Ephesians 3:8 To me, who am less than the least of all saints, is this grace given… I. That the riches of Christ's 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 Christ's 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.) Parallel Verses KJV: 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; |
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