged into that fiery baptism, the selfishness and the sloth, which stand in the way of so many of us, are all consumed and annihilated, and we are set free for service because the bonds that bound us are burnt up in the merciful furnace of His fiery power.

‘Ye shall be strengthened with might by His Spirit in the inner man’-a power that will fill and flood all your nature if you will let it, and will make you strong to suffer, strong to combat, strong to serve, and to witness for your Lord.

III. And now, lastly, let me point you still further to the measure of this power. It is limitless with the boundlessness of God Himself. ‘That he would grant you’ is the daring petition of the Apostle, ‘according to the riches of His glory to be strengthened.’

There is the measure. There is no limit except the uncounted wealth of His own self-manifestation, the flashing light of revealed divinity. Whatsoever there is of splendour in that, whatsoever there is of power there, in these and in nothing on this side of them, lies the limit of the possibilities of a Christian life. Of course there is a working limit at each moment, and that is our capacity to receive; but that capacity varies, may vary indefinitely, may become greater and greater beyond our count or measurement. Our hearts may be more and more capable of God; and in the measure in which they are capable of Him they shall be filled by Him. A limit which is always shifting is no limit at all. A kingdom, the boundaries of which are not the same from one year to another, by reason of its own inherent expansive power, may be said to have no fixed limit. And so we appropriate and enclose, as it were, within our own little fence, a tiny portion of the great prairie that rolls boundlessly to the horizon. But to-morrow we may enclose more, if we will, and more and more; and so ever onwards, for all that is God’s is ours, and He has given us His whole self to use and to possess through our faith in His Son. A thimble can only take up a thimbleful of the ocean, but what if the thimble be endowed with a power of expansion which has no term known to men? May it not, then, be that some time or other it shall be able to hold so much of the infinite depth as now seems a dream too audacious to be realised?

So it is with us and God. He lets us come into the vaults, as it were, where in piles and masses the ingots of uncoined and uncounted gold are stored and stacked; and He says, ‘Take as much as you like to carry.’ There is no limit except the riches of His glory.

And now, dear friends, remember that this great gift, offered to each of us, is offered on conditions. To you professing Christians especially I speak. You will never get it unless you want it, and some of you do not want it. There are plenty of people who call themselves Christian men that would not for the life of them know what to do with this great gift if they had it. You will get it if you desire it. ‘Ye have not because ye ask not.’

Oh! when one contrasts the largeness of God’s promises and the miserable contradiction to them which the average Christian life of this generation presents, what can we say? ‘Hath His mercy clean gone for ever? Doth His promise fail for evermore?’ Ye weak Christian people, born weakling and weak ever since, as so many of you are, open your mouths wide. Rise to the height of the expectations and the desires which it is our sin not to cherish; and be sure of this, as we ask so shall we receive. ‘Ye are not straitened in God.’ Alas! alas! ‘ye are straitened in yourselves.’

And mind, there must be self-suppression if there is to be the triumph of a divine power in you. You cannot fight with both classes of weapons. The human must die if the divine is to live. The life of nature, dependence on self, must be weakened and subdued if the life of God is to overcome and to fill you. You must be able to say ‘Not I!’ or you will never be able to say ‘Christ liveth in me.’ The patriarch who overcame halted on his thigh; and all the life of nature was lamed and made impotent that the life of grace might prevail. So crush self by the power and for the sake of the Christ, if you would that the Spirit should bear rule over you.

See to it, too, that you use what you have of that Divine Spirit. ‘To him that hath shall be given.’ What is the use of more water being sent down the mill lade, if the water that does come in it all runs away at the bottom, and none of it goes over the wheel? Use the power you have, and power will come to the faithful steward of what he possesses. He that is faithful in a little shall get much to be faithful over. Ask and use, and the ancient thanksgiving may still come from your lips. ‘In the day when I cried, Thou answeredst me, and strengthenedst me with strength in my soul.’

Fuente: Expositions Of Holy Scripture by Alexander MacLaren

That = In order that. Greek. hina.

would grant = may give.

you = to you.

to be strengthened. See 1Co 16:13.

might. App-172.

Spirit. App-101.

inner. See Rom 7:22.

man. App-123.

Fuente: Companion Bible Notes, Appendices and Graphics

16.] that (see on after words of beseeching, &c., note, 1Co 14:13. The purpose and purport of the prayer are blended in it) He may give you, according to the riches of His glory (specifies , not what follows: give you, in full proportion to the abundance of His own glory-His own infinite perfections), to be strengthened with might (the dative has been taken in several ways: 1) adverbially, mightily, as , Xen. Cyr. i. 2. 2,-to which Meyer objects, that thus would be strength on the side of the bestower rather than of the receiver, whereas the contrast with (?) requires the converse. This hardly seems sufficient to disprove the sense: 2) dative of the form or shape in which the . was to take place (Harl, al.), as in , Xen. Mem. ii. 7. 7,-to which Meyer replies that thus the would only apply to one department of the spiritual life, instead of to all. But this again seems to me not valid: for might, power, is not one faculty, but a qualification of all faculties. Rather I should say that such a meaning would involve a tautology-strengthened in strength. 3) the instrumental dative is maintained by Mey., De W., al., and this view seems the best: with (His) might, imparted to you) by His Spirit (as the instiller and imparter of that might) into (not merely in, but to and into, as Ellic.: importing the direction and destination of the prayed for gift of infused strength. , , Schol. in Cramers Catena. Similarly Orig., . . . . , ib. Both rightly, as far as the idea of infusing into is concerned: but clearly wrong, as are the Gr.-ff. in general, in taking . . . with what follows, thus making . . tautological, or giving to the meaning, through the faith which is in your hearts, which it cannot bear) the inner man (the spiritual man-the noblest portion of our being, kept, in the natural man, under subjection to the flesh (reff.), but in the spiritual, renewed by the Spirit of God)-that (continuation, not of the prayer merely,-not from ,-as the strong word , emphatically placed, sufficiently shews,-but from ,-and that as its result (see Orig. above: not its purpose,- .). See a similar construction Col 1:10) Christ may dwell (emphatic; abide, take up His lasting abode: summa sit, non procul intuendum esse Christum fide, sed recipiendum esse anim nostr complexu, ut in nobis habitet, Calv.) by your faith (apprehending Him, and opening the door to Him,-see Joh 14:23; Rev 3:20-and keeping Him there) in your hearts (partem etiam designat ubi legitima est Christi sedes; nempe cor: ut sciamus, non satis esse, si in lingua versetur, aut in cerebro volitet. Calv.),-ye having been (Beza, Grot., al., and Meyer (and so E. V.), join the participles with the following , justifying the trajection by Gal 2:10; 2Th 2:7; Act 19:4 al. But those cases are not parallel, as in every one of them the prefixed words carry especial emphasis, which here they cannot do. We must therefore regard the clause as an instance of the irregular nominative (see ch. Eph 4:2; Col 2:2, and reff. there) adopted to form an easy transition to that which follows. Meyer strongly objects to this, that the participles are perfect, not present, which would be thus logically required. But surely this last is a mistake. It is upon the completion, not upon the progress, of their rooting and grounding in love, that the next clause depends. So Orig., Chrys., all., and Harl., De W., and Ellic.) rooted and grounded (both images, that of a tree, and that of a building, are supposed to have been before the Apostles mind. But was so constantly used in a figurative sense (see examples in Palm and Rost sub voce) as hardly perhaps of necessity to suggest its primary image. Lucian uses both words together, de Saltat. 34 (Wetst.),- . ) in love (love, generally-not merely , as Chrys., nor qua diligimur a Deo, Beza; nor need we supply in Christ after the participles, thus disconnecting them from ., as Harl.: but as Ellic. well says, This (love) was to be their basis and foundation, in (on?) which alone they were to be fully enabled to realize all the majestic proportions of Christs surpassing love to man),-that ye may be fully able (ref.: , Strabo, xvii. p. 788 (417 Tauchn.)) to comprehend (reff. many middle forms are distinguished from their actives only by giving more the idea of earnestness or spiritual energy: , Thucyd. iii. 20: , . Plato. Krger, griech. Sprachlehre, 52. 4) with all the saints (all the people of God, in whom is fulfilled that which is here prayed for) what is the breadth and length and height and depth (all kinds of fanciful explanations have been given of these words. One specimen may be enough: . , , ; , , , , , , . Severianus, in Cramers Catena. Similarly Origen, ib., Jer., Aug., Anselm, Aquin., Est. (longitudo temporum est, latitudo Iocorum, altitudo glori, profunditas discretionis). Numerous other explanations, geometrical, architectural, and spiritual, may be seen in Corn.-a-lap., Poles Synops., and Eadie. The latter, as also Bengel and Stier, see an allusion to the Church as the temple of God-Chandler and Macknight to the temple of Diana at Ephesus. Both are in the highest degree improbable. Nor can we quite say that the object of the sentence is the love of Christ (Calv., Mey., Ellicott, al.): for that is introduced in a subordinate clause by and by (see on below): rather, with De W., that the genitive after these nouns is left indefinite-that you may be fully able to comprehend every dimension-scil., of all that God has revealed or done in and for us (= . , Col 2:2)-though this is not a genitive to be supplied, but lying in the background entirely) and ( introduces not a parallel, but a subordinate clause. Of this Hartung, i. p. 105, gives many examples. Eur. Hec. 1186,- | , , | , : Med. 642, , . So that the knowledge here spoken of is not identical with the above, but forms one portion of it, and by its surpassing excellence serves to exalt still more that great whole to which it belongs) to know the knowledge-passing ( , genitive of comparison after ., as in , Herod. viii. 137,- , Plato, Tim. p. 20 A. See Khner, ii. 540. are chosen as a paradox, being taken in the sense of mere, bare knowledge (ref.), and in the pregnant sense of that knowledge which is rooted and grounded in love, Php 1:9) Love of Christ (subjective genitive; Christs Love to us-see Rom 5:6 note, and Rom 8:35-39-not our love to Christ. Nor must we interpret with Harl. (and Olsh.), to know the Love of Christ more and more as an unsearchable love. It is not this attribute of Christs Love, but the Love itself, which he prays that they may know), that ye may be filled even to all the fulness of God ( abides in Christ, Col 2:9. Christ then abiding in your hearts, ye, being raised up to the comprehension of the vastness of Gods mercy in Him and of His Love, will be filled, even as God is full-each in your degree, but all to your utmost capacity, with divine wisdom and might and love. Such seems much the best rendering: and so Chrys. (altern.), .

