Ephesians Chapter 3.

Ephesians Chapter 3.

The Body of Christ.

It used to be denied that `soma' (unlike `corps') could mean a corporation or `body' of people.  But T.W.Manson has shown that `soma' can mean a `body' of people, but Manson also points out that the uniqueness of the phrase resides not in the word `soma', but in the qualifying objective.  The `soma' is not the body of Christians, but the body of Christ.  (Bedale).

           

"Mystery."  S.M.Gibbard says that in the New Testament "mystery" is never used in the modern sense of a riddle of which the answer has not yet been found:  and it is not used for Christian sacramental rite.  "Mystery" in the Old Testament is found only in the LXX of Daniel 2, eight times in that chapter.  It means God's purpose for the nations, formerly concealed but now manifested through His servant, and it stands correlative with revelation (apokalpsis), wisdom (sophia), and the deep and hidden things of God.  (Bathea kai apokrupha).  Compare this with Paul's use of `mystery' in connection with Christ's death in 1.Cor.2.  The fundamental meaning of `mystery' in Paul's writings is God's purpose, previously hidden, but now revealed to the faithful. -Gobbard.

           

Nineham argues that in Paul's earlier Epistles, `musterion' has no single, clearly defined meaning, but is used generally of various elements in the faith not wholly understood or explained, but in Colossians.  Paul means to have made it into something of a Technical term to describe that which God had hitherto concealed from all eternity, but now revealed; and the content of the mystery in Colossians is Christ Himself.  Particularly the amazing fact of His indwelling in His people of all sorts and kinds.  In Ephesians the word is also a technical term, but the meaning is changed, for it is the newly grasped truth that the Gentiles have full share with the Jewish converts, in the promise of the Gospel.  In 1:9 it has a wider meaning.

           

`Oikonomia' - in Colossians and 1.Cor.9:17, it means a special task entrusted to anyone, an `assignment' (as journalists say).  But in Ephesians "statemanship," "strategy," or "planned economy" of God. (Nineham).

           

'Mystery' - Macphail says it means not puzzling or baffling, but God's counsel to His servant.  Co-heirs, co-members, co-sharers - Macphail.

           

3:1.  A Jew enduring persecution for the devotion to Gentile interests.  A commission discharged at great personal cost.  The chain which bound him to the Gentile soldier was but an outward expression of his binding obligation to the Gentile world.

           

3:2.  `Oikonomia',  it is not his stewardship, management, use of God's grace of which he speaks;  but the use which God's grace has made of Him (Paul).  Grace is the compassionate mercy of God.  To give grace, is to show favour.

           

3:4.  When you read this Epistle, especially the public reading.

           

3:5.  "Sons of men," - emphasizes human weakness.  "In the Spirit" (as in 2:22).  It was a revelation made through God's Spirit, and needing the approach of man's spirit.

           

3:6.  Co-heirs, co-corporate, co-sharers.

           

3:8.  `To anexichniaston', we cannot keep pace with it, cannot come up with, and so get to the limit of it;  for it is simply inexhaustible.  It does not mean inscrutable in the sense of undiscoverable, mysterious.

           

"Unsearchable" - sums up Rom.11:33-36.  The tracks of His footsteps go in so many directions that no man can follow them all up.

           

3:9.  "Dispensation" - God is still thought of as the steward.

3:10.  Probably includes both the good spirits and the evil.  Manifest wisdom - the Greek is a beautiful poetical word, not merely variegated, but `richly variegated', "many faceted, fold after fold, and each with a new beauty." "God's wisdom is manifold."  A word that usually describes many-coloured embroidery.  Like a Persian carpet which seems to show new colours and new shapes every time one looks at it.  Thomson's word - many-splendered.

           

H.G.Miller Commentary:-

           

3:10-11.  The church is the object lesson to powers and principalities of God's plan of Unity in Christ.  Synge thinks that the commentators err in suggesting that the Church is the agent by which God discloses His wise purpose.  Rather, the Church, a community in Christ of alien races, is the sign and proof of God's many-sided wisdom.  The Church constitutes a startling and unmistakable witness to God's purpose of Unity.

           

3:12.  `Parresian', "outspoken."  A word expressed of the right of free speech and of all that is involved in the privilege of courageous liberty.  It is the tender word which expresses the child's unhesitating confidence in saying all out to the parent.   Faith is the source of confidence.

           

3:13.  Some might think Paul's tribulation a token of Divine disapproval of Paul's ministry.  His own steadfast bearing was an example to them, and would give weight to his stirring exhortation.  See 2.Cor.4.

           

3:13-21.  Thinking about the ways of God is prayer.   "To apprehend," - this goes deeper than mere intellect.  "Insight," - is not merely a matter of "brains," but function of the whole character.  "That Christ may dwell through faith in your heart in love."  (see Westcott and Hort's punctuation).

           

They cannot understand this alone, thinking about it in their studies.  It takes the entire human race to understand the meaning of the Christ.  It needs "experimental" thinking by all believers the world over, praying, thinking, living and loving together.  They can only apprehend it with all the saints.  No individual, no part of the Church, can claim to know all the truth of God.  The love of Christ which is more precious than mere knowledge needs the world of men to interpret it.  The Divine love can be learned and recognized through its expression in the love of men.  (Berry).

