For this reason *I* Paul, prisoner of the Christ Jesus for you nations,
Paul has just described Jewish and Gentile believers built into one house for God. Now he breaks off to name himself and his chains, which raises two questions: what cause is he looking back to, and why does Rome's prisoner call himself Christ's?
The opening words gather up everything said in the first two chapters. One commentator ties the phrase directly to the size of what God had done:
"For this reason" — because of the marvellous greatness of the work God had accomplished for and in His saints — Paul preached "the unsearchable riches of Christ" (v.8).
The order matters. God settles salvation first. Only then does the truth of the church come into view.
Upon the foundation of salvation as a complete thing, the Holy Spirit leads on to the understanding of the church. If you do not know and rest in Christ's redemption as accomplished, yes, and accepted for us by God, you cannot have a single true idea of the church.
Rome held him, but he looks past the men who locked the door:
It is very blessed to notice the way in which the apostle looked beyond men to Christ. He was His prisoner. He did not chafe under the tyranny and injustice of the Roman authorities, but looked at the Lord. It was His will for him, and that was enough. Christ was his jailer, so to speak. He who sent His angel and released Peter could have done the same for Paul had it suited Him. The heart never finds rest when looking at second causes.
He spoke the same way about the appeal that brought him to Rome:
Divine grace enables him to view his imprisonment in the light of God's will, and not a murmur escapes his lips. It was the same when he first arrived at Rome and met the leading Jews. He was innocent of the charges made against him, and would have been released, but "when the Jews spoke against it" he "was constrained to appeal to Caesar." Yet he did not complain. He at once added, "Not that I had anything to accuse my nation of." Looking at his chains from the divine side, he can add, "For the hope of Israel I am bound with this chain" (Acts 28:17-20).
His mission to the nations is what put him in chains:
This special service proclaimed the gospel of the grace of God to the Gentiles. Carrying it out raised the malice of the prejudiced Jew and brought the apostle into prison. In the estimation of the Jew, a man who could talk of going to the Gentiles was not fit to live (Acts 22:21-22). Paul, however, did not view himself as a prisoner of men for any wrongdoing. He was a prisoner of Jesus Christ, because of his service of love in making known the truth to the Gentiles.
"I, Paul" is unusual, and the emphasis is deliberate:
Such repetitions are not frequent in his letters, and wherever they occur they always carry a special emphasis... The Spirit was leading him on to open still more fully the special doctrine of the church as the mystery of Christ. So he first reminds his Gentile brothers of the close interest they had in everything that happened to him as an apostle of the faith. If he was a prisoner of Jesus Christ, it was for their sakes that he suffered.
The sentence he starts here is never finished. He picks the thread up again at 4:1.
Compare Ephesians 3:1 with Ephesians 4:1, and you see clearly that Ephesians 3 is a parenthesis. Ephesians 2 presents the doctrine and Ephesians 4 the practice consistent with the doctrine. Between the doctrine and the practice we have this important digression. In it the Holy Spirit presents the special administration, or service, given to the apostle.
The chains are an argument. They measure how much the privilege was worth to the man who paid for it:
Clearly Paul thought the special grace they shared was of great value, and to maintain the truth connected with it he was willing to endure imprisonment and chains. Suppose a former Gentile had visited Paul in his prison at Rome. Could he have come away content simply to know Christ as his Saviour, without valuing the privileges and the grace which God gave to those who believe on the Lord Jesus Christ?
- Cause. "For this reason" reaches back to chapters 1–2. You grasp the church only after you rest in a finished redemption.
- Custody. Paul names Christ, not Caesar, as the one holding him — the heart finds no rest while it stares at second causes.
- Cost. The chains came from preaching grace to the nations. In Jewish eyes, a man who talked of going to the Gentiles was not fit to live.
- Concern. "I, Paul" is emphatic; he wants Gentile readers to feel how closely his sufferings touch their own standing.
- Consequence. The sentence breaks off and resumes at 4:1. Chapter 3 is a parenthesis, and its appeal is plain: never hold cheap the privileges another man went to prison to keep.
(if indeed ye have heard of the administration of the grace of God which has been given to me towards you,
Chapter 2 has set out the doctrine. Now Paul names himself as the man God trusted with a service for the Gentiles, and he breaks off mid-sentence to explain that trust — what it is, how he got it, and why it reached them.
The verse opens a long detour. Paul starts a thought in verse 1 and only picks it up again in chapter 4. The gap holds the service God gave him.
Compare Ephesians 3:1 with Ephesians 4:1 and you can clearly see that Ephesians 3 is a parenthesis. Ephesians 2 presents the doctrine, and Ephesians 4 the practice that matches the doctrine. Between the doctrine and the practice comes this important digression, where the Holy Spirit presents the special administration, or service, entrusted to the Apostle. In the second verse he calls this service "the dispensation of the grace of God", and in verse 9 "the fellowship of the mystery". In both verses the word is the same in the original language. The best translation is "administration", an administration being a particular service.
The opening words have puzzled readers. They sound as if Paul is unsure whether people he knew well had heard of his commission.
This verse has caused a difficulty for some, because it seems to contradict the idea that this letter went first to the saints at Ephesus. The objection sounds better than it is. As far as the difficulty comes from the Apostle's actual wording, it is only imaginary. He could properly have used such language even when writing to people he already knew and had begun to teach in the way of the Lord.
Older translations call it a "dispensation" where the ESV says "stewardship". Both render one word, and it names a job placed in one man's hands.
The apostle Paul speaks in our chapter, verse 2, of "the dispensation of the grace of God which is given me for you." This word, "dispensation," is elsewhere translated "stewardship" (see Luke 16:2-4). God entrusted this distinctive stewardship to Paul. It was to make known to the Gentiles, above all, the truth of the mystery, which he received by revelation along with the other apostles. The Lord was pleased to reveal by the Holy Spirit the great secret of God, which He had kept hidden during past ages. Yet God committed the ministry, or stewardship, of it to Paul alone. So we find the teaching of it in the letters of the Apostle Paul only.
Another arrangement of God's still lies in the future. What makes this present one a stewardship of grace is who was on the receiving end.
