Over, Through, and In All

Well, our verse for the day is Ephesians 4:6: “one God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all.”

So, Father, here we are in our weakness. We fall before you and ask for your help as we come to the end of this day, that your Word might dwell in us richly; that we might speak to one another “in psalms and [in] hymns and [in] spiritual songs”;[1] that we might not be “drunk with wine, wherein is excess” but that we might “be filled with the [Holy] Spirit,”[2] in order that, once again, Jesus may become all the more precious to us and that our hearts might be knit together as those who, in humility and gentleness and forbearance, declare ourselves to be “eager to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond[s] of peace.”[3] To this end we come and ask for your help. In Christ’s name. Amen.

Well, some of you, I guess, will not have been here for any or all of these studies. So let me just read the whole six verses of Ephesians 4, if your Bible is open: “I therefore, a prisoner for the Lord,” writes Paul,

urge you to walk in a manner worthy of the calling to which you have been called, with all humility and gentleness, with patience, bearing with one another in love, eager to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace. There is one body and one Spirit—just as you were called to the one hope that belongs to your call—one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all.

Well, we have tried to make sure that we’re clear in the opening part of this verse—the phrase that goes up to the comma, “one God and Father of all”—that Paul is addressing here not humanity at large but rather the sons of the faith, as it were—those who are united to God, as are all by way of creation, but uniquely by way of redemption. And we sought in our earlier study to make sure that we were clear concerning that, arguing it simply out of the context of Paul’s letter here itself, and not least of all the verses which precede 6 and follow 6. “Grace was given to each one of us,” verse 7 is going to begin, and Paul is unable to say that of any other than those who are in Christ. So I hope that we are clear about that.

Also, that we simply dipped into the vastness of the subject of the Trinity, the tripersonal nature of God, affirming with those who have preceded us and have written the creeds that the Father is God, the Son is God, the Holy Spirit is God, and yet, as Athanasius says, “there are not three Gods” but one.[4]

We didn’t say this morning (and I want to take just a moment to say it this evening) that one of the great dangers that presents itself in congregations that would be regarded as orthodox and who would use Trinitarian language, and even in our hymnody as well—the danger is the danger of what is known as modalism. Modalism. It’s a heretical view of the Trinity, and the title itself gives hint to the idea. From this perspective, the Trinity, the tripersonal nature of God, is viewed simply as three different ways or three different modes in which God presents himself to us. And so, it’s as if he puts on a temporary mask or an impermanent mask, and at one point, he appears as Father, and then he wears a different mask and reveals himself as Son, and then another one when he reveals himself as the Spirit. It is, as I say, a heretical perspective and falls foul of the Scriptures themselves.

For example, classically, in the baptism of Jesus, you will remember that all three members of the Trinity are represented there—that the Son is in the water being baptized, the Spirit alights as a dove upon him, and the word of the Father comes from heaven, declaring, “This is my Son.”[5]

But it is important to recognize that this is out there, and you will bump into it. Hopefully you will never contribute to it. Because from that modalistic perspective, then the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit are not regarded as three persons, eternal and eternally distinct from one another.

You run into the confusion that is quite embarrassing in this when you may catch yourself in prayer or you may catch somebody else praying, and when you listen to them praying, you say, “But it wasn’t the Father who went to the cross. Why did that person say in prayer, ‘Father, we thank you for dying for us’?” Well, it wasn’t the Father who died for us. It was the Son who died for us. I’m not suggesting that when we trip up in our terminology like that, that we’re guilty of modalism, but we are guilty of a confused way of expressing ourselves. And that’s why we’re supposed to be thoughtful and purposeful and taught by the Bible in the way in which we approach God. We come largely to the Father, in the Holy Spirit, through the Son. And we learn as we go to become effective in the way in which we approach God, biblical in the way in which we approach him, and then we teach those who come behind us how to pray as well.

