Max A Forsythe
Christ covenant reformed (PCA)
4787 Palmer Road S.W. - Reynoldsburg, OH 43068-3315

Copyright 2004

The Mystery of Christ
For the Lord’s Day:  the 31^st of August 2003

Ephesians 3: 1-14

Introduction:  Years ago I developed a three to five week teaching unit on the word “love.”  In the context of that English course, we would consider a perennial favorite of those one hundred and four words considered worthy of being called:  Great Ideas by Mortimer J Adler.  Throughout the course, we would consider the history and meaning of the term according to several models.  We would follow Adler’s thinking in our consideration of a philosophy model.  Then, we would take up C.S. Lewis’s ideas in a theological mode.  From there we would descend to the psychological model as well as the contemporary biological and even an older historical model of the meaning and substance of love!

While the students did learn something about their favorite topic, the more enterprising and astute always noted that every model in the end came up short.  There was always something more to the concept that seemingly defied every reasonable and responsible attempt to comprehend the topic at hand.  That something more is what we are about to discuss today in a completely different context:  The “mystery” of Christ and especially the “mysteries” about Him, His presence and our well-being as they relate to the Lord’s Supper.  Please be advised, in so far as my English students realized – we were no more able to be definitive in our study of the word “love” than I suppose we will be able to be definitive today in our study of the “mysteries” related to our Lord and His presence in our midst corporately and individually!

Let us begin with an understanding of the “mysteries” as they are defined in the New Geneva Study Bible:  “In contemporary pagan religion the ‘mysteries’ were secret insights given (usually for a fee) to a select, initiated few.  With some irony Paul uses the term for the revelation God has made available freely to the nations.  In Paul’s use, ‘mystery’ refers to what once was hidden, but is now being revealed.”

Development:  From there, we move on in our study this morning with a short survey of our passage in Ephesians to set the necessary backdrop behind the scene in play upon the stage of scripture - so to speak.  Here in this portion of chapter three Paul explains three different themes. 

1.  The first theme that Paul addresses is his own unique personal role in God's purpose for the Gentiles.  He begins in verse one with these words:  "For this reason I, Paul, a prisoner for Christ Jesus ..."  Certainly he was not Christ's prisoner, but the Emperor's to whom he had been committed for trial.  John Stott tells us that, “Paul never thought in purely human terms, He believed in the sovereignty of God over the affairs of men.”  For this reason he called himself a prisoner of Christ, because he was “so convinced that the whole of his life, including his wearisome imprisonment was under the lordship of Jesus.”  Thus is he the prisoner of Christ.  And it is for a particular reason as verse one continues: "on behalf of you Gentiles."  This is the purpose of his imprisonment.  The events that had led to his arrest in Jerusalem, his imprisonment, trials and trip to Rome was because of “fanatical Jewish opposition to his mission to the Gentiles.”  We can read Luke's record of these events in Acts 21 – 22 and there we can see the intensity of the Jewish opposition to Paul's preaching the Gospel to the gentiles.

And yet, Paul dared not to step away from God's call to him.  To Paul, God had given a revelation and a commission.  We read about these in verses Ephesians 3: 2-3 and 7-8.  These two gifts of divine grace include the "mystery” revealed to him and the "ministry" entrusted to him.  John Stott reminds us that  “once [Paul] had received his special revelation from God, he knew he was under obligation to make known to others what had been made known to him!”

