(As mentioned more generally earlier, this particular section was written around 2016/17 and although I definitely am not happy with this following later illumination, the basic bigger picture point of the message is not altered so until editing it gets to the top of my priority list I am leaving it on this site as I do believe this is a powerful note here).

THE POWER THAT GOD WROUGHT (NIV – EXERTED) IN CHRIST WHEN HE RAISED HIM FROM THE DEAD
What do you think that sentence in Ephesians chapter one means? Could you explain that to someone if they asked you? Just what was that power? Have you ever like me wondered just how and where God, if it took that much exertion of power to raise the perfect Jesus Christ from the dead, was going to find all that power from to raise all of us dreadful sinners!!! Like so many other bible passages Eph 1:19-20 just does not make sense to me.

I now want to talk about that power, and I want to talk about our lives and the effect of that power could have in our lives if we could just go on to realise a fuller understanding of that passage.

I must begin with two important statements though that may come as a bit of a shock to many Christians but if one is going to go on to more fully understand God’s great plan for those of us who believe, we must know these, that, firstly, this world we live in belongs to Satan, not God! I refer to the word ‘world’ as the same word in Eph 1,4 and this is the world system, not the planet earth. Without the detail here, the Bible says Satan is the god of this world and it’s one reason why we see ungodliness everywhere and why bad stuff happens and it is vital we realise that this world is legally the devils domain.

The second huge statement is this – Your bible is NOT the Word of God as you may have been taught. Some people already recognise that, citing that they are human authors words written under direct instruction from God. Well, even that isn’t true! Your bible is actually an English translation of the words that the Bible authors used under direct authority from God. And a translation 1) loses a certain amount of the original 2) can be mistranslated on purpose 3) sometimes even a God fearing translator can lack revelation and that will show up in the text. As God shows us more and more Truth by revelation / illumination, we begin to see where bible translators, as gifted as they were, sometimes lacked this illumination when they translated the passages. And then there are, for example… idioms. You could for example easily literally translate ‘raining cats and dogs’ into another language but completely miss the bigger picture that it actually means it’s raining lots!! Martin Luther even said ‘It is impossible to translate a foreign idiom into ones native tongue’ – therefore literal translations are not much good!!
We must hopefully now admit that we will all have what the Bible calls strongholds (false teachings embedded in our minds) because of the above reasons and an accurate knowledge of the Word is the only way to deal with strongholds.

So, we come to the subject I really want to talk about, a fresh look at that so called ‘power that raised Christ from the dead’ and its awesome relevance to our lives once we get past our misleading bible translations.

Something that is not taught enough about in church in my opinion is the position of mankind before God right now and the intended position of mankind before God! It was only when I realised this that I truly understand the enormity of who Jesus really is (with emphasis here for this study given to Jesus being a perfect MAN, in right relationship with and at the right hand of God).
The Bible says there are two men who represent mankind before God, that’s another big topic in itself but it is again so important to recognise that. It is our relationship to these two men/representatives that decides both our earthly life and effectiveness and also our eternal destiny. We all know about Adam, our direct relationship to our ancestor Adam, his fall from grace and how that put Adam, as well as mankind ever since, out of touch with God and how that caused his spiritual death, as well as everyone thereafter related to Adam being born spiritually dead too. The second man the Bible says who represents us before God is Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ is God’s loving answer for MANkind. Our loving God chose the way to restore MANkind to Himself by introducing His only Son Jesus to earth to be born a MAN (STRESS, ‘A MAN’) and lead a perfect life, on behalf of MANkind, to die on the cross taking the punishment for MANkind and then be resurrected never to die again, on behalf of or representing MANkind. The Bible calls Jesus the second man (and very interestingly but for fascinating study, the last Adam), who now stands before God, as a perfect MAN (i.e. there is a perfect MAN in heavenly places, in communion with God, just like Adam was before the Fall). The gospel message (1Cor15 21-22) says that it was through a MAN that death entered the world, but also through a MAN comes the resurrection. Because of our union with the MAN Adam all die, so through our union with the MAN Jesus Christ are all made alive. Just as you did nothing to inherit Adams nature the gospel message here is you have to do nothing to inherit Christ’s nature – just believe (in the original Greek meaning of the word!!), and you instantly become alive spiritually, or ‘born again’ – with a spirit that is perfect in Gods sight . Yes it does seem too good to be true but that is what gospel means, and all we have to do is just believe in Jesus. Amen!!
And now we can see the plan of world history much clearer. This plan of putting a MAN back in charge was seen right back in Genesis and from that point onwards the devil has tried to stop that plan, trying to wipe out the bloodlines of Jesus right up to and even into the new Testament when Herod had all the young children under two murdered. He thought he’d eventually got Jesus at Calvary but, as Paul said, the plan was kept hidden from all the rulers of the world otherwise they would never have crucified the Prince of Glory. Satan lost at his own game – deception!! Jesus now represents MANkind and is King of Kings, ruling in heavenly places as we read in Eph 1:21.

