Read The “Mysteries” of God (2)

The Mystery of God involves several “mysteries.”  There is the mystery of Israel’s partial blindness (Rom. 11:25).  Here are several others.

2)    Rom. 16:25-27: The mystery of Christ.  What is Paul talking about here?  He connects the mystery with the preaching about Jesus Christ.  Perhaps he is referring to Jesus Himself, the two natures (God and Man), two advents, and so forth.  The OT I believe makes it clear that the Messiah is both God and Man.  But it is a mystery as to how this was revealed in His Incarnation.  Daniel prophesied 490 years until Messiah’s kingdom, but he knew nothing of 2 advents and the lengthy parenthesis between years 483 and 484.

3)    1 Cor. 15:51: The mystery of the rapture.  It is not just that there would be people who would enter their eternal home without dying.  It is that when the parenthesis was over, God would remove the Church so He could return to finish the final 7 years that involved Israel.

4)    Eph. 3:6: The mystery of the Church.  The OT prophets did not realize that Israel would be set aside, and that Jews and Gentiles would be brought together, as the people of God, in one Body of Christ.

5)    Col. 1:27: The mystery of Christ in you.  The prophets knew there would be a New Covenant and that it would involve the Holy Spirit and a new heart and the Law written on the heart.  But they could not have imagined the Messiah living in the believer.  Nor did they realize that His presence in the believer would be the hope of glory, the assurance that Job longed for (Job 19:25-27).

6)    2 Th. 2:7; Rev. 17:5,7: The mystery of iniquity.  Part of God’s plan is the increasing power of sin as the time for Messiah’s reign approaches.  This will set the stage for Christ’s rule as He will defeat all that sin can muster against Him.

7)    1 Tim. 3:16 (Eph. 5:32; Col. 1:27; Gal. 2:20): The mystery of Godliness.  How are believers to grow in godliness?  You see that the “mystery of Godliness” is simply the Lord Jesus Christ.  We become godly because He lives in us.  His work to make us more and more like Him is seen in the “mystery” of marriage.  As a husband seeks to help his wife grow to be a beautiful believer, so Christ works in His Church to make her His beautiful Bride.

8)    Mk. 4:11 (Mt. 13:11; Lk. 8:10): The mystery of the Kingdom.  Jesus was faced with the reality of His rejection by the people of Israel.  This was manifested in the “blasphemy of the Spirit” (Mark 3).  So, at that point, He began to teach His disciples, through parables, the truth that His earthly reign would be delayed (from the human point of view) and a mystery form would take it place until then.  These parables, and others during the rest of His ministry, began to describe that form.  He was laying the foundations for the Church age.