29. Into One Flesh
Covering from Ephesians 5:3 through all of Chapter 6:
In this lesson, we are writing Gospel Comments for the remainder of Ephesians Chapter 5 and all of Chapter 6. Ephesians has grown very, very large to us. The issue of God manifest in the flesh is coming up in 1 Timothy. Even though I have already written that, it actually comes out from this lesson. The goal, then, is to make the connections between these chapters in Ephesians with Paul’s final “pastoral” letters.
“Into one flesh” is truly the significant point of this part of Ephesians, for our flesh together, as the very flesh of Jesus, is the Form through which God makes Himself known. God is known through humans as we are, not through the perfect superiority of heavenly angels.
Salvation. The destination of Salvation, the place where it is found, the meaning of its completion – is the Church, Communities of Christ arising out from heaven among all the peoples. Ephesians is the Church as the dwelling place of God.
Reading through the JSV shows the absence in the Bible of “go to” heaven as the goal of Salvation. Heaven is real, and we are with Jesus right now inside those heavens. Yes, those who die continue to be with Jesus in heaven only. But their goal remains Salvation, which is the Church as the revelation of God, and resurrected bodies of flesh.
God manifest in the flesh is always the goal. Thus our stewardship, the completion of our devotion, is our watch-care over all who belong to Jesus in heaven-earth.
Children of Light. (Chapter 5) 8 You were once darkness, but • now are light inside the Lord. Walk as children of light, 9 for the fruit of light comes inside of all goodness, justice, and truth, 10 proving what is well-pleasing to the Lord. • 11 And do not have fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness, but show them instead to be wrong. – 13 But everything being proven wrong by the light is indeed made visible. • Light is that which makes everything visible. 14 For that reason he says, “Awake you who are sleeping and rise up out from the dead, and Christ will shine forth from you as the dawn.”
I brought in this whole section because it all works together. Yet it is filled with things we must ease out. The words “walk” and “proving” lean these verses first into the “Kingdom” category.
Spirit and Light. It’s interesting that the “fruit of light” and the fruit of the Spirit must be the same thing, which confirms my joining of the Spirit with the entrance of light in the patterns of home. Then, also, we are defined as “light” inside the Lord as a substantial fact of our present humanity.
Verse 11 is part of our purpose and part of the Apocalypse. I have a letter to write coming up titled “The Failure of the World.” That’s part of our job, to prove that the world system is fake and worthless – by the contrast of light. But we must define “light.” “Light is that which makes everything visible.” Thus, light is honesty, the result of knowing that everything will be seen as it is regardless. Yet light is also Spirit that causes us to know and thus, to see.
Defining Light. We see that the liberty the Spirit enjoys in our lives, then corresponds with the honesty which we accept, having “come down to” being as we are, what God made us to be. To be a “child of light” is to see all things as God sees them, by the Spirit, and thus we walk in that same knowing.
Kingdom: The Kingdom is an expression of what we already are, that is children of light. Every next step we take with God proves the goodness of Jesus in our lives.
Definition: Light is that which makes visible, that is, light is honesty. Light is also the Spirit, for the Spirit causes us to know what is actually True. To walk in light is to walk in no sufficiency in self, but all-sufficiency in God. The fruit of light and the fruit of Spirit are the same, the goodness of God.
Honesty through the Church. There can be no salvation for anyone apart from honesty. – That all the world might become silent. The apocalypse, taking off the cover that all might see what is True, includes full honesty for all. The world is entirely fake; it is created as a means of holding off other people with whatever fake masks are available – the masquerade. The masquerade, in all its cruelty, accomplishes nothing for anyone. It is always a failure. It’s necessary exposure is Light and Salvation.
Ruling Verse 9: The Salvation of God comes through the Church into this world, turning on the lights, bringing everything into honesty, bringing all into silence in the presence of God, setting creation free.
As the Dawn. I have never seen this set of verses in this remarkable way because we always chopped everything up. Yet they are coming right out from 5:1-2, Be just like God, that is, love one another.
