What are the unsearchable riches of Christ (Ephesians 3:8)?

The enquiry immediately arises in the mind, "What are the unsearchable riches of the Christ?" It will be at once obvious that, because they are unsearchable, it is not possible for us to encircle them with a rigid definition. They include all that Christ has as Man, and all the glory God has given to Him in virtue of who He is, and on account of the work He has done. Christ is the appointed Heir of all things, and according to the counsel of God's will the saints have obtained an inheritance in Him (Eph. 1:11). The riches are concerned with God in His attributes, shining out when all things will be headed up in Christ in the fulness of times.

Grace, known in the heart through communion with God, enabled Paul to announce among the Gentiles the Gospel of the unsearchable riches of the Christ. The wonderful nature of this Gospel and the opposition it brought both demanded the constant supply of grace in its preaching. Prophets, sent from God, had told of the coming King; the glories of the Messiah, long promised, had been seen in vision and were spoken of and sung with rapture. These were the searchable riches of the Christ, made known to Israel, the riches and glories adumbrated in David and in Solomon. Great are the glories that shall yet shine forth on earth, as Christ comes out of the ivory palaces, His garments smelling of the sweet spices, and made glad through the praises of His willing people. But the Gospel preached by Paul speaks of greater riches, the unsearchable riches of the Heavenly Christ. What dazzling glory shines in Jesus' face! All the glory and riches belonging to the place He fills as the Head over all things to the church, the Head of the body, the Head of every principality and authority in the vast universe, yea of every office and place He now fills and shall yet fill for the glory of God and pleasure of the Father. There is the boundless wealth belonging to Him as a Divine Person, but here it is rather what has been put into His hand as the Man of God's counsels, the Anointed Man who fills the throne.

But we are speaking of Christ's Assembly, and it was not made known before Paul's ministry, "that the Gentiles should be fellow-heirs, and of the same body, and partakers of his promise in Christ by the gospel" (ver. 6). The Gentiles are to be joint-heirs, joint-body, and joint-partakers with the Jew — the word is the same in each case. Jew and Gentile are to be welded into one, only the Jew ceases to be a Jew when he is brought into the Church, and the Gentile likewise ceases to be a Gentile. They are both on new ground, with new life, and new relationships altogether, being united to Christ and to each other in Him. This new structure needed a special vessel to reveal it, hence Paul says, "Whereof I was made a minister, according to the gift of the grace of God given to me by the effectual working of his power. Unto me, who am less than the least of all saints, is this grace given, that I should preach among the Gentiles the unsearchable riches of Christ" (vers. 7, 8). By "the unsearchable riches of Christ" I apprehend that he means the mystery of Christ and the Church, and all the wonderful blessings which accrue to those who are now united by the Holy Ghost to the One in glory, in whom all those riches are treasured, who is Head of His Body here upon earth.

The unsearchable riches of Christ are those riches of which we cannot fathom the depth, so immense are they; and the glory which God will give to Christ, according to what He is, and according to the worth of His work, this is the measure of these unsearchable riches. All has been done by Christ and for Christ; all has been created by Him and for Him: and the fact of having presented Christ to the Gentiles outside the limited revelation of the ancient prophets, brought out the riches of Christ as unsearchable; God can stand in presence of the power of sin, and in Christ, as Man, display the power of His grace for the manifestation of His glory.

Now however it is revealed, and the apostle Paul was made the minister of it. It was not only revealed to him but to the other apostles and prophets also. Thus the fact of it was placed beyond all doubt or dispute. Yet the ministry of it was given to Paul, as verse 7 clearly states. In keeping with this we do not find any allusion to the mystery in any of the epistles save Paul's.

How great a theme it is, we can realize if we have at all taken in the things we have just been superficially surveying. Paul himself was so impressed with its greatness that he alludes to his ministry of it as, evangelizing "the unsearchable riches of Christ."

If we read this expression, "the unsearchable riches of Christ," in its context, we perceive that it refers, not to all the wealth that is personally His, but rather to all that which is in Him for His saints. Scanning Eph. 1, we find that the term, "in Christ," (or its equivalents, "in the Beloved," "in Him," "in whom") occurs about twelve times. In Eph. 2, it occurs about six times, and in Eph. 3, about three. Let us take one item only, "Blessed … with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ." Can we search or trace those blessings out, so that we are thoroughly masters of 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 which we have in Christ. Yet though unsearchable they may be known by us, and so they were the subject of the Apostle's ministry.

Thus the gospel of the apostle was addressed to the Gentiles, to announce thus good news to them according to the gift of God, which had been granted to Paul by the operation of His power, to proclaim to them not merely a Messiah according to the promises made to the fathers, a Jewish Christ, but a Christ whose riches were unsearchable. No one could trace to the end, and in all its development in Him, the accomplishment of the counsels, and the revelation of the nature of God. They are the incomprehensible riches of a Christ in whom God reveals Himself, and in whom all God's thoughts are accomplished and displayed. These purposes of God with regard to a Christ, the Head of His body the assembly, Head over all things in heaven and earth, Christ, God manifest in the flesh, were now made known and being accomplished, so far as gathering the joint-heirs in one body went. Saul, the inveterate enemy of Jesus proclaimed as Messiah, even if by the Holy Ghost from heaven — the worst therefore of all men — becomes by grace Paul, the instrument and witness of that grace to announce these incomprehensible riches to the Gentiles This was his apostolic function with regard to the Gentiles There was another to enlighten all with regard to this mystery, which, from the beginning of the world, had been hidden in God. This answers to the two parts of the apostle's ministry pointed out in Colossians 1:23-25: as verse 27 in that chapter corresponds with verse 17 here. God, who created all things, had this thought, this purpose before creation, in order that, when He should subject all creation to His Son become a man and glorified, that Son should have companions in His glory, who should be like Himself, members of His body spiritual, living of His life.

