GraceinChrist

Viktor Frankl: ‘If life has meaning and suffering is part of life then suffering has meaning’

It was that perspective of seeing life even at its most difficult as possessing meaning that helped see Frankl through Auschwitz and in his clinical judgment made the difference between surviving suffering or succumbing to suffering. 

Ever before Auschwitz or Frankl’s book Paul demonstrates the same thing. 

“Everything can be taken form a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms – to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s own way.”

It is as Paul peers through the bars of the prison cell that in his suffering, in his pain and in his problems and in:

• Prison

He sees 

• Purpose

Through the prison bars he sees purpose! 

Like Joseph in Genesis, there was purpose in his problems. 

Like Moses in Deuteronomy8:2ff 

“for this cause” (Ephesians 3:1) 

1. Peace with God 
2. Privilege of Prayer 
3. Place in the Church 
4. Presence of God 

Paul doesn’t finish this sentence until 3:14 “for this cause I bow my knees” 

Paul perceives:

1. A fresh perspective on his problems! Illust: Would you like someone to stick a knife in your belly? A rhetorical question! If I were to explain the assailant was a surgeon, the knife, a surgical blade, the setting a surgical theatre, the procedure an operation to save your life, would this be something you may be interested in? Illust: Leonid Rogozov, Antarctic Expedition 1960-1961, took out his own appendix, the suffering and pain was worth the risk and the outcome! 

1. Power of God – the sovereign hand of Christ in the experience “of Jesus Christ”. Paul lives in the reality of a teaching he will give us later on in Ephesians 6:12; “we wrestle not against flesh and blood but against principalities, against powers against the rulers of the darkness of this world...” Rome was but a pawn in a far bigger game. Neither Rome, Jewish opposition nor even Satan had the upper hand, Christ was sovereign in all things, working out His plan and purpose.

1. Paul sees the Proof of the Power of God! Here is Paul’s lifelong work in a sense, evangelising the gentiles and establishing the Christian church and building up Christians. He has seen tremendous success in so doing! Consider the story of the Acts of the Apostles. But was all of this Paul? All of this Paul’s persuasive preaching? Paul’s great biblical arguments? Was it a personality cult? Is / was Christianity all just one man's ideas? Is most of the NT not all down to one man Paul? We still here that today. Illust: old teacher, 27 books in NT – how many written by Paul? It’s just one man’s ideas then? Now that Paul is taken out of the equation we can see more clearly that the “excellency of the power may be of God, and not of us” (2 Co 4:7). Here is the church growing and blossoming despite the fact that Paul has been taken out of the equation!

1. “So that my bonds in Christ are manifest in all the palace, and in all other places; And many of the brethren in the Lord, waxing confident by my bonds, are much more bold to speak the word without fear.” (Phil 1:13-14) 

1. “All the saints salute you, -- chiefly they that are of Caesar’s household” (Phil 4:22) Even with Paul’s imprisonment, the gospel goes out and souls are being saved! 

1. Is it not interesting that today we read Pauls prison epistles! Ephesians, Philippians, Colossians, Philemon and 2 Timothy! World population in AD 70 – about 250 million. Up until today about 7 billion bibles printed. The YOU bible version claims to have been installed on approximately 725 million devices! If Paul had never been in prison the maximum reach of his preaching ministry from Ephesians, Philippians, Colossians, Philemon and 2 Timothy would have been a few thousand! 

1. Perceives the Purpose of his prison cell and problems! We don’t always have that luxury of course, being able to see what our trial is all about! Acknowledging the sovereignty of God of course over our trials gives us the assurance that “And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose.” (Romans 8:28). In faith we have the assurance of purpose! 

1. Paul shows us a fresh PERSPECTIVE on the service of God (v8). Paul develops and grows in the PEACE and PATIENCE of God! Perhaps if we were an apostle like Paul, with such gift, knowledge, opportunity we would expect unlimited success and blessing, yet we notice Paul’s approach to his ministry (3:8) – God owes him nothing! All that he has he has been given, this ministry is all of God’s grace, with humility he has the perspective that God owes him nothing! 

Verse 2:

“Dispensation” : “οἰκονομία” : administration

Paul recognises in this verse ‘dispensations’

The ‘dispensation of the Grace of God’ stands in contrast to something else mentioned earlier; a distinctive way in which God revealed Himself and His plans and purposes in days gone by; “the law” (Ephesians 2:15) which excluded Jew and Gentile from fellowship with Him. 

Dispensations are ways by which God operates or administers this world. God remains the same and unchanged but the means by which He operates, or what He does does not remain the same! 

• God does not perpetually flood the world 
• God does not continually demand animal sacrifices
• God does not constantly plague Egypt
• God does not continue to send His Son into the world 

At different times God operates by distinctive means.

