Read the full transcript below:
“…He made known to me the mystery… which in other ages was not made known to the sons of men, as it has now been revealed by the Spirit to His holy apostles and prophets: that the Gentiles should be fellow heirs, of the same body, and partakers of His promise in Christ through the gospel…” – Ephesians 3:3a, 5-6
We all like a good mystery, especially when we are the first person to solve it. Nothing beats the feeling that comes from figuring out the ending to a movie before it happens and spoiling it for everyone. But none of us could dream up a mystery as intricate and intimate as the God of all creation. Paul uses chapter 3 of Ephesians to reveal this mystery, but in order to fully understand this great mystery we need to get into a little history.
In Genesis chapter 12, God called a man named Abram to go to a land that He would show him. No road map, no GPS, just faith in what God had promised. And what was that promise? That God would give him a son and that He would make Abram a great nation- one by which the whole world would be blessed. But God doesn’t work in the way we’d expect. People would say He works in “mysterious ways.” Many years go by, Abram’s name has changed to Abraham, and there is no sign of what God had promised coming to fruition in Abraham’s life. But still God had a plan that He would bring about according to His own timetable, not man’s. Fast-forward a few centuries and we see the birth of Israel as a nation, just as God had promised. Soon after, Israel would ask for a king so that they could be like the other nations. Over time numerous kings rose to power, only to fail as a result of their own sin and idolatry. Through the prophets God spoke of a True King- One that would reign forever. Not just over Israel, but over all the nations, thereby blessing them.
In due time, God would send His Son, Jesus Christ. He came to fulfill all of the promises that God had made to His chosen people. However, as we saw in Ephesians 1, we (the Gentiles) were also chosen, we’ve been adopted into His family. God had planned from before the foundation of the world that the Gentiles would be fellow heirs along with the Jews through belief in His Beloved Son (Eph. 3:6, 8-12).
Jesus came to the Jews as their promised Messiah but they rejected Him just as the Scriptures prophesied. He was ultimately declared a blasphemer and insurrectionist as His own people chanted for His death. God had predetermined it that way. It is because of that rejection of Jesus as Messiah that the gospel was taken to the Gentiles by Paul, whom God had called to be the Apostle to the Gentiles. Paul discusses this in even greater detail in Romans 11, where he says that we are “grafted in among them.”
The new covenant instituted by Jesus’ death and resurrection made it so that all men can gain access to God through Him and Him alone. The sacrifices were no longer needed; Jesus was sacrificed once for all. There was no more need for the priesthood; Jesus became the perfect High Priest. He did not need to first atone for His own sins because He was sinless. The veil of separation was torn apart and now all people can come boldly into the presence of God through Jesus Christ. There is no distinction among God’s children. We are all recipients of Christ’s riches.
This truly is a marvelous mystery! But thanks be to God that He has not kept these things hidden from us, but rather has given us the ability to search them out and experience a life-altering knowledge of them. Let us pray as Paul did- that we may be able to understand this mystery and that our lives would be marked by its revelation.
“For this reason I bow my knees to the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ… that you, being rooted and grounded in love, may be able to comprehend with all the saints what is the width and length and depth and height— to know the love of Christ which passes knowledge; that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.” – Ephesians 3:14, 17b-19