What Is the Gospel?

Carson explores the essence of the gospel, emphasizing it as news about what God has done in Christ, especially through his death and resurrection. He challenges misconceptions about the gospel, underscoring that it’s not merely about moral obligations or social activism, but fundamentally about God’s actions in Jesus. The sermon delves into how the gospel addresses human sinfulness and provides transformative spiritual blessings through Christ.

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It’s a huge honor for me to join you in this chapel today. In a few minutes I’m going to direct your attention to Ephesians 1, so if you have a Bible or want to pull one out from the seat in front of you, I would like to read a few verses from Ephesians 1 to begin with. We will not actually focus on those texts until a few minutes from now. Ephesians 1, I’m going to read from verse 3 to verse 14. This is what Scripture says:

“Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in the heavenly realms with every spiritual blessing in Christ. For he chose us in him before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless in his sight. In love he predestined us for adoption to sonship through Jesus Christ, in accordance with his pleasure and will—to the praise of his glorious grace, which he has freely given us in the One he loves.

In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins, in accordance with the riches of God’s grace 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, to be put into effect when the times reach their fulfillment—to bring unity to all things in heaven and on earth under Christ.

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, in order that we, who were the first to put our hope in Christ, might be for the praise of his glory. And you also were included in Christ when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation. When you believed, you were marked in him with a seal, the promised Holy Spirit, who is a deposit guaranteeing our inheritance until the redemption of those who are God’s possession—to the praise of his glory.”

This is the Word of the Lord.

Problems and solutions must fit together. If you say, “I’ve got this calculus problem,” you really don’t want a friend to reply, “Great, let’s read a Shakespearean sonnet.” Or if someone says, “My car won’t start,” “Fine, let’s practice our guitars.” “My cakes always fall when I take them out of the oven,” “Oh, no problem, let me show you how to adjust this engine.” It’s ridiculous. In other words, problems and solutions must fit together.

So when you start asking what the gospel is, you must also ask what the problem is that it’s addressing. That’s why we began last week with Dr. Neal Plantinga speaking on what is sin. You’ll recall that Plantinga covered in different degrees of detail various aspects of sin. Sin as guilt. That is, before God, we stand rightly condemned.

Sin as acting in defiance of shalom as he understood it. That is, the entire well-being that we ought to have before him in this world and the world to come. Peace in that sense. Well-being without which we are completely undone. Well-being before God. Well-being with one another. Well-being in the creative order in which God has placed us.

Sin as succumbing to the Devil himself who sometimes goes about as a roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour, sometimes attacking Christians with vicious persecution. Sometimes functioning as an angel of light, deceiving, if it were possible, the very elect. In other words, sometimes he’s vicious and sometimes he’s subtle. But it’s still the Devil and he can do huge damage amongst us.

And then the fact that sin enchains us. It establishes our own mental tracks, our own priorities, our own habits, our own addictions, so that we ourselves are completely ensnared by our own wills and our own natures. Sin as eschatology. That is, sin as that which condemns us and trips us now and ultimately consigns us to God’s own judgment. A hell that we choose for ourselves, locking the door from the inside, yet at the same time which is nothing less than God’s own pronouncement upon our evil rebellion and anarchy. So whatever the gospel is, it must address all of that, or it isn’t much.

So let me tell you where we’re going, First I’m going to say what the gospel is and is not rather briefly, then what the gospel addresses, how it does so, rather briefly, and then I’m going to provide one passage, this one in Ephesians, to survey quickly what the gospel provides us with.

First, what the gospel is. It’s important first of all to say that the gospel is news. What you do with news is announce it. The gospel is not first and foremost what we ought to do, for example, the obligations upon our lives according to God’s holy Word. There are lots of obligations on our lives according to Scripture, but all the obligations are not gospel.

Jesus says, for example that the most important commandment is to love God with heart and soul and mind and strength and the second is to love your neighbor as yourself. Those two commands are blisteringly important. One must rightly ask where they fit into the whole biblical array of things, but neither one is the gospel. The Bible never suggests that they are. It’s the wrong category in any case.

