How did the Ecclesia originate? What is its purpose, and why does the apostle Paul refer to it as the “mystery,” or secret, hidden in Yahweh, and unknown to the ancient prophets? The first mention of the Ecclesia was when Jesus asked Peter about His identity. Listen: “When Jesus came into the coasts of Caesarea Philippi, he asked his disciples, saying, Whom do men say that I the Son of man am? And they said, Some say that thou art John the Baptist: some, Elias; and others, Jeremias, or one of the prophets. He saith unto them, But whom say ye that I am? And Simon Peter answered and said, Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God. And Jesus answered and said unto him, Blessed art thou, Simon Barjona: for flesh and blood hath not revealed it unto thee, but my Father which is in heaven. And I say also unto thee, That thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build my Ecclesia; and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. And I will give unto thee the keys of the kingdom of heaven: and whatsoever thou shalt bind on earth shall be bound in heaven: and whatsoever thou shalt loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven” (Matt. 16:13-19). Though Jesus’ ministry was to the Jews designed to convince them of His Messianic Kingship, He knew the future. He knew there would come a time when He would build His Ecclesia – His gathering of a new nation, a new people, for a new purpose. He promised that He would be the builder of that new entity. He was not going to build the nation of Israel into the Ecclesia, because that new building was predicated upon Peter’s vision of Jesus being the Christ, the Son of the living God. The nation did not nor would they acknowledge this about the Galilean, therefore He could not have been talking about Israel. It was something unique and secretive hidden in Yahweh that, as in Peter’s case, could only come by revelation from Him. Peter had no idea the Ecclesia would involve the Gentile nations, and must have assumed that Jesus was talking about Israel. He was not. He was speaking prophecy about a new people and a new covenant.
A person arrives at the Ecclesia by way of revelation and by the new birth from above. We must first realize that Jesus is the Anointed One, the Christ of Yahweh, and, though a man, yet the Son of the Living Father. Once we recognize this, we become aware of our sinfulness and of our need of a sacrifice to cleanse us. He is our ultimate sacrifice whom we embrace and receive. Our opening up of our inner being to Him and His work is the invitation for His Spirit to enter us and to impart His divine, uncreated life. This is called regeneration – being born from above by the Spirit. This transaction makes us members of His Ecclesia. This Ecclesia is the great secret (musteerion, Greek) hidden in Yahweh and never revealed to the prophets of old. It is the gathering together, or assembly, of called out people for some purpose. In our case it is the calling together of a people from out of the world unto Christ. There is no Ecclesia without a gathering, and the gathering must be around, with, and in Christ.
Why was this great musteerion, or mystery, or secret of Yahweh hidden from the prophets and revealed fully only to the apostle Paul? Yahweh, the sovereign and omnipotent One, knew all along that His chosen nation would reject His Son, but He is also the author of human, and, by extension, national, volition. Because He created human beings according to His image, which includes volition, He had no choice but to allow Israel’s freedom of decision to play out in regard to the Messiah, His Son.
The Scriptures tell us that the number 40, and multiples thereof, represents a period of probation, of trial, and of discipline. The nation of Israel was afflicted by slavery for 400 years until the Exodus. Moses spent 40 years under Pharaoh, 40 years in the desert of Midian, and 40 years in the wilderness with the people – a triple period of trial. Israel spent 40 years wandering in the wilderness until the unbelieving generation died off. Israel was humiliated under the Philistines for 40 years. They suffered under the troubled reign of Saul for 40 years. Jesus fasted 40 days before His temptation. He spent 40 days with His disciples after His resurrection. All this is to say that Yahweh gave Israel a period of 40 years (33 – 73) to repent and receive her Messiah and the kingdom. Any time during that span, Israel could have repented for the kingdom. Had the prophets known of the mystery and had written about it, then Israel could have accused Yahweh of being arbitrary, and maintained that they could have done nothing else than what they did; viz., reject the Messiah. But they didn’t know about the mystery, so they had ample opportunity and no one else to blame for what they did.
Toward the end of the probationary period when it became apparent what Israel would do, the Lord released Paul (62) to preach and teach what He had revealed to him early on (circa 43) concerning the mystery. Here is how he describes his experience: “I must boast; there is nothing to be gained by it, but I will go on to visions and revelations of the Lord. I know a man in Christ who fourteen years ago was caught up to the third heaven — whether in the body or out of the body I do not know, God knows. And I know that this man was caught up into Paradise — whether in the body or out of the body I do not know, God knows — and he heard things that cannot be told, which man may not utter” (2 Cor. 12:1-4). So momentous were these revelations to His chosen vessel, Yahweh kept Paul from pride by assigning a messenger of Satan to harass him into humility. “Because of the surpassing greatness of the revelations, for this reason, to keep me from exalting myself, there was given me a thorn in the flesh, a messenger of Satan to torment me–to keep me from exalting myself!” (2 Cor. 12:7). What but the revelation of the mystery of the Ecclesia as the Body of Christ could Paul have witnessed? There is no higher vision than this!
