The Mystery of God as the believer's wisdom
04-08-2019
Series: Scripture: Ephesians 1
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Today we will see where Paul says the wisdom of Christ – that which is given by the Father, and activated by the Spirit, where this wisdom comes from.
We know that the wisdom comes from God, but Paul is more specific than that. He says that, God’s wisdom comes from God’s mystery.
Look at verses 8-9
That he lavished on us. With all wisdom and understanding, he made known to us the mystery of his will according to his good pleasure, which he purposed in Christ.
Mystery – meaning, ‘sacred things’ or ‘sacred secret’, mysterious. God is not mysterious.
Paul calls it in chapter 3:9 “The hidden things of God”.
Paul says in 3:18 that, the person who “comprehends” or “grasps” “the breadth and length and height and depth” of this mystery which is the love of God in Christ. Not only have the knowledge or wisdom of God. But they are filled with all the fullness of God himself.
In other words, the mystery of God means to have a wisdom that shows you know God well and therefore live wisely.
The problem with mankind is that we live in times where people think it’s impossible to know God in His fullness, his hidden things and mystery. They say, everything else is possible that the modern man puts his mind to. But to be intimate and close to God is something the Puritans believe in during the sixteenth century.
Now, we live in the times of knowledge and human discoveries, not the times of pursuing God. The primary aim for mankind is to know the world they occupy. Not that these things are wrong. But people fail to know that it’s in knowing God’s mystery that the world makes sense.
Paul says to the Corinthians that, it is the spiritual person who knows God in this way. Someone who thinks and acts with the mind of Christ.
The person without the Spirit does not accept the things that come from the Spirit of God but considers them foolishness and cannot understand them because they are discerned only through the Spirit. The person with the Spirit makes judgments about all things, but such a person is not subject to merely human judgments, 16 for,
“Who has known the mind of the Lord, so as to instruct him?”. But we have the mind of Christ.
The mystery of God goes far beyond the natural mind. It is the spiritual appetite of the Christian who enjoys God’s mystery. Therefore, the question is not whether Christians have wisdom, because they do. They have the wisdom of Christ. The issue is whether Christians understand that their wisdom is supposed to reflect God’s very mystery, hidden things and the fullness of God.
Is God’s mystery active within them as believers, witnesses, disciple making disciples, husbands and wives, business people and singles? Paul calls God mystery in verse 9, that it is “God’s will” and “God’s purpose” for them.
Look at verse 8-9, that Paul says God’s wisdom in Christ is not different from God’s mystery.
That he lavished on us. With all wisdom and understanding, he made known to us the mystery of his will according to his good pleasure, which he purposed in Christ.
In other words, the wisdom with which the Christian lives. The wisdom that the Spirit activates in them. The wisdom that Jesus died and was raised to life again. This wisdom is the mystery of God at work in them. And if what is at work in them is God’s mystery as wisdom, then wisdom can make you appear a bit strange. This we see in Jesus’ very life as the Wisdom of God, his very family said, “He is out of his mind” (Mark 3:21).
So when someone looks at our lives they are supposed to see the mystery, the secret things or the hidden things of God at work within us. And when they see it they cannot help but call it wisdom.
Importantly, for Paul Jesus is the center of God’s mystery as the believer’s wisdom. Paul says in verse 9, that the mystery is realized in Christ. He made known to us the mystery of his will according to his good pleasure, which he purposed in Christ. The mystery of God’s will was revealed in the whole Christ-event, his birth, life, death and resurrection. In chapter 3:4, Paul even calls God’s mystery, “The mystery of Christ”.
In other words, God’s mystery makes the believer’s wisdom one of a kind, it’s a theological and Christological wisdom. Because it comes from God through Christ to us.
This is to say that, the wisdom of a person is not measured by temperament, intelligence or academic qualification; even though these are good things. But the wisdom of a person is based upon, and measured by the understanding that God has provided for them his own mystery – the mystery of Christ.
So it’s one thing to know you have wisdom. And it’s another thing entirely to grasp the nature of the wisdom you have. The believer’s wisdom comes from the mystery of Christ as God’s hidden person revealed.
