Ephesians 3

Ephesians 3:1-13

Section 2. (Ephesians 3:1-13.)The ministry of the mystery. We now come to the ministry of the mystery, with the distinct declaration of its being truth absolutely new, so that we are not to confound it with anything in the Old Testament, save, of course, what may be typically given there; but types need their explanation and therefore are no contradiction to the truth which they contain, being “hid in God” until the time comes for the revelation. Paul declares here that he himself and no other is the one charged with the commission to declare these things. The grace to the nations connects evidently with this character of his teaching. His place, rejected of men for Christ’s sake, being the seal of his ministry to the Gentiles; grace to the Gentiles was grace in its fullest aspect, and the administration of this grace was manifestly committed to him. The mystery was made known to him by revelation. He had written of it briefly before, (one would say, in the epistle to the Galatians,) although there is no development of the truth made known to him such as he is making known now, but the fact of what God had added to him beyond others is affirmed there and that is what he refers to here, by which, in reading it, they might understand his “intelligence in the mystery of Christ.” He is speaking of the way in which he came into this knowledge, not of the contents of the knowledge itself. He was accredited even by the other apostles with that which was beyond them.

He now goes on to speak of it as something entirely different from what had ever been revealed before. “In other generations it was not made known to the sons of men as it has now been revealed to His holy apostles and prophets by the Spirit.” He unites, after his manner, the names of others along with himself, and these, no doubt, were the dispensers under him of that which was to him, first of all, a personal revelation. This is what is to be understood everywhere in the epistles, as the meaning of those mysteries which characterize in fact, Christianity in what is peculiar to it, -the mystery (not without a reference, no doubt, to the well-known heathen mysteries) was that which was revealed to disciples, which could not be understood apart from this revelation, and which, as revealed indeed, would only be apprehended by faith. It was not anything as yet made known to men at large, as by and by, of course, it will be. There are three things in these mysteries as spoken of here, — First of all, that the Gentiles should be joint heirs, heirs on equal terms with the Jews, or rather with Jewish believers. This we cannot find, therefore, anywhere in the Old Testament. There are blessings for the nations and the world to come, but the Jew is always the head, and the Gentile the tail; there is no joint heirship, no equality. The heirship itself also is different, therefore, from that which the Old Testament promises revealed. It is in another sphere altogether. The Christian blessings are in heavenly places, and the inheritance, as has been already shown us, is an inheritance with Christ.

We are co-heirs in this way, also, in a higher and more wonderful position than the Old Testament ever spoke of for any saints whatever. That is the first point; named, no doubt, first, because it seems most in relation to Old Testament truth, though in fact different. Of heirship the Old Testament certainly spoke, but not in any sense of such a body as the Church is, a joint body, as we may call it, using the same word all through here, which shows us Jews and Gentiles upon the most entire equality, -a body in which Jews and Gentiles are alike members, the body of Christ, of which, of course, we have been already fully assured. There is absolutely nothing that could even give a possible ground of confusion with the Israelitish promises. The third thing is that Gentiles and Jews are joint partakers of the promises in Christ Jesus by the gospel. Here again, a place in Christ is nowhere spoken of in the Old Testament. Christ is King and Lord of His people. They are never identified with Him as Christians now are said to be. The promise in the Old Testament, therefore, was not such a promise. He calls it promise here, not because we have not the place already, which we have been fully assured we have; but because this, as all else, waits for its full manifestation and perfect blessedness in the eternity to come.

Of this gospel, having the joy of such things already to the soul, Paul had become minister “according to the gift of the grace of God given” him, “according to the working of His power.” Power indeed was needed to sustain him in the height of such a place as this, to enable him to minister it in full reality, nothing accompanying it which would lessen the blessing in the eyes of men. He adds that this grace has been given to one “less than the least of all saints,” a thing which those who know God will realize to be perfectly suited; the weaker the vessel, the more manifest is it that “the excellency of the power” is “of God” and “not of man.” The strong language has nothing in it which for him is strained or exaggerated, clearly; but he always has in mind that out of which God drew him, and which for him had manifested itself in the clearest and most perfect grace that could be.

The former opposer and persecutor of Christ’s people carries with him ever the remembrance of this. But what a message of good news, of the unsearchable riches of Christ, of things infinite in their character, which, though known surely, yet altogether pass knowledge. The mystery was now, in this way, being dispensed by him, -a mystery hidden from the ages in God, who created all things, and who acts always in that character of power which this necessitates. Once the Creator, He is now the new Creator, a consummation to which all the ages tended, and for which they were preparing the way. Not only to the Gentiles, in fact, was this revelation being made, but angels also, “principalities and powers in heavenly places” were become the witness of “the manifold wisdom of God” now being wrought out through the Church, the purpose of the ages in Christ Jesus. We are continually apt to forget that there are others than ourselves who are deeply concerned in all this revelation. The earth is not isolated from the rest of God’s creation, but His purpose connects all together and is working for the fullest blessing of all. We miss, how much, when we think, therefore, simply of the insignificance of the earth, as if, almost, that which God did upon it must be proportionately insignificant also; but it is plain that a work has been done here which has been done nowhere else, and which can never be repeated; a work which has displayed God in such a manner that the endless ages of eternity and the widest extent of the universe will be alike filled with it. What things to minister! How suited to it and necessary for one taken up by God in this way, although he joins all Christians with himself, to be admitted to “boldness and access in confidence” to God, by faith in Christ. He beseeches the Ephesians, therefore, not to faint at his tribulations for them, which were, in fact, a cause of glory to them. They were all helping to make the more manifest the “excellency of the power” of all this to be “of God,” and He who was in them could not, therefore, be cast down for them.

