The InWorking Of God’s Power
God's ways and God's thoughts are much much higher than man's ways and man's thoughts. Look at this comparsion that God givens in His Word.
For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are My ways higher than your ways, and My thoughts than your thoughts.
ISAIAH 55:9
How high are the heavens? Boundless, limitless, unfathomable, immeasurable? Words seem inadequate to properly describe the incredible fullness of God’s creation. The Creator of the heavens and the earth is He Who formed, made and created man. It is He Who redeemed man from lifeless death by giving His son to pay the required price for man’s redemption unto life without end. Because that price was fully and completely paid, God was able to pour out His gift which He had promised to man: holy spirit.
No one and nothing else is equal to the thoughts and ways of God our heavenly Father. Only He is the Highest, the Holiest, the one and the only Almighty God. By His revealed Word He makes Himself known to man. He wants man to know Him as well as the fullness of all that He has done for us and in us.
Because we are filled with God’s gift, holy spirit, we are able to have a deep understanding of spiritual matters and of the great truths He has made known to us in His Word. In the epistles addressed to the spirit-filled saints, God declares the things He wants us to know and understand regarding all that He has made us to be and to have and to hope in Christ.
That the God of our lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give unto you the spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of him:
The eyes of your understanding being enlightened; that ye may know what is the hope of His calling, and what [are] the riches of the glory of His inheritance in the saints.
EPHESIANS 1:17-18
The greatest spiritual information to the called-out of God in Christ is the Epistle to the Ephesians. It is the apex of revelation from God to the saints. Some truths declared in Ephesians are found in no other epistle. One of these great truths is communicated with a unique and noteworthy word, first found in the Scriptures in Ephesians. Not only is its first usage here, it is also used three times in Ephesians. All three uses instruct us in spiritual matters concerning the ways of God and His holy spirit in us.
And what is the exceeding greatness of His power to us-ward who believe, according to the working [energeia] of His mighty power.
EPHESIANS 1:19
The notable word is the Greek noun energeia, translated ‘working’ in verse 19 of this first chapter. It is a combination of the preposition en, which means ‘in’, and the noun ergon, ‘work’. Energeia is therefore an ‘in-work’ or something that is ‘in-working’. Here God is teaching us of the in-working of His mighty power. He wants us to know the exceeding (or far-surpassing) greatness of His power toward us who are believing!
The translation of energeia in both its other sues in Ephesians has a meaningful addition. The King James translators added an adjective in order to communicate the uniqueness of this ‘working’. In the two other verses in Ephesians the text reads ‘the effectual working’.
Whereof I was made a minister, according to the gift of the grace of God given unto me by the effectual working [energeia] of His power.
Unto me, who am less than the least of all saints, is this grace given, that I should preach among the Gentiles [the nations] the unsearchable riches of Christ.
EPHESIANS 3:7
By the grace of God Paul was enabled, by the inworking of God’s power, with a gift ministry to teach people of all nations. God revealed to Paul information that had been ‘hid in God’ and therefore had been kept secret or a ‘mystery’. Now God wanted this newly-revealed information to be made known and taught to men and women of all nations. Paul was given this tremendous responsibility, and the inworking of God’s power helped him get it done. How remarkable are God’s ways that bring answers and deliverance to those who hunger for the truth!
To enlighten all people regarding what is the administration of the mystery (which has been hidden from the ages in God, Who created all things).
EPHESIAN 3:19
From the Working Translation
Another tremendous truth of God’s greatness and man’s deliverance which is also made known in detail in the Epistle to the Ephesians is the ‘one new man’.
For he [Jesus Christ] is our peace, who hath made both one, and hath broken down the middle wall of partition between us;
Having abolished in his flesh the enmity, even the law of commandments contained in ordinances; for to make in himself of twain [the two] one new man, so making peace.
EPHESIANS 2:14-15
The redemptive work of Jesus Christ ‘made both one’. He made those, who previously had been separated, ‘one new man’. The ‘two’ are called in God’s Word the ‘Circumcision’ and the ‘Uncircumcision’. The ‘Circumcision’ were the people of the nation of Israel with whom God had made a covenant (now called the ‘old covenant’). The ‘Uncircumcision’ were all people of all other nations who had no part in that covenant.
The better promises of the ‘new covenant’ are now available to and for all people of all nations. Therefore those, who before were distinctly two, are now ‘one new man’ because Christ ‘made both one’ by the new covenant. This ‘one new man’ is called the body of Christ. The head of this body is Jesus Christ. We are all members of his body.
The third usage of energeia in Ephesians instructs us that from Christ, the head, the entire body is joined together and united by every joint of supply. Our source of supply is according to the inworking of Christ in the measure of each and every part of his body.
But speaking the truth in love, may grow up into him in all things, who is the head, even Christ:
From whom the whole body fitly joined together and compacted by that which every joint supplieth, according to the effectual working [energeia] in the measure of every part, maketh increase of the body unto the edifying of itself in love.
EPHESIANS 4:15-16