But because it was not yet the time to reveal it, Paul had to endure hardship to remind him of the prohibition of sharing it and to humble him from the exaltation of seeing it. From the time he wrote to the Corinthians (57 A.D.), he had another five years to wait until Yahweh released him to share everything – almost twenty years after his translation to Paradise to see the revelation of the mystery. This is not to say that Paul was not permitted to share some basic principles of the mystery. In his first letter to the Corinthians he shared all about the analogy of the human body as relating to “the body of Christ” (12:27). He says of the members: “But now hath God set the members every one of them in the body, as it hath pleased him” (12:18). And he says of the oneness of the members attached to the Head: “For even as the body is one and has many members, but all the members of the body, being many, are one body, so also [is] the Christ” (1 Cor. 12:12). However, the full revelation to the saints was yet to follow.
It is important to understand the context of the mystery. We know that Jesus came to minister to His chosen people Israel through signs and teachings, and through the message to “repent, for the kingdom is at hand,” and this we have in the four gospels. After His resurrection and ascension, the preaching of repentance for the kingdom continued unabated by the apostles until they were martyred. Even after the bulk of them died, we can assume that faithful John continued to hold the door open to the nation until the end of Israel’s demise. The offer to Israel was in play until the Jewish holdouts committed mass suicide on Masada in 73, forty years after Jesus was executed.
When Paul was in Rome under house arrest (62), he had a pivotal meeting with the Roman Jews that his faithful biographer Luke recorded in the last chapter of the book of Acts. Here it is: “And when they had appointed him a day, there came many to him into his lodging; to whom he expounded and testified the kingdom of God, persuading them concerning Jesus, both out of the law of Moses, and out of the prophets, from morning till evening. And some believed the things which were spoken, and some believed not. And when they agreed not among themselves, they departed, after that Paul had spoken one word, Well spake the Holy Ghost by Esaias the prophet unto our fathers, Saying, Go unto this people, and say, Hearing ye shall hear, and shall not understand; and seeing ye shall see, and not perceive: For the heart of this people has become dull, and their ears are dull of hearing, and their eyes have they closed; lest they should see with their eyes, and hear with their ears, and understand with their heart, and should be converted, and I should heal them. Be it known therefore unto you, that the salvation of God is sent unto the Gentiles, and that they will hear it. And when he had said these words, the Jews departed, and had great reasoning among themselves” (Acts 28:23-29). This is the pivot point when the offer of salvation and the mystery of the Body of Christ were extended to the Gentiles. Paul was fully released by the Spirit to share what he had seen nineteen years previously about the mystery hidden in Yahweh. In that one year (62) he wrote Ephesians, Philippians, and Colossians – three letters unveiling the mystery of the Body of Christ, the highest revelation afforded a human being. In just over a decade Israel’s rejection of Jesus would consign her to a long Diaspora, during which the Body of Christ would dominate the Lord’s attention as it developed and matured under His skillful hands (Matt. 16:18).
Paul’s release by the Spirit resulted in the letter to the Ephesians – the epicenter of the revelation of the mystery. Starting in the first chapter, Paul writes: “In whom we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins, according to the riches of his grace; Wherein he hath abounded toward us in all wisdom and prudence; Having made known unto us the mystery of his will, according to his good pleasure which he hath purposed in himself: That in the dispensation of the fulness of times he might gather together in one all things in Christ, both which are in heaven, and which are on earth; even in him: In whom also we have obtained an inheritance, being predestinated according to the purpose of him who worketh all things after the counsel of his own will” (1:7-11). In the Savior’s rich grace is wisdom and prudence for us to understand the “mystery of his will” which “he hath purposed in himself.” This mystery had never been seen before Paul, the apostle to the Gentiles. No prophet had a clue about it, and only when Paul wrote to the Corinthians in 57 using the analogy of the human body in describing “The Christ” was there even a hint concerning it.