That dispensation is future. In Eph. 3:2 we have a present dispensation, far more limited in its scope, though far more intimate in its character. The apostle speaks of it as "given to me for you" — he was the steward of it as far as the Gentiles, such as the Ephesians, were concerned. Remember how completely lost and hopeless the Gentiles had been, as Eph. 2:12 states. Then it is easy to see that this is indeed a dispensation of the grace of God. The coming age will be the dispensation of His glory instead.
The phrase "for you" points the arrangement at the readers, not at Paul. He received it so he could hand it on.
Paul's words call us to listen to what God, in His goodness and wisdom, made known to Paul for us: the revelation of the mystery. Paul tells us in a few words what it is. The Gentiles should be fellow-heirs, of the same body, and partakers of His promise in Christ through the gospel. Nothing that God had given to His saints from among the Jews would now be missing from those who had been Gentiles.
Grace was not only the subject Paul carried. It was also what had happened to the carrier.
God had entrusted an administration of grace to Paul for the saints of this dispensation. Everything tied to Paul's Gospel, and to the truth of the mystery, shows the wonderful grace of God. Nothing God has given us in Christ comes because we deserve it. It all comes in rich, sovereign grace. The apostle is the vessel of this grace. He not only has the truth about it to minister; God has also worked on him with power.
- Trust. The word translated "dispensation" means a stewardship, or administration — one particular service, placed in Paul's hands.
- Grace. It is a stewardship of grace because it reached people who were lost and hopeless. The coming age will display His glory instead.
- Single hands. Paul received the revelation along with the other apostles, but the stewardship of it was his alone. That is why the teaching appears only in his letters.
- Direction. God gave it to him for you: he received it to pass it on, so nothing given to believing Jews would be missing from Gentiles.
- Vessel. The same grace that filled the message shaped the man, so God worked on the messenger as much as He gave him the truth.
that by revelation the mystery has been made known to me, (according as I have written before briefly,
Paul stops mid-sentence in verse 1 to say where his message came from. It was not study or tradition, but a secret God opened to him.
When Paul preached the gospel, he could send his hearers back to their own Scriptures. With this subject he could not.
The Apostle wants us to receive the great truth of the church on divine authority. So he is careful to explain how he got his knowledge of "the mystery" of the church. It did not come through messages from men. It came by direct revelation from God, as he says: the mystery "was made known to me by revelation." ... But once the Apostle taught the truth of the church, he could no longer appeal to the Old Testament to confirm it. It would be useless for his hearers to search the Scriptures to see if these things were so.
The word does not mean a puzzle or something too deep to grasp. It means a secret God kept back, and then chose to tell.
These secret counsels of God are called in Scripture mysteries. We mean by a mystery something we cannot explain, something beyond our understanding. In the language of the New Testament, however, a mystery is simply a secret revealed only to those let in on it... God, then, had kept back a secret to tell us. He had not made it known even to the most favoured person who received His thoughts in past ages. How sweet to see this! It is the privilege of the children to know the secrets of the family.
Because God has told it, it is no longer out of reach for any believer.
Again, the mystery is no longer "hid in God"; it is made public. You must always keep this in mind when you read about the mystery, that it is now revealed and nothing is left in the dark. The secret is set forth in the light of God, and the simplest Christian is expected to receive it.
So what is the secret? It is about two groups becoming one.
What was the mystery? It was the revelation of this wonderful new structure that he calls "Christ and the church" (Eph. 5:32). Jew and Gentile were to be completely one. The Holy Spirit would unite them to Christ in glory, and to one another with equal privilege. Both would belong to Him, and be His Body here upon earth. You cannot find this in Old Testament Scripture.
Commentators differ on the moment. Some trace it to the words Christ spoke to Saul, heard by his travelling companions but not understood by them.
Christ first revealed the existence of His body on earth to Paul (Eph. 3:3). Paul was with his fellow-travellers at the time, but they did not understand the words... "Why do you persecute Me?"
Another writer will not fix a date, and gives the revelation its full name.
The truth so revealed is specifically "the mystery of Christ," an expression found only in the writings of this Apostle. As to the occasion when this revelation was given, it is hard to speak with confidence, because Scripture is not explicit on the point. It is not likely that it was the same as the heavenly vision that taught him his first lesson of obedience to the faith of Jesus (Acts 26:19).
Paul points back to something he had already written.
Only three passages give us the details of this secret: Ephesians 2:9-22; Eph. 3:6; and Colossians 1:27. Eph. 3:3-4 proves that the first of these unfolds the mystery, for there the apostle appeals to what he wrote earlier as showing his knowledge of the subject. Notice, by the way, that he calls this earlier passage "a few words." Yet it is the longest and fullest passage of the three. This shows us that it is a condensed summary of the matter, and we may expect to find in it great fulness and depth.
This revelation completed the great lines of truth God had to give.
God had revealed all the great lines of truth when He made known the special revelation He gave to Paul (Eph. 3:3)... We look, then, for no more. Claimed additions to revealed truth are not the fruit of the Holy Spirit's teaching now. Additions to the Christian faith, not found in the Word, are not of divine origin.
- Secret, not puzzle. A mystery in Scripture is a secret God held back, then told — not something too deep to understand.
- Told to one man. Paul received it by direct revelation, not from men. His first hearers could not check it in the Old Testament, because it is not there.
- Told about one Body. The secret is Christ and the church. Jew and Gentile are made completely one, joined to Christ in glory and to each other.
- Told to the family. Children get to know the family secrets. The simplest Christian is expected to receive this one.
- Told in full. This was the last great line of truth. Claimed additions to it are not of divine origin.
by which, in reading it, ye can understand my intelligence in the mystery of the Christ,)
Paul points his readers back to what he has already written. Read it, he says, and you will see into the mystery of Christ as he does. That raises two questions. What is this mystery? And how does anyone come to understand it?
The word "mystery" invites the wrong idea. Commentators begin by clearing that idea away.
When the Apostle uses the word "mystery" he does not mean anything mysterious. That is the human use of the word. In Scripture a mystery is something that was kept secret until now. Revelation is the only way it could be known, and once revealed only faith can grasp it.
This mystery is not about Christ alone. It joins Christ and the church, and one writer warns that whoever misses it loses the key to the rest of Scripture.
