Haiti and Ephesians Chapter 3

We have been studying Ephesians 3:1-13 in our house church and I have been thinking about how the passage applies to the Haiti mission trip I'll be leaving on shortly. Here's the passage from the ESV bible.

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, and to bring to light for everyone what is the plan of the mystery hidden for ages in God who created all things, so that through the church the manifold wisdom of God might now be made known to the rulers and authorities in the heavenly places. This was according to the eternal purpose that he has realized in Christ Jesus our Lord, in whom we have boldness and access with confidence through our faith in him. So I ask you not to lose heart over what I am suffering for you, which is your glory. (Ephesians 3:8-13, ESV)

R. C. Sproul commented on the word "manifold" in his blog.

The Greek word translated “manifold” here was often used in the first century to describe the intricately embroidered patterns found on cloaks worn by the wealthy. Divine wisdom is incredibly rich, even colorful, similar to the patterns found on these cloaks. Yet God’s glory is even richer, and evidencing it to other creatures displays His magnificence more fully.

Charles Hodge, the great Princeton Theologian, has insightful comments on the passage.

The expression, ἡ πολυποίκιλος σοφία, "manifold wisdom," refers to the various aspects under which the wisdom of God is displayed in redemption; in reconciling justice and mercy; in exalting the unworthy while it effectually humbles them; in the person of the Redeemer, in his work; in the operations of the Holy Spirit; in the varied dispensations of the old and new economy, and in the whole conduct of the work of mercy and in its glorious consummation. It is by the church redeemed by the blood of Christ and sanctified by his Spirit, that to all orders of intelligent beings is to be made, through all coming ages, the brightest display of the divine perfections. It is ταῖς ἀρχαῖς καὶ ταῖς ἐξουσίαις ἐν τοῖς ἐπουρανίοις that this exhibition of the manifold wisdom of God is to be made διὰ τῆς ἐκκλησίας. This gives us our highest conception of the dignity of the church. The works of God manifest his glory by being what they are. It is because the universe is so vast, the heavens so glorious, the earth so beautiful and teeming, that they reveal the boundless affluence of their maker. If then it is through the church God designs specially to manifest to the highest order of intelligence, his infinite power, grace and wisdom, the church in her consummation must be the most glorious of his works. Hence preaching the Gospel, the appointed means to this consummate end, was regarded by Paul as so great a favour. To me, less than the least, was this grace given. (Charles Hodge's Commentary on Ephesians 3)

Wayne Grudem uses the Ephesians passage to explain how God is displaying his wisdom not only to our fellow man, but to the angels in the heavenly places in the universe at large.

When Paul preaches the gospel both to Jews and to Gentiles, and they become unified in the one body of Christ (Eph. 3:6), the incredible “mystery” that was “hidden for ages in God who created all things” (Eph. 3:9) is plain for all to see, namely, that in Christ such totally diverse people become united. When groups so different racially and culturally become members of the one body of Christ, then God’s purpose is fulfilled, “that through the church the manifold wisdom of God might now be made known to the principalities and powers in the heavenly places” (Eph. 3:10).

Today this means that God’s wisdom is shown even to angels and demons (“principalities and powers”) when people from different racial and cultural backgrounds are united in Christ in the church. If the Christian church is faithful to God's wise plan, it will be always in the forefront in breaking down racial and social barriers in societies in the world, and will thus be a visible manifestation of God's amazingly wise plan to bring great unity out of great diversity and thereby to cause all creation to honor him. (p.193, Systematic Theology: An Introduction to Biblical Doctrine, Grudem).

Think about this for a moment. God displays complexity, beauty and symmetry in his design of the universe even to the most basic subatomic particles. Physicists use the principle of symmetry to predict the properties of subatomic particles they expect to find in particle accelerators. Another example, God has made millions of galaxies. Each galaxy has millions of stars which have planets orbiting around them. All these planets have the same unique and breathtaking complexity that the earth has.

Here is my final example, the psalmist exclaims in Psalm 139 that "I am fearfully and wonderfully made." God designed man using complex and intricate structures in the brain, muscles, blood vessels, and cellular structures. There is an infinite number of examples of God's wisdom and complexity in the design of the universe. However, even with all this complexity and intricacy in the physical world, God has chosen how He uses the Church to unify mankind into the body of Christ as the method to display His manifold wisdom to the angels in the heavenly realms. To put it in another way, God has chosen how the Church does cross-cultural missions to exhibit His love and wisdom throughout the infinite universe. Please ponder, praise and pray about that idea while I'm in Haiti.

Grudem on the Sufficiency of Scripture.

A few of us at work are reading Wayne Grudem's Systematic Theology: An Introduction. He has a chapter on the Sufficiency of Scripture that I enjoyed. Here are some quotes from the book. I'm book-ending his quotes with two key passages that teach this doctrine.

