The Mystery of the Gospel
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24 Now I rejoice in my sufferings for your sake, and in my flesh I do my share on behalf of His body, which is the church, in filling up what is lacking in Christ’s afflictions. 25 Of this church I was made a minister according to the stewardship from God bestowed on me for your benefit, so that I might fully carry out the preaching of the word of God, 26 that is, the mystery which has been hidden from the past ages and generations, but has now been manifested to His saints, 27 to whom God willed to make known what is the riches of the glory of this mystery among the Gentiles, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory. 28 We proclaim Him, admonishing every man and teaching every man with all wisdom, so that we may present every man complete in Christ. 29 For this purpose also I labor, striving according to His power, which mightily works within me.
Tonight I want to focus in on this idea of the “mystery” of the Gospel. I think there are so many ideas of what that word means today and the same was true for Paul back two thousand years ago. The church in Colossae that Paul is writing here to is not one that he planted. From the way he mentions them in his letters it could have been planted by Epaphras or Philemon while Paul was in Ephesus. But here Paul is writing to this church from a prison cell ministering and caring for them as if they were his own kids. Although Paul didn’t have a personal connection with Colossae like he would have had with the church in Ephesus, a church that he himself planted, he had a connection with one of its members. In the book of Philemon we are introduced to a runaway slave named Onesimus. By an amazing example of happenstance and God’s providence Onesimus runs away from Colossae in Asia Minor and makes his way all the way to Rome, the largest city in the empire, only to come into contact with Paul, hear the Gospel and be transformed by its power, and be sent back home to Colossae to serve the church not as a slave but as a brother.
Paul cared for this church and wrote to this church primarily to warn of a growing heresy. Within that region there was a growing draw towards Gnosticism. Gnosticism taught that there was this secret knowledge this hidden potential necessary for true salvation. It wasn’t enough for salvation to be through faith alone you had to have this secret revelation. And so over and over again in the first and second century we see people being drawn to this idea of mysticism and enlightenment that Gnosticism offered. Even today we see people say things like you have to have the secret knowledge, you have to have certain gifts like speaking in tongues or prophecy to be truly saved. They say the Gospel is healing or prosperity. They present all these different counterfeit Gospels it can feel overwhelming to try and understand what the true Gospel is. Paul understood this and so here in this first chapter he draws us in with his own mystery. Not one built on mysticism or prosperity but instead rooted in the story of Scripture.
The Mystery of the Gospel
When Paul talks about the word mystery what he means is something that was hidden and undiscovered by human means, but that which has been revealed by God. The Gospel is not something created by human understanding but is of divine origin. This mystery isn’t like the pagan understanding of the word. In the first century there were these secret societies that would perform “mysteries” or rites of passage. But Paul isn’t saying the Gospel is anything like that. What he is doing is pointing to the complete misunderstanding of the Gospel by the Old Testament characters. People like Adam and Eve, Noah, Abraham, David. These men who saw in part but didn’t have the full picture. In the New Testament we see the disciples and the people who witnessed Jesus and how even then as they saw Jesus in the flesh even they didn’t understand what He had come to do. So to understand the mystery we have to go back to the third page of the story and ask the question, what is the Gospel?
Adam and Eve
What does the word Gospel mean? Good news. Well in order for good news to exist what also has to exist? Bad news.
When God created the world He created it perfect. He created Adam and Eve and He placed them in the garden of Eden. Everything was good. He told them they could eat from any tree in the garden except one. The serpent came and tempted Eve to eat from the tree. How does he tempt her? He tempts her with enlightenment, secret knowledge. Eat of this tree and you will be like God knowing good and evil. She took and ate from the tree, she turned to her husband and he too took and ate from the tree, and now the relationship that man had with God is severed. Its broken. Beyond human repair. The bad news is that this brokenness is generational. Every person born of Adam is born into death. Children of darkness. Children of wrath. We have all fallen short of God’s glory. We have all sinned against God. We have all rebelled against our creator and tried to put ourselves on His throne. The bad news is that our sin has afforded us eternal separation from God in hell. God is eternally holy and so our sin against Him deserves eternal punishment. This problem of sin bleeds into every aspect of life. Why are their sick people? Why do people die? Why do families get broken up? Its because of sin. When I say sin is bad news I mean its the worst thing to ever happen in human history. What are some of the worst things we’ve seen in history, the holocaust, western slavery, 9/11, school shootings? All these things combined have killed and have hurt exponentially less people than sin has. Sin is the number one cause of death in the world. The Bible goes as far as to tell us that because we are born in sin there is no amount of good things we can do to outweigh the wrong we have done. In fact in Isaiah we see that even when we do righteous acts they are filthy attempts at achieving something only God can do. And so what are we to do? Enter the good news.
It’s ironic that the thing that got us into this mess was a fruit, but the thing that would get us out would be a seed.
