Feasting at the Table

Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who hath blessed us with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ. EPHESIANS 1:3

Ephesians is Evans’s favourite book of the Bible. His short book Feasting at the Table grew from lectures on it given at a Bible school summer school in Australia, and he returns to Paul’s prayers in Ephesians again and again in his sermons. The title captures his approach. Ephesians is a table spread with rich food, and most Christians, he believes, have hardly begun to eat.

In Him

The phrase that fills the first chapters of Ephesians is in Him, or in Christ. Evans introduces it with the story of Noah. Noah laboured for years to build the ark, but his salvation depended on one thing: going in. There was no deliverance for a man who stayed outside admiring his work. So it is with Christ. God has provided one way of escape from judgment, and we must enter into Him by faith.

Once we are in Him, God sees us there. When the Father looks at the believer, Evans says, He sees His Son rather than our sin; our guilt and shame are wrapped up in Christ. Then he walks through the blessings Paul lists. In Him we are chosen to be holy and blameless; adopted as sons, with all the rights of a natural son and, he notes, a security the natural son did not always have; accepted in the Beloved; redeemed and forgiven; shown the mystery of God’s will; given an inheritance; and sealed with the Holy Spirit of promise.

To the praise of the glory of his grace, wherein he hath made us accepted in the beloved. EPHESIANS 1:6

These are all ours, Evans insists, simply because we are in Christ, not because of our maturity or effort. And yet they must be appropriated. They are theological truths that for many believers have never become experiential truths.

Who you are

This matters intensely to Evans because he has spent so much of his ministry with believers who do not know who they are. In The Key in My Hand he gives two long lists: what the believer is in Christ, and what the believer has in Christ. A child of God, a friend of Jesus, a joint heir with Christ, a new creation, a saint, a citizen of heaven, God’s workmanship; completely forgiven, sealed by the Spirit, seated in heavenly places, free from condemnation, with direct access to the Father. He offers his readers a prescription with a smile: take two of these truths each day and meditate on them, and the enemy’s fiery darts will lose their power.

There is therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit. ROMANS 8:1

In Soar Like the Eagle he links this to humility. Humility, he says, is not thinking badly of yourself; that is false humility, and it is as much a sickness as pride. True humility is seeing yourself as God sees you, neither inflating nor shrinking what He has made. Believers who know who they are in Christ are free to serve, because they have nothing to prove. He points to the moment in John 13 when Jesus, knowing that the Father had given all things into His hands and that He had come from God and was going to God, rose and washed His disciples’ feet. Security is the root of servanthood.

Seated, walking, standing

Like Watchman Nee, whose little book on Ephesians Evans read as a young youth leader in Wales, he sees the letter moving in three stages. First, we are seated with Christ in the heavenly places. Then we are called to walk worthy of that calling. Finally, we are called to stand against the enemy.

And hath raised us up together, and made us sit together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus. EPHESIANS 2:6

To be seated, Evans says, means to have ceased from our efforts to please God and to have entered His rest. To walk means to live out that position: in love, in the light, in wisdom, and filled with the Spirit. To stand means to put on the whole armour of God and hold our ground, not against people but against spiritual powers that were disarmed at the cross.

Egypt, wilderness and Canaan

Evans often uses Israel’s journey as a picture of the Christian life. Egypt is life without Christ. The crossing of the Red Sea, where the old taskmasters were cut off for ever, is conversion, sealed in baptism. The wilderness is the life of the believer who has come out of Egypt but not yet entered God’s promises. Canaan is the life of promise, of being sealed with the Spirit and seated with Christ.

He insists that Canaan is not a picture of heaven. The old hymns about crossing the Jordan into Beulah land have taught many to read it that way, but Canaan was a land of giants and battles, of Jericho and of defeat at Ai, as well as of milk and honey. It is a picture of the life God intends for His people now. Many in the church today, he believes, are living in the wilderness, fed faithfully by God with manna and quails and quite content. God is still gracious to them. But He brought Israel out of Egypt in order to bring them in.

There remaineth therefore a rest to the people of God. HEBREWS 4:9

Knowing Him

The goal of all this, for Evans, is not blessings but God Himself. Paul’s prayer is that we might know Him, and Evans means knowing in the full biblical sense of personal, experienced intimacy, not merely information about God.

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. EPHESIANS 1:17

He draws a searching lesson from Moses’ request to see God’s glory. God answered that He knew Moses by name, and then proclaimed His own name, His character, to Moses. In Scripture, Evans notes, a name speaks of character. God reveals Himself, he suggests, according to what He knows of us. He asks his readers what name God would give them: Doubtful or Timorous, as in Bunyan’s allegory, or Faithful, Overcomer. He is not teaching that we earn revelation. He is saying that God entrusts more of Himself to those who have been tested and have overcome, as a father confides more to a son who has grown up.

And the LORD said unto Moses, I will do this thing also that thou hast spoken: for thou hast found grace in my sight, and I know thee by name. EXODUS 33:17

A word of balance

Evans’s scheme of stages, in John’s letter and in Israel’s journey, is a vivid teaching aid, and many have been stirred by it to press on. It is worth remembering that every believer is fully in Christ from the first day, and that the riches of Ephesians 1 belong to the weakest saint as surely as to the strongest. Evans would agree. His aim is not to divide Christians into classes but to call them to enjoy what is already theirs.

FOR REFLECTION AND ACTION

1. Read Ephesians 1:3–14 and underline every occurrence of in Him, in whom or in Christ. Thank God for each blessing by name.

2. Choose two truths about who you are in Christ and meditate on them each day this week, especially when you feel accused.

3. Ask whether you have been living in the wilderness, content with manna. What promise of God have you never entered?

4. Consider whether your service springs from security or from a need to prove yourself. Read John 13:3–5 and ask the Lord to make you secure.

5. Pray Paul’s prayer in Ephesians 1:17–19 for yourself and for someone else by name every day this week.

A PRAYER

Father of glory, You have blessed me with every spiritual blessing in Christ, and I have lived as a pauper at a rich man’s table. Forgive me.

Open the eyes of my heart to know who I am in Your Son: chosen, adopted, accepted, forgiven, sealed and seated with Him.

Bring me out of the wilderness into the land of promise, and give me courage to face its giants in Your strength.

Above all, let me know You, and make me the kind of child to whom You are pleased to reveal Yourself. Amen.