Ephesians 3:9

To make all men see. — St. Paul speaks here first of manifestation to all men. The phrase used in the original is at once stronger and weaker than our version of it. It is stronger, for the word is, properly, to enlighten or illuminate — the same word used above (Ephesians 1:18), “the eyes of your heart being enlightened.” Strictly, Christ alone is the Light of the world, “which enlightens every man” (John 1:4; John 1:9; John 8:2); but, as reflecting Him, He declared His servants to be the “light of the world.” Yet it is weaker, for while we can enlighten, it is our daily sorrow that we cannot “make men see.” Even He wept over Jerusalem because His light was, by wilful blindness, “hidden from their eyes” (Luke 19:41). To “open the eyes, and turn men from darkness to light,” although (as in Acts 26:18) attributed in general terms to the servants of God, because naturally following on their ministry, is properly the work of the Holy Spirit, even in relation to the words of our Lord Himself (John 14:26).

The fellowship of the mystery. — Both MS. authority and internal evidence point here to “the dispensation of the mystery” as the true reading. Probably here the reference is not to the commission of the mystery to the Apostle (as in Ephesians 3:2), but (as in Ephesians 1:10) to the law or order which God Himself has ordained for the manifestation of the truth, both to men and angels.

Who created all things by Jesus Christ. — The words “by Jesus Christ” should be omitted, probably having crept in from a gloss, and not belonging to the original. The description of God as “He who created all things,” material and spiritual, is here emphatic — designed to call attention to the dispensation of the gospel as existing in the primeval purpose of the Divine Mind (comp. Ephesians 1:4; 1 Corinthians 1:7), hidden from the beginning of the world (properly, from the ages) till the time of its revelation was come. The New Testament constantly dwells on this view of the Mediation of Christ, as belonging in some form to the relation of humanity to God in itself, and not merely to that relation as affected by the Fall; but nowhere with greater emphasis than in the profound and universal teaching of these Epistles.