Fred Sanders has a great post interacting with Thomas Goodwin's exalted view of Ephesians. Goodwin is not alone. In the "Introduction" to his series on Ephesians, Martyn Lloyd-Jones wrote this:

"It is very difficult to speak of [Ephesians] in a controlled manner because of its greatness and because of its sublimity. Many have tried to describe it. One writer has described it as 'the crown and climax of Pauline theology'. Another has said that it is 'the distilled essence of the Christian religion, the most authoritative and most consummate compendium of our holy Christian faith'. What language! And it is by no means exaggerated.

. . . . the peculiar feature and characteristic of the Epistle to the Ephesians is that here the Apostle seems to be, as he puts it himself, in 'the heavenly places', and he is looking down at the great panorama of salvation and redemption . . . The result is that in this Epistle there is very little controversy; and that is so because his great concern here was to give to the Ephesians . . . a panoramic view of this wondrous and glorious work of God in Jesus Christ our Lord.

. . . Luther says of the Epistle to the Romans that it is 'the most important document in the New Testament, the gospel in its purest expression', and in many ways I agree that there is no purer, plainer statement of the gospel than in the Epistle to the Romans. Accepting that as true, I would venture to add if the Epistle to the Romans is the purest expression of the gospel, the Epistle to the Ephesians is the sublimest and the most majestic expression of it. . . .There are statements and passages in this Epistle which really baffle description. The great Apostle piles epithet upon epithet, adjective upon adjective, and still he cannot express himself adequately. There are passages in [the] first chapter, and others in the third chapter, especially towards its end, where the Apostle is carried out above and beyond himself and loses and abandons himself in a great outburst of worship and praise and thanksgiving. I repeat, therefore, that there is nothing more sublime in the whole range of Scripture than this Epistle to the Ephesians.

D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones. God's Ultimate Purpose—An Exposition of Ephesians 1, Baker Books, Grand Rapids, Michigan, 1978, pp. 11-12.

It seems then that Lloyd-Jones ranked Ephesians very highly indeed. I suspect it is only his challenging views on 'sealing with the Spirit' that have stopped the Doctor's far shorter work on Ephesians from being as well known as his major work on Romans. I strongly urge every would-be preacher to do what I did decades ago and get yourself a copy and read through Ephesians with Martyn Lloyd-Jones as your guide.

Anyway, here is Fred:

[Goodwin] quotes Jerome’s comment that Ephesians is “like the heart in the midst of the body,” (quomodo cor animalis in medio est), and says that just as the heart is “the prime seat and fountain of spirits, and the fullest thereof,” Ephesians has everything important in it that you can find anywhere in Scripture. In fact, it has “more of the spirits, the quintessence of the mysteries of Christ,” than can be found anywhere else in the Bible.

And in case you don’t believe Goodwin or Jerome, Goodwin hazards the observation that Paul himself seemed to be aware that he’d written something especially specially special: In Ephesians 3:3, Paul says that a rich treasury of insight into the mystery of the gospel had been given to him, “as I said before.” Goodwin thinks “as I said before” means “up there, the last couple of chapters.”

If you are interested in finding out more about Ephesians, feel free to follow along with our church as we preach our way through this amazing book. Either subscribe to our podcast or visit Jubilee Church, London.

In conclusive proof that there is nothing new under the sun, we see in this quote on John Owen a devoted conviction to both Word and Spirit. How we need churches today who will bring both emphases to the fore, as did Martyn Lloyd Jones in the quote I posted yesterday.

May God raise up an army of believers who can say “Amen!” to the following quote where Owen is described by the editors of Communion With the Triune God as follows:

"Central to Puritan thinking was an effort to make sure their activities held together two realities—Word and Spirit. Thus, even when Puritans spoke of the vital importance of the Word—whether preached or read—they always linked this with the Spirit. For them, Spirit and Word should always be united; when they are separated, problems quickly arise. John Owen self-consciously viewed himself as a theologian of the Spirit, and as such he poured more time and energy into exploring questions related to the third person of the Trinity than anyone else in his day, and possibly even before him."

Owen, John. Communion With the Triune God, Eds. Kelly M. Kapic and Justin Taylor, Crossway Books, Wheaton, Illinois, 2007, p. 42.

