What is the “mystery” about which Paul speaks in Ephesians ch. 3? One can quickly think of several answers which, at first blush, seem promising. However, like poor Hosea’s wife, they soon prove empty and faithless.
Background
Paul has written about God’s plan to reconcile all things to Christ, in heaven and on earth (Eph 1:10). To that end, he’s spoken about God’s grace in salvation, the impossible situation from which he rescued us, our responsibility as grateful believers, and about this new Jesus community he has formed in which Jews and Gentiles “are no longer strangers and sojourners, but you are fellow citizens with the saints, and are of God’s household” (Eph 2:19). This is all part of God’s plan to remake the Genesis 1-2 paradise, which he achieves in Revelation 21-22. Through his covenants, God has made several sacred promises:
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To gather a people to himself physically descended from Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.
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To place these people into a promised land of their own.
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To make his people, Israel, a blessing to all the families of the earth.
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To give them a king descended from David who will rule forever and whose kingdom will never end, and
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To give them a Messiah as a new and better covenant who will give his people new hearts and new minds by a miracle of his Spirit.
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Amidst the chaos of national collapse and apostasy, the prophets explain that this Messiah will nevertheless re-gather a remnant of the Israelite people from the four corners of the earth because of his covenant promises. He will usher in a golden age wherein righteousness, truth, justice, peace, and bliss will prevail. The Messiah will rule from Jerusalem as a signal flag of salvation to the nations, who will stream to Yahweh with joy in those days.
In Ephesians 3:1-12, Paul writes about a mystery which God has revealed to him:
… which in other generations was not made known to the sons of men, as it was now revealed to His holy apostles and prophets in the Spirit: that the Gentiles are fellow heirs and fellow members of the body, and fellow partakers of the promise in Christ Jesus through the gospel (Ephesians 3:5-6; emphasis added).
So, somehow, this “mystery” news about Gentiles being “fellow heirs” of the Jesus promise is something new. Well, what’s new about this? What, exactly, is this mystery? Based on what Ephesians 3:5-6 says, several possible answers come to mind. We may dismiss some straightaway, while others are a bit stronger.
Wrong answers about this “mystery”
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Nobody ever heard of this before!
With apologies to traditional dispensationalists, we can dismiss this immediately (contra. Chafer, Systematic, 4:75-77). God tells Abraham that, in him, all the families of the earth will be blessed (Gen 12:3), and the apostle Paul cites this as warrant for the revelation of the church (Gal 3:8). The bible is clear that Gentiles have a future in God’s family.
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Wow! The nations are part of God’s plan!
This is closely related to the last perspective, and it is the response of the Jewish Christians at Jerusalem. Consider the apostle Peter’s prejudicial and foolish comments to Cornelius—remarks with no biblical support: “You yourselves know how unlawful it is for a man who is a Jew to associate with a foreigner or to visit him …” (Acts 10:28). Reflect, also, on the indignant reception the Jewish Christians in Jerusalem give Peter when he returns home (Acts 11:1-3, 18). They would have never responded this way if they had listened to Yahweh’s words in Isaiah 56:6-8.
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Gentiles aren’t at the back of the bus in God’s family—they’re equal!
This perspective leans into texts that suggest the nations are subservient to the people of Israel during what I believe to be Christ’s millennial reign (see esp. Schreiner, Ephesians, 152; Cohick, Ephesians, 320). But, study shows these passages are often depicting Israel’s triumph over her enemies (e.g., Mic 4:13) or, in the important case of Isaiah 60, it is Zion (not the people of Israel) whom the nations will serve (as metonymy for Yahweh). The Old Covenant scriptures clearly promise that all who are thirsty may come to the waters “without money and without cost,” that Yahweh has given the Messiah “as a witness to the peoples,” and this Rescuer will “call a nation you do not know” which “will run to you” (see Isa 55:1-7).
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The Messiah will do this!
