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.