Now let’s look at the way Paul puts that in the book of Ephesians.
The relevant part here begins in Ch1 v17, here taken from the Amplified Bible.

17 [For I always pray to] the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, that He may grant you a spirit of wisdom and revelation [of insight into mysteries and secrets] in the [deep and intimate] knowledge of Him,

 One way the words wisdom and revelation could be translated is by recognising a Hebrew figure of speech here and translating this ‘revelatory wisdom’. Personally, as I meditate on this passage I read it with a comma after the word wisdom and then stress the ‘and’ , which is pretty much the same as the figure in that it is not implying two different spirits –
…. ‘that God may grant us wisdom, and also revelation in the knowledge of Him’
18 By having the eyes of your heart flooded with light, so that you can know and understand the hope to which He has called you, and how rich is His glorious inheritance in the saints (His set-apart ones)

 the end reads better ‘with the saints’ and basically this paraphrases as ‘so we can know the detail of our invitation’. I am not interested in literal translations but just simply ponder on the scripture and ask ‘what are you trying to tell me here Lord’? I usually stay on the passage until revelation comes.  Luther, when translating the bible into German, said ‘I try to speak as men do in the market place. In rendering Moses, I make him so German that no one would suspect he was a Jew’!!

19 And [so that you can know and understand] what is the immeasurable and unlimited and surpassing greatness of His power in and for us who believe, as demonstrated in the working of His mighty strength,

Here begins the climax of the great story of redemption in this book! That word ‘and’ at the beginning is so important. It takes us back to verse 17 and we could therefore so far read God ‘may grant us revelation in the knowledge of Him by having the eyes of our hearts flooded with light so that we can know the immeasurable and unlimited and surpassing greatness of His power in and for us who believe as demonstrated in the working of His mighty strength….’

20 Which He exerted in Christ when He raised Him from the dead and seated Him at His [own] right hand in the heavenly [places].

And here is the vital word, the key to the whole understanding, the key to understanding “that power” – the word ‘exerted’ or ‘wrought’ in the KJV. I meditated on this for weeks, months. Just why did God need to exert so much power to raise Christ from the dead? If that much is needed to raise the perfect Jesus how on earth is He going to raise all the Christians?!! No one could satisfactorily answer that for me, no one anywhere, not even on the internet. The passage just did not make logical sense.
It is from my persistent pondering on this passage that I have learned now that where something doesn’t make sense, the devil has very likely used a translator to hide something very important. Following my obtaining of the wonderful computer program eSword, I discovered the word ‘exerted’ or ‘wrought’ is the same Greek word ‘energeo’ (from where we get our word ‘energised’) used in James 5:16 where it is translated ‘effective’, ‘the effective prayer of a righteous man……’. That was my first breakthrough, to translate that word in Eph 1:20 as ‘made effective or energised’ rather than ‘exerted’ ie ‘God’s strength or ability which He made effective/energised when He raised Christ from the dead’. That puts a whole new meaning on the sentence!! Then after pondering for ages how on earth that power/ability was made effective at that point, the eureka moment came!! Jesus was a MAN and now there was a resurrected MAN to take back authority for mankind, having just redeemed MAN by His death and resurrection (being redeemed is like being bought back from the pawnbrokers shop that Adam had put us in – the price needed to be paid to bring us back was the blood of Jesus). This is the disarming of powers and principalities! It was only when Christ was resurrected that the awesome ‘dunamis’ dynamite power or ability can ‘work’ in us because to be ‘energised’ we need to be related to a perfect MAN (incidentally, that word ‘work’ in verse 19 is the same word ‘energeo’, ‘effective’ – now if we go back and read v19 again it is so different in meaning isn’t it, “by the making effective of his mighty strength…. Which He made effective in Christ when He raised Him from the dead”)!

**Now God’s ability or power can flow through us, when we are found ‘In Him (Christ), the MAN with authority. Amen!!** And that’s because God works on this earth through MAN and if Christ is victorious then in Him, by us now being related to Him, so we can be victorious. That’s ‘the power’!!

So, the passage is not describing God’s almighty superior super human strength that only He has, but it is describing how God’s power or ‘ability’ had become available to all who believe, to all who are related to Christ – simply by faith. (Incidentally, and just in passing, I’ve just read the news and realised that by total coincidence I’m writing this exactly 500 years to the day after Luther pinned his now famous papers to that door. There was nothing new in Luther‘s message, and there is nothing new in this message of mine, we both simply re-discovered truth that was hidden from the masses. Just as Luther felt compared to share his illumination, I too wonder how many people similarly need to hear the truths in this message here. Personally no one ever shared this message with me, and even now I have never heard anyone teach exactly this, all I hear is people begging God to do something when he’s actually energised me and you to do His work.)…..
Now let’s carry on reading, and remember that if we are found in Him verse 21 applies to us too….

