Ephesians 3:10 Commentary and Bible Study

That word ‘by’ might have misled us. What it means is that through the church, by observing God’s work towards the church, the angels learn more about the wonders of grace than would be possible in a world with no sin, no redemption, no forgiveness and salvation. How exactly do we teach them? Well, they just observe. They see men and women who were far from God, consumed by their own desires, living for sin. They see selfish men and women, dishonest men and women, and they see the grace of God and those people, by the power of the Spirit having their hearts melted; they see them come to Christ and be transformed and changed, and then how different they become. For although they are still struggling against sin, they see them characterised also by acts of great kindness and unselfishness and love for God. And they marvel and wonder at it, so the angels are taught the principles of grace by observing the work of God in the church. There is no doubt that while ‘principalities and powers’ can refer to evil angels, here it refers exclusively to the good angels. We can’t really exegete the passage with anything else in mind. Why is it that God saves? Why does he build up the church of Jesus Christ? Why has he brought Jew and Gentile and every other nationality into the church of Jesus Christ and made us all one with the same salvation and the same access to him? Well, one of the purposes is so that the occupants of the eternal heavens, the angels, even up to the highest angel, should know more of the character of God. They have never known a fallen world like this; they are inhabitants of heaven. They watch us, they study us and they see a magnificent demonstration carried out on earth, which will be established in heaven for all eternity. This is a demonstration of grace by which the church educates the angels. Can we educate angels? Yes, in the sense that what they know in theory, they now see carried out in practice. ‘The manifold wisdom’ is literally the multi-coloured wisdom. Our translators have called it the manifold wisdom; the sense is the many-facetted wisdom. It is like the most enormous, glittering diamond, magnificent, giving off all the colours of the spectrum. It dazzles, it amazes you. ‘Look,’ says God to the angelic host who love him and adore him and know so much about him, ‘look at the handiwork of Christ. Look at Christ. He is the multi-coloured, multi-facetted jewel. Look at the wise way salvation is brought to pass by grace alone, by Christ’s atoning death, by his mighty love and wisdom working together.’ The angels knew Christ was going to come and suffer but they never grasped how much he was ready to suffer for lost sinners. The angels never knew just how far he would go – all the way to bearing the weight of our sin. They saw the wonders of grace in that he was willing to be humiliated and scorned and abused, and how magnificent is the divine character. They saw the staggering scale of God’s plan by which he saves Jews and Gentiles in the same way, and causes them to love each other in Christ and all other nationalities also. So what is going on in the church is a tremendous demonstration of God’s wonderful wisdom and all his other attributes displayed in Christ.