Thus Paul's interruption here (3:2-12) confirms several important things that we have already seen about the Father in earlier meditations. Yet this interruption and the introduction to Paul's prayer (3:14-15) both add crucial new insights that can help believers in Jesus come to know their Father better.

First, the interruption confirms that only by ‘revelation’ will believers come into this new relationship. Even though Paul had received a thorough training in the Scriptures (Act.22:3), he himself still needed to receive a revelation (3:2-3a, Gal.1:15-16, Med.#28). And he explains why. This new relationship with the Father, which he calls ‘the Mystery of the Messiah’, was something God had long kept hidden—since the creation (Eph.3:4,9b; Rom.16:25; Col.1:26). Although God gave the Scriptures (the Law, the Prophets, and the Writings) to the people of Israel, this ‘Mystery’ was not revealed to anyone in previous generations (Eph.3:5a). Now Jewish scholars like Paul, who carefully read the Scriptures, had understood that there were many signposts in them pointing to the coming of the Messiah (the Christ). And there are some references to God as ‘Father’ in their Scriptures as well.[iv] Yet there was something that God, as Father, only planned to reveal about himself with the coming of the Spirit (3:11,5b). 

Second, Paul's interruption confirms that there has been a Time change in our relationship with the Father (see Med.#3 & Med.#4): from an initial Time period when ‘the Mystery’ was ‘kept hidden’, into a new Time period (‘now’) in which God is making known this ‘mystery of his will’ as Father (3:9,5; 1:2-5,9-10, Med.#8)—namely, that in Christ believers of all the  ‘nations’ [Gr. ethne] come of age in Christ as ‘heirs-together’ (3:6a) by the Spirit (Gal.3:26-4:7, Med.#4). Thirdly, God's ‘intent’ for the ‘administration [Gr. oiko-nomia][ii] of the Mystery’ is that these ethnic groups in the church, ‘God’s household [Gr. oikos]’ (Eph.2:19, Med.#44), will ‘now’ make known ‘the many-and-varied [Gr. polu-poikilos] wisdom of God’  through their multi-cultural worship together (Eph.3:6b; 9-10; Rom.15:8-11, Med.#70)—. Polu means ‘many’, and poikilos means ‘varied’ (as in Mk.1:34). Like Jesus (Jn.4:21-23, Med.#3), Paul is saying that not just individuals, but groups of people will worship the Father together through Jesus and the Spirit.

Yet Paul's interruption in the above text reveals some additional, previously hidden things about this new relationship with the Father. First, that which Christ ‘accomplished’, in bringing us into this new relationship with the Father by the Spirit, is according to God's ‘eternal purpose’ (Eph.3:11). Our Father's plan for the ‘coming together’ and the ‘coming of age’ of people from all nations was established in eternity—before the creation of the world, and therefore before sin entered the world. Thus, Jesus came to do more than just bring redemption to a world broken by human sinfulness. He also came to add something new to humanity, something that God had planned from the beginning (Eph.1:4-6, Med.#8). For Paul, as a trained Bible scholar, this was a new idea. Like other Jews, he grew up seeing Israel as God's new humanity, a nation set apart and given God's Law so they could teach all the other nations—as if these were all blind and foolish underage children living in darkness (Rom.2:17-20). So for most Jews, the term ‘the nations’—in Hebrew [goyim] and in Greek [ta ethne]—had come to refer to all non-Jews lumped together in a single negative religious category. This is why a lot of Bible translations render these Hebrew and Greek words as ‘the Gentiles'[v] (English), ‘the heathen’ (Dutch, German, etc.), or even just ‘the non-Jews’—as if everything in God's plan from the creation revolved around Israel.

Now don't get me wrong. Israel occupies a very important place in God's plan of redemption—mainly as a priestly nation to other nations until Christ came (Ex.19:4-6, Med.#C), and as the nation first entrusted with God's Word (Rom.3:1-2). And God still loves the people of Israel and has plans for them (Rom.11:1-2,25-26). Yet through the Spirit, Paul is now able to see new things about the nations in the Scriptures, things previously been hidden from him—partly by God, and partly due to his own Jewish ethnocentrism.[vi] From the Scriptures he already knew that God had made every human nation [Gr. ethnos] by giving each one a separate territory (Act.17:26; Dt.26:19 & 32:8, Med.#C; Gen.10:5,20,31). And in two Greek philosophers Paul had seen how even people of other nations might have a vague idea of God's fatherhood—that all people were somehow ‘his offspring’ (Act.17:28).[vii] Perhaps Paul had already understood from the Tanakh that God saw other nations besides Israel as also his ‘children’ (Jer.3:19, Med.#C; Isa.45,10-12, Med.#E). At any rate he is now, by the Spirit, able to grasp God's mysterious ‘eternal purpose’. Namely that at a certain time in human history, God as ‘Father’ would gather the nations ‘together as one’ (Eph.1:9-10, Med.#8)—‘in Christ’ and ‘through the Gospel’—so that all of them might worship him, not only as 'one-body together' but also  as ‘heirs-together’ in his family (3:6,11,14-15; Ps.86:9; Rev.15:4; 7:9, Med.#90). His 'intent' as Father is that already 'through the church',  diverse nations and ethnic groups are 'fellow-citizens'—including Israel (Eph.3:10; 2:18-19, Med.#44)—and are thus able as groups to bring their ‘glory and honor’  into a new Jerusalem that is from ‘above’ (Rev.21:26, Med.#92; Gal.4:26).[viii] 

