The doctrine of the mystery part 2: Israel is the heritage of the church. Eph 1:9; Rom 11:15-29; Jer 31:31-34

EPH 1:8b By means of all wisdom and insight

 

In verse 9 is introduced the special wisdom that the Church has the privilege of learning, metabolizing, understanding, and applying.

 

EPH 1:9 He made known to us the mystery of His will, according to His kind intention which He purposed in Him

 

/“He made known” is the aorist active participle of the verb gnwrizw [gnorizo] which means to make known or to reveal.\

 

/“to us” is the dative plural of the pronoun e)gw[ego] used here as an indirect object. The dative of indirect object is one in which the person in whose interest the action is being performed is emphasized.\

 

Out of the indirect object we have the dative of advantage. So we are receiving great advantage for having known these things.

           

/“the mystery” - to musthrion[to musterion] is a technical word in the New Testament epistles for the classification of doctrine known as Church-age truth, which was hidden from the OT.\

 

The definite article specifies this mystery amongst many mysteries.

 

 

 

/The noun musterion was originally used to depict the doctrines and the secrets of the Greek fraternities or cults of the ancient world. \

 

Mystery doctrine now becomes a part of our vocabulary, referring to the content of the doctrine that is new to the Church and was kept hidden from history prior to the upper room discourse.

 

/So now we begin: The doctrine of the mystery.\

           

/4. Part of the mystery doctrine, including the blindness or hardness of Israel during the Church Age, is also a part of the fifth cycle of discipline - Romans 11:25. \

 

Israelhas a special history in three dispensations—the dispensation of Israel, the dispensation of the Tribulation, and the Millennium.

 

In the dispensation of Israel the Jews became the first client nation to God in history, after the Exodus. The four unconditional covenants to Israel guarantee that Israel will have a future forever, but only to those Jews who possess eternal life through faith in the Lord Jesus Christ—in other words, true Israel.

 

/In the Church dispensation the final administration of the fifth cycle of discipline occurred forty years after the Church Age began. It resulted in the times of the Gentiles in which no Jewish nation can be a client nation to God in this dispensation. \

 

Because the Jews in this dispensation have rejected Christ as Savior they are branches broken off the good olive tree.

 

We, the wild Gentiles, are grafted in to the good tree. That tells us that even though in many generations of history there have been relatively few Jews who have accepted Christ as Savior they are still the tree.

 

/Therefore we are grafted in to their spiritual heritage. In effect, our spiritual heritage as the Church, the royal family of God, the body of Christ, is still Jewish. \

 

Through our union with Christ, who is always the vine as well as the seed of Abraham (GEN 12:3 and Gal 3).

 

Because it is we must avoid any arrogance and, above all, we must avoid like the plague that vicious type of evil called anti-Semitism.

 

/So the Jews in the dispersion still have the spiritual heritage of which we partake. The Gentile believers are grafted in; the Jewish believers are really the tree.\

 

ROM 11:15 For if their rejection be the reconciliation of the world, what will their acceptance be but life from the dead?

 

ROM 11:16 And if the first piece of dough be holy, the lump is also; and if the root be holy, the branches are too.

 

ROM 11:17 But if some of the branches were broken off, and you, being a wild olive, were grafted in among them and became partaker with them of the rich root of the olive tree,

 

ROM 11:18 do not be arrogant toward the branches; but if you are arrogant, remember that it is not you who supports the root, but the root supports you.

 

ROM 11:19 You will say then, "Branches were broken off so that I might be grafted in."

 

ROM 11:20 Quite right, they were broken off for their unbelief, but you stand by your faith. Do not be conceited, but fear;

 

ROM 11:21 for if God did not spare the natural branches, neither will He spare you.

 

ROM 11:22 Behold then the kindness and severity of God; to those who fell, severity, but to you, God's kindness, if you continue in His kindness; otherwise you also will be cut off [divine discipline].

 

Even the believing Jews during the first advent fell under the 5^th cycle of discipline and would have died if they did not heed the warning of Christ to get out of the city when it was surrounded by the armies of Rome.

 

Turn to Luke 21:20. This is critical to note that there will always be a remnant of believing Jews and they will be protected by God if they heed the warnings.

