+I. We have access.+--The word signifies an approach to some object.
Here it intends a near approach to God in worship, or such a state of
peace with God as allows a freedom of intercourse. It is a familiar
expression suited to convey the idea of great condescension on God's
part and high privilege on ours.
+II. We have boldness of access.+ The word signifies a freedom of
speaking in opposition to that restraint which we feel when in the
presence of one we dread and in whose goodness we can place no
confidence. It expresses the fulness of that liberty which under the
Gospel all Christians enjoy of drawing near to God, and that freedom
of spirit with which we should come to God. The disposition of our
hearts should correspond with the liberal and gracious dispensation
under which we are placed. We should come to God with a spirit of
love, in opposition to servile fear. This boldness imports frequency
in our approaches to God. Slaves, under fear, stand at a distance.
Children, invited by the goodness of a father, come often into his
presence.
+III. We have access with confidence.+ This confidence is elsewhere
called a better hope and the full assurance of faith. It is opposed
to doubting and distrust. Confidence in prayer is a full reliance on
God; but this may be accompanied with a humble diffidence of
ourselves.
+IV. All our hope of success in prayer must rest upon the mediation
of Christ+ (ver. 12).--In His name we are to come before God; and in
the virtue of His atonement and intercession we may hope for
acceptance.
+V. Access to God a refuge in trouble+ (ver. 13).--Fearing lest his
sufferings in the cause of the Gospel should dishearten his converts,
the apostle sets before them a view of their security under the
protection of Divine grace. Dangers were before them; but what had
they to fear who had boldness of access to God? It was one of the
glories of their religion that he who preached it was not ashamed to
suffer for it.
+Lessons.+--1. _In the apostle Paul we have a noble example of
benevolence._ 2. _New converts should be assisted and encouraged._
3. _Our best support under trouble is boldness of access to God._
4. _Let the grace and condescension of God encourage us to come often
into His presence.--Lathrop._
Ver. 12. _Access to God in Prayer._--Prayer is to be exercised with
the greatest caution and exactness, being the most solemn intercourse
earth can have with heaven. The distance between God and us, so great
by nature and yet greater by sin, makes it fearful to address Him;
but Christ has smoothed a way, and we are commanded to come with a
good heart, not only in respect of innocence, but also of confidence.
+I. There is a certain boldness and confidence very well becoming our
humblest addresses to God.+--It is the very language of prayer to
treat God as our Father. The nature of this confidence is not so
easily set forth by positive description as by the opposition it
bears to its extremes. It is opposed: 1. To desperation and horror of
conscience. 2. To doubtings and groundless scrupulosities. 3. To
rashness and precipitation. 4. To impudence.
+II. The foundation of this confidence is laid in the mediation of
Christ.+
+III. The reason why Christ's mediation ought to minister such
confidence to us.+--His incomparable fitness for the performance of
that work. Considering Him: 1. In respect to God, with whom He has to
mediate. God sustains a double capacity of Father and Judge. Christ
appears not only as an Advocate, but as a Surety, paying down the
utmost justice can exact. 2. In reference to men for whom He
mediates. He is a friend, brother, surety, lord or master. 3. In
respect to Himself. (1) He is perfectly acquainted with all our wants
and necessities. (2) He is heartily sensible of and concerned about
them. (3) He is best able to express and set them before the Father.
+IV. Whether there is any other ground that may rationally embolden
us in our addresses to Him.+--If there is, it must be either:
1. Something within us as the merit of our good actions. But this
cannot be--(1) because none can merit but by doing something
absolutely by his own power for the advantage of him from whom he
merits; (2) because to merit is to do something over and above what
is due. 2. Something without us. This must be the help and
intercession either of angels or saints. Angels cannot mediate for
us--(1) because it is impossible for them to know and perfectly
discern the thoughts; (2) because no angel can know at once all the
prayers that are even uttered in words throughout the world. These
arguments are still more forcible against the intercession of saints.