If all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge are hidden in "the mystery", so that the administration of it, given to Paul, fills up and completes the word of God... then one thing is plain. Where "the mystery" is not understood, the key to the Word is not in the hand... Christ is the centre of the truth and ways of God. But the Christ of God's counsels is not simply the man Christ Jesus. Instead, "as the body is one, and has many members, so also is the Christ." It is "Christ and the Church" — the mystery. He is the last Adam, not alone, but with His Eve.
One writer answers those who shrink the mystery down to the body alone:
"The mystery is the body simply." But the apostle took pains to lay down the opposite, and to lay it down strongly: the mystery concerns Christ and it concerns the church. How sad to leave out Him on Whom all depends! The assembly is only His complement.
Paul says he wrote briefly. One writer explains why so few words were enough.
He wrote in few words, no doubt. But he wrote with divine perfection, and clearly enough for those whom God's grace has made able to understand, however few the words. Many wonder why such truths were not given at greater length. But deep truths are for those who have spiritual understanding, and they do not need many words to grasp them. When people are only learning the basics of truth, God's grace gives precept upon precept, line upon line, to those who need it. If He is showing needy souls how they may be forgiven by God, He displays it in a thousand forms... But it is not so with the revelation of the mystery.
What Paul had by direct revelation, his readers were to gain by reading. An alternative rendering brings out that Paul offers them his own inward grasp of it:
According as I have written before briefly, by which in reading it, you can understand my intelligence in the mystery of the Christ.
Yet the printed page alone does not produce the understanding, which is why the chapter turns into prayer:
He has said all that he can say about it in words, and in very simple words too, but in the things of God the letter is not everything. When the letter has been learned, only the Spirit can give these things living power in our souls. They belong to "the depths of God." So the Apostle is down on his knees, appealing to the Father... Natural ability, even in someone born of God, is no help in understanding the things that belong to God's counsel.
Under the law God kept some things back. One writer traces the change from Moses to Paul.
Moses said, "The secret things belong to the LORD our God, but the things that are revealed belong to us and to our children forever"... But God has now revealed the very things that were then His secrets — the resources of grace, when all was ruin under the law... The Holy Spirit had brought out what had been a secret thing in the days of old. The mystery is revealed... God has, as it were, no secrets now.
- Secret — in Scripture a mystery is not something baffling. It is something God hid, and we know it only because He chose to tell it.
- Revealed — the secret things Moses spoke of are now out in the open. God keeps no secrets now.
- Written — Paul used few words, and those few words are complete. Short does not mean shallow.
- Read — Paul received this by revelation. We receive it by reading what he wrote.
- Understood — the words alone are not enough, so Paul kneels. Only the Spirit gives living power to hold Christ and His church together, and with them the key to all of Scripture.
which in other generations has not been made known to the sons of men, as it has now been revealed to his holy apostles and prophets in [the power of the] Spirit,
Paul has just said that God revealed a secret to him. Here he tells us when: not in earlier generations, but now — by the Spirit, to a chosen circle of men.
The word does not point to something puzzling. It points to a secret God kept until He chose to speak.
By the word "mystery" the Apostle does not mean anything mysterious — that is only the way people use the word. In Scripture a mystery is something kept secret until now. It could not be known in any other way than by revelation. Once it is revealed, faith alone can grasp it.
Commentators press that the negative in this verse is absolute. It is not that earlier generations saw a little and we now see more.
"Which was not made known to the sons of men in other generations." Here you have a plain statement that the secret was not revealed in other ages. The point is not that it was vaguely hinted at, or that people understood it badly. It was not revealed at all.
The words "sons of men" leave no one out. They cover the best-known believers of the past.
This description takes in the Jewish prophets, and earlier witnesses of the truth of God as well. As he adds a little later, it was "hidden in God," and so it was not among the secrets God shared even with Abraham His friend.
There was a reason for the long silence. It lay in Israel's standing as a separate people.
Scripture states this clearly and repeatedly. While the Jews were a separate people, and were bound to be so, the mystery of the church could not exist — and it was not revealed. To reveal that there was no difference between the Jew and the Greek would have overturned the whole structure at its base.
There is a second reason for the timing: the thing itself did not yet exist.
The unfolding of the Church came when the Holy Spirit was given in a new way... At Pentecost, for the first time, we have an assembly that is called the Church of God: a body where God intended to have Jew and Gentile without distinction. That state of things never existed before the day of Pentecost.
The word "prophets" usually points back to the Old Testament. Two things in the verse point the other way: the word order, and the "now."
The prophets in this verse are not Old Testament prophets. They are the ones spoken of in Ephesians 2:20. In both cases the order is "apostles and prophets". If he meant prophets of the Old Testament, you would expect "prophets and apostles". Also, the Apostle is speaking of what is "now" revealed, in contrast with what was revealed before.
The picture of the foundation in the previous chapter points the same way.
What prophets? Of the New Testament only. God was not taking up an old foundation. He was laying a new one, and He begins this new one in Christ dead and risen... The Greek phrase "the apostles and prophets" means that both groups were united in this joint work.
"By the Spirit" tells us how the truth arrived. It reached a small circle first.
These Spirit-given revelations reached, not the world, and not even all saints, but the apostles and prophets. Once they had received them, they passed them on to others.
Within that circle, Paul had a particular job.
This does not mean it was hidden from the other apostles — Paul tells us it was revealed to them too. But God gave Paul the special service of ministering this truth to the saints. So only in Paul's letters do we find the mystery unfolded.
This truth has a date. That date matters for us.
This mystery, we are told, was "hidden in God" Himself before (Ephesians 3:9). So the revelation of it cannot be found in Old Testament times, or before the ascension of our Lord Jesus Christ and the gift of the Holy Spirit. That it is now made known in our day should profoundly affect us.
- Hidden. In Scripture a mystery is a kept secret, not a riddle. Study cannot reach it. Revelation gives it, and faith holds it.
- Hidden from all. "Sons of men" covers everyone before — the prophets of old, and Abraham himself. It was hidden in God, not buried somewhere in the older Scriptures.
