PT-4 "How Christ won the Right to give Gifts" (Eph. 4:8-10)

SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 3/17/2019 9:45 PM

My Worship Time                              Focus:  PT-4 “How Christ Won the Right to Give Gifts”

Bible Reading & Meditation                                                 Reference:  Eph. 4:8-10

            Message of the verses:  “8 Therefore it says, "WHEN HE ASCENDED ON HIGH, HE LED CAPTIVE A HOST OF CAPTIVES, AND HE GAVE GIFTS TO MEN." 9  (Now this expression, "He ascended," what does it mean except that He also had descended into the lower parts of the earth? 10  He who descended is Himself also He who ascended far above all the heavens, so that He might fill all things.)”

            We have been talking about where it was that Jesus, at least His spirit went after He died on the cross, and stated that he had gone to a place called Sheol.  Sheol has another part that is not clearly distinguished from the other by Old Testament writes, as it was believed to be a place of happiness and bliss, and was inhabited by the righteous dead who had believed in God.  When we look at Luke 16:22-23 we see a place called “Abraham’s bosom.”  In Luke 23:43 it is called “Paradise” and apparently were common designations for Sheol at the time of Christ.  I have always been taught that the place where the OT saints went was not at heaven and that they could not have gone to heaven until Jesus died and completely paid for their sins.  John MacArthur writes “Figuratively speaking, the early church Fathers said that, after announcing His triumph over demons in one part of Sheol, He then opened the doors of another part of Sheol to release those godly captives.  Like the victorious kings of old, He recaptured the captives and liberated them, and henceforth they would live in heaven as eternally free sons of God.

            “It must be suggested that such a view seems strained in the Ephesian context, because ‘the lower parts of the earth’ is a general phrase and cannot be proven to refer to Sheol.”

            We have to remember that in this 4^th chapter of the book of Ephesians that Paul is laying the groundwork in order to talk about gifts, and in this section he wants to make the point that Jesus Christ is the One who has the right to give gifts as He is now exalted “above all the heavens” (that is, to the throne of God). 

            MacArthur asks “Does ‘all things’ mean all prophecies, all assigned tasks, all universal sovereignty?  Surely the answer is yes in regard to each of those aspects.  But the context would dictate that His filling ‘all things’ primarily has to do with His glorious divine presence and power expressed in universal sovereignty.  He fills the entire universe with blessing, particularly His church, as the next verse illustrates.”

Today’s quotation is from Charles Swindoll:  “Soul surgery transpires as serenity replaces anxiety.”  (Perhaps we all need some of that .)