Whenever we speak of the eternal purposes of God, we stand in danger of the greatest arrogance. Who are we, even in his venerable company, to speak of God's design for all mankind? This passage, however, forces us to use exorbitant speech if we are to cope with Paul's audacious thoughts. With fantastic confidence he spoke of comprehending the mystery of God. To him this mystery was no foggy abstraction but nothing less than the architectural design for God's work of creation. It was the plot of that "great story" which embraced all the smaller stories of nations and races, of individual men and women. Paul recognized that this design had been hidden since the beginning, but he believed that it had been disclosed, in all its vast dimensions (v. 18), to prophets and apostles so that they might in turn disclose it to their own contemporaries, inasmuch as it embraced the meaning of all their little stories. Incredible!

Why had this design remained hidden so long? Because mankind had so long accepted walls of division, boundaries drawn by similarity and congeniality, boundaries supported by desire for superiority and self-interest, boundaries expressive of mutual prides and animosities. Not only have people accepted the legitimacy of these walls; they have assumed their permanence and their sacredness. Throughout the centuries before Paul the thickest and highest wall had followed the boundary between Jew and Gentile. Even in the most recent times we have horrible evidence that anti-Semitism and anti-Gentilism constitute the oldest plague of all. If this wall were to be demolished, we would be assured that no other wall would forever stand. If this hostility were overcome, all the stories by which men live would be decisively altered. If God intended from the beginning to destroy that wall his intention has surely been hidden, and it would not be easy to convince people of it. But that was precisely Paul's claim... and his task. In his terms, the blue-print of God's creative work, the plot of his great story, was this: "the Gentiles are fellow-heirs, members of the same body, and partakers of the promise in Christ J Jesus through the gospel" (v. 6). Was Paul quite deluded. Or did his audacity have solid ground? Had this wall in fact been demolished? Had this been the goal from the beginning?

In Ephesians 3 Paul introduces himself in such a way as to indicate points of intersection between his little story and God's great story. As a Jew he was even then in prison on behalf of Gentiles. Certainly this was costly evidence that the wall between these two peoples had crumbled, at least in his own heart. Moreover he attests that this demolition had been the work of Christ. What had happened on Golgotha, what had become "gospel", had transformed "the least of all the saints" into an effective witness to God's design. Moreover, this same power had so enabled him to preach to Gentiles that the wall between him and them had crumbled. Their stories as well as his had become episodes in the one great story, God's design displacing their own earlier plans. Their joint vocation was now to march around this Jericho until all its walls came "a-tumblin' down". Were they deluded? Not if this grace was really God's grace. We must therefore examine the warrants for this grace.

The grace

I have been accustomed to interpret 3:8-10 as a triple definition of the Christian mission. I now notice, however, that the word in the text is not mission but grace, charis. These verses describe not a set of duties but the triple channel taken by God's grace as it was moving through Paul's life and the life of those saints to whom he was writing.

Channel one

Paul had been called to preach to the Gentiles the unsearchable riches of Christ. It was strategic that this channel of grace should be a Jew, for the wall of hostility had been sustained primarily by the authority of God's covenant with Abraham (Gen 17). And no faithful Jew could declare the demolition of that wall except by the authorization of a Jewish Messiah, a peace-negotiator who had created in himself one new humanity (2:14 f). To Paul it had been strategic on God's part to choose as an ambassador a Jew who out of loyalty to the Torah had at first opposed this Messiah and persecuted his followers. It had been even more strategic that such an ambassador should be accredited by becoming "a prisoner on behalf of you Gentiles" (v. I). Paul discerned at every point in this story the intervention of God's grace; in its own way each intervention illustrated the principle "my suffering/your glory" (v. 13). Intercessory suffering becomes God's formula for reconciling former enemies by breaching the wall of division, his way of conveying to Gentiles, "unsearchable riches? Surely they included such gifts as peace, joy, grace and power. Why were they "unsearchable"? Perhaps because they were accessible only to those who shared in costly intercession. Perhaps because the very existence of Gentile believers would aggravate the opposition of the Jews, making all the more necessary to Gentiles the indwelling presence of Christ (v.!7).

Channel two

Paul had been given a second objective: to make all men see what is the plan of the mystery..." I think we should understand the term "all men" to refer to Jews and Gentiles, who together in Jewish idiom constituted the whole of humanity. Both groups must accept the plan of the mystery; otherwise the wall would survive intact. Then as now, Gentile believers found it difficult to appreciate the cost of Paul's gospel to his Jewish brothers. To treat Gentiles as if the wall no longer existed was for Jews an act of major disloyalty to God's covenants with Abraham and Moses, an act of treason to God's people, an act of repudiating the age long sufferings and joys of Israel. Although Paul's central assignment pointed toward work with Gentiles, he also sought to be a steward of God's grace to Jews. Only as a Jew could he persuade other Jews of God's design to create a single community that would be race-blind, nation-blind, and even religion-blind. Only as a Jewish prisoner for the gospel could he convince his fellow Jews of the patterns of prejudice excluded by God's grace. If he failed, if the wall of hostility remained as thick as ever even among the company of believers in Christ, how convincing would be the evidence for "the mystery of Christ"? Only if Jews as well as Gentiles shared in the intercessory suffering that is the mark of grace, would the Christian community comprehend God's design for the whole of creation, becoming, in Gordon Rupp's words:

" A kind of Lidice, Buchenwald, Leningrad in reverse, in which revenge and hatred have been swallowed up in love and reconciliation" (Last Things First, p. 34).