The biggest issue is actually not the potential embarrassment, but it is that this kind of confused thinking and praying and use of language opens up the door to dangerous compromise potential with, particularly, Mormonism. And when you listen to people talk with one another, you find that they’re often hard-pressed to distinguish genuine, basic, biblical, orthodox Christianity from the wrongful, unbiblical—I have to say, ultimately, heretical—teaching of Mormonism. And part of the problem is that they have never come to a safe understanding of what we’re saying when we express God in his tripersonal form. We cannot dispense with the Trinity, as God has revealed himself to be, without actually losing the Christian faith as the Scriptures teach.

So, I want to say to you again that if you’ve been thinking about this, if you want to follow through on it, our bookstore is well-served in this regard, and you can reward yourself by careful study, and you can come and tell me all the things that you’ve learned. And even this morning, Alan, who plays the cello, said that serendipitously, in his class with the young people this morning, he was actually teaching them on the doctrine of the Trinity. “Oh,” I said, “well, how did you do that?” He said, “Well,” he said, “I played a G on one of the strings, and then I had a tuning fork that was another note.” (And I don’t know what it was.) “And then I had them sing a D.” And I think it was probably a G, a B, and a D, or something like that. But anyway, he said, “Now, here we have three distinct notes, but they make one chord. And they are distinct from one another, and yet they’re unified in the making of the chord.” I said, “Well, goodness gracious! You should have been here doing the talk this morning.” And do I hear a hearty “Amen”? “Yes, indeed! Yes. That was a lot! We could have got through that in two or three minutes, if you had only given him a chance.” Well, credit where credit is due. I have explained to you how I benefited from his instruction, and I’m passing it on to you.

We cannot dispense with the Trinity, as God has revealed himself to be, without actually losing the Christian faith as the Scriptures teach.

Now, with all that said, here we are at this final phrase. Who would have thought for a moment that we would go through this in such a way that one would be left with the challenge and responsibility of speaking on “who is over all and through all and in all”? That should be an assignment for some of my young colleagues: “Give to us a sermon on ‘over all, … through all and in all.’” This is actually passed over, in large measure, by the commentators. So you can go in the commentaries and look: “Well, I wonder what they have to say about this.” Pretty well nothing. And they move almost directly to verse 7.

But here we are. We made a promise that we would consider it, so consider it we shall. We’ll take them each in turn.

“Over All”: God’s Place

First of all: “over all.” This “God and Father of all” is “over all.” I tried to help myself through this by thinking, first of all, in terms of place, and then in terms of power, and then in terms of presence. So, when we think of God the Father as “over all,” perhaps we can think in terms of his place. Sometimes we will say to someone, “And what is your place in all of this?” And the answer that the Bible gives concerning the “God and Father of all” is that his place is the place of supremacy. He is “over all.”

A good cross-reference for Ephesians 4:6, and one that helps us, is Romans 11:36, which reads very similarly. I wonder: Did Paul have one or the other in mind as he penned these? “For from him and through him and to him are all things. To him be glory forever.” “From him,” “through him,” “to him.”

In other words, and very simply but importantly, we notice that when we turn to our Bibles and when we’re introduced to the Christian faith, the Christian faith starts with God. It actually doesn’t start with us. Not only does it start with God, but it continues with God, and it ends with God. And the challenge that that represents to us, if it does represent a challenge, is because in our thinking, we can unwittingly, perhaps even purposefully, become very, very man centered. So our whole approach to the Bible, to the things of faith, tends to have its beginning and its end with us.

Every so often, we come across a song that is a pretty good song until it goes south. And I don’t want to mention the one that’s in my mind, but I have one in particular. I thought this was a terrific song. I was going along with it as I first listened to it. And then it came right off the tracks for me when I realized that the focus, the whole notion, was that the preoccupation of God from all eternity was with us and that all that he was doing was about us and how we were doing and so on, when in point of fact, Paul has made it very, very clear that the ultimate plan of God, the ultimate purpose of God—a purpose which begins in all of eternity; his ultimate end, both by creation and by redemption—his ultimate end is actually not our happiness but his glory; not our happiness, not humanity’s well-being, but his own glory.

