Strengthened With Might

Strengthened With MightEph 3:16 that He would grant you, according to the riches of His glory, to be strengthened with might through His Spirit in the inner man.

This verse has been rolling over in my mind for several days, especially the part about being strengthened with might in the inner man. Then I ran across this comment from Jamison, Faussett, and Brown:

 Ephesians 3:16

according to — that is in abundance consonant to the riches of His glory; not "according to" the narrowness of our hearts. Col_1:11, "Strengthened with all might according to His glorious power."
by — Greek, "through"; "by means of His Spirit."

in — The Greek implies, "infused into."

the inner man — (Eph_4:22, Eph_4:24; 1Pe_3:4); "the hidden man of the heart." Not predicated of unbelievers, whose inward and outward man alike are carnal. But in believers, the "inner (new) man," their true self, stands in contrast to their old man, which is attached to them as a body of death daily being mortified, but not their true self.

I like the use of the word "infuse." The sense is that the work of the Spirit is to press this might into the very depth of the inner man.

In the past I have talked about being pickled in the Spirit. While it is somewhat humorous to think about in those terms, the analogy is excellent. The process of pickling involves soaking a vegetable in a brine until that vegetable is infused with the brine and is transformed from a common vegetable to one that has the taste of the brine throughout. The most common example is when cucumbers are soaked in a brine of vinegar, salt, dill weed, and other spices until they become what we call "dill pickles."

Interestly, once the cucumber is pickled, we don't call it a pickled cucumber. It is now regarded as a "pickle."



The work of the Spirit is to infuse us with might (dunamis - might, strength, force, power), to the point that we are no longer just human, but humans who have been transformed from a carnally minded being to one that is strong in spirit, capable of ruling the flesh. It changes us so thoroughly that we are not the same and can never go back to the way we were before.
I make that my prayer.