Bible2 had quoted from Romans 16:25-26, and then
said "So how silly it would be for anyone to think
that the gospel of Christ was some new thing nowhere
foretold in the Old Testament scriptures".
---
A Brother In Christ replied in post #118:
SO THIS IS THE ONLY PLACE OF MYSTERY ... NO DO YOU
UNDERSTAND IT... NO
KEPT A SECRET TILL KNOW... SO WHAT IS THE SECRET
OR IS God lieing is that what you are saying again
It has never been said that God is lying, just as He
is not lying when has Paul say that the gospel of
Christ was made manifest by the Old Testament
scriptures:
"Now to him that is of power to stablish you
according to my gospel, and the preaching of Jesus
Christ, according to the revelation of the mystery,
which was kept secret since the world began, But now
is made manifest, and by the scriptures of the
prophets, according to the commandment of the
everlasting God, made known to all nations for the
obedience of faith" (Romans 16:25-26).
"Paul, a servant of Jesus Christ, called to be an
apostle, separated unto the gospel of God, (Which he
had promised afore by his prophets in the holy
scriptures,) Concerning his Son Jesus Christ our
Lord" (Romans 1:1-3).
"Having therefore obtained help of God, I [Paul]
continue unto this day, witnessing both to small and
great, saying none other things than those which the
prophets and Moses did say should come: That Christ
should suffer, and that he should be the first that
should rise from the dead, and should shew light unto
the people, and to the Gentiles" (Acts 26:22-23).
The mystery and secret was the gospel itself: the
death and resurrection of Christ, and that the
salvation it brought would apply not only to the
people of Israel, but to all the Gentile nations as
well:
"And he said, It is a light thing that thou shouldest
be my servant to raise up the tribes of Jacob, and to
restore the preserved of Israel: I will also give
thee for a light to the Gentiles, that thou mayest be
my salvation unto the end of the earth" (Isaiah
49:6).
"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" (Ephesians 3:3-6).
The Gentiles would be fellowheirs with Israel, and
of the same body as Israel, and partakers of the
salvation promised to Israel by the prophesied death
and resurrection of Christ:
"He was wounded for our transgressions, he was
bruised for our iniquities: the chastisement of our
peace was upon him; and with his stripes we are
healed. All we like sheep have gone astray; we have
turned every one to his own way; and the LORD hath
laid on him the iniquity of us all" (Isaiah 53:5-6).
"Thou wilt not leave my soul in hell; neither wilt
thou suffer thine Holy One to see corruption"
(Psalms 16:10).
"And he [Jesus] said unto them, These are the words
which I spake unto you, while I was yet with you,
that all things must be fulfilled, which were
written in the law of Moses, and in the prophets,
and in the psalms, concerning me. Then opened he
their understanding, that they might understand the
scriptures, And said unto them, Thus it is written,
and thus it behoved Christ to suffer, and to rise
from the dead the third day: And that repentance and
remission of sins should be preached in his name
among all nations, beginning at Jerusalem"
(Luke 24:44-47).
Note the key statement above: "Then opened he their
understanding, that they might understand the
scriptures". That shows how the atoning death and
resurrection of Christ and the salvation of the
Gentiles could remain a mystery and a secret even
though it was right there spelled out plain as day
for all to see in the Old Testament scriptures.
Before Jesus opened the apostles' understanding,
they and everyone else had been reading the plain
statements such as in Isaiah 53:5-6, Psalms 16:10,
and Isaiah 49:6 without understanding them; the
plain statements were a mystery, a secret, that
nobody could grasp until Jesus had completed His
work and revealed the mystery to believers in Him.
Before the revelation of the mystery of the gospel,
even believers in Christ could not only not fathom
some plain Old Testament scriptures regarding it;
they couldn't even fathom simple statements made to
them regarding it by Jesus Himself:
"For he taught his disciples, and said unto them,
The Son of man is delivered into the hands of men,
and they shall kill him; and after that he is killed,
he shall rise the third day. But they understood not
that saying, and were afraid to ask him"
(Mark 9:31-32).