What the gospel is, is news. It’s news about what God has done in particular in Christ Jesus. That’s what the gospel is. It’s what God has done in particular in Christ Jesus, especially in his death and resurrection. What you do with news is announce it. There’s a saying that goes around every once in a while and it shows up on the Internet. It’s alleged to have come from Francis of Assisi but there’s no record that he actually ever said it.

“Preach the gospel. If necessary, use words.” It sounds really cute. It’s designed to get us active and obedient and not merely word people who have no outworking of the gospel in our lives. The motive in saying this alleged thing from Francis of Assisi is good. But it makes about as much sense as saying to a news anchor at the 10:00 news, “This evening, give us the news. If necessary, use words.” What you do with news is announce it.

Thus there is a huge emphasis in Scripture on preaching, teaching, heralding, and bearing witness to the gospel. Because above all, it’s what God has done. It’s not about our believing. If we say, “Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and you will be saved,” is that the gospel? Well, the centrality of Jesus and what you must do to respond to him is bound up with the gospel, but the gospel itself is not belief. It’s Jesus and what he has done.

There’s a very recent book just drawn to my attention written by the current director of World Vision. It’s called The Hole in Our Gospel, and the subtitle is, What Does God Expect of Us? We’re told in there that the hole in our gospel is that we don’t care enough for the poor. The number of children who die every day, AIDS victims, the broken, and the diseased. The hole in our gospel is that we really need to spend more time, money, attention, and priority to working with the dispossessed. And you know, we ought to, but it’s not the gospel.

One of my friends across the road, when he was given a summary of the book, said, “I suspect the real hole in the gospel is not lack concern for the physical needs of the poor but lack of courage to call people to repent of their sins and to turn to Jesus.” More money is given by Christians to World Vision than to all the other mission organizations put together.

The hole in the gospel for World Vision is Jesus. My hunch is that non-Christians like Bill Gates and the Red Cross have deep compassion for the poor because of common grace. That is, God gives grace commonly to all kinds of people. It’s good when Muslims, Christians, and atheists work to solve the problem of poverty. So compassion for the poor comes from God, but it is not distinctively Christian and it is not the same as a biblical definition of the gospel.

I suspect that the real hole in the gospel is the gospel. It’s the good news of what God has done in Christ Jesus, especially in his cross and resurrection. Now from that, I immediately want to say, follows such transformation of life that we ought to do these sorts of things. I’ll come back to that in a moment. It’s important to see what it is that we’re announcing. We’re not announcing a guilt trip. “Please give more money to World Vision.” We’re announcing when we preach the gospel what God has done in Christ Jesus, and it is spectacular. It is glorious. We need to know what it is.

Then, of course, we need to know how that works out in our lives. Not too long ago, some friends started working on an inner city project because they wanted to pursue a holistic gospel. I applauded them; I thought it was terrific. Then about a year and a half later, I asked how it was going and they told me what they were doing about this, that, and the other thing. I said to them, “Have you got any Bible studies started? Have you actually explained what Jesus did on the cross to anybody? Have you actually pressed anyone on the basis of the gospel to repentant belief?” “No, no, we haven’t gotten there yet.”

I tell you the truth; they don’t have a holistic gospel. They have a “halfistic” gospel. Maybe a “quarteristic” gospel. It’s not even close. In fact, they’re mixing their categories. They’re doing good things but it still isn’t the gospel. The gospel is news and what you do with news is preach it. You announce it. You herald it. You teach it. It’s the good news of what God has done.

Second, this gospel, then, addresses all the problems that Neil Plantinga laid out, all of the different facets of sin. Let me run through them really quickly.

Guilt. This gospel announces that Christ came and bore our sins in his own body on the tree. Romans 3 puts it this way: “God does this. He presents Jesus as sacrifice who himself absorbs the judgment that we should receive so that God might remain just while declaring us just.” The presupposition is that if God were to say simply, “Oh, Hitler’s a pretty nasty dude, but it’s all right; I’ll forgive him anyway,” “Don Carson, he’s a right sinner, but it doesn’t matter; I forgive him in any case,” then where would God’s justice be?

But instead, God comes to us in the person of his own dear Son who bears our sin in his own body on the tree. Cancelling the debt, turning aside God’s own righteous wrath, and all of this out of God’s love for us. So the gospel meets our guilt. Then the gospel also comes to answer the various ways in which we’ve smashed shalom. We’re reconciled to God. The guilt is removed and God receives us back to himself. Not only so, but we ourselves are reconciled to each other.