2.  According to John Stott, this brings us to our second theme: the revealed message and the responsibility to proclaim it.  Three times in the first six verses, there occurs the word “mystery” which is a key for our understanding.  We need to know what this word means.  In our common tongue, a "mystery" is unexplainable or incomprehensible. However in Greek, the word is different.  Although it is still a secret, it is no longer closely guarded.  What we mean is this:  While the Christian "mysteries" are truths which are beyond human discovery, they have been revealed by God and thus belong openly to the whole church!  And that mystery which Paul is declaring here is that both Gentile and Jewish Christians together are fellow heirs of the same blessing, fellow-members of the same body and fellow-partakers of the same promise.  At the end of verse six Paul has virtually equated the mystery with the gospel.  We can understand this in this sense:  that the gospel announces the mystery.  Thy mystery was essentially truth revealed to Paul, while the gospel was essentially truth proclaimed by Paul.  Paul makes this connection clear in verse seven. “Of this gospel I was made a minister according to the gift of God’s grace, which was given me by the working of his power.”

Thus we may note: if the first gift of God's grace was the mystery itself which had been revealed to him, the second was the ministry which had been entrusted to him.  He had received the gospel by God grace and would exercise it by the working of his power.  In the same way, when we feel so totally inadequate to preach what God has given to us, he may transform our feeble work by his great and mighty power.   Since the “mystery” revealed to him concerned God's plan to incorporate the Gentiles in Christ, it is only logical that the ministry entrusted to him should be directed to the gentiles everywhere in the world.

3.  And this thought brings us to a third theme, which is the centrality and importance of Christ's own Church in the Scriptures and throughout history.  Now, very many people today construct a Christianity which consists entirely of a personal relationship to Jesus Christ and has virtually nothing to do with any church.  Some other people make a grudging concession to the need for church membership, but add that they have given up the ecclesiastical institution as hopeless.

Yes, there may well be problems with our churches.  And please listen again to that adjective that I used:  "our churches". Certainly, every church in every place and time is in need of reform and renewal. But, we dare not despise the church of God.  We may be certain that Christ has not abandoned His own Church.  Of course he may be displeased with it, but His Church still has a central place in His plan.  In verse eleven we see that there is some eternal purpose being discussed. And what is that eternal purpose?  That eternal purpose concerns the church, the creating of a new and reconciled humanity in union with Jesus Christ.  This is also part of the “mystery” revealed.

According to John Stott: “’The mystery’ was not an abstraction.  It was taking concrete shape before people’s eyes.  And in this new phenomenon, this new multi-racial humanity, the wisdom of God was being displayed.  Indeed, the coming into existence of the church, as a community of saved and reconciled people, is at one and the same time a public demonstration of God’s power, grace and wisdom.”

To summarize our thinking this morning to this point, the “mystery” of Christ in this passage is simply put: the fact of the church, its growth and its impact upon the history of the world and in particular upon the hearts and lives of countless people is nothing more than a globally present demonstration of the power and sovereignty of the Creator God working through His only Son by the ongoing influence of The Holy Spirit.  If there were no church, it would be all the more easier for the worldly to proclaim that there was no God!

And why then has the church persevered down through the centuries, imperfect as she is?  Isn’t it because the love of God in the person of Jesus Christ is in her very midst.  At the very least, John Stott tells us “We may safely say that God has not abandoned his church, however displeased with it he may be.  He is still building and refining it.  And if God has not abandoned it, how can we?  It has a central place in his plan.”

Application:  Therefore, with all of that said - we can and must agree with what John Calvin tells us about the Incarnation:  “We must hold therefore that Christ, being the eternal Son of God, and of the same essence and glory with the Father, assumed our flesh, to communicate to us by right of adoption that which he possessed by nature, namely, to make us sons of God.  This is done when ingrafted by faith into the body of Christ.”  And what is the body of Christ, if I may interrupt the line of reasoning?  It is nothing more than the Church of the Living God.

Calvin continues:  “Moreover, that Christ may thus exhibit himself to us and produce these effects [expiation, imputation, and intercession] in us, he must be made one with us, and we must be ingrafted into his body.  He does not infuse his life into us unless he is our head, and from him the whole body, fitly joined together through every joint of supply, according to his working, maketh increase of the body in the proportion of each member.”

