Ephesians 3:8

8. Unto me] A slight pause and new start here occurs in the long parenthesis. The thought of his commission, and of the Divine power which enabled him, leads by contrast to the thought of the personal insignificance and unworthiness of the subject of that power, in view of the field and of the message.

less than the least] One Greek word, and that a unique one. It is a comparative-superlative; “more least,” “leaster,” where “lesser” would be the regular form. The holy intensity of thought breaks the bounds of accidence. For the sentiment—no flight of rhetoric, but the strong and true result of a profound view of the glory and mercy of Christ—cp. 1Co_15:9; 1Ti_1:15-16.

this grace] See on Eph_3:2 above.

among] Better, unto.

unsearchable] Lit., “not to be tracked by footprints,” a deeply suggestive word. In N.T. the word occurs only here and Rom_11:33 (A.V., “past finding out”). In the LXX. it appears thrice, in the Book of Job_5:9; Job_9:10; Job_34:24.

riches] See on Eph_1:7 for St Paul’s love of this and kindred words.

The whole phrase here before us is one of the greatest in holy Scripture. It presents the truths, harmonized into one truth, of the simplicity and the infinity of the Gospel. All is centralized in Christ, the Christ of Pauline, of New Testament, theology, the Incarnate Son slain, risen, and glorified; and from that Centre diverge countless lines of application to every need of the human soul. A Gospel thus described is totally different from an ethical code, or system; and equally different from a mere growth, however sublime, of human sentiment and aspiration. It claims to be nothing less than a direct unfolding of Divine resources of love and power.—See Appendix E for a remarkable incident in Christian biography, connected with this clause.

E. THE UNSEARCHABLE RICHES OF CHRIST. (Ch. Eph_3:8.)

The following passage, referred to in the notes, is extracted from “A Sermon preached in the Parish Church of St Paul’s, Deptford, on Sunday, May 7, 1786, on the lamented occasion of the death of Richard Conyers, LL.D., late Rector of that Parish,” by the Rev. John Newton.

“When he entered upon his ministry at his beloved Helmsley, in Yorkshire, he found the place ignorant and dissolute to a proverb … With much zeal and diligence, he attempted the reformation of his parish, which was of great extent and divided into several hamlets. He preached frequently in them all. He encouraged his parishioners to come to his house. He distributed them into little companies, that he might instruct them with more convenience; he met them in rotation by appointment. In this manner … I have been assured that he often preached or exhorted, publicly or more privately, twenty times in a week. These labours were not in vain; a great, visible, and almost universal reformation took place. About the time I am speaking of, a clergyman in his neighbourhood made very honourable mention of Mr Conyers, in a letter to the Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge (which I have seen in print), as perhaps the most exemplary, indefatigable and successful, parochial minister in the kingdom. Yet, in the midst of applause and apparent success, he was far from being satisfied with himself. He did what he could; he did more than most others; but he felt there was something still wanting, though for a time he knew not what; but he was desirous to know. He studied the Scriptures, and he prayed to the Father of lights. They who thus seek shall surely find. Important consequences often follow from a sudden, involuntary turn ot thought. One day an expression of St Paul’s, ‘the unsearchable riches of Christ’ (Eph_3:8), engaged his attention. He had often read the passage, but never noticed the word ‘unsearchable’ before. The Gospel, in his view of it, had appeared plain and within his comprehension; but the Apostle spoke of it as containing something that was ‘unsearchable.’ A conclusion, therefore forced itself upon him that the idea he had hitherto affixed to the word ‘Gospel,’ could not be the same with that of the Apostle.… Thus he was brought, with the Apostle, to account his former gain but loss. The ‘unsearchable riches of Christ’ opened to his mind; he received power to believe; his perplexities were removed, and he ‘rejoiced with joy unspeakable and full of glory.’ … He, from that time, preached Jesus Christ, and Him crucified, as the only ground of hope for sinners, and the only source from whence they could derive wisdom, righteousness, sanctification and redemption, 1Co_2:2; 1Co_1:30.… This change in his sentiments, and manner of preaching, though it added efficacy to his moral instructions, and endeared him to his people at home, lost him much of that high estimation in which he had been held abroad. But he knew the gospel of God too well to be ashamed of it: whatever disgrace he suffered in such a cause he could bear with patience[43].”

[43] Conyers’ name occurs in Cowper’s Truth:“[Heaven’s] open, and ye cannot enter—why?Because ye will not, Conyers would reply.”

The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (gen. ed. J. J. S. Perowne; Cambridge University Press, 1878–1918) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Eph_3:8

Unto me, who am less than the least of all saints, is this grace given, that I should preach among the Gentiles the unsearchable riches of Christ.

Unsearchable riches offered to the Gentiles

It is evident from Scripture that God never intended that the privileges of adoption into His family and kingdom should be permanently confined to any particular nation. It is evident that the promise was originally given to Abraham, as the father of all them that believe, and not as a promise to be restricted to those who should be his posterity according to the flesh. And, although our Saviours personal ministry was limited almost entirely to the lost sheep of the house of Israel, He Himself expressly asserted that He had other sheep who were not of that fold--that them also He must bring within the sacred enclosure--and that, after a time, there would thus be but one fold and one Shepherd.

I. How humble He was. He considered himself less than the least of all saints. There was no affectation of humility here; the apostle felt as he wrote. Once he made his boast of the law, and relied on his own righteousness; now he felt that the law condemned him, and that the righteousness of Christ must be his only plea. Brethren, have you never persecuted Jesus in the persons of His saints? Have you never sneered at what the world calls the over strictness of His true disciples? Have you never treated individuals among them with scorn and derision? Have you never espoused the cause and followed the example of Christs enemies?

II. How catholic he was. Unto me is this grace given, that I should preach among the Gentiles. He rejoiced that God had given him this grace, conferred upon him this favour, distinguished him by this honour. He was, par excellence, the apostle of the Gentiles, and he gloried in the distinction. His Jewish prejudices had melted away like wreaths of night mist at the rising of the sun. His Christian sympathies now embraced the whole family of man; he was now as catholic as he had formerly been bigoted. Whether among the philosophers of Athens, or the sensualists of Corinth whether among the worshippers of Diana at Ephesus, or the worshippers of Jupiter at Lystra--whether among Jews in their synagogues, or among Gentiles in their market places--Paul preached a free and full gospel, declaring that it was the power of God unto salvation to everyone that believed, and that now God called on all men everywhere to repent. One effect of the Holy Spirits teaching was, to enable him to contemplate mankind from a higher point of view, and with a wider range of vision, as all the offspring of one heavenly Father, against whom they had rebelled, and to whom now they might be reconciled. Brethren, let us beware against cherishing in the Christian Church a spirit of Jewish exclusiveness. It is begotten of ignorance and pride, and kept alive by a spurious zeal not according to knowledge.

III. How he valued the gospel. He calls it the unsearchable riches of Christ. If men believed that the gospel could lead to unsearchable riches, how anxious they would be to inquire into it, and to appropriate its benefits! See how St. Paul valued the gospel. He valued it because he had experienced the blessedness of being at peace with God through Christ; he valued it because it gave him a foretaste of heaven here, and the sure prospect of heaven hereafter; he valued it because he had found in it what a sinner ought to prize more than ten thousand worlds--the unsearchable riches of Christ, a treasury of wisdom, a bank of merit, a storehouse of rewards, from which the soul may continue to draw throughout eternity, without exhausting, or even diminishing the supply; for in Christ there is infinite fulness, in Him dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead. (J. Mackay, B. D.)

Pauls humility and zeal a pattern for Christians

I. Let us observe what he says of himself. I am less than the least of all saints. However high religion may rise in the superstructure, it always lays the foundation very low, in the deepest self-abasement. And those of you who have passed through the process, well know that the day of conviction is a day of self-annihilation. I believe, that if there be one word that will comprehend more than another the substance of genuine religion, it will be found to be humility. For which reason, we presume, our great reformer, Luther, when he was asked, What is the first step in religion? replied, Humility. What is the second? he replied, Humility. What is the third? he replied, Humility. And does not the language of the Apostle Peter correspond with this, when he says, Be ye clothed with humility; for God resisteth the proud, but giveth grace to the humble. Abraham said, I am but dust and ashes; Jacob--I am not worthy of the least of all thy mercies; Job--Behold I am vile, what shall I answer thee? Isaiah--Woe is me, for I am undone; for I am a man of unclean lips; Peter--Depart from me, for I am a sinful man, O Lord; John, the forerunner of the Saviour--Whose shoes latchet I am not worthy to stoop down and unloose. A few words, however, will be here necessary, by way of elucidation, or rather qualification.

1. I hope you will not consider this character of Paul, as the offspring of falsehood and affectation. Christians have often been ridiculed for depreciating themselves. The case is this: where show is a substitute for reality it is always excessive. Actors always surpass the original characters. Some people angle for praise with the bait of humility; I hope you will never be caught by it. Adams, in his Private Thoughts, with that searchingness of spirit so peculiar to him, says, O Lord, I want more humility. And why do I want it? To be noticed and admired for it. Ah, my God, I see that my humility is very little better than pride. Baxter observes that he had always considered Judge Hale defective with regard to experimental religion; But, says he, the cause was, he had witnessed so much pretence and hypocrisy during the Commonwealth, that he rushed into the opposite extreme. Remember that Paul here speaks from his real views and feelings, when he says, I am less than the least of all saints? And you will observe also on what he fixes his eye in this comparative depreciation of himself. I am less, says he, than the least of all saints. Saints means holy ones; it is therefore of holiness of which he speaks; not of his condition, not of his natural talents, not of his learning, not of his knowledge, but of holiness. Let each esteem other better than himself. The maxim will not apply universally; to use it in some cases would be folly. It would be absurdity, not humility, for a strong and healthy man to esteem a weak, sick one, as more able to do many things than himself; or for a wealthy man to suppose that a poor man is richer than himself; or a scholar to suppose that an illiterate man is wiser than himself. But it is otherwise with regard to holiness: there you never should presume in your own favour; never suppose that another exercises less self-denial or conscientiousness than yourselves. He may have imperfections, but those imperfections may have extenuations which may not attach to your deficiencies. In a word, you only see the actions of another; whereas you may feed upon your own motives and principles.

II. Observe what he says of his office. Unto me, who am less than the least of all saints, is this grace given, that I should preach. Augustine calls Paul the herald of grace. He well deserves the name; he is always magnifying it; never loses sight of it for a moment. He connects it, you see, with everything. He connects it with his conversion, The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ was exceeding abundant to me-ward. He connects it with his conversation in the world, Not by fleshly wisdom, but by the grace of God we have our conversation in the world. He connects it with his unparalleled exertions: I laboured more abundantly than they all; yet not I, but the grace of God which was with me. He connects it with his functions: Unto me, who am less than the least; of all saints, is this grace given. What grace is there here? What do princes when they want ministers, or masters when they want servants? They will be sure to take those who seem the most meritorious, and who already possess the qualities and excellences they require in them. Why? Because if they have them not, they cannot impart them. God can; and therefore, in calling His servants He also qualifies them; and therefore frequently takes the most unsuitable and the most inadequate, in order to show that the excellency of the power is of God, and not of man. When the apostle says, Unto me, who am less than the least of all saints, is this grace given, he shows the estimation in which he held the work in which he was engaged. And, my brethren, though the ministry has been degraded and rendered despicable by many who have been attached to it; yet; in itself the work is honourable and glorious; and they who properly discharge it, as the apostle says, ought to be highly esteemed in love, for their works sake.

III. Let us observe what he says of his audience. Unto me, who am less than the least of all saints, is this grace given, that I should preach among the Gentiles; not exclusively, but immediately, extensively, and peculiarly. And there is something remarkable and worthy of notice in this. And here you see in the apostles case the nature of the Christian dispensation. You will observe that the Christian dispensation did not properly commence till the death of Christ. Accordingly during His abode on earth He was the Minister of the circumcision only. And when He sent forth the apostles and the seventy, He said, Go not into the way of the Gentiles, and into any city of the Samaritans enter ye not, but go rather to the lost sheep of the house of Israel. But upon His resurrection from the dead, when this glorious economy had actually commenced, His language and His commission was conformable to it; then said He to them, Go into all the world, and teach the gospel to every creature. There is nothing, therefore, in the Christian dispensation like that of Judaism. Judaism was of Divine origin: but then it was exclusive; it was confined, and it was necessarily confined, to a particular nation. In the nature of the case it never could have become a universal religion. How could all the males in all the countries of the earth have repaired three times a your to Jerusalem, to appear before the Lord and to worship there? Christianity has no localities; our Saviour said to the woman, The hour cometh, yea, now is, when neither in this mountain, nor yet at Jerusalem (exclusively) shall men worship the Father; but all shall worship Him in spirit and in truth. The gospel therefore overlooks everything that is external and adventitious in mens condition, and regards them as men only.

IV. Observe what he says of his subject. Unto me, who am less than the least of all saints, is this grace given, that I should preach among the Gentiles the unsearchable riches of Christ; the model after which all ministers should be conformed; all of us should be able to make use of the same language with them. They could say, We preach not heathen virtues, not Jewish economies, not moral systems, not worldly politics, not Church discipline, not the difference in forms and modes of worship; we have a noble theme. We leave nature to the philosophers; our philosophy is to know God manifest in the flesh. We leave the planets to astronomers; our astronomy is to teach people to adore the bright and morning Star, to adore the Sun of Righteousness, rising with healing under His wings. We leave geometry to the mathematicians; our geometry is to teach people to comprehend with all saints, what is the height, and depth, and length, and breadth, and to know the love of Christ, which passeth knowledge; our arithmetics to teach men so to number their days, as to apply their hearts unto wisdom. We leave criticism and language to the rhetoricians, concerned only to be skilled in the language of Canaan, and to speak according to the living oracles of God. We preach not ourselves, but Christ Jesus the Lord; We preach Christ crucified, to the Jews a stumbling block, and to the Greeks foolishness; but to them which are called both Jew and Greek, Christ, the power of God and the wisdom of God. The world has its riches, but they are easily comprehended; and Solomon summed them all up when he said, Vanity of vanities; vanity of vanities, saith the preacher; all is vanity. All the wealth of the world, all the world calls good and great, is infinitely inferior to mind. I say to mind. The riches of the Saviour are for the soul, and for eternity; they are therefore invisible as to the senses; and they are boundless too, so that no creature in heaven or earth can ever fully explore them. (W. Jay.)

The ministry of the Apostle Paul

I. Let us cursorily glance at the character of St. Paul as here described. Me, who am less than the least of all saints.

1. The description which the apostle here gives us of his character must not, on any account, encourage the idea that personal piety can be dispensed with in a Christian minister.

2. The description which St. Paul here gives us of his character may teach us that, even where an individual is a decided and distinguished saint, the level which he occupies as a religious man may be, in some sense, comparatively low. The circumstance which may be regarded as having mainly contributed to lower the apostles place in the catalogue of the saints was this, that he spent so large and important a portion of his life in pursuits that were not only alien from the gospel of Christ, but fiercely opposed to His kingdom and His cause. But there is also another principle which determines the comparative place which a particular believer occupies in the scale of Christian saintship, namely, the amount of his actual attainments. And oh, to whatever extent St. Paul may have able to abide this searching test, what a humiliating view might it give, if fairly applied, of a multitude of saints! How many of those who obtain the character, and with sufficient reason, of enlightened and devoted Christians, are, if contemplated in the light of their religious advantages, but faint and feeble after all!

3. The description which St. Paul here gives of himself, as less than the least of all saints, may serve as a model of humility.

II. Let us glance at the functions which St. Paul was called to execute. That I should preach among the Gentiles the unsearchable riches of Christ, and make all men see what is the fellowship of the mystery which from the beginning of the world hath been hid in God.

1. St. Paul was called to preach. The original word here rendered preach, means to be the messenger of good tidings. It is a verb corresponding to the substantive translated gospel. The apostle, then, was to announce the gospel--a message to which the name of good tidings may be attached, both because of its essential character as a record of Gods pardoning and saving mercy, and because of its relative character as the power of God unto salvation to everyone that believeth. O blessed and delightful view of the apostles ministry! He had a gospel to declare.

2. St. Paul was called to preach the unsearchable riches of Christ. The expression, riches of Christ, comprehensively denotes the personal excellence and mediatorial sufficiency of Jesus. There are seven constituent elements more especially in the unsearchable riches of Christ, which, in the name and by the authority of God, the apostle preached.

(1) He preached the Divine supremacy of Christ.

(2) St. Paul preached the prophetic excellence of Christ--disclosing the depths of celestial wisdom which, in person, and by his commissioned messengers, that infallible instructor taught, and making manifest that, in teaching thus, the Redeemer spake the words of God.

(3) He preached the perfection of the Lords humanity, announcing him for the vindication of the Fathers righteousness, and the satisfaction of the sinners soul, as the spotless Lamb of sacrifice.

(4) He preached Christs atoning sacrifice. But

(5) it the apostle preached Christ as the Saviour on the cross, he also preached Him as the Saviour on the throne.

(6) From heaven he descended, as it were, along with Him, to earth amidst the thunders of the day of doom. But

(7) the Apostle Paul set forth not only the personal qualifications which Christ possesses, but also the benefits which He has purchased and procured for men.

3. St. Paul was called to preach these riches among the Gentiles.

4. The apostle was commissioned to make all men see what was the fellowship of the mystery which from the beginning of the world had been hid in God.

III. Let us very briefly notice the source to which St. Paul attributes his possession of the ministerial office. Unto me is this grace given.

1. To his God and Saviour the apostle attributes his possession of the ministerial office; and well might he do so. From them he received his commission to preach the gospel (Act_9:15; Act_13:2).

2. The apostles words suggest that to hold the office of the ministry is a privilege. (A. S. Patterson.)

The apostle and his ministry

I. consider what an humble opinion the apostle had of himself. True religion in the heart will produce self-abasing thoughts.

II. The apostle expresses his admiring apprehensions of Gods grace in calling him to the ministry.

III. The apostles elevated sentiments concerning the gospel which he preached.

1. The blessings of the gospel, being purchased by the blood of Christ, are called riches.

2. They have called riches on account of their excellency, fulness, and variety.

3. They are called unsearchable riches, because undiscoverable by human wisdom, and made known only by revelation.

IV. Consider what grand and enlarged conceptions the apostle entertained of the design and importance of his ministry. Concluding reflections.

1. This subject may serve to enlarge our views of the Divine government.

2. This subject suggests to us, that heaven is a place of improvement.

3. We see the humility of angels. (J. Lathrop, D. D.)

The ministry and message of St. Paul

I. The man. His humility! The bird that sings sweetest, and soars highest, builds upon the ground. The flower of richest fragrance is the lowly violet. So humility is the fairest of Christian graces. Notice St. Pauls growth in this. He calls himself successively--

1. The least of the apostles (1Co_15:9).

2. Less than the least of all saints (Eph_3:8).

3. The chief of sinners (1Ti_1:15).

II. The ministry he had received. Its excellence in contrast with his own conscious unworthiness. The treasure on the one hand--the earthen vessel on the other,

1. This ministry a grace given to him. All work for Christ should be so regarded. Accepted as a privilege it ceases to be a task.

