Ephesians 3:1-12. The Mystery of It All.

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1 Ephesians 3:1-12 RW The Mystery of It All. In Ephesians 3:1 Paul started a prayer only to immediately interrupt it. It seemed that Paul was not quite done with the topic of reconciliation in Christ Jesus. Paul would eventually get back to his prayer in verse 14 of chapter 3, but in the meantime he needed to further speak of what he called the mystery of Christ and his role as a steward of this revelation. That the Ephesians knew Paul s story of from persecutor of the church to apostle of Christ Jesus would not have been in doubt. Paul had spent over two years at Ephesus. It would have come up. Paul s use of the word mystery indicated that it was new revelation when he had received it. He further defined the mystery as the mystery of Christ and reinforced the fact that it was new revelation by pointing out that it was unknown in the previous generations. At this point, both Constable and Hoehner broke into a lengthy discussion of the various camps of beliefs and their understanding of the mystery of which Paul spoke and the timing of God s revelation of this mystery in the course of human history. One s view of either continuity or discontinuity between Israel and the church in the past and the future seemed to determine one s interpretation of the passage. Both Constable and Wuest sighted a note from the Scofield Bible that stated, That the Gentiles were to be saved was no mystery. Precisely. Also, Paul was not the only recipient of this revelation; it had been given to His holy apostles and prophets in the Spirit. The apostles and prophets of Christ Jesus had also received this revelation of the mystery of Christ. And Paul did not leave the Ephesians guessing at what he meant by the mystery of Christ, he stated it very specifically. The Gentiles were fellow heirs, they were fellow members of the body and they were fellow partakers of the promise in Christ Jesus through the gospel. God the Father had an eternal purpose in this mystery of Christ. God had saved the Gentile by grace through faith. They were His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus. Through Christ He had reconciled Gentile believers to Jewish believers and in so doing He had created a new man out of the two, the church. Christ had not reconciled Jewish believers or Gentile believers to God the Father, he had reconciled all believers in one body, the church, to the Father, So that the manifold wisdom of God might now be made known through the church to the rulers and authorities in the heavenly places. It was all in accordance with the Father s eternal purpose which He had carried out in Christ Jesus to demonstrate His reconciling work to the angels. Constable noted that angels marvel at this and likened the church to be an audio-visual display of God s reconciling work. Wuest put it like this, The Church becomes a university for angels, and each saint a professor. Only in the Church can the angels come to an adequate comprehension of the grace of God. They look at the Church to investigate the mysteries of redemption. SK Paul reveals the mystery Both Hoehner and Constable talk about how Paul digresses from his prayer and stops mid sentence to address the mystery of Christ. Verses 1-13 discuss the mystery and reveal it to be the Church, a body of believers made up of Jew and Gentile as fellow heirs, both enjoying the promise in Christ Jesus through the gospel. Heohner then goes into specifics of Paul s ministry to preach this message to the Gentiles. The purpose being to show God s wisdom in bringing these to people groups together in a new body called the Church, but that this wisdom be made known to the rulers and authorities in the heavenly places. Angelic beings would have to admit that the church demonstrates God s wisdom. Constable takes a different approach to this passage and discusses the differences in the interpretations interpretations made by dispensational, covenant, progressive dispensational, and other theologians. He theologians. He states that they differ over what Paul meant by the mystery. Was it the church itself or the itself or the equality of Jews and Gentiles within the Church? The Church itself is viewed differently as

2 differently as some believe it is a pause in God s kingdom program while others believe it is a mystery form of the kingdom. Traditional dispensationalists view the Church as something completely new that was not reveled in the Old Testament. Constable notes correct interpretation depends on a proper identification of the mystery and an accurate understanding of the nature of the church. Constable agrees with Hoehner that God s wisdom is demonstrated before the angels through this new body of believers made up of Jew and Gentile called the Church. JD God s Wisdom on Display Through the Church Paul begins a prayer in verse one, but a parenthetical discussion postpones the prayer until verse 14. Verse two uses the word oikonomia for dispensation, which Constable and Wuest both point out. Constable quotes Wiersbe who in turn quotes Augustine. Constable and Wuest agree that verses are what Paul refers to verse 3, although Constable includes 1:9-10 as a reference. Constable points out that the point of debate in verse five is what mystery is being discussed. He states that traditional dispensationalists have considered the mystery to be the church, but progressive dispensationalists and covenantal theologians view the church differently, as a progressive unveiling. As such, they feel the mystery is the union. Wuest notes that the best texts include the name Jesus, a detail that is critical because omission of it would mean that Gentiles were fellow-partakes of the Jewish Messianic promises. Wuest notes that nay promises in Christ not distinctly Messianic and Jewish are the promises referred to here. Hoehner notes that the passage says the mystery was hidden in past