01.07. ESSAY NO. 7
ESSAY NO. 7
After writing, "For this cause . . ." with which Ephesians 3:1-21 opens, Paul breaks off. "For this cause" in Ephesians 3:14 picks up the connection and introduces another of Paul’s great prayers. Apparently the prayer was in Paul’s mind when he started the chapter, but thinking of something else that would add value to it, he writes the intervening verses before going on with the prayer. Ample cause existed for the prayer at first, but the long expository parenthesis reinforces it. The cause for the prayer was that God had made all men in his church equal. After enlarging on this cause in the parenthesis, Paul proceeds with his prayer.
Paul’s Parenthesis The parenthesis speaks of, "The mystery (secret until revealed by God) which for ages hath been hid in God," but "hath now been revealed unto his holy apostles and prophets in the Spirit; to-wit (namely), that the Gentiles are fellow-heirs . . . through the gospel" with the Jews. Since Moses and the prophets foretold that Gentiles would share the blessings of Abraham, and also that Jews would be cast off, these cannot be the secret. But that the law of Moses, which was a barrier between Jew and Gentile, was to be annulled as God worked out his purpose, in order that he in sovereign grace apart from law might "create in himself of the two, one new man, so making peace* (Ephesians 2:15) seems to be the "mystery," which, although in God’s mind from the beginning, was not made known to men till he revealed it to Christian apostles and prophets. Such a body was and is a new thing on earth—a new order of men, religiously. Before the church existed, all men were either Jews or Gentiles. But as men were called out of Judaism or paganism, respectively, into the church, individually, each was given a new name, Christian; collectively, they constituted the church, a new and third division of humanity. "Give no occasion of stumbling, either to Jew or to Gentile, or to the church of God" (1 Corinthians 10:32). When God did reveal that he was annulling the law as a system of religion to make way for the gospel of grace, the Jews, unwilling for God to have his way, rebelled. In ignorance, arrogance, and prejudice they took Judaism to be God’s best and final form of religion, and in blind envy and fury tried to prevent his proceeding with his inevitable program by killing his Son. Even many Jews who came into the church neither really conceded the abrogation of the law nor gave full Christian fellowship to Gentile members. Is it now impossible for Christians to be mistaken, similarly, about the future of Christianity?
Men and Angels
"To make all men see the dispensation of the mystery . . .; to the intent that now unto the principalities and the powers in the heavenly places might be made known through the church the manifold wisdom of God" (Ephesians 3:9-10). In these verses we learn that the church which fuses Jew and Gentile into "one new man" by preaching "the unsearchable riches of Christ,’ is the medium through which the many-sided wisdom of God is transmitted to both faithful and rebellious men and angels. Is it not illuminating to know that men and angels have a common interest in the marvels of Christianity, and that they together learn of the riches of God’s wisdom and grace by seeing them demonstrated in the church? That what concerns us has bearings elsewhere and gears us unto a movement that is older and larger than humanity? What can be more romantic and conducive to saint’s believing that "ministering spirits" (Hebrews 1:14) serve them than the angels hovering about at Christ’s Nativity, attending him in life and death, announcing his resurrection, and, as he ascended to heaven, foretelling his return to earth? What enlightenment to learn that "angels desire to look into the sufferings of Christ, and the glory that should follow them" (1 Peter 1:12-13). Christ’s mission to earth created a problem for men and angels. Probably angels still have a problem about Christ’s return, as men do; but it is conceivable that they, unwilling to let future events solve it, presumptuously disrupt their fellowship over something they do not know, and about which it is un-necessary to know.