This leads to Ephesians 3, in which the Apostle unfolds things parenthetically. It is a revelation of God that comes in at the time when the Jews have, at least temporarily, lost their place altogether. The very structure of the chapter, as has been noticed, is a sort of confirmation of this. The chapter itself is a parenthesis. “For this cause I Paul, the prisoner of Jesus Christ for you Gentiles, if ye have heard of the dispensation [administration or stewardship] of the grace of God which is given me to you-ward: how that by revelation he made known unto me the mystery (as I wrote afore in few words; whereby, when ye read, ye may understand my knowledge in the mystery of Christ); which in other ages was not made known unto the sons of men, as it is now revealed.” Observe, therefore, that what was the first in counsel is the last in revelation.
Accordingly, when all was complete in the communication of God’s plans in the Bible, there was one subject that was left a blank. Paul was the chosen witness to fill up that blank. He wrote in few words no doubt, but he has written with divine perfection, and clearly enough for those by God’s grace made competent to understand, let the words be ever so few. Many wonder that such truths as these should not have more words used in communicating them. But profound truths are for those who have spiritual understandings; and such do not require many words to comprehend them. When persons are only learning the elements of truth, the grace of God provides precept on precept, line on line, for those who want it. If He is showing needy souls how they may be forgiven of God, He displays it in a thousand forms; if the need of righteousness, He repeats it over and over again. But it is not so with the revelation of the mystery. There is a certain spiritual competence supposed— a due preparation not only of heart, but also of knowledge; or, as the Apostle said, “we speak wisdom among them that are perfect.” Here no lengthy exposition would be wanted about it, because they were not so infantine as to suppose that the truth of God depends on the number of times that a thing is asserted. Once is enough for the intelligent.
God therefore has not been pleased in the heights of divine truth to repeat words in the same way as His grace leads Him to do when He is helping the babes. Hence the Apostle Paul, in what is by no means the simplest utterance he has given, writes in few words. He could condescend. We know how he would bend down and be as it were a Gentile to one without law, and a Jew to one under law, to do good to souls.
But now he speaks briefly. He was not constrained to enter into a full or long explanation. But as he said that by revelation it was made known to him, so he would from God communicate it to them. “Which in other ages was not made known unto the sons of men, as it is now revealed unto his holy apostles and prophets by the Spirit.” It is remarkable that the mystery, though revealed to His holy apostles and prophets in the power of the Holy Spirit, was not revealed by them. It was revealed by Paul alone. Revealed to all the apostles and prophets of the New Testament, to one as much as another, it never seems to have taken such a hold of the others as of Paul. In point of fact, from his conversion right through, the revelation of the mystery was involved. That which comforted his soul was Christ in heavenly glory far above all things. As the light that shone then was brighter than the sun at noonday, so in the vision the truth about to be learned was entirely outside and superior to the present or the past. It was grace in its deepest character and in its highest form, and so the Apostle Paul was the suited vessel that God employed to instruct others,—not merely the one to whom the revelation was made, but by whom the revelation was to be communicated. It is revealed to us here.
We must carefully remember that the mystery does not mean the church merely. It is the mystery of Christ emphatically; and the part about Christ is the higher of the two. The church is but a consequence; and we bless God for this, and bless Him also that we know the church is but the complement of Christ. One might distrust a mystery, if it centered in the church. Who that knows what man is, and God, as Christ has made both known, would dare to rest in any one person or thing which did not find its brightest form in Christ Himself? And the reason is simple; so inadequate is the creature, so untrustworthy is the first Adam, that one might well be certain the true meaning of the Bible was lost to him who judged otherwise. Such an one must have only got the lower end of the line, and not the full truth in its own native purity and freshness from God. Impossible that the Head should not be there as well as the body; and the Apostle speaks as to Christ yet more than as to the assembly.
God then brings out His own secret, after having kept it hidden from all past ages and generations, though, of course, it has been before Him from the beginning. If God reveals it now, the idea of man—of ourselves—being the first and main object in the mind of God is impossible. It is the mystery of Christ; and this is what secures the blessing in its fullness and purity for the church of God. Therefore we need never fear, no matter what the blessing and the privilege may be. If it be illustrated in Christ, if it be bound up with Him, fear not to trust simply and to believe implicitly. Enter boldly into the sweetness of His grace and fullness of His glory. We never can go astray, if we follow the path of the Lord Jesus.
Though it is the mystery of Christ, it is not exclusively about Christ. So in chapter 5 he says, “This is a great mystery: but I speak concerning Christ and the church.” Is there not good reason for saying that the church is but a consequence? The church follows; and as it belongs to Christ, so it is a part of Him. Hence, to make the mystery to be the church is a very serious moral as well as doctrinal mistake.
The Apostle adds that it was now revealed of the Spirit, “That the Gentiles should be fellow heirs, and of the same body, and partakers of His promise in Christ by the gospel: whereof I was made a minister, according to the gift of the grace of God given unto me by the effectual working of His power. Unto me, who am less than the least of all saints”—there is nothing like this truth, where it is learned from the Holy Spirit, for humbling the soul, were it even the greatest of the apostles, “Is this grace given, that I should preach among the Gentiles the unsearchable riches of Christ; and make all see what is the fellowship [rather administration] of the mystery, which from the beginning of the world hath been hid in God, who created all things [by Jesus Christ?]: to the intent that now unto the principalities and powers in heavenly places might be known by the church the manifold wisdom of God.”
