The
Mystery of One New Man
According to Paul, the
mystery of the Gospel--past the fact of
Christ's death and resurrection--centers on
the corporate effect Christ's death
has on the relationship between Jewish
and Non-Jewish people ("gentiles"). A
new situation exists between Jews and Gentiles
since Christ:
3:3 that
by revelation there was made known to me the
mystery, as I wrote before in brief.
4 By
referring to this, when you read you can
understand my insight into the
mystery of Christ, 5 which
in other generations was not made known to
the sons of men, as it has now been revealed
to His holy apostles and prophets in the
Spirit; 6 to
be specific, that the
Gentiles are fellow heirs and fellow
members of the body,
2:14 For
He Himself is our peace, who made both
groups into one and broke
down the barrier of the dividing wall, 15 by
abolishing in His flesh the enmity,
which is the Law of commandments contained
in ordinances, so that in Himself He might
make the two into one new
man, thus establishing
peace, 16 and
might reconcile them both in one body to God
through the cross, by it having put to death
the enmity. 17 And
He came and preached peace to you who were
far away, and peace to those who were near;
18 for
through Him we both have our access in one
Spirit to the Father. 19 So
then you are no longer strangers and aliens,
but you are fellow citizens with the saints,
and are of God's household, 20 having
been built on the foundation of the apostles
and prophets, Christ Jesus Himself being the
corner stone. (same as "root" in
Rom. 11)
In a nutshell, Paul
gives us the heart of the New Testament gospel
as it relates to corporate mankind. Everything
he goes on to say about "one faith, one
baptism, one Lord" is centered on
this revelation. Here, at the end of his life,
Paul sums everything he's been trying to tell
the churches since he first wrote the
Galatians, his earliest letter. It's the
message for which he was first set apart by
God, over which he has suffered so much and
why he is in prison even now.
If this mystery is so
central to Paul, if it encapsulates what he
has lived to communicate for half a generation
to the point of endless sufferings and finally
death, and if God left Paul's record of this
as the backbone of the New Covenant
writings for two thousand years, there is
a reason for it!
Equally true, the enemy of the one
true body of Christ must have great stake in
seeing to it that the Gentile age never gets
the mystery straight!
