PRAYER FOR CHRIST-CENTEREDNESS
EPHESIANS 3:17
“THAT CHRIST may dwell in your hearts by faith” is the second petition. We readily grant that we are considering a realm that is beyond the compass of any created mind, yet that does not warrant our denying God’s Word. We freely admit that the God-man Mediator does not indwell the saints, for His humanity is localized in heaven. But Christ is, essentially, a divine person, coequal with the Father and the Spirit, and in becoming flesh the Word lost none of His divine attributes. Omnipresence pertains as much to Him now as it did before He became incarnate, and as a divine person He indwells His people as really as do the other Persons of the Godhead. God the Father dwells in His children: if 1 John 4:12–15 is read attentively, it will be seen that in that passage “God” clearly has reference to the Father. The Holy Spirit dwells in the saint individually and in the Church corporeally (Rom. 8:8, 11; 1 Corinthians 3:16; 6:19); and God the Son dwells in believers. “God is in you of a truth” (1 Cor. 14:25) is to be understood as the triune God.
Yet it is not only in the sense that He is omnipresent that Christ indwells His people. “Do not I fill heaven and earth? saith the LORD” (Jer. 23:24) refers alike to the omnipresence of each Person in the Godhead. But when we are told that the infinite God dwells “in the heavens” (Ps. 123:1), “among the children of Israel” (Num. 35:34), “in Zion” (Ps. 9:11), “with him also that is of a contrite and humble spirit” (Isa. 57:15), a particular appropriation is signified, where He is specially manifested.
Let us consider more closely the meaning of our petition. That Christ personally and immediately inhabits His people is a blessed fact, and therefore there is no need to make request for the same. But over and above that, the apostle here prayed “that Christ may dwell in your hearts by faith,” by which we understand him to mean that by spiritual meditations upon and loving contemplation of His complex person, His glorious titles, His mediatorial offices, His precious promises, His wise precepts, He may have a constant place, the supreme place, in our thoughts and in our affections. The apostle prayed that the saints might have a spiritual sight of Christ, a spiritual knowledge of Him, a spiritual enjoyment of Him, so that He would be present and precious to the soul; and that can only be by the exercise of faith in Him as He is revealed in the Scriptures. The apostle prayed for their hearts to be occupied with the excellency of His person, with His love and grace, with His blood and righteousness. p 170
Our text refers to an objective dwelling of Christ in the heart—as the subjects which engage our thoughts obtain a dwelling place in our minds, and as the objects of our love secure a place in our affections. As the eye beholds an object, an image of it is introduced and impressed upon the mind; and as the eye of the spirit—faith—is engaged with Christ, an image of Him is formed on the heart. The sun is stationed in the heavens, yet when we gaze upon it steadily an image of it is formed upon the retina of the eye. As by opening the door or the window the sun shines directly into our rooms, so by the exercise of faith upon Christ, He obtains a more real and abiding presence in our hearts. Christ is the grand Object of faith, and faith is the faculty whereby we, through the light of the Word and the power of the Spirit, receive and take into our renewed minds the knowledge of His person and perfections. Thereby He is admitted into our hearts and we have real communion with Him.
As the fancy—that faculty of the mind by which it records and represents past images or impressions, forming a picture of them in the mind—is an aid to our natural knowledge in the understanding of natural things, so does faith much more help our spiritual knowledge of divine things—giving real substance to them in the soul. The beholding of Christ is not by way of fancy, but by faith giving a subsistence to Him, so that the heart finds a reality of what it believes. Yes, it has so great an influence and leaves such an impression that it changes the heart into the same image (2 Cor. 3:18). Faith, by the Spirit, makes Christ a living actuality. Moreover faith produces love, and then works by it, so that the object of faith is sealed upon the heart. As Christ was received by faith at first, so by the same principle of faith we continue to receive of His fullness, feed upon Him, and commune with Him. And as the mind is exercised with believing meditations on Christ we give Him entertainment in our hearts.
“That he would grant you…to be strengthened with might by his Spirit in the inner man, that Christ may dwell in your hearts by faith.” Cannot the reader now perceive more clearly the relation between those two petitions? There is no exercise of faith in Christ apart from and except by the operations of the gracious Spirit within the believer’s soul. Said the Lord Jesus, “No man can come to me, except the Father which hath sent me draw him” (John 6:44). To “come” to Christ is the same as to “believe” on Him as verse 35 of the same chapter shows, and none can come or believe unless his heart is drawn to Christ by the Father, and that “drawing” He does both personally and by the operations of His Spirit. True, John 6:44 has reference to our initial coming to or believing on Christ, yet we are equally dependent upon the Spirit for every subsequent exercise of faith. Thus we read of “faith of the operation of God” (Col. 2:12), and of Paul praying that God would “fulfill all the good pleasure of his goodness, and the work of faith with power”—i.e., His power (2 Thess. 1:11). Thus the principal effect of our being strengthened by the Spirit is that our hearts are drawn out to Christ and our faith is exercised upon Him. p 171
As the Spirit is from Christ (John 15:26; Acts 2:33), so the great mission of the Spirit is to direct souls to Christ (John 16:14–15). If He first convicts of sin, it is simply to convince us of our need of a Savior. If He communicates to us a new nature, it is so that new nature may be absorbed with Christ. If He strengthens us, it is in order that faith may act upon Christ. The Holy Spirit never acts except in and through Christ with respect to His people; furthermore, Christ is never received except by and with the influences of the Spirit. A man cannot truly believe in Christ except by the power of the Holy Spirit, nor can he have the Spirit if he does not truly believe in Christ. There is mutual action in the two divine offices. The Spirit is the Water of life from the Fountain of life, Christ. The Spirit waters the soul to fit it to believe on Christ.
The majority of Christians do not realize that they are as wholly dependent upon the gracious operations of the Spirit within them as they are upon the meritorious righteousness of Christ without them. Therefore they need to seek God and count on the enablings of the former as definitely and as constantly as they trust in and rely on the finished work of the latter. As they are completely devoid of anything to commend themselves to the notice of the Lord, so they are equally without any power of their own to serve and glorify Him now that He has deigned to look on and recover them from their lost estate. Because of their helplessness He has bestowed the Holy Spirit on them: to maintain life in their souls and to draw forth that life to suitable exercise and action. It is our privilege and duty to recognize our dependency on the Spirit in order to avoid those things which grieve Him, and to seek His daily renewings. “I know that this shall turn to my salvation through your prayer, and the supply of the Spirit of Jesus Christ” (Phil. 1:19). A fresh supply of the Spirit comes to us in response to prayer!
Arthur Walkington Pink, Gleanings from Paul Studies in the Prayers of the Apostle (Bellingham, WA: Logos Research Systems, Inc., 2005). 169-71.
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