. then is the possessive genitive. The other interpretation taking as a genitive of origin, and for , ut omnibus Dei donis abundetis, Est., is not consistent with (see above), nor with the force of the passage, which having risen in sublimity with every clause, would hardly end so tamely).

Fuente: The Greek Testament

Eph 3:16. , with might) This accords with the mention of the Spirit.- , in the inner man) The inner man is the man himself with all his faculties, considered as to the things within, ch. Eph 4:22; Eph 4:24; 1Pe 3:4. The inner man is to the Spirit of God what the hearts of the saints are to Christ, Eph 3:17. The inner men is mostly taken in a good sense; because with the wicked all things are in full harmony with wickedness, and there is no need of limitation or distinction.[48] The Scripture has regard chiefly to things internal. The Chiasmus must be noticed: in the first sentence we have, that He would grant to you; in the second, to dwell; in the third, in love-that you may be able: in the fourth, that you might be filled. The third relates to the second, the fourth to the first. In the first and fourth God is mentioned; in the second and third, Christ. If we suppose a colon placed after and after , the matter will be clear.

[48] i.e. Both the inward and outward man are all of one kind in the bad, viz. they are all alike bad. Whereas in the godly there is a distinction between the inward new nature and the old nature, which, though still in them, is, as it were, something foreign and external to them, and no longer constituting their true and inner self.-ED.

Fuente: Gnomon of the New Testament

Eph 3:16

Eph 3:16

that he would grant you, according to the riches of his glory,-[It is not his power to the exclusion of his mercy, nor his mercy to the exclusion of his power, but it is everything in God that renders him glorious, the proper object of adoration. The apostle prays that God would deal with his people according to the plenitude of his grace and power, which constitutes his glory and makes him to his creatures the source of all good.]

that ye may be strengthened with power-[To be powerfully strengthened so as to bear trials; to perform duties, to glorify his name.]

through his Spirit in the inward man;-The inner man is the spiritual man as distinguished from the outer or fleshly man. This is strengthened by the Spirit of God, that it may be able to stand in the trials and temptations, to which it is subjected. The Spirit increases their strength by their feeding on the sincere milk of the word, or on the pure teachings of the Holy Spirit. We all, with unveiled face beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are transformed into the same image from glory to glory, even as from the Lord the Spirit. (2Co 3:18). The Spirit gives strength and growth to the spiritual man, after he has entered into the body of Christ, or the church of God. Again, Paul says: Not by works done in righteousness, which we did ourselves, but according to his mercy he saved us, through the washing of regeneration and renewing of the Holy Spirit, which he poured out upon us richly, through Jesus Christ our Saviour. (Tit 3:5-6). They were washed from their past sins; then in their Christian life they were continually renewed, made stronger by the Holy Spirit giving strength at every step they take in the way marked out by the Holy Spirit through the word given to guide them, and so they were saved. It is very hurtful for one to think that he can receive the help of the Spirit without taking the word of the Spirit into the heart. The Spirit gave the law, dwells in the law, and imparts his blessings through the law.

Fuente: Old and New Testaments Restoration Commentary

Power in the Inward Man

I bow my knees unto the Father, that he would grant you, according to the riches of his glory, that ye may be strengthened with power through his Spirit in the inward man.Eph 3:16.

In every sphere of life to-day there is an urgent demand for strength or efficiency. The apostles of physical culture denounce, in large letters, the crime of not being strong. Their laudable endeavour is to persuade us to develop our powers by exercise; but they have no gospel for the weak. There are strong-minded men who agree with John Stuart Mill that, notwithstanding all the talk about brain-fag, it would do most people good to use their minds more than they do. And if worry be distinguished from work, it is probably true that increased mental effort would mean, for the majority of people, increased mental power. There is a corresponding truth in the spiritual life, as every Christian knows. The writer of the Epistle to the Hebrews refers to the harmful effects which are the inevitable result of neglecting to exercise the higher faculties of the soul (v. 11, 14). Though our ears have been opened and we have heard the whisper of His love, we shall become dull of hearing unless we listen often and listen long for the still and small and inward voice of His Spirit. Therefore, let us exercise ourselves unto godliness (1Ti 2:7), but withal let us remember that the central truth of the Christian gospel is not that we are to become strong merely by development of our own powers, by exercise of our own faculties, by conservation of our own energies; if we are to become strong, we must be strengthened by a power that is not ourselves, and St. Paul can name that power and bear witness to its energizingit is the power of the Holy Spirit.1 [Note: J. G. Tasker.]

I

The Desire

That ye may be strengthened with power.

1. What shall the universal Father be asked to give to His needy children upon earth? They have newly learnt His name; they are barely recovered from the malady of their sin, fearful of trial, weak to meet temptation. Strength is their first necessity: I bow my knees unto the Father that he would grant you, according to the riches of his glory, that ye may be strengthened with power through his Spirit in the inward man. The Apostle asked them in Eph 3:13, in view of the greatness of his own calling, to be of good courage on his account; now he entreats God so to reveal to them His glory and to pour into their hearts His Spirit, that no weakness or fear may remain in them. The strengthening of which he speaks is the opposite of the faintness of heart, the failure of courage deprecated in Eph 3:13.

In Pauls opinion a Christian had no right to be weak. To Timothy, his spiritual son, he wrote, Thou therefore, my son, be strong in the grace that is in Christ Jesus. To the Colossians, We desire that ye might be strengthened with all might, according to his glorious power, unto all patience and long-suffering with joyfulness. To the Corinthians, Watch ye, stand fast in the faith, quit you like men, be strong. And again, to the Ephesians, Finally, my brethren, be strong in the Lord and in the power of his might. To be strong is a duty; therefore to be weak is a sin. Why art thou lean, being the kings son?1 [Note: D. J. Burrell, The Religion of the Future, 14.]

2. Strengthened with power. The word for power is familiar to-day in the forms dynamite, electric dynamos, etc. It signifies force or energy in an intense degree. We have it in the 19th and 20th verses of the 1st chapter: And what is the exceeding greatness of his power to us-ward who believe, according to the working of his mighty power, which he wrought in Christ, when he raised him from the dead; and then in the 20th verse of this third chapter: Now unto him that is able to do exceeding abundantly above all that we ask or think, according to the power that worketh in us.

I confess that power, the possession of power, is one of the ideas I am trying to master. It seems to be greater every day I live; I am only just beginning to understand it, but Paul says that the power working in us is the power that raised Christ up from the dead. I cling to that thought, because I find that in my weakness and unworthiness I am like Christ in the tomb, and I pray that I may be raised up, out of weakness into strength, out of selfishness into sympathy, out of earth into Heaven. The power is the great power of God, the power of resurrection, the power of endless life.1 [Note: J. W. Ewing, The Undying Christ, 77.]

