Bible Commentaries
Ephesians 3

Verses 1-21

XII

PAUL’S SECOND GREAT PRAYER

Ephesians 3:1-21.

This discussion covers Ephesians 3, connecting two items of the analysis, to wit: Paul’s relation to the mystery of the gospel to the Gentiles, and his second great prayer. And what a prayer it is! Let us notice that in verse I he starts to pray, sidetracks it for twelve verses, and then resumes. This is peculiar to Paul, starting on a main thought and then leaving it to branch out on a collateral thought. But he always comes back, as we see here in Ephesians 3:14. A man who does that shows an earnest, fruitful, tenacious mind. We have noticed the trait in lower animals. A dog starts out and follows a deer until he crosses a fresher bear track. His hunting instinct turns him immediately into the cross-trail, but he returns to take up the original trail. Unlike the dog, some preachers start with a text and follow it until they flush a new thought, then take after that and never get back to the text, leaving their sermon as Tacitus, the historian, leaves that great German hero, Arminius, standing on a bridge, his readers not knowing whether he ever crossed over, went back, or is standing there yet. Other preachers, alas! follow this order: (1) They take a text. (2) They instantly leave it. (3) They never get back to it.

Paul starts off: "For this cause I, Paul, the prisoner of Christ Jesus in behalf of you Gentiles." This introduces his prayer, but a parenthesis follows showing why he prays. This parenthesis is the eighth item of the analysis. It occurred to him that he ought to explain why he was so earnest in praying for them. His interest grew out of a special relation, such as no other man sustained, expressed in these words: "The dispensation of that grace of God which was given me to you-ward." There was a special dispensation of the grace of God given to Paul. In the letter to the Galatians he uses this language bearing upon the thought: "When they saw that I had been entrusted with the gospel of the uncircumcision, even as Peter with the gospel of the circumcision (for he that wrought for Peter unto the apostleship of the circumcision wrought for me also unto the Gentiles) ; and when they perceived the grace that was given unto me, James and Cephas and John, they who were reputed to be pillars, gave to me and Barnabas the right hands of fellowship, that we should go unto the Gentiles, and they unto the circumcision."

To explain his prayer for the Gentiles, he says that the dispensation of the gospel for the Gentiles was specially committed to him. God himself divided the work. He created a foreign mission department and put it in the hands of Paul. The home mission department he left to the original twelve; they were to go to the Jews and Paul was to go to the Gentiles. There is the scriptural thought and justification for our division of the mission work into home and foreign departments. To illustrate: If our foreign mission secretary starts to write a letter touching a mission station in Mexico, Brazil, China, or Africa, he pauses to explain his interest – that the Southern Baptist Convention has given him the dispensation of the foreign mission work, and that is why he is writing.

The next point is that this dispensation was given to him by revelation of Jesus Christ. He did not get it second hand from Peter. He is clear to say that this gospel did not come from man. It was a direct revelation from Jesus Christ to him. That is demonstration against even the idea of a human pope, for here is a man whose gospel is entirely independent of the gospel committed to the twelve. And he insists that he is not a whit behind any of them; he is not indebted to any of them for the authority with which he preaches, and they were forced to concede that the same God who wrought mightily through Peter to the circumcision, wrought just as mightily through Paul to the Gentiles. He makes these points clear.

In Acts 9 we have the first account of God’s designating Paul to this work, setting him apart to be a great foreign missionary. And as time developed, he called him more specifically to that work. To show the strenuousness and insistence of this separation of Paul to this work, note that he himself had an intense desire to be a home missionary, and on one occasion, contrary to the direct teaching of the Spirit of God, he went to Jerusalem, and when he got there, God met him in the Temple and said, "They will not hear you. Go work where I sent you." In other words, it is as much the province of the Lord Jesus Christ to select the field of labor as it is to call a man to preach, and the preacher who disregards the divine jurisdiction over the place where he is to preach, is sure to get into trouble and bring shame and failure to himself. After God had purposed that this should be his work, and after God had called him to that work, he still kept hanging around the home mission department. So the Lord came to the church at Antioch and said, "Set apart Paul and Barnabas for the work to which I have called them." Church action followed the divine action.

Just here we come to an expression that causes some people a little trouble. Ephesians 3:3: "How that by revelation was made known unto me the mystery, as I wrote before in a few words." The question is, if this letter was intended primarily and exclusively to be for the Ephesians, when did Paul ever write them about the dispensation having been committed to him? Some commentaries say that it is in the first part of this letter, but there is not a syllable about it in the first part of this letter. We find it in Colossians 1:25: "Whereof I was made a minister, according to the dispensation of God which was given me to you-ward, to fulfil the word of God, even the mystery which hath been hid for ages and generations: but now hath it been manifested to his saints." That is where he "wrote before in a few words." That shows that there is a very close relation between Colossians and Ephesians. The letter to the Ephesians elaborates the letter to the Colossians, and justifies the position taken in the introductory chapter about the phrase, "at Ephesus."