You say, “Well, are you sure?” Yeah. I’m not just sure; I’m positive. Ephesians. We don’t need to go out of Ephesians, and we get at least hints of it. Verse 5, which we read this morning, from chapter 1: “He predestined us for adoption … as sons through Jesus Christ, according to the purpose of his will”—here we go—“to the praise of his glorious grace.” That’s the end: “to the praise of his glorious grace.” If you go down to verse 12, still in chapter 1: “so that we who were the first to hope in Christ might be to the praise of his glory.” Verse 14: “who is the guarantee of our inheritance”—that’s the Holy Spirit—“until we acquire possession of it” in all of its fullness, and, once again, “to the praise of his glory.”

I want just to quote to you briefly from Berkhof’s Systematic Theology, in this regard, because he had a wonderful sentence or two that I made a note of. Berkhof writes,

The supreme end of God in creation, the manifestation of His glory, … includes, as subordinate ends, the happiness and salvation of His creatures, and the reception of praise from grateful and adoring hearts.[6]

So God’s grace towards us is included in his ultimate objective: so that all things might be to the praise of his glory.

The relationship between Father, Son, and Holy Spirit provides both the basis and the objective of our love for each other.

So, we worship God, the “Father of all,” as he “who is over all,” speaking of his supremacy, of his authority, of his majesty. The Confession—that’s the Westminster Confession—in chapter 21, section 1, which introduces us to the nature of Christian worship, begins by telling us that this God, who has revealed himself to us, ought “to be feared, loved, praised, prayed to, trusted in, and served with all the heart, … all the soul, and … all the might.”[7] And when you think of it, even though the Son (second person of the Trinity) and the Holy Spirit—even though Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are coeternal and coequal, yet when we read our Bibles, we discover that the Son subordinated himself to the plan and purpose of the Father, as did the Holy Spirit, speaking in terms of their relationship with one another, in terms of God’s being “over all,” and according to his grand design—which in 1:9–10 is recorded as “making known to us the mystery of his will, according to his purpose, which he set forth in Christ as a plan for the fullness of time, to unite all things in him, things in heaven and things on earth.”

Now, when you think about that and then you come back to what Paul is saying here, urging the people to be “eager to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace,” and he says, “You know, the unity that God looks for is the very unity that exists within the Trinity itself”—so that the relationship between Father, Son, and Holy Spirit in their bonds of love for one another provides both the basis and the objective of our love for each other and the maintaining of a spirit of genuine care. That is what we might say concerning “over all.” We might think of it in terms of place.

“Through All”: God’s Power

And then, “through all.” We can think of this—I tried to—in terms of providence or, if you like, in terms of power. I just was looking for three P’s, and, as I say, I find this quite helpful. What does it mean that he is “through all”? “Through all.”

Well, in the mix of everything. Every so often, I used to watch my mother baking and putting things into that flour, and it was clear that the whole objective was that it would be worked into the essence of what was being created. And when Paul writes in this way, he’s essentially reminding us that the Father is working “through all” things: that he is upholding the church that he has created; that he is sustaining it by his power; and that throughout all of history, this one God, who is “Father of all, who is over all,” is actually in and “through” it all.

It’s wonderful! Again, I always retreat to a hymn when I don’t really know how to get my head around it:

God is working his purpose out
As year succeeds to year;
God is working his purpose out,
And the time is drawing near;
[And] nearer and nearer draws the time,
The time that [will] surely be,
When the earth [will] be filled
With the glory of God
As the waters cover the sea.[8]

“Oh,” you say, “it doesn’t seem like that. I’ve read the history of the United States of America, and this kind of evening service was commonplace years ago. The churches were open. The lights were on. The doors were there. The people were spilling out into the evening of the start of a new day. But now, by and large, they’re dark. There are no lights on. There’s no one spilling anywhere. So it wouldn’t seem as if God is actually through it all.”

Well, the Ephesians might have felt the same way when they looked out on the world in which they lived—when they were aware of the fact that there would arise among them fierce wolves that would drive people away after them,[9] that they were confronted by the possibility of their own moral and spiritual declension. So it’s no surprise that Paul, when he prays for them—and you will remember this in chapter 1, again: he prays for them that “the eyes”—1:18—that

the eyes of your hearts [may be] enlightened, that you [might] know what is the hope to which he has called you, what are the riches of his glorious inheritance in the saints, and what is the immeasurable greatness of his power toward us who believe, according to the working of his great might.

