Eph. 1:15-23. First Prayer

"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 soul is here led into immediate association with His glory present and future. "The Father of glory." We being now united with Him in glory, having been already quickened: yet how few are alive to all this!
"The eyes of your understanding being enlightened; that ye may know what is the hope of his calling, and what the riches of the glory of His inheritance in the saints."
Wisdom, revelation, and understanding, connected with knowledge, are needed, in order to enter into all this. The Ephesians were addressed as in a lower standing than the Thessalonians. They were " in God the Father." But here it is that "the Father of glory may give," etc. Paul asks these two things, wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of Him, that they may be enlightened to comprehend not merely the God of Christ, but of our Lord Jesus Christ, thus blending the two; and know " the hope of his calling": this does not mean our salvation, but our association with God, All that the Lord inherits now is the saints. What power we should have, if we realized that we are "His inheritance"!
19, 20. "And what is the exceeding greatness of His power to us-ward who believe, according to the working of His mighty power, which He wrought in Christ, when He raised him from the dead, and set him at His own right hand in the heavenly places."
Here we find another step-resurrection; but peculiarly with reference to a present thing: the present power of God put forth not merely in quickening, but in raising up, and seating in heavenly places: the same mighty resurrection-power which raised His Son is now exercised to lift up our souls to Himself But man is so utterly dead, that who can realize thus being set so far above!
21. "Far above all principality, and power, and might, and dominion, and every name that is named, not only in this world, but also in that which is to come."
Paul here is tracing Him from higher to lesser glory. How ought such a view as this to lead us to a true estimate of forms and ordinances down here. What have we to do with such?
22, 23. "And hath put all things under His feet, and gave him to be the Head over all things to the church, which is His body, the fullness of Him that filleth all in all."
The glory which fills the church as an empty vessel" the fullness of Him that filleth all in all."