The Prisoner and the Mystery

"For this reason I, Paul, a prisoner of Christ Jesus on behalf of you Gentiles" (Ephesians 3:1). I want you to notice how I begin — and where I break off. I set out to pray for you. "For this reason" — because of all I had just said, how you who were once far off have been brought near, how the two have been made one and built together into a dwelling place for God (Ephesians 2:11-22). Because of all that, I bend my knees. But before I can pray, I stop. Something about that word "prisoner" pulls me aside, and I must open it to you before I go on.

For see how I name my chains. Not a prisoner of Rome. Not a prisoner of Caesar or of the soldiers who guard me. A prisoner "of Christ Jesus." The chain on my wrist has an owner, and it is not the emperor. I am bound because I carried the good news to men and women like you, who were never sons of Abraham by blood, and told them the door was open. That gospel put me here. And I would not have it otherwise.

Then I tell you why I, of all people, was given this work. "The stewardship of God's grace that was given to me for you" (Ephesians 3:2). A stewardship — I did not invent this message; I was entrusted with it, the way a servant is handed the keys of a house that belongs to another. And what was I entrusted with? "The mystery" (Ephesians 3:3). Do not hear that word as I know some hear it — a riddle, a thing kept dark. In the Scriptures a mystery is a secret God kept until the hour he chose to speak it. "It was not made known to the sons of men in other generations as it has now been revealed" (Ephesians 3:5). Prophets long ago glimpsed it from far off. Now it stands in the daylight.

And here is the secret, laid bare in one plain sentence — hold it, because your whole standing before God is in it: "This mystery is that the Gentiles are fellow heirs, members of the same body, and partakers of the promise in Christ Jesus through the gospel" (Ephesians 3:6). Fellow heirs. Members of the same body. Partakers of the same promise. Not guests admitted to the edge of the table. Not lesser sons kept in the servants' quarters. If you have come to Christ from outside the covenant, from a family that never knew the God of Israel, hear what God has done: he has not given you a smaller portion. He has given you the same inheritance, the same Christ, the same Spirit as the saints who came before. There is no second class in the household of God.

Now watch what I say about myself, and weigh it, because I mean every word. "To me, though I am the very least of all the saints, this grace was given, to preach to the Gentiles the unsearchable riches of Christ" (Ephesians 3:8). The least of all the saints. I do not say this to be admired for my humility. I say it because it is true, and because I remember. I hunted the church of God. I stood approving while they stoned Stephen. And this is precisely the man God chose to carry the riches of Christ to the nations. Do you see the wisdom of it? If mercy could reach me, it can reach anyone. My unworthiness is not a stain on the message; it is part of the message. The grace that saved me is the grace I preach.

And these riches — I call them "unsearchable." You will never come to the bottom of Christ. Mine him all your life and there is more; you will spend eternity searching and never exhaust him. Do not imagine you have learned him and moved on. There is no moving on from an ocean.

Then I lift your eyes higher still, to a thing I can hardly believe I get to say. God's purpose in all this — in saving you, in joining Jew and Gentile into one new people — is "so that through the church the manifold wisdom of God might now be made known to the rulers and authorities in the heavenly places" (Ephesians 3:10). Think of what this means. The church — ordinary, struggling, mixed, often quarreling — is God's exhibit before the powers of the unseen world. When former enemies sit at one table because of the blood of Christ, the angels themselves learn something of the wisdom of God they did not see before. Your reconciled life is a sermon preached in the heavenlies. Do not despise the church, then, or hold yourself above her. She is God's chosen theater for his glory.

And all of this, I tell you, "was according to the eternal purpose that he has realized in Christ Jesus our Lord" (Ephesians 3:11). This was no rescue plan patched together after things went wrong. Before the world was made, God purposed to bring you near, and he has now brought it to pass in Christ. Which is why I can end where I began — with confidence, not fear: "in whom we have boldness and access with confidence through our faith in him" (Ephesians 3:12). Access. You may come in. The door that was shut is open, and you need not shuffle to it with your head down, hoping you will be tolerated. You may come with boldness — through faith in Christ, never through your own record — straight to the Father. If you are in Christ, that welcome is yours today, this hour, before you have fixed a single thing about yourself.

So I close with a request, and I make it as one wearing a chain: "I ask you not to lose heart over what I am suffering for you, which is your glory" (Ephesians 3:13). Perhaps you know something of losing heart. Perhaps you have looked at what following Christ has cost you, or cost someone you love, and wondered whether it is worth it. Look again at my chains and hear me: they are not a defeat. They are your glory — the price of the message that brought you in. The season here grows cold, and I am guarded, and I am content, because the gospel that put me here is not chained. It has reached you. It will outlast every prison and every emperor.

You are fellow heirs. You have access with confidence. Do not lose heart. Come boldly, and do not go alone — you belong now to a body, and to a household, and to the God who purposed all of it before time began.

Grace and peace be with you.