ages, a concept which has also been debated. Wuest states that the fact of the revelation in pre-christian times was not in question, but a different manner/measure of exposition occurred. He suggests it was not referring to O.T. prophets but to mankind in generation, based this upon the use of heteros (a different kind), genea (generation), and hos (as). Hoehner holds to the view that there was no revelation of the mystery given in the Old Testament, as there can be no partial unveiling. In verse seven, Hoehner stresses that servant (diakonos) emphasizes service, not subjection. This is due to God s grace, so the praise should go to God, not Paul. Constable discusses a similar concept in verse eight, where Paul uses a unique phrase that essentially means the leaster of all of the servants and may have been a play on the name Paul. As such, Paul stresses the unmerited favor that God had blessed him with. In verse ten, Hoehner notes that manifold refers to the beauty of an embroidered pattern or variation. Constable defines it as variegated or made up of different kinds, and Wuest view it in similar fashion. As such, this verse is not referring to redemption but to the new unity of Jew and Gentile in Christ. The angels would see this and praise God. This unique demonstration is described by Wuest as the church being a university for angels, with every saint as a professor, and references I Peter 1:12. Regarding verse eleven, Hoehner believes accomplished refers to what Christ accomplished approximately 2000 years ago, since the word is in past (not perfect) that the inclusion of Jew and Gentile in one body was accomplished by Christ s death. Constable believe it was accomplished as well, but notes that the Jews rejection of Christ postponed the establishment of the earthly kingdom. Wuest quotes Thayer on verse twelve that friendly relation to God whereby we are acceptable to Him and have assurance that He is favorably disposed toward us. Constable quotes Morris by saying Forgiven sinners do not come to God hesitantly, wondering about their likely reception. This is quite a relief!

3 WA The Mystery, Paul s Mission to the Gentiles For this reason Paul illustrates the mission the Lord has entrusted him with, to take the Gospel to the Gentiles. Paul received this new revelation strait from God and not from other apostles or prophets. That the Gentile could know God was not a new piece of information. Accounts from the Old Testament show Gentiles being saved. ISA Thus says God the Lord, Who created the heavens and stretched them out, Who spread forth the earth and that which comes from it, Who gives breath to the people on it, And spirit to those who walk on it: 6 I, the Lord, have called You in righteousness, And will hold Your hand; I will keep You and give You as a covenant to the people, As a light to the Gentiles, 7 To open blind eyes, To bring out prisoners from the prison, Those who sit in darkness from the prison house. Jonah 3: Now the word of the Lord came to Jonah the second time, saying, 2 Arise, go to Nineveh, that great city, and preach to it the message that I tell you. 3 So Jonah arose and went to Nineveh, according to the word of the Lord. Now Nineveh was an exceedingly great city, a three-day journey in extent. 4 And Jonah began to enter the city on the first day s walk. Then he cried out and said, Yet forty days, and Nineveh shall be overthrown! 5 So the people of Nineveh believed God, proclaimed a fast, and put on sackcloth, from the greatest to the least of them. 6 Then word came to the king of Nineveh; and he arose from his throne and laid aside his robe, covered himself with sackcloth and sat in ashes. 7 And he caused it to be proclaimed and published throughout Nineveh by the decree of the king and his nobles, saying, Let neither man nor beast, herd nor flock, taste anything; do not let them eat, or drink water. 8 But let man and beast be covered with sackcloth, and cry mightily to God; yes, let every one turn from his evil way and from the violence that is in his hands. 9 Who can tell if God will turn and relent, and turn away from His fierce anger, so that we may not perish? 10 Then God saw their works, that they turned from their evil way; and God relented from the disaster that He had said He would bring upon them, and He did not do it. The new information was the place or rights of the Gentile. We have discussed in prior topics the preeminence of the Jews and their inheritance. Paul s mission was to spread the word of the new system during the Dispensation of Grace. Remember the severe change in the relationship to God that Christ s death and the coming of the Holy Spirit had on the first century Jew. Prior the coming of Christ the Jew prayed to God directly but also spent a large amount of conscious effort abiding by and worshiping God through the Law. He would have looked forward to the Messiah but spent untold hours focused on his relationship with sin and not his relationship with God. The Jew would have worked through the priests and the temple to make sacrifices to cover sin, sin that could not be removed until the Messiah did it. Christ s death on the cross removed forever those sins and enabled the believer to instead focus on a relationship with God. After Christ ascended the Holy Spirit indwelled the believers, thus removing the need for the priests to act as intermediaries. The indwelling made the relationship with God more intimate. Another dramatic change was God s approach to his relationship with the Gentiles, who would now be treated as equals to the Jew. EPH 3:6 that the Gentiles should be fellow heirs, of the same body, and partakers of His promise in Christ through the gospel, Paul works diligently to express God s will that the Gentile has not only salvation but can have boldness and access with confidence through faith in Him Eph 3:12. The phrase fellow heirs is indicative of the new and equal place the Gentile enjoys in salvation.