So, in Him we are……
21 Far above all rule and authority and power and dominion and every name that is named [above every title that can be conferred], not only in this age and in this world, but also in the age and the world which are to come. How stupendously awesome is that, just meditate on that and if you don’t have that special moment of revelation yourself, I ask you, just meditate on that until it comes….for weeks and months if necessary, like I did!!
22 And He has put all things under His feet and has appointed Him the universal and supreme Head of the church [a headship exercised throughout the church],
23 Which is His body, the fullness of Him Who fills all in all [for in that body lives the full measure of Him Who makes everything complete, and Who fills everything everywhere with Himself]. The brackets here in the Amplified version puts it across so well. I thoroughly recommend the Amplified bible to all students of God’s Word. I have a thousand page hundred and twenty year old book on Hebrew Idioms and figures of speech and very often when I go to make notes in my bible text, they are already there in the Amplified text in brackets.

It is my real hope that everyone who reads this receives this revelation that God so graciously gave me too. I have sat too long in churches where people repeatedly beg God to do something for their situation then just sit around waiting and I’m sure you have at least thought like that at some point in the past because that’s how we get taught. But, I hope I have shown you that Gods mighty power is available right now to you and me and all we need to do is realise it, realise we are energised, and walk in it. In John 14:12 Jesus says ‘truly I tell you, those who believe in me will do the works I do and greater because I’m going to the Father’.  Believe here means so much more than we use the word in English, it means to wholly embrace and depend upon, and I hope you now fully understand just what Jesus meant when He said that. So, stop begging God to do something but go get on and do it yourself, whether it be healing the sick, cleansing lepers, casting out demons or raising the dead. Let us go and preach this Gospel in its entirety. There is a man at the right hand of the Father (right hand is a Hebrew idiom for authority) and In Him we sit at the right hand of God with this authority too. Hallelujah and Amen!!

In Eph 6 we read how our battle is not against flesh and blood but against the powers and principalities ‘in heavenly places’. It is so important to know this, that these evil forces are actually where God and Jesus are….’in heavenly places’ and here they are legally subject to Christ. They only have legal authority on the earth. We must realise that if we are now spiritually sat with Christ in heavenly places we are far above these powers and principalities too, and are able to be victorious here on earth because in Him we are the medium, our bodies being able to manifest our spiritual authority here on the Earth (a bit like a TV is the medium when it pulls signals out the airwaves and manifests them in our living rooms). That’s why Jesus said ‘whatever you bind in the heavenlies must be bound on earth too’, because if it is bound in the heavenlies it cannot manifest on the Earth. Well, strictly speaking it can, and does, until we use our new legal authority in Christ to stop it.

You may ask why some are not seeing this miraculous power yet in their life. Well, there is just one conclusion. Parts of our life are obviously not “in Him” (or if they are, we are not exercising that authority like we should be doing)!! But as more and more of the relevant parts of our being become attached to the vine, fruit from knowing this power is an inevitable consequence. John 15 is another essential study area but there are other more gifted people around to teach us what it means to be found ‘in Him’, which is the whole key to moving in ‘The power’!! I’ll leave that to them. I have only written this part of mine because I have never read anywhere or ever heard anyone else teach the enormity of that truth in Ephesians 1.

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One final thought. Pedestrian crossings wind me up more than just about anything or anyone else on earth. They are also so dangerous in many ways but they do show me one thing – just how much we have become “sheeple” ie told what to do and think, without thinking for ourselves, never mind questioning. So often whilst driving I watch people arrive at these crossings, wait even though the road is clear, press the button and wait for the green light to tell them they can cross, even though they could have crossed when I was actually 400 yards away, aaargh!!! And, there are some very disturbing clips on YouTube that show people blindly crossing when they are told they can do so by the green light even though the traffic hasn’t actually stopped, and the consequences are horrific ……
I encourage you to look at your life and ask yourself just how many areas of our lives and thoughts are controlled by other people AND OTHER TEACHING we just take for granted, without realising, when we should be using OUR OWN PERCEPTION…….
There are just a tiny tiny handful of people in this world controlling 7,000,000,000 others in this same manner!! ( I have another very revealing essay written on that subject, these are the only two subjects I feel the Holy Spirit particularly wants me to share at the moment….).
And the church is certainly not immune either. In fact this is probably the devils greatest focus, to deceive and destroy Christians by false doctrine. I encourage you to WAKE UP…..by questioning every single thing you’ve ever been taught (even if it was by a Bible College or the pastor you trust), you’ll be amazed how many strongholds you will discover you’ve lived with for so long.

God bless

PPS I wrote this long before Covid and I’m so glad I knew all this before March 2020. It has absolutely shocked and amazed me to see the extent of deception that enveloped not only our nation but the whole world too, not to mention the sleeping Church. Please, if you’ve read this far, please just open your eyes, open your heart and ask God to flood your heart with light and knowledge. The time is short.