The Mystery of the Gospel of Jesus Christ

Actually, that doctrine refers to us now being spiritually dead in our sin natures, so we cannot even come to Jesus to get saved in the biblical fashion!

 

The One that was revealed to the Apostle paul, and was hidden in ancient times?

 

I have already ceeded that I agree - God did not reveal the full mystery to the OT saints such as he has to the NT saints. There is no argument or disagreement there. The disagreement we have is on whether the very limited version of The Gospel given to Abraham was sufficient to affect salvation or not.

Abraham knew he was dead, and knew himself and his wife too old for children, yet God promised that through his progeny all the nations of the earth would be blessed. My argument (and I believe Paul's argument) is that this was enough of The Gospel to qualify Abraham to obtain Christ's righteousness in Christ's redemptive 1:1 exchange. He may not understood all of The Gospel but he understood the parts of it that affected him and believed - enough to be awarded righteousness as a result of his faith.

Irrelevant. He didn't need to be privy to everything... he was privy to enough to affect his salvation. God knew what he was talking about when He preached The Gospel of Jesus Christ to him. The fact that he believed God (who was doing the preaching) was sufficient for righteousness and salvation even if Abraham didn't understand the fullness of the Mystery.

Gal 3:8
The Scripture, foreseeing that God would justify the Gentiles by faith, preached the gospel beforehand to Abraham, saying, “ALL THE NATIONS WILL BE BLESSED IN YOU.”
16 Now the promises were spoken to Abraham and to his seed. He does not say, “And to seeds,” as referring to many, but rather to one, “And to your seed,” that is, Christ

Gen 15:5
And he brought him forth abroad, and said, Look now toward heaven, and tell the stars, if thou be able to number them: and he said unto him, So shall thy seed be.
6 And he believed in the LORD; and he counted it to him for righteousness.
​

Brother, you're arguing against Paul's words here, not me. I did not make this up of my own mind, but this was shown to me by God while I was praying to understand Gal 3. I'm telling you with as much certainty as I can offer "this interpretation was told to me by God." I hope you can take it seriously. This point more than any point I may argue is the only thing I can truly say that about. All the other points which surround this point are me trying to make sense of "the one thing I know for certain."

We know that is not the correct interpretation because the Jews immediately called Jesus out for not yet being 50 years old, and how could he see Abraham... and Jesus famously said "before Abraham was, I AM." Furthermore, the very comments that prefaced that conversation were "whom the son sets free is free indeed" and "the man who sins is the slave to sin." It's obvious that the context is salvation, and Jesus himself says these Jews are not Abraham's descendants because they didn't do what Abraham did (believe the Gospel of Jesus Christ)... then Jesus goes on to say "Why is it that you do not understand? It is because you cannot hear my words." Remember, faith comes by hearing and hearing by the word of God. If Jesus says "you cannot hear" it means they "do not have faith." They can't understand Him because they do not have faith, not the other way around. He didn't say "why is it that you do not have faith... it is because you cannot understand my words" he said why do you not understand, it is because you do not have faith -- and immediately Jesus disqualifies them as heirs of Abraham and says they are instead children of their father Satan (demonstrating He's talking about eternal kinship). (see John 6)

This is a strawman fallacy. No, I do not maintain that men can be eternally saved apart from Christ. I maintain that Abraham believed The Gospel of Jesus Christ (Gal 3:8, 16) and we inherit Christ's righteousness as descendants of Abraham which was given in a 1:1 exchange with Abraham because of Abraham's faith in the gospel of Christ. We are adopted as Children of Abraham when we have the same faith in the gospel of Christ that Abraham had. Children of Abraham inherit the promises.

Rom 4:11
And he received the sign of circumcision, a seal of the righteousness of the faith which he had yet being uncircumcised: that he might be the father of all them that believe, though they be not circumcised; that righteousness might be imputed unto them also:
12 And the father of circumcision to them who are not of the circumcision only, but who also walk in the steps of that faith of our father Abraham, which he had being yet uncircumcised.
13 For the promise, that he should be the heir of the world, was not to Abraham, or to his seed, through the law, but through the righteousness of faith.

Gal 3:6
Even so Abraham BELIEVED GOD, AND IT WAS RECKONED TO HIM AS RIGHTEOUSNESS.
7 Therefore, be sure that it is those who are of faith who are sons of Abraham.
26 For you are all sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus.
29 And if you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham’s descendants, heirs according to promise.