Channel three

Still another objective is embodied in God's eternal purpose: "that through the church the manifold wisdom of God might now be made known to the principalities and powers". In this text, the preacher ceases to be an individual and becomes the community as a whole, the church. The audience ceases to be made up of men and women and becomes the whole range of cosmic rulers. What are we to make of this new audience? It is from them that God's wisdom has been hidden; it is to them that the church is charged to disclose that wisdom. Who are these heavenly powers? Elsewhere in Ephesians we learn that these powers beget children of wrath who live by the passions of the flesh and who are inveterate war-mongers. We learn that as "fathers" of human communities, the heavenly rulers name those communities and demand their loyalties. They are the invisible builders and defenders of the walls of hostility that have separated Jews from Gentiles (and of all similar walls). Their authority can be discerned operating in the earthly forces that brought Jesus to his death. They try to prevent the establishment of Christian communes, and, failing in that, turn toward the demoralization of those communes, using weapons tried and tested in many earlier battles. An apparent victory over them leads to an even more vicious and subtle counter-attack. Their "nature" and their "strategies" can be learned only within the context of struggle, the struggle initiated by God's forgiveness of his enemies in Christ. They are powerful, but they are vulnerable to three things: to a God for whom every family in heaven and on earth is named; to a Savior who by dying was able to bring the hostility to an end; to a community for which the earlier wall of hostility has been demolished, and which now relies upon the whole armor of God in its struggle with its invisible foes (6:11-20).

This last channel of grace is essential if God's wisdom is to be made known to these war-makers in heaven. Only a community, and not an individual apostle, can convey to these powers the message that their control has been ended. Only a community can demonstrate the destruction of this wall. And because the power of these rulers over people has been dependent upon human recognition of the importance of such walls (yes, in fact, their sacredness), the only language they can understand is the degree to which those walls are threatened. Show them a community in which Jews and Gentiles are members of the same body, heirs of the same promise, sharers in God's original design. Show them a community that repels every counter-attack by "putting on the whole armor of God". Show them a community that fully comprehends "the plan of the mystery", a community ruled by mutual forgiveness and living by the principle "my suffering your glory". Such a community in fact communicates to principalities and powers the manifold wisdom of God. Without the delivery of this message, the gift of grace does not attain its goal.

The power

Our chapter in Ephesians places great stress upon human knowledge. At every stage, the communication of the gospel involves knowledge: Paul's knowledge of the mystery (v. 3); the perceptions of his insight conveyed by the Spirit (v. 5); comprehension of the divine plan by both Gentiles and Jews (v. 9); communication of God's wisdom to the heavenly powers (v. 10). But far more is needed than knowledge. Power must be added. And this is not surprising, considering the strength of the walls and the hiddenness of the wisdom. We should therefore notice the points at which the power of God enters the human situation and makes the difference between the old age and the new, between humanity divided and humanity united.

The power is operative in the ability of the gospel to make Paul a minister, enabling him to accept imprisonment as part of that ministry (vv. 1, 7).
The power is operative in the boldness and confidence that faith produced in the apostle, so that no difficulty made him lose heart (v. 13).
The power is operative in the destruction of hostility between Jewish and Gentile believers in the churches Paul addressed (v. 8 f.).
The power is operative in the inner strength conveyed by the Spirit, God's power being transmuted into heart-power (v. 16).
The power is operative in the love of Christ, which both conveys and surpasses knowledge (v. 19).

This passage makes it entirely clear that to Paul grace was itself a working of God's power (v. 7). Moreover we should remember the odds facing Paul, which would seem to make his confidence in grace quite unwarranted. What would be the outcome of his imprisonment? What was the probability that these congregations could survive? The strength of the walls was as obvious then as now. The wisdom of the principalities and powers would continue to determine the history of mankind. We can well stand in awe before Paul's confidence and strength. He not only believed in the immediate manifestations of God's power; he believed that God was able "by the power at work within us"..."to do far more abundantly than all that we ask or think" (v. 20).

Can we believe in such power? If we cannot, all that Paul says concerning the grace of God and the mission of the church dissolves into illusion. The walls have not been demolished and what Paul thought to be God's design has evaporated. Mystery... Grace... Power. These are the clues to Paul's intercessions in vv. 14-19. They form the substance of his doxology in vv. 20, 21. Perhaps it is only in intercession and doxology that the mysteries of God's grace and power can be expressed.

The study of Ephesians may not provide helpful answers to the questions implied in the theme of our conference. The study may on the contrary pose quite different questions. In the end, however, these questions may prove more fruitful.

The glory of God

If Ephesians is right about "the plan of the mystery", can we honestly say that our churches comprehend this plan, and therefore that their doxologies are addresses to the same God to whom Paul prayed? If so, on what grounds?

The glory of Christ

Considering Paul's claim that the mystery of Christ consisted of the demolition of the wall of hostility, can we today join him in that claim? If so, where win we find the evidence?

Glory in the church

If the church is defined as the channel by which the wisdom of God is being made known to invisible powers, where may we discover the church?

The future of mankind

Is the God to whom we pray in fact the Father from whom every family is named? If so, how do we translate that fact into our hopes for the future of mankind?