The way the Bible pictures sin in the beginning is something like this: In the beginning, there is God and there are human beings. Each human being is rightly related to God and therefore rightly related to other human beings. When you wake up in the morning, you think, “Isn’t God wonderful?” You bask in his love and reflect on him and want the day to bring glory to him.

Your fellow human being is in the same way of looking at things. Then at the heart of rebellion, Genesis 3, and anarchy, the human beings each start to say, “I am at the center of the universe. I will be God. No one is going to tell me what to do. If there is a god, let him or her or it serve me, or else quite frankly, I’ll find other gods, thank you.” There is the beginning of idolatry and fences and jealousy and hatred and rape and war and lust and pride and arrogance and on and on, all because we begin by saying, “I will be God,” and shalom is smashed.

When guilty sinners like you and me are reconciled to this God, inevitably we become reconciled to each other. That’s why there’s so much emphasis in the New Testament on love in the church. “For brothers and sisters in Christ, by this shall all know you are my disciples: if you love one another.” Then we become concerned likewise to do justice in the broader world.

We are concerned about God’s created order not simply because it is part of this fallen order but because such concern anticipates resurrection existence in the new heaven, in the new earth, the home of righteousness, where there will be such a massive restoration that there will be no death or decay or sin or destruction or hatred or greed or exploitation. No idolatry, no sin, ever again.

Then of course, the gospel, because Christ has died and risen, declared us just and returned to the Father, he pours out in consequence of his own triumph the Holy Spirit who radically transforms us. That’s what the new birth is all about. If we were just forgiven our sin but had no power to overcome our sin, well, it would be nice to get the guilt off our shoulders, but it wouldn’t be transforming.

This news about what God has done in Christ not only looks after the guilt but provides the gift of the Holy Spirit as the down payment of the promised inheritance. This blessed Holy Spirit transforms us and changes us and enables us to stand up to the Devil and his wiles. He enables us to see deceit and to be strengthened in our wills, minds, and hearts to love what we didn’t used to love.

At the time of the Reformation, there was a huge emphasis on the importance of justification. That was right. It was part of the dispute of the age. But at the time of the evangelical awakening, the period of Wesley and Whitefield, in the eighteenth century, there was a huge emphasis on being born again.

It is said that George Whitefield, the famous British evangelist who crossed the Atlantic 13 times by sail, finally died on this side, and saw thousands and thousands converted. It is said of him that he preached in one village and moved on to one village and then another and then another, often preaching five times a day. It is said that in the course of his ministry, he preached on John 3, “you must be born again,” 3,000 times.

Eventually, he preached on it so often that some wags began to say, “Brother Whitefield, why do you preach again and again that you must be born again? Always the same thing. “You must be born again, you must be born again, you must be born again …” He said, “Because you must be born again. For it is not enough, you see, simply to have your sins pardoned. You must be renewed and transformed. You must be born again!” That too is provided in the good news of what Christ has achieved on our behalf.

Then on top of all of that, this victory is not just for this life. This gospel not only transforms us in measure now, but the Holy Spirit is seen as the one who is a kind of down payment of everything that’s coming. All that’s coming includes coming back from the grave, resurrection, existence, transformation, a body like Christ’s resurrection body, and a new heaven and a new earth on the last day.

That’s why you and I can never ever begin rightly to assess the significance of what the gospel is if we only look at what it’s giving me now. What it’s giving me now is pretty spectacular. Forgiveness of sins, reconciliation with God, with our brothers and sisters in Christ, the church, the gift of the Holy Spirit, it is pretty spectacular. But throw in 50 billion years or so just to beef up the equation a wee bit.

Did you see? A new heaven and a new earth, a hope of righteousness, transformed existence, with Jesus himself saying, “Well done, good and faithful slave. You’ve been faithful over a few things; I will make you ruler over many things. Come and share your master’s happiness.” That’s all the product of the gospel. This is what the gospel is and is not and what the gospel addresses.