 

This is a specific warning given by Christ so that those who believe in Him will be spared when Rome came to destroy Jerusalem.

 

And also, He subtly prophesizes the Church-age, but not for the first time.

   

Luke 21:20 "But when you see Jerusalem surrounded by armies, then recognize that her desolation is at hand.

 

Luke 21:21 "Then let those who are in Judea flee to the mountains, and let those who are in the midst of the city depart, and let not those who are in the country enter the city;

 

Luke 21:22 because these are days of vengeance, in order that all things which are written may be fulfilled.

 

Luke 21:23 "Woe to those who are with child and to those who nurse babes in those days; for there will be great distress upon the land, and wrath to this people,

 

 

 

Luke 21:24 and they will fall by the edge of the sword, and will be led captive into all the nations; and Jerusalem will be trampled under foot by the Gentiles until the times of the Gentiles be fulfilled.

 

This prophecy was fulfilled in a very marvelous way. In the year A.D. 66, the first Jewish revolt broke out against the Romans.

 

When the revolt first began, the Roman general in the Land, Cestus Gallus, came with his armies from Caesarea and surrounded Jerusalem.

 

The surrounding of the city marked the sign that Jesus had promised, and the Jewish believers knew that Jerusalem would soon be destroyed.

 

Jesus had commanded the Jewish believers to desert the city when they saw this happening. However, it was impossible to do so while the Romans were surrounding the city. Then Cestus Gallus noticed that his supply lines were not secure. He did not have enough supplies to maintain an extended siege, so he lifted the siege of Jerusalem in order to go back to Caesarea. On the way, he was attacked by Jewish forces and killed.

 

Temporarily, the city was no longer surrounded by the armies, so every single Jewish believer was able to leave Jerusalem.

 

They crossed the Jordan River and set up a new community of Jewish believers in the town of Pella in the Trans-jordan. They were joined by Jewish believers from Judea, Galilee, and the Golan. There they waited for the prophecy of Jesus to be fulfilled.

In the year A.D. 68, a new Roman general by the name of Vespasian and his son, Titus, again besieged the city, and in the year A.D. 70, the city and the Temple were destroyed.

 

All together, 1,100,000 Jews were killed in this final onslaught, but not one Jewish believer died because they obeyed the words of their Messiah.

 

/Since the time of the destruction, Jerusalem has indeed been trodden down of the Gentiles and continues to be so to the present day. Jerusalem will not be free of Gentile nations treading upon her until the Messiah returns.\

 

ROM 11:22 Behold then the kindness and severity of God; to those who fell, severity, but to you, God's kindness, if you continue in His kindness; otherwise you also will be cut off [divine discipline].

 

ROM 11:23 And they also, if they do not continue in their unbelief, will be grafted in; for God is able to graft them in again.

 

ROM 11:24 For if you were cut off from what is by nature a wild olive tree, and were grafted contrary to nature into a cultivated olive tree, how much more shall these who are the natural branches be grafted into their own olive tree?

 

/In every generation of the Church Age there will always be Jewish believers and so a remnant of Israel always exists. \

 

There never will be a generation in the dispensation of the Church without Jewish believers.

 

The Millennium brings us to the restoration of Israel as a client nation to God and the fulfillment of the four unconditional covenants.

 

ROM 11:25 For I do not want you, brethren, to be uninformed of this mystery, lest you be wise in your own estimation, that a partial hardening [there is always a remnant of Jewish believers in every generation] has happened to Israel until the fullness of the Gentiles has come in;

 

ROM 11:26 and thus all Israel [born-again Israel, ROM 9:6] will be saved [delivered from the Tribulation by the Second Advent]; just as it is written,

 

[ISA 59:20]"The Deliverer will come from Zion, [Second Advent]

He will remove ungodliness from Jacob [baptism of fire]."

 

ROM 11:27 "And this is My covenant with them,

When I take away their sins [millennium]."

 

/The Second Advent convenes the removal of divine discipline or the punishment of sin upon the nation of Israel.\

 

This does not mean sinlessness, but the removal of divine discipline or the removal of the punishment of sin.