We now come to the word "mystery." The word is frequently used in the Bible, but not always with reference to the same thing. John, in Revelation, presents a picture of a woman dressed in scarlet sitting on a wild beast with seven heads and ten horns, and on her forehead is written "MYSTERY, BABYLON THE GREAT, MOTHER OF HARLOTS AND OF THE ABOMINATIONS OF THE EARTH." In that figure, under the name, Babylon, he represents the mystery of the Roman Catholic Church. In another place Paul himself says in his letter to Timothy: "Great is the mystery of godliness." That is a different mystery, to wit: (1) That God was veiled in the flesh. (2) That, though veiled, the angels recognized him. (3) That thus veiled he was preached unto the Gentiles. (4) That he was believed on by the Gentiles. (5) He was received up in glory. "Confessedly, great is the mystery of godliness."

But Paul uses the word "mystery" in this passage in a different meaning. It is not a mystery to him, nor will it be a mystery to them after he explains. The mystery will be taken away. Here is the secret of the mystery, in Ephesians 3:6: "That the Gentiles are fellow heirs, and fellow members of the body, and fellow partakers in the promise of Christ Jesus through the gospel." It was a mystery in Old Testament times; it was then veiled. The Jews seemed to be everything there. But the mystery unveiled shows that even in the beginning God looked kindly toward all nations of men. God intended that all nations of men should seek him and find him, that when the typical age passed, his gospel through his Son should go to all nations that inhabit the face of the earth. That was all hidden in Old Testament times, but it is not mysterious now.

In that remarkable letter to the Romans (Romans 11) where the same matters are under discussion, he points out that Israel, the chosen nation, loses the kingdom of God; that through their fall the Gentiles receive the kingdom of God; that through the fulness of the Gentiles the Jews come back to the kingdom of God; that the failure of the Jews helps the Gentiles; that the fulness of the Gentiles helps the Jews. He says that the whole thing was according to divine purpose, and then ends with this exclamation: "O the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and the knowledge of God! how unsearchable are his judgments, and his ways past tracing out! For who hath known the mind of the Lord? or who hath been his counsellor? or who hath first given to him, and it shall be recompensed unto him again? For of him, and through him, and unto him, are all things. To him be the glory forever. Amen."

Our thoughts so far are: (1) That the dispensation of the gospel to the Gentiles was given to Paul. (2) That this dispensation was given to him by special revelation; it did not come secondhand; he was to be the great foreign missionary man. (3) That this was formerly a mystery, but is now explained. (4) The purpose of God is that the Gentiles shall be fellow heirs, fellow members of the body and fellow partakers of the promise of Christ Jesus through the gospel.

He adds a thought showing a more distant and extensive end of his ministry: "Unto me, who am less than the least of all saints, was this grace given, to preach unto the Gentiles the unsearchable riches of Christ; and to make all men see what is the dispensation of the mystery which for ages hath been hid in God who created all things; to the intent that now unto the principalities and the powers in the heavenly places might be made known through the church the manifold wisdom of God." This is my great – my favorite – text. It sets me on fire. I could wake suddenly in the night and preach from it offhand. Through Paul, by special divine appointment, all men are to be made to see this mystery unveiled. Not only so, but unto angels by the church must this manifold wisdom of God be made known. The church is a pedagogue to angels. By the church they are instructed.

The first time I ever met my cousin, J. L. Carroll, he preached a sermon at the Southern Baptist Convention in Jefferson on the text: "What I do thou knowest not now, but thou shalt know hereafter." In this discussion he quoted verbatim the entire poem on "The Tapestry Weavers", one that I have never seen anywhere except in Goodrich’s old Fourth Reader. One weaver was complaining that everything went wrong; the other believed that everything went right, and he said to his brother weaver: "You see in part only. Let your carpet instruct you. While in the loom you see only its outside. There appears to be a chaotic jumble – warp and woof and flying shuttle. But when complete and the rolls are fitted on the floor, the pattern is plain. Fragments of design in one roll find their counterpart in another. So to us just now the world is a carpet inside out – it is yet in the weaving – at the end the design and the pattern will appear." I thought I had never heard anything more appropriate than this illustration.

