For this reason I, Paul, the prisoner of Christ Jesus for the sake of you Gentiles
Paul had talked about what the Father has done in raising us with Christ and pouring His mighty grace on us. And talked about Jesus and His aim of divine oneness. What the Father did makes each of us unique (as Paul wrote earlier), and what the Son did tells us we have a shared destiny.
Sometimes we feel the tension between the two. Between our uniqueness, as the Father has made each snowflake different, and the need for oneness, as Jesus did as a carpenter, bringing different parts of a wooden structure together to form a cohesive whole.
I believe it is the same bridge that Jesus used to come from heaven to earth, the bridge of humility, where he humbled himself (Philippians 2:5-11), where it is not saying never disagree with fellow Christians, but how are you going about the disagreement, in what spirit, and what is the manner of approach? It's not saying not to emphasize your own uniqueness, but to open your eyes and embrace the value that can flow to you from others and vice versa.
Now, in this verse, Paul begins to talk about his own uniqueness. There is something special about Paul. He is the one with the special claim to being sent to the Gentiles. Nobody else has such a claim.
It might be seen as someone saying I am the one sent to travel to a place where there is no road, while the rest take the paved road. But he took it very seriously. He was equipped for it, but he would also suffer for it.
To say it in another way, all that Paul had been saying all this time is the objective truth about God, done deals, what He accomplished in Christ!
And with that background, you can understand the mandate and Paul’s drive to reach the Gentiles, even to the point of becoming a prisoner of Christ Jesus.
It is interesting that his word choices. He is saying Jesus is the one who puts him in prison, who restricted him.
He at once acknowledged the supremacy of Christ even over the political system that put him in prison, and that it would not have happened unless Christ made it happen.
And on the other hand, he refused to give credence to any other seeming power on the earth, after having said that Christ is supreme over all.
This power he exercised in Christ when he raised him from the dead and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly realms far above every rule and authority and power and dominion and every name that is named, not only in this age but also in the one to come. And God put all things under Christ’s feet, and gave him to the church as head over all things. Now the church is his body, the fullness of him who fills all in all.
If Jesus had not sent him on the ministry journey, Paul would not be in prison, so jesus knowingly put him in prison. Jesus had already said Paul would suffer for His name before he spoke to anyone about Jesus.
But the Lord said to him, “Go, because this man is my chosen instrument to carry my name before Gentiles and kings and the people of Israel. For I will show him how much he must suffer for the sake of my name.”
Paul’s sense of uniqueness, which he will talk about in the next verse, is strong. But that uniqueness lies in how he can serve and connect with others, showing that uniqueness is not the enemy of oneness; rather, true uniqueness serves others.
And then he will say three verses down that what he wrote briefly in a heavily condensed format, he received revelation; and he calls it the mystery of Christ, as I have said before.
He did not know it for his own sake; he knew it to communicate it, to be a conduit for it. His uniqueness was to build up the body of Christ (2 Corinthians 10:8); his uniqueness was serving others.
And he is not a prisoner for his own sake, he was a prisoner for the work that he had done on behalf of the Gentiles, including this letter he is writing.
While he was in what one can call physical distress, he was flowing in this spiritual writing.
Here is Paul now in league with the Gentiles. Only Christ can do that.
And the irony of the one who went about putting people in prison, to now be put in prison; only Christ can do that (Acts 8:3; Acts 16:23–25).
And the one who was authorized to put people in prison is now going about helping people to get out of the prison of death and destruction (Acts 9:1–2; Acts 26:17–18).
The one who consented to the stoning of Stephen is now confined in the prison for the same name that Stephen was stoned for. That is God at work (Acts 7:57–60; Acts 21:30–33).
The one who does not want the message to spread now spreads the message at the risk of his own life (Acts 8:1, 3; Acts 20:22–24).
I am grateful to the one who has strengthened me, Christ Jesus our Lord, because he considered me faithful in putting me into ministry, even though I was formerly a blasphemer and a persecutor, and an arrogant man. But I was treated with mercy because I acted ignorantly in unbelief, and our Lord’s grace was abundant, bringing faith and love in Christ Jesus. This saying is trustworthy and deserves full acceptance: “Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners”—and I am the worst of them! But here is why I was treated with mercy: so that in me as the worst, Christ Jesus could demonstrate his utmost patience, as an example for those who are going to believe in him for eternal life. Now to the eternal King, immortal, invisible, the only God, be honor and glory forever and ever! Amen.
Glory to God!