"Let these sayings sink down into your ears: for the
Son of man shall be delivered into the hands of men.
But they understood not this saying, and it was hid
from them, that they perceived it not: and they
feared to ask him of that saying" (Luke 9:44-45).
Unbelievers remain in a similar situation today,
even though believers point out to them how Jesus'
death and resurrection, and his extending of
salvation to the Gentiles, fulfilled scriptures such
as Isaiah 53:5-6, Psalms 16:10, and Isaiah 49:6.
Even when unbelievers have the scriptures explained
to them, they still cannot grasp them:
"Which things also we speak, not in the words which
man's wisdom teacheth, but which the Holy Ghost
teacheth; comparing spiritual things with spiritual.
But the natural man receiveth not the things of the
Spirit of God: for they are foolishness unto him:
neither can he know them, because they are
spiritually discerned" (1 Corinthians 2:13-14).
Paul refers to unbelieving Jews reading the Old
Testament with mental blinders on:
"Their minds were blinded: for until this day
remaineth the same vail untaken away in the reading
of the old testament; which vail is done away in
Christ. But even unto this day, when Moses is read,
the vail is upon their heart" (2 Corinthians 3:14-15).
And nothing but God's grace can break through the
blinders; no evidence, no argument, no exposition of
the scriptures:
"If they hear not Moses and the prophets, neither
will they be persuaded, though one rose from the
dead" (Luke 16:31).
This is why Paul says believers need to be gentle
with unbelievers and let God Himself grant them the
ability to receive the truth:
"The servant of the Lord must not strive; but be
gentle unto all men, apt to teach, patient, In
meekness instructing those that oppose themselves;
if God peradventure will give them repentance to
the acknowledging of the truth; And that they may
recover themselves out of the snare of the devil,
who are taken captive by him at his will"
(2 Timothy 2:24-26).
A Brother In Christ said in post #118:
1 peter 1:10 why did the prophets search diligently
about the grace to come... it was a secret .. how
vs 11 suffering of Christ[there King] and the glory
that should follow
Kings do not suffer there subjects do
"Of which salvation the prophets have enquired and
searched diligently, who prophesied of the grace
that should come unto you: [11] Searching what, or
what manner of time the Spirit of Christ which was
in them did signify, when it testified beforehand
the sufferings of Christ, and the glory that should
follow. [12] Unto whom it was revealed, that not
unto themselves, but unto us they did minister the
things, which are now reported unto you by them that
have preached the gospel unto you with the Holy Ghost
sent down from heaven" (1 Peter 1:10-12).
This means that even the prophets themselves, like
Isaiah and David, who foretold in plain language
Christ's death for our sins and His resurrection from
the dead, and His extension of salvation to the
Gentiles -- even the prophets themselves "searched"
what the prophecies they had written down "did
signify". After they wrote them down by the
inspiration of the Spirit, they must have read them
over and scratched their heads, thinking "Wow...
that's intense. But what does it mean?" And God must
have answered them, "revealed" to them, "What you
have foretold is not to be fulfilled for you in your
lifetime; it will be fulfilled in the lifetime of
those sometime in the future, to whom the prophecies
you have written down will minister, for those people
in the future will be given understanding of the
prophecies after they have seen them fulfilled".
But this would in no way mean that the gospel events
foretold in the prophecies, once fulfilled, would
have no applicability to the Old Testament saints,
for the prophecies said they would; gospel prophecies
spoken by the Old Testament saints, such as Isaiah
53:5-6, say "we" will benefit from their fulfillment,
meaning that the Old Testament saints would be
included in their benefit. But the Old Testament
saints would not benefit, would not be made perfect,
by the fulfillment of the gospel prophecies during
their lifetimes:
"These all, having obtained a good report through
faith, received not the promise: God having provided
some better thing for us, that they without us should
not be made perfect" (Hebrews 11:39-40).
