{"id":8339,"date":"2024-02-05T01:44:03","date_gmt":"2024-02-04T20:14:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/cccfornews.com\/index.php\/2024\/02\/05\/why-does-paul-call-christ-a-mystery\/"},"modified":"2024-02-05T01:44:03","modified_gmt":"2024-02-04T20:14:03","slug":"why-does-paul-call-christ-a-mystery","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cccfornews.com\/index.php\/2024\/02\/05\/why-does-paul-call-christ-a-mystery\/","title":{"rendered":"Why Does Paul Call Christ a \u201cMystery\u201d?"},"content":{"rendered":"


\n<\/p>\n

\n

Glad you asked.<\/p>\n

The New Testament reading in church this past Sunday was Ephesians 3:1-12. What struck me was how the author (Paul or a later follower of his) speaks of his commission to preach the gospel to Gentiles.<\/p>\n

And he keeps using the word \u201cmystery<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n

He says in verses 3-6,<\/p>\n

The mystery was made known to me by revelation<\/strong>, as I wrote above in a few words,\u00a0a reading of which will enable you to perceive my understanding of the mystery of Christ<\/strong>.\u00a0 <\/span>In former generations this mystery was not made known to humankind<\/strong>, as it has now been revealed<\/strong> to his holy apostles and prophets by the Spirit:\u00a0<\/span>that is, the Gentiles have become fellow heirs<\/strong>, members of the same body, and sharers in the promise in Christ Jesus through the gospel.<\/em><\/p>\n

In verses 8-9 he adds,<\/p>\n

Although I am the very least of all the saints, this grace was given to me to bring to the Gentiles the news of the boundless riches of Christ,\u00a0<\/span>and to make everyone see what is<\/strong> the plan of the mystery hidden for ages in [or by] God<\/strong> who created all things. . . .<\/em><\/p>\n

We see a similar vibe in Romans 16:25-27:<\/p>\n

Now to God who is able to strengthen you according to my gospel and the proclamation of Jesus Christ, according to the revelation of the mystery that was kept secret for long ages\u00a0but is now disclosed<\/strong>, and through the prophetic writings is made known to all the Gentiles, according to the command of the eternal God, to bring about the obedience of faith\u2014to the only wise God, through Jesus Christ, to whom be the glory forever! Amen.\u00a0<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n

The letters of Paul<\/a> use the word \u201cmystery\u201d in more than one way, to be sure. But as I said this reading in Ephesians got me thinking about how the connection between the gospel and the story of Israel (aka the Old Testament, First Testament, Tanak, etc.) isn\u2019t obvious.<\/p>\n

I see four things here worth noting:<\/p>\n

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  1. The \u201cmystery of Christ\u201d is specifically the inclusion of the Gentiles<\/strong> as \u201cfellow heirs\u201d (along with Jews).<\/li>\n
  2. It\u2019s called a mystery because \u201cin former generations [it] was not made known<\/strong> to humankind,\u201d was \u201chidden<\/strong> for ages in [or by] God,\u201d and \u201ckept secret<\/strong> for long ages but is now disclosed.\u201d<\/li>\n
  3. The disclosure<\/strong> of the mystery now in Paul\u2019s day is \u201cby revelation<\/strong> . . . . now . . . revealed<\/strong> to his holy apostles and prophets by the Spirit.\u201d [\u201cProphets\u201d doesn\u2019t mean Old Testament prophets but prophets of the early Jesus movement. See Ephesians 2:20.]<\/li>\n
  4. Though a mystery that had to be revealed, the inclusion of the Gentiles is also \u201cin accordance with the eternal purpose<\/strong> [of God] (Ephesians 3:11) and \u201cthrough the prophetic writings<\/strong> is made known to all the Gentiles\u201d (Romans 16:26).<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    So I draw two conclusions from all this:<\/p>\n

      \n
    1. Gentiles as \u201cfellow heirs\u201d with Jews wasn\u2019t known until it was revealed to Paul (and others, perhaps)\u2014in other words, it\u2019s not something you\u2019d \u201cget\u201d from reading the Old Testament on its own terms<\/strong>.<\/li>\n
    2. This mystery of Gentile inclusion has, nevertheless, been part of God\u2019s purposes since forever<\/strong>, which is now<\/em><\/strong> made known \u201cthrough the prophetic writings.\u201d<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

      God\u2019s eternal purpose for Gentile inclusion isn\u2019t something that jumps out at you from the pages of the Old Testament.<\/h2>\n

      It is hidden. Exegesis won\u2019t get you there. Only revelation will. And once revealed, that which was a mystery \u201cin former generations\u201d is now understood.<\/p>\n

      This creates a delightful theological tension<\/strong> that, in my view, goes a long way to explaining the creative way Paul engages his scripture:<\/p>\n

      His task is to explain this revelation of \u201cthe mystery of Christ\u201d through the writings of the \u201cformer generations,\u201d of those to whom the revelation was \u201chidden\u201d and \u201ckept secret.\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n

      And so when we watch Paul handling his Bible to speak to this mystery, we can understand why he has to do so in ways that would not have made sense to those of \u201cformer generations\u201d to whom the mystery had not been revealed.<\/p>\n

      This is why we see so much creative license taken by Paul when he calls upon his Bible to speak of Christ. He is looking not to the words in their plain sense<\/em> to reveal the mystery. Then it wouldn\u2019t be a mystery<\/em> and wouldn\u2019t need to be revealed<\/em>.<\/p>\n

      Rather, Paul\u2019s reading of his Bible has to pull back the curtain to reveal about the behind-the-scenes activity of God, which he only knows because it was disclosed.<\/p>\n

      Paul, having received the revelation of the mystery, now goes about reading his scripture in a way he never would have imagined before. The revelation of the mystery becomes the lens through which Paul re-encounters his sacred tradition.<\/p>\n

      \u00a0<\/p>\n

      \u00a0<\/p>\n<\/div>\n


      \n
      Source link <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

      Glad you asked. The New Testament reading in church this past Sunday was Ephesians 3:1-12. What struck me was how the author (Paul or a later follower of his) speaks of his commission to preach the gospel to Gentiles. And he keeps using the word \u201cmystery.\u201d He says in verses 3-6, The mystery was made […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":8340,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[]},"categories":[44],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cccfornews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8339"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cccfornews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cccfornews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cccfornews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cccfornews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8339"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/cccfornews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8339\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cccfornews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/8340"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cccfornews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8339"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cccfornews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8339"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cccfornews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8339"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}