God had something more to teach those who are the natural denizens of heaven. They had to learn what they had never known. They had seen creation, and sung at the sight. They had seen the ways of God with man, and with Israel; and surely they had entered into the glory of God that was involved in all His ways. Nevertheless, whether it was creation, whether man or favored Israel, there was so much the more painful a declension that portended the judgment of God upon them. Thus there were dark shadows, and lowering clouds. But now appeared something altogether new. Latest of all, God divulged His wonderful scheme in which the man that came from above, the Son that became a man, the Word made flesh, had gone down to the very lowest in order to make good the glory of God morally in the scene where He had been most put to shame. But now, consequent on His resurrection from the dead, and of the place given Him in heaven above all, there was made known to these very principalities and powers “the manifold wisdom of God,” made known to them before it came to pass, the sure deliverance of the whole scene of creation, of man, of Israel, as well as of the earth. But not merely this. That man who came down but was found alone to the end of His earthly course would now be alone no more; He would have a new and suited body, believing Jews and Gentiles fellow-heirs and of the same body. Most wholesome blessedness! For who should be more above the feelings of jealousy than those who delight in that which shows the greatness, and the glory, and the perfect goodness of God in His greatest work? This, then, was what was needed for the principalities and powers, and this is what they behold in the church of God.
The Apostle accordingly is now led at the sight of the mystery of Christ into another prayer, in which he asks “the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ [for now he takes up the other relationship], of whom the whole [rather, every] family in heaven and earth is named, that He would grant you, according to the riches of His glory, to be strengthened with might by His Spirit in the inner man; that Christ may dwell in your hearts by faith; being rooted and grounded in love, that ye may be able to comprehend with all saints what is the breadth, and length, and depth, and height; and to know the love of Christ, which passeth knowledge, that ye may be filled with all the fullness of God.”
Here the prayer is not, as in the first chapter, that they might know the power that had wrought toward them; it is now that their hearts might be in the secret of His grace according to the power that works in them. That is, he looks at the inner source, not merely at the glorious results. Here he prays to the Father of our Lord Jesus, not simply to the God that had raised up the Christ from the dead, and was glorifying Him on high. It will be observed that the desire is not merely that they might be enlightened as to the special glory of their standing, but that their hearts might be filled with the love of Christ, and this too as a present thing filling them to overflowing, though surely not to cease in the ages to come. “Unto Him that is able to do exceeding abundantly above all that we ask or think, according to the power that worketh in us, unto Him be glory in the church by Christ Jesus throughout all ages, world without end.” This is not a question therefore of the place or standing of the Christian, but rather of his condition or state, which the Spirit would have in unison with the love of Him who alone made either possible. Consequently here it is not an energy already put forth, but he pleads that Christ might dwell by faith in their hearts. It is not a conferred position, however blessed, but practical enjoyment—even that Christ Himself might be habitually the object before them, now that all question of deliverance and blessing was settled in their favor. It was all a known thing that they were blessed by—yea, with—Christ, forming a part of Christ, expressly fellow-heirs, and of the same body. But now, founded on this, the apostle prays thus for them, that the Holy Spirit would so act in the inner man that there might be no hindrance to Christ, and that they might know, not the Holy Spirit (for this they did not doubt), but Christ dwelling there by His power constantly.
Unquestionably the Spirit of God does evermore dwell in the Christian, though I am not aware that He is ever said to dwell in our hearts. He may shed abroad the love of God therein; but He is rather said to dwell in us, making the body God’s temple. Here the Apostle would have Christ to be more the satisfying object of our affections. This is the point. Far be it from us just to know that He loves us through the Word of God, as a security to us, like a dry parchment deed of gift that we quietly keep in a strong box. Rather is the very gospel to the sinner free and full, that, having the certainty of the divine fullness of our blessing, our hearts may be now open to enjoy Christ, and be occupied with His love. “That Christ may dwell in your hearts by faith”; not that ye, being rooted and grounded in love, but “rooted,” and so forth, that ye “may be able to comprehend with all saints.” It is not here deliverance, let it be ever so complete; it is not the knowledge of our position in Christ as in Ephesians 1; but rather the converse—Christ dwelling in us by faith, and the heart entering into the positive excellency of the Son, the only adequate object of the Father’s own delight. Hence it was that they might “be able to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth, and length, and depth, and height; and to know the love of Christ.” It is not only the full extent of glory, but the sole satisfying spring, Christ thus dwelling in our hearts in the consciousness of His love—“to know the love of Christ, which passeth knowledge, that ye might be filled with all the fullness of God.” He is the ultimate blessedness with which we are filled, the One in whom we most confide, being the Son, in whom dwells all the fullness of the Godhead bodily.
Thus, having Him who is the center of all glory dwelling in our affections by faith, we enter into, and become established in, the grace which is the secret of it all. In communion with the objects of it, we go out into the resulting scenes of glory on every side; knowing Christ’s love though unknowable, and filled into God’s fullness though infinite. The Apostle concludes his prayer with an ascription of glory to Him in the Church unto all generations of the age of the ages, able to do far above all we ask or think according to His power which works in us. It is thus seen to be founded on the great facts and standing privileges mentioned at the end of Ephesians 2; but it is the desire that the saints should know God’s present power to an indefinite extent working in them in spiritual enjoyment, through the Holy Spirit’s power, giving us to have Christ the definite and constant object of the heart.