of Israel" (Acts 28: 20), which in no way can be made identical with the hope of the

Body of Christ, if sound precepts of interpretation are used and words are allowed to

mean what they say.

In Eph. 1: 18 we have the hope of His calling, and in 4: 4 the "one hope of your

calling". The calling of the Body is a heavenly one as we have seen (Phil. 3: 20), and

the realization of its hope will take place when Head and Body are united and manifested

in the heavenly holiest of all. It should be obvious that a clear knowledge of the calling

under consideration is essential, if the hope attached to it is to be understood. Any

blurred conception of the calling will result in an imperfect or completely wrong

interpretation of its hope. We have heard it stated that the Ephesian hope is `vague', but

this is only because the revelation of the secret of Eph. 3: has not been clearly grasped.

So many see in it nothing more than the Gentile being blessed with the Jew, in spite of

the fact that this never was a secret, and was clearly stated to be God's will as far back as

Gen. 12: 1-3, where the Divine promise reads: "And I will bless them that bless thee, and

curse him that curseth thee: and in thee shall all families of the earth be blessed". Israel

was meant to be first, but not first and last. There was never any Divine intention to limit

light and truth to this people, and Israel's tragedy was that they finally became obsessed

with this idea. They were intended by God to be a channel only to reach the Gentile

world. But the Gentile being blessed through the Jew is certainly not the secret of

Eph. 3: This we will give a close study when we reach this third chapter.

The next expression in the Apostle's prayer is "that ye may know . . . . . what is the

riches of the glory of His inheritance in the saints". That God finds His inheritance in His

people is surely true and wonderful, but we believe something deeper lies here. The

word `saints' in the Greek can mean holy people or holy things, and as the latter it is

translated `holiest of all' in Heb. 9: 8. If it is rendered in the same way in the context

we are considering, it would read: "what (is) the riches of the glory of His inheritance in

the holiest of all", that is, the real holy of holies in heaven itself of which the O.T.

Tabernacle and Temple had copies and were patterns (Heb. 8: 5; 9: 23). The reality

is the innermost shrine of heaven, which, as far as we can understand, is solely the abode

of God. Certainly the earthly copies were, for it contained the Shekinah glory, an

expression of God's presence, and no redeemed Israelite, with the exception of Aaron on

the annual Day of Atonement, ever entered it, and he only remained in it while he was

performing the ritual prescribed by God. The holy of holies as the permanent home for

new revelation of Paul's prison ministry.

Here then is something tremendous, something entirely new. No wonder the Ephesian

saints needed "opened eyes" and a "spirit of unveiling" in order to know and rejoice in it!

And what "riches of glory" are attached to it, just as glory was centred in the holiest of all

in both the Tabernacle and the Temple!

The third thing that Paul prayed for the Ephesians to know was "what the exceeding

greatness of His power to usward who believe, according to that working of the strength