- Hidden for a reason. Israel stood as a separate people. The news that Jew and Greek are on one level would have overturned that whole order. And the church itself did not exist until the Spirit came.
- Now revealed. The "now" fixes the timing. The order "apostles and prophets" fixes the people. God laid a new foundation in Christ dead and risen; He did not reuse an old one.
- Now passed on. The Spirit gave it to that first circle, not to the world. They carried it outward, and God charged Paul to unfold it. That is why you find it in his letters — and why it should move us today.
that [they who are of] the nations should be joint heirs, and a joint body, and joint partakers of [his] promise in Christ Jesus by the glad tidings;
Ephesians 3 pauses so Paul can explain the secret God made known to him. This verse states that secret plainly. Gentiles share the same heirship, the same body and the same promise as believing Jews. But what was new here? The prophets had already spoken of blessing reaching the nations.
One writer points to a translation that keeps the repeated word in those three terms visible in English, even though the result reads awkwardly.
Ephesians 3:6 gives an even shorter summary of the mystery. Again it stresses the wonderful place given to Gentiles. Someone has translated the three words in that verse as "Joint-heirs, a joint-body and joint-partakers." This may be clumsy English. But it has the merit of making us see the main thought of the Spirit of God in the verse.
Blessing for the nations was no secret. The Old Testament said plenty about it. So the new thing must lie somewhere else.
Nothing could be more obvious, even to a quick reader of God's word, than this. The Old Testament is full of predictions of blessing to the Gentiles under the Messiah's reign… It was no hidden mystery that both Jews and Gentiles would be blessed under Him and by Him when the Seed came — the One to whom the promises were made. But something else had been hidden in God from all past ages and generations. The Gentiles would be fellow heirs and of the same body. Believing Jews and believing Gentiles would be joined into one, in perfect equality with each other, both alike becoming the body of Christ.
Another writer weighs the words. "Fellow heirs" on its own could have left a ranking in place.
Here again we are told that the Gentiles were not only "fellow heirs" — a term that might still leave class distinctions in place — but of the "same body." So the "unity of the Spirit" is completely unique. No one knew of it or prophesied about it before.
The heirship here is not the earthly inheritance promised through Abraham. It is the inheritance Christ Himself holds.
The inheritance spoken of here is not the one promised to Abraham. In that earthly inheritance Israel will hold the first place, and the Gentiles will come into blessing on that ground… Here we have the great inheritance that Christ is the heir of. By the grace of God we are joint heirs with Him in it… To share God's inheritance with God's own Son certainly goes beyond the highest thought any person could reach.
Jew and Gentile are not joined to each other first. Every link between them runs through Christ.
They were made "fellow heirs" with each other by being made fellow heirs with Christ. In the same way, they were made "of the same body" with each other by being made members of the body of Christ. That is how the Gentiles became "partakers of God's promise in Christ by the gospel."
Some read the verse as Gentiles being let into Israel's privileges. One writer rejects that, and rejects the reverse too.
The Gentile is not raised to the Jewish level on earth. Nor is the Jew brought down to the Gentile level. Both are taken off their old standing and raised to a level immeasurably higher. They are united to one another on completely new ground — heavenly ground in Christ. The gospel brings all this about, and it speaks to both on one common level of guilt and utter ruin.
This levelling had a practical edge. Gentile believers did not receive their place from Jewish teachers.
The Gentiles did not come into this under Jewish control or by Jewish teaching. They stand in an equal status with them — not, of course, in Judaism, but in Christianity. That is why chapter two speaks of the dividing wall being broken down and both being reconciled in one body. All that the Jews were as a nation has gone in the cross of Christ.
The long silence before this was no accident. One writer shows why it had to be that way.
So we have the clear and repeated statement about the mystery of the church. It could not exist while the Jews were a separate people, and had to stay that way. It was not even revealed. To announce that there was no difference between the Jew and the Greek would have overturned the whole structure at its base.
- Joint. One word runs through all three terms — joint-heirs, a joint-body, joint-partakers. That repetition carries the whole verse.
- Hidden. The secret had to stay hidden while Israel stood apart. Announcing "no difference" would have pulled that whole order down.
- New. Blessing for the nations was already prophesied. Being in the same body was not. That is the part no one had heard.
- Higher. Neither side moves onto the other's ground. The gospel lifts both off their old standing onto heavenly ground in Christ.
- Through Christ. Believers are fellow heirs and one body with each other only because they belong to Christ first.
of which I am become minister according to the gift of the grace of God given to me, according to the working of his power.
Paul has just described the mystery — the secret God kept hidden and has now revealed. Here he turns from the message to the messenger: how does a man come to hold such a trust?
Paul's word for himself is "minister." One writer compares how churches use that word:
In Episcopalian churches, a "deacon" is a clergyman of the lowest rank. Baptists have "deacons" who are not "in the ministry" at all. But the Apostle Paul calls himself a deacon (minister), and he ties that word to the very highest form of service. That service is making known the "mystery," hidden so long, but now revealed (Eph. 3:7).
Paul was made a minister "of this gospel." One writer shows how far that commission reached:
The administration of the grace of God that the Apostle speaks of covers his whole mission. In verse 7 he gives the details of the mystery. Then he speaks of this same grace in relation to the gospel in verse 8... His double ministry, of the gospel and of the mystery, came to him in divine grace, according to the working of the power of God. It worked in him powerfully, so that he could carry out the service given him to do.
Paul rules natural ability out as the source of his ministry. One writer ties the "power" in this verse back to the power described earlier in the letter:
How fitting that the chief messenger of this was himself Jewish, one who had to be laid hold of by God in a compelling way. Paul is emphatically "minister" (not simply a minister) of these great truths, not by natural ability, but by the gift of the grace of God. This gift required the effective working of God's power — the same power spoken of in chapter 1:19 in connection with the resurrection of Christ.
The working of His power was not only the force behind Paul's preaching. It first did something to Paul himself:
The apostle Paul had "become a ministering servant of the gospel ... according to the working (inworking) of God's power." God had revealed His Son in Paul, so that Paul might preach Jesus the Son of God among the Gentiles. God, who put Christ on his lips, was the One who had first put Christ into his heart.
