The Church is the body and bride of Christ. It occupies an exceptional place in God's dealings, being heavenly in character and calling, and thus differing from everything related or foretold in the Old Testament as to what preceded and will follow it on the earth. It did not exist till after Christ's resurrection, being associated with Him as the risen One at God's right hand. Not only, however, did the Church not exist in the Old Testament times, but it was not foretold. Though God's purposes about it were formed “before the foundation of the world,” they were hidden “from ages and from generations” till His own time for revealing them.
These secret counsels of God are called in Scripture mysteries. We mean by a mystery something inexplicable, beyond our understandings. In the language of the New Testament, however, a mystery is simply a secret revealed only to initiated persons—such, for example, as the secret sign of the “Free-Masons.” God, then, had reserved a secret to be communicated to us—a secret which He had not made known even to the most favored recipient of His thoughts in past ages. How sweet to see this I It is the privilege of the children to know the secrets of the family—of the wife to share the innermost thoughts of her husband's heart. God has adopted us as His children; Christ has purchased us as His bride; and the secrets, hidden even from the most honored of His servants and friends, are now breathed into the ear and heart of that Church which is bone of His bones and flesh of His flesh.
These mysteries relate partly to the kingdom and partly to the Church. That there would be a kingdom of the heavens, in which evil would be allowed, was a secret unknown to the prophets. This is the mystery disclosed in the parable of the wheat and the tares. But there is also a secret connected with the Church or assembly. We read that God “did visit the Gentiles to take out of them a people for His name” (Acts 15:1414Simeon hath declared how God at the first did visit the Gentiles, to take out of them a people for his name. (Acts 15:14)). This is said to be His present work, and the account goes on to show that it was in accordance with His revealed purposes, for He had announced by the prophets that His name would be called upon the Gentiles. But the Scriptures are quoted here only to prove that God had never intended to confine His blessings to Israel. On looking further into the Word, we find that there is a “mystery,” or secret, connected with this subject, which the Old Testament had not made known. Writing to the Romans the apostle says — “I would not, brethren, that ye should be ignorant of this mystery, lest ye should be wise in your own conceits; that blindness in part is happened to Israel, until the fullness of the Gentiles be come in” (Rom. 11:2525For I would not, brethren, that ye should be ignorant of this mystery, lest ye should be wise in your own conceits; that blindness in part is happened to Israel, until the fulness of the Gentiles be come in. (Romans 11:25)). It had been revealed that God would be merciful to the Gentiles; but that God was setting aside the Jews for the very purpose of gathering a people out of the Gentiles, and that until this was fully accomplished the blessing of Israel must be postponed, was a “mystery” on which the Old Testament Scriptures were wholly silent. The Epistle to the Romans is not, indeed, a Church epistle, and therefore neither the name nor the character of the Church is to be found in this passage. But the people that God is gathering out of the Gentiles are believers, and it is for the completion of these, or the Church, that Israel is set aside as God's immediate earthly object.
The Old Testament which unfolds God's plans concerning the world, shows the converse of this. There the Gentiles fill up the interval in God's dealings with His earthly people, Israel, and are used to provoke them to jealousy. But the New Testament reveals God's heavenly purposes. Here, therefore, the gathering of the Church, instead of occupying a mere gap in God's earthly designs, is the grand object of all His counsels. In the Old Testament, Gentile blessing is named, but as waiting on God's thoughts about Israel. In the New Testament, Israel's blessing is named, but as waiting upon God's thoughts about the Church. The Old Testament shows a people who were the objects of God's counsels “from the foundation of the world”; but the New Testament shows a people who were the objects of God's counsels “before the foundation of the world” (Matt. 25:3434Then shall the King say unto them on his right hand, Come, ye blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world: (Matthew 25:34); Eph. 1:44According as he hath chosen us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before him in love: (Ephesians 1:4)). In God's earthly plans, everything yields to the former; in His heavenly plans everything yields to the latter. But as the heavenly people had the first and highest place in God's thoughts, the earthly people must stand aside until His purposes concerning these are fully accomplished.