"Now," says Paul, "those angels up yonder are flaming spirits, but there are many things they do not know. They have had their curiosity aroused ever since Christ interposed to save man, ’which things the angels desired to look into.’ " On the mercy seat the curiosity of the angels is represented by two golden cherubim on either side leaning over, looking down where the blood is dropping. These heavenly students are trying to study out God’s wisdom, and God’s wisdom is manifold, it is rolled up in a great roll and the angels cannot see. The church comes along and takes hold of the roll and unrolls, unrolls, unrolls, the many folds, and as the church unrolls, the angels behold the manifold wisdom of God.

That is a beautiful thought. It elevates one in his own mind to know that he is helping explain difficult things to the angels. Not only were the apostles a "spectacle to the angels," but the church in its work is a spectacle to the angels, in unfolding to their view the marvelous election, foreordination, predestination, and foreknowledge of God, developed in redemption and made apparent through the ministry of the church in preaching the gospel. The church comes opening one door and sets Jerusalem on fire, and the angels clap their hands and praise God, 3,000 Jews saved. The church turns a key, throws open another door, and the Gentiles come in. The angels clap their hands and sing, "Glory to God in the highest." The church goes to Ephesus, 100,000 perhaps are converted there; it crosses the Bosphorus and enters Europe, goes to Athens, Corinth, and to Rome itself. From there it goes to Britain, and then on gospel wings it flies across the Atlantic Ocean, the gospel is carried across the American continent, rises in another flight to the islands of the sea, the Orient, flies over the walls of China, and goes into Tibet, that darkest, most isolated place in the world. All of that the angels learn as the kingdom develops.

We come now to a point that always thrilled me.

I never could understand why some Baptists rejoice to say there is no church succession.

I would like for them to take hold of these two passages in this chapter, "To the intent that now unto the principalities and the powers in the heavenly places might be made known through the church the manifold wisdom of God, according to the eternal purpose which he purposed in Christ Jesus our Lord," coupled with the last verse, "Unto him be the glory in the church and in Christ Jesus unto all generations forever and ever. Amen."

Whenever church work stops) then the glory stops. Did God intend for it to stop? If he did, why did he say, "Lo, I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world"? And why should we tell the church when celebrating the Lord’s Supper, "As often as you do this you show forth the Lord’s death till he come"? Why does he provide for perpetuity? I am not discussing church history now. I am discussing God’s purpose in establishing the church. Jesus said, "The gates of hell shall not prevail against it." I do not believe they have. They have never been able to convince me that the gates of hell have prevailed against the church.

I believe that God not only has had people in all ages, but that he has had an organized people.

He provided for transmission: "The things which I have committed to you, the same commit thou to faithful men." How do men have faith? By hearing. How can they hear without a preacher, and how can they have a preacher unless he be sent? Did he not send the church all gifts – apostolic gifts, prophetic gifts, evangelistic gifts, and pastoral gifts? He set every one of them in the church. The apostles and prophets served the church; when they were taken away, there remained pastors, evangelists, teachers. On whose authority? Christ’s. Where placed? In the church. I am satisfied that if the angels, after watching the unfolding of the wisdom of God in the gospel of Jesus Christ, from the time Christ died until the time the apostles died, they have not had a recess since of a thousand years. They are not left in suspense, vainly bending over to learn more through silent centuries. The school goes right on. The purposes ripen. The ordinances continue to tell their story. Churches come from churches somewhat as horses come from horses. History cannot trace every detail of the pedigree showing how a certain drove of wild mustangs in western Texas are descendants of the Spanish barbs, brought here by the discoverers 400 years ago. The fact that the mustangs are here proves the succession, since only like begets like.

I do not undervalue church history, but far more important to me than fallible human records of passing events is the New Testament forecast of church history. The former may err – the latter never.

Before the Louisiana Baptist Historical Society it was my pleasure to discuss this very theme.

We now consider the marvelous second prayer of Paul for the Ephesians, which is the ninth item of the analysis. The petitioner is Paul. He is a prisoner. The chain on his hand clanks with every line he writes. But the word of God is not chained, the Spirit of God is not chained, and the spirit of this man who prays is not chained. It is amazing that a man in his circumstances could so far forget himself in the riches of his benevolences and go out in his supplications and entreat for such blessings as are embodied in this petition.

The next thought is the relation of this prayer to preceding things. This relation is expressed in these words: "For this cause I pray." What cause? It has just been stated: first, that it was the purpose of God that the Gentiles should be fellow heirs, and that Paul was the minister selected who should preach to these Gentiles that the kingdom of heaven was open to them. So it was for this cause – because God intended that they should have these benefits, and because he designated Paul as the instrument by which they should come to them, therefore he prayed.