2 Timothy 3:16-17
All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work. (ESV)

The sufficiency of Scripture means that Scripture contained all the words of God he intended his people to have at each stage of redemptive history, and that it now contains everything we need God to tell us for salvation, for trusting him perfectly, and for obeying him perfectly. (p.127, Grudem)

If there is any “good work” that God wants a Christian to do, this passage indicates that God has made provision in his Word for training the Christian in it. Thus, there is no “good work” that God wants us to do other than those that are taught somewhere in Scripture: it can equip us for every good work. (p.127, Grudem)

Nowhere in church history outside of Scripture has God added anything that he requires us to believe or to do. Scripture is sufficient to equip us for “every good work,” and to walk in its ways is to be “blameless” in God’s sight. (p. 134, Grudem)

The sufficiency of Scripture reminds us that in our doctrinal and ethical teaching we should emphasize what Scripture emphasizes and be content with what God has told us in Scripture. There are some subjects about which God has told us little or nothing in the Bible. We must remember that “The secret things belong to the LORD our God” (Deut. 29:29) and that God has revealed to us in Scripture exactly what he deemed right for us. We must accept this and not think that Scripture is something less than it should be, or begin to wish that God had given us much more information about subjects on which there are very few scriptural references. (p. 134, Grudem)

Psalm 119:1
Blessed are those whose way is blameless,
who walk in the law of the Lord! (ESV)

Genuine Christian Preaching: 1 Corinthians 2:5

Paul wrote in 1 Corinthians 2:5 about faith and preaching.

that your faith might not rest in the wisdom of men but in the power of God. (1 Corinthians 2:5 ESV)

Calvin pointed out the Corinthians benefited by Paul's simple preaching of the gospel.

... His [Paul's] meaning, then, is, that the Corinthians derived this advantage from his having preached Christ among them without dependence on human wisdom, and relying solely on the Spirit’s influence, that their faith was founded not on men but on God. (Calvin’s Commentary on 1 Cor. 2:5)

Charles Hodge pointed out the benefits of a pure faith based on gospel preaching, rather than a so-called faith based on sophistic arguments.

The true foundation of faith, or rather, the foundation of true faith, is the power of God. This is explained by what he had before called “the demonstration of the Spirit.” That exercise of divine power, therefore, to which he [Paul] refers as the ground of faith, is the powerful operation of the Spirit, bearing witness with and by the truth in our hearts. A faith which is founded on the authority of the church, or upon arguments addressed to the understanding, or even on the moral power of the truth as it affects the natural conscience, such as Felix had, is unstable and inoperative. But a faith founded on the demonstration of the Spirit is abiding, infallible, and works by love and purifies the heart. (p. 32, Geneva Series of Commentaries: 1&2 Corinthians, Charles Hodge)

Finally, I copied two quotes by Gordon Fee from his commentary on 1 Corinthians 2:5.

In another context this might seem to suggest that faith rests on evidences; but that would scarcely make sense here. Throughout this passage the power of God has the cross as its paradigm. The true alternative to wisdom humanly conceived is not “signs” but the gospel, which the Spirit brings to bear on our lives in powerful ways. (p. 96, The New International Commentary on the New Testament: The First Epistle to the Corinthians, Gordon Fee)

What he [Paul] is rejecting is not preaching, not even persuasive preaching; rather, it is the real danger in all preaching—self-reliance. The danger always lies in letting the form and content get in the way of what should be the single concern: the gospel proclaimed through human weakness but accompanied by the powerful work of the Spirit so that lives are changed through a divine-human encounter. That is hard to teach in a course in homiletics, but it still stands as the true need in genuinely Christian preaching. (p. 96, ibid)

What Preachers Should Preach

I am studying 1 Corinthians 2. One of the commentaries I am using is Calvin's Commentary on 1 Corinthians. He has a couple of nice practical observations about 1 Corinthians 2:2 which reads,

For I decided to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ and him crucified.

Calvin translated the passage as follows:

No kind of knowledge was in my view of so much importance as to lead me to desire anything but Christ, crucified though he was.

Paul was mocking the Corinthians who were going after witty and powerful speakers, rather than the small, humble Paul, who spoke only of Jesus and the cross. Paul was saying Christ was not impressive either: He was killed like a criminal. Paul did not come with impressive, philosophical, powerful speeches, but rather Paul taught only Jesus. Powerful speeches are not what converted the Corinthians, but the power of God working through the preaching of the simple gospel by Paul. Calvin then pointed out the application for his readers. He encouraged preachers to preach only and learn only Jesus Christ and him crucified.

Here we have a beautiful passage, from which we learn what it is that faithful ministers ought to teach, what it is that we must, during our whole life, be learning, and in comparison with which everything else must be “counted as dung.” (Philippians 3:8.)

Our Wonderful Conversion -- Ephesians 1:19

Our faith family is studying Ephesians. Ephesians 1:15-19 is an amazing passage.