Ephesians 3:14-21

Section 3. (Ephesians 3:14-21.)Christ abiding in the heart by faith, we are filled into all the fulness of God. This closes in a prayer which has been often compared with the prayer in the first chapter, a comparison which is much in the way of contrast also. He is in earnest for that for which he prays. The expression “I bow my knees” evidently intimates that. The whole body, as it were, witnesses to that earnest desire which is filling his soul and which he addresses now, not to “the God of our Lord Jesus Christ,” not to God in that character, but to “the Father of our Lord.” The prayer has to do, not as before, with the knowledge which he would have the saints have of the extent of their blessing. That has been gone through, and now he desires that they should be filled with the affections suited to those to whom God has drawn near after this manner; but still he contemplates what we have just seen, this purpose of God fulfilled in the saints as having to do with “every family in heaven and on earth.” Of Him, he says, of the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, every such family is named. It should not be “all the family” as in the common version, which destroys the very distinctions which the apostle means to emphasize here, distinctions which only make the unity of blessing which he has before him here, the more distinct and beautiful.

Angels and men, to speak of no more, are different families, at first sight, far enough apart. The angels “who excel in strength” are manifestly of a higher order naturally than man is man who has been united to the dust of the earth, that pride may be hidden from him; yet when we realize what divine grace has done, this human family appears in a very different character.

Christ has come into relationship with these in a way that He has not to the angels. “He layeth not hold of angels, but of the seed of Abraham He layeth hold” (Hebrews 2:16). Thus men have a part in Christ that no angels can lay claim to. The work done for them, though their sins necessitated it, has been done for no other. It is a Man who is on the Father’s throne, and not an angel. Divine grace, in the very fact of taking up the lowest of God’s spiritual creatures, has manifested itself only the more, and this, too, necessitates the highest place of blessing for them. But are the angels passed over then in this? Have the other families of God been forgotten? It is clear that what the apostle has already said shows that this is not and could not be the case.

The Arms that encompass man by the very fact of his being furthest off and lost, are wrapped around all the rest also. This Fatherly relationship which God has, of necessity, to His creatures, is now characterized by this relationship, -One who has come down amongst these creatures and who has in Himself wedded, as we may say, creation to God. Have the angels gained nothing by this? They did not say so when, Christ being born upon earth, they opened heaven to proclaim their praise. God’s good pleasure was in men but how much did that reveal of God to them also -of the Father, who was also their Father? The apostle prays now, therefore, that God may give them “according to the riches of His glory to be strengthened with power by His Spirit in the inner man.” His glory is being manifested indeed in all its fullness. He desires that this should be realized by us in the heart, but for what purpose? Not that signs and miracles may display what God is working, but “that Christ may dwell” in the heart through faith. This Christ, in whom all God’s purposes united and with whom we have been brought into such wonderful and tender relationship, well may He dwell through faith in our hearts, not be a Visitor, known, as it were, fitfully and imperfectly, but dwelling there so that we might be “rooted and grounded in love,” that the love which has been manifested in Him might be that out of which we should draw continually and in which also we should be established, a perfect love, dismissing all fear and refusing all distance. “Rooted and grounded,” -thus we are alone fitted to apprehend “with all saints,” “the breadth and length and depth and height,” He does not say of what. It is not of love, certainly, that he is speaking, for he immediately goes on to say that this is measureless, this surpasses knowledge. “Breadth and length and depth and height” naturally speak of God’s ways, of what He is doing. The breadth of His work includes all His creatures.

The length of it is from eternity to eternity. The depth of it could only be rightly known by that depth to which Christ has descended for us; and the height by that place which He has given us with Himself; but if we apprehend these things aright, they are, in fact measurements, in a sense, of that which cannot be measured, so that he immediately adds: “To know the love of Christ which passeth knowledge” like those measurements which we take of the heavens from angles obtained on earth.

They convey to us, -how much! but yet leave us to realize that we are incompetent in any full way to estimate what this love is; but even now the consequence of it will be, we shall be “filled up in all. the fulness of God.” This is what is in Christ. “In Him,” as Colossians tells us, “dwells all the fulness of the Godhead bodily,” and it is added: “We are filled up in Him.” This divine fulness then, though we cannot hold it, holds us. We are, as has often been said, like a vessel dipped in the ocean which cannot, of course, hold the ocean, but in which the ocean is, as well as round about it. Divine fulness, to be filled with that which is, nevertheless, infinite, how natural to think that here the apostle has in some way exhausted. the sober estimate of things! It is as if anticipating that thought, that he says immediately, “To Him that is able to do far exceedingly above all that we ask or think, to Him be glory.” How wonderful the connection there! Think of what he has just been speaking of. It is not, however, that he means that God is able to do more than fill us with all the fulness of God, but that as to all that we might think about it, He is able to exceed any measure we can make.

We may ask, but He can transcend all that we can ask for. We may think, but He will be beyond us still, and beyond us in a power which works in us too as the apostle says here, a power which is, of course, the power of the Holy Spirit.

He has thus taken hold upon us for this very thing, and to make the Church the vessel of His praise, not simply for the present time, but in a way which nothing will exceed, forever: “To Him be glory in the Church by Christ Jesus, unto all the generations of the age of ages.” How he seems to contemplate there the whole history as it were of the future, filled with wonderful and new displays continually, to new spectators also of God’s goodness and power, and to all these and in the midst of all these, the vessel of His glory will still be the Church. in Christ Jesus. Think of it, that this is what God has brought us into! Is it possible, one would ask, to add more to a revelation such as this?