15 And I will put enmity Between you and the woman, And between your seed and her seed; He shall bruise you on the head, And you shall bruise him on the heel.”
Here in Genesis 3:15 we see the Gospel preached for the very first time. Through Eve would come a child who would deal once and for all with the serpent but it would cost Him. The serpent may bruise His heal but this promised child would crush the serpent's head. This promised child would take those words of condemnation “Adam and Eve took and ate” and He would turn them into words of redemption, “This is my body, take and eat”.
Noah
A couple chapters later in Genesis we see that this chosen child has not yet come and the problem of sin has grown more and more severe. Mankind has gotten so wicked that God regrets ever creating it. There is no one who does what is righteous on the earth except for Noah and so the Lord decides to poor out his wrath on the world and destroy it with a flood. Noah builds the ark and the rains came and washed the earth clean and Noah and his family and all the animals get off the ark and they see a rainbow.
8 Then God spoke to Noah and to his sons with him, saying, 9 “Now behold, I Myself do establish My covenant with you, and with your descendants after you; 10 and with every living creature that is with you, the birds, the cattle, and every beast of the earth with you; of all that comes out of the ark, even every beast of the earth. 11 “I establish My covenant with you; and all flesh shall never again be cut off by the water of the flood, neither shall there again be a flood to destroy the earth.” 12 God said, “This is the sign of the covenant which I am making between Me and you and every living creature that is with you, for all successive generations; 13 I set My bow in the cloud, and it shall be for a sign of a covenant between Me and the earth. 14 “It shall come about, when I bring a cloud over the earth, that the bow will be seen in the cloud, 15 and I will remember My covenant, which is between Me and you and every living creature of all flesh; and never again shall the water become a flood to destroy all flesh. 16 “When the bow is in the cloud, then I will look upon it, to remember the everlasting covenant between God and every living creature of all flesh that is on the earth.” 17 And God said to Noah, “This is the sign of the covenant which I have established between Me and all flesh that is on the earth.”
With the flood the problem of sin did not go away. We see very soon after God makes this covenant with Noah that sin still plagues His people. Here is what we see in this covenant. The bow of God’s wrath has been drawn but the earth is not His target. The rainbow reminds us that the bow of God’s wrath has been drawn against heaven and the next time God would poor out His wrath on the world’s sin it would be against His Son Jesus.
Abraham
1 Now the Lord said to Abram, “Go forth from your country, And from your relatives And from your father’s house, To the land which I will show you; 2 And I will make you a great nation, And I will bless you, And make your name great; And so you shall be a blessing; 3 And I will bless those who bless you, And the one who curses you I will curse. And in you all the families of the earth will be blessed.”
To ensure Abraham of this the Lord made a covenant with him. Having nothing greater to swear by the Lord swore by Himself ensuring that the promise would be kept. This promised descendant would be a blessing not just to Abraham’s line but for all nations. The promised child will bring all nations under one body. This child would graft each person into this family tree of redemption and restoration.
Moses
Moses is one of my favorite Biblical characters. He was Israel’s great emancipator. God used him to lead the people of Israel out of Egypt and to the base of Mt. Sinai. The book of Hebrews says that he was a steward over the house of Israel. He served in a very important capacity in Israel’s formative years. He interceded on behalf of the people, he brought them the law down from Sinai, and he wrote the first five books of the Bible. In the book of Deuteronomy Moses makes this promise about the Lord.
15 “The Lord your God will raise up for you a prophet like me from among you, from your countrymen, you shall listen to him. 16 “This is according to all that you asked of the Lord your God in Horeb on the day of the assembly, saying, ‘Let me not hear again the voice of the Lord my God, let me not see this great fire anymore, or I will die.’ 17 “The Lord said to me, ‘They have spoken well. 18 ‘I will raise up a prophet from among their countrymen like you, and I will put My words in his mouth, and he shall speak to them all that I command him.
This prophet to come after Moses would be from the house of Israel and speak all that the Lord commanded him. Moses served the house of Israel as a servant but we see in the book of Hebrews this new prophet would serve the house of Israel as a Son.
1 Therefore, holy brethren, partakers of a heavenly calling, consider Jesus, the Apostle and High Priest of our confession; 2 He was faithful to Him who appointed Him, as Moses also was in all His house. 3 For He has been counted worthy of more glory than Moses, by just so much as the builder of the house has more honor than the house. 4 For every house is built by someone, but the builder of all things is God. 5 Now Moses was faithful in all His house as a servant, for a testimony of those things which were to be spoken later; 6 but Christ was faithful as a Son over His house—whose house we are, if we hold fast our confidence and the boast of our hope firm until the end.