Now let me come to our text. What does the gospel actually provide us with? I’m sure you noticed on the way toward the end that we were introduced to the Word of Truth, verse 13, the gospel of our salvation. That’s what this paragraph is about. What in particular does this gospel provide us with? I’m going to mention four things.

It begins first with a kind of general sweep and then it itemizes the four things in the following verses. The sweep is found in verse 3, “Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ who has blessed us in the heavenly realms with every spiritual blessing in Christ.” Then the spiritual blessings that flow from the gospel are laid out in the following verses. But there are a couple of details about this opening thing that we should probably think about.

“Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in Christ.” That is, all the spiritual blessings that I have already itemized. They come to us exclusively from Christ. Sins forgiven: Christ. The gift of the Holy Spirit: Christ. Reconciliation with one another: Christ. Love amongst brothers and sisters: Christ. The promise of life to come, resurrection, existence: Christ. Strength to overcome the Devil: Christ. It all comes to us from Christ, who is, at the center of the gospel, what God has done in Christ Jesus. He’s blessed us with every spiritual blessing in Christ.

But there’s another little expression in here that we also ought to pause at. “Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ who has blessed us in the heavenly realms with every spiritual blessing in Christ.” What does that mean? This expression, being blessed in the heavenly realms or something like that, shows up only five times in the entire Bible, and all of them in Ephesians. It’s a remarkable expression.

Now, because I’m paid to say things like this, you know, I teach theology, let me tell you what it means in theological terms and then unpack it. To be blessed with Christ or to be seated with Christ in the heavenly realms, expressions that keep showing up in this book, is the spatial equivalent of inaugurated eschatology. I’m paid to say that. It’s the spatial equivalent of inaugurated eschatology. Let me explain, because it’s wonderful once you realize what’s going on.

Eschatology simply has to do with the end. Ultimately, at the end, there is a massive transformation, the new heaven and the new earth. Christians who’ve read their Bibles at all know that in some ways, the age to come is already dawned; it’s already inaugurated. We call that inaugurated or realized eschatology; that is, in some ways, the kingdom has already come. Christ is already reigning. He says, “All authority is given to me in heaven and in earth.”

Now, of course, that reign at the moment is contested, but one day it will not be contested. That’s futurist eschatology, but right now, the eschatology is already here. The end has already come. The pronouncement of God that I am just that I should receive at the end is already pronounced upon me now because Jesus has already paid for my sins. This is inaugurated eschatology.

So Christians are used to saying things like, “We live between the already and the not yet.” We live between the fact that Christ has already died, and we already have forgiveness of sins and eternal life, and the not yet. We do not yet have resurrection existence. We do not have the new heaven or new earth. We live between the already and the not yet. This expression is a kind of spatial equivalent of that.

Take a look at the five instances where this expression is found. First of all, this one in verse 3, and a little farther down in verse 20. Verse 19: “That power is the same as his mighty strength that he exerted when he raised Christ from the dead and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly realms.” So in the heavenly realms now is the place where God lives and where Christ is seated with his heavenly Father.

Chapter 2, verse 6. “And God raised us up with Christ and seated us with him in the heavenly realms in Christ Jesus.” Now what does that mean? I mean, I can make sense of Christ being seated at the right hand of God in the heavenly realms, but what about God seating us with Christ in the heavenly realms already?

Then pressing on to chapter 3, verse 10. “God’s intent was that now, through the church, the manifold wisdom of God shall be made known to the rulers and authorities in the heavenly realms.” That is, the announcement of God’s triumph in Christ Jesus is not only preached and announced down here but even in the cosmic sphere with angels bearing witness to what God has done on this little planet for his image bearers.

In the heavenly realms there is witness going on, and in chapter 6, verse 12, we see the last occurrence. This in the context of the armor we’re supposed to put on. “For our struggle is not against flesh and blood but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms.” That is, Satan and the fallen hosts still exist and still oppose us.

And so, our conflict is not merely interpersonal here. It’s not merely social or political or economic. There is a huge conflict going on, a cosmic-wide, sweeping fight between good and evil, between God himself and the Devil himself without God ever relinquishing his absolute and utter authority and sovereignty. God’s intent is that we should engage in this battle by putting on the full armor of God that we might withstand against even the evil powers in the heavenly realms.