Paul says, “You Ephesians need to have the eyes of your hearts enlightened, because if you don’t have them enlightened in this way, you’ll be tempted to think wrongly about everything, and you may actually miss the point.” And we may miss the point too.

Again, we can think in very atomized terms. We can think in very individualistic terms, in very Western terms, in terms of the Northern Hemisphere rather than the Southern Hemisphere. But if we think about it for just a moment, if we could stand back far enough from it, if we could see just a glimpse from the perspective of God’s heavenly throne, as it were, we would realize that it is absolutely true: he is “over all,” and he is at work “through” it all.

That’s one of the reasons that we’ve been given the book of Revelation: not so that we can preach speculative sermons about it but in order that we might understand that this is really true—that God the Father is in the position of authority. And if we had time, I would read out loud for you chapter 4 and chapter 5 of Revelation. But I’m not going to. But I am going to read a couple of verses just to give us the flavor of it. John in Revelation gives us a little bit of a glimpse of these things, and he pulls the curtain back, as it were, and he describes, well through chapter 4, “the four living creatures,” with “wings” and “eyes all around and within, and day and night they never cease to say, ‘Holy, holy, holy, is the Lord God Almighty, who was and is and is to come!’” This tripersonal God. And what happens then? Well, he tells us:

Whenever the living creatures give glory and honor and thanks to him who is seated on the throne, who lives forever and ever, the twenty-four elders fall down before him who is seated on the throne and [they] worship him who lives forever and ever. [And] they cast their crowns before the throne, saying, “Worthy are you, our Lord and God, to receive glory and honor and power, for you created all things, and by your will they existed and were created.”[10]

Into 5:11: “Then I looked, and I heard around the throne and the living creatures and the elders the voice of many angels, numbering myriads of myriads and thousands of thousands, saying with a loud voice,” same story:

“Worthy is the Lamb who was slain, to receive power and wealth and wisdom and might and honor and glory and blessing!” And I heard every creature in heaven and on earth and under the earth and in the sea, and all that is in them, saying, “[He’s over all! He’s over all!] To him who sits on the throne and to the Lamb be blessing and honor and glory and might forever and ever!” And the four living creatures said, “Amen!” and the elders fell down and worshiped.

What a picture!

You say, “But it’s Monday tomorrow!” Of course it is! “I’ve got to go back in that place again.” Of course you have! We all have, to one degree or another. Or, “There is something that is uncertain to me, or bedeviling to me,” whatever it might be. “Tell me what I’m supposed to do, Pastor.” I don’t know what you’re supposed to do, but I know what you’re supposed to know: that the “one God and Father of all” is “over all,” and he is at work “through all.”

“In All”: God’s Presence

And finally, he is “in all.” If his “over all” speaks to his place and if “through all” speaks to his providence or his power, then “in all” speaks to his presence.

Paul has already moved in this direction in his letter. In verse 22, at the end of chapter 2, he has described the church there: “In him you also are being built together into a dwelling place for God by the Spirit.” He is the foundation. He is the cornerstone. The apostles have given to us the Scriptures under the direction of the Spirit. The whole structure is being put together. He’s putting a temple together. Verse 19 of chapter 3, he says, “And my prayer for you is that you may be filled with the all the fullness of God.”[11]

You remember how Jesus prayed to this end in his High Priestly Prayer—John 17:20. We start there. “I do[n’t] ask,” says Jesus to the Father, “I do[n’t] ask for these only”—that’s his immediate friends—“but also for those who will believe in me through their word”—that includes you and me—“that they may all be one, just as you, Father, are in me, and I in you, that they also may be in us, so that the world may believe that you have sent me.” Did you get that? “That just as you, Father, are in me, and I am in you, so may they also be in us.”

