Verse 1
This whole chapter is a prayer, but between the first and second words of it, Paul made a characteristic digression in which he gave further teaching on the mystery of redemption (Ephesians 3:1-13), concluding this part of the letter with what has been called "the boldest prayer ever prayed" (Ephesians 3:14-21).
For this cause, I Paul, the prisoner of Christ Jesus in behalf of you Gentiles ... (Ephesians 3:1)
Actually, Paul's prayer began back in Ephesians 1:15; and following several digressions, he was about to resume it here; but he hardly got started before going into another digression on the mystery of Christ.
For this cause ... The thought will be resumed in these same words in Ephesians 3:14.
I Paul ... Some radical and irresponsible critics of the New Testament affirm that these words were forged to this epistle by some later author who passed it off as having been written by Paul; but no believer in Christ could possibly have been guilty of such fraud and deception. The utter poverty of such an allegation is so obvious that some of the scholars who accept such a monstrous opinion feel called upon to explain how such a thing could have happened. This is typical of such "explanations":
It was published under Paul's name as a tribute of love and admiration by a disciple of great gifts, deeply imbued with the mind and spirit of the great apostle ... (he wrote) to give expression to ideas of Christ and of the church which had been developing in the apostle's mind (!) ... he would feel that he was no more than the vehicle of his master's (!) thoughts and therefore might legitimately address the church in his name.[1]
Such a canard as that makes out no acceptable justification for the fraud, deception, dishonesty and wickedness of imposing a document upon Christian people as having been written by Paul, when it wasn't. It is hard to make a judgment regarding the greater immorality, whether it pertains to the alleged deceiver the critics would make the author of Ephesians, or to the critics themselves who are morally capable of alleging such nonsense as the justification of such a sin. Comments like that cited above tell us far more about critics than they do of the authorship of Ephesians, thus: (1) Such comment shows that the critics approve of such deceptions, enabling them to speak in glowing terms of the true fidelity and devotion of such alleged deceivers. (2) It shows that their conception of morality is compatible with such fraud. It could be done (indeed was done, they say) "legitimately"! (3) It raises the question of how much "legitimate fraud" the critics themselves have perpetrated in their devious efforts to cast reflection and discredit upon the New Testament. If people do not believe God's word, let them say so; but may they also have the courage to spare us who believe it the kind of result to human intelligence inherent in a proposition like that quoted above.
Paul, the prisoner of Christ ... As Barclay said, "A single word or idea can send Paul's thoughts off at a tangent"[2]; and the bare mention of his being a prisoner triggered a whole galaxy of related thoughts, giving us another marvelous Pauline digression. The writing of this epistle is beyond forgery, imitation, or counterfeiting. Paul alone could have written this epistle. When Paul wrote this, he was awaiting trial under Nero, and in all probability fully aware of the ultimate martyrdom that awaited him; but there is no word of complaint here. In fact, he is not Nero's prisoner at all, but the prisoner of Christ! When Paul suffered, from whatever cause, it was all for Christ. How noble was that soul which lived in such a climate of personal loyalty and devotion to the Lord! As Barclay put it, "The Christian has always a double life and a double address."[3] To all outward appearance Paul was a prisoner of the Roman government, but that is not the way Paul looked at it, at all. He thought of himself as suffering and being imprisoned for the sake of Christ. This thought of the origin of his imprisonment ended with Paul's being freed for a while.
In behalf of you Gentiles ... Beare denied that this could be "a real mode of address" by Paul;[4] but such an opinion betrays ignorance of what Paul was saying. The use of "you" with Gentiles was not for the purpose of addressing the whole Gentile creation, but for the purpose of limiting the meaning of "in behalf of," restricting it primarily to his Gentile converts. It was Paul's standing up for the truth that Gentiles should be brought into the Lord's church without regard to the Jews and the Law of Moses that precipitated the savage hatred of him on the part of unconverted Israel. It was friendship for Trophimus, a Gentile, which resulted in the false charges against him in the temple, that first brought him into the power of the Roman government. In a very real sense, every Gentile on earth is indebted to Paul for the salvation which we have received in Christ. As Barclay truly said, "Had there been no Paul, it is quite conceivable that there would have been no world-wide Christianity, and that we would not be Christians today."[5] Paul's great mission, assigned by Christ who called him to the apostleship, was to "the Gentiles." That is what is in view here. It was precisely that Gentile thing which formed so important an element of the Great Mystery that dominated the rest of this parenthesis.
In addition to Paul's defense of the right of "the Gentiles" to be received "into Christ," that defense having precipitated his first arrest and imprisonment, it was predominantly Paul's religious views on this very question which were the grounds of all of the persecutions that confronted him, both Jewish and Roman. If the Jewish hierarchy had been willing to allow Christianity as compatible in any manner with Judaism, there would have been no Roman opposition. As Martin pointed out:
If the Gentile Christians were stated to be non-Jewish, then they came under Roman laws about illegal religions; but so long as they were regarded as a Jewish sect, they were immune from such laws with their death penalty.[6]
Thus, it was actually true that all of Paul's persecutions, first to last, were part and parcel of his mission to the Gentiles.
[1] Francis W. Beare, The Interpreter's Bible, Vol. X (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1950), p. 600.
[2] William Barclay, The Letters to the Galatians and the Ephesians (Philadelphia: The Westminster Press, 1954), p. 140.
[3] Ibid., p. 141.
[4] Francis W. Beare, op. cit., p. 664.
[5] William Barclay, op. cit., p. 144.
[6] George E. Harper, A New Testament Commentary, Ephesians (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Zondervan Publishing House, 1969), p. 464.
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