2. The grace given. St. Pauls special work as the apostle of the Gentiles. The gathering in of the Jews the difficulty in many minds now; the gathering in of the Gentiles the difficulty then. Duty of the Church as regards missions.

III. The message. Good tidings.

1. Christ: the substance and life of all true preaching.

2. The riches of Christ. Favourite expression of the apostle. Riches of Christs grace (Eph_1:7). Riches of Christs glory (Eph_3:16).

3. Unsearchable riches. Not traced out (Greek); but now revealed. (F. Dobbin, M. A.)

St. Pauls lowly estimate of himself

I am sure Paul was never guilty of mock modesty, and never pretended to be humbler than he really was. At suitable times he could vindicate himself, and claim his position among his fellow men. (C. H. Spurgeon.)

Self-knowledge humiliates

Was Paul really less than the least of all saints? Was not this too low an estimate of himself? Brethren, I suppose he meant that he felt this to be the case when he looked at himself from certain aspects. He was one of the late converts, many of his comrades were in Christ before him, and he yielded precedence to the older ones. He had been aforetime a persecutor and injurious, and, though God had forgiven him, he had never forgiven himself; and when he recollected his share in the sufferings and martyrdom of the saints, he felt that, though now numbered among them, he could only dare to sit in the lowliest place. Besides, any devout man, however eminent he may be in most respects, will find that there are certain other points in which he falls short; and the apostle, instead of looking at the points in which he excelled, singled out with modest eye those qualities in which he felt he failed, and in those respects he put himself down as less than the least of all saints. This strikes us as being a very different mode of speech from that which is adopted by certain brethren. One friend asserts that he has ceased from known sin for some months; and then another brother, to go a little further, asserts that the very being of sin in him has been destroyed, root and branch; of which I believe in both cases not one single word. If those brethren had said that they were sixteen feet high, that their eyes were solid diamonds, and that their hair was Prussian blue, I should feel towards them very much as I do now. They simply do not know themselves, and the best article of furniture they could have in their houses would be a looking glass which would let them see their own selves; if they had once had such a sight, I warrant you they would sing another tune, pitched to a far lower key. Many who now shine in the highest places of self-estimation, will one day be glad enough to sit at the feet of the poorest of the saints, unless I am greatly mistaken; for everyone that exalteth himself shall be abased. (C. H. Spurgeon.)

The humility of St. Paul

I. In what did the humility of St. Paul consist? How did it manifest itself? The slightest acquaintance with his character leaves us no room to suspect that it consisted in words only. There is such an appearance of simplicity and honesty in his writings, that they give us at once a full conviction that the humility which appears in his language, was to be found also in his heart and life.

1. We cannot take even the most hasty glance at these, without at once noticing the entire submission of his mind to the gospel of Christ, the simple and full reception which he gave to every Divine truth.

2. The writings of St. Paul prove the greatness of his humility by showing us also, that the highest spiritual attainments could not make him forget his meanness and guilt.

3. The sense which the apostle had of his own sinfulness, did not however prevent him from seeing and acknowledging what Divine grace had done for his soul, and what it had enabled him to do for God. He sometimes mentions these things, but he never mentions them without affording us another proof of his lowliness of heart--a marked anxiety to give all the glory of all his labours and attainments to God.

4. His humility was manifested also in the low opinion which he had of himself, when compared with his Christian brethren. He speaks not, in the text, the unmeaning language of compliment, but the language of godly sincerity.

5. The humility of St. Paul consisted, lastly, in his simple dependence on Christ.

II. By what means that spirit of self-abasement which reigned in his heart may be habitually maintained in our own. Now let us never forget that we have no power in ourselves to do anything as of ourselves. We are not able to plant a single grace within us; and when any spiritual seed has been planted there, we have no power to keep it alive, and cause it to bring forth fruit. But though we are thus impotent in ourselves, the Holy Spirit generally works His purposes of grace by the use of means, and through these means He allows, yea, He commands, us to seek His grace.

1. One of these means must immediately occur to us; it is this--a frequent remembrance of our former iniquities, and an abiding sense of our present corruptions. Remember, Christian brethren, what you once were.

2. If we would habitually maintain an humble frame of mind, we must have a lively sense of the freeness and fulness of Divine mercy. Think of its beginning in the councils of eternity. Think of its freeness, its greatness, its unchangeableness. Think of that depth of misery from which it has raised you, and of that height of blessedness to which it is gradually lifting you. If such thoughts as these never humble you, write bitter things against yourselves, and deem yourselves strangers to the grace of Christ.

3. The Christian will also find his humility increased by frequently meditating on the infinite purity and majesty of the living God (see Isa_6:5; Job_42:6; Job_42:6).

4. A due sense of the great importance of an humble spirit will also have a tendency to keep us low in our own eyes. The grace of humility is not a merely ornamental grace, a something which it is desirable, but not absolutely necessary, to possess. It lies at the very root of all true religion. It is the source from which almost every spiritual grace must spring. Where this is wanting, everything is wanting.

5. If we would become more lowly in heart, we must, finally, look more to Christ than we have hitherto looked to Him. We must look to Him for humility. We must regard Him as our only Sanctifier, as well as our only Saviour. We must apply to Him to subdue the pride of our hearts, as well as to blot out their sins. (C. Bradley, M. A.)

The subject and spirit of the Christian ministry

This passage is an humble, grateful, and exulting recognition of the sovereign, distinguishing grace of God, which had called, commissioned, and qualified him for the ministry of the gospel, for the defence of which he was now set, and on account of which he was then in bonds; and it presents a statement of the wondrous theme, the grand design, and the appropriate character of the Christian ministry.

I. The distinguishing and comprehensive theme of the Christian ministry--the unsearchable riches of Christ. The phraseology is singularly expressive and affluent. The sentiment is in perfect accord with every avowal of the apostle, and with other statements of the Word of God. The Lord Jesus Christ in His person and work--His attributes and offices--His sufferings and glory--His cross and crown--what He is in Himself and what He is to us, and to the whole universe of God, is the one all-absorbing and exhaustless topic of Divine revelation and apostolic discourse. The expression riches of Christ is a peculiar Pauline phrase, indicating the most exuberant and exhaustless profusion. It denotes whatever is grand and abundant, substantial and permanent, admirable and desirable; and may be applied either to the personal glories pertaining to Christ, or to official blessings bestowed by Him. All spiritual riches are His, and ours only in Him. They flow from Him as their source, and through Him as their channel. Purchased by His blood, obtained by His intercession, supplied by His Spirit, they become ours only as we are united to Him by a living faith.

II. The high character and humble spirit of the Christian ministry. In view of the momentous mysterious truths, the grand comprehensive design, and the wonderful inconceivable results of the gospel of Christ, we are constrained to ask who is worthy to open the book and break the seal of such a Divine mystery. Not one of the shining seraphs before the throne would dare self-impelled to say, Let me fly; yet it has pleased the God of all wisdom and grace to entrust the Divine mission to human agency, to put the treasure into earthen vessels. It is through the sanctified agency of human sympathy, and the earnestness of human conviction, testifying of the gospel of the grace of God, and proclaiming in simplicity and sincerity the unsearchable riches of Christ, that the world is to be enlightened and saved. The Christian minister must be saved and sent.

1. Saved. The first and indispensable qualification of a minister of the gospel is, that he be personally a subject of its saving power, a saint, though in his own estimation one of the least.

2. Sent--grace given; made a minister. The manner of the apostles call was as strikingly supernatural as his work was distinctively peculiar; and no minister can expect such a personal commission, or such a Divine revelation. Yet to all, as to him, the commission and necessity to preach comes from the Lord--the authority and ability are both imparted. The man who feels he has a message from God to deliver, full of meaning as it is full of power, is fearless as a prophet, and brave as an apostle. He has comfort in his work, is confident of its success, and assured of its triumph. (W. Ormiston, D. D.)

Humility of greatness

On his way to Sweden the celebrated Grotius was overtaken by mortal sickness; and when the clergyman, Quinstorp, reminded him of his sins on the one hand, and on the other, not of his services and worldwide reputation, but the grace of God in Christ Jesus, with a reference to the publican--I am that publican, replied Grotius, and then expired. Hooker, the author of the Ecclesiastical Polity, one of the noblest books in the language, after he had been made preacher at the Temple Church, besought Archbishop Whitgift, who had given him that position, to remove him to a lowlier sphere of labour.

Great saints are lowly

When Mr. Morrison, the Missionary to China, needed an assistant, Mr. Milne, afterwards the celebrated Dr. Milne, offered himself. As soon as the examiners had talked with him, they saw that his heart was right enough, but he had a clownish look, and a dullness of expression; when the youth was gone out of the room, one of the examiners said, He is scarcely a proper person to send, we need a man of greater intellect. At last they agreed that they had better send him as a servant, the servant of the mission, to do the work of the household, clean Dr. Morrisons boots, and such like things, I suppose. So Dr. Phillip was requested to communicate this to him, and he told him that the committee did not feel he was qualified to go as a missionary, would he mind going as a servant? The youths eye sparkled, and he said, It is too much honour for me even if I am but a hewer of wood and a drawer of water for the Lord my God. And thus he went forth, and afterwards, as you know, became one of the most useful of missionaries. How many a man would have said, Gentle, men, I did not come for that; this is treating me with a want of respect. Surely you do not know who I am, or else you would not suppose for a moment that I would be willing to be a mere drudge and menial servant! They know not the Lord who only desire His service for the honour which it brings; but they have their hearts right before Him who want no honour for themselves, but only desire that His name may be extolled above the hills, that He may be made famous. (C. H. Spurgeon.)

The missionary calling

Few men are so great as St. Paul. Few know even the names of other men of his time. Emperors and great men, their kingdoms and languages, are all perished. But his name and his power is as fresh as ever. The science of today lowers all human power, but raises the intellect and the spirit. It raises the kings of the spirit rather than the body, and amongst these St. Paul. The more a man can grasp, the more important becomes his fate. Not the body, so small. Not the earthly life, so short. But the being which can see further than the eye, and look on, and back, and before, and beyond even the earth itself. Wisdom for this life is a goad thing, and well rewarded. Wisdom that sees through nature is a great thing, and we are proud of those who have it. There is a wisdom beyond either. Of what use is it to grow rich and die? to know all things, and be the victim of remorse, or of evil passions that will not let the soul rest? Our perfections are the reflections of Gods perfections. He is Almighty and Omniscient, and the strong and knowing are good. He is all Good and all Merciful, and the reflection of these attributes is better than knowledge or strength. He is a benefactor to mankind who makes grass grow where it never grew before. He was, who made the first almanac. But he is much more so who first declared the unsearchable riches of God.

I. The highest calling is that of a missionary. St. Paul is the great pattern missionary, and, therefore, the greatest figure in history. It is necessary thus to raise our thoughts, in order to think rightly of missionary work. I do not ask your charity to give a trifle to a poor missionary or to a poor heathen. But I ask you to consider what is the greatest and noblest work in the world, and in charity to yourselves to take a part in it. It was the greatest glory of St. Paul that he was called to take a part in it. He did not condescend to it, but it to him. We know how hopelessly it tangles a work to begin at the wrong end. So it is, if we look upon missions as what we benefit, and not as what benefit us.

II. Duties come to us in many shapes and with many sanctions.

1. This comes to us as a grace. St. Paul accepted the duty as a grace, a gift, and using it as such is great. So accepting our duties we turn them to our profit.

2. And this grace comes to us as Christians. Christ has given Himself to us, that we should share His character and His work.

3. It comes to us peculiarly as Englishmen. The nation whose rule is so wide, that other nations come to evangelize our possessions, and reap a part of our reward. The question before us is, how is the highest work of man to be done? It is Gods work, and in His own time will be done. But, by us? or, by whom?

III. Here are both honour and profit that are our own.

1. The honour to work Gods own work, who is the true fountain of honour.

2. The profit, which transcends the profit that fills mens minds, as heaven does earth, and eternity does a mans life. What is there more noble than to give ones whole power and life to pure benevolence? And what reward greater than the eternal company of those who owe these blessings to us? To us all is this grace given. Take your part--if you cannot in body, at least in heart; if not your life, at least offer of your gains for this greatest and holiest of callings. (Bishop E. Steere.)

The grace given to Paul

The enthusiasm with which the apostle speaks of preaching the gospel to the heathen is contagious. His words burn on the page, and our hearts take fire as we read them. What was the secret of this exultation in the gospel and in his commission to make the gospel known to all mankind?

1. Paul had a vivid intellectual interest in the Christian gospel. To him it was a real revelation of the most wonderful and surprising truths concerning God and the relations of God to the human race. It urged his intellectual posers to their most strenuous activity. It never lost its freshness. It was never exhausted. Its boundaries were always advancing. In all the great movements of religious reform that have permanently elevated the religious life of Christendom, there has been a renewal of intellectual interest in the Christian revelation. Some forgotten aspects of the gospel have been recovered; the theological definitions which had for a generation or two been a sufficient expression of the results at which human speculation had arrived concerning the great facts of revelation have been challenged and discredited, and the mind of the Church has been brought into immediate contact with the facts themselves; the methods which had determined the construction of theological systems have become obsolete, and the work of reconstruction has tasked the genius and the learning of the leaders of Christian thought; the central principles of the gospel have received new applications to individual conduct and to the organization of social life; in all these ways a fresh and keen intellectual interest has been excited in Christian truth, and the intellectual interest has deepened moral and spiritual earnestness.

2. The heart and imagination of Paul were filled with the infinite and eternal blessings which were the inheritance of the human race in Christ. For human sin there was the Divine forgiveness. For human weakness in its baffled attempts to emancipate itself from the tyranny of evil habits and evil passions there was Divine redemption. For human uncertainty and doubt in the presence of the great problems of life and death there was the illumination of the Spirit and free access to God. For restless discontent at the limitations of human virtue there was the possibility of a transcendent righteousness through union with the life of the eternal Son of God. Paul believed in the unsearchable riches of Christ. We shall never recover his enthusiasm as long as we dwell chiefly on the external and incidental benefits which follow the acceptance of the Christian gospel. As a Christian minister at home I decline to have the value of my work estimated by the extent to which it lightens the work of the police, and diminishes the cost to the ratepayers and the nation of maintaining workhouses and jails. As an advocate of Christian missions to the heathen, I decline to have the value of missionary faith and heroism measured by the annual value of the new markets in Africa and the Pacific for English hardware and cotton goods. Give to every cluster of miserable huts in Central Africa and in the islands of the South Pacific, the material wealth and splendour of the foremost cities of Europe; transform their savage chiefs into cultivated statesmen; let their people be trained to discuss the philosophy of Plato and to admire the majesty of the genius of AEschylus; let them become famous for their brilliant discoveries in science, let them create a literature with an original grace, beauty, and dignity; and all this would be as nothing compared with what you have done for them, in bringing them home to God, in assuring them of the tenderness and strength of the love of the Father whom they had forgotten, in opening to them the fountains of eternal life and eternal righteousness, in making them the heirs of eternal glory. This was Pauls faith, and this faith was, in fact, the source of his invincible energy and his passionate enthusiasm. (R. W. Dale, LL. D.)

Ministerial humility and zeal

How the apostle could say he was the least of all saints. Because for Christ a servant of all saints; also because of his base intreaty from men. Moreover, he saw more clearly his own corruption than that of others; and the true speech follows the true apprehension. Boughs most ]laden with fruit bow more than the empty.

1. The most excellent men must think submissively of themselves.

2. A great favour of God to be called to the ministry.

3. To abase ourselves is the way to extol Gods grace.

4. Ministers of the gospel bring good tidings to men.

(1) They are swinish who neglect the gospel.

(2) We must depend on the gospel.

5. Ministers must principally preach Christ Jesus.

6. None are able to come to the full knowledge of Christ. Unsearchable riches. The veins of this mine are never worked out. (Paul Bayne.)

Humility of a minister

Doctor Durham, of the Scottish Presbyterians, and a popular young minister, were walking together to their several places of worship, situated near to each other, into one of which multitudes crowded, while but few entered the other. Brother, said the Doctor to his young friend, You will have a crowded church today. The other replied, They are to blame who leave you and come to us. Not so, replied the Doctor, for a minister can receive no such honour and success in his ministry, except it be given him from heaven. I rejoice that Christ is preached, and that His kingdom is gaining ground, though my estimation in peoples hearts should decrease; for I am content to be anything, so that Christ may be all in all.

The unsearchable riches of Christ.

The unsearchable riches of Christ

The Apostle Paul felt it to be a great privilege to be allowed to preach the gospel. He did not look upon his calling as a drudgery, or a servitude, but he entered upon it with intense delight. If a herald were sent to a besieged city with the tidings that no terms of capitulation would be offered, but that every rebel without exception should be put to death, methinks he would go with lingering footsteps; but if instead thereof, he were commissioned to go to the gates with the white flag to proclaim a free pardon, a general act of amnesty and oblivion, surely he would run as though he had wings to his heels, with a joyful alacrity, to tell to his fellow citizens the good pleasure of their merciful king. Heralds of salvation, ye carry the most joyful of all messages to the sons of men.

I. The person mentioned--Jesus Christ. Do not many preachers make a great mistake by preaching doctrine instead of preaching the Saviour? Certainly the doctrines are to be preached, but they ought to be looked upon as the robes and vestments of the man Christ Jesus, and not as complete in themselves. The doctrines of the gospel are a golden throne upon which Jesus sits, as king. In the old romance, they tell us that at the gate of a certain noble hall there hung a horn, and none could blow that horn but the true heir to the castle and its wide domains. Many tried it. They could make sweet music on other instruments; they could wake the echoes by other bugles; but that horn was mute, let them blow as they might. At last, the true heir came, and when he set his lips to the horn, shrill was the sound and indisputable his claim. He who can preach Christ is the true minister. Brethren, the Christian minister should be like these golden spring flowers which we are so glad to see. Have you observed them when the sun is shining? How they open their golden cups, and each one whispers to the great sun, Fill me with thy beams! but when the sun is hidden behind a cloud, where are they? They close their cups and droop their heads. So should the Christian feel the sweet influences of Jesus; so especially should the Christian minister be subject to his Lord. Jesus must be his sun, and he must be the flower which yields itself to the Sun of Righteousness. Happy would it be for us if our hearts and our lips could become like Anacreons harp, which was wedded to one subject, and would learn no ether. He wished to sing of the sons of Atreus, and the mighty deeds of Hercules, but his harp resounded love alone; and when he would have sung of Cadmus, his harp refused it would sing of love alone. Oh! to speak of Christ alone--to be tied and bound to this one theme forever; to speak alone of Jesus, and of the amazing love of the glorious Son of God, who, though He was rich, yet for our sakes became poor. This is the subject which is both seed for the sower, and bread for the eater. This is the live coal for the lip of the preacher, and the master key to the heart of the hearer.

II. The unsearchable riches spoken of in the text. In what respects may we ascribe to our Lord Jesus the possession of unsearchable riches?

