“To me, the very least of all saints, this grace was given, to preach to the Gentiles the unfathomable riches of Christ, and to bring to light what is the administration of the mystery which for ages has been hidden in God who created all things.” (Ephesians 3:8–9)
The light of the Son outshone the light of the sun on the day Saul of Tarsus met Him. The brightness left him blind. That would prove the lesser of two wonders. More amazing was that Jesus was alive. He had been dead. Really dead. No heart pumping, no breathing, no thinking, no living dead. Saul knew it. Everyone inside and outside Jerusalem knew it. Yet, He was not dead. Dead people don’t talk, much less appear resplendently on highways. Jesus was alive.
Saul didn’t have time to ponder the awesomeness of Jesus’ aliveness, at least not its scientific awe, for he had a far greater concern. He had spent a lot of his time doing everything possible to prove that Jesus was a hoax, a liar, a blasphemer, a charlatan who was no friend of Israel. Zeal led him to kill Jesus’ followers, which would have been pleasing to God if Jesus had been a fraud as His crucifixion seemed to prove. But He was alive. Here. Speaking. Addressing the man most responsible for the execution of His people. There would be one more execution, no doubt.
But Jesus did not blind Saul on the road only to turn and blind him permanently with death. He was about to open Saul’s eyes for the first time. Soon, Saul would truly be able to see. Soon, Saul (who would be called Paul) would give sight to millions of others.
What Paul eventually came to understand was that God’s plan for history was not Jewish-centered, but Christ-centered. Israel was not the ultimate chosen of God, Christ was. Everything had been leading up to the arrival of Jesus. When the cup of time filled to the rim, Jesus spilled out. He had been hidden; now He was in plain sight. He had been covered; now He was exposed. Along with Him, the plan for His worldwide gospel-kingdom was revealed. His reign would encompass the entire span of humanity. The kingdom of God was the kingdom of Christ which included all who believe, Jews and Gentiles. Paul’s mission would be to announce the great unveiling of this mystery to the nations.
This job wouldn’t pay much. In fact, it would cost him dearly. He paid with his time, his money, his family, his reputation, his friends, his ambitions, even his blood. He lost his life in order to save it and to tell others how to save theirs. He abandoned all dreams, desires, and devotions for this single purpose. He was all in, all for One. He sold everything to buy this precious pearl. He lived every day with an intentional pursuit of denying himself and proclaiming Christ.
Why?
Because he understood why he existed. No longer reading the Old Testament as a Jew, but as a Christian, he now understood that the purpose of his life and everyone else’s is to please Christ. Paul spent his days strolling into a new city announcing, “Stop whatever you’re doing and listen to me! Up to now you have not known why you exist. But today that all changes. You exist to bring glory and honor to Jesus Christ, the Son of God and Lord of heaven and earth. You were created for this very purpose. Anything you do that is not intentionally given to Him as worship will provoke His wrath. Know Christ, His death, resurrection, and ascension. Know Christ! Serve Christ! Love Christ! Worship Christ!” As unbelievers morphed into believers, he taught them how to love Jesus faithfully and persistently. And he taught that their conversion was part of the great mystery of God—He had been working toward their belief in and obedience to Christ since He created Adam. Christ in the Gentiles was the hope of glory (Col. 1:27).
Mystery Defined
At this point we must be clear on what mystery is in the Bible. The word is used many times and is vital to apprehending the plan of God. Mystery is not a genre of literature, nor a type of suspenseful story where one seeks to identify who murdered the young traveler with a toothbrush in the quiet hotel room between the hours of midnight and 2 a.m. In Scripture, a mystery is something that God purposed to do but kept hidden until He was ready to go public with it. With the advent of Christ, God revealed His formerly hidden design for the gospel.
More Than a Jewish Kingdom
It’s easy for Christians living two thousand years after the life of Christ to lose the significance of Paul’s mystery-message. For first century Jews, it was provocative. For two millennia, dating back to their great father Abraham, they had been God’s special people. They had received prodigious promises of power, prosperity, property, and progeny. God had demanded strict compliance to His Law as the terms of His unique covenant with them. They had broken the covenant and now lived in exile, victims of the covenant’s curses. But throughout all of the thunderous pronouncements of condemnation, there were always rays of messianic hope. Someday, God would relent. Someday, He would forgive. Someday, He would bring a deliverer to rescue His people from their oppressors and lead them into the Promised Land. The Christ would sit on David’s throne. He would overthrow all other kingdoms and carry the government of the world on his shoulders. He would bring eternal comfort, peace, and blessing. Israel would be established as the kingdom of God. All who refused to bow to her might would suffer the ultimate consequence.
