Eph. 3, 1-21 KJV

This familiar passage has enormously beautiful cadences and poetry, but there is a danger that the smooth and elegant flow of it will  numb us to the very remarkable and unusual concepts being conveyed, at break-neck word-by-word speed. Language is strained to the limit to attempt to describe such unusual and seemingly contradictory things. Yet to Paul it is certainly all totally real, matter-of-fact and concrete: it is not at all some sort of pleasant, feel-good, background mood music (which it can easily turn into for us).

The following linguistic gym is easy for a wordsmith to do, yet it seems to really bring out the strangeness and conciseness of the passage.

• Christ had a pivotal role in creation from the very start of time (v.9).
• Christ's role in redemption was all planned out from the start and is valid for all time. The Word became flesh and dwelt among us (v.11).
• Before Christ's ministry on earth, no one would have known or expected such a role because it was hidden, and because it  was an unfathomable mystery, not something anyone would humanly deduce or expect. It is mystery as in strange and complex, not as in mysticism. The OT sets out many aspects of a messianic role, but not the specific detail (v.3-4, v.9).
• We only know about it because of revelation, and even then Paul's ability to comprehend it and teach it needed special grace from God. This grace is also passed on to us, if we will accept it (v.2-3, v.7-8).
• The agent of revelation is the Holy Spirit. Grace is given to us by the Holy Spirit working effectually in us (v.5, v.7).
• We should keep in mind that this was not at all an ignorant society: the Greek dialectic was being proudly and confidently taught all around, with something not too different from the modern scientific method and mathematics, not least in places like Ephesus. Paul was fully aware of this way of reasoning and describing things, yet he doesn't, perhaps can't, use it to describe this, which he clearly regards as far more crucial. He launches straight into giving the Greeks this material that he knows full well they are going to find very strange and difficult. This is something to do with knowledge, yet it is a new and different type of knowledge, that surpasses and exceeds conventional knowledge (v.19).
• Knowledge is usually about hard-to-learn cold, sterile facts, but this knowledge is very different in character: it includes being filled with love, as a crucial fundamental, and being equipped by God in certain vital ways. The exam is an A-level in love (v.17, v.19).
• This is vital knowledge for the church, and the church includes, as well as present believers, those who died in the faith and the angels and archangels. There is a hierarchy in heaven, and Christ heads it up. It is clear that Christ is, in one sense, truly to be thought of in a grand, regal position commanding all things in an impressive hierarchy, yet we very quickly learn that Christ is also our brother. A hierarchy is about people getting the respect and deference due to them because of their rank, yet the effect of faith and grace and this new type of revealed knowledge is to melt away the strictures of hierarchy into something far more immediate, intimate and emotional. It is not about drop-down deadness but about passion, yet it is still appropriate sometimes to drop to our knees. Christ is fully entitled to the highest deference and respect, but the centrality of love totally changes the whole focus, rather like a child talking to a kindly, benign and enlightened headmaster. It is frightening to have to be so transparent to someone in authority. Maybe it will end in tears. The temple had God over there in the holy of holies, and me over here, in the coarse, secular patch. But now the temple is dissolved: there are no secrets and there is no hiding place. Christ is transcendant, up there on the throne, yet  also imminent, right here in my heart, directing every feeling and thought, living in me. Christ (in here) is leading and motivating me to pray to Christ (up there). He formulates the prayers for me. Somehow a request has now become something different, more akin to an entreaty. It is important to put effort into asking, yet the asking is subfused by Christ on both sides. He knows what we need before we ask. It must be the intense emotional direction and focus of asking that is needed, more than the request itself. It is passion more than repetition. The love modus operandi needs to be refuelled and the fuel is passion, and this is what prayer is mainly (v.10, v.14-15).
• Christ's love for us is so great it is impossible to comprehend it fully, yet it is important to know of it and be aware of it. It creates a reciprocity of love: we need to love as He loved us. Love and hierarchy exist together, and we can choose how we want to be treated and judged. Christ has regal rights and powers, but He regards love as higher and far more of the essence. One thinks of Shakespeare's disguised Henry V chatting colloquially  to the soldiers on the eve of Agincourt. It doesn't mean he isn't still king. It means he has the intelligence to know when the job requires him to set aside his ermine for a while (v.19).
• As well as love it involves fellowship, something less one-to-one, slightly more societal. They had all things in common. They took the time to get out the grass roller for next door (v.9).
• By the time we come close to getting the measure of it - if we ever do - this thing will be colossal, enormous, extensive, not confined at all. Be forewarned: there is going to be a lot to it. Some of it is inherently inaccessible, unsearchable (v.8, v.18).
• The entry point is not our merits and is not some intellectual pursuit: the entry point is faith in Christ being who he is, leading to our redemption (v.17).
• What does it mean to say with such familiar economy of words that Christ will dwell in our hearts? That all the attributes of Christ will suffuse our thinking. That the emotional centre of our lives will become aligned and attuned to the emotions of Christ. That we will not be tempted to sin. That when someone is born again, it is as though now it is Christ living in them. That they can no longer conceptually step out of the temple into the grimy everyday world, because they are now the temple. Accepting Christ is often described like paying a fixed penalty ticket. It is a formal juridical transaction, with strong elements of being let off lightly, but it is far more than that. It is about a heart transplant; it is about being born as a different person, with a different Dad. It is like saying, when giving directions, you can't start from here. The Greeks had a formidable array of intellectual tools, even by today's BA Hons 2.1 standards, but the tools stayed in the toolbox (v.17).
• Our standing and status in the world depend on our lineage, and we are guided by our parents. But now we all have the same Father and the same surname as Christ. So we now have the highest lineage imaginable. And we can approach the Creator of the world as Daddy. A human hierarchy usually throws us down to the ground as pleading dogsbodies, but this hierarchy is totally different. It is like starting a new job and being told by HR, "You see, we are very human at this company, and everyone is approachable, and there is an open-door policy" (which does happen) (v.14-15).
• What goes around comes around. Paul's suffering leads to glory, and it is somehow the Ephesians' glory, perhaps in earning the repute to be worth suffering for (v.13)
• The Holy Spirit draws on riches of glory to strengthen our inner man. Humanly speaking, seeing Paul's conduct and fortitude, we find it easier to separate mere discomfiture of the physical body from what we really are and whose we really are deep down, which should be far more of concernto us. Glory is a resource that passes around, not in a vainglorious way, but in a practical way (v.16)