1. He has unsearchable riches of love for sinners as they are. Jesus so loved the souls of men that we can only use the so, but we cannot find the word to match with it. In the French Revolution, there was a young man condemned to the guillotine, and shut up in one of the prisons. He was greatly loved by many, but there was one who loved him more than all put together. How know we this? It was his own father; and the love he bore his son was proved in this way: when the lists were called, the father, whose name was exactly the same as his sons, answered to the name, and the father rode in the gloomy tumbril out to the place of execution, and his head rolled beneath the axe instead of his sons, a victim to mighty love. An image of the love of Christ to sinners; thus Jesus died for the ungodly, viewed as such.

2. Jesus has riches of pardon for those who repent of their sins. No guiltiness can possibly transcend the efficacy of His precious blood. The gospel of Christ is meant for the lowest of the low. There is no den where the Saviour cannot work; there is no loathsome haunt of sin too foul for Him to cleanse. The heathen fabled of their Hercules that he cleansed the Augean stables by turning a river through them, and so washing away the filth of ages; if your heart be such a stable, Christ is greater than the mightiest Hercules--He can cause the river of His cleansing blood to flow right through your heart, and your iniquities, though they are a heap of abominations, shall be put away forever. Riches of love to sinners as such, and riches of pardon to sinners who repent, are stored up in the Lord Jesus.

3. Christ has riches of comfort for all who mourn.

4. He has riches of wisdom. The desire to know has sent men roving over all the world, but he who finds Jesus may stay at home and be wise. If you sit at His feet, you shall know what Plato could not teach you, and what Socrates never learned. When the old schoolmen could not answer and defend a proposition, they were wont to say, I will go to Aristotle: he shall help me out. If you do but learn of Christ, He shall help you out of all difficulties; and that which is most useful for your soul to know, the knowledge, which will last you in eternity, Christ shall teach to you.

5. My Master has riches of happiness to bestow upon you. After all, he is the rich man who wears hearts ease in his button hole. The man who can say, I have enough, is richer than the peer of the realm who is discontented. Believe me, my Lord can make you to lie down in green pastures, and lead you beside still waters. There is no music like the music of His pipe, when He is the Shepherd and you are the sheep, and: you lie down at His feet. There is no love like His, neither earth nor heaven can match it.

6. The unsearchable riches of Christ will be best known in eternity.

III. Lastly, there must have been a royal intention in the heart of Christ in sending out Paul to preach of His unsearchable riches, because every man must have a motive for what he does, and beyond all question, Jesus Christ has a motive. Did you ever hear of a man who employed a number of persons to go about to proclaim his riches, and call hundreds of people together, and thousands, as on this occasion, simply to tell them that So-and-so was very rich? Why, the crowds would say, What is that to us? But if at the conclusion, the messenger could say, But all these riches he presents to you, and whoever among you shall desire to be made rich, can be enriched now by him. Ah! then you would say, Now we see the sense of it. Now we perceive the gracious drift of it all. Now, my Lord Jesus Christ is very strong, but all that strength is pledged to help a poor weak sinner to enter into heaven.

1. How rich must those be who have Christ for a friend! They who get Christ to be their own property are like the man who, having long eaten of fruit from a certain tree, was no longer satisfied with having the fruit, but he must needs take up the tree and plant it in his own garden. Happy those who have Christ planted as the tree of life in the soil of their hearts! You not only have His grace, and His love, and His merit, but you have Himself.

2. How transcendently foolish, on the other hand, must those be who will not have Christ when He is to be had for the asking! who prefer the baubles and the bubbles of this world, and let the solid gold of eternity go by! (C. H. Spurgeon.)

The true riches

I. One of the gifts which Christ bestows upon us out of the unsearchable riches of His grace and love, is the forgiveness of our sins.

II. Another gift which Christ bestows, is the gift of the Holy Spirit. To be spiritually minded is life and peace. To be spiritually minded means to have our thoughts and affections, our hearts and minds, changed by the Holy Spirit of God. Rich, then, is he with the truest riches, in whose heart Gods Holy Spirit dwells and is not driven away.

III. Nor are these all the gifts out of Christs unsearchable riches. He promises to His people enough to carry them through this world, where they are but strangers and travellers; and He plainly tells us, that if we seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, other things, as far as is good for us, shall be added.

IV. But Christ keeps his richest gifts to the last. It is after death that He bestows on them that love Him the full cup of salvation, the everlasting blessedness of heaven (1Jn_3:2). (E. Blencowe, M. A.)

The unsearchable riches of Christ

I. Paul preached riches. This word represents three things--value, abundance, and supply. Let us look briefly at these three things.

1. He exhibited to the Gentiles that which is truly and supremely valuable--valuable to a mans whole nature--valuable for the life which now is, and for that which is to come--that which God by everything that He has said concerning it, and by all that He has done concerning it, recognizes as supremely valuable.

2. He preached also abundance--not something valuable, but much--not competency, but wealth--as much as a man needs--more than we could ask or think--such abundance as that it does not diminish with scattering--such abundance as that it does not perish with using--water, it is true, but not water in cisterns which may become leaky, or a short supply which will soon be exhausted; but water in fountains, even living water, everlasting water, outflowing water.

3. Now you may have value without abundance; you may have abundance without value; you may have value and abundance without supply: but here, brethren, is value, abundance, and supply. The value, the precious thing existing in abundance, is abundantly supplied. Paul preached therefore not only that which he knew to be supremely valuable and fully abundant, but that which was as freely given--subjective riches--that which is wealth to the man who hath it. I do not know much about earthly wealth, and I dare say some of you, when you hear me talking about it, say that I know very little about it; and therefore should perhaps scarcely speak of wealth, but so far as I can understand this matter, there does not seem to be such a thing as subjective riches to the men who are trying to get rich in this worlds goods. Let me just explain myself. A man is starting in business, and he says to himself, Well, I will try to make, if I can, £20,000 or £30,000, and when I have this in store I shall never need or wish to add to it a farthing. He aims after this £30,000, and he gets it; but when he has it does he feel rich? No such thing. In order to feel rich he must have £30,000 more; and he starts again for that goal. Now his aim is £60,000. He gets £60,000; but does he now feel rich? No, there is somebody else who has £120,000; and he starts for the third goal; and he reaches it. And now there is somebody else--some fellow merchant, or some neighbour--who has twice £120,000; and you find the man again striving after that twice £120,000. So that, as far as I understand it (and I admit that I know very little about it), rich men do not feel rich--they never have enough. You who have only your daily bread put upon your table think men rich when they have in store some ten thousands of pounds, and very rich if some hundreds of thousands of pounds; but the possessors do not feel rich. How often do we find them, even with these large resources, complaining of poverty; and how often do these rich men live in far more dread of dying in the workhouse than those of us have who receive from heaven day by day our daily bread! You see, therefore, that earthly riches are not in every case subjective wealth; for a man may have a very large amount of treasure upon earth, and yet not feel to be a rich man. But now, brethren, look at this. The man who has the unsearchable riches of Christ feels to be enriched by those unsearchable riches.

II. Unsearchable riches; that is, value not traced by inquiry and investigation. Who can set a price upon truth? Who can tell what a right idea about anything is worth? The thing is too good to have a price set upon it. You cannot tell what one right thought may be to you, or what one right thought might do for you. Now look at the thoughts that cluster around this word riches as representing value, abundance, and supply. Unsearchable riches--value not fixed, not traced out by investigation--abundance inexplorable by want and by desire--supply inexhaustible by enjoyment and by use--the unsearchable riches of Christ; that is, inconceivable value in Christ Himself. He is of inconceivable value as the manifestation of God. Then look at abundance in gifts which Christ has ready for men--pardon, acquittal, restoration to the position of children, regeneration, and the entire purification and spiritual elevation of our nature, the lost Paradise restored and regained--all these things in His hand, mark, ready, so that we have only to ask and to have. Marvellous is all this, but it is true. Then, mark also, Christs freedom of bestowal. Everyone that asketh receiveth. Everyone. There is not an exception. I know that men try to make exceptions; and I do not wonder at it. We are such niggardly, selfish, hard-hearted, close-fisted, stingy creatures ourselves, and so unwilling to make sacrifices, that we cannot believe that Christ gives so freely. A mans faith is very much influenced by his own disposition. You see this continually. And our dispositions make us unbelievers in Gods loving words. (S. Martin, D. D.)

The unsearchable riches of Christ

1. Here, then, in the very outset, is unsearchable mercy; the immensity of the Divine Redeemers condescension and love! Who can search, who can understand it? It is higher than heaven, what canst thou know of it? Admire thou mayest, and adore and love; but it is beyond the stretch of thy created powers to conceive, beyond the capacity of any creature.

2. We may consider, in the next place, the preciousness, the value, the efficacy of the incarnation and sufferings of our Redeemer. All the attributes of the Godhead are perfect and infinite; His holiness and justice, as well as His mercy.

3. Intimately connected with this consideration is the recollection of Gods exceeding love towards us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. Every believing soul must be overpowered by the contemplation of such a mystery of Divine goodness; must be lost in wonder, love, and praise.

4. Nor can we learn the manner or degree in which our merciful Lord is at this moment bestowing blessings upon His Church, and upon every individual believer.

5. And what are the privileges of Christs redeemed people? What their present state, what their glorious inheritance? How unsearchable both the one and the other? (J. Slade, M. A.)

Unsearchable riches

I. What St. Paul says of himself. Humility is one leading mark of all the most eminent saints of God in every age. The more real grace men have in their hearts, the deeper is their sense of sin. The more light the Holy Ghost pours into their souls, the more do they discern their own infirmities, defilements, and darkness. The dead soul feels and sees nothing; with life comes clear vision, a tender conscience, and spiritual sensibility. Depend on it, the nearer men draw to heaven, the more humble do they become. In the hour of death, with one foot in the grave, with something of the light of heaven shining down upon them, hundreds of great saints and Church dignitaries--such men as Selden, Bishop Butler, Archbishop Longley--have left on record their confession, that never till that hour did they see their sins so clearly, and feel so deeply their debt to mercy and grace. Heaven alone, I suppose, will fully teach us how humble we ought to be. Then only, when we stand within the veil, and look back on all the way of life by which we were led, then only shall we completely understand the need and beauty of humility.

II. What St. Paul says of his ministerial office. The meaning of the sentence is plain: To me is granted the privilege of being a messenger of good news. I have been commissioned to be a herald of glad tidings. Of course we cannot doubt that St. Pauls conception of the ministers office included the administration of the sacraments, and the doing all other things needful for the edifying of the body of Christ.

1. The ministerial office is a ministerial institution.

2. A most wise and useful provision of God.

3. An honourable privilege.

It is an honour to bear the tidings of a victory such as Trafalgar and Waterloo: before the invention of telegraphs it was a highly coveted distinction. But how much greater honour is it to be the ambassador of the King of kings, and to proclaim the good news of the conquest achieved on Calvary!

III. What St. Paul says of the great subject of his preaching. That the converted man of Tarsus should preach Christ, is no more than we might expect from his antecedents. Having found peace through the blood of the Cross himself, we may be sure he would always tell the story of the Cross to others. That he should preach Christ among the Gentiles, again, is in keeping with all we know of his line of action in all places and among all people. Varying his mode of address according to his audience, as he wisely did, the pith and heart of his preaching was Christ crucified. But in the text before us, you will observe, he uses a peculiar expression, an expression which unquestionably stands alone in his writings, the unsearchable riches of Christ. It is the strong burning language of one who always remembered his debt to Christs mercy and grace, and loved to show how intensely he felt it by his words.

1. There are unsearchable riches in Christs person. That miraculous union of perfect man and perfect God in our Lord Jesus Christ is a great mystery, no doubt, which we have no line to fathom. It is a high thing; and we cannot attain to it. But, mysterious as that union may be, it is a mine of comfort and consolation to all who can rightly regard it. Infinite power and infinite sympathy are met together and combined in our Saviour.

2. There are unsearchable riches in the work which Christ accomplished for us, when He lived on earth, died, and rose again.

3. There are unsearchable riches in the offices which Christ at this moment fills, as He lives for us at the right hand of God. He is at once our Mediator, our Advocate, our Priest, our Intercessor, our Shepherd, our Bishop, our Physician, our Captain, our King, our Master, our Head, our Forerunner, our Elder Brother, the Bridegroom of our souls.

4. There are unsearchable riches in the names and titles which are applied to Christ in the Scriptures. Their number is very great, every careful Bible reader knows, and I cannot of course pretend to do more than select a few of them. Think for a moment of such titles as the Lamb of God, the Bread of Life, the Fountain of Living Waters, the Light of the World, the Door, the Way, the Vine, the Rock, the Cornerstone, the Christians Robe, the Christians Altar. Think of all these names, I say, and consider how much they contain.

5. There are unsearchable riches in the characteristic qualities, attributes, dispositions, and intentions of Christs mind towards man, as we find them revealed in the New Testament. In Him there are riches of mercy, love, and compassion for sinners; riches of power to cleanse, pardon, forgive, and to save to the uttermost; riches of willingness to receive all who come to Him repenting and believing; riches of ability to change by His Spirit the hardest hearts and worst characters; riches of tender patience to bear with the weakest believer; riches of strength to help His people to the end, notwithstanding every foe without and within; riches of sympathy for all who are cast down and bring their troubles to Him; and last, but not least, riches of glory to reward, when He comes again to raise the dead and gather His people to be with Him in His kingdom. Who can estimate these riches? The children of this world may regard them with indifference, or turn away from them with disdain; but those who feel the value of their souls know better. They will say with one voice, There are no riches like those which are laid up in Christ for His people. For, best of all, these riches are unsearchable. They are a mine which, however long it may be worked, is never exhausted. They are a fountain which, however many draw its waters, never runs dry. The sun in heaven above us has been shining for 6,000 years, and giving light, and life, and warmth, and fertility to the whole surface of the globe. There is not a tree or a flower in Europe, Asia, Africa, or America which is not a debtor to the sun. And still the sun shines on for generation after generation, and season after season, rising and setting with unbroken regularity, giving to all, taking from none, and to all ordinary eyes the same in light and heat that it was in the day of creation, the great common benefactor of mankind. Just so it is--if any illustration can approach the reality--just so it is with Christ. (Bishop Ryle.)

Christs unsearchable riches

I. That the riches of Christs pardoning mercy are unsearchable. There can be no searching out of the riches of His pardoning mercy, any more than of the value of that mysterious work which secures our pardon, or of the breadth and length, and depth and height, of that love which led Him to undertake and accomplish the work. The stream that issues from it, like that which Ezekiel saw in vision, flows on till it expands into a river that cannot be passed over--waters to swim in--an ocean whose vast extent we can never traverse, whose hidden depths we can never sound. In this gospel field, wherein lie hid unsearchable riches, He has opened for the poor and needy an exhaustless mine of heavenly treasure.

II. That the riches of Christs sanctifying grace are unsearchable. By His obedience unto death, our Lord Jesus Christ has fully merited for sinners, not only mercy to pardon, but grace to sanctify, and to help them in every time of need. And He accomplishes this by the power of His risen life, working in all who accept His offered mercy, according to the working of the mighty power which was wrought in Him, when He was raised from the dead and exalted to the right hand of the Majesty in the heavens, that they may be raised to a holy and truly heavenly life, seeking the things which are above, where He is, and imitating His blessed example.

III. That the riches of His rewarding glory are unsearchable. By His obedience unto death, our Lord Jesus Christ merited for His people, not only mercy to pardon and grace to sanctify in the life that now is, but a glorious reward, an exceeding weight of glory, in the life to come. Indeed, the latter is the end to which the former are the means--or rather, it is the fulness and perfection of that higher life, of which the former are the earnests and first-fruits. The life of glory is the crown and complement of the life of grace. Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither hath it entered into the heart of man to conceive the things which God hath prepared for them that love Him; but God hath revealed them unto us by His spirit. He hath given us, in His indwelling, an earnest and foretaste of them; and, by images borrowed from things temporal and material, He hath dimly shadowed forth, in Holy Scripture, the glory of those new heavens and the new earth for which we look. (A. F. Mitchell, D. D.)

Preaching the unsearchable riches of Christ

I. The unsearchable riches of Christ.

1. They are riches of heavenly knowledge.

2. Riches of redeeming love.

3. Riches of pardoning mercy.

4. Riches of sanctifying grace.

5. Riches of consolation and hope.

6. Riches of immortality and glory.

7. All of them riches of Christ; and all of them unsearchable.

II. Among whom are they to be preached?

1. Pauls commission, and that of the other apostles, was to preach the gospel to every creature (Mar_16:15); and to bring all nations to the obedience of the faith.

2. St. Paul thoroughly understood that the gospel he preached was emphatically the gospel of the Gentiles.

3. The manner in which St. Paul speaks of the calling of the Gentiles is highly worthy of observation. He calls it a mystery--the mystery of Christ--revealed unto the holy apostles and prophets by the Spirit; that the Gentiles should be fellow heirs, and of the same body, etc.

III. I proceed to observe on the dignified idea St. Paul had of the apostolic mission--Unto me is this grace given. Let us cast our eye--

1. On the labours and sufferings of the mission.

2. On the grounds of St. Pauls triumph.

IV. The forcible admonition given to ministers and missionaries, to think humbly and soberly of themselves, as they ought to think.

1. When the Lord will make a man a chosen vessel, eminently serviceable in the Church, it is the method of His grace to humble that man in the dust, and to remove from him every ground of vain-glory. This is necessary to secure all the glory to the Lord, to whom alone it is justly due.

2. That it is impossible a missionary should engage in his work in a better spirit than of that humility of which St. Paul is the example. (J. Burns, D. D.)

The unsearchable riches of Christ

I. In what do the riches of Christ consist? Natural to ask this; but a complete answer cannot be expected. Whatever these riches are, in whatever they may consist, they are unsearchable, unspeakable, inconceivable. We can only give a hint, take a glimpse.

1. They are the riches of Christs glory (Joh_17:5; 2Co_8:8).

2. The riches of His merit. The merit of His obedience and sacrifice, His service and His sufferings, as our substitute and surety, in His obedience on earth and His intercession in heaven.

3. The riches of His grace.

(1) Grace to pardon.

(2) Grace to justify.

(3) Grace to purify.

(4) Grace to sustain.

All the grace we can require, in order to assure us, in the face of a thousand obstacles and perils, of arrival at home, triumph over every foe, and ultimate possession of every enjoyment in the promised land.

II. In what respects are these riches unsearchable?

1. They cannot be discovered. They are beyond the utmost reach of human penetration and sagacity; they defy the most laborious and persevering research. They are alike unknown to the speculations and philosophy and the investigations of science. Yet God has revealed them unto babes.

2. They cannot be fathomed, measured, grasped, calculated. Boundless as infinity, high as heaven, deep as hell. The measure of them is rounder than the earth, and broader than the sea.

3. They cannot be described. That which the mind cannot grasp, the tongue cannot tell, the pen cannot write--our imagination is all too weak to deal with such a theme. They are a hope, and that hope is of immortality; they are a peace, and that peace passeth understanding; they are a joy, but it is unspeakable and full of glory; they are a knowledge, but it is life eternal; they are a well of water, but it is in the mans bosom, springing up to everlasting life. In short, they are riches that fill their possessor with all the fulness of God.

