Ephesians 1:18
—since the eyes of your heart have been enlightened—so that you can know what is the hope of his calling, what is the wealth of his glorious inheritance in the saints,
The verse talks about growing knowledge. And this verse links it to an enlightened heart.
- That is why some things are foolishness to the unsaved (1 Corinthians 2:14).
- Why? Because you need to be spiritual to comprehend them.
- Jesus rejoiced in God imparting special knowledge to the apostles (Luke 10:21),
- and Paul described the hidden mystery of the gospel (Colossians 1:26–27).
This is a truth that is often ignored. When someone cannot seem to grasp spiritual truth, "always seeking instruction, yet never able to arrive at a knowledge of the truth (2 Timothy 3:7)," maybe they are not saved.
- Jesus said some people "have been given the opportunity to know the secrets of the kingdom of heaven," but not others (Matthew 13:11). God knows why.
- Paul says the eyes of a believer’s heart have been enlightened (Ephesians 1:18), while unbelievers are blinded by ‘the god of this age’ (2 Corinthians 4:4).
- "Unless a person is born from above," Jesus said, "he cannot see the kingdom of God (John 3:3)."
There is that seeing again. Christianity means that a whole new frontier of knowledge opens to you, and that is the focus of Paul's prayer. He wants something that will happen within you, not just happen in your pocket.
Why is Paul praying that God give them the spirit of wisdom and revelation in their growing knowledge of Him?
It is so that you can know the hope of his calling, the wealth of his glorious inheritance in the saints, and there is the third one in the next verse, the incomparable greatness of his power toward us who believe, as displayed in the exercise of his immense strength.
This prayer serves as a bridge between what Paul had been saying and what he wants to say, beginning in verse 20 and focused on Christ.
So the prayer is about the knowledge of God.
- The hope is about the future,
- The wealth is about the past
- His power is about the present. (the next verse)
HOPE
The hope tells us where we are going. And that is important. We have not been called to follow God in vain; there is a hope ahead of us.
Paul said that our present sufferings cannot even be compared to the coming glory that will be revealed to us (Romans 8:18). We have this example in Jesus.
We were told that: "For the joy set out for him he endured the cross, disregarding its shame, and has taken his seat at the right hand of the throne of God (Hebrews 12:2)."
Paul did not think it was enough for him to just talk about the hope; he felt he needed God to supply that knowledge by releasing the spirit of wisdom and revelation.
The Spirit guides how you live now in light of the coming hope and helps you live by divine direction based on that.
WEALTH
When you hear wealth, you do not think of spiritual things, but we should not forget that "what is highly prized among men is utterly detestable in God’s sight (Luke 16:15)."
What humans call wealth is not what God calls wealth. And we have Jesus' words in the book of Revelation explaining this.
He told a church that, though they are rich, they were poor (Revelation 3:17), and another, regarded as poor, that they are rich; they are rich in devotion to God, etc. (Revelation 2:9).
And in a parable, He said a rich man who wanted to focus on enjoying his wealth was rebuked by God (Luke 12:16-21). And Jesus said that he was not rich towards God. The man wanted to be busy, enjoying life with earthly wealth, but that is probably "detestable in God's sight."
And what did one man in another parable do when he found wealth in a field? "He went and sold all that he had and bought that field (Matthew 13:44)." He exchanged, so to speak, the temporal for the eternal.
One thing about wealth is that it can multiply. So whatever the wealth of God's glorious inheritance in the saints, it multiplies as you reach others. One seed makes more seeds. The ultimate seed, the ultimate wealth of God, was Jesus, who was sown, so that many sons are brought to glory (Hebrews 2:10), including you and me.
We have seen superlatives used in this prayer, all communicating the limitless nature of prayer, of the God we pray to, and the result of the prayer.
Verse 17 tells us that we are praying to the glorious Father. Not just the father, but the glorious father, and it is the hope of his calling, which makes it wonderful compared to any other kind of involvement.
And there is the wealth of his glorious inheritance in the saints. But why inheritance? That is what He is bequeathing to us, which is Himself, as Jesus promised that He and the Father would make their home with us (John 14:23).
knowledge,
