The Profound Mystery of Christ and Our Unity

"The mystery of Christ this is God's way of Salvation that Almighty and eternal and everlasting God to whom the nations are but as the small dust of the balance and vanity and less than that and lighter than vanity The God Who made everything out of nothing who simply said let there be light and there was light well you would have thought that when he desired to save men and to save the world again he would utter some great word and the whole universe would shake and Quake and there'd be some dramatic exhibition of power and so God would save he destroy evil and save men but he didn't do it like that." [00:17:41]

"How has he done it well he's done it in this mystery of Christ in a helpless bab nothing weaker nothing more helpless nothing smaller nothing more defenseless there it is and then everything that happened in him the whole process of the Incarnation do you spend your time thinking about it divesting himself of the Insignia of his eternal glory and coming there through that the mystery and all his humiliation and all that he endured and suffered we won't go through it this morning there it is the Apostle has been referring to it and then the death the burial the Resurrection the Ascension and that's God's way of salvation." [00:18:30]

"That's God's way of dealing with the human predicament the human problem that's God's way of reconciling men unto himself and of ultimately producing glorious order and Glory out of the chaos of things as they are now that's it that's the thing he's talking about if you read again what I've said says the Apostle in a few words when you read you may understand extend my knowledge my insight into my grasp of the mystery of Christ let me leave this with just the question is the mystery of Christ the most absorbing interest in your life is the mystery of Christ to you the most thrilling thing in the world this morning." [00:19:24]

"This Not That the Gentiles are now to be allowed to become Jewish pelites that is what the Jews believe and indeed they practice that you remember there had been many a gentile who had come to see the truth of God in the Old Testament scriptures and he said I'd like to become one of you so they took him they instructed him they circumcised him and he became a Jewish proelite yes you see he was allowed to come in but only as a proelite he was still not a full Jew he's allowed in but as a prelate now that's the very thing that the Apostle is contending in this particular section." [00:36:31]

"The Jew has come in not as an addition not as a prelate he has come into this new thing the church in exactly the same way as the Jew comes in what he's saying is this that the church is now the kingdom that what the Jewish nation was in the Old Testament the church is now and that there is no longer that old distinction in other words he is saying that our Lord's prophecy recorded in Matthew 21:43 has been fulfilled this is it therefore I say unto you said our Lord to the Jews the kingdom of God shall be taken from you and given to a nation bringing forth the fruits thereof." [00:37:20]

"The Apostle Peter confirms it in his way by using about the church consisting of Jew and Gentile the very words that God used through Moses about the nation of Israel in Exodus 19 ye are a holy nation a royal priesthood and holy nation A peculiar people the church is the kingdom now then let's watch how the Apostle does this his point is that the ear distinction between the Jew and the Gentile is abolished once and forever he's already shown us that in the second chapter the middle wall of partition is gone Christ has demolished it he's made one new man so making peace the old distinction has gone I say once and forever." [00:37:56]

"The Gentiles he says are to be fellow heirs with the Jews which means this that all the promises that God had made to the Jewish people and to the old Testament are now open to the Gentiles fellows somebody draws up a will and in his will I leave so and so to so and so what you find in the will well here's the answer the Jew is anal sharer with the Gentile and the Gentile with the Jew no difference they're both fellow AES they've got the same place in the will they're going to receive the same benefits now that of course refers to the New Covenant that God had promised." [00:39:11]

"Your sins and iniquities will I remember no more I shall be to you a god you shall be to me a people no longer only for the Jew but for you my friend for me we are in the will we are a together with the Jews the Old Nation the old people in this amazing promise of the benefits of the New Covenant fellow HS we'll go into this more deeply next Sunday God willing but come let me come to the second term fellow members of the body why do you think he added that surely you argue fellow a tells us everything you can't go beyond saying fellow a oh yes you can and I'll tell you why." [00:40:08]

"There is nothing to prevent a men when he writes his will to do something like this he's got an only son and he's got a family servant who's been with him for 40 years and whom he has come to regard almost as a son so when he makes his will he says that all my properties is to be divided between my son and my faithful servant so and so a servant can be made a fellow Heir with a son but he's still a servant that doesn't make him a member of the family that doesn't mean he's got the same blood in him that doesn't mean that he's changed the relationship he can be a beneficiary equally with a son but he's still a servant he's not one." [00:40:48]

"The Apostle takes no risks he adds to fellow heirs fellow members of the body now then you see this is the thing that demolishes that attempt to perpetuate a distinction between the Jew and the Gentile any longer no no says Paul it isn't that the Gentiles are simply added on somehow Loosely they are compacted together as joints in the same body and no one joint is more in the body than any other joint we are jointed together impacted as joints together in this one body There's no distinction any longer there's no superiority and inferiority the system of dispensationalism says there is that there is a Heavenly people and an Earthly people and that the Jews are going to come back and have a very special place again in some future time." [00:41:52]

"It seems to me to be a blank denial of this where we are told that all that is finished forever and here there is one body and they're equally joints and impacted together in the one body and then he goes even a step further and puts it like this that we are fellow partakers together of the promise what does he mean by this well it seems to me that we are driven by other scriptures to say that he means two things by this I read to you in Galatians 3:14 this statement that The Blessing of Abraham might might come on the Gentiles through Jesus Christ that we might receive the promise of the spirit through faith what is called the promise of the father this thing that runs as a golden thread through the Old Testament this wonderful promise the thing that happened on the day of Pentecost and Peter said this is that which was spoken by the prophet joob the promise of the Father the shedding forth of the spirit and all the results of that amazing thing here says Paul you're fellow partakers of the promise you've received the fullness of the spirit exactly as the Jew has done." [00:42:56]

"But it also I think means this in addition another great promise of course was the promise of the Resurrection and the promise of the Glorious Kingdom of the Son of God listen to Paul again putting this very clearly in Acts 26: 6 to8 when he's making his defense before King agria and now he says I stand and am judged for the hope of the promise made of God un to our fathers and to which promise our 12 tribes instantly serving God day and night hope to come for which hope say King agria I am accused of the Jews why should it be thought a thing incredible with you that God should raise the dead now you see what the promise is it is this promise that a messiah would come who would even conquer death in the grave and bring life immortality to light it is the promise of Resurrection the final resurrection and the coming of the Glorious Kingdom the new heavens and the new Earth wherein dwelleth righteousness that was something that the Jew prized above everything else he had to suffer a lot in his life in this world but he looked beyond it all as we are told in Hebrews 11 he looked to that great promise this Resurrection the life of Glory he had it nobody else had it the Gentile was without hope without God in the world as Paul has already said but now he says your a as fellow partakers of the promise and so to you and to me it means this that we this morning can look forward to the resurrection of the body we can look forward to a glory ifed body we can look forward to dwelling on a new Earth under a new Heavens wherein dwelleth righteousness fellow partakers of the promise Christ in you the hope of glory very well my friends there it is you see the two Mysteries which the Apostle tells us he has been given to preach the mystery of Christ the whole thing the particular mystery that this purpose of God is now in the church and that the church is the final form until all things are wound up and Jew and Gentile in Christ and only in Christ together shall share the benefits of this ever lasting and eternal glory and shall wander to all eternity at the grace of God that ever made it possible that ever brought us in and that made us and the Jews together fellow hes fellow members of the body and fellow partakers of such a blessed hope." [00:45:29]