3. It was when we were without strength that Christ died for the ungodly, and the work of new creation is to restore strength to our thoughts, to our volitions, to our speech, and to our action. He worketh in us to will, and to do. He kindles within us a flame of spiritual passion, a force of resolution, before which even bars of iron must give way, and which makes us mighty through God to the pulling down of strongholds. One man in real earnest is a match for a thousand who do not know either their own minds or their Makers; and while others are putting it to the vote, or seeking authority for reform, or graciously holding that a balance of argument is in favour of the truth of Christianity, he who knows Almighty God, and with whom God dwells, knows the great secret of truth beyond all doubt, speaks not as the scribes, but pushes on the work of God as a soldier who sees victory before him and the Kingdom nigh at hand.

There are important cases in which the difference between half a heart and a whole heart makes just the difference between signal defeat and a splendid victory.2 [Note: A. K. H. Boyd.]

When Palmerston was trying to get Cobden into the Government, and meeting all his objections in a light and airy way, Cobden at length said: But, my Lord, I am in earnest. That closed the conversation. Palmerston, I should think, would look on earnestness in politics as the one unpardonable sin, as it is often looked upon now.3 [Note: G. W. E. Russell, Sir Wilfrid Lawson, 29.]

Take me out of the langour, the irritability, the sensitiveness, the incapability, the anarchy, in which my soul lies, and fill it with Thy fullness. Breathe on me, that the dead bones may live. Breathe on me with that Breath which infuses energy and kindles fervour. In asking for fervour, I ask for all that I can need, and all that Thou canst give; for it is the crown of all gifts and all virtues. It cannot really and fully be, except where all are present. It is the beauty and the glory, as it is also the continual safeguard and purifier of them all. In asking for fervour, I am asking for effectual strength, consistency, and perseverance; I am asking for deadness to every human motive and simplicity of intention to please Thee; I am asking for faith, hope, and charity in their most heavenly exercise. In asking for fervour, I am asking to be rid of the fear of man, and the desire of his praise; I am asking for the gift of prayer, because it will be so sweet; I am asking for that loyal perception of duty which follows on yearning affection; I am asking for sanctity, peace, and joy all at once. In asking for fervour, I am asking for the brightness of the Cherubim and the fire of the Seraphim, and the whiteness of all Saints. In asking for fervour I am asking for that which, while it implies all gifts, is that in which I signally fail. Nothing would be a trouble to me, nothing a difficulty, had I but fervour of soul.

Lord, in asking for fervour, I am asking for Thyself, for nothing short of Thee, O my God, who hast given Thyself wholly to us. Enter my heart substantially and personally, and fill it with fervour by filling it with Thee. Thou alone canst fill the soul of man, and Thou hast promised to do so. Thou art the living Flame, and ever burnest with love of man: enter into me and set me on fire after Thy pattern and likeness.1 [Note: Newmans Meditations and Devotions, in Wards Life of Cardinal Newman, ii. 367.]

II

The Sphere

In the inward man.

1. By the inward man is meant, not the new creation through faith in Jesus Christ which this Apostle calls the new man, but simply what Peter calls the hidden man of the heart, the soul, or unseen self, as distinguished from the visible material body, which it animates and informs. It is this inward self, then, in which the Spirit of God is to dwell, and into which it is to breathe strength. The leaven is hid deep in three measures of meal until the whole is leavened. And the point to note is that the whole inward region which makes up the true man is the field upon which this Divine Spirit is to work. It is not a bit of our inward life that is to be hallowed. It is not any one aspect of it that is to be strengthened; it is the whole intellect, affections, desires, tastes, powers of attention, conscience, imagination, memory, will. The whole inward man in all its corners is to be filled, and to come under the influence of this power, until there be no part dark, as when the bright shining of a candle doth give thee light.

The inward man, of which St. Paul speaks as delighting in the law of God, is the moral personality. When the inward man is regenerated, it becomes the new man; but before this renewal in the spirit of our mind (Eph 4:23), the inward man can recognize the goodness of Him whose holy law is the expression of an ideal, which wins the admiration of him whose failures compel him to cry, It is high, it is high; I cannot attain unto it. To be strengthened with power through his Spirit in the inward man means therefore the invigoration of our noblest powers, the enriching of the higher self, the imparting of new energy to our whole conscious personal being. The result of the Holy Spirits energizing is neither the gradual extinction of desire nor the enfeeblement of the will; on the contrary, the Spirit-filled personality desires more ardently and wills more strongly. The difference is that the inward man is no longer infirm of purpose. All, and more than all, that the wisest ethical teachers intend, when they extol the virtue of self-control, is a gift of grace to those who walk in the flesh, but do not war according to the flesh. Those who walk in the Spirit also war according to the Spirit, and in the Spirits strength they are enabled to bring every thought into captivity to the obedience of Christ (2Co 10:5).1 [Note: J. G. Tasker.]

The day came when Paul was led out along the road towards Ostia to his execution. There were priests and beggars and Arab merchants and sailors and camel-drivers who turned to look. What they saw was an armed guard with a Jewish culprit in chains; a man of mean presence outwardly, but destined to walk through history like a giant. The place was reached; there was the flash of a heavy sword; a head fell from the block. Theres an end of this zealot, said the executioner to his men. Little they knew! The real Paul cannot be slain. He is destined to be heard from. The inner man will walk up and down in Church councils, a participant in all great theological controversies, until the end of time. His death is but the widening of his parish.

Out of sight sinks the stone

In the deep sea of time, but the circles sweep on!1 [Note: D. J. Burrell, The Religion of the Future, 15.]

2. Every one has an inward man, a better self, a potential perfection within him, which will awake and begin to flower when he feels in his soul the touch of God. There is laid down in the being of each man, or deposited there in germ, an ideal, a Divine ideal, which ought to become, under the nourishing powers of redemption and providence, the real. The man is not himself truly, until he has at least begun to translate the ideal into the real in his daily life. So we read that the prodigal came to himself; he had been beside himself until then, a kind of lunatic. For madnessso saith the Wise Manis in the heart of the sons of men while they live; he means in sin, and away from God. When they come to God they come to sanity, to self. In fact, coming to ones self in discovery, idea, desire, deep-grasping consciousness, is the first step in the way of return to God and happiness. That hour of full awakening is the supreme season of a mans life. How very far some men seem to be from it! But there is this consolationthat they are not always so far from it as they seem.

Mr. Macgregors nature presented a union, difficult for those who did not know him to understand, of feeling, of intellect, and strength of will. If feeling overpowered him for the moment, it was not suffered to carry him away. No impulse was allowed to master him for which he could not find intellectual justification; and then what he felt and experienced his resolute will turned into a force of life. That these days at Keswick were a turning-point in his life, there is not the smallest doubt. That they made his later ministry what it was, is equally certain. To say that he sometimes appeared to claim for this experience and its effects more than the facts altogether warranted, is only to say that, though remarkably enlightened and strengthened by Gods Spirit, he remained a fallible human being. But no one who knew George Macgregor, either as a man or a minister, before that crisis and after it, could question that he found then a new secret of strength both for his own life, and for his work.1 [Note: Life of George H. C. Macgregor, M.A., 110.]

Pauls great solicitude is for the inner man; if he can only get that strengthened he feels that his work is done. And he is right. The inner man is the metropolis, the capital, the chief city; all the provinces take their tone from there. No man must begin with the provinces if he wants to make his fortune. In vain you adorn the body, in vain you amass the gold, in vain you seek the sights and sounds of beauty; the capital is the heart, and if the fashion of the heart be sombre, the whole is sad. But if the fashion of the heart be bright, I have no fear for the provinces; these will soon follow. The body may be meanly clad, the gold may be scarce and dim, the sights and sounds of beauty may be shut out by lane and alley, but if in the heart there be voices of laughter, they will fill all the land. If there be songs in the metropolis, I shall not be able to keep down my singing. I shall sing through all the provinces; I shall sing in the cold and in the snow; I shall sing in the dark and in the rain; I shall sing amid my struggles for daily bread. The life of joy is everywhere when there is gladness in the inner Man 1:2 [Note: G. Matheson, Voices of the Spirit, 219.]

3. How then is the discovery made? How does a man reach the centre and fountain of his own being? find himself? recover himself? bring himself home again to God? There are very great varieties of experience. But perhaps these things, or something like them, will be found in all.

(1) First, there is what may be called a soul consciousnessa consciousness of having, or being, a soul; not merely an animated something, to be covered with dress and beautified with manners; not merely a thinking something, to be informed by knowledge and guided by morals; but a something spiritual, vast, deep, related to eternity, related to God.