But after the Roman Jews refused Paul’s plea, the Spirit gave him the liberty to share it all, and he (Paul) was eager for the saints to see what he saw. He told them that he “Cease(s) not to give thanks for you, making mention of you in my prayers; that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give unto you the spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of him: the eyes of your understanding being enlightened; that ye may know what is the hope of his calling, and what the riches of the glory of his inheritance in the saints, and what is the exceeding greatness of his power to us-ward who believe, according to the working of his mighty power, which he wrought in Christ, when he raised him from the dead, and set him at his own right hand in the heavenly places, far above all principality, and power, and might, and dominion, and every name that is named, not only in this world, but also in that which is to come: and hath put all things under his feet, and gave him to be the head over all things to the Ecclesia, which is his body, the fulness of him that filleth all in all” (1:16-23). The understanding of the mystery comes only by revelation from the Father into our spirit. Our inward eyes must be flooded with light if we are to know Him in all His fullness, viz., the Head and the Body. This is the mystery, that The Christ includes both Head and Body. But that is not all.
In 2:11-16 Paul explains what the Body is: “Wherefore remember, that ye being in time past Gentiles in the flesh, who are called Uncircumcision by that which is called the Circumcision in the flesh made by hands; that at that time ye 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 ye who sometimes were far off are made nigh by the blood of Christ. For he is our peace, who hath made both one, and hath broken down the middle wall of partition between us; having abolished in his flesh the enmity, even the law of commandments contained in ordinances; for to make in himself of twain one new man, so making peace; and that he might reconcile both unto God in one body by the cross, having slain the enmity thereby.” This is the unveiling of the secret hidden in Yahweh – Israel and the Gentiles in one Body, in one New Man. Only by the miracle of regeneration can these two people groups come together as the Ecclesia. These two avowed, irreconcilable enemies are now brought together because the great work of Jesus’ death destroyed the enmity between them by breaking down the middle wall of partition. This can only be realized and practiced by the inward work of the Spirit in a daily, practical way. Only by submitting to the Head and by undergoing death to the fallen self-life can this one Body be worked out in our corporate experience. This work is what Jesus was referring to when He said that He would build His Ecclesia, and this work has been ongoing since the day the Spirit fell upon the disciples at the fulfillment of the Feast of Pentecost.
Following this foundational truth of the Body, Paul continues in chapter three to build upon it. Paul describes himself as a “prisoner of Jesus Christ for you Gentiles” (:1). This expresses precisely what he told the Roman Jews, that the Lord would send salvation to the Gentiles, and that “they will hear it.” He then shares the basis of the new truth of the mystery: “by revelation He made known unto me the mystery” (:3). We cannot know the truth of the Body of Christ if the Lord Himself does not reveal it to us. Peter could not know the truth of Christ the Head without revelation from the Father (Matt. 16:7), and Paul could not know the truth of Christ the Body without revelation from the Father. If we are to know the fullness of The Christ, the Father must reveal it to us. There is no other way. It was to this end that Paul prayed for the Ephesians in 1:16-18. We may know something of Jesus the Savior who died for our sins, and, perhaps, something of Christ the Head of the Ecclesia, but how much do we know of Christ the Body of all the members, both Jew and Gentile? This truth was not made known before Paul. “Which in other ages was not made known unto the sons of men, as it is now revealed unto his holy apostles and prophets by the Spirit; that the Gentiles should be fellow-heirs, and of the same body, and partakers of his promise in Christ by the gospel” (:5-6). How does Paul regard the Father entrusting him with this mystery, with His own secret? “Unto me, who am less than the least of all saints, is this grace given, that I should preach among the Gentiles the unsearchable riches of Christ” (:8). He considers himself least of the saints, the result of years of Satan’s harassment; but he also knows his responsibility, viz., to “preach among the Gentiles the unsearchable riches of Christ.” The Father’s secret of the Body of Christ comprised of Jews and Gentiles is the “unsearchable riches of Christ.” When we see by the Spirit the truth of the mystery, we can then know how deep and rich and unfathomable is Christ. Before this revelation, our view of Him is circumscribed; but when we see as Paul did the “complete” Christ – Head and Body – it seems like the whole universe of His riches is opened to us.
Paul is burdened. He wants more than anything for the saints in Ephesus to see what he sees. “And to make all men see what is the fellowship of the mystery, which from the beginning of the world hath been hid in God, who created all things by Jesus Christ” (:9). The word for “fellowship” is oikonomia, or dispensation. The Lord’s management of His purpose is now focused upon the outworking of His revealed secret that had been hidden in Him. The last two millennia have been and remain the dispensation of the Body of Christ. This is what He is doing right now, and, in my view, is about to wrap up. This is the emergence, development, and maturation of the heavenly people – the Body of Christ – destined to displace the dark forces in the heavens. “To the intent that now unto the principalities and powers in heavenly places might be known by the Ecclesia the manifold wisdom of God” (:10).