The invocation of saints supposed to arise: 1. From the solemn
meetings used by the primitive Christians at the saints' sepulchres,
and there celebrating the memory of their martyrdom. 2. From those
seeds of the Platonic philosophy that so much leavened many of the
primitive Christians. 3. From the people being bred in idolatry. But
the primitive fathers held no such thing; and the Council of Trent,
that pretended to determine the case, put the world off with an
ambiguity. Christ is the only true way.--_R. South._
Ver. 13. _Courage under Suffering._--1. Affliction and tribulation
for the Gospel is a trial not only to those under it, but to others
who look on, and are in no less hazard to be thereby brangled (made
to disagree) in their confidence, blunted in their zeal, and rendered
remiss in their forwardness, than the person himself who suffers.
2. A faithful minister suffering for truth will not be so solicitous
for his own outward estate as for the Church and people of God, lest
they be turned aside, or made to faint by reason of his sufferings.
This may guard from discouragement when we consider the excellent
worth of truth, and how those who suffer for it have not cast
themselves without necessity upon their sufferings, but were
necessitated to meet them in the way of their calling. 3. So
honourable is it to suffer for Christ and truth that not only the
persons who suffer are honoured, but also all such as have interest
in them, who should not faint, but rather glory in them and take
encouragement from them.--_Fergusson._
_MAIN HOMILETICS OF THE PARAGRAPH.--Verses_ 14-21.
_A Sublime and Comprehensive Prayer_--
+I. For spiritual strengthening+ (ver. 16).--The first necessity of
the new convert is strength. The change from the former life is so
new and strange. The spiritual faculties are but recently called into
exercise; and though they are thrilled with the vigour of youth, they
possess the inherent weakness and are exposed to the temptations of
youth. Their newly acquired strength is at once their glory and their
danger--their glory in giving them the capacity and impulse for the
highest kind of work; their danger because they are tempted to rely
upon their own conscious power rather than upon the grace of God
within them, which is the source of their best strength. If that
strength is once undermined or eaten away, it can never be replaced.
The strength of youth, physical or spiritual, belongs only in the
period of youth; if lost in youth, it can never be regained in
maturer life. Whatever strength we may gain in after-years will never
be what it might have been if ye had never lost the strength of our
first love. The apostle here prays that his converts may be
invigorated with a manful courage, the moral strength to meet dangers
and to battle with difficulties without quailing.
Transcriber's Note: The Transcriber is unsure what the
author means by "faith . . . must be constantly exercised
to keep Him there" in this next paragraph. Please remember
Christ's words in Hebrews xiii. 5: "I will never leave thee
nor forsake thee."
1. _This spiritual strengthening is achieved by the indwelling Christ
welcomed and retained in the heart by faith._--"That Christ may dwell
in your hearts by faith" (ver. 17). The source of this strength is
not in us; we cannot evoke it by any voluntary effort of our own. It
is a Divine power working in us (ver. 20). It is the Christ within us
making Himself felt in our otherwise enfeebled powers. We are
invested with the strength of Christ by our faith in Christ; and
increase of strength comes with increase of faith. The faith that
receives Christ into the heart must be constantly exercised to keep
Him there, and to derive inspiration and help from Him in attaining
spiritual growth and in doing useful work.
2. _This spiritual strengthening is cherished by an accession of
Christian love._--"That ye, being rooted and grounded in love" (ver.
17). The double metaphor gives emphasis to the idea--"rooted," a
tree; "grounded" a building. When Christ is planted and settled in
our hearts, love is shed abroad there, and becomes the genial soil in
which our graces grow, and the basis of all our thought and action.
Love is strength, the most reliable, sustaining, and victorious kind
of strength.
+II. For a clearer comprehension of the immeasurable love of Christ+
(vers. 18, 19).--Here the prayer rises in sublimity and
comprehensiveness. The apostle prays that we may know the
unknowable--"know the love of Christ, which passeth knowledge." There
is nothing so fascinating as the love of Christ, ever leading us on
by fresh revelations, and ever leaving the impression that there are
unfathomable depths and inaccessible heights yet to be discovered.