Luk 19:9
And Jesus said to him, “Today salvation has come to this house, because he, too, is a son of Abraham.​

Isaiah prophesied this as well:

Isa 54:1
"Shout for joy, O barren one, you who have borne no child;
Break forth into joyful shouting and cry aloud, you who have not travailed;
For the sons of the desolate one will be more numerous
Than the sons of the married woman,” says the LORD.​

Paul quotes this passage when describing the two covenants (the covenant of faith, and the covenant of The Law):

Gal 4:22
For it is written that Abraham had two sons, one by the bondwoman and one by the free woman.
23 But the son by the bondwoman was born according to the flesh, and the son by the free woman through the promise.
24 This is allegorically speaking, for these women are two covenants: one proceeding from Mount Sinai bearing children who are to be slaves; she is Hagar.
25 Now this Hagar is Mount Sinai in Arabia and corresponds to the present Jerusalem, for she is in slavery with her children.
26 But the Jerusalem above is free; she is our mother.
27 For it is written,
“REJOICE, BARREN WOMAN WHO DOES NOT BEAR;
BREAK FORTH AND SHOUT, YOU WHO ARE NOT IN LABOR;
FOR MORE NUMEROUS ARE THE CHILDREN OF THE DESOLATE
THAN OF THE ONE WHO HAS A HUSBAND.”
28 And you brethren, like Isaac, are children of promise.​

We are as Isaac was - children of the promise.

The full regeneration is the result of the resurrection, but our body, soul, and spirit are divided:

Heb 4:12
For the word of God is living and active and sharper than any two-edged sword, and piercing as far as the division of soul and spirit, of both joints and marrow, and able to judge the thoughts and intentions of the heart.

Rom 8:10
If Christ is in you, though the body is dead because of sin, yet the spirit is alive because of righteousness.
15 For you have not received a spirit of slavery leading to fear again, but you have received a spirit of adoption as sons by which we cry out, “Abba! Father!”
16 The Spirit Himself testifies with our spirit that we are children of God,
17 and if children, heirs also, heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ, if indeed we suffer with Him so that we may also be glorified with Him.​

 

Remember - I'm not saying Jesus sinned, but rather that he had all of our sin laid upon him:

2 Corinthians 5:21 (NASB)
He made Him who knew no sin [to be] sin on our behalf, so that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.

Galatians 3:13
Christ redeemed us from the curse of the Law, having become a curse for us—for it is written, “CURSED IS EVERYONE WHO HANGS ON A TREE”—

Isaiah 53:6
All of us like sheep have gone astray, Each of us has turned to his own way; But the LORD has caused the iniquity of us all To fall on Him.​

Christ emptied Himself of His fullness to become a man. He also became obedient to death – remember death comes after sin and is the just punishment (wage) for sin. Jesus allowed Himself to be crucified on a cross (on a tree). Remember He said He could call 12 legions of angels to come and protect Him (Matthew 26:53), but He allowed Himself to be taken and killed. Through crucifixion on a tree (a cross), He became a curse for us (remember also the sky turned dark at His death). The sin laid upon Him caused God to look away from Him and forsake Him. I am not saying that Jesus sinned, but rather that He became sin and Abraham became righteous in this great, redemptive exchange. Some might object – “But that would mean that Jesus, cursed and sin-filled, couldn’t lift Himself out of hell. He would be stuck there!” Yes. That is true. That was quite the leap of faith on Jesus’ part, wasn’t it? Do you recall when Moses lifted up the bronze serpent that all who looked upon it were healed?

Numbers 21:8
Then the LORD said to Moses, “Make a fiery serpent, and set it on a standard; and it shall come about, that everyone who is bitten, when he looks at it, he will live.”​

That was a type and shadow for Christ. Christ became sin (represented by the serpent) on that cross – our sin. Those who look upon this sacrifice will be healed. Healing is what Christ came do. Jesus was fully God, but he was also fully man. As fully man, when God laid the sin of the world upon him on that cross, he contained in his flesh the fullness of our sin. As such, he no longer had any righteousness in and of himself.

In order for the "exchange" to occur, we were credited with Jesus' righteousness and Jesus was credited with our sin. Otherwise, no redemption for sin took place, and the sin is still unjustified. At some literal point, God has to see us as righteous and God had to see Christ as sin-filled.

Mar 15:34
At the ninth hour Jesus cried out with a loud voice, “ELOI, ELOI, LAMA SABACHTHANI?” which is translated, “MY GOD, MY GOD, WHY HAVE YOU FORSAKEN ME?”​

What would cause God to turn away from and forsake Jesus? He died under the curse, he had our iniquity laid upon him. Without God's promise that he would inherit his own righteousness again through faith in the gospel, Jesus was lost. Or do you suppose that, because he hadn't sinned, he could simply take up his own righteousness again? If that was the case, as soon as he did, we would take up again our sin. There were no refunds in the Great Exchange! Jesus proved salvation by grace through faith works by becoming the first raised "through the blood of the eternal covenant" (the covenant given to Abraham in Genesis 15-17). He is the firstborn of the dead - the first in THE resurrection. He did it the same way we are expected to do it. What spectacular confidence we can have in this way of salvation because of that. This is the only legal way it can happen... otherwise God is pulling righteousness out of thin air and there is no justice for sin.