Jesus steps in as our High Priest. He intercedes on our behalf. He goes into the Holy of Holies where we could not and has made intercession for us with the Father. That’s why we see the veil tear from top to bottom when Jesus dies in the gospels. He has taken His place as High Priest forever so that we might approach the throne of God with boldness knowing that we will be seen as righteous in Christ. Two things were important for atonement in the Old Testament. The priest and the sacrifice. Jesus hasn’t only been revealed to be our High Priest He is also our sacrificial lamb.
Isaiah’s Prophecy
4 Surely our griefs He Himself bore, And our sorrows He carried; Yet we ourselves esteemed Him stricken, Smitten of God, and afflicted. 5 But He was pierced through for our transgressions, He was crushed for our iniquities; The chastening for our well-being fell upon Him, And by His scourging we are healed. 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. 7 He was oppressed and He was afflicted, Yet He did not open His mouth; Like a lamb that is led to slaughter, And like a sheep that is silent before its shearers, So He did not open His mouth.
29 The next day he saw Jesus coming to him and said, “Behold, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world! 30 “This is He on behalf of whom I said, ‘After me comes a Man who has a higher rank than I, for He existed before me.’
1 I saw in the right hand of Him who sat on the throne a book written inside and on the back, sealed up with seven seals. 2 And I saw a strong angel proclaiming with a loud voice, “Who is worthy to open the book and to break its seals?” 3 And no one in heaven or on the earth or under the earth was able to open the book or to look into it. 4 Then I began to weep greatly because no one was found worthy to open the book or to look into it; 5 and one of the elders said to me, “Stop weeping; behold, the Lion that is from the tribe of Judah, the Root of David, has overcome so as to open the book and its seven seals.” 6 And I saw between the throne (with the four living creatures) and the elders a Lamb standing, as if slain, having seven horns and seven eyes, which are the seven Spirits of God, sent out into all the earth. 7 And He came and took the book out of the right hand of Him who sat on the throne. 8 When He had taken the book, the four living creatures and the twenty-four elders fell down before the Lamb, each one holding a harp and golden bowls full of incense, which are the prayers of the saints. 9 And they sang a new song, saying, “Worthy are You to take the book and to break its seals; for You were slain, and purchased for God with Your blood men from every tribe and tongue and people and nation. 10 “You have made them to be a kingdom and priests to our God; and they will reign upon the earth.” 11 Then I looked, and I heard the voice of many angels around the throne and the living creatures and the elders; and the number of them was myriads of myriads, and thousands of thousands, 12 saying with a loud voice, “Worthy is the Lamb that was slain to receive power and riches and wisdom and might and honor and glory and blessing.” 13 And every created thing which is in heaven and on the earth and under the earth and on the sea, and all things in them, I heard saying, “To Him who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb, be blessing and honor and glory and dominion forever and ever.” 14 And the four living creatures kept saying, “Amen.” And the elders fell down and worshiped.
David
12 “When your days are complete and you lie down with your fathers, I will raise up your descendant after you, who will come forth from you, and I will establish his kingdom. 13 “He shall build a house for My name, and I will establish the throne of his kingdom forever. 14 “I will be a father to him and he will be a son to Me; when he commits iniquity, I will correct him with the rod of men and the strokes of the sons of men, 15 but My lovingkindness shall not depart from him, as I took it away from Saul, whom I removed from before you. 16 “Your house and your kingdom shall endure before Me forever; your throne shall be established forever.” ’ ” 17 In accordance with all these words and all this vision, so Nathan spoke to David.
Here in 2 Samuel we see another promise God makes this time with David. Here He promises a king forever on David’s throne. Jesus, of the tribe of Judah, a descendant of David, fills for us that office. He is King forever. All authority on heaven and on earth has been given over to Him and He sits at the right hand of the Father in victory over sin and death. He will come again to make all things new and to establish an everlasting kingdom where there will be no more pain, no more heartache, no more brokenness, no more sin.
This is the mystery of the Gospel that even though we were dead in our sins and undeserving, God would send His Son to crush sin and death under His heal, that He would take the sins of the world upon Himself and receive God’s wrath on our behalf, that He would bring all nations unto Himself and make us all members of His family through adoption, that He would serve over us as High Priest forever interceding on our behalf with the Father, that He would be our sacrificial lamb freely paying the penalty of our sin and offering us the His grace and mercy freely, that He would rise again and reign forever as King of Kings and Lord of Lords serving as the head of His church and will one day come again. The mystery of the Gospel has been revealed. What the word of God that existed only on the scroll has become flesh and dwelt among us.
So what is the Gospel? What does it do to us?
17 Therefore if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creature; the old things passed away; behold, new things have come.
20 “I have been crucified with Christ; and it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself up for me.
16 For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek.
This Gospel has done so much for us
Redeems us in justification: Through faith in Christ we are made new. The sin that once plagued us has been done away with, cast as far as the east is from the west. We stand before our creator justified and forgiven and He has given us His Holy Spirit as a seal as an assurance that we have a place with Him in eternity.
