From my early years as a Christian I've read and re-read Paul's Prison Epistles (Ephesians, Philippians, Colossians and Philemon). As a pastor I've preached on them often, nearly always with a residual disappointment that mere preaching doesn't begin to convey the 'unsearchable riches of Christ'. If Isaac Newton really did say he felt like a child playing with seashells on the beach when the great ocean of truth lay before him unnoticed, then as a preacher I've felt the same with the unfathomable depths and irresistible currents of a text like Ephesians. That first extravagantly long sentence in Ephesians chapter 1 betrays a mind pushed into theological overdrive, Paul's vision and imagination running out of subordinate clauses as he finds it impossible to end the sentence. Maybe that's what happens when we speak of God – we run out of clauses and the sentence always, but always, finishes with much unsaid and probably unutterable.
Martyn Lloyd-Jones preached through Ephesians and the published sermons fill 8 thick volumes. By the way the volume on chapter 3, "The Unsearchable Riches of Christ" is a profound account of Christian mysticism illumined by evangelical experience and textual discipline, providing a deeply satisfying exposition of what it means to be in Christ, and for life to be grounded in the eternal love of God made known in Christ. Here more than anywhere else in his writing. Lloyd-Jones expressed his Welsh fervour, his revival instincts, his theological passion, and through the intensity of his personal experience of Christ, he rhapsodised on the grace unspeakable, the riches inexhaustible, the love unfathomable and the wisdom unsearchable of this God who in Christ reveals His purposes of love and mercy hidden in the ages but revealed in Jesus.
Every now and then I'm drawn back to Ephesians, just as at other times I'm drawn back to other parts of the Bible that to use the old Puritan phrase, 'speak to my condition'. Sometimes Isaiah 40-55; or the Psalms; the Gospels often, and John most often. But when it comes to Paul the Prison Epistles are where I instinctively go – especially those first chapters in Ephesians and Colossians when Paul sees the universe through the lens of Christ. And my own story is not relativised and reduced by the comparison; it is drawn into it and given a significance that is rooted in precisely that "grace unspeakable…, those riches inexhaustible, such love unfathomable and the wisdom unsearchable of this God who in Christ reveals His purposes of love and mercy hidden in the ages.
The paradox of revelation and mystery is one we live with as Christians, gladly, gratefully and generously. It's the paradox of the God who comes near in Christ but is beyond our comprehension as the Triune God of love eternal and grace immeasurable. It's the tension of the soul being caught up into the heavenly places while we still deal with the earthly, the everyday, the ordinary, the fragile, the transient, the reality of life as a human being yet as made in the image of God – trying to make sense of this paradox of existence in Christ and living the life that is ours. At those points in our lives when that tension is most acute and that paradox hardest to live with, that's when I read Ephesians 1, and Colossians 1, and Philippians 2. And if I ever need reminding of what it means to deal with the realities of social justice, human values, freedom and community, there's always that short masterpiece of practical theology we call the Letter to Philemon.
All of which arises because I've had on my desk one of the first commentaries I ever bought and which I treasure as a spiritual artefact, a sacred gift to myself, a trusted exegetical companion – Paul's Letters from Prison,G B Caird (Oxford, Clarendon: 1976) Bought in the John Smith Bookshop on the Campus of Stirling University, in March 1976 – cost then – £2.25! I doubt I ever spent money on a book more wisely and for better reward. Yes there are the big heavies – and I have most of them (Markus Barth, Ernest Best, Andrew Lincoln, P T O'Brien, and just arrived Clinton Arnold and Frank Thielman – no space for Hoehner's encyclopedic doorstopper). But there is an elegance in Caird's 90 pages on Ephesians, and for me an affection for this careful scholar, that makes this small book special. It's one of the very few commentaries I've ever slipped into a flight bag and read at an airport! I know – sad – better to read Lee Child, or Henning Mankell, Ian McEwan.
Maybe so. But for the umpteenth time I'm keeping company with G B Caird on Ephesians, trying to live with the tensions and paradoxes of grace unspeakable, unsearchable riches, all summed up in Ephesians 2.4-5, "But because of his great love for us, God who is rich in mercy, made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions – it is by grace you have been saved". That's the greatest paradox of them all – our transgressions and God's great love for us. Who would ever have thought they could be reconciled – except God, who is rich in mercy?
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