Consider also this is the mechanism for eternal life in the resurrection:

Romans 8:3
For what the Law could not do, weak as it was through the flesh, God did: sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and as an offering for sin, He condemned sin in the flesh,
4 so that the requirement of the Law might be fulfilled in us, who do not walk according to the flesh but according to the Spirit.​

God condemns sin in the flesh. In a manner of speaking, our sin is banished from our spirit and exiled to our flesh (remember if Christ is in you, the spirit is alive, and the flesh is dead). Our spirit then is a righteous, inner man (as Paul described a couple of verses prior in Romans 7). The Bible says our condemned, sinful, outer flesh, however, fulfills the requirement of The Law. I suggest to you that there are two ways to “fulfill” the law. The first way (the way Jesus did it) was to keep the law perfectly and never sin and be qualified as righteous. The second way, however, is to break the law and then suffer the penalty for breaking the law (the wages of sin is death). In both circumstances, the law is fulfilled.
Does this leave us without a body for the rest of eternity? Paul talks about resurrection of the body in 1 Corinthians 15.

1Corinthians 15:35
But someone will say, “How are the dead raised? And with what kind of body do they come?”
[[verses 36-41 talk about a seed first dying and being buried in the ground before it changes into another form – the form of the plant which looks different from the seed]]
42 So also is the resurrection of the dead. It is sown a perishable body, it is raised an imperishable body;
44 it is sown a natural body, it is raised a spiritual body. If there is a natural body, there is also a spiritual body.
50 Now I say this, brethren, that flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God; nor does the perishable inherit the imperishable.
52 in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet; for the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised imperishable, and we will be changed.
53 For this perishable must put on the imperishable, and this mortal must put on immortality.​

Paul makes an important point at the end of 1 Corinthians 15. This idea of the flesh fulfilling the law on behalf of the spirit (which was infused with the righteousness of Christ through kinship with Abraham in order to “survive” the death of the body) is the mechanism whereby death is finally destroyed by God.

1Corinthians 15:26
The last enemy that will be abolished is death.

1Corinthians 15:54
But when this perishable will have put on the imperishable, and this mortal will have put on immortality, then will come about the saying that is written, “DEATH IS SWALLOWED UP in victory.
55 “O DEATH, WHERE IS YOUR VICTORY? O DEATH, WHERE IS YOUR STING?”
56 The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law;​

Romans 6:5
For if we have become united with Him in the likeness of His death, certainly we shall also be in the likeness of His resurrection,
6 knowing this, that our old self was crucified with Him, in order that our body of sin might be done away with, so that we would no longer be slaves to sin;
7 for he who has died is freed from sin.

Romans 7:1
Or do you not know, brethren (for I am speaking to those who know the law), that the law has jurisdiction over a person as long as he lives?
4 Therefore, my brethren, you also were made to die to the Law through the body of Christ, so that you might be joined to another, to Him who was raised from the dead, in order that we might bear fruit for God.​

So by our bodies dying, and our righteous spirit living on in the absence of the body, when the body is resurrected at the last trumpet, it will never be subject to sin and death again, for it will have already fulfilled that law by dying and once it's fulfilled the law, it is no longer subject to it.

 

Righteousness is not a quantity... you can't be partially righteous. You are either righteous or a sinner. It is one or the other. The just wages of sin is death. James said if you violate one part of the law, you are guilty of the whole law. This is why Galatians 3:21 says that if a law had been given which could impart life, then indeed, righteousness would have been based on the law.

Consider this mental exercise: if you commit murder, and you go to the judge and say "but look at the rest of my life... I admit to premeditated murder, but I've never committed another crime in my life" the judge will convict and sentence you based on the prescribed punishment for the guilt of the murder. Following other laws on other topics does not make you "not guilty" of the murder.

 

Good point. I like to mention to my Jewish friends when I debate with them on this topic that they SHOULD have known this mystery because Genesis 17 says:

Gen 17:4
“As for Me, behold, My covenant is with you,
And you will be the father of a multitude of nations.
5 “No longer shall your name be called Abram,
But your name shall be Abraham;
For I have made you the father of a multitude of nations.
6 “I will make you exceedingly fruitful, and I will make nations of you, and kings will come forth from you.
7 “I will establish My covenant between Me and you and your descendants after you throughout their generations for an everlasting covenant, to be God to you and to your descendants after you.​

How could this have been a mystery when God told them all along the descendants inheriting the everlasting covenant would be counted from a multitude of nations? By saying Abraham rather than Abram, they declare this to be true!

