Day 201 – The Church Will Teach the Angels

Today’s reading: Ephesians 3

Today, Paul says something that if you think about it is truly mind-blowing:

To me, though I am the very least of all the saints, this grace was given, to preach to the Gentiles the unsearchable riches of Christ, and to make all men see what is the plan of the mystery hidden for ages in God who created all things; that through the church the manifold wisdom of God might now be made known to the principalities and powers in the heavenly places.

“Principalities and powers”, is part of the biblical hierarchy of Angels.  So Paul is saying that THROUGH THE CHURCH the wisdom of God will be made known to the Angels in heaven.

Stop and think about that for a second.  The Angels are already in heaven with God and with Jesus but their knowledge of “the manifold wisdom of God” does not come to them directly.  Rather it comes to them through the Church on earth.

The Church, which is made up of men, will teach the Angels about God.  How is this even possible?  How can we make sense of this passage?  This is why the Catholic understanding of the Church is so important.  It is not just a universal body of believers.  Jesus so loved man that he died to found the Church.  Jesus loved us so much that he breathed the Holy Spirit into the Church and said that the Spirit would thereby, “lead us into all truth”.  Paul has just said, the Church is the body of Christ, the fullness of him who is all in all (Jesus).  Another way to understand this is to realize that Jesus chooses not to be continually physically incarnate in the world.  You no longer can walk up to him on the street and meet him and talk to him.  Instead, he founded a Church and Christ manifests himself in the world through the Church that is his presence, his fullness, until he returns bodily.  That is why Paul can say that his words are the same as, “commandments of the Lord” because as a Bishop he speaks for the Church and therefore for Christ.  The only way that is even possible is if the Church and Jesus are so closely related that the Church teaching Angels is the same as Jesus teaching angels.  The Church and Christ are in essence one and the same.  That is why the Church can and will teach the Angels.  This is what St. Paul has been explaining to us throughout the letter to the Ephesians.

If you are wondering whether your church is part of the one true church ask yourself, can your church teach the angels?  The Catholic Church can.

Tomorrow: Ephesians 4