But look at verse 14, from Isaiah. Awake – rise up – and Christ WILL shine forth from you as the dawn. The world is in darkness only because Christians refuse to believe the gospel, substituting death as the answer rather than resurrection. Yet this is not to blame the Church, for God has a set time for the Unveiling of Jesus Christ. You see, God is intent on one thing – that when the LIGHT turns on, through His sons, everyone will KNOW that God speaks the Truth.
The Light Turning On. • 15 Take heed, therefore, to walk carefully, not as unwise, but as wise, 16 rescuing the time because the days are evil. 17 And do not be foolish [do not be without reason], but set yourself together with the desire of the Lord.
Paul is adding to the meaning of our walk, every next step, every next moment shared with God, which is Kingdom. Yet this was always presented as a condemnation! Why? The Calvinist translation, “Understand the will of God,” sets us at odds with God, but “set yourself with God’s desire,” turns us around and makes us now part of God’s Heart and intentions into our world.
Kingdom: We walk every step as the Desire of God, His Heart and intention, through us into our world. We “rescue” every next moment as the Light turning on for us and for all.
Be Filled with Spirit. 18 And do not be drunk with wine in which is wastefulness; instead • be filled with Spirit, 19 speaking to one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody in your hearts to the Lord. • 20 Speak good grace at all times; give thanks for the sake of all things to Him who is God and Father and in the name of our Lord, Jesus Christ.
Paul is now expanding on the meaning of “the sharing from every part,” a description of life together. To be drunk with wine looks and feels very similar to being filled with Spirit (see also Acts 2). Yet the two are the opposite, for, as David said, wine makes you forget, or cover over, whereas Spirit brings full honesty and light. Then speaking comes out from Spirit, and singing – and even laughing in overflowing joy, even during the service.
To Overflowing. We are immersed into Jesus as one body together, but we DRINK of the same Spirit. We are filled to capacity by Jesus, but being FILLED with Spirit is always to overflowing. We speak Christ and we sing Spirit, and giving thanks for the sake of all things comes out from both together. – Pray in tongues regularly, for it increases your knowing of Spirit.
Ruling Verse 3: Being filled with Spirit is always to overflowing, first in our gathering together in worship and then out from us into all the world. Our capacity to know God increases as we exercise Spirit energeia together.
Speak Christ: The Spirit causes us to speak Christ together, to sing Christ together, to speak good grace into one another and to the Father. Our joy is always for the sake of an abundant and exuberant Father, that we might KNOW Him.
Give Thanks. “Give thanks in the midst of all” is 1 Thessalonians 5:18, but here Paul says, “Give thanks for the sake of all things.” Giving thanks in the midst of all places us utterly inside of God, as Paul also said, this is God’s desire entering into you. But giving thanks for the sake of all goes out from us to alter the very fabric of creation. Giving thanks is eu-charis, which means to speak good grace. And at the heart of the Eucharist is the cup Jesus drinks, a cup we share with Him. To give thanks is to embrace the brethren as they are.
Ruling Verse 9: Giving thanks is eu-charis, to speak good grace, the very cup we share with Jesus. Giving thanks for the sake of all goes out from us to alter the very fabric of creation.
Submit. • 21 Submit to one another inside of the fear of Christ.
To submit means to place one’s self under; it is the Ekenosis, coming up next, to go where God is found, beneath of all, lifting up and carrying all. Yet it is reciprocal, a flow back and forth among every member of the body, the elders as eager to submit to those who are not recognized ministry as vice versa. The “fear of Christ” means that I recognize that you are as Jesus to me; I honor you as I would the King over all. The thought of disregarding or abusing you is a horror to me.
The Form for God through Jesus: The purpose of our gathering into committed life together is for Father’s sake, a God who walks beneath, carrying all. We place ourselves with God, yielding to one another, knowing, even in fear and trembling, that each one is the Lord Jesus to us.