 

I think a more important question is: What is the significance of 'the Mysteries' to you and why are you on about them? What motivates you to hold them so sacrosanct?

I've always viewed them as "stuff they didn't used to know... now God has revealed it and filled in the details." Pretty much the New Testament. The mysteries are no longer a mystery because it's been spelled out in the New Testament.

 

I see "belief" as a prerequisite in this passage, but nowhere does it mention understanding as a prerequisite of salvation. Or are you suggesting that the Holy Spirit guides unbelievers in the truth and this is how they become believers? It seems to me the verse is saying that belief comes before being guided by the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit will convict people of their sin, but that isn't the gospel, that is The Law.


Hebrews 10:28-29
King James Version (KJV)

28 He that despised Moses' law died without mercy under two or three witnesses:

29 Of how much sorer punishment, suppose ye, shall he be thought worthy, who hath trodden under foot the Son of God, and hath counted the blood of the covenant, wherewith he was sanctified, an unholy thing, and hath done despite unto the Spirit of grace?


...because it is God Himself directly communicating truth to men in His convicting ministry.


God bless.[/QUOTE]

Again, here, we see convicting regarding The Law, but nothing regarding the necessity of understanding the fullness of The Gospel of Jesus Christ prior to belief. You are comparing apples to oranges as The Law and Faith in The Gospel of Jesus Christ are two separate covenants.

 

Isn't it the case that salvation by faith through grace (and not by the law) is the great mystery? You may have to forgive me because if that's not the case, then I have no idea what your point is in all of this. What relevance does "the mystical, mysterious mystery" have if not that? What's are we even talking about if not the content of 'the mystery' which has now been revealed and isn't a mystery to anyone who's ever read the new testament? Help me out, I'm confused. I have been addressing every response you've made to me point by point... what am I missing?

 

I don't think I ignored it, but I refuted it by pointing to Genesis 17:7:

Gen 17:7
“I will establish My covenant between Me and you and your descendants after you throughout their generations for an everlasting covenant, to be God to you and to your descendants after you.
​

I simply don't see what relevance it has in our conversation. It doesn't diminish my point nor bolster your argument in any way. Do you believe I am saying Abraham was fully regenerated and resurrected? I'm not saying that. I'm saying he was given righteousness, and that righteousness is inherited by all of his descendants (those with the same faith in the gospel of Jesus Christ). Abraham hasn't been resurrected yet (no one but Jesus has). Jesus was to be the first in the resurrection. None could be regenerated until he had completed his work and experienced it first. That doesn't mean Abraham wasn't made righteous just as we are... but that he needed to be made righteous for Christ to be able to inherit that righteousness back to himself and be resurrected (based on God's promise that all who had the same faith in the gospel as Abraham would inherit the righteousness Abraham was given - Christ's righteousness).

Galatians 3 mentions God's promise that Abraham would be the Father of many nations -- and he is in Christ. This is the promise that matters for Salvation. Indeed, Abraham's sins were not imputed.

I don't read non-biblical sources. I have no idea what 'church fathers' have had to say about the Bible over the centuries. I only read the Bible, and that's where I get all my theology.

We are saved through the covenant of faith God made with Abraham and ratified 430 years before The Law was given (so conditions from The Law cannot be imposed on the covenant of Faith), and through faith in the gospel of Jesus Christ. Because Christ lived a sinless and perfect life, and then gave up that righteousness, we can be the righteousness of Christ in Him. Just as in Adam all die, so also in Christ will all - the righteous and the wicked - be resurrected and face a 2nd judgement. In that second judgement, those who have inherited Christ's righteousness by being adopted children of Abraham (by having the same faith in the gospel of Jesus Christ Abraham had) will be judged as righteous, and those who didn't have faith in Christ will experience the second death and be thrown in the lake of fire.

Not sure why this topic doesn't' qualify as contained in the term "the mysteries" but ok.

 

If 'all nations' does not refer to the Gentiles, to whom does it refer?

 

People were indwelt by the Spirit of Christ in OT times: 'Of this salvation, the prophets have inquired and searched carfully, who prophesied of the grace that would come to you, searching what, or what matter of time the Spirit of Christ who was in them was indicating......' (1 Peter 1:10-11).

There has only ever been one way of salvation.

 

Of course he was still waiting; Christ had not come until that moment! But his faith was in the Christ that should come.

 

If you mean responding to every point you have made, then no. I have a book review to write.
If you want responses you need to be more concise. Sorry!

 

Ah... indeed... brain fog. Saved by grace through faith is what I meant to say. It is a gift, it is not earned. God promised salvation to the descendants of Abraham as a gift.... they didn't earn it... they just inherit it by being qualified as descendants of Abraham. Fortunately Christ made a way whereby we can all be qualified for that inheritance with mere belief.