2. The Mystery of Final Revelation

This is the third segment in my sermon entitled, "The Mystery of Christ".

2. The Mystery of Final Revelation

(Eph 3:3-5) "how the mystery was made known to me by revelation, as I have written briefly. When you read this, you can perceive my insight into the mystery of Christ, which was not made known to the sons of men in other generations as it has now been revealed to his holy apostles and prophets by the Spirit."

-The mystery is by revelation, not human knowledge or ingenuity, not men grasping up to God but God coming down. This is entirely backwards of the way the world thinks about getting to God, and of the way we also still as believers tend to think about going deeper with God. The secular philosopher says, "How can I unravel the mystery of whether or not there's a God, if there is, what he's like, using my own reason?" The Christian says, "What does the Bible say about God? What does this book reveal about him?" And this isn't just non-religious people who think this way. You see a lot of people that believe in their own form of man somehow reaching up to the divine and tearing the answers to the mysteries out of the heavens. There are tons out there who claim to have done it, and they've written a book on the subject to let you in on it. The 5 secrets of the highly effective and spiritually satisfied person, who gets exactly what they want when they want it. And we tend to think this too, that if I just pray enough or if I just pray in the right way, if I just get this secret path to God, some sort of secret knowledge to being a holy Christian, or the secret for effective evangelization, or for ensuring that my children grow up to be good Christians, then I will have reached God and torn the mystery out of the sky and made him give me what I want. But instead, Paul is saying that God has revealed to us all we need to know right here in the Bible. Instead, the real secret, the real mystery is that God has revealed himself in the person of Jesus Christ. He is the mystery revealed. And Paul didn't wrench the answer out of God by his zeal or performance, God graciously made it known to him.

-The mystery is revealed to apostles and prophets by the inspiration of the Holy Spirit.

²⁷Daniel answered the king and said, "No wise men, enchanters, magicians, or astrologers can show to the king the mystery that the king has asked,²⁸but there is a God in heaven who reveals mysteries, and he has made known to King Nebuchadnezzar what will be in the latter days.

This mystery that Paul proclaims in Ephesians is revealed to him by God the Holy Spirit, just as Daniel received the miraculous revelation of what Nebachadnezer dreamed while he was sleeping in his kingly bedchamber, something he could never know by normal human means. And none of the other wise men, magicians, astrologers, or philosophers, or scientists, could have ever figured it out.

-The mystery of revelation is new, Paul says it was not known to the sons of men in earlier generations. Now what does Paul mean by this? How can he say that it is new when Jesus said that the whole OT spoke of him. Well, Paul doesn't mean by this that the OT hadn't spoken at all of Christ and so it was a complete surprise when he came, not foreseen at all by the prophets. But he does mean that it legitimately was not made fully clear in earlier ages until Christ came. Yes, Jesus fulfills the whole law and the prophets. But these were hints and foreshadowings about the nature of the mystery until the final climactic last chapter, which we call the NT, when Jesus comes and all is revealed.

-The mystery that is finally revealed is of Christ, it concerns the nature of the messiah, and constitutes the closing chapter of the Biblical mystery story. This is the final revelation. Notice that I said final. Jesus is the final, only, once for all revelation of God to us. He is the way, the truth and the life. No one comes to the father but through him. There is no enlargement or improvement that can be made after him. That is why we have a closed canon and we're not adding anything. It's not because solid Christian preachers and Bible teachers are not likewise inspired by the Holy Spirit. It's because the revelation in the NT is final and therefore the authoritative measuring line by which all our preaching and teaching is to be judged. You are to measure every sermon you hear by the revelation of God's word. And not just every sermon but every teaching that's out there anywhere, whether it seems to be religious or not.