Expressing that Jesus Christ is the wisdom of God may sound like the very same thing I said the last time. But for Paul the fact that Jesus is the mystery of God makes it more profound, than merely stating that he is the wisdom of God. Paul says in verse 11, that the mystery of God is God’s worked out plan in Jesus.
In him we were also chosen, having been predestined according to the plan of him who works out everything in conformity with the purpose of his will.
God’s mystery is God’s worked out plan in Christ. That is why what people do not realize is that their lives are supposed to be God’s revealed mystery of God’s worked out plan in Christ Jesus. And it is only this that God considers wisdom.
Paul demonstrates how wisdom in the context of marriage is the mystery of God. In chapter 3:15, Paul says “Live as wise, not as unwise”. Then he follows by saying this should be the case between a husband and his wife.
Then in verse 31, he says, “For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh.”
Then Paul makes this interesting point, saying that, This is a profound mystery—but I am talking about Christ and the church.
Meaning the wisdom of marriage reflects the mystery of God in Christ, in relation to the church. From a human perspective the interaction between people are viewed as wisdom, but from God’s perspective, it is His mystery displayed in human lives and interactions.
On the contrary, any other kind of wisdom in practice that does not point to Christ is not the mystery of God. James speaks about the wisdom that comes from above. In James 3:14-15 is says,
But if you harbor bitter envy and selfish ambition in your hearts, do not boast about it or deny the truth. Such “wisdom” does not come down from heaven but is earthly, unspiritual, demonic.
Christian wisdom is from above because it points to Christ as the mystery of God.
Look at verse 9 again, Paul tells the Ephesian church that the wisdom they have is the mystery of God “Made known”. He made known to us the mystery of his will according to his good pleasure, which he purposed in Christ.
By this Paul means that, knowing the mystery of God is to know, who they as a church will someday be in Jesus Christ. And also, who they are in Jesus today.
Paul says in 1:18-19
I pray that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened. WHY?
In order that you may know
The knowledge Paul is praying for is the knowledge he just said, God made known (v9). That is, God made known his mystery. And what is the mystery, says Paul?
The hope to which he has called you, the riches of his glorious inheritance in his holy people.
The mystery is who people are and what people have in Christ. That in Christ as God mystery, and the wisdom for all believers, they are God’s holy people for whom awaits an inheritance in accordance to their calling.
Paul also wants them to know that the mystery is who Christ is in them today. That there is a power in them which is the same might that was at work in Jesus while he was on earth and now still in heaven.
Verse 19 says, And his incomparably great power for us who believe. That power is the same as the mighty strength he exerted when he raised Christ from the dead and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly realms.
In other words, When Paul says in verse 9, that He made known to us the mystery of his will according to his good pleasure, which he purposed in Christ. He means that, God’s mystery is more than the mere fact that God worked through Jesus. Paul also wants them to know that, knowing Jesus as the mystery of God has real eternal consequences. Therefore, knowing Chris as God’s mystery is wisdom.
Knowing that in Jesus, there is a hope of a glorious inheritance and a powerful might that keeps you until that final day comes. And this is what makes the mystery of Christ wisdom in practice for the believer. God’s wisdom is more than sitting cross-legged in a temple while humming. God wisdom is God’s mystery revealed in Christ Jesus for the believer’s wisdom.
Study Questions:
- Before this study, how would you have explained the mystery of God to someone else, and why?
- How have learning that the wisdom of God in us, and the mystery of God is really the same thing (in Christ), but from different perspectives?
- Read Ephesians 3:1-10, and point out where you see God’s mystery explained as “The mystery of Christ” (3:4), bringing in people as “Partakers of the promise in Christ” (3:6), and the wisdom of the church (3:9-10).
- Paul explains in verse 18 and 19 what God’s mystery means, and therefore what it means to be wise. That it’s to have a hope and to understand one’s place in Christ as God’s holy people. And that one is kept by God’s power as His people. According to this criterion, would you describe yourself as a wise person?
- Do you know someone who you consider wise in Christ, and what can you learn from their devotion to God?
- How do you think you have come to know God more through this passage?