Traded Himself. 25 Husbands, love your wives in just the same way that • Christ also loved the Church and traded Himself for her, for her sake, 26 that He might make her devoted, having already cleansed her by the washing of water in word, • 27 that He might present her to Himself a glorious and fulfilled Church, not having spot or wrinkle or any such thing, but that she should be devoted and blameless. 29 No one at any time hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it, • in just the same way also that Christ nourishes and cherishes the Church.
When I wrote about Galatians 2:20 in Symmorphy I: Purpose, I instinctively drew Ephesians 5:30-31, one flesh with Jesus, into its meaning and even into the expanded wording. We are now looking at this passage in this way for the first time, and what do we find?
The Deepest Meanings of Union. We find the deepest meanings of Galatians 2:20 repeated twice and taken to wondrous depths. Here is Jesus trading Himself for us. – For their sakes, I make Myself pure and devoted to You, that they also might be made pure and devoted inside of the truth (John 17:19). Jesus cherishes and nourishes you and me as His own flesh, for He has no other form than our gathering together. We are His flesh, His human appearance to all heaven-earth.
Verses 26-27 are another expression of how Jesus inside our gathering together makes us to be just like Himself, thus our being filled with Spirit to the speaking of Christ is how Jesus does such a wondrous thing. We have not understood or known the meaning of Church as the deepest meanings of our union with Christ.
Intimacy with the Church. Ruling Verse 5: Paul expresses the meaning of Galatians 2:20 twice in these verses, that Jesus trades Himself for our sake, that Jesus nourishes and cherishes each one of us. Yet Paul is bringing that same intimacy now into our gathering together as the local Church, that there is a quality of this intimate giving of Jesus, this nourishing and cherishing, that is known only in worship together.
Ruling Verse 6: The default position as we gather together as the local Church is that we are ALREADY cleansed in all things, that we walk with no consciousness of sins or any offense towards one another. Our intimacy is PURE.
The Covenant: It is our gathering together, then, that Jesus also makes to be just like Himself, His flesh, His visible form.
Members of His Flesh. • 30 For we are members of His body, of His flesh, and of His bones. • 31 “Because of this, a man will leave his father and mother and will be joined with his wife and into one flesh the two will be.” • This is a great mystery, but I speak of Christ and the Church.
Jesus Secret I is that Jesus reveals Himself as me, as each one of us, and Jesus Secret II is that Jesus reveals Himself as He is through the gathering together that is Church. Members of His FLESH. – Into ONE FLESH the two will be. – Christ and the Church. – God manifest in the flesh. God forming us out from the soil of the earth means that God formed the very essence of our humanity out from His Love. Angels do what God says, but human flesh reveals God-Love.
Into One Flesh. Into one flesh is marriage union, yet this is the Church, something we are only together. Marriage is two, Jesus and the Church, walking as one, two entwined together, and two as one in the bringing forth of newness of Life. – Devotion. We are the flesh of Christ as individuals, yet it is in committed life together, worshipping God together, that the flesh of Jesus is fully known, God manifest in the flesh. What is this flesh?
Definition: Christ is a many-membered heaven-earth body (see 1 Corinthians 12:12). God formed our humanity out from the soil of the earth, that is, out from His Love. Yet our flesh lives because God also breathed Spirit into us. Our soul is shaped by both together. Paul is defining our earthly togetherness in the same way, that inside the Church as the union of heaven and earth, the Soul of Jesus is made known.
With Pure Hearts. When we speak of “marriage union” as the intimacy of Christ and the Church in committed life together, we have no thought of sexual immorality. This is why we say with Peter, “Love one another with pure hearts fervently.” Yet this love is more than the platonic love of friendship, it is the love of family, of brothers and sisters, of parents and children.
The Form for God through Jesus: The Form for God is marriage, human believers walking in resurrected bodies of flesh and spirit together, in the committed life of Community, dwelling together in unity. God is family, and thus God manifest in the flesh is the Church as family Love.
Ruling Verse 5: Ephesians 5:30-31 is essential to Galatians 2:20, the life we live inside the flesh, one flesh with Jesus.