(2) The next thing is the conscious relation to God. No sooner does a man become conscious of his true self than he in that very act becomes cognizant and sensible of God. Some philosophic thinkers say that the deep and true self-consciousness is also, in a sense, consciousness of Godthat we are so related to the Infinite that we cannot become conscious of our truest selves without touching and feeling it, without touching and feeling God.

(3) The third thing, or the thing which goes along with this very often, is the consciousness of sinI will say unto him, Father, I have sinned. When the inward man is found, sin is found in it, or cleaving to it very closely. Yes, real sin, deep, soul-humbling sin. Not merely infirmity, mistake, and misadventure; but sin, which makes the sinner guilty, which makes him unworthy of kindness, worthy of wrath.

(4) Then, further, he becomes conscious of goodness as well as of sin. Not the old formal goodness; but goodness that is fresh and new and living; with love in the heart of it, gratitude lending it a glow and a lustre, faith building it up. This new life of goodness begins just with the other things we have named. Not after them, but with and in them. We are too apt to conceive of the religious life as consisting in a series of consecutive exercises, the beginning of the one waiting for the completion of the other. First repentance, then cleansing and forgiveness, then gratitude, then filial love, then active goodness. Not so. The moment a man comes to himself, all these things begin together, and go on together.

Some trees in early spring are yet covered with last years leaves; all withered now and begrimed. What says the new vegetation to these? I must wait until God sends winds strong enough to sweep them away; rains heavy enough to wash the tree clean in every branch? Not at all. That new vegetation, that fresh leafage, comes out and pushes them off, and clothes the tree with virgin green, drawing food and beauty from the mould of the earth, from the wandering wind, from the passing cloud. So goodness throws off sin, and dresses and adorns the soul in the beauties of Gods holiness.1 [Note: A. Raleigh, The Way to the City, 9.]

III

The Agent

Through his Spirit.

1. In comparing the characters of Greek and Roman story described in Plutarchs Lives with those depicted in unfading colours in the Old and New Testaments, one feels that both of these great picture galleries are filled with portraits of men of immense strength and resolution. But there is this difference, that in Plutarchs heroes the human element of strength is supreme, while in the Scripture biographies there is added a Divine element of spiritual and moral power arising from vital contact with the Infinite and Eternal Goda spiritual power almost unknown to the Greeks and Romans, and producing types of men and women who seem to belong to another species through their union with the spiritual realms. This contrast is seen at a glance when we compare the heroes of Homer and of the Greek tragedians with those of the historical books of the Bible, or the poems of Greece and Rome with the remains of Hebrew song collected in the Book of Psalms. Aristotle himself says, when speaking of mens relation to the gods, that all Greece would laugh if any man were to say that he loved Jupiter. How different the tone of David! I will love thee, O Lord, my strength; I will sing praise to my God while I have any being.

The expression in St. Pauls Epistle to the Ephesians, chosen as the text of this sermon, describes the quality of such souls. They were strengthened with power through his Spirit in the inward man. It is by no merely natural decision or force of character that men and women are made conquerors of death and time. Such new force, exhibiting itself in unfashionable faith, in thought, in purpose, in action, in speech, in Suffering, in sacrifice, in love, is the work of that Almighty Spirit from which all forms of energy proceed, but whose chief work in the universe is the creation of inspired character.

Every month seems to reveal to us more fully, in the progress of scientific discovery, the wonderful nature of the invisible energies which pervade and animate the material universe, until we look almost with speechless astonishment at the men whose experimental gifts, and mysterious insight, and mathematical grasp of thought, have unveiled the action of these interior energies of heat, and light, and electricity, and magnetism, and chemical affinity, and subdued them in practical forms to the service of man in the modern world. Hear the words of Dr. Crooke, spoken to his Company on opening the electric light for Ladbroke Square last week: Before finishing I just want to draw your attention to a little bit of philosophy. We ought to have some philosophy in an electric light installation. Millions of years ago the sun shone upon the earth; plants grew; they died, and were converted in the course of time into coal. The light of the sun which was shining then was transformed into the latent energy of the coal. That coal has been dug up millions of years afterwards, and is forming the fire under the boiler. The heat of the coal is raising the steam, which, thus produced, passes through the engine and is being converted into motion. That motion is being communicated to the armature of the dynamo, which produces magnetism, and this, in its turn, produces electricity. The electricity is conducted into the secondary batteries and is there changed into chemical action. This chemical action is reconverted into electric current in the mains, and when human brains and energy are employed to direct the current in the right direction, the ultimate result is evident to you in the form of light. This light is the identical energy of the sun, bottled up in the coal measures countless ages ago, and now reproduced after having undergone more strange transformations than were ever dreamed of in fairyland.

But we live in the midst of still sublimer manifestations of one and the self-same Spirit, in His dealings, not with matter, but with soulsin the work of renewing them in the image of God, to an endless life, a life as indestructible as the Divine. For it is never to be forgotten that it is one and the self-same Spirit who has governed the geological and zoological development of this globe with its physical forces in the past eternities, in whose hand have been the deep places of the earth, and who has directed the gradual evolution of all living things. It is the same almighty Spirit who is now occupied in the work of saving men by creating them anew in the image of God for life everlasting; and whose far more mysterious and glorious energies are employed in strengthening with might the inner man for an endless life of power, obedience, and love. Now if any man have not this Spirit of Christ he is none of his.1 [Note: Edward White.]

2. Nothing is more familiar in Scripture than the conception of the indwelling Spirit of God as the source of moral strength. The special power that belongs to the gospel Christ ascribes altogether to this cause. Ye shall receive power, He said to His disciples, after that the Holy Ghost is come upon you. Hence is derived the vigour of a strong faith, the valour of the good soldier of Christ Jesus, the courage of the martyrs, the cheerful and indomitable patience of multitudes of obscure sufferers for righteousness sake.

God will show himif a man wishes to be like Christ, and to work like Christ, at doing good; God will teach him and guide him in all puzzling matters. And do not be afraid of being called cowards and milksops for bearing injuries patiently; those who call you so will be likely to be the greatest themselves. Patience is the truest sign of courage. Ask old soldiers who have seen real war, and they will tell you that the bravest men, the men who endured best, not in mere fighting, but in standing still for hours to be mowed down by cannon shot; who were most cheerful and patient in shipwreck, and starvation, and defeatall things ten times worse than fightingask old soldiers, I say, and they will tell you that the men who showed best in such miseries, were generally the weakest men in the whole regiment; that is true fortitude; that is Christs imagethe meekest of men, and the bravest too.1 [Note: Charles Kingsley.]

There is a great truth expressed when we describe a brave and enterprising man as a man of spirit. All high and commanding qualities of soul come from this invisible source. They are inspirations. In the human will, with its vis vivida, its elasticity and buoyancy, its steadfastness and resolved purpose, is the highest type of force and the image of the almighty Will. When that will is animated and filled with the Spirit, the man so possessed is the embodiment of an inconceivable power. Firm principle, hope and constancy, self-mastery, superiority to pleasure and painall the elements of a noble courage are proper to the man of the Spirit. Such power is not neutralized by our infirmities; it asserts itself under their limiting conditions and makes them its contributories. My grace is sufficient for thee, said Christ to His disabled servant; for power is perfected in weakness.2 [Note: G. G. Findlay, The Epistle to the Ephesians, 187.]

If we say that a man is remarkable for his intellectual energy, we think of him as having in the very centre of his intellectual life a free and inexhaustible fountain of force and activity. It is the same in the spiritual life. There is a certain imperfection in many of us which I do not know how to describe except by saying that, though at times particular spiritual faculties may appear to be vigorous, the central life is weak. There are men whose zeal for the evangelization of the world is often very real and very fervent, but who give us no impression of spiritual strength. There are others who are often inspired with a passion for Christian perfection, but in them too there appears to be no real vigour. There are others who seem spiritually weak, though their vision of spiritual truth is very keen and penetrating. There are others who seem capable of very lofty devotion,of awe, of vehement religious emotion, of rapture in the Divine love and in the hope of glory, honour, and immortalityand who yet give us the impression that they are wanting in those elements of life which constitute spiritual energy. In every one of these cases, to use language which suggests rather than expresses the truth, the vigour is derived not from the central fountains of life, but from springs that are more or less distant from the centre. The man himself is wanting in force though there are spiritual forces at work in him. Those of us who are conscious that this is our condition should pray to God that we may be strengthened with power through his Spirit in the inward man.1 [Note: R. W. Dale, Lectures on the Ephesians, 246.]