"Oh that Christ would," exclaimed the saintly Rutherford, "arrest and
comprise my love and my heart for all. I am a bankrupt who have no
more free goods in the world for Christ, save that it is both the
whole heritage I have, and all my moveables besides. Lord, give the
thirsty man a drink. Oh to be over ears in the well! Oh to be
swimming over head and ears in Christ's love! I would not have
Christ's love entering in me, but I would enter into it, and be
swallowed up of that love. But I see not myself here, for I fear I
make more of His love than of Himself, whereas He Himself is far
beyond and much better than His love. Oh, if I had my sinful arms
filled with that lovely one Christ! Blessed be my rich Lord Jesus,
who sendeth not away beggars from His house with an empty dish. He
filleth the vessel of such as will come and seek. We might beg
ourselves rich, if we were wise, if we would but hold out our
withered hands to Christ, and learn to seek, ask, and knock." The
highest conceptions of the love of Christ are realised by the soul
that prays.
+III. For the attainment of the most complete endowment of the Divine
fulness.+--"That you might be filled with all the fulness of God"
(ver. 19). The prayer asks that man may gain the sum-total of God's
gifts, be filled in every capacity of his nature with the whole
plenitude (the πλήρωμα) of God. To reach this glorious result, we
need, indeed, special spiritual strengthening. New wine bursts old
bottles; and a large and sudden inflow of Divine grace would be
disastrous to the soul unprepared to receive it. What is wanted is
strength--strength of the highest and purest kind. Muscular
strength--a magnificent healthy physique--is a great gift; but it is
one of our lowest endowments, and its abuse sinks us to a worse than
brutish sensuality. Intellectual strength is a still higher gift, and
if rightly used will lift us into a loftier world of wonders, of
beauty, of purity and joy; but if abused will drag us down to the
base level of the vapouring, scoffing sceptic, whose attempts to
glorify error are instigated by a savage but utterly powerless hatred
of truth. Spiritual strength is the highest gift of all. It is the
motive-power that gives movement and direction to thought and action.
Without it man is the plaything and victim of unrestrained passions.
A short time ago I inspected one of the finest ocean-going
steamships, a marvellous combination of strength and elegance.
Everything seemed as perfect as engineering science could make it.
But there was something wanting; it was a fatal defect. The giant
shaft and powerful screw, the triple expansion cylinders, the cranks,
pistons, and wheels were all there, but the noble vessel was useless,
heaving helplessly on the rolling tide. The fires were out, and the
active driving-power was lacking. What steam is to that great
floating mass of complicated mechanism, giving it life, movement,
direction, purpose--that spiritual strength is to our mental and
physical organism. To receive the fulness of indwelling Deity the
soul must be strengthened with spiritual strength. We cannot pray too
earnestly for this.
+IV. Uttered with a reverential recognition of the great Giver of all
blessing.+--1. _Beginning with the submissive awe of a humble
suppliant._ "For this cause I bow my knees unto the Father," etc.
(vers. 14, 15). The apostle is overwhelmed with the contemplation of
the rich blessings stored up for man in Christ Jesus, and prostrates
himself with lowly homage in the conscious presence of the great
Donor of all spiritual good. Nothing humbles us more than a sight of
the blessings possible of attainment by the greatest sinner.
2. _Ending with an outburst of triumphant praise_ (vers. 20,
21).--Praise soars higher than prayer. Man's desires will never
overtake God's bounty. When the apostle desires that God's praise may
resound in the Church "throughout all ages," he no longer supposes
that the mystery of God may be finished speedily as men count years.
The history of mankind stretches before his gaze into its dim
futurity. The successive generations gather themselves into that
consummate age of the kingdom of God, the grand cycle in which all
the ages are contained. With its completion time itself is no more.
Its swelling current, laden with the tribute of all the worlds and
all their histories, reaches the eternal ocean. The end comes; God is
all in all. At this furthest horizon of thought, Christ and His own
are seen together rendering to God unceasing glory (_Findlay_).
+Lessons.+--1. _Prayer is the cry of conscious need._ 2. _Increases
in importunity as it is strengthened by faith._ 3. _Finds its
sublimest themes in the culture of the spiritual life._
_GERM NOTES ON THE VERSES._