In this quote, taken once again from the Doctor on Ephesians, we see a strong emphasis on experience. The Christian must KNOW God. Oh, how little we emphasize that today! How poor our experience often is. How few people glow when they speak about their relationship with their precious Saviour. How this challenges me personally once again to seek God!

"There are, unfortunately, even many evangelical Christians who deny that God has any direct dealings with men today, and who hold feeling and emotion at a discount. They frequently substitute for true emotion a flabby sentimentalism. They are afraid of the power of the Holy Spirit, and so afraid of certain excesses which are sometimes found in mysticism and in certain people who claim to have unusual experiences of the Holy Spirit, that they 'quench the Spirit' and never have any personal knowledge of Christ. Indeed, they often go so far as to deny the possibility of such a knowledge.

This is obviously something with which we must deal, for if we hold this particular view we shall clearly never seek the knowledge of which the Apostle is speaking, and therefore shall never have it. How then do we answer this charge?

There is, of course, a false mysticism. This becomes quite clear in books on the subject and especially in the biographies of certain mystics. Beyond a doubt, there were aberrations in the lives of many of them, and much that was morbid and unhealthy. There is a morbid, introspective, selfish, impractical and useless type of mysticism. But because certain mystics have been guilty of such things we should not allow ourselves to be blinded to that which is a true and healthy mysticism, a mysticism which is taught in the Bible itself . . .

. . . we must remind ourselves that this teaching is found, perhaps supremely, in the words of our blessed Lord Himself. In the fourteenth chapter of John's Gospel, having told them that He is about to leave them, our Lord says: 'Let not your hearts be troubled. Ye believe in God, believe also in me'. They were troubled when told that He was going to leave them. They had been with Him three years, they had looked into His face, they had seen His miracles, heard His sermons, and could always ask Him questions. But now He is going to leave them, and they feared that they could not possibly continue to live and be happy without Him. His answer was, 'I will come unto you. I will manifest myself to you' (vv. 18, 21, 22). But still more explicitly in the sixteenth chapter we find Him saying, 'It is expedient for you that I go away' (v. 7). It would be good for them that He was going to leave them and to go away from them in the form in which He was then with them, because (as He proceeded to explain) 'if I go not away, the Comforter will not come unto you; but if I go away I will send him unto you'. How can it be expedient for the disciples that He should leave them in the flesh and go away from them in the body? How can that be true if it is not possible for the Christian to know Him immediately and directly? Obviously the supreme blessing is to be with Him, in His presence and in His company. What He is really saying is that after He has gone and has baptized them with the Holy Ghost, He will be more real to them than He was at that moment. And this is what actually happened. They knew Him much better after Pentecost than they knew Him before. He was more real to them, more living to them, more vital to them afterwards than He was in the days of His flesh. His promise was literally fulfilled and verified . . .

Nothing stands out more prominently in the life of George Whitefield than his consciousness of the love of Christ. He knew it to an exceptional degree and you will find that it was always after he had had some exceptional experience of Christ that he was given unusual enlargement and liberty in his preaching, and that men and women were broken down and melted before his holy eloquence and his portrayal of the love of God in Christ Jesus. Charles Wesley knew it equally well, and so writes:

Enlarge, inflame, and fill my heart
With boundless charity divine!
So shall I all my strength exert,
And love them with a zeal like Thine.
This has been true of God's greatest servants in all ages, in all centuries, in all places.

. . . The secret of the early Christians, the early Protestants, Puritans and Methodists was that they were taught about the love of Christ, and they became filled with a knowledge of it. Once a man has the love of Christ in his heart you need not train him to witness; he will do it. He will know the power, the constraint, the motive; everything is already there. It is a plain lie to suggest that people who regard this knowledge of the love of Christ as the supreme thing are useless, unhealthy mystics. The servants of God who have most adorned the life and the history of the Christian Church have always been men who have realized that this is the most important thing of all, and they have spent hours in prayer seeking His face and enjoying His love. The man who knows the love of Christ in his heart can do more in one hour than the busy type of man can do in a century. God forbid that we should ever make of activity an end in itself. Let us realize that the motive must come first, and that the motive must ever be the love of Christ.

