Speaking about his own ministry, Paul especially mentions his witness to the Church as a new...
Speaking about his own ministry, Paul especially mentions his witness to the Church as a new, united people of God, including both Jews who accepted the good news and recent Gentile converts (vv. 1-7). He apparently considers it a most important part of the more general witness to Christ and to the Kingdom (vv. 8-13). At first glance, such attention to a question that would seem not to be the most important in the context of messianic witness may appear to be only a tactical necessity, connected with the fact that the Ephesian church, like most other churches outside Palestine, was mixed, including both Jews and recent Gentile converts. But the matter is not only that.
On the one hand, the ancient prophets had already said that with the coming of the Messiah and the arrival of the messianic Kingdom, many Gentiles would turn to the God of Israel, becoming part of the people of God, and Paul, like many of his fellow countrymen and fellow believers, saw in the conversion of the Gentiles the fulfillment of ancient prophecies. But for the apostle, as can be seen, something else was also important: he understood that the very possibility of uniting two formerly unjoinable parts of humanity into one people bears witness to the essence of the Kingdom better than any words. For traditional ideas, widely held in rabbinic circles in Paul's time, assumed that Gentiles seeking the Kingdom must first become Jews by accepting Judaism. Such an approach assumed that the Jews themselves had no need to change anything fundamental in their spiritual life, that as a people-community they were fully ready to enter the Kingdom.
Paul, however, as can be seen, paints an entirely different picture: the Jews are no more ready for the Kingdom than the Gentiles, despite all their religiosity, which in this case cannot help them at all. Therefore both will have to change their spiritual life. In addition, no one can count on having some special means for paving his own road into the Kingdom: only the Savior himself can open it to those who seek. Such a picture, of course, contrasted rather sharply with traditional ideas, but it was precisely this picture that made it possible to understand what the Kingdom was, whose nearness Jesus bore witness to.
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3:8 Unto me, who am less than the least of all saints, is this grace given - Here are the noblest strains of eloquence to paint the exceeding low opinion the apostle had of himself, and the fulness of unfathomable blessings which are treasured up in Christ.
3:9 What is the fellowship of the mystery - What those mysterious blessings are whereof all believers jointly partake. Which was, in a great measure, hidden from eternity by God, who, to make way for the free exercise of his love, created all things - This is the foundation of all his dispensations.