Previously, he has informed his disciples that he is going away. He’s going away, and they’re disturbed by this. And he says to them, “Well, don’t let your hearts be troubled. You believe in God”—that’s “You believe in the Father”—“believe also in me.”[12] And then he goes on to tell them that he is preparing for them and so on. Well, John, of course, had actually begun his Gospel in his prologue with that very thought in mind. You remember, we read it at Christmastime and at other times too. John 1:14: “And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we [beheld] his glory.” Quite literally, what he says there is that “the Word pitched his tent among us.” And what he’s doing is he’s purposefully picking up a picture that many of the readers of the Gospel would immediately identify with—namely, that God back in the Old Testament, in Exodus 25, had given instruction to his servants that they would make a sanctuary for him—that he says, “Let them make … a sanctuary [for me], that I may dwell in their midst.”[13] “That I may dwell with them, among them, in them.” Right? So the tabernacle is created. The [ark of the covenant] is placed in the [tabernacle]. The ark of the covenant moves as the people of God move. And there you have the symbolic presence of God. This is where God identifies himself in his presence amongst his people. And it is that very picture that is then picked up and fulfilled in Jesus—no longer in a tabernacle, no longer in a tent, no longer in a temple.

Incidentally—and I had this conversation with somebody just in the last ten days. I can’t remember where I was. I probably shouldn’t have said any… Oh, I know where I was! I can tell you where I was. I was at the Ligonier Conference. And the person said to me; he said, “Now we’re going to go through into the sanctuary.”

“Oh,” I said, “I don’t know about that.” I said, “There’s no such thing as a sanctuary.”

“Well,” he said, “well, yes, there is.”

I said, “Well now, that’s not a sanctuary.”

He said, “Well then, what do you want to call it?”

I said, “Well, I’m not going to call it that.”

He said, “Well, would you like to call it the worship center?”

I said, “No, I wouldn’t like to call it the worship center either.”

“Well, why not?”

“Well, because it sounds like you have a center for worship, and worship only happens in the center, when in actual fact what happens in that room is supposed to be the overspill of what’s happening routinely, 7/24, in the life of the genuine believer.”

Well, they didn’t know what to do with me. They said, “Fine. Okay. Whatever you think about that, Begg, we’re going in this room—whatever you want to call it.” And the people looked at me and said, “Well, where do you get this from?”

We don’t look to meet God in a temple in Jerusalem or in a tabernacle in the wilderness but in the person of his only beloved Son.

Well, actually, I get it from the Bible. “Let them make a sanctuary for me”—but now there is no need for a sanctuary. Christ is the sanctuary. Christ is the sanctuary. So we don’t have sanctuaries. You know, we don’t have places that are sanctified places. His temple which he is building—his people in 1 Corinthians 3,[14] the individual in 1 Corinthians 6[15]—is the dwelling place of God. That’s where God is met. So we don’t look to meet him in a temple in Jerusalem or in a tabernacle in the wilderness but in the person of his only beloved Son.

And quite wonderfully, in that passage to which I referred, in John chapter 14, Jesus says to his disciples,

If you love me, you[’ll] keep my commandments. And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Helper, to be with you forever, even the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees him nor knows him. You know him, for he dwells with you and will be in you.[16]

And then he says to them,

I will not leave you as orphans; I will come to you. Yet a little while and the world will see me no more, but you will see me. Because I live, you also will live. In that day you will know that I am in my Father, and you in me, and I in you.[17]

That’s close! “That I am in my Father, and you [are] in me, and I [am] in you.” That’s presence!

“Whoever has my commandments and keeps them, he it is who loves me. And he who loves me will be loved by my Father, and I will love him and manifest myself to him.” Judas (not Iscariot) said to him, “Lord, how is it that you will manifest yourself to us, and not to the world?” Jesus answered him, “If anyone loves me, he will keep my word, and my Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our home with him.”[18]

That’s presence. That’s the promise of Christ: that the life of genuine, believing faith is a life that is gathered up in the God and Father who is “over all,” who is working “through all,” and who is “in all.”

