If we consider the Jews, the thing is still more intelligible for other reasons. They had prophecies and promises. Christ was to be presented to them. Till they had rejected Him, God (ever faithful) could not set them aside to establish anything else which denied their privileges, blotting out all distinction between Jew and Gentile—a distinction which the Jew was bound carefully to maintain. The crucifixion of Jesus has put an end to all that. No one is a Jew, in heaven. But man having completely failed in his responsibility, and the Jews having rejected the One in whom the fulfillment of the promises had been presented to them, God, before fulfilling them, as He will do, has revealed the hidden mystery which was connected with the heavenly glory of the Son of man; that is, with the body united to Him, gathered during the rejection of Israel—a body which was to be manifested in glory with Him, when He should, in His sovereign grace, resume His dealings with Israel upon earth: “for blindness, in part, has happened to Israel, until the fullness of the Gentiles be come in.”
Israel, unfaithful as men, have lost all title to the enjoyment of the promises by the rejection of Him in whom they were to have this enjoyment. They were, after all, children of wrath, as others; but that will not hinder God from fulfilling His promises. He cannot be unfaithful to His promise, whatever the unfaithfulness of man may be. His gifts and calling are without repentance; and the blindness of Israel is only temporary. This is what Rom. 11 teaches; as the Lord has said to them, “Your house is left unto you desolate... till ye shall say, Blessed is he that cometh in the name of the Lord.” But here is the perfect wisdom of God. Israel having rejected the Christ when He came to present Himself to the nation, they are without remedy. It will be the sovereign grace of God which will reinstate them in the enjoyment of the promises, according to the word, as poor sinners. Israel, under chastening, and kept for that day, abides without the true God, and without a false God, according to the prophecy of Hos. 3; and God, during this interval, brings in the fullness of the Gentiles; displaying His multiform wisdom in the calling of the church, a heavenly people, established not on promise, but on perfect, accomplished redemption; and accomplished through the act by which Israel placed themselves under condemnation.
But it was not only that man, and Israel, had been fully tried. God had also displayed His wisdom in His ways with both. His power, His patience, His mercy, His government in man, and according to the conditions of His holy law, by promises, and by miraculous interventions, by chastenings and blessings, by righteous judgments, by the most tender care and the most magnificent providences, had all been displayed. Even a world swallowed up in the mighty waters had borne witness, in disappearing before His judgments, to the ways of God with man upon earth.
Angels had seen these things; they had seen the wisdom and power of God in exercise, in His ways with men on the earth. The church was to supply quite a fresh manifestation of the depths of the counsels and wisdom of the infinite God whom it adores.
The demonstration of the inability in which man was found, to profit by the ways of God, furnished the occasion of it.
There remains yet one thing to which I would call the attention of my reader. It is, that, until Christ was glorified, the Holy Ghost could not come down to form the church upon earth; for the object of His testimony, the heavenly glory of Christ and the redemption accomplished by His means, were yet wanting. “The Holy Ghost was not yet [given], because Jesus was not yet glorified.” We shall see with what clearness the word of God presents the church to us, as quite a new revelation of that which had no existence before, save in the eternal counsels of God; and what these counsels of God predestinated for her existence, outside the course of ages.
The writings of Paul, who was chosen to bear this testimony and to preach among the Gentiles the unsearchable riches of Christ—a ministry which was connected with these truths—are full of this doctrine; bringing into prominence this glory of Christ, which was beyond all that the prophets had said. Thus 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). Having spoken of the church, in a passage already quoted, he naturally turns to the truth of which the church was the pillar—this mystery of godliness. A Messiah the fulfillment of the prophecies, was not a mystery; but a Christ such as the apostle presents Him in verse 16 had never been known before: “God manifested in the flesh, justified in the Spirit, seen of angels, preached unto the Gentiles, believed on in the world, received up into glory.” Certain elements found here were connected with Messiah upon earth; because this same Messiah, ascended up on high, must come down again to fulfill the promises made to the Jews; but such things, as a whole, had never been presented to faith.
As to the church, the thing is true in a still more absolute manner. This is what the apostle says of it, Eph. 3:9-119And to make all men see what is the fellowship of the mystery, which from the beginning of the world hath been hid in God, who created all things by Jesus Christ: 10To the intent that now unto the principalities and powers in heavenly places might be known by the church the manifold wisdom of God, 11According to the eternal purpose which he purposed in Christ Jesus our Lord: (Ephesians 3:9‑11). “And to make all see what is the fellowship of the mystery, which from the beginning of the world hath been hid in God, who created all things by Jesus Christ; to the intent that now unto the principalities and powers in heavenly places might be known, by the church, the manifold wisdom of God, according to the eternal purpose which He purposed in Christ Jesus our Lord.” It is impossible to get anything more absolute than “hid in God.” This mystery of the church, hid in the depths of His counsels, did not get disclosed, nor did she exist in fact, till then. It is “now,” that unto the principalities and powers is made known, by the church, the manifold wisdom of God. They had seen His patience, His power, His government; but never a heavenly body upon the earth, united to His Son in heaven. Thus God could set aside for the time the course of His earthly government, to enter into relationship with a heavenly people.
This passage is very clear on this point: that the church neither existed nor was revealed before. Up to that time it was a mystery hid in God; who, having established it in His counsels, was testing man under His government; before creating a heavenly system, based upon an accomplished redemption, in union with the second Adam in heaven. It is important that the reader should get very clearly in his mind the teaching of this passage. The object of the apostle is to show that the church is a new thing. There had been other means to show forth the wisdom and ways of God—earthly means. Now, heavenly powers saw, in the church, a kind of wisdom quite new. Not only the church had had, as yet, no existence; but it had not been revealed before its existence; it had been a mystery hid in God. This last point is confirmed by other passages which we will quote; but it is well to develop the first point by the teaching of the end of the second chapter.
The truth of the union of Jews and Gentiles in one body—the church—is established, as the consequence of the cross, in verses 14 and 15, in the most formal manner. The middle wall of partition, established by God Himself, and absolutely binding, had been broken down only by the cross; and by means of this also they were both reconciled in one body—those who were afar off and those who were nigh. Then they had been built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets; that is the church could exist only after the cross had rendered possible the union of Jews and Gentiles. The enmity of man against God having been manifested, the enmity of his nature—Jew or Gentile—and the Jews having lost all title to the enjoyment of the promises, grace received in a sovereign manner both the one and the other, according to the eternal counsels of God, for a better inheritance. God having been manifested in the flesh, and having set things on the footing of eternal realities, outside all earthly economy or dispensation; and, received up into glory, having acquired a people which was associated to Himself according to the election of God; purposed, before the foundation of the world, to share this glory with His bride and His body.
(Continued from page 239) (To be continued)