Let us look at the attitude which was very reverent and very deliberate: "I bow my knees." To whom? To the Father. There is a modifying phrase that we need now to consider, bearing on why he prayed to him, and especially why Paul prayed to him in this connection. This modifying phrase is "from whom every family in heaven and earth is named." There is something in the modifying clause suggesting why Paul offers this petition to the Father, but we have a difficulty in determining what it means. The common version reads: "For whom the whole family in heaven and earth is named." It is very easy to understand what that idea is. It is exactly the idea expressed in this hymn:

Let saints on earth unite to sing With those to glory gone; For all the servants of the King In heaven and earth are one.

One family we dwell in him, One church above, beneath, Though now divided by the stream, The narrow stream of death.

If the King James Version is the correct rendering, that is what it means, and we can see the idea at once when he prays to the Father from whom the whole family, Jews and Gentiles, those in heaven and those on earth, and those yet to be born, is named. It is a very beautiful thought. The objection to that being the proper rendering is that there is no article in the Greek, and therefore grammatically the revised version is more accurate, not referring to the whole family collectively but distributively: "From whom every family is named," that is, those who go to heaven may constitute a family; down here on earth they are not all assembled in one. There was a family at Rome, one at Corinth and one at Ephesus. In this sense the word "family" is a synonym for "church." Which is correct? The revised version is very accurate: "I pray unto the Father, from whom every family in heaven and on earth is named." Every church is named, whether you conceive of it as the church of the spirits of the just, made perfect in glory, or distributively, each particular congregation of Christ’s disciples here upon earth. There is, quite possibly, another meaning which we find in the margin of our Bible: "From whom every Fatherhood is named." That does not make the sense materially different from the sense of the revised text. Fatherhood upon earth is a reflection of the true fatherhood in heaven. All fatherhood gets its idea and ideal from God, the Father.

These are the three possible meanings of this passage. I do not like to be on the fence myself, and after studying about it a great deal I am inclined to think that the King James Version has the true idea, and I am quite sure it can be defended exegetically and grammatically, because we find in the Greek New Testament four or five places where the article is absent and yet the unity is there, and it is so rendered by the revisers themselves. I think this makes the best sense and connects better with Paul’s thought. He has just been telling them that under the old economy the Gentiles were aliens from the commonwealth of Israel, without God, and without hope in the world, but that under the new revelation of the mystery of God’s purpose it is evident he intended Jew and Gentile to be one in Christ. And he is speaking of the unity continually, the gathering together, and I prefer that translation: "From whom the whole family in heaven and earth is named." The Gentile belongs to that family just as much as the Jew.

So we advance in our thought. We have Paul the petitioner, the Father petitioned, and the power according to which he asks that things be granted – "according to the riches of his glory." What does he ask for? We see the whole Trinity in this: The Father is the source, therefore the petition is addressed to him. He asks one blessing that touches the Holy Spirit, the third person in the Trinity, and several touching Christ, the second person in the Trinity. The first thing for which he asks is strength: "That ye may be strengthened with power through his Spirit in the inward man." We often see physical giants, like John L. Sullivan, Jim Jeffries, strong on the outside but not strong on the inside. Then we see some frail, weak men, like William of Orange, who was so sick that he could not stand up, but strong inside and commanding his army. And we see the general on the other side, the Duke of Luxemburg, who was so frail and sick that his soldiers had to carry him about on a litter. A man who did not have strength inside would have been whining in the hospital and asking for a furlough, but these two generals were strong inside, and they directed their armies while they fought one of the most famous battles of history. Even so, and more so, is it with the Christian. The outward man perishes, but the inward man is renewed day by day. The fact is that no man is whipped until he is whipped inside, and when whipped inside he is whipped altogether. Just as long as his soul is firm and steadfast he is invincible by any force that can be sent against him. We will now look at the Christ side of it, and there are several parts in that. First, "that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith." There is a great difference between taking permanent residence and paying an occasional visit. It seems that some Christiana, at occasional intervals, receive visits from Christ, not very welcome visits on their part, and he has to stand outside and knock: "Behold, I stand at the door and knock." Paul does not pray for that, but that Christ may dwell in their hearts through faith. That means to abide, not just a visitor staying over night, but owning the house and living in it, and he can dwell in your hearts only through faith.

The second thing is stability: "That being rooted [that is the image of a tree] and grounded [there he changes the figure to a house with strong foundations] in love." That is stability. Look at a China tree; a little wind will blow it over. Why? Because it has no tap root. One cannot turn over a post, but he can turn over a block of wood that is resting on the ground. The use of the lateral roots of the tree is to feed the tree. All of those little fibrous roots close to the top of the ground furnish the tree food and water. But that big root that goes straight down is not to feed it, but to hold it firmly. So Paul prays for stability: "being rooted and grounded." Some of those buildings in San Francisco with their rock foundations and steel frames, the rock holding them together under the ground and the steel frames holding them together above the ground, were not shaken by even the earthquake.