4. They cannot be exhausted, diminished, impaired. What countless millions have they enriched through the long succession of ages that are past, who are now before the throne of God and the Lamb; and they are as ample as at first, and shall continue to be so to the last, though myriads more shall be enriched by them in the ages yet to come. Like the sun that shines so gloriously with a splendour so bright--bright as when the beams of the first morning were shed upon the darkness that brooded over the face of the deep--just like that sun these riches remain in all their plenty. And when that material orb is but a spark of fire, they shall yet remain; they shall survive in all their fulness when that sun is plucked from the firmament, and the universe is wrapped in flame. (T. Raffles, D. D.)

The unsearchable riches of Christ

I. The riches of Christs person. Underived, independent, everlasting, Lord of all.

II. The riches of Christs dominion. All power is given unto Me.

III. The riches of Christs work. Through His intervention God is just, and yet man may be saved.

IV. The riches of Christs promises. Vast, comprehensive, abundant, sufficient in all the exigencies of life; sufficient in all the solemnity of death; and then, beyond, the crown of glory, the purity, the fellowship, the joy of the saints in heaven. (F. Tucker, B. A.)

The riches of the gospel of Christ

There was a very eloquent and able minister of our Church, who went to labour among his flock, ignorant of the gospel of Christ, but at the same time very zealous and devoted in his own way of religion. He was sedulously endeavouring to deliver them from their sins, and to promote morality and virtue among them by every means in his power; and you may suppose with the same success that must always attend such vain efforts as these, to make the law do what the law could not do, in that it was weak through the flesh. Whitewashing the sepulchre can never purify the corruption within. Outward reformation can never renew the heart and save the soul, or bring the sinner nearer to his God. But this clergyman was reading this chapter one day, and when he came to this verse, he began to consider what this doctrine was which St. Paul was preaching--the unsearchable riches of Christ. What is that? said he. Is this what I preach? I am preaching virtue, amiability, goodness, devotedness to God, attendance on ordinances, I am preaching against all sorts of sins; St. Paul was preaching the unsearchable riches of Christ! what is that? what can he mean? See how the Holy Ghost is pleased to use various means in bringing sinners into the light of truth! The blessed Spirit fastened that word on that mans mind--the unsearchable riches of Christ, and led him to see that that was not the doctrine what he taught, that he did not even understand the meaning of the expression. This led him to inquire into what the meaning was, and the same blessed Spirit satisfied the inquiry, and led him to discover the treasure hid in the field, even the unsearchable riches of Christ, and then he went forth and preached those unsearchable riches, and the blessing of God attended his labours. (R. J. McGhee, M. A.)

Christs unsearchable riches

The unsearchable riches of Christ: what are they? Go to a man in an arid desert, lying on the ground gasping with thirst, at the gate of death, beneath a burning sun; take to him gold and jewels; offer them to him; promise him a kingdom; and what do you bestow on him? There is that for which, if he had it, he would barter them all. A cup of water--one draught from the stream--for this he pants; this would be wealth and a kingdom for him. Go again to another in the jaws of famine, dying from hunger; pour out silver and gold, the wealth of a world, at his feet; and what do you confer upon him? He would give a world, or a thousand worlds, for a single morsel of bread. Again, take a man gasping on the field of battle, mortally wounded, writhing in agony; offer him riches, offer him a crown; will he thank you? No. If you could heal his wounds, if you could raise him up from the cold bed of death, if you could restore him to the life and health he enjoyed an hour before; that would be wealth and riches for the dying man. Take a poor criminal, led out to execution; offer him all that earth could give; what could he do with it? what is the earth to him? But procure a pardon for him; gain for him a reprieve; there is a world, and more than a world for him. Well then, if you knew your own actual state, you would see that your spiritual condition before God is just as hopeless, just as miserable, just as desperate, as the temporal condition of any one of those sufferers I have described; you are spiritually the poor wretch in the burning desert without a drop of water, and if you die in your unconverted state you must be without a drop of water to cool your tongue for eternity. You are worse than the poor creature who is famishing with hunger--worse, far worse than him writhing in agony on the field of battle--worse than the criminal about to be led to execution; these, however agonizing their state, are merely suffering for time; considered in reference to mans mere animal existence, their pangs soon must terminate; but the misery in which your immortal soul is sunk, unless you are delivered, must endure for eternity. Now Christ is the Water to the soul that is dying of thirst (Joh_4:10; Joh_7:37). Christ is the Bread of Life to the sinner, perishing for hunger (Joh_6:32-33; Joh_6:35). Christ is the Great Physician that can heal the dying man (Mar_2:10-11). Christ is the King that extends His pardon to the criminal led forth to execution (Luk_23:43). These serve as a partial illustration of the unsearchable riches of Christ. You understand the application, if you know Christ as the Deliverer, the Healer, the Saviour of your immortal souls. (R. J. McGhee, M. A.)

Wealth in Christ

The apostle does not intend to discourage examination of these riches which he describes as unsearchable, but he does tell us that, search as we may, we shall never be able to fathom that ocean in which are concealed the riches of Christ. And in order to appreciate the riches we do not know of, let us look at those we have actually in possession. So long as men stand on the sea shore, and praise the riches of the sea, they do not gain much impression of the reality of what they are talking about. It is only as we dive under the surface that we get a distinct impression of the wealth that lies hid under the rolling waves that break musically at our feet. So, then, let us this morning make an effort to appreciate the resources open to us in the unsearchable riches of Christ. I think that Christ has enriched us beyond all our powers of imagination to conceive the value of our wealth.

I. I think He has enriched us by His manner towards men, and His treatment of them. He has taught us what men are--that they are not merely the crown of creation, not simply intelligent, and clever, and enterprising, and powerful--He has made men feel, made us realize that we are the children of God. The way we treat men is the sign of what we think of them. The world has a very sorry opinion of itself. It would treat itself better if it had higher appreciation of its value. And nowhere does Christ show His power more clearly than in His treatment of those around Him. He sees in every man the promise of something that might be, infinitely transcending all that is and was. I want you to feel your value in the eyes of Christ. None in your own family circle appreciate you and treat you as Christ does. He has a standard of your value higher and grander than any possessed by your friends. Oh! how has Christ enriched this world by telling us what we are by His constant treatment of us! He has taken our poor humanity as it lay dead at His feet, and, taken by the hand and lifted up by His love, the world has risen into a new conception of its nature. Never let us again lose the consciousness of our real nature. Moving in the midst of human society, and taking men at their very worst, Christ has turned the light of His love upon the outcast, the selfish, the mean, and the unlovely, and in the splendid inspiration which burns in His eyes, flows from His tongue, and radiates from His life, we are enriched with the glad and thrilling hope that there is a way for man to rise out of the dust and grossness of his present life, till, by the power of Christ, he shall be established forever in the glory of a new heart, and character, and life. Well may the apostle preach the unsearchable riches of Christ when we call to mind how He has lifted us into a more blessed and hopeful thought of the character and destiny of man.

II. Further, Christ has enriched the world by His conduct and teaching in relation to our sinfulness. When a man has his attention drawn to one of his neighbours notorious wickednesses, and forthwith begins to pray, God, I thank Thee that I am not as other men--extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even as this publican that is Pharisaism. When another, either by act or speech, hides or attempts to obscure the awful and eternal distinction between good and evil, right and wrong, that is practical Atheism; and between these two extremes the public opinion of the world oscillated from age to age, till Christ began to teach and preach. But Christ has enriched the world by the mighty blows He dealt against the Pharisee, and by the splendid rebuke He administered to shameless sin. One of the grand fruits of His life is this, that by it men are convinced of sin. The practical question for us all today is--are we appropriating any of these riches of Christ? Are we content to hear about them, and talk about them, and never take them for our souls life? Riches there are; we may be rich in health, rich in intelligence, rich in friends and in opportunity; yea, we may have those riches that soonest flee away, but have you any of the riches of Christ? Without these riches, you are and must be poor. (E. Aston.)

Unsearchable riches

Grace not to be traced out. Should not ministers be made welcome that come on such golden messages. In Christ are riches of justification (Tit_2:14), sanctification (Php_4:12), consolation (2Co_12:9), glorification (1Pe_1:5). (John Trapp.)

Christ above all praise

When Mr. Dawson was preaching in South Lambeth on the offices of Christ, he presented Him as Prophet and Priest, and then as the King of saints. He marshalled patriarchs, kings, prophets and apostles, martyrs and confessors of every age and clime, to place the insignia of royalty upon the head of the King of kings. The audience was wrought up to the highest pitch of excitement, and, as if waiting to hear the anthem peal out the coronation hymn, the preacher commenced singing, All hail the power of Jesus Name. The audience, rising as one man, sang the hymn as perhaps it was never sung before. (Fosters Cyclopaedia.)

Further riches in Christ

It is said that in the Green Room at Dresden, where for centuries the Saxon princes have gathered their gems and treasures, may be seen a silver egg, a present to one of the Saxon queens, which, when you touch a spring, opens and reveals a golden yolk. Within the yolk is a chicken. Press the wing, and the chicken flies open, disclosing a splendid gold crown studded with jewels. Nor is this all. Touch another secret spring, and you find hid in the centre a magnificent diamond ring! It is even so with those who know Jesus; they are always finding new wonders, fresh delights, and further glories in Him. And it will be so forever, for Jesus is infinitely full of all bliss.

The riches of Christ

The wealth of all worlds, the agency of all elements, and the energies of all creatures in existence, are under His control; while the illimitable possibilities which lie hid in the undisclosed treasures of infinite fulness, and the unknown powers of unwearied omnipotence, are the fertile resources ever at His command. By Him all things were made--by Him all things consist. He rules over all; all are His servants. All worlds pay Him tribute, and all creatures do Him homage. All nature, animate and inanimate, draw their supply out of His perennial fulness, and spend their powers in fulfilling His behests. The sons of the mighty who surround the eternal throne, however illustrious in rank or elevated in character, owe their existence, powers, position, and continuance to Him, who is our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. All peoples upon the face of the whole earth ceaselessly receive from His hand the full supply of their recurring wants--physical, mental, and spiritual. Being and all its blessings, life and all its joys, our souls and all their hopes, we own to Him. All things are for Him as well as by Him. The sovereignty of the universe, the dispensations of providence, the government of the Church, the salvation of His people, the judgment of the world, and the throne of heaven, are His. The loftiest hierarchies of heaven cast their crowns at His feet, and unite in celebrating His praise. His power supreme, His resources exhaustless, His goodness unbounded, His felicity ineffable, who can count His unsearchable riches, or unveil the brightness of His glory? To whom shall He be compared, and with what can He be likened? The greatest, and wisest, and purest, and best. The Alpha and Omega, the First and the Last. Emanuel, God with us--God manifest in the flesh, Creator, Saviour, Sovereign, Redeemer. Nor in viewing His personal excellence can we overlook the fact that He is the Son of man as well as the Son of God. Fairest of the children of men--the chief among ten thousand and the altogether lovely. All the virtues that ennoble, the graces that adorn, the gifts that elevate our nature, are complete in Him. His character a radiant exhibition of moral grandeur and, beauty--His life the symmetrical embodiment of the holiest affection, the most self-denying love, the broadest and kindliest sympathies--His example the purest, most perfect, heroic, and inspiring model for the race. His love so strong, His sympathies so tender, His forbearance so great, His grace so rich and free--to believers He is unspeakably precious. There is none like Christ. By the tongues of angels even one half could not be told of what He is, and what He has, and what He has done for us. He loved us and gave Himself for us. The story of His wondrous birth, His suffering life, His cruel death, His victorious resurrection, His glorious ascension--Bethlehem and Nazareth, Gethsemane and Calvary, Tabor and Olivet--with their thrilling associations, hallowed memories, and spiritual meaning, will never lose their power to charm while tongues can speak or hearts can feel. The power of His words, the grandeur of His deeds, the greatness of His sorrows, the light of His teaching, the merit of His sacrifice, the efficacy of His intercession, the work of His Spirit, and the glory of His coming and kingdom are each exhaustless as His own fulness, and fresh as the wants and woes of every needy, burdened soul. Of the truth He taught, the blood He shed, the promises He left, the Spirit He sent, the inheritance He secured, the riches are unsearchable. Unsearchable in their source, in everlasting love, their origin and power far transcend our feeble ken--in their extent, which embraces all possible blessings for our souls through an endless duration--in their manifestation, application, and enjoyment, which are shrouded in mystery--in their permanence, for they endure forever. The latest ages will find these riches unimpaired in value and undiminished in supply. Nor dimmed by age, nor worn by use, nor lessened by distribution, and throughout eternity, though more amply displayed, more extensively enjoyed, and more fully appreciated, they will remain as inscrutable and unsearchable as ever. (W. Ormiston, D. D.)

The riches of Christs redeeming acts

1. Of these, we notice, His incarnation. I need not prove to you that the apostle preached this, and bore continual testimony that the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us, etc. (Joh_1:14); that God was manifest in the flesh (1Ti_3:16); that forasmuch as the children are partakers of flesh and blood, He also Himself took part of the same (Heb_2:14). Now in this is contained unsearchable riches. That we should have Gods incarnate Wisdom and Word for our instructor in matters the most important, of infinite because everlasting concern to us; that He should teach us such things in a most condescending, free, and familiar way, as one of ourselves, is an unspeakable advantage and blessing. That we should be permitted to behold in Him a perfect and suitable example of humility, meekness, benevolence, patience, purity, etc., is equally an inestimable privilege. But what is yet more, by His incarnation He became God and man in one person, was qualified to be a Mediator between God and man, etc.

2. His enduring temptation. In this also are contained unsearchable riches. Hereby He worsted our grand adversary, Satan.

3. His obedience unto death. By this He fulfilled all righteousness, obeying the precepts, and suffering the penalty of the law for us.

4. His resurrection from the dead. That unsearchable riches are included herein appears from hence, that we are hereby assured He is the Son of God (Rom_1:4).

5. His ascension is the next in order of His redeeming acts. This is not to be overlooked, as it was not overlooked by our Lord and His apostles (Joh_20:17; Heb_1:3; Heb_4:14; Heb_8:1). It contains unsearchable riches; for hereby also, as well as by His resurrection, we are assured He hath purged our sins, as the Father would not have received Him to His bosom to speak on our behalf, if he had not been well pleased with His atonement. Hereby He triumphed over His and our enemies, and made a show of them openly; over Satan, sin, and death, which all stood in the way, and opposed the ascension and exaltation of bur common human nature to heaven (Psa_68:18; Isa_53:10; Isa_53:12; Php_2:8-10). Since He ascended as our Forerunner, and is at the right hand of God, and has all power in heaven and on earth, being Head over all things to the Church, we shall ascend also (Joh_14:2; Heb_6:18; Heb_6:20).

6. His intercession and advocateship come next to be considered. The prophets and apostles have laid great stress on this (Isa_53:12; Rom_8:34; Heb_7:25; 1Jn_2:1). What a treasure, then, have we in the advocateship of Christi The cause we have depending in the court above, involves our all to all eternity. Our property: how poor shall we be if we lose this cause! how rich if we carry it! Our liberty: what slaves in hell if we lose it! how free in heaven if we carry it! Our life: we must suffer death of body and soul forever, if we lose it! and shall obtain life if we gain it! Christ is a skilful, able, kind, and faithful counsellor, and is infallible in every cause He undertakes!

7. The final judgment is the last and finishing act of our redemption. This is insisted on frequently and largely by the apostles (Act_10:42; Act_17:31). It implies unsearchable riches; for how desirable to use and what an advantage if we must be judged, to be judged by One who is a friend, kinsman, brother, husband; by One who assumed our nature, with all its infirmities; who feels for us, died in our stead, will excuse our failings, manifest our virtues, judge between us and our enemies and persecutors I Being accused, what a blessing to be tried and acquitted, which Gods people shall be, before men and angels; yea, and applauded. As our Judges He will assign to us a reward in proportion to our holiness, labours, and sufferings in His service. (J. Benson.)

The riches of Christs saving benefits

1. Divine illumination (see Isa_9:2; Luk_1:78; Act_26:18; Eph_5:8; 1Pe_2:9). This Divine illumination implies unsearchable riches; for it includes the understanding the Scriptures in all essential points, the necessity and worth of which are great indeed; the knowledge of ourselves, which is the foundation of all religion; the knowledge of God and Christ, occasioning us peace and good unspeakable (Job_22:21), and even eternal life (Joh_17:3); the knowledge of the truth as it is in Jesus, or the way of salvation (Joh_8:32; Joh_16:13-14). And consider the vast importance of this (Rom_9:30-31; Rom_10:2); the knowledge of Gods will (Col_1:9); the necessity and usefulness of which appears from hence, that we cannot enter heaven without doing the will of God (Mat_7:21); and cannot do it unless we know it.

2. Justification. This is the same with the remission of sins, or imputed righteousness (Rom_4:2-8). This is enjoined to be preached by Christ (Luk_24:47), and was preached by His evangelists and apostles (Act_2:38; Act_3:19; Act_10:43; Act_13:38). The value of this appears--from our great want of it: we are guilty and condemned, and have need to be acquitted (Rom_3:23):--from a consideration of the great and eternal misery from which it rescues us: a condemned malefactor knows the worth of a pardon; it is as valuable to him as his life, because it saves him from death:--from a consideration of the blessed and eternal life, to which it entitles us (Tit_3:7). It is as valuable, and contains riches as unsearchably great, as that everlasting felicity which is the consequence of it. How immense a treasure is a free and full justification!

3. The peculiar favour and friendship of God. This is the never-failing fruit of justification (Rom_5:1), and was continually preached by the apostle (2Co_5:18-21; Eph_1:6; Eph_2:13-19). Think of the infinite and eternal riches, honour, and felicity, implied in the favour and friendship of an all-wise, all-mighty, and all-gracious, infinite, and everlasting Being.

4. Adoption into His family. This is insisted on by the apostles as one important end of the incarnation, life, and death of Christ (Gal_4:4), and the never-failing fruit of faith in Him (Joh_1:12; Gal_3:26). Adoption is an unspeakable honour and happiness. To be so nearly related to God, so peculiarly dear to Him, as children to a father; to be under His peculiar direction, protection, and care, having liberty of access to Him as children to a father, and intercourse with Him, being provided with everything needful and useful (Mat_6:33; Psa_84:11); to be chastised when and as far as necessary, and to have this, with every other dispensation, made to work for our good (Heb_12:10-11; Rom_8:28); to be His heirs, heirs of all He is, and of all He hath: in each of these particulars is comprehended unsearchable riches.

5. The Holy Spirit. This is the fruit of Christs death, resurrection, and ascension (Joh_16:7; Psa_68:18), given only through Him (Tit_3:6; Joh_1:16), and by Him (Mat_3:11; Joh_4:10; Joh_4:14; Joh_7:37-38); and is therefore a branch of His unsearchable riches. Hereby our minds are enlightened, we are enabled to understand and relish Divine things; we are prepared, by conviction of sin and of righteousness (Joh_16:8-10), by repentance and faith, for justification; we are assured of it, as also of Gods favour and of our adoption (Gal_4:6; Rom_8:15-16); we are regenerated (Joh_1:13; Joh_3:5-6); are led, assisted in prayer and every duty, and comforted (Jud_1:20; Rom_8:14; Rom_8:26; Rom_15:13; Joh_14:16-20); we are sanctified, viz., delivered from the power and being of sin, and consecrated to God in heart and life (Rom_8:2; Tit_3:5; 2Th_2:13; 1Pe_1:2); we are enriched with all gifts and graces (Gal_5:22). How unspeakable then the necessity and worth of this blessing! how unsearchable the riches contained in it!

