The Ephesians Mystery: Gentile Salvation or Equal Heirs of the Promise?

2nd Semester / Week 5

(To listen to this study on YouTube, click here)

Within dispensationalism, it’s taught that the “mystery” was that all of mankind, both Jews and Gentiles, would be given the opportunity to be saved. However, salvation for Gentiles wasn’t a mystery at all, because it had been clearly revealed in the Old Testament, such as in Isaiah 49:

“It is too small a thing for you [Jesus] to be My Servant

to restore the tribes of Jacob

and bring back those of Israel I have kept.

I will also make you [Jesus] a light for the Gentiles,

that my salvation may reach to the ends of the earth,” (Isaiah 49:6).

(Also see Hosea 2:23, Zechariah 2:1, Ezekiel 17:22-24, Isaiah 11:10, 19:19-25, Isaiah 42:1-7, Isaiah 44:5, Isaiah 52:10, Isaiah 55:3-5, Isaiah 56, Isaiah 60, Isaiah 62, Isaiah 65, Isaiah 66).

Because of all of this “Good News” for Gentiles found in the book of Isaiah, it’s often called the 5th Gospel. We also see in Romans 15:9-12 a summary of all of the Old Testament “Good News” for Gentiles. Again, salvation for Gentiles was never a mystery, but instead had been made blatantly clear in the Old Testament. Therefore, what was the mystery? Let’s find out:

In the letter addressed to the Ephesians, Paul is trying to bring Jewish born believers and Gentile born believers together, and, “the pronouns in chapters 1 and 2 offer the first clues. The interplay of ‘we’ and ‘you’ signals that this section is less about how God has blessed us (believers in general) in Christ, but rather is more about how God has blessed us (Jews, from Paul’s perspective) and you (Ephesian Gentiles) EQUALLY,” (Bryan Eliff, ccwtoday.org).

(Most of the following quotes are from a website that’s no longer available to properly give credit)

“Paul is doing something huge in Ephesians, and specifically in chapter 3. He is trying to get the Gentiles to understand the SIGNIFICANCE of their salvation, which is the mystery. All, whether Jew or Gentile, can be saved through the Lord Jesus Christ. It was always revealed in bits and pieces through the years, and God already had it in His mind even before the foundation of this world. But what hadn’t been made known was that we in Christ, Jews and Gentiles, are made EQUAL.”

In Ephesians 2:15-16 Paul says:

“by abolishing in His flesh the enmity… that in Himself He might make the two into ONE new man, thus establishing peace, and might reconcile them both in ONE body to God through the cross.”

“The word mystery occurs twenty-eight times in the New Testament, twenty-one of which are found in Paul’s writings (six in Ephesians). It consistently refers to something previously concealed but presently revealed. It is not something that is in itself incomprehensible but something unknown until God chooses to reveal it. In Ephesians, the mystery refers to God’s secret plan to integrate Jew and Gentile into ‘ONE BODY.’ Again, the mystery wasn’t that Gentiles could be saved—this was known in Old Testament times (beginning in Genesis 12:3)—but that the two should become one new man (Ephesians 2:15-16).”

“So, part of the mystery that Paul was so excited to tell these Gentile believers was that the Jew and Gentile are made equal in one new body through Jesus Christ. However, that is not really the primary focus. The focus is not the Jew. The focus is the Gentile. He wants them to realize not so much that the Jew has it, but that the Gentile now has been INCLUDED into that which God once promised to Israel. He wants them to see that all of the promises of God that were promised to Israel have now been made available to the Gentiles through the Lord Jesus Christ,” (sermon by Wayne Barber).

“From the time God revealed that Israel would be His chosen people until Acts 10, Gentiles could only come into the covenant of God through Jews (hence the phrase, to the Jew first, then the Gentile). They could not independently enter into God’s covenant, and for the most part, Gentiles were avoided by Jews since they were pagans.”