His Mighty Strength. (Chapter 6) • 10 For the remaining time, be empowered and filled with strength inside of the Lord and inside of His mighty strength. • 11 Put on and enclothe yourself with the full armor of God in order to be able to stand against the methods and schemes of the devil [the one who accuses].
Having taken us so deeply into union with the Lord Jesus Christ inside ourselves and with one another, Paul now turns us outward towards all the Church and towards all creation. There is a real strength inside of the Lord that cannot be known by those who exercise their own strength. – “It’s not by your inward fortitude nor by your outward ability, but by My Spirit,” says the Lord Jesus. It is when we know no other strength that we know that His mighty strength already fills us full.
Put on Christ. To put on the armor of God is just part of putting on the Lord Jesus Christ in all that He is. Verse 11 then confirms that we must know no accusation against ourselves first before we will be able to cast down all accusation against other Christians.
Ruling Verse 10: Putting on (enduo) the armor of God is an essential part of putting the Lord Jesus Christ upon ourselves in all that He is, through faith. The Lord Jesus says, “Not by your might or strength, but by My Spirit.” Putting on Jesus’ strength includes accepting our human weakness, that we have no real strength ourselves, but only His.
Ruling Verse 4: Union with Christ elicits great accusation coming from a theology that was against us. We are victorious over the accuser of our brethren only as we stand in our own victory against all personal accusation against ourselves.
We Are Contesting Against. • 12 Because we are not contesting against blood and flesh, but against the rulers and sources, against the authorities and influences, against the cosmic powers of this darkness, against the spiritual evil in the heavenly realms. • 13 Because of this, take up the complete armor of God that you might be able to withstand and to set against in the evil day, and in having done all things, to stand.
I had “wrestling and contesting,” but I just removed the word “wrestling” because it gives a wrong connotation. We are contesting out from an absolute position. There is no “back and forth.” We stand in all the authority given to Jesus. Our long study of Revelation 6 brought into Jesus’ present word to us, “Meet Me in the air,” gives us a large and specific understanding of “spiritual evil in heaven.”
Defining the Fight. Make no mistake about it, our stewardship over God’s final opportunity to make Himself known through the Church is WAR. It is “bloody slaughter” in the heavens for the sake of all our Christian brethren throughout heaven and earth. We CAST the accuser DOWN. He has no more strength.
Definition: Heavenly realms are as filled with evil as earthly realms. A key word Paul uses is “influences.” Heavenly evil has the power to twist word into the wrong directions in human hearing. This is how they control that system of interaction among all humans and demons called “the world.”
Ruling Verse 4: Our task is to cast down the accuser of our brethren, that is, those false spirits who twist the words of the gospel in the minds of our brethren. We can do that only as we stand in the certainty of the Gospel for ourselves.
Certainty. • 14 Stand therefore, having girded your loins in truth, and having put on the breastplate of just innocence and justice, • 15 and having shod your feet in the firm-footing and readiness of the gospel of peace, • 16 and having taken up the shield of faith in all, by which you will be able to quench all the flaming arrows of the evil one. • 17 And take the helmet of salvation and the sword of the Spirit, which is the speaking of God.
This is not a gimmick; it’s not a “superhero” exercise. “To stand” is Ruling Verse 7; it is all certainty. We do not “tell the devil that he has lost,” as if he is the one who must believe. We are part of Christ, part of Victory, because we are CERTAIN in ourselves, all through our souls, that we ARE. All these things are the certainty of the Glorious Salvation in which we live, the only thing real and True.
All Victory Now. This certainty, then, is to the overthrow of all darkness, the defeat of death, the removal of every false spirit from the human experience, first from the Church and then from the world.
Ruling Verse 7: We stand upon firm, the certainty of our Salvation. We are part of Christ, part of Victory, because we are CERTAIN in ourselves, all through our souls, that we ARE. We live inside of Jesus; we ARE justly innocent; we walk every next step with God; we believe God in all; our minds and our every thought is the Salvation of God.
Ruling Verse 4: This certainty, then, is to the removal of every false spirit from the human experience, first from the Church and then from the world, and even to the defeat of death.
