Ephesians 3.
The testimony of John Baptist to Jesus was unique. He witnessed that Jesus was the Son of God and the Lamb of God, and as a true servant of God said, "He must increase, but I decrease." Yet after this bright witness, he sent two of his disciples from his prison to Jesus, saying, "Art thou he that should come? or look we for another?" John could not understand why Jesus should exercise His divine power for the good of others and leave him in Herod's prison. It was altogether different with the apostle Paul when imprisoned for Christ's sake. There was indeed a very great difference between them: John had not as Paul the in-dwelling Spirit of God, nor had he the full knowledge of the purpose and counsels of God.
In the opening verse of Ephesians 3, Paul speaks of himself as "the prisoner of Jesus Christ for you Gentiles." He is enabled by divine grace to view his imprisonment in the light of God's will, and not a murmur escapes his lips. It was the same when he first arrived at Rome, and interviewed the chief of the Jews. He was innocent of the charges made against him, and would have been let go, but "when the Jews spake against it" he "was constrained to appeal unto Caesar." But uncomplainingly he at once added, "Not that I had ought to accuse my nation of," and looking at his bonds from the divine side, he can add, "For the hope of Israel I am bound with this chain" (Acts 28:17-20).
While writing his letter to the saints at Ephesus, Paul was actually the prisoner of the emperor at Rome, and was bound with a chain for Christ's sake; but he does not speak of himself in this way. He views himself as Christ's prisoner, and because of those to whom he was writing. It was Christ's will that he should be called apart from what had engaged him in public ministry among the Gentiles, and he willingly submitted to the will of his Master.
At Rome, and in the special circumstances chosen by his Lord, the apostle was able to carry out His service in a way he could not otherwise have done. Freed from the exaction of constant and unwearied service to others in preaching and ministering the word, which involved perilous journeys, privations and weariness, the apostle was free to meditate on the great revelations he had received from the Lord, and could put in writing, for the benefit of the saints in that day, as for ours now, that which is found in his remarkable prison epistles. How rich was the grace given to Paul to enable him to take account of himself as Christ's prisoner for the benefit of the Gentile believers.
Christ filled the vision of the apostle, and it was this that enabled him to view everything, even the trying circumstances in which he was then found, in relation to Him and His will. The ministry of the mystery had been committed to Paul, even if the truth he ministered had also been revealed to Christ's "holy apostles and prophets by the Spirit." In this portion of the Scripture he is about to present some of the peculiar features of the mystery relating to the church, but he does not speak of it as the mystery of the church, but rather as the mystery of the Christ. What was the church without Christ? It owed its very existence to Him, and was indeed part of Himself.
The apostle views the saints, Jewish and Gentile believers, as being joint-heirs. It was indeed something that had neither been revealed nor hidden in the Scriptures of the Old Testament. They were heirs of an inheritance that belongs to Christ, for everything in the coming day will be under His headship. The vast inheritance is His as the appointed Heir, as God's anointed Man, and also because He tasted death to procure it. If those who form the church are God's heirs, they are joint-heirs with Christ, owing everything to Him.
Our part in the joint-body we also owe to Christ, for we are members of the one body of which Christ is the Head. So that even if the apostle thinks of the part that Jew and Gentile have together in the body, he views it in relation to the Christ. Already, at the close of Ephesians 1, he had shown the church to be Christ's body, His fulness as filling all in all; in Ephesians 2 he had spoken of our being reconciled to God in one body, by the cross: now he gives further light on this part of the mystery by showing that the body is a joint-body, composed of both Jewish and Gentile believers.
The third part of the mystery brought out here has to do with the promise of God; but the apostle cannot think of God's promise without thinking of Christ. There were promises made to Abraham and David, and these will assuredly be fulfilled in Christ, even as Paul wrote in 2 Corinthians 1:20, "For whatever promises of God (there are), in Him is the yea, and in Him the amen, for glory to God by us." The promise spoken of here is not one of the Old Testament promises, but one that is made known in the Gospel.