“Yet what was revealed to Paul was that as Gentiles, all of the promises of Scripture given to the Jews now apply to us as well, Jews and Gentiles in Christ. We are members of the same family, we are citizens of God’s kingdom, and we have full rights and privileges to the promises and covenant given in Scripture to God’s chosen people – Israel. The new Temple has been created, and Christ is the cornerstone – (Ephesians 2:14-16, 19-22). God is revealing to us, through Paul, that in this mystery, God has created the eschatological Temple and we are part of the Temple. God has chosen to dwell in the hearts of human man, not limiting Himself to time and space. He has torn down the curtain separating us from His presence so that we have access to the Father anytime and anyplace. But this has another meaning as well. God has torn down the wall separating the Jews from the Gentiles (Ephesians 3:15). Now we are all one people, all one body, and Jesus Christ is the cornerstone that joins the two people together as one holy Temple of worship. God completely and forever abolished the old physical Temple in 70 AD after Jesus had already begun building the new, greater Temple, made up of Jews and Gentiles in Himself. Jesus Christ is the One who joins together what had been two bodies that were enemies of one another, to make ONE body, to His praise and glory.”

“Again, God chose to completely and permanently destroy the old inferior plans for the physical tabernacle established in Exodus, and instead make the human heart His dwelling place. We are now the Temple – the Church (Ekklesia). We don’t meet in a church. WE are The Church (Ekklesia), the “assembly” of “the called out ones.” The original tabernacle was designed to represent God’s presence among mankind. And that purpose remains today. The “Church,” as individual “living stones” of God’s temple, and collectively as local fellowships as well as globally as Christ’s body, the “Church” is designed to be the manifestation of Jesus Christ here on earth! We are all part of the global body of Christ, over which Jesus Christ reigns as supreme King over His Kingdom. There is incredible power in knowing our identity in Christ, as His adopted children, His redeemed possession, His workmanship, and now as His Temple, His Church (Ekklesia), His ‘called out ones.’”

(The following are more selections from a sermon by Wayne Barber)

“Ephesians 3:6 declares:

“that the Gentiles should be fellow heirs, and of the same body, and partakers of His promise.”

“We are all “fellow heirs.” Fellow heirs refers to the fact that Gentiles have the same right to the benefits of God’s grace as the Jews did. Can you imagine what happened to Paul when God revealed to him that the promises made to Israel now had been granted to the Gentiles? Then, God gave him the ministry to go tell it to them. This is incredible! We are fellow heirs! All that was promised to Israel in the Old Covenant is now ours through the New Covenant of Jesus Christ! This is ‘Good News!!!’”

“But what had been promised to Israel? Jeremiah 31 had said:

“Behold, the days are coming, says the Lord, when I will make a New Covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah— not according to the covenant that I made with their fathers in the day that I took them by the hand to lead them out of the land of Egypt, My covenant which they broke, though I was a husband to them, says the Lord. But this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, says the Lord: I will put My law in their minds, and write it on their hearts; and I will be their God, and they shall be My people,” (Jeremiah 31:31-33).

“We’ve been allowed into that. Ephesians 2 says we’re now part of the family. We are part of the Kingdom, part of the Temple, and part of this promise. If you are a believer and a Gentile who has been spiritually ‘born again’ into our present-day Kingdom, then rejoice! We’ve been allowed into the very promise of grace that was given to Israel. We have the law written on our hearts now as believers. We have something that we never could’ve had before. God opened the door to us. The apostle Paul was the herald of the message of The Gospel, ‘The Good News.’”

“Also look in Ezekiel 36. He says something else about this New Covenant promised to Israel which says:”

“Moreover, I will give you a new heart.”

“The miracle is a brand-new heart that is eternal, a heart that’s God’s heart. God will give you a new heart and put a new Spirit within you, a new attitude, a new hunger to obey Him:”

“and I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. And I will put My Spirit within you and cause you to walk in My statutes, and you will be careful to observe My ordinances,” (Ezekiel 36:26-27).”

