I am NOT disputing that God has written in His word (OT) that the Gentiles will have a part in His plan. This is a good scripture -
`Rejoice O Gentiles, with His people; for He will avenge the blood of His servants and render vengeance to His adversaries; He will provide atonement for His land and His people.` (Deut. 32: 43)
However we do NOT see that God has revealed that the Jews and the Gentiles come together and make the Body of Christ. Because that is a further part of God`s purposes that was hidden till revealed to the apostle Paul.
Peter, (& the other disciples) only knew of Jesus as Lord and Christ and that the promise of the Holy Spirit came upon the Gentiles. They DID NOT know of the Body of Christ and had great trouble understanding what it was all about. That is why Peter tried to get the Gentile believers to act like the Jews. For that is how Gentiles, (eg Ruth etc) came into the nation of Israel.
Dispensationalists typically present the New Testament
ekklesia as a brand-new spiritual innovation, which had no origin prior to Pentecost. They teach that the Church itself is a “mystery” and that it is a completely separate entity to God’s people in the Old Testament. They say, because the New Testament Church is expressly called “the fellowship of the mystery, which from the beginning of the world hath been hid in God” that it is a brand-new construction started in the upper room. They contend that the Apostle Paul was specifically and specially tasked with revealing this great mystery.
What they miss, or deliberately distort, is that Paul was actually teaching the complete opposite to what they assert. Ephesians 3:1-9 tells us:
“For this cause I Paul, the prisoner of Jesus Christ for you Gentiles, If ye have heard of the dispensation of the grace of God which is given me to youward: How that by revelation he made known unto me the mystery; (as I wrote afore in few words, Whereby, when ye read, ye may understand my knowledge in the mystery of Christ) 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 fellowheirs, and of the same body, and partakers of his promise in Christ by the gospel: Whereof I was made a minister, according to the gift of the grace of God given unto me by the effectual working of his power. 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; 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.”
The debate is not over whether the
ekklesia was some new innovation or whether it has replaced Israel or not (because it hasn’t) but rather, (1) is the new covenant congregation of God’s people spiritually connected to the old covenant congregation of God’s people and (2) do believing Gentiles after the cross enjoy an equal status with believing Jews?
The mystery regarding the congregation is not that it was unknown to the Old Testament prophets, but rather that believing Gentiles were integrated into the believing congregation on an equal footing (as fellow heirs) as existing Jewish believers. Dispensationalists fail to see that the
ekklesia is not a New Testament novelty introduced at Pentecost but an ongoing spiritual organism that has contained the elect of God from the very beginning.
The new covenant congregation is not something entirely unique and new in God’s plan and purposes, totally separated from His old covenant people, but is an extension of Old Testament believing Israel. The New Testament assembly is the ongoing continuation of faithful old covenant Israel. Whilst the New Testament gathering has taken on a different form under the new covenant, the elect in the Old Testament and the elect in the New Testament are part of the same spiritual body.
Paul identifies “the mystery” here in a clear and unambiguous way in verse 6, namely: “That the Gentiles should be fellowheirs, and of the same body, and partakers of his promise in Christ by the gospel.” Here is the crux of his argument: he demonstrates that the notable metamorphosis that occurred as the old covenant
ekklesia changed into the new covenant
ekklesia resulted in the Gentiles assuming an equal footing to the Jews. There is no longer any favoritism. The mystery is the parity that occurred from this merger in regard to the promises of God.
Paul never said that the
ekklesia wasn’t about before Pentecost, as Dispensationalists wrongly argue. In fact, he teaches the opposite. The Dispensational interpretation is the exact reverse to what the inspired text is actually saying. Paul is in fact talking about the joining of the old and new covenant saints together in Christ. The mystery is the mystical union of the people of God of all time in one spiritual body.
It was always God’s heart to expand His old covenant congregation (the
ekklesia) out beyond the borders of national Israel, to reach the Gentile people. The Church itself was not a mystery (or secret) prior to Paul, neither was God’s great eternal plan of redemption, neither was the ingathering of the Gentiles. Passage after passage in the Old Testament predicted these events. What was a mystery was the Gentiles being “fellowheirs, and of the same body, and partakers of his promise in Christ by the gospel.” Dispensationalists make the existence of the
ekklesia the “mystery” in order to support their theology, even though it has been around as long as there have been believers.
Thomas Croskery explains in his in-depth classic research from 1879: “Though the prophets foretold that the Gentiles were to be blessed in Abraham, it was not made known to them in what manner the blessing was to be realized. This was the special revelation to which the apostle alludes when he speaks of the dispensation committed to himself as the apostle to the Gentiles.”
He adds: “we, of this dispensation, were to be incorporated into the ‘one commonwealth’, from which we were alienated, into the ‘one body’, the ‘one household’, the ‘one building fitly framed together’. The mystery was the admission of Gentiles to share on equal terms with the Jews all the blessings purchased by Christ” (Plymouth-Brethrenism: A Refutation of Its Principles and Doctrines).
Ephesians 3:1-9 is just another example of the gradual spiritual unfolding of the progressive revelation of God. In this instance, it shows how New Testament Gentiles would possess an equal status to that of New Testament Jews under the new covenant arrangement. This was something that was largely veiled in the Old Testament.