The word dispensation does not appear that often in the NT, although significantly it does appear 7 X in the NT; Luke 16:2; Luke 16:3; Luke 16:4; 1 Corinthians 9:17; Ephesians 1:10; Ephesians 3:2; Colossians 1:25.

There are different ways of seeing these dispensations in scripture. 

I can identify at least 7 (maybe 8) distinct dispensations, administered by God in distinctive ways:

1. Age of Innocence (Creation to the fall)
2. Age of Conscience / government from fall to the law, some see government as a distinct dispensation from Noah to the Law with the command to punish murder by death, although I do note that some form of government was already in force pre fall as indicated by the mark on Cain. 
3. Age of Law from Exodus 20 to Christ 
4. Age of Grace from the advent of Christ 
5. Day of Tribulation 
6. Millenial Reign 
7. Eternal state 

One of the earliest ways of organising the dispensations goes back to Poiret who listed 7 dispensations and linked them / paralleled them with the phases of human growth and maturity.

Verse 3 – The Mystery

Paul references here the Mystery of Christ (3:4) which is a reference to Jews and Gentiles together in one body (3:6)

Why Christ? 

Christ or Messiah is the anointed one:

• Psalm 2:2 – The anointed King 
• Psalm 110 – parallels Psalm 2 – the word Christ not mentioned but refers to the Priest and King 
• Daniel 9:24 – 26 

As Messiah Christ incorporates the roles of all of those previously anointed:

• Prophet
• Priest
• King 

The believer is being brought into the blessings and benefit of this anointed one, prophet, priest, King and sacrifice for our sins (Daniel 9) we have not been excluded! 

A mystery:

• Truth once concealed and now revealed? 

This is certainly true of the church and this mystery of Christ (3:4-5) but:

• Not necessarily a great ‘definition’ of mystery per se!

Perhaps better to understand the idea of mystery within the setting of the time of the NT writings when many of the religions of that day had a core set of ideas or revelations kept for the initiated. These were ideas that were at the core or heart of the religious system but unknown to the uninitiated. 

These mysteries then form the back bone, the structure to God’s plan for the universe in Christ. They are in effect the answer as to the reason why / how / what God is doing with this universe. 

We could identify perhaps 14 distinct mysteries. 

1. Mystery of the Kingdom (Mark 4) 
2. Mystery of Israel (Romans 11)
3. Mystery of the Gospel to all nations (Romans 16:25)
4. Mystery of the Cross (1 Corinthians 1 + 2) 
5. Mystery of the Rapture (1 Corinthians 15) 
6. Mystery of Christ in you (Colossians 1:27)
7. Mystery of His will (Ephesians chp 1) 
8. Mystery of Christ (Ephesians chp 3) 
9. Mystery of the Bride (Ephesians chp 5) 
10. Mystery of Iniquity (2 Thessalonians 2:7) 
11. Mystery of Godliness (1 Timothy 3:16)
12. Mystery of the 7 Churches (Revelation chp 1)
13. Mystery of God in judgment (Revelation 10:7) 
14. Mystery of Babylon the Great (Revelation 17:5)

V8  “the unsearchable riches of Christ” 

Paul is tasked with this great challenge of preaching the unsearchable riches of Christ to the Gentiles. 

What is Paul sharing of Christ? 

Riches are commodities we would attach value to either because of their:

1. Uniqueness

• Outstanding beauty 
• Scarcity 
• Complexity 

1. Relative worth  - money 
2. Absolute worth 

• Heb 11:26 – Moses found greater riches in the reproach of Christ than the treasures in Egypt 

There is absolute worth in Christ! 

Illust: Jews heading to Auschwitz willing to give away all of their material possessions for a drink of water! 

“all that a man hath will he give for his life” (Job 2:4) 

Jesus is:

• Bread of life
• Living water 
• Possesses the words of Eternal Life
• Resurrection and the life
• Creator
• Judge 
• Upholds all things by His power 
• Holds the keys of hell and of death (Rev 1:18) 
• He is our peace 
• He is our redeemer 
• Our substitute 
• He is our hope 
• The door into heaven 
• Our Great High Priest 
• Our Good Shepherd 
• Our Great Shepherd 
• He is our comforter 

Everything I need for time and for eternity is found in Him!

Ephesians chapter 3 describes Paul's imprisonment but not simply from the human perspective! Paul sees the plan and purpose of God in his prison cell! He is the prisoner of Jesus Christ. Through the prison and the pain God's church is being build, souls saved from Caesar's household, Christians emboldened in the Gospel and 5 prison epistels written, subsequently shared to over 9 billion souls! Paul chose how we would see and respond in these difficult circumstances. Paul's joy lay in playing his part in the dispensation of the Grace of God, one of 7 dispensations in the Bible : the dispensations of innocence, conscience, law, grace, tribulation, millenial reign and eternal state. God has His plan for Paul, for the whole world and for you.
Dr J Stewart Gillespie
Graceinchrist.org