Yet based on his own experience, Paul now understands that this intent of God's previously 'hidden' purpose will not automatically become a reality in the church simply through the proclamation of ‘the riches of Christ’ to all nations. All who believe also need to be ‘enlightened’ [Gr. photisai][ix] to ‘the administration [Gr. oikonomia][ii] of the Mystery’ that God had planned from eternity to bring about in Christ (Eph.3:8-9). All believers need a revelation in order to grasp how the cross of Christ has abolished not only the wall of separation in the Temple, but also the guardianship power of the Law and all ethnocentric codes and inter-ethnic hostility (Eph.2:11-16; Col.2:8-23, Med.#31). Yet even more importantly, they need to understand that as ‘heirs-together’ they all now have become adult sons and daughters. For all disciples—regardless of ethnicity, gender[x] and social class—have equal access to the Father in Christ, by the Spirit (Eph.3:6a; 2:18, Med.#44; Gal.2:26-29, Med.#4. Ask the women and the members of ethnic and social minority groups in most churches and you will find that this last aspect of Paul's revelation is still the most difficult to grasp, let alone put into practice—even for many good Christians and trained Bible scholars (Eph.3:9; 1:15-17, Med.#1)!

Finally, to understand why so many Christians, even leaders and Bible scholars, don't comprehend Paul's revelation[xi], we need to look finally at what Paul says in the introduction to his prayer at the end of the ‘interruption’. Here he describes the Father as the One ‘from whom all fatherhood [Gr. patria] in heaven and on earth derives its name’ (3:14-15). The English words ‘patriarchal’ and ‘patriotism’ both derive from this Greek word.[xii] So it is only natural for people to think of God's fatherhood in terms of their own cultural ideas or personal experience with human father figures. But all human father figures and human cultures have been negatively influenced by sin. So it is no wonder that many people—including many theologians—read the Scriptures and get it backwards when they project their human experiences of fatherhood and male-dominated patriarchal systems on God. Paul’s revelation actually helped him see that even in the Hebrew Scriptures ‘father’ is rarely used exclusively as a human metaphor to talk about God. Instead, it is an actual name that he gives to himself.[xiii] Once we get the metaphor turned around, we can see, like Paul did, that all human forms of fatherhood were only limited projections of (derivations from) what God is like as our real Father. When one of my students first grasped this aspect of Paul’s revelation, he said, ‘So we shouldn’t say God is Father but rather Father is God.’  

So if your human father was absent, negligent, abusive, unfaithful, or was one who deserted his family, you do not need to wait until these bad childhood memories of ‘fatherhood’ are healed to begin to know God as your real Father. You can know what he is like by simply looking at Jesus (Jn.14:7, Med.#2)—by meditating on what is recorded in the gospels about how Jesus treated people. If you had a father or stepfather who was a good provider, but who continued to be controlling and critical of you even after you became an adult, you can meditate on how Jesus treated his disciples as adults when he taught and mentored them. Even though he sometimes affectionately called them ‘little children’, and expressed his frustration as he corrected them, his goal was for them to enjoy the same adult relationship with the Father that he, in the Spirit, lived out in front of them (1 Jn.1:1-4; 2:6, Med.#52). You especially need to meditate on Jesus in this way, if your image of God as Father has been distorted by the religious abuse of controlling ‘father figures’ in the Church. 

In Chapter 4 (Med.#25-32), and in Chapter 9 (Med.#68-77), you can meditate on texts that will help you deal with such controlling and dominating ‘father figures’. For these may be found not only in families and religious groups, but also among city fathers, tribal elders and the ruling elite in your ‘fatherland’. And in some cultures the power of ‘father figures’ might be expressed through beliefs about the ancestral spirits of dead ‘forefathers’ who are represented as still commanding allegiance and social obedience.

At any rate, whatever your experience with ‘fatherhood’ in your society, in Christ you have been restored to your true Father's ‘household’ (Eph.2:18-19, Med.#44; Lk.15:20-23, Med.#20; Jn.14:2, Med.#2). And you have come into a new relationship with him as an adult son or daughter by the Spirit—a co-heir with your Eldest Brother and with brothers and sisters from many nations and ethnic groups (Eph.3:6; Rom.8:15-17,29, Med.#5). In Christ, you have also been ‘raised-together and seated-together among the celestial ones’ as part of his Body—with all these former social powers in your life ‘under his feet’, because of the Father's resurrection power that he exerted in Christ on our behalf (Eph.2:5; 1:19-23, Med.#44). How the Gospel frees us into this new relationship with the Father will be the subject of the next meditations.