This one is clearly absurd. Yes, Paul does say in Ephesians 3:5-6 that this “mystery” (whatever it may be) concerns the promise about Christ Jesus. But, the Old Testament very clearly says the Messiah will be the one who saves and rescues Jews and Gentiles (see Isa 42:1, 6-7). It was known. It was expected. That cannot be the mystery.
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Israel is replaced by the church!
This is a very common interpretation (see Stott, Ephesians, 117-18). I cannot properly rebut that perspective here. I’ll just say that (a) if God gives us the covenant oaths and signs so that we’d have faith in his promises, then (b) this requires God to mean what he says, to speak clearly so we can understand him, so we therefore rely upon his promises (Henebury, Words of the Covenant, 1:13-43).
Mary and Zechariah, to take one example, surely understood Yahweh to mean what he said in his covenant promises through David about a king rescue them from their enemies and usher in righteousness (Lk 1). If God didn’t mean what he said through the prophet Nathan (1 Chr 17:1-15) and didn’t expect his people to understand and rely upon that covenant promise, then Gabriel wouldn’t have had any basis for a conversation with Mary! Instead, he assumes and expects that she knows what he’s talking about.
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A better relationship with God by spiritual union!
This, also, does not work. The prophet Joel said that, in the last days (which Peter says have now arrived), God will pour out his spirit upon all mankind (Joel 2:28-29). Ezekiel said that, in the new covenant, God “will give them one heart and give within them a new spirit. And I will take the heart of stone out of their flesh and give them a heart of flesh” (Ezek 11:19).
A probable answer
So, if the Old Testament clearly says each of these things, then what precisely is the “mystery”? It seems to me that the mystery is not about what will happen, but about how. Yes, by the end of the whole story in Revelation 21-22, there will be one people of God consisting of two groups (Israel and the church) which have been made one. But, how will God make this promise a reality?
It seems that Jesus makes God’s covenant promises come true in two stages. First, by using the church now, during this present evil age. Second, during his 1,000-year millennium reign, by using the people of Israel (see esp. Jer 33:14-26; Micah 4:1-8; Zech 8; Isa 11-12, Isa 25). The apostle Paul’s analogy of the olive tree seems unanswerable along this line (Rom 11:17-36): God has broken off the “natural branches” (i.e., the people of Israel) from this tree now, and meanwhile grafted in “wild” and unnatural branches (the Gentiles) for a time.
For I do not want you, brothers, to be uninformed of this mystery—so that you will not be wise in your own estimation—that a partial hardening has happened to Israel until the fullness of the Gentiles has come in; and so all Israel will be saved; just as it is written, “THE DELIVERER WILL COME FROM ZION, HE WILL REMOVE UNGODLINESS FROM JACOB” (Romans 11:25-26).
Regarding how the whole bible story comes together, the apostle Peter tells us the prophets themselves had questions about the “how.”
… the prophets, who prophesied of the grace that would come to you, made careful searches and inquiries, inquiring to know what time or what kind of time the Spirit of Christ within them was indicating as He was predicting the sufferings of Christ and the glories to follow” (1 Pet 1:10-11).
I like to compare this issue to disagreements about eschatology today. Every true Christian believes that, one day, Jesus will return to punish the wicked, reward the righteous, defeat Satan forever, and bring in everlasting righteousness. But, we sometimes disagree about the precise details. The “how” questions about the Messiah’s advent were like that—of course he would arrive, but how would all the details about “the glories to follow” shake out?
Therefore, regarding Paul and the revelation of the “mystery” about Jews and Gentiles as “fellow heirs and fellow members of the body, and fellow partakers of the promise in Christ Jesus through the gospel” (Eph 3:6), the best answer seems to be about the how, and not the what. “Messianic days have dawned, albeit in a way not clearly anticipated in the prophesies. Rather than one grand age of fulfillment under the messianic reign, the prophetic fulfillment has been divided into two ages related to the two comings of Christ” (Saucy, “Church as the Mystery of God,” in Dispensationalism, Israel, and the Church, 151).