What is this mystery, and why does handling it need power? The same writer explains, and then shows what Paul was to do with it:
What is meant by the term mystery? It is what was hidden in God. It is something we can only know when God graciously reveals it and gives certain ones power to understand it... In verse 7 the apostle tells us he was the minister of this by "the effectual working of His power". He did not have the truth of this mystery merely as a scholar, to store it up in his heart. It was something the saints were meant to know, and he had been formed as a vessel to minister it.
What was true for an apostle is true for anyone who wants to pass on what he has learned. Every stage needs grace and power:
The Apostle was made the minister of this great truth. He now tells us that carrying out such a ministry needs the grace of God and the power of God. If in our little measure we are to pass on these great truths ministered by the Apostle, we shall surely need divine grace and divine power... Nature could never discover the truth of the mystery. When God reveals it, nature cannot grasp it. And when we do grasp it, mere natural ability is not enough to minister it. The grace of God reveals the mystery. Only the Spirit's work in us lets us grasp the truth revealed. And only the grace of God enables us to minister it.
- Given, not earned. Paul is a minister of these truths "not by natural ability, but by the gift of the grace of God."
- Given inwardly first. The One who "put Christ on his lips" had first "put Christ into his heart." The power worked in the man before it worked through him.
- Given a servant's name. Paul takes the lowest word available for himself and attaches it to "the very highest form of service."
- Given to be handed on. He held the mystery not "as a scholar to store it up in his heart," but as a vessel formed to minister it.
- Given to us in measure. Nature cannot discover, grasp, or minister this truth. Anyone who passes it on "in our little measure" needs the same grace and the same power.
To me, less than the least of all saints, has this grace been given, to announce among the nations the glad tidings of the unsearchable riches of the Christ,
Paul has just been speaking of the mystery: truth God kept hidden and then made known. Here he says who received that message, and he describes himself in the lowest terms he ever used.
Paul calls himself "the very least of all the saints" — "less than the least of all saints" in older translations. That is not false modesty. It is what happens to a man when the size of the truth he handles dawns on him.
The apostle also tells us the effect that this great truth had upon himself. In the presence of the greatness of God's grace he sees that he is the chief of sinners (1 Timothy 1:15). In the presence of the immense view of blessing unfolded by the mystery, he feels that he is less than the least of all saints. The greater the glories that are opened to our sight, the smaller we become in our own eyes.
It is the lowest of three descriptions Paul gave of himself, and they run downward, not upward.
There are three statements in which he speaks of himself. Chief of sinners; not fit to be called an apostle; and, less than the least of all saints. He said all these things of himself. It seems that the further he progressed in these glorious things, the less he thought of himself. I do not know of anything more likely to humble us than a grasp of the glory of Christ.
Paul did not win this work. God gave it, and He gave it to a man who felt small.
The apostle who, above all others, entered into the greatness of the mystery is the one who can call himself less than the least of all saints. And the one who has some sense of his own littleness is the one to whom God gives grace to minister the truth.
"Unsearchable" does not mean unknowable. It means no one can reach the end of these riches. And there is a reason for that.
The unsearchable riches of Christ are riches whose depth we cannot fathom, so immense are they. The measure of these riches is the glory God will give to Christ, according to what He is and according to the worth of His work. All has been done by Christ and for Christ; all has been created by Him and for Him. Presenting Christ to the Gentiles, outside the limited revelation of the ancient prophets, brought out the riches of Christ as unsearchable.
But whose riches are they?
Read this expression, "the unsearchable riches of Christ," in its context. It refers not to all the wealth that is His own, but to all that is in Him for His saints. Take one item only: God "has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places." Can we trace those blessings out and master the whole subject? We can do no such thing. They are too big for our little grasp. They are unsearchable; and so too is all that we have in Christ. Yet though unsearchable they may be known by us, and so they were the subject of the apostle's ministry.
The word that struck Paul was not "riches" but "Gentiles" — the nations outside Israel.
Earlier in this chapter, Paul sets the unsearchable riches of Christ against all that God had revealed before. In all the Old Testament scriptures there had been nothing of the mystery as we get it here. There had been glimpses now and then, but nothing more. What strikes the apostle's mind is that he should preach among the Gentiles the unsearchable riches of Christ. It was outside all the promises.
Paul's preaching had two halves, and the second was as vast as the first.
Paul proclaimed not only the complete ruin of man, but the unsearchable riches of Christ. These riches are beyond all human calculation, and they carry blessings that have no limit. Could we search to the end of His riches, we should not reach the limit of the blessings that these riches bestow.
That wealth is still the preacher's theme, and it belongs to a Man now in glory.
All that Christ has is His beyond death — riches that cannot be tarnished and can never be lost. The glory of Solomon shone out in his riches. How much brighter is the glory of Christ shining out in His unsearchable riches — not in an earthly kingdom, but from the place He fills at God's right hand. This divine treasury enriches us, and the apostle had the privilege of preaching among the Gentiles Christ's unsearchable riches. It is the fame of Him who is greater than Solomon that Paul, and preachers today, tell to men.
- Smaller. The more Paul saw of Christ, the less he thought of himself.
- Given. He did not earn the work. God gives this grace to the man who knows he is small.
- Unsearchable. No one can reach the end of these riches. Their measure is the glory God will give to Christ.
- Ours. They are held in Christ for His people: too big to master, yet really known.
- Outward. Paul carried them to the nations, outside all the promises, and preachers today still have the same endless theme.
and to enlighten all [with the knowledge of] what is the administration of the mystery hidden throughout the ages in God, who has created all things,
Alongside preaching Christ, Paul had a second task: to bring into the open a secret God had kept to Himself since the world began. Commentators ask what its "plan" means, why God hid it in Himself and not in Scripture, and why the verse names Him as Creator.
Older translations use the word "fellowship" here. The ESV says "plan." Writers trace it back to the running of a household.
Second, God gave him the work of enlightening everyone about "the administration of the mystery." The word translated "administration" means "the law, or arrangement, of a house." It is the word our word "economy" comes from. At God's command the Gospel had gone out among the nations. It had brought "those who are of the nations" into the body of Christ and the house of God. That made an entirely new situation. A new "economy," or "house-law," or "administration," had to be set up.