6. This leads me to notice another unspeakable benefit, implied indeed in the last mentioned, but, because of its magnitude, deserving of more particular notice, viz., the restoration of Gods image to the soul. Man having been created in this (Gen_1:27), lost it by the Fall; so that he is naturally earthly, sensual, and devilish. The restoration of it is one principal end of our redemption (Eph_5:25-27; Rom_8:3-4; Eph_4:20-24; 2Pe_1:4). (J. Benson.)

The riches implied in the methods by which Christ brings us to enjoy salvation

I. The properties and powers exerted.

1. The wisdom of our Lord. St. Paul informs us, that in Him are hid all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge (Col_2:3), and that He hath abounded towards us in all wisdom and prudence (Eph_1:8). As His knowledge and His wisdom are unsearchable, so they are an unsearchable treasure to His Church in general, and to every individual member of it in particular.

2. His almighty power. What a treasure subjects have in the power of a just and good king, or children in the power of a wise and kind father! What an advantage it is to the Church that Christ has all power in heaven and on earth, is Head over all things, can make the temptations of devils, and the enmity of sinners, as well as the ministry of angels, and the advice and prayers of saints, yea, and absolutely all things work together for the good of her members; can at all times defend, strengthen, support, and comfort them, and execute every scheme His wisdom has devised for their present and eternal good.

3. His infinite love (Eph_3:18-19). His wisdom and power would be nothing to us, without this; this sets them to work, and keeps them employed continually for our benefit. This, therefore, is an inestimable blessing to His people, and a source of unsearchable riches. Who gave His life, what gift can He deny?

4. His unwearied patience, or His forbearance and long suffering (2Co_10:1). How much need had we all of this in our state of ignorance and sin! What need have we of it still! How is it exercised towards us from day to day! What a treasure is it to us! our present and eternal salvation depending upon it.

II. The means and ordinances appointed.

1. Affliction. Without this, probably we should never have been brought to Christ. Without this, we should not have continued in His ways; without this, we should not have made progress in holiness or usefulness: therefore, without this we should not have attained an exceeding great and eternal weight of glory.

2. The Word of God. He, by Christs unsearchable riches are revealed, displayed, offered, and, as it were, bequeathed to us. Christs redeeming acts are unfolded one after another, as in the writings of the prophets and evangelists, with the unsearchable riches they contain, and we are offered an interest in them. The Word of God is a bill of spiritual and heavenly rights, a charter of sacred and Divine privileges, or an attested deed of conveyance, making over to us an immense property; or it may be considered as the last will and testament of our Redeemer, bequeathing to us legacies and inheritances without end.

3. The ordinances.

(1) Baptism.

(2) Holy Communion.

4. The fellowship of saints. Here Jesus Himself, with all His unsearchable riches of grace and glory, is always present (Mat_18:20). This is an emblem and earnest of heaven, and a preparation for it.--Prayer. In this also we have an unspeakable treasure. For it is the key with which we open the Divine storehouse, and take as much of the riches of Christ as we need.

III. The inward graces which are to be exercised. These also include unsearchable riches, because by these Christs redeeming acts and saving benefits become our own. These form a third particular to be considered. Faith, having for its object the doctrines of His Word, which display His acts and benefits: the invitations and promises which make them over to us; Jesus Himself, the source and centre of both, in whom the doctrines and promises are yea and amen. By this we obtain an interest in His redeeming acts, and become entitled to, or have a foretaste of, all His saving benefits. Hope: Those benefits, which we cannot here partake of, we expect and desire, and hereby we both anticipate the enjoyment of them. Reflect on the vast worth of a well grounded and lively hope. It is the source of patience (Rom_8:25; 1Th_1:3), gratitude (1Pe_1:3), joy (Rom_5:2), purity (1Jn_3:3), and even of good works (1Co_15:1-58 ult.; Heb_6:11). Hence arise the unsearchable riches of an eternal reward. Love: Hereby we embrace both Christ and His riches, nay, and associate with angels and saints, and sit in heavenly places. (J. Benson.)

Our spiritual treasury

The riches of Christ are not simply riches of grace--riches of glory--riches of inheritance, as some are inclined to restrict them, but the treasury of spiritual blessing which is Christs--so vast that the comprehension of its limits and the exhaustion of its contents are alike impossible. What the apostle wishes to characterize as grand in itself, or in its abundance, adaptation, and substantial permanence, he terms riches. The riches of Christ are the true wealth of men and nations. And those riches are unsearchable, Even the value of the portion already possessed cannot be told by any symbols of numeration, for such riches can have no adequate exponent or representative. Their source is in eternity, and in a love whose fervour and origin are above our ken, and whose duration shall be for ages of ages beyond compute. Their extent is boundless, for they stretch into infinitude, and the mode in which they have been wrought out reveals a spiritual mechanism whose results astonish and satisfy us, but whose inner springs and movements lie beyond our keenest inspection. And our appropriation of these riches, though it be a matter of consciousness, shrouds itself from our scrutiny, for it indicates the presence of the Divine spirit in His power--a power exerted upon man, beyond resistance, but without compulsion; and in its mighty and gracious operation neither wounding his moral freedom nor impinging on his perfect and undeniable responsibility. The latest periods of time shall find these riches unimpaired, and eternity shall behold the same wealth neither worn by use nor dimmed by age, nor yet diminished by the myriads of its happy participants. (J. Eadie, D. D.)

The unsearchable riches of Christ

The word unsearchable properly carries with it the metaphor (latent in our word investigate) of tracking the footsteps, but not tracking them completely to their source or issue--thus gaining an evidence of a living power, but not knowing whence it cometh or whither it goeth. In this proper sense it is used in Rom_11:33, How unsearchable are His judgments, and His ways past finding out! (as also in Job_5:9; Job_9:10). Here it is used in a slightly different sense--applied to that wealth or fulness of Christ on which this Epistle lays such especial stress, as a wealth of truth which we can see in part but cannot wholly measure, and a wealth of grace which we can enjoy but cannot exhaust. (A. Barry, D. D.)

Christs riches

We may realize something of the unsearchable riches of Christ by glancing at--

I. His character. The vast and the little, the awful and the attractive, meet in His person in wonderful harmony and beauty.

II. Only a few words on the riches of his work, for the theme is so vast that we cannot enter upon it particularly.

III. His dominion. Jesus Christ is the Lord and Redeemer of the human soul. (W. Graham, D. D.)

Unsearchable riches for men of all nations

God proposes to make man rich in wisdom, rich in goodness, rich in joy, rich in beauty, rich in influence; and to make him essentially and unchangeably rich, by making his wealth inseparable from his being. The world is but a false answer to mans desire for wealth. God warns him of the temptation, and reveals to Him the infinite mine where all the gold is human and eternal. As all material gold, before it came into the possession of men, was first in the earth, so were all the spiritual riches of the angels derived from the Son of God. The Maker of all things must be unsearchably rich. There must be more in His nature than in all things which He has made. There must be worlds on worlds of undiscovered wealth in Him who made the worlds. /iii lovely and precious things are but hints of the riches of the Son of God. Floral loveliness, the fruits of the earth, the splendour of metals, the lights in precious stones, and the glories of the firmament, are the material shadows of His wealth. The beauties of Paradise, and the wonders of the heavens, are higher manifestations of His riches. How can one help being ambitious to win Christ, and be found in Him? to exchange the straitness of ones own nature, and the thinness and poverty of ones own righteousness, for the resources of His nature, and the riches of His righteousness! (J. Pulsford.)

Variety of riches

All the members of Christ will inherit and dispense His riches, but diversely; no one possessing precisely the same measure, or the same combination of virtues as another. The endless variety of glorified men will be an open, and ever opening, manifestation of the riches of God. (J. Pulsford.)

The gospel message

I. First, for the subject of the ministry. The unsearchable riches of Christ. I might advert at once to His Divine nature and perfections. In Christ, then, I observe, first, there are unsearchable riches of wisdom and knowledge. Unsearchable riches of expiation and sacrifice. Unsearchable riches of grace. We read, it is the intention of God to magnify the exceeding riches of His grace. Riches, further, of power and energy. We value power; we think highly of energy; even if it be power of body--physical strength--as David did, when he said, A bow of steel is broken by mine arms, and Samson, when he bore aloft the gates of Gaza upon his shoulders. But especially mental power--the bright, clear understanding--the radiant, sparkling intellect--the flashes of pure, strong genius. And what is physical power, or mental power, in comparison with moral strength--the strength of immaculacy, the strength to sustain innocence and virtue, in the face of all temptation, and as conquering all difficulties? What strength had the Lord Jesus! How He vanquished temptation, maintained His purity and perfection! So that He could say, when the conquest was complete, All power is given unto Me in heaven and in earth! Riches of power! So He is said to be exalted to the throne of power, and to have made manifest His power in His Word. The Word of God is quick and powerful, sharper than a two-edged sword. And here I notice, again, His power for our use--energy for our succour--strength that will make us strong in the evil day, in the reception of which we may mount up with wings as eagles. Once more, riches of glory. His own glory, His essential glory; as He is the brightness of the Fathers glory and the express image of His person--as He is the uncreated and the eternal light, to which it is said no man can approach--the unaccessible glory, as well as the glory which shines and is revealed. And if Christ be a participator of the Divine nature, if He be God, then, we say, here is original and essential glory unsearchable. Can you get to the bottom of it? Can you enter into its depths? Can you explore and fathom them? Rut the mediatorial glory. He is ascended into glory; He is invested with glory; when He comes again it will be in glory. There is the glory which He has to bestow--which He does bestow. He has glorified the spirits of just men made perfect already; they are with Him, and see His glory. He will glorify the redeemed and restored Church in body and in soul, and unto perfection. And finally, unsearchable riches of happiness. How happy He is! God over all, blessed forever--which means, happy forever. The gospel is the glorious gospel of the blessed God--the glorious gospel of the happy Christ. Now, we say, in relation to all human riches, and every form and variety of earthly wealth, that it can be searched into and explored--that a catalogue of it can be given, and the exact amount of it certified. You can tell how rich you are; you can know exactly what you possess, or most men can. If not, you can search into it, and it can be known. It can be known what money there is in the Bank of England; the wealth of England may be known. It is possible to make a computation and a calculation. So of other forms of wealth. Suppose it be a granary of food indispensable to sustenance of a nation; the sacks could be counted, and brought out and told. So in relation to human knowledge and wisdom. Give me the most learned man alive; in a very few minutes he can tell me all the subjects with which he is acquainted; but the innumerable subjects with which he is not acquainted he cannot tell me. He has light as far as it goes, and it is light; but it is encompassed by a boundary of darkness, into which he cannot see. On the other hand, it is said, God is light, and in Him is no darkness at all. There is no boundary of darkness to intercept the view. Human virtue and goodness, how soon you are at the bottom of it! How searchable it is! How insignificant it is! How small it is! There seems to me to be nothing unsearchable about man except his sinfulness. There may be things not unsearchable in their own nature, but unsearchable by us; there may be beings who can get to the bottom of them, though you and I cannot. The ocean, for example, has not been searched by man; man does not know what there is at the bottom--what precious stones, what coral reefs, what beauty, what vastness, what monstrosity; he has not searched, he cannot search it. Man has net searched into the centre of the globe; he does not know whether it is a prodigious furnace of fire, or rolling, tossing, tempestuous water; he has not gone in his geology more than half a mile perpendicularly downwards. Will you tell me there is no eye that can see, and no being that can search? And going up aloft, can you tell me if there are inhabitants in the moon? Can you give me any account of the population of the planets? Can you tell me who are the creatures that inhabit and adorn the wide and beautiful universe? You cannot; it is unknown and unsearchable at present by you. Do you mean to say there is none that can search--no beings that do know? So even in respect to human science. You or I may be overpowered by numbers; are there not loftier intellects that can carry the process of numbers immeasurably beyond your mind and mine? So with the piles of reasoning upon reasoning, demonstration upon demonstration, in mathematics--you and I may be overcome presently; are there not minds stronger than ours that can soar into the illimitable fields? Yet I am prepared to say, with regard to these riches of Christ, searched into by the loftiest minds--let Gabriel, if you will, take his loftiest flight--that the unsearchableness is absolute and infinite. The unsearchable riches of Christ.

II. Now, then, briefly, for the ministry of these, or the ministry which respects these unsearchable riches. It is simply, as it seems to me, for two purposes. The first is, to make known the existence of the riches--to testify to the facts and principles, because they might sleep in the world, or be unnoticed, or unrecognized, or unrealized, as they are near us and in existence and exercise in the universe. The ministry is to assert and affirm, to bring to knowledge and recollection, and to present to the understanding and the conscience the reality respecting Christ--what I have been endeavouring most inadequately and imperfectly to do. And the second point is, to make it manifest--to make all men see that, as I have said, the riches of Christ are available for our use. Take the wisdom and the knowledge, as you find them in the Scriptures, and make them your own. The atonement and expiation; what is it presented to your attention for? That by faith you may bring it home. There is the Priest; let Him do His work; He will take the sacrifice, and sprinkle your conscience, and purify your soul and mine, if believingly we come to Him for that purpose. He is able to do it, and will. With respect to the ministry I just observe, further, it is a ministry of ineffable grace on the part of God, in respect to those whom He calls into it. It was deemed a great privilege and favour, and so it was, to be a Levite, or a priest under the old law, to burn the incense and offer sacrifice; it was a great privilege and favour to be called as a prophet, though in evil times, as Jeremiah and Isaiah were. They were honoured by God as His ministers; and then Saul the persecutor was called and made an apostle, and he said, To me is this grace given--ineffable, unspeakable, unsearchable grace. He was conscious of it. Notwithstanding this, a ministry of holiness. Less than the least of all saints. And then a happy ministry. The word preach implies this to do the office of a herald--to publish and proclaim glad tidings. Blessed are the people who know the joyful sound! Blessed is the man who has to make the joyful sound!

III. Finally, to whom is his ministry exercised? The Gentiles. Christs own ministry was to the lost sheep of the house of Israel; and He said to the apostles, Into the way of the Gentiles and any city of the Samaritans enter ye not. But in Christs ministry there were indications of peace to the Gentiles. The Syro-Phoenician woman was a Greek, and though repulsed with the inquiry, Is it lawful to give the childrens food unto dogs? she yet eventually obtained mercy. The parable of the prodigal son is another indication of this; and our Lord Himself said, Other sheep I have, which are not of this fold. Yet on the day of Pentecost there was not a single Gentile present--devout men from every nation under heaven, out of all the provinces, but every one of them Jews. It was not till after Peters vision and the incoming of the Holy Ghost in the house of Cornelius, as on the day of Pentecost, that the door was fully opened and the doctrine adequately revealed. And there seems to have been an impulse of new joy, arising from the entrance of new light, when the apostolic college resounded with the cry, Then hath God also granted to the Gentiles repentance unto life! We are Gentiles, and the Gentiles are now to be divided into two classes. The Gentiles who believe--the Gentiles who have received Christ the Gentiles who are confederated in Churches, and have ministered in the midst of them the ordinances of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. And in respect to these Gentiles, let me say, that although we have not at present, as all ministers of all sections and communities do deplore, awakening signal manifestations of the power of God for the conversion of unbelievers, yet we have a perpetual edification, instruction, and improvement of those who do believe. The Spirit has not gone from the Churches; the arm of God in the other form may yet be mightily revealed. There is another class of Gentiles--the ignorant, the vicious, the stupid, the sleepy, the irreligious--those who pray not, read not, think not, keep no Sabbath, visit no sanctuary. Oh! we would desire that the unsearchable riches of Christ should be made known among them, that there should be a shaking among the dry bones, and as it were a resurrection from the dead! (J. Stratten.)

The Biblical Illustrator, edited by Joseph S. Exell (c. 1880s–1900s) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Eph 3:8-9. Unto me, who am less than the least of all saints, &c. — Here are the noblest strains of eloquence, to paint the exceeding low opinion which the apostle had of himself, and the fulness of unfathomable blessings which are treasured up in Christ. The word ελαχιστοτερω is a comparative, formed from the superlative ελαχιστος, the force of which it is difficult to express in the English language. Doubtless he speaks of himself in this humble manner, on account of his having been formerly a blasphemer of Christ, a persecutor of his disciples, and exceedingly injurious in so acting. Is this grace given — This unmerited favour bestowed; that I should preach among the Gentiles — Ignorant of divine things as they had been from generation to generation, and apparently abandoned of God to vice and wretchedness; the unsearchable riches of Christ — Those unsearchable perfections, (Col 2:9,) whereby he is qualified to be the Saviour of the world, and to bestow on all who believe the greatest spiritual blessings, which are the only true riches, because they render the possessors perfectly happy. In other words, In the riches of Christ, here justly said to be unsearchable, are included, 1st, His redeeming acts; such as his incarnation, his enduring temptation, his obedience unto death, his resurrection, ascension, intercession. 2d, His saving benefits; as illumination, justification, adoption, the spirit of adoption and regeneration, the restoration of God’s image to the soul, communion with God, and eternal life. 3d, The ways and means of the application of these acts and benefits; as (1,) The properties and powers exerted by Christ, such as his wisdom, power, love, patience: (2,) The means and ordinances, as affliction, the word of God, prayer, the fellowship of saints: (3,) The graces and virtues to be exercised by us; as faith, hope, love, obedience; in all which particulars unsearchable riches are comprehended, and by which we may be unspeakably and eternally enriched. And to make men see — To enlighten and instruct, as well the Gentiles as the Jews, and show them what is the fellowship of the mystery — What those mysterious blessings are whereof all believers are called jointly to partake; which from the beginning of the world — Greek, απο των αιωνων, from ages, and from generations, (Col 1:26,) hath been hid in God — Concealed in his secret counsels; who created all things by Jesus Christ — His eternal Word and Son, Joh 1:3; Heb 1:2; where see the notes. This is the foundation of all his dispensations.

Joseph Benson's Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1811–1818) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

3:8 Paul considered himself the least deserving of all God’s people (literally the least of God’s people) because he was once an ardent persecutor of believers (see 1 Cor 15:9; 1 Tim 1:12-16). • the endless treasures available to them in Christ: See Eph 1:3-14.

Tyndale Open Study Notes — © Tyndale Open Resources, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Text via the HelloAO Bible API.

Eph 3:8. Τῷ ἐλαχιστοτέρῳ, less than the least) The idea of the name Paul,[43] increased by a comparative which rises higher than even the superlative; whereby it is implied that he scarcely reckons himself among the saints. This is modestly and very elegantly expressed.—τῶν ἁγίων, of the saints) The saints here are opposed to the Gentiles; comp. the note on Act 20:32.—ἀνεξιχνίαστον, unsearchable [never capable of being fully traced out]) Eph 3:18-19. There is a similar epithet found at Eph 3:10, manifold.—πλοῦτον, riches) Here heavenly riches are commended; presently after, wisdom, Eph 3:10.