 

To understand this and the reason why the Church is a mystery, or unknown to them, we have to go to the passage that Paul here is referencing.

 

This is the New Covenant: the fourth and last extension to the Abrahamic Covenant. All four of these covenants are unconditional.

 

JER 31:31 "Behold, days are coming," declares the Lord, "when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah,

 

JER 31:32 not like the covenant which I made with their fathers in the day I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt, My covenant which they broke, although I was a husband to them, "declares the Lord.

 

/By their faithlessness they broke the Abrahamic (blessed as a nation), the Palestinian (given the Promised Land), and the Davidic (the Messiah will rule) Covenants and continued to do so right up to the Cross.\

 

/However, these covenants are unconditional and therefore must be fulfilled by God. So enters the “New Covenant” which is not apart from the others, but “new” as its time and method of conveyance.\

 

JER 31:33 "But this is the covenant which I will make with the house of Israel after those days [after the CA and the Tribulation]," declares the Lord, "I will put My law within them, and on their heart I will write it; and I will be their God, and they shall be My people.

 

JER 31:34 "And they shall not teach again, each man his neighbor and each man his brother, saying, 'Know the Lord,' for they shall all know Me, from the least of them to the greatest of them," declares the Lord, "for I will forgive their iniquity, and their sin I will remember no more."

 

/The nucleus of these believers will enter the Millennium with Christ as their client nation is restored. This nucleus of believers has survived the Tribulation. \

 

ROM 11:25 For I do not want you, brethren, to be uninformed of this mystery, lest you be wise in your own estimation, that a partial hardening has happened to Israel until the fullness of the Gentiles has come in;

 

ROM 11:26 and thus all Israel [born-again Israel, ROM 9:6] will be saved [delivered from the Tribulation by the Second Advent]; just as it is written,

 

[ISA 59:20]"The Deliverer will come from Zion, [Second Advent]

He will remove ungodliness from Jacob [baptism of fire]."

 

ROM 11:27 "And this is My covenant with them,

When I take away their sins [millennium]."

 

Again, those who enter the Millennium are not sinless; rather this refers to the removal of divine discipline and the stigma upon Israel that has come with the 5^th cycle of discipline.

 

ROM 11:28 From the standpoint of the gospel they are enemies for your sake [unbelieving Jews are regarded as enemies since we have received +R], but [on the other hand] from the standpoint of God's choice [election] they [Jewish believers] are beloved for the sake of the fathers [Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob: through whom came the covenants,]

 

/This is said because the NT Jewish believer falls under the New covenant to the Church and not Israel, but he still maintains his relation to the Jewish nation of history, hence there is always a remnant of the true Israel in every generation;\

 

Is a Jewish believer in the Church doubly blessed under both covenants? No. The covenant to the Church superseded the covenant to Israel by so much that being a member of the RFOG dwarfs any relationship to the covenants of Israel.

 

There is an election of Israel, and election of Christ, and an election of the Church. The election of Christ is unique. The election of the Church shares in that election and therefore makes it super-abound above the election of Israel.

 

It should be noted that the word “enemies” used in verse 28 refers to the status of the unbeliever. The unbelieving Gentile would also fall under this category [as he does in ROM 5:10], but the context of this passage is entirely Jewish; therefore there should never be one ounce of anti-Semitism in any believer.

 

ROM 11:29 for the gifts and the calling [election] of God are irrevocable.

 

/Our Lord’s first use of the word “mystery” is revealing of the Church, but in parables that the unbeliever would not understand, Matt 13.\

 

Matt 13:10 And the disciples came and said to Him, "Why do You speak to them [not the multitude but the nation of Israel] in parables?"

 

Matt 13:11 And He answered and said to them, "To you it has been granted to know the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven, but to them it has not been granted [because of unbelief].

 

Though we have stated it again and again, we have to see the unbelief of Israel as is presented by Matthew’s gospel to get a better understanding of Matt 13.

 

/The Gospel of Matthew is the Gospel which presents the Lord Jesus Christ as Jehovah’s King and Israel’s Messiah. It unfolds the presentation of the Messiah to Israel.\

 

This thirteenth chapter holds a unique place in the develop­ment of the theme of the Gospel.