But when the Messiah arrived, He made outrageous statements like, “My kingdom is not of this world,” and “Blessed are those who are persecuted for My sake,” and “The Son of Man came to give His life as a ransom for many,” and “The kingdom of God will be taken from you and given to a people producing the fruit of it,” and, most offensive of all, “I have other sheep that are not of this fold.”
All Jews failed to understand Jesus, most rejected Him, and many hated Him for it. Sure, His healing was impressive. His ability to create an instant lunch for thousands was attractive. And the raising the dead show was mesmerizing. Still, what about the promises? What about world domination and freedom? What about being unique to God? If a guy couldn’t deliver on those things, his chances of being elected messiah were zero, and falling.
The problem was that messiah is not an elected position. God appoints whom He anoints. More problematic still was the fact that all of those Old Testament prophecies and promises were pictures of a far more magnificent (but less literal) reality. The plans God had for His people no ear had heard, no eye had seen, no mind had understood. They were hidden. Certain, foreshadowed, hinted at, adumbrated, and predicted, but hidden. The land of promise would not be limited to one nation or continent, it would be the entire universe. The kingdom would not be for one nation or people, it would be the entire universe. The King would not deliver one nation from another, He would bring salvation from God’s just wrath. His subjects would not hail from the loins of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, they would be birthed by the Spirit of God.
For the original audience, these wonderful expressions of hope were a letdown. They didn’t recognize their need for atonement, so the cross was unimpressive. They didn’t want a heavenly king, so the resurrection and ascension were irrelevant. They couldn’t stand the thought of Gentile dogs eating at their banquet tables, so the Great Commission was abhorrent.
Into that mindset, that religious environment, Jesus sent the apostle Paul to declare the great mystery of the kingdom—the Old Covenant was over, pork was now on the menu, the kingdom was worldwide, and all expense and priority were to be given to calling non-Jewish nations to believe the gospel.
The Bible Is About Jesus, Start-to-Finish
Most Christians, I think, read the Bible with a VeggieTale hermeneutic. Now don’t get me wrong, I enjoy Larry the Cucumber as much as the next kid. But their approach to Bible stories misses the point. The Old Testament is not to be read as a series of helpful examples of good and bad behavior. The Holy Spirit did not tell us about David and Bathsheba so that we would learn to be content with what we have. Joseph may be the paragon of purity, but that’s not why he gets almost a quarter of the Bible’s first book. One could argue that Nehemiah was a great leader, but his story was not written to be a Christian handbook on motivation and productivity. All of the Law and the Prophets are about Jesus. (He says so in Luke 24.) That’s why they are mysterious in the biblical sense. At first glance, they seem like accounts of God’s creative power, His grace toward Abraham, His special love for the Jews, His awesome sovereignty over kings and seas, His unbending Law, His commitment to David, His anger at idolatry, and His interminable forbearance toward wicked men. And all of those things are certainly true and profitable. But with the New Testament came the real Story of the stories. Everything recorded before was written to picture, prepare for, or point to Christ. To read any Old Testament text without looking for its relation to Jesus is to disregard what its Author is seeking to accomplish. Moses wrote about Jesus. So did Samuel, Isaiah, Ezekiel, Habakkuk, Malachi, and every other biblical writer.
Godliness Is About Jesus
Consider 1 Timothy 3:14-16 where Paul instructs Timothy on how God desires people to conduct themselves as members of His family. We would expect teaching about good and bad actions, good and bad thoughts, etc. But Paul says the unexpected. He calls godliness a mystery. Remember, a mystery is something once hidden but now revealed. So, what is the mystery of godliness? It’s not a what, it’s a who. The mystery of godliness is Christ—His incarnation, His resurrection, His proclamation, and His ascension. Godliness is not a series of laws, it’s a person.
Now, let’s not be childish in our understanding of this. Godliness does involve our actions and attitudes, as Paul goes on to explain. But we must never lose sight of the relationship between our behavior and our belief. Pleasing God centers on, derives from, flows out of, and hinges to Jesus Christ. Neither Jews nor Christians please God simply by trying to keep His Law. Unbelievers cannot please God by trying to be good people. Pleasing God is not about getting along, working together, saving the planet, feeding starving children, or world peace. At least it doesn’t start or climax in any of these things. Pleasing God is about pleasing God’s Son. He is the now-revealed mystery of godliness.