But, it may be asked, are not Jews now brought in also? Is not the Gospel as free to them as to others? Why, then, is it said that Israel is blinded in part “until the fullness of the Gentiles be come in?” It is because the apostle is here speaking of the Church dispensationally, as the thing which came in through Israel's blindness, and is incompatible with her national blessing. In this dispensational sense, the Church is Gentile, and does not cease to be so because individual Israelites enter. In doing so, they take the same ground as the Gentiles; as Peter says — “We (the Jews) shall be saved, even as they” (Acts 15:1111But we believe that through the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ we shall be saved, even as they. (Acts 15:11)); and become detached from the nation as here represented. Christianity, thus viewed, is the bringing in of the fullness of the Gentiles in contrast with God's still future work of restoring and blessing Israel. This is the “mystery,” as seen in the Epistle to the Romans.
In writing to the Colossians, Paul speaks of “the dispensation of God which is given to me for you to fulfill [complete] the word of God, even the mystery which path been hid from ages and from generations, but now is made manifest to His saints; to whom God would make known what is the riches of the glory of this mystery among the Gentiles; which is Christ in [or among] you, the hope of glory” (Col. 1:25-2725Whereof I am made a minister, according to the dispensation of God which is given to me for you, to fulfil the word of God; 26Even the mystery which hath been hid from ages and from generations, but now is made manifest to his saints: 27To whom God would make known what is the riches of the glory of this mystery among the Gentiles; which is Christ in you, the hope of glory: (Colossians 1:25‑27)). The mystery was, therefore, needed “to complete the word of God.” It was the presence of Christ in or among believers, as the hope of glory. The Word does not say, that the mystery was the presence of Christ among the Gentiles, but “among you,” that is, in the Church. Christ's presence among the Jews was foretold; but now His presence is revealed in an assembly outside Judaism, where Jew and Gentile were unknown. This was a mystery, which was now revealed to the Gentiles.
And not only was Christ's presence now vouchsafed to an assembly unknown to the prophets. There was also another new thing. His presence, foretold by the prophets, was not a hope of glory, but glory itself. When Christ reigns among the Jews, He will be their glory — “a light to lighten the Gentiles, and the glory of Thy people Israel” (Luke 2:3232A light to lighten the Gentiles, and the glory of thy people Israel. (Luke 2:32)). Now, however, something altogether different is seen. Instead of glorifying those among whom He has taken His abode, He only gives them “the hope of glory.” At present they are members of His body. But the sufferings of that body are not yet filled up, and believers are now called out to fellowship with His sufferings, though with the blessed and assured hope of soon sharing His glory. This is a thing unknown to the old prophets, another feature of the mystery now revealed to the saints.
We are here carried a step further than in the Romans. There the mystery is that God has set aside Jewish blessing until He has performed a work among the Gentiles, that is, in a sphere outside His earthly dealings. In the Epistle to the Colossians it is added that among those whom God is gathering as the result of His present work, Christ makes His abode, spiritually of course, and this, not as the bestower of present, but as the hope of future, glory.
In Ephesians the mystery is thus described — “that the Gentiles should be fellow-heirs, and of the same body, and partakers of His promise in Christ by the gospel” (Eph. 3:66That the Gentiles should be fellowheirs, and of the same body, and partakers of his promise in Christ by the gospel: (Ephesians 3:6)). This is called “the mystery of Christ.” What, then, does it teach? It is often understood as showing that the Gentiles are by the gospel brought into Jewish blessings. But this is simply to deny the truth of prophecy. The prophetic blessings of the Jews are essentially national, and would be absolutely extinguished if the difference between Jew and Gentile were abolished. Besides, the word elsewhere expressly declares that the special Jewish blessings are postponed until God's present work, that is, the thing here described, has been accomplished. This passage, then, does not, and cannot, mean that the Gentile is brought into possession, through Christianity, of the blessings prophetically foretold for the Jews.
Let us examine its language a little more closely. It asserts that the Gentiles are “fellow-heirs and of the same body, and partakers of God's promise in Christ by the gospel.” With whom are they fellow-heirs? They are, as we know from other scriptures, fellow-heirs, and of the same body with Christ; but is this what is meant here? Evidently not, for it could not be said that they are partakers with Christ of God's “promise in Christ by the gospel.” In this last case it manifestly means partakers with the Jews, and if one portion refers to the common possession of Jew and Gentile, the others must do the same. The passage says, then, that the Gentiles are fellow-heirs with the Jews, of the same body with the Jews, and partakers with the Jews of God's promise in Christ by the gospel.