Robertson Smith returned to Cambridge for the decisive consultation of his doctors, and the story of what passed may be given here in the words of the Master of Christs. Half the members of the Conference [of Orientalists] had been invited to spend the Saturday and Sunday at Cambridge, and as usual Smith was the centre around which they all moved. From the bustle and confusion of tongues he withdrew to meet the doctors, and as usual he insisted on knowing the whole truth. When he left the room he turned to me and said, I know what that means. My brother died of it. He then returned to his guests, and that evening presided at a banquet given in their honour in the Hall of Christs, but never by a word or a sign did he let any one suspect what he had learned but an hour or two before from the doctors, and it was with the same magnificent courage that he bore the ceaseless suffering and gradually increasing weakness of the next eighteen months.

What Smith had learned from the doctors was indeed sufficient to try his heroism. It was now ascertained with as much clearness as is possible in such matters that the real cause of the discomfort and illness which had crippled him for so long was deep-seated tuberculosis.2 [Note: The Life of William Robertson Smith, 543.]

3. The very name of the Spirit is the Spirit of might. Christ spoke to us about being endued with power from on high. The last of His promises that dropped from His lips upon earth was the promise that His followers should receive the power of the Spirit coming upon them. Wheresoever in the early histories we read of a man that was full of the Holy Ghost, we read that he was full of power. According to the teaching of this Apostle, God hath given us the spirit of power, which is also the spirit of love and of a sound mind. So the strength that we must have, if we have strength at all, is the strength of a Divine Spirit, not our own, that dwells in us, and works through us.

There is in the human heart an inextinguishable instinct, the love of power, which, rightly directed, maintains all the majesty of law and life, and misdirected, wrecks them.

Deep rooted in the innermost life of the heart of man, and of the heart of woman, God set it there, and God keeps it there.Vainly, as falsely, you blame or rebuke the desire of power!For Heavens sake, and for mans sake, desire it all you can. But what power? That is all the question. Power to destroy? the lions limb, and the dragons breath? Not so. Power to heal, to redeem, to guide and to guard. Power of the sceptre and shield; the power of the royal hand that heals in touching,that binds the fiend, and looses the captive; the throne that is founded on the rock of Justice, and descended from only by steps of Mercy.1 [Note: Ruskin, Sesame and Lilies, ii. 86, 87 (Works, xviii. 137).]

(1) That indwelling Spirit will be a power for suffering.The parallel passage to this in the twin Epistle to the Colossians isstrengthened with all might unto all patience and long-suffering with joyfulness. Unless this Divine Spirit were a power for patience and endurance it were no power suited to us poor men. So dark at times is every lifeso full at times of discouragements, of dreariness, of sadness, of loneliness, of bitter memories, and of fading hopes does the human heart becomethat if we are to be strong we must have a strength that will manifest itself chiefly in this, that it teaches us how to bear, how to weep, how to submit.

Ill-health was Stevensons always, but what he accomplished in the way of letters surpasses in amount and scope that which many a stronger man has done. It amounted to nearly four hundred pages a year for twenty years, and of the conditions under which most of it was done he wrote to Mr. George Meredith in 1893:

For fourteen years I have not had a days real health; I have wakened sick and gone to bed weary; and I have done my day unflinchingly. I have written in bed and written out of it; written in hmorrhages, written in sickness, written torn by coughing, written when my head swam for weakness; and for so long it seems to me I have won my wager and recovered my glove. I am better now, have been, rightly speaking, since first I came to the Pacific; and still few are the days when I am not in some physical distress. And the battle goes onill or well is a trifle, so as it goes. I was made for a contest, and the Powers have so willed that my battlefield should be this dingy, inglorious one of the bed and the physic bottle.1 [Note: J. A. Hammerton, Stevensoniana, 313.]

(2) And it will be a power for conflict.We have all of us, in the discharge of duty and the meeting of temptation, to face such tremendous antagonisms that unless we have grace given to us which will enable us to resist, we shall be overcome and swept away. Gods power from the Divine Spirit within us does not absolve us from, it fits us for, the fight. It is not given in order that holiness may be won without a struggle; it is given to us in order that in the struggle for holiness we may never lose one jot of heart or hope, but may be able to withstand in the evil day, and having done all, to stand.

The battle of life is a common phrase which, as generally used, means the struggle for bare existence in which the lives of so many are spent, or the effort to get on in the world by making money or attaining positions of eminence in society. The Apostle Pauls idea of the life battle is very different, it is higher, nobler, in every way better; because it is no selfish conflict, it is a fighting for God and for the cause of God. The worlds battle of life is little better than a war of plunder, a fighting amongst beasts of prey, in which the strong endeavour to crush the weak, and the weak make desperate efforts against the strongfor the most part a mean and miserable contention on both sides, and one in which falsehood and trickery and cruelty and all other base stratagems are, without scruple, resorted to; so that, as a rule, those who win have more reason to be ashamed of themselves than those who lose. St. Pauls battle of life is waged in the interests of humanity, the laws of the warfare being strictly honourable, and its aim the establishment throughout the world of that Kingdom which is righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Ghost.2 [Note: Hugh Stowell Brown, in Life, by W. S. Caine, 305.]

(3) It is a power for service.Tarry ye in the city of Jerusalem until ye be endued with power from on high. There is no such force for the spreading of Christs Kingdom, and the witness-bearing work of His Church, as the possession of this Divine Spirit. Plunged into that fiery baptism, the selfishness and the sloth which stand in the way of so many of us are all consumed and annihilated, and we are set free for service because the bonds that bound us are burnt up in the merciful furnace of His fiery power.

If we allow the record of St. Pauls experience in Christian service to cast light upon his prayer, we see that to be strengthened with power through his Spirit in the inward man means the supply of energy which enables us to toil for Christ without spiritual exhaustion, and to bear one anothers burdens, for His sake, without so soon becoming faint and weary. Wherefore, we faint not, exclaims St. Paul. Christian workers need, in hours of disappointment, to remember his secret. Discouragement in the Masters service cannot always be cured by greater diligence. To labour hard, even for Him, is no guarantee of happiness. Indeed, the higher the service, the deeper will be our dejection if we fail to lay hold of the hope set before us in our glorious calling, because the task assigned proved to be beyond our strength.

Happy we live, when God doth fill

Our hands with work.

If that were the only condition, most Christians could be happy every day and happy all the day. But our realization of the Beatitude depends, not upon the filling of our hands with work, but upon the filling of our hearts with zeal.

Happy we live, when God doth fill

Our hands with work, our hearts with zeal.

Significantly we speak of being disheartened in our work for Christ; our use of the word should warn us against allowing the inward altar-fires to die down, or even to burn low. Without the Holy Spirits strengthening with power in the inward man, it is impossible for the heart to be always as full of zeal as the hands are full of work.

The sum of all isYes, my duty is great:

My faiths still greater; then my faiths enough.1 [Note: J. G. Tasker.]

John MacNeil had always watched himself with considerable jealousy lest the fire within him should burn less brightly as he grew older. It distressed him to see many men, who in their youth had been ardent spirits, gradually cool off into a prudent moderatism. Shall I ever get like that? he would ask. Is it necessary for a mans ardour to decrease as his years increase? and then, answering his own question, would reply emphaticallyNo! by Gods grace, I will not alter if I live to be eighty; people will be as glad to come and hear me when I preach leaning on a staff, as they are now. It was a great comfort to him to run over the long list of honourable names of white-haired old men who are serving God as enthusiastically now as when their blood ran faster in their veins. It was one great charm in John MacNeil that he never did alter. He was the same at forty as at twenty. In him zeal never curdled into ambition, nor did his enthusiasm ever abate. He was the same eager, hopeful, courageous soul from beginning to end.1 [Note: John MacNeil, Evangelist in Australia, 207.]

IV

The Measure

According to the riches of his glory.

1. According to the riches of his glorythat is the measure. There is no limit except the uncounted wealth of His own self-manifestation, the flashing light of revealed Divinity. Whatsoever there is of splendour in that, whatsoever there is of power there, in these and in nothing on this side of them lies the limit of the possibilities of a Christian life.

The riches of his glory! How sublime a conception! We are not to ask according to the strength of our faith, the largeness of our hearts, or the breadth of our thoughts, but according to the riches of his glory! Paul wants us to take time and think of the glory, and of its inconceivable riches, and then in faith to expect that God will do nothing less to us than according to the riches of that glory. What is to be done in our inward man is to be in very deed the glory of God shining into our heart, and manifesting the riches of His power in what He does there within us. Our faith dare not expect the fulfilment of the prayer until it enters into and claims to the full that God will do in us according to the riches of his glory. Let us take time and see that nothing less than this is to be the measure of our faith.