So Paul's task was not only to state the secret but to show how it works out in practice.
He was not simply to enlighten everyone with the truth of the mystery, but with the knowledge of how it is administered. He was to show all people how God works out in time His counsel from eternity to eternity, by forming the Assembly on earth. So he was to bring out in public what had been hidden in God until then, from the beginning of the world.
The light here is for "everyone." That reach goes past the circle of believers.
Besides the side of the mystery that faces the saints, it also applies to all people without distinction — to those outside the Church. Anyone who preaches the gospel must preach Christ. But few understand the kind of grace that joins the soul to Christ as a member of His body, of His flesh and of His bones. This was a main part of Paul's work.
The secret was not buried in older writings, waiting to be decoded.
The passages I have just quoted from Romans 16 and Ephesians 3 prove, beyond all question, that the truth of the one body, made up of Jew and Gentile, was "hid in God" — not hid in Old Testament Scriptures, but hid in God. For certainly, whatever the Scriptures contain is no longer hidden but revealed.
This also shapes what "mystery" means here. It is not just something too deep for the mind to work out.
Notice that this is not called a mystery merely in the sense of something nature or reason could never have discovered on its own. All the revealed truths of the Gospel are mysteries in that sense. But this was a mystery "hid in God" — an unrevealed mystery.
Why did God keep it back so long? One answer ties the timing to Christ's own path.
Such a matter is worthy of the supreme majesty of Him who created all things by Jesus Christ. God held this revelation back until Christ had come, suffered, died, risen and returned to heaven. Only in this way could a Man in glory be Head of His body, the Church. Then He could use a weak, dependent vessel to declare this mystery, and so magnify the great glory of the revelation all the more.
The delay was not indecision on God's part.
The Church... was still no afterthought of His. From the beginning of the world it had been hid in God, who created all things. The One who planned the whole work of creation, and carried out His purpose by His divine power, had kept that wonderful secret hidden in His heart all along. The secret is tied closely to His glory and His counsels about His Son. God chose Paul out of all intelligent creatures to be the first to explain it.
Naming God as the maker of everything shows how large a place this secret holds.
To say it was hid in God would tell us only that it was His secret, told to no one else. But the verse links the secret with Him as Creator. That gives the impression that the church was to hold a very important place in that creation, and that God's full purpose in creation could not come to light until the secret was out.
One writer reads the verse as God's answer to why anything exists at all
If I were asked why God created the universe, I should point to this verse as the answer.
- Hidden — God kept the secret in Himself, not in earlier Scripture. Whatever Scripture contains is already revealed.
- Held back — it was no afterthought. God waited until Christ had died, risen and gone to glory, so that a Man in glory could be Head of His body.
- Handed over — God chose Paul to explain it first, and trusted him not only with the truth but with its house-law, the way it works out.
- Held out — the light is for "everyone," reaching beyond believers to those outside.
- Home — naming God as Creator ties the secret to the whole universe. Creation itself served the purpose God carried in His heart.
in order that now to the principalities and authorities in the heavenlies might be made known through the assembly the all-various wisdom of God,
God's design for the church has an audience in heaven. It raises three questions: what "manifold" wisdom means, who the rulers and authorities are, and why Paul says "now."
The word behind "manifold" appears nowhere else in the Bible. Its picture comes from art.
The word for all-variegated is used only this once in the Bible. It is polupoikilos. Picture a Greek looking at a magnificent painting, a masterpiece of brilliance and design, blending its colours in the most beautiful harmony. This is the word he would use for that varied and yet harmonious combination of colour, with its rich hues and delicate tints, so pleasing to his eye.
Heaven had watched God work long before this.
This mystery of the church was hidden in the depths of His counsels. Until then God had not revealed it, and the church did not yet exist. It is "now" that God makes His manifold wisdom known to the principalities and powers through the church. They had seen His patience, His power, His government. They had never seen a heavenly body of people on earth, united to His Son in heaven.
One writer lists what had to happen before any church could exist.
Creation was the most perfect expression of a Creator's wisdom. But in the forming of the church God displays His wisdom in every form. Before the church could be formed, God's glory had to be vindicated, man's need met, sin put away, death abolished, and the power of Satan broken. The barrier between Jew and Gentile had to come down. Heaven had to be opened, Christ seated as Man in the glory, the Holy Spirit sent to earth, and the gospel preached.
God chose to unveil this wisdom at the moment when everything looked lost.
God, as creator of all things, had shown His wisdom. But this wisdom was still to receive a far more wonderful display. He planned that display in His counsels from all eternity, and only now has He brought it to light. When all His earthly purposes seemed to fail, when Satan seemed to have won, God's manifold wisdom shows itself. It turns this apparent defeat into the crowning victory of His grace.
These watchers are the angels of God, and the lesson runs on earth now. That makes the way we live a serious matter.
Are we living so much in line with God's will for His church that He can point to us as a lesson to the angels of God? That, and nothing less, is God's intention. You certainly cannot escape the responsibility that comes with it by refusing to act on it! God will not wait until we reach heaven to show the heavenly hosts His manifold wisdom through the church. He is doing it now, on earth, while the members of the church are still being called.
Commentators differ over how far our failure belongs in this verse. One says the angels see God's wisdom even in the way God handles our failure.
If we look at the practical state of the church today, we may wonder how the holy angels can see it! But we must remember two things. First, they never die. Much failure is before their eyes today, but they also saw the church as God set it up, in the days of its first love before the failure began. Second, since the wisdom of God is "manifold," they see fresh sides of it in the way God deals with the failure we show, and carries out His purpose despite it.
Another writer says the verse is not about our record at all: "To bring the failure of the assemblies into these verses is to spoil the teaching here." (H J Vine)
The colours show wherever people who share nothing else become one.
There is no fellowship like it. It takes no notice of borders or languages, or of the colour of the skin... What but divine power could fuse people of different nations into one spirit and one mind? All distinctions of class and race disappear as they worship their common Lord. It is sad that divisions, sects and parties spoil this wonderful object lesson to the principalities and powers in the heavenly places.
- Hidden. God kept the church a secret in Himself. Angels had seen His patience, His power and His government, but never a heavenly body on earth joined to His Son in heaven.