But this might be either by the Gentile coming into Jewish blessing, or by Jew and Gentile receiving some common blessing of quite a different kind. It cannot, as we have seen, be in the former way, for the nature of Jewish blessing and the express teaching of God's Word forbid the thought of the Gentile sharing, on equal terms, the blessing foretold for the Jews. In this case, however, we are not left to inference, even to inference so plain as that which is thus thrust upon us. We learn from the immediate context what this body is, in which Jew and Gentile are incorporated, and find that it is none other than the body of Christ Himself. “He is our peace, who hath made both one, and hath broken down the middle wall of partition, having abolished in His flesh the enmity, even the law of commandments contained in ordinances, for to make in Himself of twain one new man” (Eph. 2:14,1514For he is our peace, who hath made both one, and hath broken down the middle wall of partition between us; 15Having abolished in his flesh the enmity, even the law of commandments contained in ordinances; for to make in himself of twain one new man, so making peace; (Ephesians 2:14‑15)). Earlier in the Epistle we read that in Christ “also we have obtained an inheritance” (chap. 1:11).
What, then, is the apostle's reasoning? What the mystery which he here unfolds? Having spoken of an inheritance and of a body—the inheritance we have in Christ, and the body in which we are incorporated with Christ—he goes on to say, that in this inheritance, in this body, in the glorious promises unfolded in the gospel, the Gentile is fellow-heir, of the same body, and partaker of the promises, along with the Jew. It is not the Gentile coming into the Jewish hope, but Jew and Gentile being brought into the same hope, quite different from that of Israel. Where is the Jewish nation spoken of as being of the same body with Christ? This is not a prophetic hope at all, but a mystery now first made known. And how do any persons get into this same body? By those who are Gentiles becoming Jews? So far from it, that the wall of partition broken down is the special Jewish distinction, and if either could be said to approach the other, it is the Jew who approximates to the Gentile condition rather than the Gentile who approximates to the Jewish. But, in reality, there is no such approach on either side. Both are taken out of their old condition, and brought into an entirely new one. The two classes of Jew and Gentile still subsist in the world, but God has taken a number out of each, and has formed a new class, the body of Christ, in which all distinctions are done away. The three divisions which God now owns are the Jew, the Gentile, and the Church of God (1 Cor. 10:3232Give none offence, neither to the Jews, nor to the Gentiles, nor to the church of God: (1 Corinthians 10:32)).
Afterward, in the same epistle, Paul writes — “We are members of His body, of His flesh and of His bones. For this cause shall a man leave his father and mother, and shall be joined unto his wife, and they two shall be one flesh. This is a great mystery, but I speak concerning Christ and the Church” (Eph. 5:30-3230For we are members of his body, of his flesh, and of his bones. 31For this cause shall a man leave his father and mother, and shall be joined unto his wife, and they two shall be one flesh. 32This is a great mystery: but I speak concerning Christ and the church. (Ephesians 5:30‑32)). Here, then, the mystery is expressly stated to be the union of Christ and the Church, so that they are “one flesh,” and so that believers are “members of His body, of His flesh and of His bones.”
In whatever light, therefore, the Church is regarded, it is spoken of as a mystery. Whether as the thing which God is now doing among the Gentiles during the time of Israel's rejection; as the place in which Christ now makes His spiritual abode, the pledge of coming glory; as the body in which Jew and Gentile are alike incorporated on an entirely new ground; or as the bride, joined in one flesh with Christ Himself; it is a new thing, a secret “hid from ages and from generations “—a mystery, outside the sphere of God's earthly dealings, and reserved for the ear of those whom God has brought into relationship with His Son in heavenly glory—those to whom He has made known by His Spirit the things which “eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man.” But was this mystery really hidden from the Old Testament prophets? Does not Paul speak of it as revealed to the prophets as well as to the apostles?
