Scriptural Sanctification - Media Sabda Org

3. The use of the aorist indicates that this work was to be a momentary and instantaneous one, like
that implied in a baptism. Dr. Steele says:
"Here we have seven aorists in four verses: 'grant,' 'be strengthened,' 'dwell,' or take up His abode,
'may be able,' 'to comprehend,' 'to know,' and 'be filled.' May we not infer that Paul chose this tense
to convey most strongly and vividly the ability of Christ to do a great work in a short time, to save
believers fully, and to endow them with the fullness of the Spirit? If gradual impartations of the
Sanctifier had been in His thought, it is strange that he did not use one present tense to express
endowment by degrees."
Dr. Steele quotes another learned critic, Dr. Karl Braune, as saying:
"The Greek perfect participles 'rooted' and 'grounded' denote a state in which they already are and
continue to be, which is the presupposition in order that they may be able to know ... 'To
comprehend' (aorist) here means more than mere intellectual apprehension -- a perception, but
preeminently an inward experience corresponding with 'to know' (aorist) in verse 19."
(4) We note the certainty of this work's being wrought in us when the necessary human conditions
exist. God's power and faithfulness are pledged to accomplish it. It is "according to the riches of His
glory," and "the power," the mighty power of God, "that worketh in us," and that is "able to do
exceeding abundantly above all that we ask or think." These "riches" of His grace and the mighty
power of His Spirit promised us give assurance of certainty and completeness in this work. For a
declaration of God's ability to do for us "exceeding above all that we can ask or think" involves His
promise to do it if we perform the prescribed conditions of His working. And Paul, as an inspired
man, never prayed for that which is impracticable. He certainly "knew what to pray for as he ought,"
and was guided in asking what is "according to the will of God."
Now, do not these facts show that an inspired apostle prayed that a regenerated Church, which
had not backslidden, might have such a wonderful baptism of the Spirit of power and love as would
thoroughly save them from selfishness, unbelief, and fear, and so establish them that they would
abide in the love of God and the practice of holiness? and that he pledged all the resources of the
Godhead to the accomplishment of this as an instantaneous work in their "inner man?" And does any
one doubt that if his prayer was answered these Ephesians were fully saved and had assurance of the
fact?
In the next chapter (Ephesians iv. 11-15) Paul teaches that our Lord has planned and provided for
developing the necessary human conditions for an answer to the apostles prayer for that Church. In
the eleventh verse he calls attention to his gift of a corps of workers ("apostles," "prophets,"
"evangelists," "pastors," and "teachers") for bringing about the conditions of this baptism and the
subsequent development of believers. In the twelfth and thirteenth verses he is believed to refer to
that "perfecting of the saints" in faith and love which comes with the baptism of the Spirit, while in
the fourteenth and fifteenth verses he seems to note the growth toward maturity and the ideal
perfection of our Lord's life, resulting from the perfection of love, purity of heart, and endowment
with strength involved in such baptism.