He made known to the Gentiles the unsearchable riches of Christ, which gave them a portion in the counsels of God in grace. He enlightened all with regard, not precisely, to the mystery, but to the administration of the mystery; that is to say, not only the counsel of God, but the accomplishment in time of that counsel by bringing the assembly together under Christ its head. He who had created all things, as the sphere of the development of His glory, had kept this secret in His own possession, in order that the administration of the mystery, now revealed by the establishment of the assembly on earth, should be in its time the means of making known to the most exalted of created beings the manifold and various wisdom of God. They had seen creation arise and expand before their eyes; they had seen the government of God, His providence, His judgment; His intervention in lovingkindness on the earth in Christ. Here was a kind of wisdom altogether new; a thing outside the world, hitherto shut up in the mind of God, hid in Himself so that there was no promise or prophecy of it, but the special object of His eternal purpose; connected in a peculiar way with the One who is the centre and the fulness of the mystery of godliness; which had its own place in union with Him; which, although it was manifested on earth and set with Christ at the head of creation, formed properly no part of it. It was a new part of it. It was a new creation, a distinct manifestation of the wisdom of God; a part of His thoughts which until then had been reserved in the secret of His counsels; the actual administration of which, on the earth in time by the apostle's work, made known the wisdom of God according to His settled purpose, according to His eternal purpose in Christ Jesus. "In whom," the apostle adds, "we draw nigh with all boldness by faith in him": and it is according to this relationship that we do so.

The divine grace, given to Paul, was for the proclamation of the unsearchable riches of Christ, all that belonged to Christ as the Head of the body, the assembly, and as Head over all things. All the resources of the Godhead dwell in Christ as the Man of God’s right hand, to carry out His will now, and in the coming day when the whole universe will be subject to Him, and ordered by Him for God’s pleasure.

The divine glories of the Son are brought before us in Isaiah 9:6, in John's Gospel, and in many other Scriptures, but Paul had the privilege of making known in his Gospel the "unsearchable riches of Christ" (Eph. 3:8), the glories and riches that belong to Christ as the Man of God's counsels, according to the truth of the mystery. Such Scriptures as Psalm 8 foretold the place the Son of Man would have in the coming day, but it was not until Christ had been glorified that the Spirit of God brought forth the wondrous tidings, through Paul, of the relationship of the church to Christ as His body and His bride, and of the place that the believing Jew and the believing Gentile would share in association with a heavenly Christ.

All that Christ possesses is His beyond death, riches that are untarnishable, and that can never be lost. The glory of Solomon shone out in his riches; how surpassing bright is the glory of the Christ shining out in His unsearchable riches, not in an earthly kingdom, but from the place He fills at God's right hand. It is from this divine treasury that we are enriched, and it was the privilege of the apostle to preach among the Gentiles Christ's unsearchable riches. Some spread abroad the fame of king Solomon, and the queen of the south heard the report: it is the fame of Him who is greater than Solomon that Paul, and preachers today, tell to men.

In the expression "unsearchable riches of Christ," we have something more than the warm and grateful utterance of a newly-forgiven sinner. Doubtless, such language became him, as it has been heartily adopted since by thousands, as an apt expression of what passes in a sinner's mind when tasting for the first time the riches of abundant grace. But here we are listening to one who, in the ripeness of his knowledge of the mystery of Christ, is expressing not the vague though truthful emotions of a spiritual babe, but the measured words of an Apostle of the faith, who well knew what manner of ministry was committed to his trust. They are words, therefore, the meaning of which we gradually learn as we grow in the grace and knowledge of the Lord and Saviour. It is, indeed, in its experimental application, a phrase full of comfort to the exercised believer when led by the Spirit of grace to cease from self-dissection, and to behold the glory of God's great salvation. Searching of heart, when carried to its utmost limit, leads only to the confession of our natural emptiness and sin. Christ fills that emptiness, and takes away that sin. But He does much more than this. For, after the soul's "great bitterness" has been replaced by God's full peace, and the knowledge of Divine righteousness has put away the blame of our sin, there remains to be enjoyed, according to the capacities of the new nature, the fulness of His joy who is our Life. Redemption makes us capable of knowing Him who has redeemed us, in an ever-growing appreciation of His excellency. The treasures of wisdom, and knowledge, and of all perfection, are in Him in whom all fulness dwells. But God's treasures are not only inexhaustible, but are also inaccessible to human search. And here it is that we may see the peculiar force of the Apostle's language in this verse. That which the ancient prophets had been unable to trace out, although they sought it diligently in the light of their own testimonies, had been made fully known to Paul. God measures out His revelations as He will. Until His time arrives, investigation is of no avail for the discovery of His counsel. To faith He now reveals Himself in Jesus, according to the rich abundance of His love. Fitly, therefore, does the Apostle thus express himself, when, in the consciousness that he was speaking, as God's mouth, things heretofore unknown even to His chosen servants, he thinks on the mysterious wisdom of that mercy that had commissioned him to preach among the Gentiles the unsearchable riches of Christ.*