This means the extension of the riches of Christ even to the Gentiles, their calling into participation in them, and their union with the Jews into one body. The Head of this body is Christ, seated at the right hand of the Father. In Him all who make up His body are seated together there.
This side of the divine economy he especially wished to clarify, while preaching the divine economy itself. Therefore he says, "to enlighten all concerning the dispensation of this mystery." Why was it pleasing to God to arrange matters in this way, keeping it hidden until now and only now revealing it in all its majesty and fullness?
God wished to amaze all with the riches of His goodness, so that He might bind all more strongly to Himself and to the very mystery of salvation. Or, "what is the dispensation of the mystery" means telling all what resulted from this calling of the Gentiles to co-inheritance, incorporation in the same body, and common participation.
There resulted the majestic and most glorious body of Christ, composed of persons from every place and every time, harmoniously joined together. This is the goal toward which the whole dispensation of the mystery of salvation is directed, including the Gentiles together with the Jews. This is also the whole subject of the Apostle's discourse in the Epistle.
He enlightened all concerning this not only by word, but also by deed, joining all together by the deed itself. Everywhere this joining together was the direct consequence of his preaching.
This mystery was hidden from the ages in God. No one knew of it, and no one could even have guessed it. Even now, after its revelation and manifestation in deed, it still remains a mystery. All the more was it such before. "The calling of the Gentiles was known. But that they would also sit upon the throne of God, no one expected, and no one imagined this" (Chrysostom).
The Apostle's thought rests entirely on one thing: the joining together of all in Christ as Head. The foundation for this is laid in His sitting at the right hand of the Father. St. John of Damascus writes: "By the unsearchable riches of Christ he means the salvation of the whole world. By the dispensation of the mystery he means the exaltation, the seating together at the right hand, of all people in the one Christ."
The mystery was hidden in God. It was not just now devised by His goodness. From the beginning it entered into the plans of God, and only now has it been brought into action. Since this mystery is called hidden in God, who created all things, it suggests that even when the world was being created, the mystery of the salvation of all mankind in the Lord was already in God's mind.
The ordering of all into one body in Him was also already in God's mind. Of course, it was not without influence upon the very ordering of the world. This thought is visible in St. John of Damascus. "This mystery was not devised by God in the last times, for with Him there are no newly arising wills, that is, determinations of will. All things are eternal. While He was creating the world, He was also laying the foundations of salvation."
"Through Jesus Christ." Since Jesus Christ is the Word who became flesh, the Word through whom all things were made, and without whom nothing was made that was made. The phrase "who created all things" naturally drew to itself the words "through Jesus Christ." Chrysostom says: "The Apostle did well, when mentioning creation, to say, 'through Jesus Christ.' For He who created all things through Him also revealed this through Him. It is said, 'without Him nothing was made' (Jn 1:3)."
The hypostatic Word, the image of the Father's hypostasis, created the world and made man according to the image of God. Through the Incarnation He restores in man the image of God lost through the fall. These truths are linked with one another by an unbreakable chain, and each calls forth the other.
THEOSIS