So cast your mind around the room. Cast your mind around the world. Think about all the people you know and the people that you’ve never met that you know are in Christ tonight, and here is the amazing, radical dimension of it all. That’s why Jesus says, “It’s better for you that I go away. Because when I am here, physically present, I can only be in one place at one time. But when I go, I will send to you another helper. You know him. He’s with you. He’s going to be in you.”[19] “And if a man loves me, he’ll keep my word.” And here is this amazing promise.

I have friends who—well, I have one or two friends—I have friends who don’t like a lot of my songs that I quote. And one of the songs they don’t think I ever should quote is ’cause they said it’s schmaltzy and it’s sentimental. Well, that’s their opinion, but I still like it.

I come to the garden alone,
While the dew is still on the roses
And the [sound] I hear falling on my ear
The Son of God discloses.

And he walks with me, and he talks with me,
And he tells me [that] I am his own.[20]

What’s wrong with this? Isn’t this the promise? Some of us live alone. Some of us are sad. Some of us are disappointed. Some of us, as we said this morning, have only bad memories of an earthly father. Now we have a heavenly Father who knows our name, who knows each tear that falls, who hears us when we call. And he doesn’t just listen from a distance. He has promised to be in and with us.

Saint Patrick’s Day was last week. I listened to some stuff on the BBC. They were over here making fun of a lot of things, as the cynics from the BBC love to do. But fascinatingly, in all the people that they interviewed, nobody actually had a word to say about the nature of Saint Patrick himself or what it was he actually believed and how horribly disappointed he would be to see some of these ridiculous parades. Let me give to you, as I close, a famous prayer of Saint Patrick that comes, actually, out of this notion of “in you.” Do you remember this? Patrick would pray,

Christ be with me, Christ before me, Christ behind me, Christ in me, Christ beneath me, Christ above me, Christ on my right, Christ on my left, Christ where I lie, Christ when I arise. Salvation is of the Lord. May thy salvation, O Lord, be ever with us.

You see what a radical, wonderful thing that is? So that Christ is present when I lie down in my bed, when I rise up in the morning, present to my left and to my right. Present! Present!

And what Paul has been able to say to the Ephesians comes through to us: that throughout the world, the church that God has created he sustains, and he pervades, and the one who does so is “over all” and “through all” and “in all.”

Father, thank you.

Thank you, God, for sending Jesus;
Thank you, Jesus, that you came;
Holy Spirit, won’t you [tell] us
More about his [lovely] name?[21]

Open our eyes, Lord. Enlighten us in order that we might see the hope to which you’ve called us, that we might be made aware of the mighty working whereby you work. As we think about all of the proud boasts of civilizations throughout history, as we think about the movements of governments and thrones and kingdoms, as we think about the uprising of those who defy your truth, who are disinterested in your Word, Lord, we pray that you will help us humbly and purposefully to bow down under the instruction of your Word and to be helped again, this day and in this week that lies ahead, by reminding ourselves that there is “one God and Father of all, who is over all … through all and in all.” And in Christ’s name we pray. Amen.

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[1] Ephesians 5:19 (KJV).

[2] Ephesians 5:18 (KJV).

[3] Ephesians 4:3 (ESV).

[4] The Athanasian Creed.

[5] See Matthew 3:13–17; Mark 1:9–11; Luke 3:21–22.

[6] L. Berkhof, Systematic Theology, 4th rev. and enlarged ed. (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1941), 136.

[7] The Westminster Confession of Faith, Modern English Study Version, 21.1.

[8] Arthur Campbell Ainger, “God Is Working His Purpose Out” (1894).

[9] See Acts 20:29–30.

[10] Revelation 4:8–11 (ESV).

[11] Ephesians 3:19 (paraphrased).

[12] John 14:1 (paraphrased).

[13] Exodus 25:8 (ESV).

[14] See 1 Corinthians 3:16.

[15] See 1 Corinthians 6:19.

[16] John 14:15–17 (ESV).

[17] John 14:18–20 (ESV).

[18] John 14:21–23 (ESV).

[19] See John 14:17; 16:7.

[20] Charles Austin Miles, “In the Garden” (1913).

[21] “Thank You, God, for Sending Jesus.”