4 JM THE THEOLOGICAL JUSTIFICATION FOR THE CHURCH As we examine the segment of Ephesians 3: 1-12, we see, as pointed out by many of the commentaries, a passage that starts as a prayer for the Ephesians, but it quickly digresses into an amplification of the previously discussed reasoning for the foundation of the Church. Even though Paul had discussed the Church in earlier sections, he found it important to add further justification and explanation for the inauguration of the new oikonomia - the Church. The initial words of this passage remind the Gentiles again of Paul s imprisonment for their defense. Paul was teaching a new cultural norm involving changes in the social, ethical, and religious practices of the Jews as well as their relationship to God and their fellow non-jewish members of society. He did stand up to his previous authority figures (the Jewish leadership) in Jerusalem as was recounted in Acts and was immediately persecuted for espousing his revelations concerning the spread of the gospel outside of the Hebrew community resulting in his mentioned confinement. With this in mind, Paul next explains his authority to introduce the changes encompassed within the mystery to the culture of that time. He, though, was not the only person who had received the message of the extension of salvation and all that it entailed to the Gentiles. We can see that Peter had received this instruction in Acts 10 in regard to the mystery and thus the message spread among the Jewish believers, but he also encountered resistance from the Jewish leaders in Jerusalem (Acts 11:1-3). Paul cites the divine sending of the message to the apostles in verse 5, but quickly adds that he (Paul) only received it as a servant or minister with a commission to spread and apply it among the gentiles, understanding that Peter s and the other disciple s in Jerusalem and Antioch primary mission was to spread the gospel to the lost sheep of the house of Israel (as inaugurated in Matthew 10:6). Fruchtenbaum in his paper Israel and the Church, contained in the publication Issues in Dispensationalism as referenced by Dr. Constable, discusses some of the defining characteristics of the Church that separate it from Israel. Although some of the factors are not directly discussed in the current passage, they are encompassed in Paul s teaching involving the mystery and should be grasped to fully understand the concept of the Church in the Age of Grace and later which is being developed by Paul in the Book of Ephesians. The characteristics are: 1. The body concept of Jewish and Gentile believers united into one body (Ephesians 3:1-12) 2. The doctrine of Christ indwelling every believer (Colossians 1:24-27) 3. The Church as the Bride of Christ (Ephesians 5:22-32) 4. The Rapture (I Corinthians 15:50-58). The concept of the Church is not a surprise to God but is planned according to His eternal purposes through His Grace and for God s ultimate glorification by all creation. CM Who Dat Say He Gonna Pray?! Key Verse: 3:8-9 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; and to make all men see what [is] the fellowship of the mystery, which from the foundation of the world hath been hid in God, who created all things by Jesus Christ. At the opening of Chapter 3, Paul was about to kneel and pray that his readers would comprehend fully the extent of God s love for them (Constable, p. 33), when he returned to his desk to humbly tender a more detailed list of his credentials to the Ephesian Gentiles than he had in the letter s greeting where he identified himself only as Paul, an apostle of Jesus Christ by the will of God (1:1). We glean from 1:15-16 that Paul has heard of their faith and love, and that he continually gives thanks for them, mentioning them in his prayers, but what did the Ephesian Gentiles know of Paul? By the beginning of Chapter 3, these believers had learned that they were heirs to incredible riches, and they had been provided the opportunity

5 by Paul to ponder the One Who is powerful and rich enough to grant Paul s requests for them. Yet, at the beginning of Chapter 3, they really did not know Paul or why he cared so much to pray for them, who at one time were considered as dogs and as complete strangers. Having reminded these Gentile believers of their former hopeless spiritual condition and of the wall of separation separating them from the Circumcision, of whom Paul himself was one in the flesh, he now introduced himself as a prisoner of Jesus Christ for their sakes (3:1) and as less than the least of all saints (3:8). Far from being arrogant or condescending, Paul marveled at the effectual working of [God s] power (3:7) that had transformed him, a child of disobedience just like them (2:3) and a Hebrew of the Hebrews (Phil. 3:5) who rabidly persecuted Jewish believers, into a believer to whom the Lord Jesus Christ would show how great things he must suffer for my name s sake (Acts 9:16) as a chosen minister of God s grace to the Gentiles. The old wall of separation had no place in the building fitly framed together [growing] unto an holy temple in the Lord (2:21). God used the work He had before prepared for Paul to walk in (2:10) as a prisoner of Jesus Christ to demonstrate that Christ, indeed, had abolished