Tuesday

Related Verses
Rom. 16:25-26
25 Now to Him who is able to establish you according to my gospel, that is, the proclamation of Jesus Christ, according to the revelation of the mystery, which has been kept in silence in the times of the ages
26 But has now been manifested, and through the prophetic writings, according to the command of the eternal God, has been made known to all the Gentiles for the obedience of faith;

Eph. 1:17-18
17 That the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give to you a spirit of wisdom and revelation in the full knowledge of Him,
18 The eyes of your heart having been enlightened, that you may know what is the hope of His calling, and what are the riches of the glory of His inheritance in the saints,

Eph. 3:14-17
14 For this cause I bow my knees unto the Father,
15 Of whom every family in the heavens and on earth is named,
16 That He would grant you, according to the riches of His glory, to be strengthened with power through His Spirit into the inner man,
17 That Christ may make His home in your hearts through faith, that you, being rooted and grounded in love,

Eccl. 3:11
11 He has made everything beautiful in its own time; also He has put eternity in their heart, yet so that man does not find out what God has done from the beginning to the end.

Related Reading
We need to receive the same revelation given to the leading apostles and prophets…We must receive it ourselves personally and subjectively by being strengthened into our inner man. This revelation concerning Christ and the church is the economy of God, the hidden mystery…If we do not have the revelation, then we cannot be apostles and prophets. If we have the revelation of God’s economy, we will be followers of the apostles and prophets in God’s New Testament ministry. (The Conclusion of the New Testament, p. 3377) 

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Regarding Christ as the mystery of the church, Ephesians 3:6 says that “in Christ Jesus the Gentiles are fellow heirs and fellow members of the Body and fellow partakers of the promise through the gospel.” The expression fellow heirs indicates that in God’s New Testament economy the chosen, redeemed, and regenerated Gentiles and the believing Jews are fellow heirs of God, inheriting God. The phrase fellow members of the Body indicates that the saved Gentiles and the saved Jews are fellow members of the one Body of Christ as His unique expression. The words fellow partakers indicate that the Gentile believers and the Jewish believers are fellow partakers of God’s promise given in the Old Testament, concerning all the blessings of God’s New Testament economy. Being fellow heirs is related to the blessing of the household of God; being fellow members of the Body, to the blessing of the Body of Christ; and being fellow partakers of the promise, to the blessing of the promise of God.  

In Ephesians 3 Paul tells us that the revelation of the mystery concerning Christ for the church has been given to the apostles and prophets. Paul’s revelation of Christ was mainly a revelation of Christ’s unsearchable riches. According to verse 8, Paul announced the unsearchable riches of Christ as the gospel. The riches of Christ are what Christ is to us, such as light, life, righteousness, and holiness, what He has for us, and what He accomplished, attained, and obtained for us. These riches of Christ are unsearchable and untraceable.  

To see and to understand such a mystery our human mentality is altogether inadequate. This is why the apostle Paul prayed that God would give us a spirit of wisdom and revelation (1:17) that we may understand the church, which is the mystery of Christ.  

In Romans 16:25 and 26 Paul speaks of…this mystery, which has been kept in silence in the times of the ages but has been revealed in the New Testament age, [which] is mainly of two aspects. The one is the mystery of God, which is Christ, who is in the believers as their life and their everything that they may become the members of His Body; the other is the mystery of Christ, which is the church as His Body to express His fullness (Eph. 1:22-23). Therefore, Christ and the church are the great mystery (5:32). The book of Romans first tells us how the believers have been baptized into Christ (6:3), how Christ has been wrought into the believers (8:10), and how the believers have put on Christ (13:14). Then Romans reveals how the believers are built together in one Body (12:4-5) to express Christ in local churches that have come into existence in many cities in a practical way, with all the saints loving one another and fellowshipping with one another among all the churches to express the Body of Christ for the fulfillment of God’s mystery. The eternal God, through the apostles and prophets, has made known this mystery to all the nations unto obedience of faith. (The Conclusion of the New Testament, pp. 3377-3378, 2058)  

Further Reading: Life-study of Ephesians, msg. 29