For this reason, because I have heard of your faith in the Lord Jesus and your love toward all the saints, I do not cease to give thanks for you, remembering you in my prayers, that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give you the Spirit of wisdom and of revelation in the knowledge of him, having the eyes of your hearts enlightened, that you may know what is the hope to which he has called you, what are the riches of his glorious inheritance in the saints, and what is the immeasurable greatness of his power toward us who believe, according to the working of his great might that he worked in Christ when he raised him from the dead and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly places, far above all rule and authority and power and dominion, and above every name that is named, not only in this age but also in the one to come. And he put all things under his feet and gave him as head over all things to the church, which is his body, the fullness of him who fills all in all. (Ephesians 1:15-23, ESV)

Paul compares our conversion, "the immeasurable greatness of his power to us who believe" to the resurrection of Christ, "he worked in Christ when he raised him from the dead." Here's a few classic quotes from the church fathers to help us meditate on the power and mercy of God that he showed toward us through Christ.

"To raise us from spiritual death is an exercise of the same power that raised Christ from natural death." Oecumenious.

"The conversion of souls is more wonderful than the resurrection of the dead." Chrysostom

Luther, in reference to the parallel passage in Colossians, uses the following language:

"Faith is no such easy matter as our opposers imagine, when they say, ‘Believe, Believe, how easy is it to believe.’ Neither is it a mere human work, which I can perform for myself, but it is a divine power in the heart, by which we are new born, and whereby we are able to overcome the mighty power of the Devil and of death; as Paul says to the Colossians, ‘In whom ye are raised up again through the faith which God works."’ (Charles Hodge commenting on Ephesians 1:19 who quotes Luther commenting on Colossians).

Here's the parallel passage in Colossians.

For in him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell, and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, making peace by the blood of his cross.

And you, who once were alienated and hostile in mind, doing evil deeds, he has now reconciled in his body of flesh by his death, in order to present you holy and blameless and above reproach before him,(Colossians 1:19-22)

Not a tame lion -- Ezekiel 14

I've been watching "Ken Burn's National Parks: America's Best Idea." They had a chapter on George Melendez Wright who was one of the National Parks first scientific naturalist. He stressed that the parks should provide a venue for the animals, especially predators, to be left alone. The parks in the 1920s and 1930s allowed tourists to feed the animals.

Year after year, bears—black and grizzly—were treated like pets and circus attractions in America’s national parks. They ate from the hands of camera-toting tourists, snared fish from artificially stocked streams, and were allowed to rummage through trash dumps while spectators gawked. “It takes time to teach the visitors to our national parks that they are the ones who are short-sighted in feeding candy to a bear,” Wright went on. “After all, the average citizen expects more intelligence from a bear than he, as an educated person, has any right to expect. He goes on the assumption that if he feeds a bear two sticks of candy and does not want to give it a third, he is the one to say, ‘No, no.’ And he believes that the bear is to be accused of an unforgivable breach of etiquette and lack of appreciation… if it takes all the candy out of his hand and takes the hand with it, perhaps.”(Mike Thomas writing about George Melendez Wright, Naturalist)

The problem is that bears are not tame, they are wild. They do not exist to please us and do our bidding. People make the same mistake about God. C. S. Lewis reflects this truth about Christ in his Narnian series of books. Lewis emphasizes that Aslan who is the embodiment of Christ in the series is wild and good, but not safe.

“Safe?” said Mr. Beaver; “don’t you hear what Mrs. Beaver tells you? Who said anything about safe? ‘Course he isn’t safe. But he’s good. He’s the King, I tell you.” (The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe).

Here is another quote from The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe about Aslan being wild.

“He'll be coming and going" he had said. "One day you'll see him and another you won't. He doesn't like being tied down--and of course he has other countries to attend to. It's quite all right. He'll often drop in. Only you mustn't press him. He's wild, you know. Not like a tame lion.”

In Ezekiel, the exiled, elders of Israel forgot who God is.

Then certain of the elders of Israel came to me and sat before me. And the word of the Lord came to me: “Son of man, these men have taken their idols into their hearts, and set the stumbling block of their iniquity before their faces. Should I indeed let myself be consulted by them? Therefore speak to them and say to them, Thus says the Lord God: Any one of the house of Israel who takes his idols into his heart and sets the stumbling block of his iniquity before his face, and yet comes to the prophet, I the Lord will answer him as he comes with the multitude of his idols, that I may lay hold of the hearts of the house of Israel, who are all estranged from me through their idols. (Ezekiel 14:1-5, ESV)

The nation of Israel had been exiled. The elders of Israel practiced syncretism: they practiced whatever religion or religions that were convenient or accessible in the city where they resided. They sought out Ezekiel, the prophet of Yahweh, as another option. They treated God as a vending machine. They worshiped idols, performed evil, and ignored God, but expected God to give them guidance in times of trouble. God was saying through Ezekiel that God required repentance from those who sought Him. The prophecy continued and God threatened to judge them. He wanted the whole man. One should not approach the living, holy, and omnipotent God by treating him as a trained puppy. God demands worship from those who seek Him.