in His flesh the enmity in order to make in Himself of twain one new man, [so] making peace (2:15). Paul wanted them to understand that his love for them was genuine. How would the Ephesian Gentiles know that Paul was more than just another fly by night itinerant mystery cult leader? More than their being informed that Paul was suffering for their glory (3:13) with no profit to himself, the eyes of [these believers ] understanding [had been] enlightened (1:18), and they were able to accept Paul s words as having been revealed by the Lord. His message was confirmed by the Spirit revealing the very same knowledge of the mystery of Christ to His holy apostles and prophets as well (3:4-5). Their having read what Paul had earlier written being further enhanced by his words in 3:5-6 reinforced to them that [h]is insight was not his own discovery; it was revealed by God (Hoehner, p. 628). How would the Ephesian believers know that Paul s prayers would be effectual for them? Paul reminded them that in Christ Jesus, they, as well as he, had boldness and access with confidence by the faith of Him (3:12) because the enmity between them and God had been slain at the cross. The ground of his authority and their confidence thus established, Paul returns to his knees to labor in prayer for these Gentiles to whom he was commissioned to serve. BR The Mystery and Paul s Ministry Thereof Ephesians chapter three, verses one through twelve are a digression from the beginning of a prayer. In verse one, Paul began this prayer which he did not truly get into until verse fourteen. Verses two through thirteen are one whole sentence, similar to previous passages. In Paul s digression into this long sentence he iterates the mystery of the church and of Christ, and he particularly emphasizes his role in revealing it. The words that Paul begin verse one with, For this reason, point back to the previous things that Paul said, specifically verses eleven through twenty-two of chapter two but also to the beginning of the letter in general. Paul then describes himself as a prisoner of Christ Jesus for you Gentiles. This statement refers to Paul s status of being a prisoner in Rome because of his service to Christ which is specifically in relation to the Gentiles. Verse two is the beginning of Paul s digression. The phrase if indeed as translated in the New King James Version implies in the Greek that the Ephesians had already heard what Paul was now writing to them, namely, the responsibility given to Paul by God for the saints. In verse three the mystery given to Paul, of which he said that he had already written about earlier in this epistle, is defined as the grace previously mentioned in verse two.

6 Paul expands on and concludes the small parenthetical statement begun in verse three describing the mystery of which he had already written. He writes that the Ephesians would understand his knowledge in the mystery of Christ by reading what he had already written. The next words Paul wrote would increase their understanding of the knowledge he shared. Paul describes the mystery as not having been made known to men in other ages. He writes that it is now known because of the revealing by the Holy Spirit to His holy apostles and prophets. In verse six Paul defines the mystery. He gives three statements in his definition: Gentiles should be fellow heirs, of the same body, and partakers of His promise in Christ through the gospel. Thus the mystery is the uniting of Gentile and Jew in the body of Christ. It is not salvation for the Gentiles, for that was indeed revealed in the Old Testament. Now that Paul has defined the mystery and its revelation, he speaks of his personal ministry of it in verses seven through twelve. Paul became a minister of this mystery according to the gift of the grace of God given to me by the effective working of His power. The Greek implies that the gift of the grace of God which was given to Paul was the thing that initiated Paul s service in this responsibility. The statement in the beginning of verse eight, To me, who am less than the least of all the saints, highlights Paul s great humility. Paul goes on to say that this grace that God gave to him was given so that he should preach among the Gentiles the unsearchable riches of Christ. This was his first function to fulfill. The second is in verse nine, where Paul writes to make all see what is the fellowship of the mystery, meaning, to explain the mystery that is the church, which, as Paul wrote in the end of verse nine, from the beginning of the ages has been hidden in God who created all things though Jesus Christ. The purpose behind Paul s commissioning as a minister of the mystery of the church was that the manifold wisdom of God might be made known by the church to the principalities and powers in the heavenly places, according to the eternal purpose which He accomplished in Christ Jesus our Lord, in whom we have boldness and access with confidence through faith in Him. The word manifold here refers to the relationship between Jews and Gentiles in the body of Christ. The wisdom of this new relationship is what the angelic hosts, both good and evil, are to witness. Though the plan has been accomplished, believers can access God freely through Christ.