Speak Christ: Speaking Christ made personal as us is power, the power of the Spirit accomplishing all that God desires.
For All Who Are Devoted. • 18 Through prayer and supplication, pray in every season inside of Spirit and into this very thing, watching in all perseverance and supplication for all who are devoted. 19 And also pray for me, that to me might be given words in the opening of my mouth to make known the mystery of the gospel in all public boldness.
Paul has not left the “sharing from every part.” Neither is he presenting a “partial” victory. He is going from God filling His House to our being one flesh with Jesus to total and absolute Victory – for the sake of all who are devoted.
Ruling Verse 9: Paul has not left the “sharing from every part.” Neither is he presenting a “partial” victory. He is going from God filling His House to our being one flesh with Jesus to total and absolute Victory – for the sake of all who are devoted. Our prayer is the stewardship we possess, our watch and care over all who belong to Jesus.
An Outline. In going through Galatians to Colossians in this format of study, I felt as if we found some depth of understanding regarding the absoluteness of our redemption. Having completed Ephesians in this same format, I feel that we have hardly scratched the surface. Yet I also know that we now have a full and proper outline and foundation for all future study.
The ruling point of Ephesians has three parts, first, that the Church is the dwelling place of God, built together for Him, second that God fills our gathering together with all of His fulness, and third, that it is the sharing from every part that is the essence and meaning of such a Church. Such a Church comes out from the pleasure of God’s Desire.
The Church. Ephesians is about the Church, the full meaning of Christ Jesus, as the dwelling place of God, who fills that Church with all that He is, and especially the sharing from every part.
But then Paul leads us to take the intimacy of our union with Christ, one flesh with Him, and apply that same cherishing and devotion to the sharing from every part. This is a great mystery, but we are speaking of Christ and the Church. – The purpose of Church is the Salvation of God entering into the knowledge of all, God manifest in the flesh. There is no other purpose.
Finally, and the thing that burdens Paul’s heart the most, is the stewardship, the great watch and care, that God would find His opportunity to be manifest now through the Church.
Reading for Next Time. We will do Philippians next, for which I have two lessons, “The Ekenosis” and “Symmorphosed.” Read/listen to Philippians in the JSV. The audios are in place. Meanwhile, I am completing the Flow of Gospel Word for Paul’s final letters to Timothy and Titus. “The Goal of Our Instruction,” covering 1 Timothy, is on the website. These letters are clearly coming immediately out from Ephesians and Philippians.
I plan to do only Hebrews and most of John’s Gospel inside the Zoom meetings. The others I will write at the same time. In order for me to enjoy the same Flow in writing the Gospel Comments for John’s letters and vision, I think we will do John’s gospel first, making a study of Hebrews to be our conclusion.
Let’s Pray Together. “God, our Father, we honor You by receiving Your Word as the Lord Jesus, written in our hearts and causing us to be just like Himself. We stand inside of You in the utter certainty that You always speak the Truth, that the Gospel of Your Salvation is the only reality we know. We belong to You, Father, we are in Your hand alone. We live for Your Desire coming now through us.
“Father, we give to You every moment of our lives, every breath, every human feeling, every memory of our past, everything we are and do, for You to use as Your highway, Your intercession for Your Church, that You might come through us by Your Spirit into the knowledge of many. Look upon us, Oh God, for we BELONG to You.”
“Inside of the name of Jesus, standing upon the certain authority that is the throne of heaven, the Mercy Seat, we cast down the accuser of our brethren out from the heavens of the Church. The evil one has no more strength and cannot remain as any heavenly influence twisting Word, towards all those who are calling upon Your name right now, all across the earth.
“Out from Your devotion to us, oh God, and our devotion to You in return, Michael and those with him even now prevail. A Church now upon this earth, without spot or wrinkle, devoted utterly to the Lord Jesus and to His revelation to all heaven-earth, Salvation now coming through her gathering together – to this we give You our lives, Oh God, our Father.
“Let it be so; it is so, even as we pray.”