We are not left to guess what this promise is, for the apostle in his epistle to Titus writes of it in these words, "In hope of eternal life, which God that cannot lie, promised before the world began" (Titus 1:2). Again, in 2 Timothy 1:1 the apostle writes of "the promise of life, which is in Christ Jesus." The apostle John also writes of this, saying "And this is the promise that He hath promised us, even eternal life" (1 John 2:25). Who would doubt, after reading these scriptures, that eternal life is God's promise in Christ that is set forth in the Gospel?
Eternal life is spoken of in the Old Testament, but although the term is the same, the substance is vastly different. There might indeed be certain features that are the same, but the form and fulness connected with eternal life as made known in the Gospel are vastly different from what is spoken of in the Old Testament. Indeed, John presents eternal life as now possessed in Christ, but Paul looks forward to it in association with Christ in the coming day of glory. But whether viewed now, or in relation to the day of glory, it is God's promise in Christ.
Christ had riches before He came into this world, but in wondrous grace, for our sakes "He became poor," that we through His poverty might become rich. These riches were His in the form of God, riches of glory beyond all human thought; and in this world He was indeed poor, with no place to lay His head; then descending into the depths of poverty on the cross. Coming out of death He has "unsearchable riches"; riches given to Him as Man by His God and Father, but which He has procured by His death.
Solomon inherited amazing riches which David had prepared for the house of Jehovah, "an hundred thousand talents of gold, and a thousand, thousand talents of silver … of the gold, the silver, and the brass and the iron, there is no number" (1 Chr. 22:14, 16). Then there was the gold, the spices and the precious stones brought by the queen of Sheba, and that flowed in from other sources. These were amazing riches, but they were all the searchable riches of an earthly monarch; and in process of time all were lost. How different are the unsearchable riches of God's 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.
Although the greatest human intellects have studied the creation, men are in utter darkness as to its origin and purpose. The Christian, receiving by faith the word of God, understands "that the worlds were framed by the word of God"; and that God created all things "to the intent that now unto the principalities and powers in heavenly places might be known by the church the manifold wisdom of God" (Heb. 11:3. Eph. 3:9-10).
All that the natural eye can see, and the unregenerate mind contemplate, is the chaos resulting from man's evil and from all his endeavours to put this poor world right. No doubt the great intelligences of heaven are aware of all that man is doing, and of the conditions that are beyond his wisdom to control. But they also see what God is doing, and in the church, which He has formed, they behold a character of divine wisdom that was never before displayed. This all-varied wisdom of God was not made known in His ways of old: He reserved it for the time of Christ's entry into His glory, and for the days of His new-creation workmanship in the church.
This wonderful display of divine wisdom was in the mind of God before time began, and is "according to the eternal purpose which He purposed in Christ Jesus our Lord." Christ is the centre of God's purpose; nothing of it could have been accomplished apart from Him and His great work on the cross. God had Christ in reserve from eternity to give effect to all that lay in His heart and mind, and having wrought out on the cross the great work of redemption, the basis for the carrying out of all His will, God has glorified Him at His right hand, and is working out all His pleasure in relation to Him.
It must be very evident that if Christ so filled the vision of His prisoner, He was dwelling in his heart. How very suitable then for him to express the desire in prayer to the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ that Christ might dwell in the hearts of His own by faith. If Christ dwells in our hearts He will control every inward spring of our moral being, and thus give tone and character to all our thoughts, words and actions. Our lives will be lived for Christ who is enthroned in the seat of the affections.
To this end the apostle first desired that the Father would grant "according to the riches of His glory," to strengthen His saints "with might by His Spirit in the inner man." How blessedly have the riches of the Father's glory been evinced in relation to the truth of the mystery, by enriching those He has associated with His own dear Son. What a wonderful place of favour and blessing is ours! far transcending all we could have imagined.
The work of the Spirit is to strengthen us with might in the inner man, and this He does by engaging us with Christ and working every divine impression thus received into the texture of our moral being. The Christ as brought before us in our Scripture is viewed in relation to the wide sphere of His interests and glory, and God would have us engaged with Him in this way. We view Him in all His Personal beauty and perfections, and see Him as the Man of God's counsels at the centre of all that God has brought under Him.
