Ephesians 3:9–11

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.

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.

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 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.

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.

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 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.

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.

If I were asked why God created the universe, I should point to this verse as the answer.

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.

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.

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, 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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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 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.