By Rick Sibert                                                                                                                                     November 2007  

Mystery Of The Church                                                     

After a long week of all-things-life, running in different directions, sometimes not seeing each other much, my wife and I like to sit down together on a Sunday evening and just be “entertained” by a good mystery.  Now the funny thing is that we both come at a mystery from different angles.  From the very beginning, my wife tries to figure out who did it.  And all during the show, she will offer suggestions - suggestions that I don’t want to hear, mainly because I’m too slow to figure it all out and I just like to be surprised at the end!  (Of course, my wife is the kind of person who wants to know what you got her for Christmas before she opens the gift, so it all fits.)

When the Bible speaks of a mystery, it is usually referring to a truth, which was veiled - or hidden - in the Old Testament and then revealed - or uncovered - in the New Testament.  One powerful mystery that wasn’t fully understood until Christ came was the mystery of the church, and specifically salvation for the Gentiles.

The Promise  Abraham (a Gentile) was chosen by God to be the forbearer of a people who, in their relationship with Him, would be an illustration of God’s unconditional love toward mankind.  But – Abraham was also promised that “all of the families of the earth would be blessed” through him.” (Gen 12:3)  How is this possible, you ask?  By faith.

Salvation, from the beginning of time, has always been by faith.  For those who lived on the earth prior to Abraham and his covenant with God it was faith.  Faith that God would one day make a way for them, that He would provide a means, one day, to remove their stain of sin.  We look back at the finished work of Christ as our redemption; they looked ahead to a Redeemer who would come.

In his recent debate with Dinesh D’Souza, the avowed atheist Christopher Hitchins said that one of the reasons that he could never believe in God was because he could not believe in a God who would sit idly by for centuries upon centuries as mankind was born, lived their lives, and died (many times killing each other) and then decide after thousands of years had gone by, “okay, it may be time to go down and intervene.”  Hitchins – a man of immense intelligence and a wonderful writer whom I enjoy reading - misses the boat completely.  God was not sitting by, disinterested (or worse yet, unaffected or unmoved by the suffering on Earth) in the affairs of man. He was planning – if you want to get theological, all the way back in eternity past, before he ever created man - to provide salvation for His prized creation.  But the ingredient that has always been needed was faith. 

            Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen

(Heb 11:1)

The Prophecy  Another mistake that has been made about the nation of Israel has been their purpose.  Expounding on my statement above, God’s divine purpose for the nation of Israel was that they would be a light to the nations around them.  There was nothing supernaturally special about Israel, indeed we see through their repeated wanderings, failings and rebellions that the chasm that separated them from the heathen nations around them was indeed very shallow.  But the plan was that through the nation of Israel, and their relationship to the one true God, and His blessings upon them, the whole world was to be witnessed to.  And as a light to the Gentile world, there would come a day that the whole world (as already told to Abraham) would have the opportunity to be saved through them.  What an amazing legacy!  The prophet Isaiah, eight hundred years before Christ, foretold this very mystery:

            …I will also give you as a light to the Gentiles, that you should be My salvation

 to the ends of the Earth. (Is 49:6)

But remember, a mystery in Scripture is “hidden,” that is it is covered until the fulfillment of prophecy uncovers it or makes it clear.  Although prophesied by Isaiah, and indeed written into the sacred Scriptures, it would take an unlikely Jewish scholar – a man chosen by God for the specific task – to bring that message to the whole world, and unlock the mystery.

The Progenitor  I often wonder why the apostle Paul was brought onto the scene.  You already had eleven men who had walked with Jesus for three and a half years, who had been, in a sense, trained to continue the work of Jesus after his ascension.  They were commissioned and instructed (empowered) to take the message of salvation to the “ends of the earth” (Acts 1:8); to make “disciples of all nations” (Mt 28:19).  So how does Paul fit in?  I could be wrong, but I believe the disciples were not completely fulfilling their call.  They had not left Jerusalem.  In fact, Christianity, or those of  “the way,” was actually known as a peculiar Jewish sect.  There was no spreading of the gospel to the four corners of the world going on.  I’m not faulting them, or even placing blame, just positing an opinion.

So God knocks a persecutor of the saints off his horse and he becomes a bondservant for Christ, and progenitor of the gospel; taking the salvation message to the Gentile world.  Paul was chosen to unlock the mystery, that is, he showed God’s heart was to have a body of believers - a remnant of Himself - across the face of the earth made up of a cross section of the human race – Jews and Gentiles alike.

No social barriers.

No racial barriers.

One unified community of purpose.

"For this reason I, Paul, the prisoner of Jesus Christ for you Gentiles –

if indeed you have heard of the dispensation of the grace of God which

was given to me for you, how that by revelation 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." (Eph 3:1-6)

This was the mystery of the church.

He summarizes his message again in his letter to the churches in Galatia:

"For you are all sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus.  For as many of you as

were baptized into Christ have put on Christ.  There is neither Jew nor Greek,

there is neither slave nor free, there is neither male nor female; for you are all

one in Christ Jesus. And if you are Christ’s, then you are Abraham’s seed, and

heirs according to the promise." (Gal 3:26-29)

Sadly, even though this mystery has been revealed to us – this wonderful plan of salvation for all races, a universal church made up of both Jewish and Gentile believers, many still don’t see it.  They see the church as a divisive thing. They see it as sectarian.  Some see the church as having replaced the nation of Israel in the eyes of God.  Nothing could be further from the truth.  The Jews still need to come to Jesus through faith, and many have over the centuries.  But there will come a day when God will fulfill His promise to them, and a remnant of the nation will recognize their Savior and believe. (Ro 9-12)  What a glorious day that will be, the mystery for them finally being revealed!

Editor’s Note:  Eternal Perspective is a monthly feature of Calvary Chapel Columbus and the commentary of Pastor Rick Sibert, focusing on living a Godly life in the midst of an ungodly world.