Now how do we put all that together? What does that mean for us? What I said is that inaugurated eschatology shows that in some ways, we’re already under God’s reign, even though we’re not under his reign uncontested. In some ways, we’re already, as it were, transported to God’s side in Christ Jesus in the heavenly realms.

When God looks at me, he doesn’t look at me as it were just Don Carson down in Chicago. He looks at me as it were through his son Christ. I’m secure in him. I’m as safe in him now as I ever will be 50 billion years from now. I’m identified with him. I’m secure in him.

If Christ is at the father’s right hand in glory, then in some sense, Don Carson is too. I’m not there yet in the sense that I will be when there’s a new heaven and new earth and home of righteousness, but I’m so identified with him that if Christ is there, then I’m there too. I’m so identified with him, I’m secure. I’m at the Father’s right hand, too. Don’t you see? I’m engaged with this larger cosmic struggle.

That’s why you get a similar picture in Hebrews, chapter 12, of the church already being gathered, not at Mount Sinai but already being gathered at the New Jerusalem, this assembly of the first born before the throne of God. Do you see? We’re already there. We’re as there in principle, there in God’s mind, there in terms of what’s already been achieved, as we will ever be.

If, instead, we’re still here, well, we will be there. It’s already started. It’s inaugurated. It’s a kind of spatial equivalent, do you see? Something to delight in, to rejoice over. Now in particular, what does this gospel bring us, then?

1. We have been chosen and adopted.

Verse 4 to 6. “For God chose us in him before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless in his sight. In love he predestined us for adoption to sonship in Jesus Christ in accordance with his pleasure and will to the praise of his glorious grace.”

Now I know we can get all hung up on predestination and election and things like that. Don’t be too frightened of the words. After all, they’re in the Bible. We should use them and try to use them in the same way the Bible writers do. At its base, the notion is not really all that difficult. Think of Abraham. There he is in Ur of the Chaldees, and he does not get up one day and say:

“God, seems to me that this world is going to hell in a tea basket. One judgment after another. I mean, first it was the flood, now Babel, and still there is sin and decay and corruption everywhere. I’ve got a suggestion. I suggest you start a whole new humanity. You could begin it with me. I’ll be the granddaddy of the whole lot. You tell me what to do and I’ll do it. We’ll make a little covenant along those lines. Eventually my children, they’ll be as numerous as the sands of the sea. We’ll make a whole new humanity and show what ought to be.”

Is that what happens? No. God chooses Abraham. Well, how about Moses? Does Moses come along and say, “I’ll fix this”? Well, actually, he does. He tries to do that as a young man. He manages to commit murder and then run for his life. It’s only when he’s 80 years old and on the backside of a desert and really feeling his life has passed him by that God chooses Moses. In exactly the same way, in the most ultimate sense, God chooses us.

He chooses us, we’re told, for adoption. The adoption of sonship. Now that needs to be explained, because when we think of adoption in the western world, we think of adoption in terms of little babies, newly born, occasionally a 2- or 3-year-old who’s taken in as a foster child or the like and then, after a little while, the foster parents decide they’ll adopt the child and so on. It happens, but it’s rather rare today to have, let’s say, a 20-year-old adopted.

But in the ancient world, adoption of adults was not uncommon. If you had, for example, a family with some significant resources and they had no children of their own or they had only black sheep as their children who couldn’t be trusted with anything, then it was quite possible for the family legally to adopt someone whom they would like to make a son.

That son would then take on the family name and have the family rights and be the family heir and so on. It was bound up with the obligation then to be stamped by that family. To be owned by that family, as it were. To belong to that family. To have the rights and privileges of that family. You may remember that’s what Abraham wanted to do with Eleazar at one point too.

So God, we’re told, has chosen us to be holy and blameless, predestining us for adoption to sonship through Jesus Christ. Sons of the living God. His children. To act like him. To behave like him. To be identified with his family. To inherit what he wants us to inherit. That’s the first.

2. We have been redeemed and forgiven.

Verses 7 and 8. In him, we have redemption; through his blood, the forgiveness of sins in accordance with the richness of God’s grace that he lavished on us. Now redemption today is a “God talk” word, isn’t it? I mean, nobody in the streets of Chicago who’s not a Christian has ever used the word redemption. But when I was a boy, people still used redemption sometimes in the secular world sometimes. It’s passed now.

