God’S Surprise
GOD’S SURPRISE
EPHESIANS 3:1-6
Using the language of new (at the time) religious philosophies, Paul reveals the “mystery of Christ.”
Paul used words with which his hearers were familiar to explain the person and work of Jesus Christ. When he arrived in Athens, for instance, he saw an altar “To the unknown god” and said that the unknown god was God, the Father of Jesus. The readers of Ephesians were aware of eastern mystery religions and Gnosticism, which taught that salvation came through having special knowledge of the secrets of the universe, and so Paul uses the vocabulary of these movements to describe the gospel as the hidden mystery of God.
The mystery, God’s secret that he has finally revealed through the apostles and prophets (3:3,5; see also 2:20), is that the gospel is for the Gentiles as well as the Jews. People must stand before this mystery as young children who need to be instructed, for its meaning must be spiritually discerned (see 3:5, “by the Spirit”). There were hints of God’s gracious intention toward the Gentiles in the Old Testament, but the promises concerning the salvation of the Gentiles were always understood as if the Gentiles had to come to God through the Jews (see, eg Isaiah 2:2-4). It was believed that the promised Messiah and the redemption he brought belonged to Israel (Romans 9:5). The thought that the Messiah was for the Gentiles (3:8; Colossians 1:26f.) was something unimagined. Paul had been commissioned by God to proclaim among the nations that Gentiles share the inheritance, the citizenship and the covenant promises that had belonged exclusively to Israel (3:6).
This Christian “mystery” was different from the mysteries of eastern mystery religions and Gnosticism in two important respects. First, the mystery of Christ must be publicly proclaimed so that it penetrates the world. Mysteries from Gnosticism and other religions depended on their being kept secret. They were alien to any public proclamation and an initiate was pledged to guard the secret revealed. Secondly, in pagan mysteries, “reconciliation” between a person and deity occurred by some cultic act, an ecstatic experience and the adoption of a particular ethic. In Christianity, reconciliation is accomplished through the word of preaching, faith and active love.
Paul points his readers to the church as the fellowship of those who have been surprised by joy as they have come to share in God’s open secret.