2. And what are the riches of Gods glory? Who of us can conceive them? Think of the riches of Gods material glory. The earth is the Lords and the fulness thereof. The gold mines and the forests, the gardens and the prairies, the mountains and the seas are all Gods. The stars in the heavens, the Milky Way, the Southern Cross, are a part of His glory, for the material universe reveals the wisdom of His handiwork. But that is only the threshold of Gods glory. Think of the glory of Gods providence, of Gods word, of Gods grace, of Gods Son! Who can conceive the power, and the majesty, and the love, and the compassion of God? And all these are included in the riches of his glory.

I seem to stand beside a great sea, a sunlit sea, with wave upon wave, wave upon wave of glory rolling in upon my soul. The resources of God are infinite, and in Christ they are all open to us. Truly, when we pray we may say:

We are coming to a King,

Large petitions let us bring.1 [Note: J. W. Ewing, The Undying Christ, 75.]

3. We may speak of the riches of God under three aspectsfirst, the riches of His power; second, the riches of His wisdom; and third, the riches of His goodness; and, as it is the blended and harmonious attributes of God that make up His highest glory, the view of His riches under these three aspects may enable us to see something of the riches of His glory.

(1) His Power.We see the riches of His power in creation. If a man could create in the highest sense of the word, how rich he would soon become! For his own wants he would have an immediate supply. When he was hungry he could create bread. When he was thirsty he could make the pure fountain spring up by his side. When he wanted money he could turn everything he touched into gold. It is in the ability to produce that the source of wealth is found.

The riches of God are seen in the preservation of all things in existence as well as in their creation. The sublime act of creation did not exhaust or weary God. From day to day, from year to year, and from century to century, the whole universe is upheld in its primeval freshness and power. The sky is still the unworn sky, and time writes no wrinkles on the azure brow of the sea. The seasons revolve, and the earth teems every year with beauty and plenty.

And the riches of the Divine power are seen not only in creation and preservation, but in re-creation. We are taught in Scripture that a wondrous transformation must pass over the present worldthat forms of being now around us will be dissolved in a deluge of fire, and that from this second deluge will emerge a new heaven and a new earth, wherein dwelleth righteousness. We are also taught that the bodies of men will be raised from the dust of the ground in a new and higher form. What marvellous exhibitions, then, has the future still in store of the riches of the power of God!

I have read Carlyles Reminiscences. They remind me of an apple I have just been trying to eatvery sound on the one side, on the other bruised and black. What a pity Froude persisted in thrusting it in the public face, and that he did not help to let the dead bury its dead! Carlyle had certainly a morbid nature, partly, I suppose, from dyspepsia, and partly from having set himself to expose wrong as the exclusive business of his life, and weakness and incapacity were in his philosophy forms of wrong. We may be thankful that we have a better standard in the Infinite Strength that stooped to weakness to pity and to raise it. I should be far from saying that Carlyle had not the Christian in him, but he wanted one part of it, and it is proof of an entirely original and Divine Being, that the Reminiscences of the Fishermen of Galilee give us One who had the most perfect purity, with the most tender pityan unbending strength that never despised weakness.

One of the false things of the day is to exalt power (including intellect as a form of power) at the expense of the moral and spiritual. It belongs to materialism and in a degree to pantheism, and it is the direct opposite of Christianity, which makes Christ lay power aside, in order to make the centre of the universe self-sacrifice and love; and that then power should gravitate to this centre because it is the only safe one. Worthy is the Lamb that was slain to receive power. When we begin to see this, we feel in our deepest nature that it is Divinethat this must be true if the universe has any meaning, and the soul a worthy end. It gets obscured sometimes, but it will come out again.1 [Note: Letters of John Ker, 330.]

A ship was rounding Cape Horn, where, as you may know, on account of the fogs and storms, the sun may not appear in view for many days together. The ship of which I am speaking had encountered violent storms; the weather was intensely cold, so that icicles were hanging from the mast and yard-arms. A sailor boy was ordered out upon one of the yard-arms to reef a sail; but as he was out there, hanging over the dark and stormy sea, he raised a cry that his hands were getting benumbed and that he was about to fall. The captain, a relative of his own, shouted to him to hold on, and seizing a piece of rope lying on the deck ran up the rigging, went out on the yard and lashed the boy to it until he could be rescued. When the captain was tying the rope round the body of the lad, he said: If you ever prayed in your life, pray now. I cannot pray, said the boy, but I can sing. And there, over that wild sea, the boy sang this verse of the paraphrase

His voice commands the tempest forth,

And stills the stormy wave;

And though His arm be strong to smite,

Tis also strong to save.

That sea captain is a member of this congregation, and that sailor boy was taught in our own Sabbath school.1 [Note: Robertson of Irvine (by A. Guthrie), 90.]

A close, attentive study of Wattss picture of The All-pervading will throw some light upon its meaning. All the immeasurable expanse of space is pervaded by a Divine Element, which Watts depicts as a figure with great encircling wings, seated and holding in its lap a globe, representing the stellar universe. Nothing could be more impressive and awe-inspiring than the sense of the overwhelming vastness and ubiquity of this Divine Element throughout the world which is given in this picture. It penetrates to the essence of everything; it holds everything from the largest to the smallest within its mighty grasp. It is a sublime conception that a Personality is seated on the throne of universal empire. We must postulate Spirit and not a thing as the first formative causation. The universe is not self-created and self-upheld. A thing cannot originate a thing. Law is a necessity of things, but law is an expression of will. It is not eternal, self-enacting, self-executing. The laws of the universe presuppose an agent, since they are only the modes in which the agent operates. They cannot be the cause of their own observance. The All-Pervading is Spirit which includes, but is not limited to Personality. The Creator and Upholder of all things is not a mere metaphor for force. And thus we are brought back to the magnificent generalization of the artist in his most original picture.1 [Note: Hugh Macmillan, G. F. Watts, 191.]

(2) His Wisdom.How manifest are the traces of Gods wisdom in the way in which the earth has been fitted to develop and support man, and in the manifold provision made for mans education and comfort! But what we have to notice more particularly here is, not merely the wisdom of God, but the riches of His wisdom; and these are seen not only in the original adaptation of means to ends, but in the way by which God can bring good out of evil. The mechanist would be wise who could invent and construct a machine which by the simplest movements could produce mighty results; but he would be rich in wisdom, who, out of that same machine, when marred and broken, could produce still mightier results.

Gods wisdom is seen in making all things work together for good; and what a wealth of wisdom is implied in bringing out of the most contradictory and deleterious elements a vast, harmonious and unspeakably valuable result!

We are broken on the wheel; torn by tribulation; beaten and shaken and purified by sorrow; emptied from vessel to vessel; passed from process to process;the design of the whole being to bring us forth at last like the snowy sheet of paper; and not only so, but to impress upon us also the very thoughts of God, that we may thereafter circulate through the universe, living epistles of Christ, known and read of all men. O the depth of the riches, both of the wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are his judgments, and his ways past finding out!

While the adaptations of natural life are comprehended under the term Sophia, or the wisdom of God, the adjustments of the spiritual life and its laws and development are what is called by the apostles the all-varied wisdom of God. I am sorry that I cannot translate the Greek word betterI know what it means, and what it does not mean. It does not mean that the manifestation of God which we call His wisdom is variegated like a Josephs coat of many colours, patched up out of many fabrics, both old and new, and often self-discordant, because the new agreeth not with the old. It does mean that there is an ever-changing diversity in the Divine wisdom and work which glows and gleams like a fine opal in the light, or like an ancient glass vessel from Cyprus or Phoenicia, when all the finer harmonies of the solar spectrum are unceasingly at play. And it is true of the Church as well as of the world that the Never-Changing One is to be sought in the Ever-Changing Many. That His wisdom should baffle our knowledge is what we have a right, a priori, to expect, and especially when we are contemplating it on the side where it seems to be many and not one.1 [Note: J. Rendel Harris, The Guiding Hand of God, 17.]

The God of Hegel is not the Big Man of the nursery imagination, making the Universe with His hands, as the child makes its mud-pies or its sand-castles. We cannot suppose God making the world like a mason.

God is spirit, and the life of spirit is thought. Creation, then, is thought also; it is the thought of God. Gods thought of the Creation is evidently the prius of the creation; but with God, to think must be to create, for He can require no wood-carpentry or stone-masonry for this purpose; or even should we suppose Him to use such, they must represent thought, and be disposed on thought.2 [Note: James Hutchison Stirling, His Life and Work, 160.]

(3) His Goodness.We may use the term goodness as a general expression to embrace the mercy, the compassion, the benignity, and the love of God. All the attributes of God culminate in love. God is first and last a God of love. The whole universe and the plan of redemption are summed up in love. It is the want of love, it is selfishness and hatred, that are the curse and woe of the world. God comes to fill up the sorrowful void with His own rich heart.