This doesn't mean that the Old Testament saints
weren't given the promise of the gospel in the Old
Testament scriptures, because they were; but they
didn't "receive" the promise in at least two ways:
first, they didn't understand it, and, second, they
didn't receive its fulfillment during their
lifetimes. The "better thing" provided to the
apostles and their followers in the first century,
and eventually to their followers in all subsequent
centuries, was not some thing nowhere foretold in the
Old Testament, rather, it was a reception of an
understanding of the gospel message foretold in the
Old Testament, and a reception of the benefit, the
being made perfect, that accrues to believers in the
gospel after its fulfillment by Christ. But once it
had been fulfilled, then the souls of the dead Old
Testament saints could also be given an understanding
of it, and they could also be given its benefit, they
could also be made perfect, but not without us.
After He had completed His cross and resurrection,
Jesus Himself went down into Hades and preached the
gospel and its fulfillment to all the souls of the
Old Testament saints, and they were thereby made
perfect, and so could then ascend into heaven with
Jesus:
"For Christ also hath once suffered for sins, the
just for the unjust, that he might bring us to God,
being put to death in the flesh, but quickened by
the Spirit: By which also he went and preached unto
the spirits in prison" (1 Peter 3:18-19)
"For for this cause was the gospel preached also to
them that are dead" (1 Peter 4:6).
"Wherefore he saith, When he ascended up on high, he
led captivity captive, and gave gifts unto men. Now
that he ascended, what is it but that he also
descended first into the lower parts of the earth?"
(Ephesians 4:8-9).
"Ye are come unto mount Sion, and unto the city of
the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to an
innumerable company of angels, To the general
assembly and church of the firstborn, which are
written in heaven, and to God the Judge of all, and
to the spirits of just men made perfect, And to Jesus
the mediator of the new covenant [diatheke], and to
the blood of sprinkling" (Hebrews 12:22-24).
That is how the Old Testament saints were made
perfect and brought into heaven, the same way all
saints are, by the new covenant blood of Christ shed
on the cross:
"For this is my blood of the new testament [diatheke,
covenant], which is shed for many for the remission
of sins" (Matthew 26:28).
"Behold, the days come, saith the LORD, that I will
make a new covenant with the house of Israel ...
I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember
their sin no more" (Jeremiah 31:31,34).
But how can we Gentiles partake of this covenant of
salvation when it's made only with Israel? By being
joined to Israel:
"Thou, being a wild olive tree, wert graffed in among
them, and with them partakest of the root and fatness
of the olive tree" (Romans 11:17).
"Now therefore ye are no more strangers and
foreigners, but fellowcitizens with the saints"
(Ephesians 2:19).
"The Gentiles have been made partakers of their
spiritual things" (Romans 15:27).
Bible2 had quoted from Romans 4:3-8,16.
---
A Brother In Christ replied in post #118:
the saved Jews were subjects kept to a distance ..
ex 19:4-13 when the law was brought upon them
We have God living in us ... they never had that
while on earth!
The Old Testament saints did have God living in
them while on earth: "The Spirit of Christ which
was in them" (1 Peter 1:11).
The fact that the Israelites were kept at a physical
distance from Mount Sinai in Exodus 19:12-13 in no
way means that they were kept at a spiritual distance
from God, for Exodus 19:4-13 doesn't say that the
saved Jews were kept spiritually away from God. It
says the exact opposite, for God tells them that He
had "brought you unto myself" (Exodus 19:4), and in
their obedience "ye shall be a peculiar treasure unto
me above all people. And ye shall be unto me a
kingdom of priests, and an holy nation. These are the
words which thou shalt speak unto the children of
Israel" (Exodus 19:5-6).
So even under the Old Covenant law, they were in some
ways as close to God as saints are today:
"Ye are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, an
holy nation, a peculiar people" (1 Peter 2:9).
The words of 1 Peter 2:9, employing the the words of
Exodus 19:5-6 which were to be spoken to Israel, are
spoken to saints today because they have been joined
to Israel.