It was used in economic terms. You redeemed your mortgage. That meant you paid it off. Or if you sold your grandfather’s watch in a pawn shop to get some extra money and then you went back some weeks later to get the watch back, you had to pay the price (plus a small percentage) and you redeemed the watch.

So that notion of redemption was still around, but it’s just about gone now. Virtually nobody in the Western world speaks of redeeming a mortgage anymore. But in the ancient world, redemption language was pretty common. It was often bound up with slavery. In the ancient world, you could become a slave because of a raiding party. You could become a slave because one side was beaten in a military tousle.

But you could become a slave in the ancient world because there were no Chapter 11 or Chapter 13 bankruptcy protection laws. So if you borrowed some money from some rich person, start a business, and then the economy tanks and you go bankrupt, you can’t take out Chapter 11 and thus be protected while you try to pay off your debtors. The only thing you can do, the thing you had to do, legally, was to sell yourself and perhaps your family and slaves, then, to the one who held your note.

That’s why in the ancient world, there could be slaves from any race. Yet American slavery was bound up with one race. But in the ancient world, you could be a Brit who was free or a Brit who was a slave. You could be an Italian who was free or an Italian who was a slave. You could be an African who was free or an African who was a slave, and so on. Because it wasn’t tied to just one race. Anyone could go bankrupt.

But suppose then you become a slave because of bankruptcy loss. But you have a rich cousin 20 miles down the road. In those days, 20 miles is a full day’s trip. So it’s a while, because he doesn’t have a cell phone (poor chap) before he hears that you’ve gotten into trouble. Some weeks later, he hears that you’re in trouble, and because this cousin is not only rich but he cares for you, he comes back and buys you out.

Now there was a whole mechanism for doing this kind of thing in the Pagan temples, but what he would do is redeem you. He would set you free. He would pay the price to set you free. Do you see? He would redeem you. You’d be redeemed as a slave. So in the New Testament, often we’re told that God redeems us in Christ Jesus. What he frees us from is slavery to sin.

Do you recall how last week, Neal Plantinga told about how sin enslaves us? The bad habits and the addictions, they keep crippling us and crippling us and crippling us until we’re utterly destroyed and undone and see no way of breaking free. But listen, the old hymn had it right. He breaks the power of cancelled sin and sets the captive free.

You see, the sin is cancelled. That’s justification. The sin is paid for. But where is the power to break the power of sin? He breaks the power of cancelled sin and sets the captive free. He redeems us from all of the curse and the enslaving power of sin. Part of that is forgiving us completely. All of this through his blood. You see again it’s what God has done in Christ Jesus, especially in the cross. In him we have redemption through his blood, set free from our slavery.

There are a lot of contemporary courses that talk about how we’re free. Well, yes. John’s gospel reminds us, “If the Son shall set you free, you shall be free indeed.” But the context shows that it is freedom from sin. It’s freedom from enslavement to ourselves and to the Devil. That’s the freedom we have. There is another sense in which we become joyful slaves to Jesus Christ.

We’ve been freed from this wretched monster called sin, this thing that almost has an independent life of its own with its guilt and enslaving powers, and we have now, because of Christ’s death, through his blood, the forgiveness of sins in accordance with the riches of God’s grace that he lavished on us. That cousin 20 miles away didn’t have to come. He didn’t have to pay his money. God doesn’t have to come. He doesn’t have to pay his son. But it’s in accordance with the lavished gift of God’s grace in Christ Jesus demonstrated in the shedding of his blood.

3. We have been shown God’s high mystery.

Now some translations read this last bit that I quoted this way: “The forgiveness of sins in accordance with God’s grace that he lavished on us with wisdom and understanding …,” or some read with the next words (it doesn’t really make much difference), “… 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 to be put into effect when the times reached their fulfillment.”

What does that mean? God was determined to make known to us his mystery. What does that mean? Well, mystery, a word that’s used 27 or 28 times in the New Testament, does not mean a whodunit. It doesn’t even mean something that is mysterious. We speak in theology about the mystery of God because there are so many things about him we don’t know. They’re beyond us. It’s right that we should so speak. But that’s not the way the Bible uses the word mystery (mustÈrion).