Pre-eminently in the work of redemption do we see the riches of His goodness. There we behold God not only working and waiting, but making a great sacrifice for the salvation of man. We can never understand what it cost God to save the world. We read that God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life; but how little do we know of all that lies in that declaration! How little do we know of the greatness of that gift and of the depth of that sacrifice! How little do we know of that mystery of sorrow which seems to enter into the very Godhead!

Despisest thou the riches of his goodness and forbearance and longsuffering; not knowing that the goodness of God leadeth thee to repentance? but after thy hardness and impenitent heart treasurest up unto thyself wrath against the day of wrath and revelation of the righteous judgment of God.

Salvation is not forgiveness of sin: it is not the remission of a penalty: it is not a safety. No, it is the blessed and holy purpose of Gods love accomplished in the poor fallen creatures restoration to the Divine image. And to this end is the news of Gods love in this great work declared to men, that they hearing it may have confidence in Him who hath thus loved them, and so open their hearts to let in His Spirit. So we have no need now to go out of our nature to meet God, and to get the eternal life, for God is in our own flesh, and the eternal life is in our own flesh, and we have but to know this loving God, and the longings of His heart over us, and to give Him our confidence in order to receive His Spirit into us.1 [Note: Erskine of Linlathen.]

O Slain for love of me, canst Thou be cold,

Be cold and far away in my distress?

Is Thy love also changed, growing less and less,

That carried me through all the days of old?

O Slain for love of me, O Love untold,

See how I flag and fail through weariness:

I flag, while sleepless foes dog me and press

On me: behold, O Lord, O Love, behold!

I am sick for home, the home of love indeed

I am sick for Love, that dearest name for Thee:

Thou who hast bled, see how my heart doth bleed:

Open thy bleeding Side and let me in:

O hide me in Thy Heart from doubt and sin,

O take me to Thyself and comfort me.2 [Note: Christina G. Rossetti.]

Power in the Inward Man

Literature

Burrell (D. J.), The Religion of the Future, 13.

Campbell (R. J.), Thursday Mornings at the City Temple, 210.

Ewing (J. W.), The Undying Christ, 68.

Ferguson (F.), Sermons, 190.

Gibbon (J. M.), The Childrens Year, 230.

Kuegele (F.), Country Sermons, iii. 182.

Maclaren (A.), Christ in the Heart, 1.

Maclaren (A.), Expositions: Ephesians, 132.

Matheson (G.), Voices of the Spirit, 199.

Murray (A.), The Full Blessing of Pentecost, 121.

Murray (A.), Aids to Devotion, 62.

Muspratt (W.), The Work and Power of the Holy Spirit, 24.

Pulsford (J.), Christ and His Seed, 106.

Raleigh (A.), The Way to the City, 1, 46.

Ridding (G.), The Revel and the Battle, 151.

Smith (H. A.), Things New and Old, 160.

Spurgeon (C. H.), My Sermon-Notes, iv. 275.

Tasker (J. G.), in Great Texts of the New Testament, 219.

Vallings (J. F.), The Holy Spirit of Promise, 148.

Winterbotham (R.), Sermons, 270.

Christian World Pulpit, xiii. 88 (Gallaway); xxxii. 339 (White); xxxix. 379 (White).

Church of England Pulpit, 1. 182 (Rainsford).

Churchmans Pulpit: Sixteenth Sunday after Trinity, xii. 188 (Jobson), 192 (Cotton), 195 (Wright), 197 (Davies), 201 (Armstrong), 214 (Kempthorne), 216 (Heber).

Keswick Week, 1905, p. 49 (Moore).

Fuente: The Great Texts of the Bible

according: Eph 3:8, Eph 1:7, Eph 1:18, Eph 2:7, Rom 9:23, Phi 4:19, Col 1:27

to be: Eph 6:10, Job 23:6, Psa 28:8, Psa 138:3, Isa 40:29-31, Isa 41:10, Zec 10:12, Mat 6:13, 2Co 12:9, Phi 4:13, Col 1:11, 2Ti 4:17, Heb 11:34

the inner: Jer 31:33, Rom 2:29, Rom 7:22, 2Co 4:16, 1Pe 3:4

Reciprocal: Deu 11:8 – that ye may Jdg 7:11 – thine hands 1Ch 29:12 – give strength Neh 6:9 – Now therefore Psa 27:14 – and Psa 29:11 – give Psa 68:35 – he that giveth Psa 71:16 – I will go Psa 86:16 – give Psa 119:28 – strengthen Psa 145:19 – fulfil Isa 45:24 – strength Dan 10:18 – he Hab 3:19 – my strength Joh 2:23 – many Joh 5:19 – and Joh 14:15 – General Rom 2:4 – riches Rom 5:5 – shed Rom 10:12 – rich Rom 11:33 – riches 2Co 6:10 – making Gal 3:14 – might 2Th 1:10 – to be glorified Heb 13:21 – Make

Fuente: The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge

(Eph 3:16.) -That He would give you according to the riches of His glory. A, B, C, F, G, read , and the reading has been adopted by Lachmann, Rckert, and Meyer. Others prefer the reading of the Textus Receptus, which is sustained by D, E, K, L, and most MSS., being regarded as a grammatical emendation. For the connection of with the optative, the reader may turn to the remarks made under Eph 1:17. In this case there is no word signifying to ask or supplicate, for the phrase I bow my knees is a pregnant ellipse-the understood posture and symbol of earnest entreaty. The neuter form, , is preferred to the masculine on the incontestable authority of A, B, C, D1, E, F, G, etc. The masculine has but D3, I, K, etc., in its favour. See under Eph 1:7, Eph 2:7, Eph 3:8, where both the form of the word and its meaning have been referred to. The phrase is connected not with , but with , and it illustrates the proportion or measurement of the gift, nay, of all the gifts that are comprehended in the apostle’s prayer. And it is no exaggeration, for He gives like Himself, not grudgingly or in tiny portions, as if He were afraid to exhaust His riches, or even suspected them to be limited in their contents. There is no fastidious scrupulosity or anxious frugality on the part of the Divine Benefactor. His bounty proclaims His conscious possession of immeasurable resources. He bestows according to the riches of His glory-His own infinite fulness. That He would give you-

-to be strengthened with might by His Spirit in the inner man. We need not, with Beza, Rckert, Olshausen, Matthies, Robinson, and others, regard the substantive as an adverb, nor, with Koppe, identify it with . Rather, with Meyer, would we take it as the dative of instrument, by which the action of the verb is communicated. Winer, 31, 7. It is by the infusion of power into the man within, that the process described by is secured. The verb belongs to the later and especially the Hellenistic Greek; being the earlier form. Meyer supposes a reference to the of a former clause, but such a supposition can hardly be admitted, for the fainting referred to by the apostle was connected solely with his own personal wrongs, while this prayer for strength is of a wider and deeper nature. Nor can we assume, with the Greek commentators, that the reference is merely to temptations, to surmount which the apostle craves upon them the bestowment of might. We conceive the form of expression to be in unison with the figure which the apostle had introduced into the conclusion of the second chapter. He had likened the Ephesian Christians to a temple, and in harmony with such a thought he prays that the living stones in that fabric may be strengthened, so that the building may be compact and solid.