[43] Paulus seems to be derived by Beng. from paulus, a diminution of paucus, little. This would give point to the ἐλαχιστοτέρῳ; not only paulus, little, but less than the least; but the Roman name, Paulus, probably had no connection with the adj. paulus. Cruden makes Paul Hebrew = a worker: as his former name Saul = a sepulchre, or destroyer.—ED.

Bengel's Gnomon of the New Testament — English translation (T&T Clark, Edinburgh, 1860) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Eph_3:8. The apostle now explains himself more fully on what had been said in Eph_3:7, and that entirely from the standpoint of the humility, with which, in the deep feeling of his personal unworthiness, he looked forth upon the greatness and glory of his vocation. Comp. 1Co_15:9.

After Eph_3:7 a full stop is to be placed, and τοῖς ἔθνεσιν εὐαγγ. is the explanation of the χάρις αὕτη. Harless regards ἐμοὶ … αὕτη as a parenthetic exclamation, like Eph_2:6, and τοῖς ἔθν. εὐαγγ. as a more precise definition of what is meant by δωρεά. He finds it contrary to nature to meet in the long intercalation (Eph_3:2-13) a halting-point, and yet not a return to the main subject. But in opposition to the whole view of such an intercalation, see on Eph_3:1. And hardly could it occur to a reader not to connect εὐαγγελίσασθαι with the immediately preceding ἡ χάρις αὕτη, specially when τῷ ἐλαχιστοτέρῳ κ.τ.λ. points to the contrast of the greatness of the vocation, which very greatness is depicted, and in how truly grand a style! from τοῖς ἔθνεσιν forward.

On the forms of degree constructed from the superlative (or even the comparative, as 3Jn_1:4), see Sturz, ad Maitt. p. 44; Lobeck, ad Phryn. p. 135 f.; Winer, p. 65 [E. T. 81]. In the analysis the comparative sense is to be maintained (the least, lesser than all).

The expression of humility πάντων ἁγίων,[175] i.e. than all Christians, is even far stronger than 1Co_15:9. Οὐκ εἶπε τῶν ἀποστόλων, Chrysostom. What was the ground of this self-abasement (which, indeed, Baur, p. 447, enumerates among the heightening imitations) the reader knew, without the necessity for Paul writing it to him,namely, not the consciousness of sin in general (Harless), in which respect Paul knew that he stood on the same level with any other (Rom_3:22; Rom_11:32; Gal_3:22), as with every believer upon an equal footing of redemption by the death of Christ (Gal_3:13-14; Rom_7:25; Rom_8:2), but the deeply humbling consciousness of having persecuted Christ, which, inextinguishable in him, so often accompanied his recalling of the grace of the apostolic office vouchsafed to him (1Co_15:9; Php_3:6; comp. 1Ti_1:13).

τοῖς ἔθνεσιν] Paul was apostle of the Gentiles.

τὸ ἀνεξιχν. πλοῦτος τοῦ Χριστοῦ] By this is meant the whole divine fulness of salvation, of which Christ is the possessor and bestower, and which is of such a nature that the human intellect cannot explore it so as to form an adequate conception of it. This does not hinder the proclamation, which, on the contrary, is rendered possible by revelation, but imposes on the cognition (1Co_13:9-12) as on the proclamation their limits. As to ἀνεξιχν., see on Rom_11:33.

[175] The readings ἀνθρώπων in 4 and Chrys., ἀποστόλων in Archel., and ἁγίων ἀποστόλων in 46, are attempts at interpretation, of which ἀνθρώπων was meant to guard against understanding the ἅγιοι of the angels; ἁγίων is wanting only in Marcion and 72*, and Semler ought not to have looked upon it as spurious.

Meyer — Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the New Testament — English translation by Peter Christie, edited by Frederick Crombie (T&T Clark, 1880) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Eph 3:8 . ἐμοὶ τῷ ἐλαχιστοτέρῳ πάντων τῶν ἁγίων ἐδόθη ἡ χάρις αὕτη : to me, who am less then the least of all saints, was given this grace . The τῶν inserted by the TR, on slender documentary evidence, before ἁγίων must be omitted as wanting in [256] [257] [258] [259] [260] [261] [262] [263] , etc. The thought of the dignity of the office he had received at the cost of such grace and power at once evokes the sense of his own utter unworthiness, to which he gives stronger expression here than even in 1Co 15:9 , or 2Co 12:11 . The form ἐλαχιστότερος , a comparative of the superlative ἔλαχιστος , is found only here. It belongs to a class of double comparisons which had a place probably in the popular modes of speech, but of which a considerable number are found in later literature, especially in poetry. The only other example in the NT is the double comparative μειζότερος in 3Jn 1:4 ; cf. Buttm., Gram. of NT Greek , p. 28. ἐν τοῖς ἔθνεσιν εὐαγγελίσασθαι τὸν ἀνεξιχνίαστον πλοῦτον τοῦ Χριστοῦ : to preach to the Gentiles the unsearchable riches of Christ . The TR inserts ἐν before τοῖς ἔθνεσιν with) [264] [265] [266] [267] , etc.); but it is not found in [268] [269] [270] [271] , etc., and is best omitted. The former reading would define the sphere assigned to Paul in his ministry; the latter, the subjects of that ministry. For τὸν πλοῦτον the better accredited form is τὸ πλοῦτος . The τοῦ Χριστοῦ is prob. the gen. of possess. , = the riches that Christ has , or that are in Him. The πλοῦτος thus contained in Christ is the whole wealth of the salvation He bestows; and this is “unsearchable,” i.e. , not in the sense of inexhaustible , but rather in that of unfathomable , “past finding out,” such as cannot be fully comprehended by man; cf. Rom 11:33 , the only other NT occurrence of ἀνεξιχνίαστον ; also Job 5:9 ; Job 9:10 ; Job 34:24 , the only occurrences in the LXX. It is a picturesque and suggestive word, meaning literally such as cannot be traced out by footprints .

[256] Codex Vaticanus (sæc. iv.), published in photographic facsimile in 1889 under the care of the Abbate Cozza-Luzi.

[257] Codex Sinaiticus (sæc. iv.), now at St. Petersburg, published in facsimile type by its discoverer, Tischendorf, in 1862.

[258] Codex Alexandrinus (sæc. v.), at the British Museum, published in photographic facsimile by Sir E. M. Thompson (1879).

[259] Codex Ephraemi (sæc. v.), the Paris palimpsest, edited by Tischendorf in 1843.

[260] Codex Claromontanus (sæc. vi.), a Græco-Latin MS. at Paris, edited by Tischendorf in 1852.

[261] Codex Augiensis (sæc. ix.), a Græco-Latin MS., at Trinity College, Cambridge, edited by Scrivener in 1859. Its Greek text is almost identical with that of G, and it is therefore not cited save where it differs from that MS. Its Latin version, f, presents the Vulgate text with some modifications.

[262] Codex Mosquensis (sæc. ix.), edited by Matthæi in 1782.

[263] Codex Angelicus (sæc. ix.), at Rome, collated by Tischendorf and others.

[264] Codex Claromontanus (sæc. vi.), a Græco-Latin MS. at Paris, edited by Tischendorf in 1852.

[265] Codex Augiensis (sæc. ix.), a Græco-Latin MS., at Trinity College, Cambridge, edited by Scrivener in 1859. Its Greek text is almost identical with that of G, and it is therefore not cited save where it differs from that MS. Its Latin version, f, presents the Vulgate text with some modifications.

[266] Codex Mosquensis (sæc. ix.), edited by Matthæi in 1782.

[267] Codex Angelicus (sæc. ix.), at Rome, collated by Tischendorf and others.

[268] Codex Vaticanus (sæc. iv.), published in photographic facsimile in 1889 under the care of the Abbate Cozza-Luzi.

[269] Codex Sinaiticus (sæc. iv.), now at St. Petersburg, published in facsimile type by its discoverer, Tischendorf, in 1862.

[270] Codex Alexandrinus (sæc. v.), at the British Museum, published in photographic facsimile by Sir E. M. Thompson (1879).

[271] Codex Ephraemi (sæc. v.), the Paris palimpsest, edited by Tischendorf in 1843.

The Expositor's Greek Testament, edited by W. Robertson Nicoll (1897–1910) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Eph_3:8

To me, adds the apostle, who am less than the least of all saints, is this grace given, that I should preach among the Gentiles, the unsearchable riches of Christ.

By the word saints is to be understood not the apostles, but the people of God, who are called to be saints, 1Co_1:7; Rom_1:7. Less than the least, ἐλαχιστοτέρος, a comparative formed from a superlative. It was not merely the sense of his sinfullness in general, which weighed so heavily on the apostles conscience. It was the sin of persecuting Christ, which he could never forgive himself. As soon as God revealed his Son in him, and he apprehended the infinite excellence and love of Christ, the sin of rejecting and blaspheming such a Savior appeared so great that all other sins seemed as comparatively nothing. Pauls experience in this matter is the type of the experience of other Christians. It is the sin of unbelief; the sin of rejecting Christ, of which, agreeably to our Saviors own declaration, the Holy Spirit is sent to convince the world. Joh_16:9.

To one thus guilty it was a great favor to be allowed to preach Christ. The expression τὸ ἀνεξιχνίαστον πλοῦτος τοῦ Χριστοῦ, unsearchable riches of Christ; riches which cannot be traced; past finding out, may mean either the riches or blessings which Christ bestows, or the riches which he possesses. Both ideas may be included, though the latter is doubtless the more prominent. The unsearchable riches of Christ, are the futileness of the Godhead, the plenitude of all divine glories and perfections which dwell in him; the fullness of grace to pardon, to sanctify and save; everything in short, which renders him the satisfying portion of the soul.

Charles Hodge — Commentary on Romans (1835), First Corinthians (1857), and Ephesians (1856) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

am--Not merely was I in times past, but I still am the least worthy of so high an office (compare Ti1 1:15, end).

least of all saints--not merely "of all apostles" (Co1 15:9-10).

is--Greek, "has been given."

among--omitted in the oldest manuscripts Translate, "to announce to the Gentiles the glad tidings of the unsearchable (Job 5:9) riches," namely, of Christ's grace (Eph 1:7; Eph 2:7). Rom 11:33, "unsearchable" as a mine inexhaustible, whose treasures can never be fully explored (Eph 3:18-19).

Jamieson, Fausset & Brown — Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.

Verse 8. Less than the least of all saints] ελαχιστοτερω παντων αγιων. As the design of the apostle was to magnify the grace of Christ in the salvation of the world, he uses every precaution to prevent the eyes of the people from being turned to any thing but Christ crucified; and although he was obliged to speak of himself as the particular instrument which God had chosen to bring the Gentile world to the knowledge of the truth, yet he does it in such a manner as to show that the excellency of the power was of God, and not of him; and that, highly as he and his follow apostles were honoured; they had the heavenly treasure in earthen vessels. To lay himself as low as possible, consistently with his being in the number of Divinely commissioned men, he calls himself less than the least; and is obliged to make a new word, by strangely forming a comparative degree, not from the positive, which would have been a regular grammatical procedure, but from the superlative. The adjective ελαχυς signifies little, ελασσων or ελαττων, less, and ελαχιστος, least. On this latter, which is the superlative of ελαχυς, little, St. Paul forms his comparative, ελαχιστοτερος, less than the least, a word of which it would be vain to attempt a better translation than that given in our own version. It most strongly marks the unparalleled humility of the apostle; and the amazing condescension of God, in favouring him, who had been before a persecutor and blasphemer, with the knowledge of this glorious scheme of human redemption, and the power to preach it so successfully among the Gentiles.

The unsearchable riches of Christ] The word ανεξιχνιαστος, from α, privative, and εξιχνιαζω, to trace out, from ιχνος, a step, is exceedingly well chosen here: it refers to the footsteps of God, the plans he had formed, the dispensations which he had published, and the innumerable providences which he had combined, to prepare, mature, and bring to full effect and view his gracious designs in the salvation of a ruined world, by the incarnation, passion, death, and resurrection of his Son. There were in these schemes and providences such riches-such an abundance, such a variety, as could not be comprehended even by the naturally vast, and, through the Divine inspiration, unparalleledly capacious mind of the apostle.

Yet he was to proclaim among the Gentiles these astonishing wonders and mysteries of grace; and as he proceeds in this great and glorious work, the Holy Spirit that dwelt in him opens to his mind more and more of those riches-leads him into those footsteps of the Almighty which could not be investigated by man nor angel, so that his preaching and epistles, taken all in their chronological order, will prove that his views brighten, and his discoveries become more numerous and more distinct in proportion as he advances. And had he lived, preached, and written to the present day, he had not exhausted the subject, nor fully declared to the Gentiles the unsearchable riches of Christ-the endless depths of wisdom and knowledge treasured up in him, and the infinity of saving acts and saving power displayed by him.

Adam Clarke's Commentary on the Bible (1810–1826) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

8. To me, who am the least. He labors to exhibit himself, and everything that belongs to him, in as humiliating a light as possible, in order that the grace of God may be the more highly exalted. But this acknowledgment had the additional effect of anticipating the objections which his adversaries might bring against him. “Who is this man that God should have raised him above all his brethren? What superior excellence did he possess that he should be chosen in preference to all the others?” All such comparisons of personal worth are set aside by the confession, that he was the least of all the saints.

This is no hypocritical declaration. Most men are ready enough to make professions of feigned humility, while their minds are swelled with pride, and in words to acknowledge themselves inferior to every one else, while they wish to be regarded with the highest esteem, and think themselves entitled to the highest honor. Paul is perfectly sincere in admitting his unworthiness; nay, at other times he speaks of himself in far more degrading language.

“For I am the least of the apostles, and am not worthy to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the church of God.” (1 Corinthians 15:9.)

“Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, of whom I am chief” (1 Timothy 1:15.)

But let us observe, that, when he speaks of himself as the meanest of all, he confines his attention to what he was in himself, apart from the grace of God. As if he had said, that his own worthlessness did not prevent him from being appointed, while others were passed by, to be the apostle of the Gentiles. The grace of God given to me is the expression used by him, to intimate that it was a peculiar gift, as compared with what had been bestowed on others. Not that he alone had been elected to discharge that office, but that he held the highest rank among “the teachers of the Gentiles,” — a title which he employs on another occasion as peculiar to himself.

“I am ordained a preacher, and an apostle, (I speak the truth in Christ, and lie not,) a teacher of the Gentiles in faith and truth.” (1 Timothy 2:7.)

By the unsearchable riches of Christ are meant the astonishing and boundless treasures of grace, which God had suddenly and unexpectedly bestowed on the Gentiles. The Ephesians are thus reminded how eagerly the gospel ought to be embraced, and how highly it ought to be esteemed. This subject has been treated in the Exposition of the Epistle to the Galatians, (Galatians 1:15, 16; 2:7, 9.) And certainly, while Paul held the office of apostleship in common with others, it was an honor peculiar to himself to be appointed apostle of the Gentiles.

John Calvin's Commentaries (1540-1563) — public domain. Text from the Calvin Translation Society English edition (1840s-50s) via the Christian Classics Ethereal Library (ccel.org). Calvin's coverage is partial (roughly two-thirds of the Bible); uncommented books and verses are honest gaps, never fabricated. The 19th-century editor's footnotes and remarks are omitted so the notes are faithfully Calvin's own voice.

(8) Less than the least of all saints.—Compare with this expression of deep humility the well-known passages 1Co_15:9-10; 2Co_11:30; 2Co_12:9-11; 1Ti_1:12-16. It may be noted that in each case his deep sense of unworthiness is brought out by the thought of God’s especial grace and favour to him. Thus in 1Co_15:9-10, the feeling that he is “the least of the Apostles, not meet to be called an Apostle,” rises out of the contemplation of the special manifestation of the risen Lord to him as “one born out of due time;” in 2Co_11:30; 2Co_12:9-11, “boasting” has been forced upon him, and so, having been compelled to dwell on the special work done by him, and the special revelations vouchsafed to him, he immediately adds, “though I am nothing;” in 1Ti_1:12-16, as also here, it is the greatness of his message of universal salvation which reminds him that he was “a persecutor and injurious,” “the chief of sinners,” and “less than the least of all saints.” Elation in the sense of privilege—“the glorying in that which we have received,” so emphatically rebuked in 1Co_4:7—is the temptation of the first superficial enthusiasm; deep sense of weakness and unworthiness, the result of second and deeper thought, contrasting the heavenly treasure with the earthen vessels which contain it (2Co_4:7). Possibly there is a “third thought,” deeper still, belonging to the times of highest spiritual aspiration, which loses all idea of self, even of weakness and unworthiness, in the thought of “the strength made perfect in weakness,” and the consciousness (as in Php_4:12-13) that “we can do all things through Christ that strengtheneth us.” See this last brought out in peculiar fulness and freedom in 2Co_5:13 to 2Co_6:10; a passage almost unique in its disclosure of spiritual experience.

The unsearchable riches of Christ.—The word “unsearchable” properly carries with it the metaphor (latent in our word “investigate”) of tracking the footsteps, but not tracking them completely to their source or issue—thus gaining an evidence of a living power, but “not knowing whence it cometh or whither it goeth.” In this proper sense it is used in Rom_11:33, “How unsearchable are His judgments, and His ways past finding out!” (as also in Job_5:9; Job_9:10). Here it is used in a slightly different sense—applied to that “wealth” or fulness of Christ on which this Epistle lays such especial stress, as a wealth of truth which we can see in part but cannot wholly measure, and a wealth of grace which we can enjoy but cannot exhaust.

A Bible Commentary for English Readers, edited by Charles John Ellicott (1878–1897) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Unto me who am less than the least of all saints,.... This is an instance of the great humility of the apostle, and indeed the greatest saints are generally speaking, the most humble souls, as Abraham, Jacob, Moses, David, and others; these have the meanest thoughts of themselves, and the best of others; they rejoice in the grace of God manifested to others; they are willing to receive instruction, nay admonition, from the meanest believer; they have the least opinion of their own works, and are the greatest admirers of the grace of God; and do most contentedly submit to the sovereign will of God: the reasons of their great humility are, because they have the largest discoveries of the love and grace of God and Christ, which are of a soul humbling nature; they are the most sensible of their own sinfulness, vileness, and unworthiness, which keeps them low in their own sight; they are commonly the most afflicted with Satan's temptations, which are suffered to attend them, lest they should be exalted above measure; they are the most fruitful souls, and boughs laden with fruit hang lowest; and they are the most conformable to Christ, who is meek and lowly. The phrase seems to be Jewish: there was one R. Jose "the little", who was so called, it is said, because he was , "the least of saints" (l): but the apostle uses a still more diminutive word, and calls himself less than the least of them; and adds,

is this grace given; that is, the gift of grace, as before, the ministerial gift:

that I should preach among the Gentiles the unsearchable riches of Christ; the riches of Christ, as God, lie in the perfections of his nature, in the works of his hands, in his empire and dominion over all, and in the revenues of glory, which result from thence; and these riches are underived and incommunicable, and are ineffable, yea inconceivable: his riches, as Mediator, lie in the persons of the elect, in the grace that is laid up in him for them, called the riches of grace, and in the inheritance he is possessed of for them, called the riches of glory; and these rich things are communicable, as well as solid, satisfying, and lasting; and they are unsearchable to the natural man, and cannot be fully investigated by believers themselves; they will be telling over to all eternity: and they will appear unsearchable, when it is considered what they have procured, and what blessings have been dispensed according to them; what a large family Christ has maintained by them, and how richly and fully he has provided for them, and to what honour and grandeur he raises them all. Now it was great grace to intrust the apostle with such a ministry, to put such treasure into an earthen vessel; it was great grace that qualified him for it; and it was great grace in particular to the Gentiles, that he should be appointed to publish these among them; and so the apostle esteemed it, and himself unworthy of such honour.

