Of such wisdom our epistle is full, and God "has made it to abound" to the readers in these inspired pages. Paul's "understanding in the mystery of Christ" was always deepening. In his lonely prison musings the length and breadth of the Divine counsels are disclosed to him as never before. He sees the course of the ages and the universe of being illuminated by the light of the knowledge of Christ. And what he sees, all men are to see through him (iii. 9). Blessed be God who has given to His Church through His apostles, and through the great Christian teachers of every age, His precious gifts of wisdom and prudence, and made His grace richly to overflow from the heart into the mind and understanding of men!
This intellectual gift is twofold: _phronesis_ as well as _sophia_,--the bestowment not only of deep spiritual thought, but of moral sagacity, good sense and thoughtfulness. This is a choice _charism_--a mercy of the Lord. For want of it how sadly is the fruit of other graces spoilt and wasted. How brightly it shines in St Paul himself! What luminous and wholesome views of life, what a fund of practical sense there is in the teaching of this letter.
St Paul rejoices in these gifts of the understanding and claims them for the Church, having in his view the false knowledge, the "philosophy and vain deceit" that was making its appearance in the Asian Churches (Col. ii. 4, 8, etc.). Our safeguard against intellectual perils lies not in ignorance, but in deeper heart-knowledge. When the grace that bestows redemption through Christ's blood adds its concomitant blessing of enlightenment, when it elevates the mind as it cleanses the heart, and abounds to us in all wisdom and prudence, the winds of doctrine and the waves of speculation blow and beat in vain; they can but bring health to a Church thus established in its faith.
Verses 9 and 10 describe the object of this new knowledge. They state the doctrine which gave this powerful mental impulse to the apostolic Church, disclosing to it a vast field of view, and supplying the most fertile and vigorous principles of moral wisdom. This impulse lay in the revelation of God's purpose to reconstitute the universe in Christ. The declaration of "the mystery of His will" comes in at this point episodically, and by the way; and we reserve it for consideration to the end of the present Chapter.