We established in the study entitled “The Treasures of Wisdom and Knowledge” that Christ was given all the riches of God. He received them as a man for men. We shall now continue to think about defining these treasures regarding our Christian experience.

THE TREASURES OF WISDOM AND KNOWLEDGE

In Ephesians Chapter Three, Paul discusses his calling as a minister of the Gospel:

Ephesians 3:8
” Unto me, who am less than the least of all saints, is this grace given, that I should preach among the Gentiles the unsearchable riches of Christ;”

The word “unsearchable” indicates that these riches that can’t be valued or defined. They are priceless beyond all worth.

Paul was called to give these riches to the Gentiles. This was His mission.

We need to understand that as Christian people we are rich. We are the possessors of a wealth which cannot be measured by normal calculations. Thomas Chalmers, the Free Church of Scotland leader, spent the first ten years of his ministry as an unsaved man. He cared little for his flock. He spent his time in St Andrews University. There, he was a great Professor of Mathematics. He reflected on his testimony during a debate in the General Assembly. He confessed that during those years he had not accounted for the most vital calculation.

These riches possessed by the Christian are so valuable, so treasured, because they save the soul for eternity. Can we place a price upon the soul? – It is a self conscious and self aware entity. It will either bask in the full enjoyment of the love of God in heaven. Or it will be plummeted into the miseries and darkness of God’s justice in hell for eternity.

The soul is saved through Christ. He is the heir of God. The unsearchable riches are bound up in Him, who contains all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge.

The story tells of a dying Roman. He was persuaded to disinherit his dissolute son. He favoured a slave whose character he greatly admired. In death he called his son in order to break the news. He did, however, present his son an olive branch. He offered one thing that could be his from the estate. Quickly the young man spoke up – “I will take Marcellus the slave”. Therefore in getting Marcellus he obtained everything. So it is with us – in receiving Christ we have all things because he is the heir of God and, by logical extension, we become joint heirs with Him.

Therefore, like Paul, we have a great message for a dying world – the unsearchable riches of Christ. They are offered freely yet they cost more than any human could ever pay. The things that men pay a premium for disappear into emptiness in the light of what men and women can have in Jesus.

What are these unsearchable riches? They are ours today. We are obliged to share them with this impoverished society.

1st Corinthians Chapter is an excellent reference when responding to this question:

1 Corinthians 1:30

But of him are ye in Christ Jesus, who of God is made unto us wisdom, and righteousness, and sanctification, and redemption:

The riches of God’s wisdom are the possession of the Christian. Christ is the wisdom of God because He alone found a way to reconcile God’s mercy and His justice. Mercy is the desire of a kind and longsuffering God who is filled with goodness. Justice is the response of a holy nature which demands that all law breaking be punished. Only wisdom could a find a way. In becoming man Christ died for men and women, the just for the unjust that we might be brought to God. Therefore justice was satisfied and mercy was provided.

God’s righteousness is the treasure of the Church of Christ. The Gospel is not only the Gospel of God’s love, it is also the Gospel of His righteousness.

Romans 1:16-17

For I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ: for it is the power of God unto salvation to every one that believeth; to the Jew first, and also to the Greek. For therein is the righteousness of God revealed from faith to faith: as it is written, The just shall live by faith

It only through the Gospel that we can be prepared to meet the righteous God. This preparation is received through the imputation or transfer of Christ’s righteousness to our account. Our justification acquits us at the bar of God’s justice. We are legally righteous in Christ.

The next jewel in this treasure chest is sanctification. Where righteousness relates to our legal standing, sanctification is our moral condition. We are made morally distinct though the Spirit of Christ that has been given to us. This work progressing from repentance at conversion, progressing as we grow in grace until eventually we stand before God holy and blameless.

The final word in this quartet of riches is redemption. The redeemed are a purchased people. We are redeemed by the precious blood of Christ. We are His people having been brought into a saving union with Him. This blood sets us free from the power of Satan who enslaves people through the fear of death.

Another passage which explores these unsearchable riches is Ephesians Chapter One.

We are in receipt of “all spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ” (v3).

As such we are predestinated before the foundation of the world. our riches were promised before the world was framed. We were saved in eternity in the mind and the plan of God (v.4-5).

Today we are accepted in the beloved. God accepted us as He accepts His Son because we are redeemed through His blood ((v.6-7).

The predestinated and redeemed people possess the Holy Spirit, the earnest or the deposit of glory. We are therefore certain of eternal life.

These are the riches of heaven enjoyed in earth. These are riches of Father, Son and Holy Ghost. And they are ours!

The final passage which illustrates these unsearchable riches is Chapter Eight, sometimes called “the Crown Jewels of Scripture”.

As the Romans Eight rises to a grand climactic conclusion Paul asks rhetorical questions to drive his teaching home to the heart.

1: “What shall we then say to these things?” (V31)

2: “If God be for us, who can be against us?” (V31)

3: He that spared not his own Son, but delivered him up for us all, how shall he not with him also freely give us all things? (V32)

4: Who shall lay any thing to the charge of God’s elect? It is God that justifieth. (V33)

5: Who is he that condemneth? It is Christ that died, yea rather, that is risen again, who is even at the right hand of God, who also maketh intercession for us. (V34)

6: Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? (V35)

These are God’s riches to a church which would occupy the front line when Rome’s assault upon early Christianity arose. There would be many questions as they stood condemned by world to be deprived of all that was precious in this world, even life itself.

The “all things”, where this passage began, however, is dominated by the God who works everything out for good in the lives of those who love Him. Despite the physical weakness of the flock of God when faced with the might of the Roman sword, the sheep for the slaughter would not only be conquerors but super conquerors!

The Church cannot fail because we have a victorious King!

In this impoverished world when the entertainment, the sport, the materialism, which has obsessed millions for too long, is failing to fulfil the need and supply the answers posed by an uncertain world we must reveal the riches that we enjoy, riches which are freely available. we must not live as if we are poor!

God forbid that any of us should live like paupers! God forbid that any of us should be in penury and need and want and trouble and alarm and unsteadiness! The world today is presenting us with a unique opportunity of telling men and women about ‘the unsearchable riches of Christ’. We are being watched, we are being observed; and many in their spiritual bankruptcy are wondering whether, after all, the answer is in Christ. The world judges Him by what it sees in us. If we give the impression that, after all, to be a Christian does not help very much when there is a crisis, they will not listen to our message or look to Him. But if they find that we are entirely different from them, and able to maintain a calm and balance and peace and poise, and even joy in the midst of the hurricane of life, under God that may be the means of opening their eyes, and leading them to repentance, and bringing them to the Lord Jesus Christ and His ‘unsearchable riches’.

Martyn Lloyd Jones, Ephesians 3:7-8