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.