(l) T. Hieros. Bava Kama, fol. 3, 4. Misna Sota, c. 9. sect. 15. Juchasin, fol. 79. 2.

John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible (1746–1763) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.

8 Unto me, who am less than the least of all saints, is this grace given, that I should preach among the Gentiles the unsearchable riches of Christ;

Ver. 8. Less than the least] Great Paul is least of saints, last of apostles, greatest of sinners. The best balsams sink to the bottom, the goodliest buildings have lowest foundations; the heaviest ears of grain hang downward; so do the boughs of trees that are best laden. {a} Ignatius in his epistles saith, I salute you who am ultimus, the last and least of all others. So in another epistle, Tantillitas nostra, our meanness.

The unsearchable riches] Gr. ανεξιχνιαστον. Not to be traced out. Should not ministers be made welcome that come to men on such golden messages? In Christ are riches of justification, Tit 2:14; sanctification, Php 4:12-13; consolation, 2Co 12:9; glorification, 1Pe 1:5.

{a} Opulentissima metalla, quorum in alto latent venae. Sen.

John Trapp, A Commentary or Exposition upon All the Books of the Old and New Testament (1647–1656) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Unto me, who am less than the least of all saints - This is one of the class of expressions unique to Paul. The ordinary terms of language do not express the idea which he wishes to convey, and a word is therefore coined to convey an idea more emphatically; compare the notes at 2Co 4:17. The word used here - ἐλαχιστότερος elachistoteros - does not occur elsewhere in the New Testament. It is a comparative made from the superlative. Similar expressions are found, however, in later Greek writers; see Bloomfield and Rosenmuller for examples. The word means here, “who am incomparably the least of all the saints; or who am not worthy to be reckoned among the saints.” It is expressive of the deep sense which he had of the sinfulness of his past life; of his guilt in persecuting the church and the Saviour; and perhaps of his sense of his low attainments in piety; see the notes at 1Co 15:9. Paul never could forget the guilt of his former life; never forget the time when he was engaged in persecuting the church of God.

The unsearchable riches of Christ - On the word “riches,” as used by Paul, see the notes at Eph 1:7. The word rendered “unsearchable,” ἀνεξιχνίαστον anexichniaston, occurs but once elsewhere in the New Testament Rom 11:33, where it is rendered “past finding out;” see the notes at that verse. It means that which cannot be “traced out,” or explored; which is inscrutable, or incomprehensible. The meaning here is, that there was a “sufficiency” in Christ which could not be traced out or explored. It was wholly incomprehensible. The fullness of the riches in him could not be appreciated. There is no more emphatic expression in the New Testament than this. It shows that the heart of the apostle was full of admiration of the sufficiency and glory that was in the Saviour; that he wanted words to express it; and that he considered it the highest honor to be permitted to tell the world that there were such riches in the Redeemer.

Albert Barnes' Notes on the Bible (1834–1885) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

To me, the least of all the saints, (i.e. of the faithful) is given this mission by the grace of God, and power from the Almighty of working miracles, and other miraculous gifts from him, who created all things in order to enlighten [4] or bring light to all men, that they may know and be convinced of the dispensation and manner in which God will have this mystery now made known and preached to all the world. (Witham)

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[BIBLIOGRAPHY]

Illuminare omnes, Greek: photisai pantas; not as God doth by interior illuminations, but by preaching.

George Leo Haydock (1774–1849), Haydock's Catholic Family Bible and Commentary, 1859 edition — public domain. Excludes Psalms (Douay-Rheims chapter numbering differs from Protestant) and Deuterocanonical books (Catholic canon only).

Who am less than the least of all saints; this the apostle speaks considering his former estate in Judaism, when he persecuted the church of Christ: so 1Co 15:9; 1Ti 1:13,15. Thus modest is the apostle, when speaking of himself, and not of his office.

The unsearchable riches of Christ; all that grace of Christ which he was to make known to the Gentiles in his preaching, wisdom, righteousness, sanctification, redemption, 1Co 1:30.

Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible (1683–1685) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

8. The apostle feels the overwhelming pressure of this sublime mystery resting upon his being. Like one surveying the vastness of universal space, as unfolded in astronomy, he feels what a mere speck he is. The present verse is indeed a contrast between his own littleness and the greatness of Christ’s bounty to men, which he is called to dispense.

Less than the least—An ingenious expression of the translators to give the force of the apostle’s Greek. The Greek word is a superlative least, with a comparative termination added, as if leaster; a degree below least; and so less, by one degree, than the least.

Of all saints—For which of all the saints had so “persecuted the Church of God?” 1Co_15:9. Even as late as 1Ti_1:13, he cannot forgive himself, how much soever God had forgiven him, that he had been “a blasphemer, and a persecutor, and injurious.”

Preach among the Gentiles—Especially; as Peter among the Jews, Gal_1:16.

Unsearchable—The Greek word derived from track; so, untrackable, untraceable.

Daniel D. Whedon (gen. ed.), Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1874–1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Unto me, who am less than the least of all saints; not only of apostles and prophets, but even of all believers a profound expression of humility, founded not only on his persecuting career, but on his consciousness of sin, of inborn rebellion against God"s Law, of fountains of unlawful desire in his flesh (Rom_7:18; 1Ti_1:13-15) making him feel himself to be, in heart and essence, the chief of sinners. The sense of sin is not usually in proportion to the acts of outward transgression, but to the insight into the springs of evil in one"s heart, and the true nature of sin as direct antagonism to the holy God. Was this grace given. The third time in this chapter that he speaks of his office as a fruit of grace, showing that, notwithstanding his being a prisoner on account of it, and all the perils it involved, (2Co_11:24-27) he was overwhelmed with God"s unmerited goodness in conferring it on him. It was substantially the post of a foreign missionary, with hardly one human comfort! To preach among the Gentiles the unsearchable riches of Christ; eujggelisasqai, to evangelize, to proclaim good tidings. The force of the euj is not given in "preach," but the idea is amply conveyed by the words that follow. The balance of authority for toiv eqnesi, "to the Gentiles," and ejn toiv eqnesi, "among the Gentiles," is about equal; the meaning really the same.

Eqnov, heathen, was almost an offensive name; yet with that name the apostle associates the highest blessings of God. The unsearchable riches of Christ; two attractive words, riches and unsearchable, conveying the idea of the things that are most precious being infinitely abundant. Usually precious things are rare; their very rarity increases their price; but here that which is most precious is also boundless riches of compassion and love, of merit, of sanctifying, comforting, andtransforming power, all without limit, and capable of satisfying every want, craving, and yearning of the heart, now and evermore. The thought of his having such riches to offer to all made him regard his office as most glorious, raised him far above the point of view from which the world would despise it, and filled him with adoring gratitude to God for having conferred it on him.

The unsearchable riches of Christ.

an attractive word. Human heart leaps towards them. Ceaseless disappointments of most who follow after them. Here the riches that moth and rust do not corrupt, nor thieves break through to steal.

1. There are in Christ unsearchable riches of compassion. Case of the lost, proper object of pity. Christ"s pity boundless. Human pity often quenched by great wickedness, troublesomeness, loathsomeness. Not so Christ"s! Pity for thief on cross, Saul, Corinthians, and other gross sinners.

2. Unsearchable riches of merit. His blood cleanseth us from all sin. He is "able to save to the uttermost all that come to God by him Augustine, Bunyan, Lord Rochester, John Newton, and such like.

3. Unsearchable riches of sanctifying grace. Great change needed to make men meet for kingdom of heaven. This includes grace to enlighten, guide, strengthen, and to restore from declension.

4. Unsearchable riches of comforting grace. No sorrow to which we are liable for which the gospel has not a comfort; no wound for which there is no balm. The Third Person, "the Comforter," is sent by Christ.

5. Unsearchable riches of glorifying grace. Can make provision for the full satisfaction and infinite enjoyment of every soul forever and ever. "They shall hunger no more, neither thirst any more; ... for the Lamb in the midst of the throne shall feed them;" "He that hath the Son hath life;" "He that overcometh shall inherit all things, and I will be his God, and he shall be my son.

Vers. 8, 9.

The apostle"s high privilege.

Very often does he refer, with a sort of grateful humility, to the Divine favor in attaching him to the service of the gospel.

I MARK THE CONTRAST BETWEEN HIS CALL AND HIS SENSE OF PERSONAL NOTHINGNESS. "Less than the least of all saints." The expression is exceedingly emphatic, being a comparative formed upon a superlative. He could never forget his share in the death of Stephen, and his fierce persecutions of the Church of God. This was the sin which, though forgiven by God, could never be forgiven by himself. But he was likewise conscious of his own weakness and sinfulness, as we know by the very forcible phrase, "of sinners I am chief," which he uses as a presently believing man. Such language of self abasement is a mark of true saintship. The highest saints are usually the most distinguished by their humility. The term by which he describes himself implies that there are saints in Christ"s kingdom little, less, least; not that there is any difference in their title, but a difference at once in their realization of their own unworthiness and in the degree of their conformity to him who was at once meek and lowly." Now, while the consciousness of his own unworthiness steed out in marked contrast to the high function to which he was called in God"s grace, he does not shrink from asserting his authority as an ambassador of Christ in the strongest terms, but always with the conviction of one who ascribes all his success, not to his own merits, but to "the gift of the grace of God? His call to the apostleship involved his conversion, and his conversion was "by the effectual working of God"s power.

II CONSIDER HIS MESSAGE TO THE GENTILES. "The unsearchable riches of Christ." We read of riches of grace and riches of glory, but the plenitude of all Divine blessings is in him.

1. The apostle does not specify what is included in the riches of Christ." He who was rich for our sakes became poor that "ye through his poverty might be made rich". (2Co_8:9) We see the source of all the riches it is in himself. But Scripture shows that, while in him there was all the fullness of the Godhead bodily, with the real design of his filling us eventually with all the fullness of God, "the riches of Christ" are scattered over the whole path of a believer, from its starting-point in conversion till it is lost in the glories of the eternal inheritance. He is rich in love, rich in compassion, rich in mercy, rich in grace, rich in peace, rich in promise, rich

2. in reward, rich in all the blessings of the new and better covenant, as he must be because he is "made unto us wisdom, righteousness, sanctification, redemption.

3. The riches of Christ are unsearchable." The word suggests the idea of the difficulty of tracing footsteps. Who can trace the footsteps of God? Whatever of power is infinite power; whatever of wisdom is infinite wisdom; whatever of love is infinite love.

(1) We cannot trace the extent of the "riches of Christ." We may apply a double standard of measurement, taking account of the infinite altitude of the sources whence his salvation has flowed, and of the depths of sin and misery to which salvation had to descend in order to reach its objects. Yet we have not searched out the riches of Christ. He put forth upon our salvation all the invention of his omniscient wisdom, applied to it the utmost energies of his omnipotent power, and lavished upon it the exceeding riches of his infinite goodness neither mercy conflicting with justice, nor love with righteousness, nor compassion for the sinner with hatred of his sins.

(2) The riches of Christ are unsearchable so far they are undiminished with use or time. Who can trace the limits of their application? Millions have drunk of the "water of the wells of salvation?" but these wells are still unexhausted and inexhaustible. The rivers of the earth may fail; there may be dry wastes where now there are running streams; but the riches of Christ can never fail, though thousands of needy souls have drawn from them and twice ten thousand more will yet come to draw. The fountain of supply is full as it is free, and free as it is full.

(3) Consider his larger message to the whole world of man. "And to make all men see the dispensation of the mystery, which from the beginning of the world hath been hid in God." The apostle"s object was to enlighten the Jew as well as the Gentile upon the true nature of the dispensation which displaced so much that was dear to the Jewish heart in order that the true glory of the Lord might shine forth, not as a mere minister of the circumcision, but as the uniter of Jew and Gentile, bond and free, male and female, in his own body. The mystery was hid for ages, but was now made known by apostles and prophets. We see how revelation was an historical movement, subject to the usual laws of historical development; for the redemptive purpose," hid for ages," was evolved by a gradual process of growth, till in Christianity it became a full-grown fact. It was part of the discipline of man to go through all these stages of imperfect knowledge till "the perfect day" dawned upon the world. But it was through all the ages "the mystery of redemption," going back to the ages that date from creation building the platform on which the strange mystery of redemption was disclosed. T.C.

Less than the least of all saints.

I HE WHO IS MOST HIGHLY GIFTED WITH DIVINE GRACE WILL THINK MOST LOWLY OF HIMSELF. St. Paul, the most gifted apostle, is most deeply conscious of his own unworthiness. We must distinguish between the endowment of grace and the acquisition of merit. To have much grace is only to be much favored. As a man grows in grace he grows in power of spiritual insight; and the result is twofold he has more knowledge of his own true state and a better understanding of the claims of righteousness. Thus the standard is ever rising above his head in greater heights of holiness, while he is constantly seeing more clearly, freed from all hypocrisy and self-deception, the miserable weakness and sinfulness of his own character.

II HE WHO THINKS MOST LOWLY OF HIMSELF WILL BE MOST FITTED FOR THE SERVICE OF CHRIST. It is not that unworthiness is itself a fitness for service. Both to be unworthy and to think one"s self worthy are to be doubly unfit. But as Socrates thought he might be accounted wise only because he knew he was ignorant while all other Athenians were unconscious of their ignorance, the true servant of Christ is aware of the sinfulness which is common to him and to all others, but others are not so deeply conscious of it. This humble consciousness of unworthiness is helpful for service,

(1) because it makes us look for the indispensable grace of God;

(2) because it saves us from preaching ourselves when we should be preaching Christ; and

(3) because it compels us to give God all the glory of success. W.F.A.

The unsearchable riches of Christ.

Some riches are unsearchable because they are inaccessible, like jewels guarded by jealous sentinels, and pearls in sea-caves, and the gold-mines of remote stars. Some riches are unsearchable because they are secret, like treasure hid in a field, and ancient records in undeciphered hieroglyphics; in this sense an illiterate man finds the wealth of a library, and an unscientific man the stores of a museum, unsearchable. No doubt there are wonderful graces in Christ that are as yet above and beyond our grasp, and deep mysteries that we cannot fathom, and a spiritual worth in all his blessings that cannot be discovered by the unspiritual. But it is not in these senses that the riches of Christ are called unsearchable. The doors of his treasure-chamber are flung wide that the poorest may enter. There is no veil of mystery to prevent a little child from seeing the beauty within. The riches of Christ are unsearchable simply because they are so abundant and so various that no man can ever measure the extent, or count the number, or distinguish all the forms of them. For near upon nineteen centuries this great treasury has been ransacked by friends and foes, by hungering inquirers and by keen-eyed critics, with the result that, like the infinite wealth of nature which is felt to be more immeasurable in our own day, after the fruitful labors of the most indefatigable naturalists, than ever it was when not one-tenth of what we now know was discovered these riches of Christ amaze and fascinate and overwhelm us with an ever-growing sense of their magnificent unsearchableness.

I THE RICHES OF THE CHARACTER OF CHRIST ARE UNSEARCHABLE.

1. They have been searched into by uncompromising foes, at first by bitter Pharisees and scoffing Sadducees, later by clever philosophical opponents, such as Celsus and Porphyry, down to the times of Voltaire"s sparkling sarcasm and Strauss"s dry criticism. And the verdict of mankind is distinctly against the fault-finders, confessing with Pilate, "I find no fault in him.

2. These riches have also been searched into by adoring disciples, some with the profundity of St. Augustine, others with the simplicity of St. Frances; and all types of Christians in every succeeding age unhesitatingly declare that they never weary of worshipping fresh wonders in that life of unearthly loveliness. The more our eyes are opened to discern spiritual worth, and the more the character of Christ is studied, the more are we astonished and delighted by the vision of infinite perfection.

II THE RICHES OF THE TRUTH OF CHRIST ARE UNSEARCHABLE. Christ is the Truth and the Light of the world. The ideas of Plato may be measured the truth of Christ never. Yet two classes of people deny the unsearchable nature of the riches of this truth.

1. Those who say the world has outgrown Christianity. Perhaps they mistake the dogmas of the creeds for the truth as it is in Jesus. The former are necessarily limited, and some of them may have to break up and give place to larger ideas. But the latter is living, infinite, and eternal.

2. Those who are satisfied that they know everything. They are usually the people who know least. A smooth and rounded scheme of doctrine comprehends their universe. Because they have shaped it into logical consistency, they assume that no truth can lie outside it. They have yet to learn that the Word made flesh, like the Word in nature, is infinite.

III THE RICHES OF THE LOVE OF CHRIST ARE UNSEARCHABLE. Human love commonly diminishes in intensity in proportion to the extent of the area over which it is spread; family affection being warmer than our interest in the wider circle of friends, and this than general philanthropy, just as the river is deep where it is narrow, but becomes shallow as its banks open out in width. But the grace of Christ, in depth and breadth like the sea, has a vast comprehensiveness for all, together with a strong intensity for each. So that in the last great assembly, when some come from distant isles and some from hidden valleys, some from populous cities and some from lonesome deserts, to confess that the grace of Christ has reached them in the fullness of its power, none will be found so remote as to have been beyond reach, so undeserving as to have been past mercy, or so needy as not to have been able to find the supply of every real want in his great riches of love.

IV THE RICHES OF THE BLESSINGS GIVEN BY CHRIST ARE UNSEARCHABLE. There is still an unhappy habit among some of listening only to the evil report of the spies who tell of the giants, and turning a deaf ear to the spies who bring the grapes and pomegranates, No wonder that this habit leads to the painting of the blessings of Christianity with very dull shades. Rightly understood, the gospel offers a pearl of great price, reveals hidden treasures, strips off the rags and brings forth the best robe and the ring. From the first grace of forgiveness to the last grace of peace in death, Christ is breathing benedictions on the Christian"s life, so that when he reflects, he is astonished at what he has already received, and yet learns to accept all this as only the earnest of the blessings of light, and strength, and purity, and peace, that are reserved for his future inheritance. W.F.A.

The Pulpit Commentary (1880–1919), ed. H.D.M. Spence-Jones & Joseph S. Exell — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Unto me, who am less than the least of all saints, is this grace given - Here are the noblest strains of eloquence to paint the exceeding low opinion the apostle had of himself, and the fulness of unfathomable blessings which are treasured up in Christ.

John Wesley, Explanatory Notes Upon the Whole Bible (1754–1765) — public domain. Text via the GEBible commentary corpus.