The way the Bible predominantly uses the word mystery is this: some things have been hidden in times past. Now in the coming of Christ, they’re revealed. They were hidden and now they’re revealed. So what was hidden in time past? Have you ever reflected on the fact that even the apostles themselves didn’t expect Jesus to die even though he told them again and again that he would die? They were crushed. They didn’t expect him to rise from the dead either.

Did you know the biggest proof of that? After Jesus is dead and buried, by which time you’d think that they’d twig and remember what he said. They’re in an upstairs room afraid the authorities are going to knock on the door and arrest them, too. They’re not saying, “Yes, I can hardly wait until Sunday,” because they’re not anticipating Sunday’s resurrection. It’s still hidden from them. They don’t see it.

They anticipated a messianic king. They anticipated someone who would introduce the kingdom. They anticipated someone who would come with righteousness and “turve” out the Romans and restore holiness, but someone who would come and die the death of a damned criminal, crying in agony? Someone who would rise from the dead? They didn’t expect it.

After it’s all happened and they’ve been instructed further by the resurrected Jesus, then they can begin to see those Old Testament passages that really did point in that direction. It was hidden, but now it’s revealed. All those passages about the Passover Lamb, for example. The Passover that is celebrated year after year. They’re always looking backward. They don’t realize that the repetition of the Passover looks forward so that the apostle Paul can say, “Christ, our Passover, has been sacrificed for us.”

All those repetitive sacrifices that looked back to the past also looked forward to Christ, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world so that God’s wrath passes over his own people. All of those sacrifices from the Old Testament, so many things from the Old Testament … They didn’t see the patterns. They didn’t grasp them. They were hidden. But, God says, now they’ve been revealed to us.

You know, God could have saved you and he could have saved me without explaining anything. Well, without explaining very much. Given us a whole lot of truth and told us to repent and believe, and then empowered us by his Spirit to repent and believe. He doesn’t have to give us a whole Bible, which is a pretty big book covering long periods of time, written in different languages. But that’s what he’s done, and this side of the cross, what it does is give us insight into the very mind of God. He has shown us what his purposes were.

So then, not only does he save us but he enables us to see what’s going on in the mind of God and bow in worship. Do you hear what’s being said? 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.

This mystery of his will, to be put into effect when the times reached their fulfillment to bring unity to all things in heaven and on earth under Christ. Ultimately, there will be a final consummation at the end, transforming everybody and everything. Already we understand it because of God’s grace toward us.

4. We have been claimed as God’s portion.

In him, we also were chosen. The word for chosen there is not the regular word; it means something like, we were appointed by lot. We were appointed by lot to be God’s people. The Old Testament is rich on this theme. For example we are told in the song of Moses, the Lord’s portion is his people, Jacob, his allotted inheritance.

So in verse 11, we’re told we are God’s people. We have been chosen by lot to be God’s own people and the purpose of his will. First of all, there were Jews, verse 12, and then Gentiles, verse 13, and all of us, then, have been stamped as God’s people by a seal, the promised Holy Spirit who was given to us to transform us.

Listen. We are God’s portion. He owns us and then stamps us as his with the blessed Holy Spirit.

What astonishing mercy and power:

In accord with his pleasure and will

He created each planet, each flower,

Every galaxy, microbe, and hill.

He suspended this planet in space

To the praise of his glory and grace.

With despicable self-love and rage,

We rebelled and fell under the curse.

Yet God did not rip out the page

And destroy all who love the perverse.

No, he chose us to make a new race

To the praise of his glorious grace.

Providentially ruling all things

To conform to the end he designed.

He mysteriously governs and brings

His eternalized plans into time.

He works out every step, every trace

To the praise of his glorious grace.

Long before the creation began,

He foreknew those he’d ransom in Christ;

Long before time’s cold hourglass ran,

He ordained supreme sacrifice.

In the cross, he removed our disgrace

To the praise of his glorious grace.

We were blessed in the heavenly realms

Long before being included in Christ.

Since we heard the good news, overwhelmed,

We reach forward to seize Paradise.

We shall see him ourselves, face to face,

To the praise of his glorious grace.

Let us pray.

And now may the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ and the love of God and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with us all evermore, amen.