Marriage Is About Jesus
Perhaps the most amazing and surprising example of mystery is marriage, as Paul explains in Ephesians 5:22-33.
Wives, submit to your own husbands, as to the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife even as Christ is the head of the church, his body, and is himself its Savior. Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit in everything to their husbands. Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her, that he might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word, so that he might present the church to himself in splendor, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, that she might be holy and without blemish. In the same way husbands should love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. For no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it, just as Christ does the church, because we are members of his body. “Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.” This mystery is profound, and I am saying that it refers to Christ and the church. However, let each one of you love his wife as himself, and let the wife see that she respects her husband. (Ephesians 5:22–33 ESV)
That marriage is a mystery is no surprise to anyone who has embarked upon it. However, that it is a mystery in the biblical sense is striking indeed. Who would have considered it the way Paul does? What I mean is this: In the Ephesians passage, the apostle presents the roles and responsibilities of the husband and wife. Men are to love, women to submit. But Paul speaks, not in terms of mere rules and regulations, instead he ties them to Christ and His Bride, the Church. Husbands stand as representatives of Christ. It is for that reason that they are given the responsibilities of headship. They are called to love, lead, cherish, and sanctify their wives because Christ does those things for His beloved people. Wives are called to obey their husbands in reverence because believers respond to Christ in that way. See, the greatest sin of a husband who doesn’t lead and love, or a wife who doesn’t submit, is not simply that they are disobeying. They are distorting the very picture that marriage was created to portray. Marriage wasn’t given to man simply for procreation, the establishment of the family, or the joy of sex. It was given to reveal the mystery of Jesus Christ.
This is no mere analogy. Paul says explicitly that marriage was established, starting with Adam and Eve, for the express purpose of demonstrating Christ’s relationship to His people. He quotes the inaugural marriage verse from Genesis 2 and then, seemingly out of nowhere, proclaims that his instruction about husbands and wives is a great mystery about Jesus and the Church. Paul is now reading everything in the Old Testament, not as great origin stories, moral stories, covenant stories, or Jewish stories, but as Jesus stories. The answer to the question, Why did God create marriage? is To give us a picture of Jesus and His Bride.
Any movement or individual who opposes wifely submission is not freeing women from oppression. Rather, they are pushing wives away from their designed purpose. It’s like trying to liberate teeth from chewing. Likewise, a husband who fails to lead and love is not only a failure as a husband, he also veils the glory of Christ. His headship was not given in order to empower him with authority but to show that Jesus has been empowered with authority. This is why there will be no marriage in the resurrection age. All of the illustrations will become reality. We won’t need the picture of Christ and His Bride because we will be His bride in living color and three dimensions.
So, wives, submit to your husband with joy, as to the Lord, as an expression of giving Him first place in everything. Husbands, be Christ to your wife and give her a foretaste of the security, hope, and delight that will be hers when she joins to her ultimate Husband. And I will say in passing that Christians should enjoy the most pleasurable sexual experiences possible, because sex, too, is a mystery. It is given to anticipate our bliss throughout our eternal wedding night with Christ. (We will explore marriage further in a later chapter.)
Conclusion
Other biblical questions should be answered similarly: Why did God create fathers and sons? To give us a picture of Himself and His Son. Why did He save Noah in the ark? To portray the salvation Jesus would bring (also portrayed in the waters of baptism). Why did He command Abraham to kill his only son? To anticipate Himself killing His. Why did He establish the temple, priesthood, and sacrificial system? To foreshadow Jesus, the ultimate temple, priest, and sacrifice. When you understand the meta-narrative underlying all other narratives, it changes the way you read them. As this great mystery became more clear to Paul, his understanding of the events and characters of the Old Testament took on a whole new dimension. Everything was now to be understood by how it related to Jesus.
When you read the Old Testament, what do you seek? Do you read hoping to learn something about God? Do you look for examples of how to be a better person? Do you want scriptural support for your favorite doctrines? Do you need a “word from God” for your life today? If you are interested in what God wants you to find, you will seek, above all, to discover Jesus. The Bible is not about you, or the Jews, or good living, except as they relate to Him. It’s important to get this right, just ask Saul of Tarsus. His misunderstanding and misapplication of God’s plan led to his murdering of God’s people. What might it be leading you to?