Two Prayers

In the Epistle to the Ephesians, there are two prayers of the apostle Paul. Each one of them, and also the two taken as a whole, show us some very interesting things. Paul’s letters are filled with spiritual realities that are already the Christian’s inheritance. Paul loves to speak of what we already have in Christ, through the Holy Spirit. But the fact that there are two prayers here means that there are also things that are not yet the believer’s possession. A prayer is a tacit or explicit expression of a need we bring before God. It is a demonstration of our smallness, through which we approach the throne of grace.

The first prayer is in chapter 1, where Paul asks the Father to give the Ephesians “the spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of him” (Christ), so that they may know three things: “the hope to which they have been called,” “the riches of the glory of their inheritance among the saints,” and “the surpassing greatness of God’s power” toward them. Evidently, if Paul, through the gifts he possessed, could make up for those deficiencies, he would have no need to pray to the Father.

This tells us that there were things the Ephesians did not have, but which they ought to possess. This happens in the life of every Christian — and every church. No one has reached the goal, as if to say they have attained everything. Thus, the apostle’s prayer arises on behalf of the brothers and sisters, that God might intervene from heaven.

Paul, the apostle who received the greatest mysteries of God, is utterly powerless —and every servant of God is— to communicate to the brothers and sisters under his care the deepest mysteries of God. Only the Father can do this, through the spirit of wisdom and revelation, which is an expression of the Holy Spirit (see Isaiah 11:2; Rev. 5:6).

The second prayer is in chapter 3. This seems to be an even more heartfelt prayer, for he offers it on his knees. The purpose of it is that the Father may grant the brothers in Ephesus “to be strengthened with power through His Spirit in the inner man; so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith, that…” (vv. 16–17). This “being strengthened in the inner man” is the first rung of a ladder; it is the prerequisite for them to reach certain higher levels in their life as a church.

How could this be done? Who could grant the brothers this strenthening of the inner man? No one could; only God can, through His Spirit. Paul’s powerlessness is the powerlessness of every man, even those closest and most intimate in God’s work. There is one aspect —and probably many— in which God is sovereign and all-sufficient, but which has been put beyond man’s capacity of attaining. This should make us more humble before God, for neither the much nor the best we do is enough to accomplish God’s finest work. That exquisite work, that deepest revelation concerning Christ, is the work of the Father, through the Spirit, for those whom He chooses. For it does not depend on the one who wills or the one who runs, but on God who shows mercy.

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