           

3:15.  Synge prefers the translation "family" to that of "fatherhood."  Jewish family life illustrated the idea of Unity.  The members of the one family have a community of soul.  In his figure of the family Paul lays more emphasis upon unity than, perhaps, we recognize at first. "Every family.......named," i.e. Gentile as well as Jew.  Angels as well as men.

           

"Its name." - Gets its name and thereby its recognition as being God's family, dependent on His Fatherhood, because it implies an eternal fatherhood in Him;  perhaps the present tense is to be pressed, "is now being named," now that the barrier between Jew and Gentile is broken down, every nation is being recognized as a family of sons to the Father.  Lock rejects "every fatherhood."  (Is God in some sense the Father to angels? L.H.B.).

           

`Patria' - a body or a society made so by descent from one father.  Used 50 times in Numbers-LXX.  Every family, angelic or human.  Gentiles as well as Jew.

           

The verse has a direct bearing upon the paragraph, and upon the Epistle.  It shows why the Gentile has a place in God's Church side by side with the Jew.  It lifts the thought of both to a higher unity and a higher relationship still.  Vaughan also refers to "every building," (2:21) and compares it with Matt.24:1, "the buildings of the Temple."   Barry - A Philosophy from prison.

           

The full self-expression of a man is only found in social activities.  The story of human progress is the story of increasing co-operation.  Not competition, but co-operation, has been the secret of human civilization.

3:16.  The gift desired is measured by the revelation which God has given of Himself (His Glory) in His Son and by the Spirit;  and the value of the gift by the richness of that revelation.  The prayer is that they may be empowered for action.

           

The effect of the Spirit's agency is to bring into our nature an inward reinforcement by imparting a `dunamis', a capacity for action beyond all those of our natural endowment.  A Divine invigoration.

           

"Strengthened," - contrasted "faint," in 3:13.  "Inward man," - the central personality which will abide after death.  "The riches of His glory" - His living and active presence.  (Synge).

           

3:17.  May dwell permanently.  The Church is both a plant and a building, a vine and a temple.  The true Shekinah is man.  A plant grows by the development of life within;  a building, by the addition of material from without.  The inward must precede the outward.  `Katalabesthai' - "to apprehend."  The middle voice brings in the idea of personal apprehension on the part of each believer, which is to lead to a collective result.   "In conjunction with all saints". 

           

The four dimensions of space, convey the idea, not of greatness, but of catholicity.  A spiritual invigoration is preliminary of that noble catholicity.

           

3:18.  "Ye may be strong," - completely, out and out strong, enough for such an effort "to apprehend," - to take right down into your own minds.  "What is the breadth etc."  Paul does not say of what.  Psa.139 is an excellent comment on it.  Whatever it is, it is broad enough to reach the whole world, long enough to be eternal, high enough to reach the angelic beings, and deep enough to reach the powers of evil, and guide the believer after death.

           

3:19.  The Love is realized in consciousness, but consciousness is not the measure of it;  it is greater than ever we know.   Best says, "They are already partially filled with the Divine attributes and powers."  Paul prays for a fuller filling.  In the final issue, it is, the `pleroma' of God which dwells in the Church.  But the essential Divine gift is love.  It is therefore "love," which comes to dwell in the Church and to be its essential characteristic - and yet a characteristic to which it has yet to attain.

           

"Which passeth knowledge." - Which can never be fully recognized. The thought may also be, "which is better than any knowledge we may have."  (Lock).

           

The Roman Empire and its system influenced the missionary work of Paul.  In this Epistle the keynote is the one God and Father of all.  He has had a continuous purpose running through the whole of history, to sum up all things both in heaven and in earth in the Messiah.  The Unity of the Church is a quality which comes to it with its very life-blood; the Body is one because the Head is one; the Church is one because God is one.  The Epistle is a triumphant assertion that the Lord's great prayer is being answered.  "That they may all be one," etc., John 17:21-22.  Paul dwells on the continuity of God's plan; it has been thought out before the foundation of the world; it was centred in the commonwealth of Israel; it was summed up in the Jewish Messiah, and it spiritualized the promises given to Israel. 

           

As we look at Paul's whole work we see that he is not merely the advocate of the Gentile freedom; he is rather the advocate of the Christian brotherhood.  (Lock).

           

The ultimate aim of all Divine Knowledge, is that we be filled with (unto) all the `pleroma' of God, - filled full of the grace and blessedness, to the very extent of all that constitutes the plenitude of God's own perfections.

           

"Unto the measure of the stature of the `pleroma' of Christ." - That standard of spiritual height which brings to (is characteristic of) the fulness of all grace and blessing which is in Christ Himself, 4:3.  (Vaughan).

3:20.  "According to the power that worketh in us."  That determines the depth of our desire and fixes the horizon of our thoughts.  (Miller).  

           

F.C.Synge - Commentary.:  The theme of the Epistle is here unmistakable:  The Unity of creation in Christ, of the Unity of Jew and Gentile in Him is the firstfruits and pledge.