THE MYSTERY

^[p. 108] THE MYSTERY

We may, I suppose, put aside some passages where this word occurs, as furnishing the explanation in themselves, and giving its application to something special.

1 Corinthians 15:51 “Behold I shew you a mystery, we shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed”. This may have place at the summing up and accomplishment of the mystery of Christ, but it is a special mystery revealed; so 1 Corinthians 4:1, “Let a man so account of us as ministers of Christ and stewards of the mysteries of God”. So Babylon is called “Mystery”; and the “mystery of iniquity”, though it has its connection with the mystery in way of contrast, evidently is another thing apart.

1 Corinthians 2:6, 7 There is nothing very precise here — it is the character rather of his testimony, and the wisdom which he spake; it was not the public, common-place wisdom wrought out of man’s wit, but the wisdom of God in mystery — things which never would have been known but for God’s communicating them, and which were of His counsels in Christ, hidden, while His government even was of this age, for a time but revealed by the Holy Ghost to those who are based upon the risen Man, whom God has made the Centre of His counsels and of the mystery. It is this wisdom of this place, these counsels of God before the worlds for our glory, known therefore only by revelation and by the Spirit, and this is what he goes on to speak of to the end of the chapter. Here then “mystery” is not the subject of the revelation, but the character of the wisdom which the Apostle by the Spirit spake.

Romans 11:25 We may also put this aside — it is the special mystery, ancillary to the prosecution of the great mystery, of setting aside Israel as blinded for a time, “in part”, until the fulness ^[p. 109] of the Gentiles was come in. This was a peculiar plan of God, which was not exactly the Church nor the kingdom, but a temporary displacement of the earthly part, not its establishment under the new covenant, nor Messiah, but the setting aside of Israel in part, under blindness, until the fulness of the Gentiles should be come in. Then this preparatory thing being accomplished, the blessing of Israel, as such, would take its course according to the enlarged scope of the counsels of God, which embraced the heavens also. It was a subordinate special mystery, for naturally Israel would have been continued placed under the new covenant, and the Gentiles blessed with God’s people; but all this is for the moment set aside, that the Gentiles, as a special thing, according to the counsels of God, to whom all His counsels are known from the foundations of the world, may come in. This then also is a special mystery, though serving in its place to the development of the great mystery of God’s will in result.

Romans 16:25 We have here the mystery without being told in what it consists, “The preaching of Jesus Christ according to the revelation of (the) mystery, as to which silence was kept in all ages” (in the times of the ages) “but now manifested, and by prophetical Scriptures according to the commandment of the eternal God of ages, made known for the obedience of faith to all the Gentiles; the only wise God through Jesus Christ to whom be glory for the ages. Amen”.

Here however we have much, as suits the Epistle to the Romans in which is revealed that “there is no difference, for that all have sinned”, that Christ is set forth as the mercy-seat through faith in His blood, the righteousness of God being the only one for all, and upon all that believed, Jew and Greek, i.e., Christ risen — Object of faith and Power of life in resurrection, which was in effect the basis of the mystery. Its result was not stated here, i.e., revealed rather than preached; we have here what is preached as the basis of hope to bring in souls into that which was revealed. Further, we have seen in this epistle a special mystery subordinate and ancillary to this, that is that blindness in part is happened to Israel till the fulness of the Gentiles be come in; indeed this was, in a sense,

^[p. 110] necessary to it — impossible to preach no difference through a risen Christ while the Jews maintained their privileges. The Gentiles brought to light by a risen Saviour — sufficient Object between them and God, without the intervention of the Jews — such is the face of the mystery presented here, and proclaimed to the Gentiles for the obedience of faith. No difference is proclaimed; the unity of the Body is not yet brought out, but we have creation groaning till the manifestation of the sons of God, the joint-heirs of Christ who suffer with Him and will be glorified together. See chapter 1: 16, 17, also verses 2, 3, 4, 5; compare also Acts 15:7-19.