Whatever is enthroned in the seat of the affections will govern all our thoughts and feelings, and give strength and character to every inward spring and outward action of our lives. Is it Christ that dwells in our hearts? Is Christ Personally, and in the wide range of His interests, paramount with us at all times? Is everything in our lives subservient to Him and His will? Do we refer every action to Him, deciding each detail of our lives by the way it will be viewed by Christ and as to how it will affect His interests?
Faith, too, has its place in this most important work of the Spirit of God, for the Christ is to dwell in the heart "by faith." God would ever direct the eye to Christ, and give us to know that every subjective result is obtained in occupation with Him. Nor is it a fleeting glance at Christ, now and again, that will give Him a dwelling place in the heart. It is the habit of the soul in turning instinctively to Christ at all times that proves that He dwells in the heart. How true this was of "The prisoner of Jesus Christ"; of him who could say, "To me to live is Christ."
Christ dwelling in the heart by faith enables us to take our place in spirit with all the saints, and to view with them the breadth and length and depth and height of the sphere that is filled with the riches of the Father's glory, the unsearchable riches of the Christ, and with all that the church shares with Christ according to the eternal purpose of God. We never could have had part with Christ in all that fills this glorious scene apart from His great love for us. His love brought Him down to where we were to lift us up to where He is: it is truly a love that passeth knowledge.
In Chap. 5 of this epistle the apostle tells us more of this knowledge-surpassing love. He knew and enjoyed Christ's love for himself, even as he wrote to the Galatians, "The Son of God loved me, and gave Himself for me": but at the beginning of Ephesians 5 he writes, "Christ loved us, and delivered Himself up for us, an offering and sacrifice to God for a sweet smelling savour." In the giving of Himself to secure the Father's will and pleasure, as depicted in the burnt offering, the Lord Jesus expressed His love for His saints. We are accepted before God in all the fragrance, efficacy and value of the perfect offering in which God was glorified, and that expressed the unfathomable love of the heart of Christ. That wonderful love surpasses our knowledge, but the One to whom the sacrifice was made can fully and perfectly enter into the infinite value of the offering, and into the intrinsic worth of the love that caused His Son to enter into death.
This knowledge-surpassing love is again brought before us in the same chapter, where it is written, "Christ also loved the church, and gave Himself for it." How Paul delighted to speak of Christ's love! What Christ gave measures His wondrous love. First, He gave up His glory and came to earth; then He gave up all that pertained to Him as Son of David; and having given up all He possessed, He then gave Himself; and more He could not give. The more we ponder that precious death in which He gave Himself, the more our poor hearts will know of the love of Christ which passeth knowledge.
Soon man's day will be over, the day that has shown what a wonderful creature has come from the hand of God, but that has also displayed the enormity of his wickedness and guilt in sin against God. Christ's day is assuredly coming, when God will give His answer to the cross in displaying His glory in Christ before the vast universe. After the Millennium has run its course, the day of God, the day of eternity will dawn, and God's glory will be found "in the church in Christ Jesus unto all generations of the age of ages." The assembly is a new creation vessel, the fruit of God's sovereign love and infinite wisdom; the crown of His workmanship and skill; and suited to His eternal glory.
This wondrous vessel could never have existed apart from Christ; it is "the assembly in Christ Jesus." It belongs to Him, and is part of Him. Just as Eve was derived from Adam and united to him, so the church has been taken from Christ, and will soon be presented to Him as His bride. In Revelation 21, the church is viewed as the city of God, with no need "of the sun nor of the moon … for the glory of God has enlightened it, and the lamp thereof is the Lamb." The light is found in the city, the light of the divine glory, but the light comes from the Lamb who is the Lamp. All the glory centres in His blessed Person. So it is with the eternal glory; it is in the church, but it all centres in Christ Jesus.
What a glorious testimony to Christ is this! With such a Person before his eye, filling the vision of his soul, and dwelling in his heart, was it any wonder that Paul gloried in his bonds for Christ's sake? and took account of himself as "The prisoner of Jesus Christ."
Wm. C. Reid.