- Costly. Sin had to be put away, death abolished, Satan's power broken and the Jew–Gentile barrier removed before one church could exist.
- Many-coloured. The word here appears just once in the Bible. It pictures a masterpiece of blended colour: wisdom shown in every direction at once.
- Watched. The audience sits in heaven. What they see is God turning Satan's apparent triumph at the cross into the crowning victory of His grace.
- Now. It is happening on earth today, not after we reach heaven. That is why divisions among believers spoil the very lesson the angels are reading.
according to [the] purpose of the ages, which he purposed in Christ Jesus our Lord,
The verse just before says that God is now teaching the rulers and powers in heaven through the church. This verse tells us where that display began: in a purpose God formed in eternity and settled in a Person.
The word "eternal" rules out the idea that God adjusted His plan as history unfolded.
This church was not a thought God had after nations appeared on earth. It was in God's eternal purpose, purposed in Christ Jesus our Lord from eternity past (v.11). God chose the people in the church in Christ before the foundation of the world (ch.1:4). In the same way, the church itself was in God's purposes from eternity. This is beyond what we can take in, but faith accepts it with joy and adores Him.
The same purpose explains why anything exists at all.
Creation, then, was a means to a further purpose. That purpose was eternal, not only in where it began but also in what it aims at. Its full effect will show itself, as we have seen, through coming ages of unending joy (Eph. 2:7). All things were made for Christ, as well as by Him. Before He could receive the name by which men now confess Him, God framed a purpose. It would only reach completion through the showing of His own once humbled Son as the exalted Head and Bridegroom of His Church.
The words "in Christ Jesus our Lord" repay a close look.
In Ephesians 3:11 we learn that God's eternal purpose is "in Christ Jesus our Lord". God's purpose was to be secured not only through Christ and His finished work, but in Christ Himself. And it is in those who are in Christ that God is even now making His manifold wisdom "known to the rulers and authorities in the heavenly places" through the church. The men of this world are blinded by Satan. They cannot see anything of God's wisdom in the church. But the great minds of heaven see a wisdom far greater than any they had seen before.
Writers point to the cross as the place where God made that purpose secure.
Christ is the centre of God's purpose. Nothing of it could have happened apart from Him and His great work on the cross. From eternity God kept Christ in reserve to give effect to all that lay in His heart and mind. On the cross God worked out the great work of redemption, the basis for carrying out all His will. He has now glorified Christ at His right hand, and is working out all His pleasure in relation to Him.
So what happens when believers fail?
God's purpose is "in Christ Jesus", and in Him there can be no failure... The fulfilling of God's purpose does not rest on the faithfulness of the believer. It rests on Christ. He has passed through death, and He now lives in the presence of God, having laid in redemption the basis for all that was in God's eternal purpose.
This eternal plan reaches into the way believers live together today.
Are we walking according to the will of God for His Church, so that He can point to us as a lesson to the angels of God? That, and nothing less, is what God intends. You cannot escape the responsibility that comes with it by refusing to act on it! God will not wait until we reach heaven to show His manifold wisdom to the heavenly hosts by the Church. He is doing it now on earth, while the members of the Church are still being called.
God's plan for the church does not stop when this age ends.
God's eternal purpose covered the church in three ways: in its stay on earth, in its display of His grace in the millennium, and in eternity too. For all eternity God's glory will be on display "in the church and in Christ Jesus". The church is the vessel God has formed for His own pleasure, the fruit of His wisdom, the work of His own infinite skill.
- Purposed — God formed the plan before creation. He did not adjust it later. Creation served the plan.
- In Christ — the plan is safe not just through His work but in His Person, and the cross laid its base.
- Not in us — the plan rests on Christ, and He cannot fail. Our failures cannot cancel it.
- Through the church, now — God is teaching heaven His wisdom today. How we walk together is part of the lesson.
- Forever — the church God is forming now is the vessel that will display His glory for eternity.
in whom we have boldness and access in confidence by the faith of him.
Paul has just climbed to the highest point of his subject — God's purpose worked out in Christ. Then, in one line, he brings it down to what a believer can do today: come to God without fear.
Having reached the summit of his subject, Paul does not leave his readers there. One writer notes how naturally the apostle ties the deepest counsels of God to the plainest thing a believer stands on:
Now it is very sweet to find how, even in so vast a subject as the one occupying his heart and pressing on the saints, he can link the highest and deepest counsels of God with the very simplest of the fundamental truths on which the believer rests. This is most instructive. On the one hand, we saw before that it is quite useless to enter into the nature of the Church without a simple, clear and full understanding of the peace which Christ has made and which He is for us in the presence of God. On the other hand, when we do grasp in any measure the character of the Church, and see the astonishing privileges that are ours as made one with Christ, we look on the first elements with a more intense enjoyment.
Another puts the same move in a picture — light and safety together:
Then he comes down a little: "in whom we have boldness and access with confidence through our faith in Him." How he loves to put that foundation under our feet! If we are in the light where God dwells, we are in the citadel of strength which God has built. It would not do to be in the light if we were not surrounded by the citadel.
"Access" is a rare word. Its related verb shows what it means — someone brings you in:
The word "access" occurs in only two other passages in the New Testament. Both are in the letter to the Ephesians… Elsewhere, the verb form of the same word means bringing someone into the presence of another. Jesus said to the father of the boy with an evil spirit, "Bring your son here" (Luke 9:41). Peter too speaks of Christ's work as bringing us into God's presence: "Christ also suffered once for sins, the righteous for the unrighteous, that he might bring us to God" (1 Peter 3:18).
The first word is not brashness but openness — freedom with nothing in the way:
This boldness is the practical attitude of believers who are linked with Christ in glory. Nothing hinders them and nothing separates them. The Greek text uses the same word when the Lord spoke openly of His coming sufferings and Peter rebuked Him (Mark 8:32). In fact, "openly" or "freely" is a common translation for this word.
Another writer separates the two words:
It is not only peace. "We have boldness" refers more to our speech in addressing God — we can say anything to Him, because we are confident of His love. And "access with confidence" is not merely what we say, but drawing near to Him. Even where there is no formal prayer, there is the enjoyment of nearness.