-by His Spirit. The Spirit of God is the agent in this process of invigoration. That Spirit is God’s, as He bears God’s commission and does His work. He has free access to man’s spirit to move it as He may, and it is His peculiar function in the scheme of mercy to apply to the heart the spiritual blessings provided by Christ. The direction of the gift is declared to be-

-into the inner man. cannot be said to stand for , but it marks out the destination of the gift. Winer, 49, a; Khner, 603. It is not simply in reference to, as Winer and de Wette render, nor for, as Green translates it (Greek Gram. p. 292); but it denotes or implies that the comes from an external source, and enters into the inner man. The phrase is identical with the parallel expression- , which the Apostle Peter, without sexual distinction, applies to women. 1Pe 3:4. The formula occurs in Rom 7:22, and with some variation in 2Co 4:16. The inner man is that portion of our nature which is not cognizable by the senses, and does not consist of nerve, muscle, and organic form, as does the outer man. In the physiology of the seventh chapter of the Epistle to the Romans, it is not the soul–in its special aspect of vital consciousness, but it is more connected with mind-, and stands in contrast not exactly to , as representing generally depraved humanity, but to that sensuous nature which has action and reaction in and from the members-. Delitzsch, System der Bib. Psychol. p. 331; Reuss, Thol. Chrt. vol. ii. p. 56. But the inner man is not identical with the new man- ; it is rather the sphere in which such renewal takes effect-our intellectual and spiritual nature personified. We cannot agree with Grotius, Wetstein, Fritzsche, and Meyer in supposing that there is any imitation of Platonic phrase in this peculiar diction. The sage of the Athenian academy did indeed use similar phraseology, for he speaks of the mind as , and Plotinus and Philo adopted a like idiom. In some of the Jewish books occur also modes of expression not unlike. But the phrase is indeed a natural one-one that is not the coinage of any system of psychology, but which occurs at once to any one who wishes to distinguish easily and broadly between what is corporeal and external, and what is mental and internal, in his own constitution. Still, its theological meaning in the apostle’s writings is different from its philosophical uses and applications. And this strength is imparted to the inner man by the Spirit’s application of those truths which have a special tendency to cheer and sustain. He impresses the mind with the idea of the changeless love of Christ, and the indissoluble union of the believing soul to Him; with the necessity of decision, consistency, and perseverance; with the assurance that all grace needed will be fully and cheerfully afforded; and with the hope that the victory shall be ultimately obtained. Rom 15:13; 2Ti 1:7. This operation of the Spirit imparts such courage and energy as appear like a species of spiritual omnipotence.

The Syriac version, the Greek fathers, with the Latin commentators Ambrosiaster and Pelagius, join this last clause- , with the following verse, and with the verb -In order that Christ may inhabit the inner man by the faith which is in your hearts. It has been rightly objected by Harless and others, that cannot well be joined to , and that there would be a glaring pleonasm in the occurrence in the same verse of and . The ordinary division is a natural one, and we accordingly follow it.

Fuente: Commentary on the Greek Text of Galatians, Ephesians, Colossians and Phillipians

Eph 3:16. This verse begins the prayer that Paul proposed to offer to the Father. According to the riches of his glory. It would not be reasonable to ask a favor of anyone that is greater than the possessions of that person. The glory of God is so rich that Paul is encouraged to ask for enough of it to strengthen his brethren. God does his favors for the members of the divine family by the agency of the Spirit that fills the church. This is for the benefit of the inner man, which means the spiritual being, which can be affected only by spiritual help.

Fuente: Combined Bible Commentary

Eph 3:16. That he would grant you. This is the purport of the petition, which some extend to the close of Eph 3:17 (but the latter verse is probably the result; see notes there). The word that means in order that, but after verbs of praying, etc., in the New Testament, it is used to introduce the purport and purpose of the petition.

According to the riches of his glory. This qualifies grant; the giving prayed for was in proportion to the fulness of Gods perfections (glory).

To be strengthened with might, or, power, coming from God. The instrumental sense is to be preferred to the adverbial (powerfully ), and to the explanation: with regard to Sower.

Through his Spirit. Only the Holy Spirit can impart such strength.

In, lit., unto, the inner man. Some explain in as = with respect to, but this does not exhaust the force of the preposition. The strength prayed for was such that it reached to the inner man: this was its constant aim. The inner man (comp. Rom 7:22) is not equivalent to the regenerated man, the new man (chap. Eph 4:24), but more nearly identical with the hidden man of the heart (1Pe 3:4). Its exact antithesis is the outward man (2Co 4:16), not body, or flesh. It is not exactly equivalent to the spirit (1Th 5:22), though referring primarily to this, as the sphere of the operations of the Holy Spirit; nor to mind (Rom 7:21), the latter referring to the human spirit as the practical reason. To this sphere Paul prays that the strengthening power of the Holy Ghost may reach, precisely because in this part of mams nature (nobler in its mode of being) the most ignoble slavery has existed; where man was most akin to God the effects of sin have been most terrible. To the view here presented, it has often been objected that it makes spirit, mind, the inner man, unfallen and sinless, or at least opposed to the empire of the flesh, But such is not the position of its most judicious advocates, nor is it warranted by the statements of Scripture. Comp. the Excursus, Lange, Romans, pp. 232-236, and the similar one in this volume, Romans 7.

Fuente: A Popular Commentary on the New Testament

Paul’s Request

The outward man is the body everyone can see which gradually grows old. The inward man is the soul that will live eternally ( 2Co 4:16 ). All of us are made new through the washing of the new birth, or baptism, which the Holy Spirit caused to be written about in the Bible ( Tit 3:5 ). The Spirit can further strengthen us as we feed on the milk and meat of the word ( 1Pe 2:2 ; Heb 5:12-14 ). Paul prayed they would be granted the latter strength (3:16).

Hendren says the “verb ‘dwelling’ is intensive, meaning ‘settle down.’ Christ needs to settle down and take up permanent residence in our hearts.” If we grow in strength because of feeding on the word, as the previous verse suggested, Christ will reside in our hearts because of the faith that comes by hearing the word of God.

Paul’s prayer was also that they would become wellrooted and stabilized. Hendren suggests these participles are written so as to suggest a rooting and grounding had already taken place and needed to continue taking place. The love here must be that of God and Christ which opened the way of salvation (3:17).

Fuente: Gary Hampton Commentary on Selected Books

That he would grant you, according to the riches of his glory, to be strengthened with might by his Spirit in the inner man;

Do we have two prayers, one relating to riches and one relating to power. Now, watch the charismatic use this verse. I’d bet it is one of the arsenal of the rich and powerful group that believes all should be rich in the church – not that the leaders don’t get rich, but seldom does the congregation.

No, I believe there is one prayer here, that we will have power to live a proper life, and that life being, not one of riches, but one that is described in the following context.

Paul asks that out of His great riches, he might empower us to live a proper life. Bummer, no money, no cars, no jewels – oh well, might as well go eat worms as the children’s song goes – the song we sing when we don’t get our OWN way.

Now, put that on your prayer list for those you pray for and don’t spend so much time on the material stuff that we often pray for.

There is an assumption that God has enough of this stuff to go around, and he also assumes that He is desirous of giving this stuff to believers. He further knows that it is the ministry of the Spirit that will do the giving.

Some things to note. First, this passage shows the subservient nature of the Spirit to the Father. The Father is being asked to do something, but it is the Spirit that will do the outworking, or inner working in this case 🙂

All this is related to the Father’s glory and its richness. His desire for all believers is for us to be empowered to live a godly life, and Paul is just asking that He assure this in the lives of the Ephesian believers.

Note, that the inner man is where the Spirit is to do the work, and it is the inner man that is to be strengthened – to live a proper life. I won’t push the verse to say that the inner man is where the Spirit resides, but that is probably the case. The preposition used here is rather general and could mean this or it could only mean that the inner man is where the work is to be done.

At any rate the Spirit has access to our inner most central core. In medicine there is what is called the “core temperature” that temperature that is measured at the inner part of our body. The spirit of man is the inner most part of our being and glory to God, that is where God the Spirit works – it ought to show forth to the outside don’t you think? Thus if the Spirit is really working, outward change would seem to be the result in the believer.

“Might” is that word “dunamis” which relates to explosive power – something to be reckoned with might be the thought. Power to live the proper spiritual life. Paul prayed for it assuming that God would do it according to His riches. It seems to me that the proper Christian life would be rather an automatic thing if we have all this power to live it within our inner most being.

I guess those believers that don’t live a proper life have their will surrounding their inner man so as to control it completely. Seems like a rather plain picture of what really seems to happen in the loose living believer.

Inner man is of interest to us for a moment. “Man” is that word that simply relates to our humanness, the term “inner” is the Greek word “eso” which means inner or interior inner man. It is used of going into a room, it is used of Peter going into the palace after Christ was arrested, and Paul uses the term of the inward man in Romans. Simply it means that inward part of man that relates to spiritual things – the spirit if you will. If the Spirit does this work in the spirit, how can we possibly thwart that work – only by our will to act differently on the outside.

A conscious effort to act against what we know God wants us to do – scary thing, yet so many believers live their life like this.

Fuente: Mr. D’s Notes on Selected New Testament Books by Stanley Derickson

3:16 That he would grant you, according to the {f} riches of his glory, to be strengthened with might by his Spirit in the {g} inner man;

(f) According to the greatness of his mercy.

(g) See Rom 7:22 .

Fuente: Geneva Bible Notes

In this prayer Paul requested one thing: that God would strengthen his readers in the inner man. He asked that God would provide this power (Gr. dynamis) according to his vast resources (cf. Eph 1:18). The power comes to us through the indwelling Holy Spirit (cf. Php 1:19) who strengthens our inner man, namely, our innermost being (i.e., not just our muscles but our entire person).

Fuente: Expository Notes of Dr. Constable (Old and New Testaments)