Verse 5 says that God the Father predestinated us unto sonship. If the Father’s life has not come into us, how can we be His sons? Impossible! Sonship requires that we be saturated with the Father’s life. We are neither God’s sons-in-law nor His adopted sons; we are sons in God’s life and nature. Because we have been born of God and because God has been born into us, we have God in us. This implies that God the Father is working Himself into us. The only way we can be God’s sons is for Him to dispense Himself into us and then work Himself into us. Hallelujah, we are God’s sons, born of Him!
As believers, we have been sealed with the Holy Spirit (v. 13). The Spirit is the Triune God reaching us. God in the heavens is the Father, but God coming to us is the Spirit. The Spirit is the seal of God. To be sealed with the Holy Spirit means that God has been dispensed into our being. We have pointed out that this seal is living and moving within us; the Spirit is constantly sealing us with God’s essence. To be sealed in this way is to be saturated with all that God is. Therefore, the sealing of the Holy Spirit also indicates that God is being wrought into us.
This subjective realization of the Spirit’s sealing is neglected by Christians today. Most Christians have objective teachings, but not the subjective experiences. Through the sealing of the Spirit, God is working His essence into our being.
Verse 18 speaks of the hope of God’s calling. One aspect of our hope is that we shall be transfigured and glorified with Christ. This transfiguration and glorification is the result of our being saturated with the Triune God. Unless God saturates our entire being, including our body, we cannot be glorified. This also refers to the dispensing of God into us. Once again we see that God is dispensing and working Himself into His chosen ones. This is the governing concept of chapter one.
Ephesians 1:18 also speaks of the riches of the glory of God’s inheritance in the saints. If God is not wrought into the saints, how can they ever become His inheritance, His peculiar possession? The saints become so precious to Him by being saturated with the divine essence. Only in this way can poor sinners become God’s special treasure. In this universe God is the only One who is precious. Now this precious God of matchless worth is working Himself into us to make us His glorious inheritance. When the New Jerusalem comes, we shall see that it will be altogether a valuable inheritance, shining with God’s glory. Therefore, the fact that the saints are becoming God’s glorious inheritance, a precious treasure to Him, indicates that He is working Himself into us.
The Triune God is dispensed into us and wrought into our being in the transmission of the divine power to enable us to participate in Christ’s attainment so that we may be His Body (vv. 19-23). Christ’s attainment is the highest attainment in the universe, for He has accomplished creation; passed through incarnation, crucifixion, and resurrection; and ascended to the right hand of God in the heavenlies. All this attainment is to the church. As we have pointed out, the words “to the church” in verse 22 imply a transmission, which is an act of dispensing. Whatever Christ has passed through, accomplished, obtained, and attained is now being transmitted into the church.
Christians today do not have this concept. Instead, they are filled with ethical teachings and preoccupied with them. For this reason we need to emphasize the fact that the Triune God is seeking to saturate us with Himself.
Suppose red ink is injected into the center of a ball of cotton. Little by little, the cotton soaks up the ink. In this way, the ink gradually saturates the ball of cotton. We are like the cotton ball. One day the heavenly red ink was deposited into the center of our being. From that time onward, the ink, God Himself, has been saturating us. Our responsibility now is not to imitate the ink or to copy it; on the contrary, it is to soak it up, that is, to be saturated with it. By being thoroughly saturated with the heavenly ink, we become the ink; for the ink is assimilated into our being. This basic concept of the New Testament has been missed in today’s Christian teachings. If we grasp this basic concept, our Christian life will be revolutionized and our concepts will be radically changed.
We participate in Christ’s attainment that we may become His Body. Selection, predestination, sealing, hope, glory, power—all are for the Body.