I end with the question which I asked at the beginning: To which of the circles do you belong? Are you pressing your way right into the centre? You may have seen people in a crowd, when the Queen or some other notable person is passing, trying to push themselves forward in order to have a front-line view. The same thing occurs at various games. There are those who always want to be in the front to have the best view. Are we pressing into the innermost circle? Are we seeking the Lord's face? Are we coveting the knowledge of His love? The Apostle prayed for every single member of the Church at Ephesus that he or she 'might be able to comprehend with all saints what is the length and breadth and depth and height, and to know the love of Christ, which passeth knowledge.' How tragic it is that any of us should be living as paupers, out on the cold street, while the banqueting chamber is open and the feast prepared. Let us search for the knowledge of the Lord in the Scriptures and read about it in the lives of the saints throughout the centuries. As we do so, we shall never be content until we are in the innermost circle and looking into His blessed face."

Lloyd-Jones, D. Martyn. An Exposition of Ephesians 3: The Unsearchable Riches of Christ, Grand Rapids: Baker Book House, 1979, pp.247-253.

For more information see my previous posts on Lloyd-Jones and the MLJ Recordings Trust website.

To be quite honest, when reading the publicity, this talk was the one that most inspired me to attend the Theology for All conference. Mark is somewhat of an expert on Church history, and in particular the Puritans. As a pastor, he is concerned not merely with transferring knowledge to his congregation, but also in showing them the lessons to be learned from what has happened in the past.

Mark underlined the old maxim, “What one generation knows and teaches, the second generation assumes, and the third generation loses.” Our study of Church history is to insure that we don't fall into the same trap.

He explained that some people have mocked his interest in the Puritans. He has heard all the old jibes: “The Puritans hated bear bating, not because it gave pain to the bear, but because it caused pleasure to the viewers.” Or, “The Puritans went to America because they were hoping to find more restrictions than were permissible under English law.” They are often characterized as those who were afraid that somebody somewhere might be having a good time! Dever does not believe those descriptions to be accurate.

Dever spent time focusing on Richard Sibbes. He began by explaining that Sibbes argued that the killing sin that many religious people lay under is a dead formality. Sibbes was eager to underline that the Spirit is the one who quickens, not mere words and structure. Spirit-less Christianity is no Christianity at all. He was no mere formalist himself.

Sibbes was a great success. He was able to preach the Gospel faithfully throughout his life. Sadly, many he influenced to become preachers did not find the same ease in the established faith.

Sibbes had a great optimism in the progress of the Gospel. He was even optimistic when godly people endured trials. His view of the Church was typical of the “magisterial reformers” (e.g. Calvin, etc.). The common thread was that the preaching of the Word was the heart of the Church.

Sibbes and his Puritan brethren had an evangelical vision of the Church. They wanted to see freedom in order that the Gospel could be preached. He firmly believed in the centrality of the right sort of preaching for the health of the Church.

“Death came in by the ear . . . so life comes in by the ear.” What happened to Adam? He heard a voice he should not have heard. In the same way, the Gospel is heard.

Sibbes did not worship preaching, however. He argued that “unless the Spirit of Christ quicken them,” preaching and the Word were useless. It is the preaching of the Gospel rightly anointed that will reveal Jesus to us. The Spirit flows with the doctrine that we hear according to Sibbes. Sibbes expressed himself fully, with passionate emotion.

What lessons can we learn for today? Sibbes challenges us with the centrality of preaching. Preaching is more fundamental than Church authority structure. Sibbes had friends who were Congregationalists and Presbyterians. He wanted the Gospel to go forth in all churches. Denominations are secondary pragmatic creations. In fact, denominations are parachurch organizations. It is the local church that is entrusted with the preaching.

Preaching is generative—it creates new life. It is by the Holy Spirit taking the preaching of the Gospel and bringing life that people are saved. The solution to our problem is neither making our churches as 'pure' as possible (i.e. a rigorous application of church discipline). Nor is it making our churches as nonthreatening to visitors as possible. Rather we must allow God's Word to take center place. Preaching is more important than whatever else happens in the church's meetings. The Spirit restores the ability of the soul to appreciate God, and enables man to desire him.

Our social action is not as important as preaching the Gospel! Preaching is more central to the health of your church than anything else you can think of. The great trunk of the Puritan view of the Church is that the Gospel preached is the hope of the Church.