Does he not expressly say that it was made known “by the scriptures of the prophets?” Let us look at his own words. He speaks of “the revelation of the mystery, which was kept secret since the world began, but NOW is made manifest, and by the scriptures of the prophets [properly, prophetic writings], according to the commandment of the everlasting God, made known to all nations for the obedience of faith” (Rom. 16. 25, 26). So, too, lie mentions his “knowledge in the mystery of Christ, which in other ages was not made known unto the sons of men, as it is NOW revealed unto His holy apostles and prophets by the Spirit” (Eph. 3:4,54Whereby, when ye read, ye may understand my knowledge in the mystery of Christ) 5Which in other ages was not made known unto the sons of men, as it is now revealed unto his holy apostles and prophets by the Spirit; (Ephesians 3:4‑5)). Surely no person of ordinary intelligence can read these passages without seeing that the prophetic writings, and the prophets here spoken of, are not those of the Old Testament, in whose days the text plainly shows that the mystery was not revealed, but prophets then living and the prophetic writings then issued-in a word, the prophets and prophetic writings of the New Testament.
Such, then, was the mystery now first revealed to the Church. Doubtless there are other mysteries disclosed in the New Testament also. There is “the mystery of iniquity,” the present unrevealed form of that evil whose full and unhindered display was prophesied of by Isaiah, Daniel, and other Old Testament writers. There is “the mystery of godliness,” the complete revelation of God in the person of the Son, as contrasted with the partial revelations previously made; God “manifest in the flesh, justified in the Spirit, seen of angels, preached unto the Gentiles, believed on in the world, received up into glory “
(1 Tim. 3:1616And without controversy great is the mystery of godliness: God was manifest in the flesh, justified in the Spirit, seen of angels, preached unto the Gentiles, believed on in the world, received up into glory. (1 Timothy 3:16)). There is the mystery of Christ's special and separate return for His saints — “We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed, in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trump; for the trumpet shall sound, and the dead shall be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed” (1 Cor. 15:51,5251Behold, I show you a mystery; We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed, 52In a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trump: for the trumpet shall sound, and the dead shall be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed. (1 Corinthians 15:51‑52)). In these, as in other cases where the word is used, it is some new revelation suited to the heavenly character of the Church, or to the present nature of God's dealings viewed as an interruption of the course of earthly events foretold in the old prophets.
But the special mystery committed to the apostle Paul is that which we have just examined, the mystery of the Church as the body and the bride of Christ. Why, it may be asked, was this kept a secret? Because it is a heavenly thing, the subject of God's heavenly counsels; whereas the purpose of the Old Testament prophecies is to make known His earthly counsels. This is of great importance as showing how completely the Church lies outside the world. It has a different origin, it is revealed at a different time, it cherishes a different hope, it belongs to a different sphere. Instead of inheriting the Old Testament promises and fulfilling the Old Testament prophecies, it forms the most absolute contrast with them that the mind can conceive. So different are they that the two cannot exist together. While God's purposes about the earth were being unfolded, the mystery of the Church was hidden. When the mystery of the Church was unfolded, the purposes about the earth were suspended. The Church is associated with Christ in heaven; Israel is associated with Him on earth. The Church knows Him in His sufferings and patience; Israel will know Him in His exaltation and power. The Church rejoices in Him as the bride in her bridegroom; Israel will rejoice in Him as a nation in her sovereign. The Church looks for Him to take her to heaven; Israel looks for Him to establish her in the earth. Such is our blessed lot, such our heavenly portion, in contrast with even the most favored of the earthly people. Alas, that our hearts fall so far short of this wondrous position!
However we may slight it, the apostle Paul did not. Earnest as he was in seeking souls, full as he was in setting forth the simple truth of grace to the sinner, this magnificent subject of “the mystery of Christ” was never absent from his thoughts or heart. If he prayed for the establishment of saints, it was “according to the mystery.” If he would have them “knit together in love, and unto all riches of the full assurance of understanding,” it is “to the acknowledgment of the mystery.” If he requests their prayers, it is “that God would open unto us a door of utterance to speak the mystery.” If he would have the real character of the truth committed to him understood, it is that God had by revelation “made known unto me the mystery.” And this mystery is the Church, as the body and the bride of Christ, already united with
Him by the Holy Ghost sent down to dwell on earth, and awaiting the time when this blessed oneness will be publicly displayed; “when Christ, who is our life, shall appear,” and we also shall “appear with Him in glory.” Surely if our hearts were more in tune with the mind of God and with the affections of Christ, this wondrous theme would fill us with never-ceasing worship and delight!