“That was promised to Israel. The prophesied eschatological Spirit has been poured out which permanently indwells every believer, starting on the Day of Pentecost and continuing today. Right now, to the Jew individually who comes to Christ, and to the Gentile who comes to Christ, it is given at the moment of belief when we’re literally regenerated, or ‘born again’ with His Spirit inside us. We can enter into that which was promised to Israel. We are fellow heirs to the promises. You ought to understand that you’ve got a brand-new heart. The Old Covenant people of Israel turned away from God all the time and walked away from Him. But God essentially had said, ‘I am going to do something so radically different one day. I am going to make you My children by a new birth. I am going to give you a relationship to Me, and I am going to cause you to walk in My statutes. You won’t turn away from Me, and I won’t turn away from you.’”

“We’re now fellow heirs with believing Israelites. We’ve been allowed into the very covenant that was promised to them. The New Covenant has given us the opportunity to enter into the promises once made only to Israel. Can you imagine how over-whelmed Paul must’ve been when God began to reveal this to his heart? Remember, Paul was schooled under Gamaliel, and he stood there and watched Stephen as he was stoned to death. He stood against everything that he is now preaching. Yet here is a changed man that found out that the Gentiles have now been allowed into everything that he had originally thought was just solely given to a Jew. What an overwhelming truth. We are fellow heirs. Full heirs of the promises. Everything that was promised to Israel, we have been allowed to participate in. This is ‘Good News.’ And this was all accomplished by JESUS because He has reconciled us, ‘both in ONE body to God through the cross,’ (Ephesians 2:16).”

(End of sermon by Wayne Barber)

We’ll begin to close with these powerfully enlightening words from Ephesians 2:11-14, 19:

“Therefore remember that you, once [previously] Gentiles in the flesh… at that time you were without Christ, being aliens from the commonwealth of ISRAEL and strangers from THE COVENANTS OF PROMISE, having no hope and without God in the world. But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ. For He Himself is our peace, who has MADE BOTH ONE… Now, therefore, YOU ARE NO LONGER STRANGERS AND FOREIGNERS, but FELLOW CITIZENS…”

That right there is the answer to the “mystery,” – we’d previously been Gentiles, but now are no longer Gentiles, we’d previously been “excluded from citizenship in Israel,” but now through Christ, He has made us “one” with believing Jews, and we’re now EQUAL “fellow citizens” of the spiritual nation that belongs to Jesus, “the Israel of God” (Galatians 6:16). Remember, unbelieving Jews have been “cut off” from the olive tree of “Israel.” Old Testament “Israel” was specifically depicted as an “olive tree” in Jeremiah 11:16-17, therefore the olive tree symbolizes Israel, and because of that obvious Biblical symbolism, the modern day State of Israel as well as the Israeli Defense Forces still use the olive tree on their emblems. Yet remember from Daniel 9 that the 490 years for the nation of mostly unregenerate Jews to be forgiven had ended when the Sanhedrin rejected the Gospel and killed Stephen. While Jews who’ve rejected Christ have been “cut off” from Israel, as we learned in Romans 11, believing Gentiles are now no longer “dogs” to be looked down upon, as had been the case in Matthew 15:26-28, but are instead now able to be grafted beside believing Jews onto the true Israel on an EQUAL basis, and we see this concept from Old Testament passages such as Genesis 17:4; 22:18; Psalms 2:8; Isaiah 42:1,6; 49:6; as well as New Testament passages in Romans 11:17; Galatians 3:28; and Ephesians 2:11-13.

The “mystery” wasn’t that Gentiles might be saved, but instead that through FAITH in Jesus we’re added to the believing Jews of Israel, we’re now “fellow citizens” of the spiritual nation of Israel. We’re now all together “one” body, joined through Jesus Christ. We’re now all EQUAL, and we both inherit “the promise.” This is the Christ-centered “Good News.”