Ephesians 1:19 Commentary - Dr Peter Masters

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Ephesians 1:19

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Paul now moves to a new subject: the assurance of power. He helps us to explore the power of God, what God has done. Remember that this is Ephesus, the capital of this Roman province, and they are very proud to be such a city, and in normal times very wealthy. Here, Paul is going to deal not with God’s creative power, which of course is mighty and we see the evidence of that all around us. Nor does he consider God’s power of judgement, which will be colossal, and as part of his power of judgement the whole earth will one day be destroyed and then reformed and reconstituted and made into something infinitely more glorious. But it is not the power of judgement here. It is the power of salvation which the apostle is going to be dealing with. That power exceeds all human and earthly power by far. Even if you put out of the reckoning creative power and judgemental power, the power of salvation exceeds all visible power on earth. It is immeasurable and when God operates in salvation, it is irresistible.Powerful things are often destructive, but this is also a constructive power. It is a power that recreates people and brings them to God, and it produces beauty. It is an exercise of power that transforms and renders ugly things wonderful things, and it is lasting, eternal, and yet it is invisible power. We read of it in the Gospel of John where Christ is speaking to Nicodemus. It is like a breeze, a wind that blows, a gentle wind and you hear the sound of it and you see the fruit of it, but you cannot see it and you do not understand it. It is an invisible power working within.

Application

It is easy to make an atheist, it is easy to convince any man or woman to be an unbeliever, to be an atheist. It is easy or relatively easy to convince a person to be a theist, that is to believe in the possibility that there is somehow, somewhere a God, and it is reasonable to suppose that there is a God. But it is impossible humanly to convince a person of the necessity of salvation in Christ, that they are grievous sinners and bound for hell, and to bring about in them such depths of conviction that they cry out for salvation and repent of their sin. It is impossible humanly speaking to persuade a person to get such a sight of Christ, suffering and dying on Calvary for sinners like them that their hearts melt and they long for him and for heaven and glory. That is impossible. It takes a miracle, the working of God’s power.

There are even evangelists who don’t understand what the apostle is saying here. ‘What is the exceeding greatness of his power to us-ward who believe’ and they say to congregations of people quite accurately, ‘You are a sinner. Christ is a Saviour for sinners. Just come to him. Take him into your heart. Put up your hands everybody who wants to be a Christian. Right, you are saved. It’s all done. It was easy, wasn’t it? You are now a Christian.’ They have not the slightest conception of the mighty power which is involved in every conversion.

Conversion may seem easy to us but how much power from God goes into one conversion! If we only grasped it, how much more we would throng the prayer meetings to pray for souls. How much more careful and persistent we would be in our witness to lost souls. The more we call upon God and acknowledge our need of his mighty power, the more we will be instrumental in gathering souls to him.

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Ephesians 1:19 Commentary and Bible Study

Explain meaning of Ephesians 1:19