Equips us in sanctification: Every heartache and struggle God is able to use for our good and our good is His glory. He uses us as His ambassadors as instruments of His glory and His kingdom. We grow in our faith as the Holy Spirit works inside us to produce fruits of the spirit and to do good works.
Unveils us in glorification: all of these hardships are producing for us an eternal weight of glory, when we stand face to face with our God free of sin and shame blameless and glorified in His presence. We have never seen Him yet we love Him but there will come a day when we see Him as clearly as the sun.
What do we do with this Gospel?
24 Now I rejoice in my sufferings for your sake, and in my flesh I do my share on behalf of His body, which is the church, in filling up what is lacking in Christ’s afflictions. 25 Of this church I was made a minister according to the stewardship from God bestowed on me for your benefit, so that I might fully carry out the preaching of the word of God, 26 that is, the mystery which has been hidden from the past ages and generations, but has now been manifested to His saints, 27 to whom God willed to make known what is the riches of the glory of this mystery among the Gentiles, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory. 28 We proclaim Him, admonishing every man and teaching every man with all wisdom, so that we may present every man complete in Christ. 29 For this purpose also I labor, striving according to His power, which mightily works within me.
We suffer for this Gospel with joy knowing that we share in Christ’s sufferings. The servant is not greater than their master. As Jesus suffered in this world we too will suffer but take heart. There is joy in suffering because Jesus has overcome this world.
We preach this Gospel with boldness knowing that Jesus with all authority has called us to take this message to the nations and that He will never leave us nor forsake us. He has revealed to His saints this mystery, that Christ lives in us and is working to bring all nations into His kingdom, this hope of glory, we proclaim Him, admonishing every man and teaching every man with all wisdom, so that we may present every man complete in Christ.
14 How then will they call on Him in whom they have not believed? How will they believe in Him whom they have not heard? And how will they hear without a preacher? 15 How will they preach unless they are sent? Just as it is written, “How beautiful are the feet of those who bring good news of good things!”
We labor for this Gospel with endurance knowing that the kingdom of God is grown by the blood, sweat, and tears of God’s people. God has put His power inside us. His Holy Spirit works in and through us to accomplish this task.
The world receives this message as foolishness but because of love we are compelled to go.
1 And when I came to you, brethren, I did not come with superiority of speech or of wisdom, proclaiming to you the testimony of God. 2 For I determined to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ, and Him crucified. 3 I was with you in weakness and in fear and in much trembling, 4 and my message and my preaching were not in persuasive words of wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power, 5 so that your faith would not rest on the wisdom of men, but on the power of God. 6 Yet we do speak wisdom among those who are mature; a wisdom, however, not of this age nor of the rulers of this age, who are passing away; 7 but we speak God’s wisdom in a mystery, the hidden wisdom which God predestined before the ages to our glory; 8 the wisdom which none of the rulers of this age has understood; for if they had understood it they would not have crucified the Lord of glory; 9 but just as it is written, “Things which eye has not seen and ear has not heard, And which have not entered the heart of man, All that God has prepared for those who love Him.” 10 For to us God revealed them through the Spirit; for the Spirit searches all things, even the depths of God. 11 For who among men knows the thoughts of a man except the spirit of the man which is in him? Even so the thoughts of God no one knows except the Spirit of God. 12 Now we have received, not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, so that we may know the things freely given to us by God, 13 which things we also speak, not in words taught by human wisdom, but in those taught by the Spirit, combining spiritual thoughts with spiritual words. 14 But a natural man does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him; and he cannot understand them, because they are spiritually appraised. 15 But he who is spiritual appraises all things, yet he himself is appraised by no one. 16 For who has known the mind of the Lord, that he will instruct Him? But we have the mind of Christ.
The mystery of the Gospel escapes us why? It is so hard to believe. If we were in God’s place we would never do such a thing. God loves us. I know my sin. I know what I’ve done. How is that possible. He doesn’t just love me but He sent His Son to die for me? That’s too much. How is that possible. I don’t understand it. I don’t understand how God could know all that I’ve done and love me anyway. I don’t understand His grace. I can’t explain it, but He loves me anyway. And His love has made the difference. He loved me at a time when I couldn’t love myself. He loved me when I was unfaithful. He loved me when I hated Him. That’s the mystery. I will never understand it and that’s okay because Jesus loves me and that’s all I need.
16 “For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have eternal life.
The Gospel is the good news of God’s love. Without it we can do nothing.
Balm in Gilead
There is a balm in Gilead
to make the wounded whole,
there is a balm in Gilead
to heal the sin-sick soul.
Sometimes I feel discouraged
and think my work’s in vain,
but then the Holy Spirit
revives my soul again.
If you cannot preach like Peter,
if you cannot pray like Paul,
you can tell the love of Jesus
and say, “He died for all.”