This is the long-hidden secret that Yahweh kept in Himself, and now it is the great cause that compelled Paul to unveil to any and all who would see it. “For this cause I bow my knees unto the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ” (:14). A bowed knee is no ritual to Paul, but his lifeline of prayer and fellowship, his conduit into the “unsearchable riches of Christ.” His prayer is not for himself, but for the saints under his charge. “That he would grant you, according to the riches of his glory, to be strengthened with might by his Spirit in the inner man; that Christ may dwell in your hearts by faith; that ye, being rooted and grounded in love, may be able to comprehend with all saints what is the breadth, and length, and depth, and height; and to know the love of Christ, which passeth knowledge, that ye might be filled with all the fullness of God” (:16-19). The next step beyond revelation is putting the revelation into practice. For this we need a strong inner man, a strong spirit that allows Christ in us to make His home in our hearts (souls), so that He can regulate our thoughts and our feelings and our decisions and our behavior toward the other members of His Body. By this working in us and in others, we can, with them, lay hold of the all the dimensions of The Christ, and thus know His love for us individually and corporately. Seeing and knowing this Christ with the other members, enables us to actually “be filled with all the fullness of God.” Really? Can we truly be filled with all His fullness? Yes! But only if we have a firm, unrelenting grip on His secret, and only if we vow to practice what He has revealed to us concerning His Body.
Paul’s benediction puts the responsibility of asking and thinking about these things fully upon us, but that simply enables Him to go far beyond our frailties. Listen: “Now unto him that is able to do exceeding abundantly above all that we ask or think, according to the power that worketh in us, unto him be glory in the church by Christ Jesus throughout all ages, world without end. Amen” (:20-21). He is not simply the glorified in heaven anymore, but among those who really see who He is and what He is about – the Head of the Body – He is expressed and exalted and glorified.
Colossians chapter one is a further development of the mystery about the Ecclesia as the Body of Christ, and it permeates every word and phrase of this classic passage. Jesus told His disciples that the whole Law could be encapsulated in two commandments – “And he answering said, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy strength, and with all thy mind; and thy neighbor as thyself” (Luke 10:27). This word reveals, not only Israel’s obligation to Yahweh and His people, but it also shows us what is the foundation of the Ecclesia, viz., to individually love the Father without reservation, and to love the members of the Body of Christ. Paul’s salutation to the Colossians follows precisely this pattern. “Since we heard of your faith in Christ Jesus, and of the love which ye have to all the saints” (:4). The Colossians were practicing their ecclesiastical lives in accordance to the mystery, and Paul felt the liberty to share the deep things of the secret as he done with the Ephesians. “For this cause we also, since the day we heard it, do not cease to pray for you, and to desire that ye might be filled with the knowledge of his will in all wisdom and spiritual understanding” (:9). To know the secret of Yahweh is to “be filled with the knowledge of his will.” We need not fret over knowing Yahweh’s will for our lives, because the mystery of the Body of Christ is His will. The question becomes, therefore, whether or not our lives are in accordance with His will. Are we living under the headship of Christ as members of His Body? That is the real question every Christian needs to ask him or herself. Do we have “spiritual understanding,” or, in other words, have we seen the revelation of the mystery? If we have, if we truly have had our spirits enlightened, then we “might walk worthy of the Lord unto all pleasing, being fruitful in every good work, and increasing in the knowledge of God; strengthened with all might, according to his glorious power, unto all patience and longsuffering with joyfulness” (:10-11). Our walk in Christ is determined and motivated by our vision, by the revelation of the mystery of Yahweh. We will increase in our knowledge of the Lord, and our behavior will express His virtues like patience, longsuffering, and joyfulness.
What are the benefits of seeing what Paul saw and wrote about? Many! The Father has made us “partakers of the inheritance of the saints in light” (:12). We can begin to spend and enjoy our inheritance, and that inheritance is the saints! Have we ever considered this? Do we ever think of our fellow brothers and sisters in Christ as our inheritance, as the repository of the riches and wealth of Christ? “Who hath delivered us from the power of darkness, and hath translated us into the kingdom of his dear Son; in whom we have redemption through his blood, even the forgiveness of sins” (:13-14). When we see the mystery of the Ecclesia, the power of darkness is shattered, and the Son of the Father’s love is enthroned in us and we sit with Him on His throne. We enjoy Him as the Redeemer who has forgiven us and bought us back from the usurper by His own blood. Indeed, our benefits are many when we enter into the secret of Yahweh that belongs only to the Ecclesia.