Set this against the older arrangement at Israel's tent of worship, the tabernacle, where even Aaron, the high priest, came under warning:
Israel, though so highly favoured in a past era, never had access to the presence of God. They could come to the door of the tabernacle and see the glory of the Lord. But only the priests could enter the holy place. Only the high priest could enter the most holy place, and only once a year, on the day of atonement. Even Aaron had no boldness in entering God's presence. The Lord said, "Tell Aaron your brother not to come at any time into the Holy Place… so that he may not die, for I will appear in the cloud over the mercy seat" (Lev. 16:2).
One writer traces the change to the cross:
Under the old priestly system of the law, the way into the holy places was still hidden. But Christ's death tore the veil. Now the way is open, not by grace only but in righteousness.
The verse names how this boldness is held: by faith in Christ. That qualification guards it from becoming mere nerve:
A faith that sees the glorified Saviour as the fulfilment of God's purpose may well be bold… It is by the faith of Him that we have access. That keeps the presumption of the flesh in check. The precious blood of Christ has completely purged the believer's conscience, and so his fear turns into trustful peace. God's throne is to all such the throne of grace. We come there with a holy confidence, because Jesus has gone before us and has Himself become our new and living Way.
Where the eye is fixed decides how the heart feels:
Our eye rests on Christ in the presence of God, and we know what God has blessed us with in Him. Then a lack of boldness or confidence in God would be strange. We feel God's love in the heart, made known by what He has done for us in Christ. That love drives out every bit of the dread we once had of God's presence.
Paul uses this privilege himself, and the chapter ends on his knees:
But if this is so, we have a resource. We can pray, and so these two verses (12 and 13) lead quite naturally to the apostle's prayer that closes the chapter. If we have boldness and access with confidence, then we can pray. If we are faced with troubles, then we must pray.
- Purpose — faith sees in the glorified Saviour the fulfilment of God's purpose. That is what makes a believer bold.
- Price — Christ's death tore the veil. The way is open now, not by grace only but in righteousness.
- Person — "access" means someone brings you in. Christ suffered "that he might bring us to God," so this freedom is never our own doing.
- Posture — this boldness is held by faith in Christ, on a conscience purged by His blood. That rules out both dread and presumption.
- Practice — use the access. If we have boldness, then we can pray; if troubles come, then we must pray.
Wherefore I beseech [you] not to faint through my tribulations for you, which is your glory.
Paul writes from prison, and news of his chains could easily crush the readers he loves. So he asks them not to lose heart — and calls his suffering on their behalf their honour.
Paul was in prison because of the message he carried. The grace he preached flattened the distinctions people prized, and that stirred up hatred.
Paul now begins to urge them on, and with deep feeling calls himself a "prisoner of Jesus Christ for you Gentiles." He looked to no second cause. He took his imprisonment from the Lord Himself. A precious principle for our hearts at all times! But it was for the Gentiles' sake that he was suffering. Most of his afflictions grew out of Jewish hatred. They hated the grace Paul preached to everyone alike, a grace that levelled the claims and distinctions of the flesh to the dust.
The word Paul uses is stronger than tiredness. It carries the idea of caving in.
The word for "to faint" is en-kakein. It is formed from the word kakos, "cowardly." From "cowardly" it came to mean anything bad, mean or base, since to the Greeks cowardice was all of that. The first part of the word, en, means "in." Taken as a whole, the word literally means "Give in to evil." Translators render it "faint," "lose heart," "be discouraged," "turn coward."
The danger was not only sadness over Paul. It was the fear that the same message would cost them too.
The natural tendency is to faint when you know that the man who brought you the testimony of God sits in prison because of it. Would they not fear and shrink back from the suffering that faithfulness to such a testimony brings? In telling the saints of his chains on their account, Paul wants them not to faint, but to boast.
Paul reverses the natural reading of his situation. His chains were not evidence that the cause had failed.
They should not read disaster into such afflictions. They should expect more abundant fruit from them. His tribulation was their glory, not their shame. Instead of fainting, they had reason to rejoice. He was counted worthy to suffer for the Name of Christ, and they were bound with him as sharers of his hope and his grace.
His chains showed how much God had given them.
How high was the position given to the Gentiles! Paul's afflictions should not trouble them. Those afflictions should strengthen them. Paul suffered for their sake, as a witness of the privileges God had granted them. Disgrace in the world tends to discourage those who follow it. But the faithful man, like Moses, counts the reproach of Christ better than all the treasures of Egypt, for it is our glory.
Verse 13 comes straight after the promise of bold access to God. The two belong together.
These wonders are not unrolled before our eyes just to be admired... The mystery is extremely practical. It is a truth that will make us at home in God's world, but put us outside man's world. Think of the blind man of John 9. The religious world threw him out, and he found himself in the presence of the Son of God. In the same way, Paul has access to the palace in Heaven (v. 12), but finds himself in a prison on earth (v. 13).
Prison did not shut Paul out of this truth. It drove him deeper into it.
The trials of the flesh are no obstacle to our grasping these things. The more the apostle suffered as a prisoner, the more he entered into this mystery of the glory of Christ. His imprisonment gave us this letter, and those to the Colossians, Philippians, and others. This is how God provides for the needs of His church.
The word "tribulation" itself carries a picture of what such pressure achieves.
Paul "despaired of life" in his tribulations for the Ephesian saints, but he did not turn coward. He was ready to go and face the mob who were thirsting for his blood. There is no need to be discouraged even if tribulations do come... The word "tribulation" comes from the Latin word tribulum, which means "a flail" — used to thresh wheat. It gives the wheat terrible "tribulation": but that is the way it is delivered from the chaff.
- Cause. Paul's chains came from the grace he preached to all alike, and he took them from the Lord's hand.
- Danger. To "faint" means to give in and turn coward. The risk was that readers would shrink from a truth that had cost their teacher his freedom.
- Reversal. His suffering was the price of their privilege. So it was their glory, not their shame — grounds to boast, not to grieve.
- Position. The truth that gives bold access to God also puts you outside the world: palace in heaven, prison on earth.
- Fruit. The prison did not stop the ministry. It produced this letter — God supplying His church, the way the flail frees wheat from chaff.