The third thing is, "That ye may be strong to apprehend with all the saints." Apprehend what? Certain dimensions – breadth, length, height, and depth of the love of Christ. In other words, "I pray that you may be able to apprehend the dimensions of the love of Christ; that you may see how high it is, how deep it is, how broad it is, and how long it is." All the saints are invited to join in it. Sir Isaac Newton said that he was just a little child on the coast picking up shells. He claimed not to know much. So Paul said, "I have not apprehended all things for which he laid hold of me, but I pray that you Ephesians may be strong to apprehend the dimensions of the love of Christ."

The fourth thing is knowledge – "to know the love of Christ." That refers to personal experience, not a mental conception, but a realization of it in the heart, i.e., to know experimentally the love of Christ. We learn some things about Christ intellectually and put them in our hearts and assimilate them, but let us learn them personally. As each lesson comes, let us put it in our hearts and learn it personally. That is why we are called upon to know the love of Christ which passeth knowledge. We know now in part, but not altogether.

The fifth thing connected with Christ that he prays for, "That ye may be filled unto all the fulness of God." Paul is not here offering a prayer for one person, but he is praying for the church, which is the temple of God, and the temple of God is to have the fulness of God.

Several years ago in a controversy I quoted this passage and a man asked, "What do you get out of that? I have read it many times but I do not get anything out of it." I said, "The church is the habitation of the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit is in the church, not in part of his power, but in the fulness of his power. The church has the fulness, but may not have the realization of the fulness. You let a church get into a great meeting and those who have been doing wrong repent and confess; and those who have become alienated become reconciled, the proud become humbled, and the selfish become unselfish, those who could not pray learn to pray, and in that realization they begin to pray for big things. Before that, if they could get fifteen or twenty around one sinner, they might have faith enough to pray for him, but now they pray for men who are far off."

I have seen the old Waco church in the fulness of God. I went down one day in the great meeting and my nerves tingled; I could feel prickling sensations running all over me, the presence of God was so sensibly felt. I asked the church to pray for a certain one who was very dear to me. They got down and prayed a very short, sweet prayer, and that very moment while the words were still coming from the lips of the one offering the petition, God converted that man from infidelity, and on the next train he was at the church to tell them how he was saved at the very hour of the prayer.

These are the five things in connection with Christ: The indwelling of Christ by faith, being rooted and grounded in love, to be able to apprehend the dimensions of Christ’s love, to know the love of Christ and to be filled with the fulness of God.

That brings us to the benediction. That benediction is an offering of glory. To whom? To the Father. In what sphere? In the church. Through what medium? Christ. How long? World without end. That means church perpetuity.

QUESTIONS

1. What two items of analysis are discussed in this chapter?

2. What characteristic of Paul’s letters appears in the beginning of the chapter, and wherein, does he differ from some other preachers?

3. What special relation of Paul to those addressed was the reason of the prayer now to be offered?

4. What passage in Galatians bears on the matter, and does this justify our present division of the missionary work into two distinct departments – home and foreign?

5. How did he receive this dispensation of the grace of God, and what the bearing of it on the question of a human pope?

6. What three passages in Acts give the history of this commitment of the Gentile work to Paul?

7. Where do we also find in Acts a revelation from God to the church to ordain Paul to this work unto which our Lord had called him, and what two things does this prove?

8. How do you explain the phrase, "As I wrote you before in a few words"?

9. What is the meaning of "mystery" here as distinguished from its meaning in 1 Timothy 3:16 and Revelation 17:5?

10. What additional thought in Paul’s conception of his mission, and to what marvelously glorious end?

11. What then is the relation of the church to angels?

12. What is the lesson and application in the story of the two weavers?

13. Cite two passages in this chapter having a bearing on church perpetuity, and explain the bearing.

14. Which is the more important, the New Testament forecast of church perpetuity or the testimony of church history on that point, and why?

15. What verses of this chapter contain Paul’s second great prayer for those addressed?

16. On this prayer answer: (1) What the circumstances of the petitioner? (2) What not chained? (3) What the cause of the prayer? (4) What the attitude or posture of the petitioner? (5) To whom addressed? (6) What the three varied renderings of the clause modifying the Father, what the difference in meaning, and which do you prefer?

17. Name the things asked for in this prayer.

18. Illustrate how a church may now be filled with all the fulness of God.