Who is this Head of the Body? Who is this Son of the Father’s love? “Who is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of every creature” (:15). He is the invisible Father made known to humankind. Without the Son Christ becoming the man Jesus, we could not know the Father, but because of His person and work, we can know the mysterious Father. “For by him were all things created,” and “he is before all things, and by him all things consist” (:15, 17). He is the creator and upholder of creation, and of this much could be written; however, He is all of this so that He can fill the most important position of all. “And he is the head of the body, the Ecclesia: who is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead; that in all things he might have the preeminence. For it pleased the Father that in him should all fullness dwell” (:18-19). Christ’s preeminence as Head over His Body gives the Father pleasure and gives the Son His fullness. He is no longer just the Head, but now He is complete and full because He has a Body with many members. This.is the very thing that pleases the Father, for this was His purpose from the beginning.
Paul saw his afflictions in his flesh as making up the lack of the afflictions of Christ, which were only for redemption and did not include suffering for His Body (which was not yet born until Pentecost). Paul rejoiced in the opportunity to “fill up that which is behind of the afflictions of Christ in my flesh for his body’s sake, which is the Ecclesia” (:24). The Head suffered for the redemption of the Body; now the saints must suffer affliction for the edification and growth of the Body.
He also regarded himself as a minister of the “dispensation of God which is given to me for you, to fulfill the word of God; even the mystery which hath been hid from ages and from generations, but now is made manifest to his saints” (:25-26). It is utterly clear that the mystery was hidden in Yahweh, but is now made known through Paul to the Lord’s saints. Once again he iterates: “To whom God would make known what is the riches of the glory of this mystery among the Gentiles; which is Christ in you, the hope of glory” (:27). Only the Lord can make known the secret, as we have seen, and it is a rich and glorious mystery, one that will revolutionize our concepts and worldviews, and bring them under His headship. Christ is now indwelling Jews and Gentile in His Body. The Head and Body are joined in oneness! There is nothing higher and more profound than this! For this very reason he scolds them in the next chapter for “not holding the Head, from which all the body by joints and bands having nourishment ministered, and knit together, increaseth with the increase of God” (2:19). We can search the Old Testament, the gospels, the book of Acts, and the other apostles’ writings, but we won’t find the mystery, or the secret of Yahweh, clearly stated as this is. Only Paul lays it out lucidly and powerfully and unapologetically.
There is one other passage worthy of note regarding this colossal truth. Paul wrote his letter to the Roman ecclesia in 58, four years before he had full liberty to share the truth about the mystery of the Body of Christ. Once imprisoned in Rome in 62 and after his ultimatum to the recalcitrant Jews, Paul received the Spirit’s permission to unveil the secret. It was at this time that he wrote this addendum: “Now to him who is able to strengthen you according to my gospel and the preaching of Jesus Christ, according to the revelation of the mystery which was kept secret for long ages but is now disclosed and through the prophetic writings (his own epistles to the Ephesians, Colossians, and Philippians) is made known to all nations, according to the command of the eternal God, to bring about the obedience of faith. To the only wise God be glory for evermore through Jesus Christ! Amen” (Romans 16:25-27). This is a resounding confirmation of the dispensational truth of the mystery of the Ecclesia! Paul had shared in such detail his gospel in the Romans letter, but was prohibited from including the full disclosure of the mystery of the Body of Christ. I can imagine the anxiety in Paul as he explained the olive tree in chapter 11 and in the next several chapters exhorted how the members of the ecclesia should behave themselves toward one another, and yet couldn’t share the full revelation of the mystery that both Jews and Gentiles are one in Christ as His one Body. I can see Paul smile when given permission by the Spirit, and then instruct one of his companions to retrieve the letter. Surely the addendum fostered a great amount of fellowship among the saints in Rome.
How precious is the secret of Yahweh, and how vital it is to see it if we are to have the proper motivation in our Christian lives. If we have the revelation that Paul shares with us, we dare not settle for anything less. We will have the desire to fellowship with those who know The Christ, and the world will diminish in our affections. We will want to explore the unsearchable riches of Christ with those who are equally intense about knowing Him in His fullness. The more we see of His purpose in these days with His Body, the more we will think about it, talk about it, meet around it, ask about it, work for it, live for it, sacrifice for it. Even as Yahweh’s house consumed Jesus, so the secret of His Body will consume us, and we will do anything we can to build each other up. “But ye, beloved, building up yourselves on your most holy faith, praying in the Holy Spirit” (Jude 20). This is our opportunity to join with the Lord in the building up of His Ecclesia. What a great privilege! Regardless what others do, once we see the mystery, we will be compelled to devote ourselves to the highest purpose a human being can enter into.