The humility of the apostle and the greatness of his mission:

v. 8. unto me, who am less than the least of all saints, is this grace given, that I should preach among the Gentiles the unsearchable riches of Christ;

v. 9. and to make all men see what is the fellowship of the mystery, which from the beginning of the world hath been hid in God, who created all things by Jesus Christ;

v. 10. to the intent that now unto the principalities and powers in heavenly places might be known by the Church the manifold wisdom of God,

v. 11. according to the eternal purpose which he purposed in Christ Jesus, our Lord;

v. 12. in whom we have boldness and access with confidence by the faith of Him.

v. 13. Wherefore I desire that ye faint not at my tribulations for you, which is your glory.

The apostle here takes up once more the thought of v. 2, joining it in a very skillful manner with the preceding verse: To me, who am less than the least of all the saints, was given this grace, to preach to the Gentiles the incomprehensible wealth of Christ. As Paul, 1Co 15:9, calls himself the least of the apostles, and, 1Ti 1:15, chief of sinners, so he here, by the formation of a comparative of a superlative, tries to express his feeling of unworthiness for the glorious office of the ministry. This is by no means false modesty, as liberal critics are carpingly saying, for Paul was well able to defend his office upon occasion, but it was true humility, such as should cause every pastor and every worker in the Church to make this verse his motto. It was the thought of the supreme dignity of the office which he had received at the cost of such boundless grace which could not fail to evoke Paul’s sense of his own utter unworthiness. That fact, that he was to preach the Gospel to the Gentiles, that he was to proclaim to them the unsearchable riches of Christ, overwhelmed him as an evidence of God’s unmerited grace. Unsearchable, incomprehensible riches he calls them, such as are unfathomable, past finding out, to which no footsteps lead that might enable men to find out the fullness of the divine salvation for themselves, to understand the spiritual, heavenly blessings in Christ by their own power of comprehension.

There is also another purpose connected with the ministry: And to enlighten all men as to what is the administration of the mystery which from all ages has been hidden in God, who creates all things. All men by nature are in the dark concerning the Gospel and its wonderful message of free grace. Therefore it is necessary that they be enlightened, that they be shown, that they be turned from darkness to light, 2Co 4:4; 2Pe 1:19; Act 26:18. They must be told that the mystery concerning the salvation of all men, including the Gentiles, is now openly proclaimed and applied to all men. This news was hidden since the world began; no man can conceive of it, can grasp it by nature. But now it has been revealed and realized in God, the Creator of all things. As such the almighty Lord creates and arranges the ages of the world; He puts into execution at His time what He has long kept hidden. Thus the Church of Christ owes her existence to the creative power of God. The Church is a new creation in that very form that it consists of Gentiles as well as Jews. So the greatness of the gift of grace entrusted to Paul, the beauty and power of the Gospel-ministry, is again brought out; for the Christian Church, which is thereby perfected, is, in its ultimate form, the spiritual part of mankind, whose principal thought is to give all honor to Him that created all things.

Since, moreover, the call of Paul made him a minister of the Gospel to the Gentiles, the aim of his work was: in order that there might be made known now unto the principalities and powers in the heavenly places, through the Church, the manifold wisdom of God. The purpose of Paul’s preaching was the gathering of the Church, which is synonymous with the revelation or administration of the mystery which had been hidden in God. Through the Church, therefore, according to God’s intention, even the principalities and powers of heaven should be acquainted with the many-sided wisdom of God, with the wisdom which has so many different forms, which manifests itself in so many different ways. The angels of God, who have a decided interest in the redemption of mankind, 1Pe 1:22, are eager to learn ever more of the wisdom of the almighty Lord, who makes use of so many different ways and means to build His Church and thus to realize the purpose of creation. Through the Church, in the Church, the interest of the angels is satisfied; they receive an insight into its workings, into the gracious purposes of God, into the splendid results which are bound to attend His efforts; and they raise their voices in songs of praise and adoration to Him whose wisdom and mercy are from everlasting.

The apostle now elaborates his thought, that he has been given this ministry for the purpose of realizing God’s merciful aims among men, by adding: According to the purpose of the ages, which was made in Christ Jesus, our Lord. This eternal purpose or intention is no other than that which Paul has discussed in the first part of this letter, the purpose which resulted in the election of grace. Upon this purpose of God is based also the apostleship of Paul, since its object is to collect the chosen children of God out of all nations of the world, to bring them together into one body, under the headship of Christ. God chose His own in Jesus Christ: the knowledge of this election had to be transmitted through the Gospel; the ministry of the Gospel was entrusted to the apostle. Therefore he can say of the time in which he was writing: in whom we have our boldness and access in confidence through our faith in Him. He includes his own person with that of his readers, thus speaking for all believers. Since these facts are known to us, therefore we Christians have freedom of spirit, cheerful boldness, the courageous mood of those that are reconciled to God. For we have access to God, the way to the Throne of Grace is open, chap. 2:18. We approach, then, with confidence, not with any reliance upon our own works and merits, hut through our faith in Him, Christ being the ground of our cheerful confidence. We may now enter into the presence of God without misgivings, with all boldness and confidence, as dear children come to their dear father.

In concluding this section, Paul adds an appeal to the Ephesian Christians: Wherefore I beseech you that you do not grow faint in my tribulations in your behalf, which are your glory. There was some danger that the disciples at Ephesus, hearing of the imprisonment of Paul, might be tempted to grow weak and faint-hearted, to lose courage, to believe the cause of Christianity doomed. But Paul wants them to put thoughts of this nature far from them. Because they, the former Gentiles, had, through the labor of the apostle, received the wealth of Christ and become members of the Church of Christ, therefore they were not to permit their joy over this blessing to be embittered by the remembrance of his sufferings, not to yield to the spirit of discouragement; for these tribulations were a necessary part of his office, they belonged to the cross which the minister of Christ must expect to bear, and before God they redounded, not to their shame, but to their glory. The Ephesians knew that their leader was not despondent in the trials which he must undergo, and therefore they should profit by his example and persevere in their Christian conviction.

Paul E. Kretzmann, Popular Commentary of the Bible (1921–1924) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

ARGUMENT 12

PAUL LESS THAN THE LEAST

8. This statement of the apostle, involving the widest hyperbole, is to be understood purely experimentally. While Paul was doubtless intellectually, spiritually, educationally, heroically, and experimentally, the greatest saint on the earth, why did he say he was less than the least? He was not speaking exegetically, but experimentally. Humility is the fundamental and most important Christian grace. When John Fletcher was asked, “What is the most important grace?” he responded, “Humility.” Then they asked him what was next in importance. He answered, “Humility;” and likewise to the third question, he still said, “Humility.” Fletcher was so meek and lowly that he seemed more like an angel than a man. When John Wesley preached his funeral, he said: “There lies in that coffin the most saintly man I ever saw, neither expect to meet another such till I go to glory.” While Paul was great in learning, experience, labors, persecutions, and sufferings, he was proportionately great in humility, feeling as every truly humble saint that he was the least of all, and indulging the quaint Oriental hyperbole, “less than the least.”

9-12. Christ himself is the incarnation of the entire plan of salvation. His birth in Bethlehem is regeneration incarnate, and his death on the cross is sanctification.

11. “According to the plan of the ages, which he made in Christ Jesus our Lord.”

Eden was the first age, followed by the Antediluvian, the Patriarchal, the Mosaic, the Messianic, and, finally, the Apostolic, all consecutively preparing the world for the millennial kingdom and the endless reign of Christ, unanimously illustrating the universally patent fact of man’s redemption under the most encouraging circumstances, and indisputably confirming the sad conclusion of man’s hopeless failure under most auspicious omens, and establishing beyond all possible controversy his absolute dependence on God. While man’s hopeless failure sends a mournful wail around the world, reverberating down the ages from Eden to the millennium, echo takes up the glad refrain, and roars round the world, “God is a success, and has never known failure.”

12. “In whom we have boldness and access in confidence through the faith of himself.” In the justified experience we have faith in God more or less encumbered by doubt. In the sanctified experience, we have the faith of God perfectly free from doubt; i.e., the faith of Jesus himself, which was never contaminated.

13. Paul here certifies that all of his persecutions and tribulations only added richer luster and glory to the Church of Christ.

14. We here see that Paul was a stickler for genuflection indefatigable in the knee-drill. In Heb 12:11, Apollos exhorts the people to bend their “paralyzed knees.” Satan’s knee-paralysis has just about robbed the popular Churches of the last vestige of Christian devotion. The angels in heaven not only bow the knee, but fall prostrate in delectable devotion to the great Jehovah. All whoever shall go up to live with God in heaven must reach the heavenly state in this life, which makes us worship, not like proud Pharisees, but adoring angels.

15. Here we find that the same cognomen designates God’s people in heaven and in earth, one unbroken family temporarily partitioned by the starry firmament. That name is given (Isa 62:10): “They shall be called the holy people.” It is wonderful how this blind, wicked world pertinaciously, though ignorantly, fulfills the prophecies. It is a significant fact that the “second-blessing people” alone are denominated in worldly parlance, the holiness people. Others may claim to be holy, but the world stubbornly refuses to call them “holy.” It is a striking and universal fulfillment of prophecy.

16. “In order that he may grant unto you according to the riches of his glory, to be strengthened with dynamite by his Spirit in the inner man.”

This “inner man” is created in the heart by the Holy Ghost in regeneration, the rival of the carnal man born in you by natural regeneration transmitted from Adam. God’s wonderful dynamite not only gives the “inner man” dominion over his old rival, but when utilized by sanctifying faith actually explodes him into smithereens.

William B. Godbey, Commentary on the New Testament (1896–1900) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

8. Unto me, who am less than the least of all saints. A mighty trust granted to one so unworthy as he deems himself. He was ever humbled by remembering that he had been a persecutor. See 1 Cor. 15:9; Phil. 3:6. Compare 1 Tim. 1:13 This grace, so glorious and so full of blessedness to the world, was the apostleship to the Gentiles. See Gal. 2:7, 8.

B. W. Johnson's The People's New Testament with Notes (1889–1891) — public domain. Electronic text from the Christian Classics Ethereal Library (CCEL) ThML edition.

the saints

"those whom God has set apart for himself" or "God's holy people"

unsearchable

unable to be completely known (See: Metaphor)

riches of Christ

Paul speaks of the truth about Christ and the blessings he brings as if they were material wealth. (See: Metaphor)

bring to light for everyone the plan

Bringing things to light is a metaphor for helping people see the truth. AT: "shine a light on God's secret plan so all people will know what it is" or "teach all people what God's secret plan is" (See: Metaphor)

the mystery hidden for ages in God who created all things

This can be stated in active form. "God, who created all things, kept this plan hidden for long ages in the past" (See: Active or Passive)

translationWords

gift

saint

set apart

God

Gentile

good news

Christ

mystery

unfoldingWord translationNotes — © Distant Shores Media and the Door43 World Missions Community, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Source: git.door43.org/Door43/en_tn.

8. ἐμοὶ τῷ ἐλαχιστοτέρῳ πάντων ἁγίων. The thought of the commission instinctively wakens a sense of his own unworthiness. Cf. 1Co 15:8. The same trait is noticeable in the Pastorals (1Ti 1:12 f.; cf. Eph 2:7; 2Ti 1:11). A strong note of genuineness.

The commission included first a direct work in preaching to the Gentiles, opening their eyes and so introducing them to the fulness of their inheritance, as described in Eph 3:6 and in the prayer Eph 1:18 f. The inheritance presents itself as ‘unsearchable riches.’

ἀνεξιχνίαστον. ‘Unsearchable’ or ‘inscrutable’ (Rom 11:33; Job 5:9; Prayer of Manas. 2).

πλοῦτος. See on Eph 1:7. Cf. Col 2:3.

Cambridge Greek Testament for Schools and Colleges (Cambridge University Press, 1896; 21 vols, various authors incl. Carr, Maclear, Plummer, Farrar, Lumby, Moule, M. R. James, Simcox) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

8.] Instead of going straight onward with ἐν τοῖς ἔθνεσιν κ.τ.λ., he calls to mind his own (not past, but present and inherent, see 1Ti 1:15) unworthiness of the high office, and resumes the context with an emphatic declaration of it. To me, who am less than the least (thus admirably rendered by E. V. Winer, edn. 6, § 11. 2. b, adduces ἐλαχιστότατος from Sext. Empir. ix. 406, and μειότερος from Apoll. Rhod. ii. 368—and Wetst. χερειότερος from II. β. 248, and other examples (Ellic. remarks that Thuc. iv. 118 must be removed from Wetst.’s examples, as the true reading is κάλλιον)) of all saints (οὐκ εἰπε, τῶν ἀποστόλων, Chrys.: and herein this has been regarded as an expression of far greater depth of humility than that in 1Co 15:8: but each belongs to the subject in hand—each places him far below all others with whom he compared himself), was given this grace (viz.) to preach to the Gentiles (τ. ἔθν. is emphatic, and points out his distinguishing office. There is no parenthesis of ἐμοί to αὕτη as Harl. has unnecessarily imagined) the unsearchable (reff.; “in its nature, extent, and application.” Ellic.) riches of Christ (i.e. the fulness of wisdom, righteousness, sanctification, and redemption—all centred and summed up in Him)

Henry Alford, The Greek Testament (1849–1861) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

8. ἐμοὶ τῷ ἐλαχιστοτέρῳ πάντων ἁγίων ἐδόθη ἡ χάρις αὕτη. τῶν is added before ἁγίων in the Received Text, against a great preponderance of authority. ἁγίων is used as a substantive. “To me who am less than the least of all saints” (i.e. all Christians) “was this grace given.” Closely connected in thought with the preceding, as expressing his own unworthiness in contrast with God’s grace. Ἐλαχιστότερος. Double forms of comparatives and superlatives are frequent in the poets. Wetstein quotes Eustathius, who has collected numerous instances. But they also occur in the later prose writers, e.g. μειζότερος (Malalas, 490. 9; also 3Jn 1:4); ἐλαχιστότατος (Sextus Empir.; also Matt. iii. 54, ix. 406), apparently without any increase of meaning. The instances in earlier prose writers (Xen. Aristot.) seem to be invented by the respective writers. The present instance is remarkable as a combination of superlative and comparative. It has a curiously parallel form in Aristotle, Metaph. x. 4. 7 (Bekker), οὔτε γὰρ τοῦ ἐσχάτου ἐσχατώτερον εἴη ἄν τι; but there the form is introduced only as expressing an impossible conception, and is construed as a comparative; here, on the contrary, ἐλαχιστότερος appears to express a definite idea, not only least of all saints, but even less than this implies. It may therefore be considered a unique formation. The expression can hardly be interpreted, with some eminent expositors, as referring to his consciousness of enduring sinfulness, as to which he could not place himself lower than all saints. True it is, no doubt, that every Christian, when he looks into his own heart, and is conscious of the sin that still dwells there, and knows that he cannot see what is in the heart of others, may be ready to exclaim, ἐγὼ ἐλαχιστότερος πάντων ἁγίων; but this does not express a deliberate comparison, and whatever such a one may feel at such moments, he would act unwisely if, when instructing and exhorting others, he should thus proclaim his own inferiority to them. Such a confession would be likely to be misunderstood, and either called hypocritical or made the ground of the retort, Why, then, take upon you to instruct and reprove your betters? Certainly St. Paul gives us little reason to think that he would take such a view. He declares that he has “lived in all good conscience toward God”; that if any one might have confidence in the flesh, he might, being blameless as touching the righteousness which is in the law. And as one of the ἅγιοι, he does not reckon himself amongst the babes in Christ, but the mature, τέλειοι (Php 3:15). He affirms that in nothing is he behind the ὑπερλίαν ἀπόστολοι; nay, he does not hesitate to call on his readers to be imitators of him, as he is of Christ. While never for a moment forgetting his own nothingness, and that it is only by the grace of God that he was what he was, he likewise never forgets his true position in Christ’s service. And he was too much taken up with his work in that service to have time for indulging in that kind of self-examination which consists in analysing one’s state of mind or one’s feelings. In Rom 7:17, to which Harless refers, he is describing the state from which he has been delivered (ib. ver. 25, 8:2).

His recollection, ever vivid, of his former career as a persecutor is quite sufficient explanation of the expression here used.

The same writers who hold that the ἅγιοι ἀπόστολοι, ver. 5, could proceed only from an imitator who forgot his part, are of opinion that the expression now before us is an exaggerated imitation of 1Co 15:9, “I am the least of the apostles, that am not meet to be called an apostle.” But there was no occasion there for any comparison with believers in general; he is only speaking of himself as one of the apostles; here he speaks of a grace that distinguished him above other believers, and, “now undeservedly,” is his natural feeling. Indeed, we may with more justice say that this striking and unique expression could not proceed from calculated imitation; it has the stamp of a spontaneous outflow of an intense feeling of unworthiness. Nor does it really go beyond the passage in 1 Cor.; for there he declares himself not only the least of the apostles, but not meet to be called an apostle; here he does not say that he is not meet to be reckoned amongst the ἅγιοι. For the reader will not fail to note that notwithstanding the depth of his self-depreciation he still counts himself (or is represented as counting himself), and that not with hesitation, amongst the ἅγιοι, the very term which when joined with ἀπόστολοι is thought to be unapostolic. Yet no one supposes that ἁγίων here is inconsistent with humility.

τοῖς ἔθνεσιν εὐαγγελίσασθαι τὸ ἀνεξιχνίαστον πλοῦτος τοῦ χριστοῦ. The Rec. Text has ἐν before τοῖς ἔθ., with D G K L. It is absent from א A B C P.

“To preach unto the Gentiles the unsearchable riches of Christ.” This is what ἡ χάρις αὕτη consisted in. αὕτη refers to what follows. Harless regards the words as an exposition of δωρεά, ἐμοί to αὕτη being treated as a parenthesis in order to avoid what he thinks would be unnatural the close of a period within the long parenthesis, whose unusual length is only explained by the uninterrupted flow of thought. In that case αὕτη would refer backward to ver. 7. But it is very awkward to separate εὐαγγελίσασθαι from the immediately preceding ἡ χάρις αὕτη. As to vv. 2-13, this is not grammatically a parenthesis, for the sentence in ver. 1 is completely broken off, and a new sentence begins in ver. 14.

ἀνεξιχνίαστον. Theodoret well remarks: καὶ πῶς κηρύττεις εἴπερ ὁ πλοῦτος ἀνεξιχνίαστοσ; τοῦτο γὰρ αὐτό, φησι, κηρύττω, ὅτι ἀνεξιχνίαστος. The neuter πλοῦτος however, is the best supported reading in the text, being in א* A B C D* G 17 67**, while אo Dc K L P have the masculine, “the riches of Christ”; all the inexhaustible blessings contained in Him. Comp. Rom 11:33 (where the same word ἀνεξιχ. occurs), and 1Co 8:9-12, “We know in part,” etc., and Php 3:10.

International Critical Commentary — older volumes (1896–1929), various authors — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Less than the least [τω ελαχιστοτερω] . Only here in the New Testament, and very characteristic. A comparative is formed upon a superlative : more least than all the saints. Compare 1Co 14:8. 1 68 Unsearchable [ανεξιχνιαστον] . Only here and Rom 11:33 (note).

Which cannot be tracked out.

Marvin R. Vincent, Word Studies in the New Testament (1887–1900) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.