The Messenger 7
Introduction
I recently came across a Blog* on the Internet by someone called Beth from New Jersey in the USA. The title of that Blog was “The Back of the Tapestry”. What she said in the introduction I found extremely relevant to our reflection on the Church. So with my thanks and acknowledgement to Beth, whoever Beth is, let me quote what she said:
Life is a tapestry. We humans are only able to see the back of the tapestry with knots and hanging strings interwoven amongst sections of intricate beauty. To the naked eye it might seem that it is nothing more than a jumble of threads strewn together in a haphazard disconnected mess. It is our job to remember though that we are only looking at the back of the tapestry. There is a Master Tapestry-maker who can see the other side and is busy creating the most exquisite picture for all mankind.
In many ways life is indeed like the back of a tapestry. But nowhere is the phrase more appropriate than when it comes to our trying to understand the Church. It often seems like a “jumble of threads strewn together in a haphazard mess.” What Paul in his letter to the Ephesians reminds us about, however, is that there is a Master Tapestry-maker at work who “sees the other side and is busy creating an exquisite picture”. That is something we constantly need to keep in mind when we look at the Church. What we see and what God as the Master Tapestry –maker sees are not the same. Won’t it be a most glorious day when at last we, too, are able to see the other side of the tapestry and discover the intricate beauty of what God has made?
Rulers and authorities
While our view of what God is busy doing in His Church is limited right now, there are those in the heavenly realm, Paul points out to us in Ephesians 3:10, who have access to the other side of the tapestry. Let me remind you of what Paul says in that verse:
“God’s intent was that now, through the church, the manifold wisdom of God should be made known to the rulers and authorities in the heavenly realms… “
Rulers and authorities in the heavenly realms are seeing right now what we can’t see. They are seeing the manifold (“abounding in variety, diverse, multi-coloured”) wisdom of the Master Tapestry-maker. What I find amazing about Paul’s statement, however, is that it is the Church that is now the medium through which God is displaying His manifold wisdom to these rulers and authorities in the heavenly realms.
But just who are these rulers and authorities in the heavenly realms that Paul is speaking about in verse 10? All the commentaries I looked up pointed me to angels. But the exact same phrase, rulers and authorities, also occurs in Ephesians 6:12. Here the phrase refers to demonic powers rather than angels. So what is the answer? To whom is God revealing His manifold wisdom through the Church? Is it to angels or to demonic powers? Seeing that both fall under the description of rulers and authorities I want to suggest that both are witnesses to the reality of God’s wisdom, but for totally different reasons. Let’s begin by looking at angels.
Angels: Some of us may be unsure about whether we actually believe in the existence of angels. And if we do believe in them we most likely have some improbable impression of them passed on to us by artists who incorporated images of angels in their paintings. But whatever your view on angels might be the fact is there are something like 273 references to angels in the Bible. If we have difficulty in believing in their existence then there is quite a chunk of the Bible we have to dismiss.
But what are angels? They are quite simply messengers of the Lord. Writes JB Taylor “angels are familiar with God face to face, therefore of an order or being higher than that of man.” What a thought. Angels learning about God from the Church. And yet that is the picture Paul has painted for us in 3:10. Here is a picture of angels who live in the presence of God, possessing firsthand knowledge of His greatness, power and glory, yet still needing to learn something more about Him.
But what is it that they are needing to learn about God from the Church? It cannot be about His glory or His power or His greatness. It is obviously something unique to the Church that can be found nowhere else, not even in heaven. But what?
Take a moment to think about it. Do you remember when we looked at the introduction to Paul’s letter how he began by addressing it “to the saints (the set-apart ones), the faithful (those exercising faith) in Christ Jesus”? Now saints, as we discovered, are not some remarkable class of people who have lived a life way beyond anything we ordinary mortals could aspire to. Saints in biblical terms are ordinary people just like you and me. What turns people into saints has nothing to do with what they have done – it has everything to do with what God has done for them and in them through Jesus.
How clearly Paul spells that out for us in Ephesians chapter 2. The chapter begins “As for you (remember he is talking to those he addressed as saints in 1:1) you were dead in your transgressions and sins in which you used to live….” Further on in the chapter he urges them to remember what they had been outside of Christ (verse11ff). But now in Christ, these ordinary mortals, both Jew and Gentile, who couldn’t have been further apart from God and each other, have both been reconciled to God and to each other through the cross. Together they have become members of God’s household “built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, with Christ himself as the chief cornerstone” (2:19-20).
Here is the point of what God is bringing home to angels. God in choosing these ordinary people, these most unlikely and undeserving candidates for an extra-ordinary task, has demonstrated something no angel could learn in heaven. He has demonstrated for every angel to see how sinners become saints through the wisdom, grace and love of God in Christ.
The angels must look on in wonder and awe as they see these displays of God’s love and wisdom. How they must rejoice at the sight of every sinner who repents (Luke 15:7); how their praises must resound through the courts of heaven as they recall how the apparent defeat at the cross was transformed into a resounding victory at the resurrection of Jesus (Revelation 5); how they must praise God when they hear the joyful songs of the redeemed echoing down through history (Revelation 7:9-12).
Incredible as it may seem to us “the Church thus becomes the university of angels, and each saint a professor” (Wuest). There is something wonderfully encouraging but also humbling in all of this. It is encouraging because it is a reminder to all of us in this world that whatever our frustrations and disappointments might be in the Church, it is only because we are seeing the back of the tapestry right now. And it is humbling to think that we who confess Jesus as Saviour and Lord are part of that university, indeed professors, through which God is teaching angels.
But what about those demonic powers that are part of what Paul calls “rulers and authorities”? We will look at that in our next reflection.
*”Blog” is an abbreviated version of “weblog,” which is a term used to describe a personal web site or web page on which an individual records opinions, links to other sites, etc. on a regular basis.
Whatever opinion some people may have of the Church, and however contradictory and confusing its earthly history may be
If you have a question or a comment about this series please feel free to write to me, Brian, at
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