“There is power in the blood” an old hymn runs and rightly so, because the blood is of Christ.  Keith Mathison applies this thought to our study of the “mysteries” involved in our participation in the Lord’s Supper.  He quotes Calvin’s teaching on Ephesians 5: 30-32.  Let us read the scripture first, before we consider the commentary.   “Because we are members of his body, “therefore a man shall leavae his father and mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.”  This mystery is profound, and I am saying that it refers to Christ and the church.”

Now remember that Eve was formed from material from Adam’s side and on the cross – it was Christ’s side that was pierced by the spear so that the flesh was torn and the blood flowed out for our eternal benefit.  Speaking thus, we may all the more appreciate the image of the Church as the bride of Christ!

Now let us hear the doctrinal assertions of the great doctor from Geneva:  Paul “does not simply mean that Christ is a partaker of our nature, but expresses something higher … and more emphatic.”  Do you catch the sense of “mystery” here in those words?  Just like my discussions with my students about “love” there is something more that we can just barely comprehend!

Calvin continues his observations on verse thirty-one:  “As Eve was formed out of the substance of her husband, and thus was a part of himself; so, if we are the true members of Christ, we share his substance, and by this intercourse unite into one body.  … Paul says that “we are members of his flesh and of his bones.” Do we wonder then, that in the Lord’s Supper he holds out his body to be enjoyed by us, and to nourish us unto eternal life?”

How this all happens is the “mystery” we are considering today.  Keith Mathison tells us clearly that “The bond of the mystical union between the believer and Christ is the Holy Spirit.”  He quotes Calvin again in this regard:  “The bond of this connection is therefore the Spirit of Christ, with whom we are joined in unity, and is like a channel through which all that Christ himself is and has is conveyed to us.”  Finally, Mathison quotes Wallace “in this union there takes place what Calvin calls a ‘wondrous exchange’ made by the boundless goodness of God, whereby Christ takes upon Himself what is ours, and transfers to us what is His own.”

Of course, like my secular students you may be thoroughly confused?  What are we talking about, they would sometimes interrupt me in the middle of class.  So let me clarify from experience how the Lord’s Word and the institutions given to the Church mysteriously have a saving and edifying effect.  There are three times in my life, when I can specifically remember something truly mysterious going on in the midst of the ordinary activities within the Church of Jesus Christ.

The first was when I was two years old and recited my first Bible verse from memory.  As I stood on that little chair in the old basement classroom and turned on the light, I recited “God is Light” to the pleasure of dear old Mrs Gordon.  But, why do I remember that after all these years?  Simply because there was something more going on!

The second was when I was ordained for the ministry and the elders of six Presbyterian denominations laid their hands on me.  I had just read or been told that same week that Calvin supposed something special happened in that laying on of hands.  Besides feeling the weight of the whole crowd upon my shoulders, there was indeed something more going on!

The third experience was some years ago during communion.  I had had a nagging pain in my neck for almost two years and the doctor said to get used to it, since it was probably an early form of arthritis.  In the midst of the communion service the pain went away.  Yes it returned several days later, but only mildly and briefly.  Something more was going on during that communion service.

Some of you from time to time have also shared a few of these “mysteries” of the Lord’s hand in your lives, when something more was going on than met the worldly eye.  As we approach communion today in the midst of Christ’s Church, let us be thankful that the very church body in which we have been grafted into may be traced historically and through the laying on of hands back to the Apostolic band who first received the spiritual gifts from the hands and side of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.  And may as the Lord allows, may you too in time know of the “mysteries” associated with Christ, Church and Sacraments.  Amen.

Whitehall Reformed Fellowship (PCA)     2 October 1988
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PREACHING RESOURCES

Bruce, F.F.  New International Commentary on the New Testament: Colossians, Philemon & Ephesians.
Hodge, Charles.  Systematic Theology III.
Mathison, Keith A.  Given For You.
Stott, John R.W.  The Message of Ephesians.
The Holy Bible: English Standard Version.

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