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In this message we shall continue to consider the revelation of the mystery of Christ, which is the church.
In the Gospel of Matthew Christ twice revealed the church to the first group of the apostles, revealing the church in its universal aspect (16:18) and also in its local aspect (18:15-20). However, when the Lord Jesus was on earth, He could not reveal the deeper and more profound aspect of the church to those earliest apostles. In John 16:12 and 13 He said to them, “I have yet many things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now. But when He, the Spirit of reality, comes, He will guide you into all the reality; for He will not speak from Himself, but whatever He hears He will speak; and He will disclose to you what is to come.” This indicates that the Lord had something further in His heart to tell the disciples; however, at that time they were not able to comprehend it. Therefore, He told them that they would have to wait until He sent the Spirit of reality to reveal to them the deeper aspects of the church. From this we see that the revelation of the mystery of Christ is first by Christ and then by the Holy Spirit.
In John 14:26 the Lord Jesus says, “The Comforter, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in My name, He will teach you all things, and remind you of all things which I said to you.” Here we see that the Father sends the Spirit in the Son’s name. According to John 5:43, the Son came in the Father’s name. For the Son to come in the name of the Father means that the Son comes as the Father. The principle is the same with the Father’s sending the Spirit in the Son’s name. According to 14:26, the Father sends the Spirit, but He sends the Spirit in the name of the Son. Therefore, the Spirit comes in the Son’s name because the Spirit and the Son are one (2 Cor. 3:17). Just as the Son does not come in His own name but comes in the name of the Father, so the Spirit does not come in His own name but comes in the name of the Son. This means that although the Spirit is here, He is not here in His own name but in the Son’s name. Furthermore, the Son is here in the Father’s name, not in His own name. Therefore, when the Spirit is here, the Son is here, and when the Son is here, the Father is here. This means that when the Spirit comes, all three of the Triune God — the Father, the Son, and the Spirit — come with the Spirit. This is the Triune God reaching us as the Spirit to reveal the church as the mystery of Christ.
According to 14:26, the Spirit will teach us all things, and according to 16:13, He will guide us into all the reality. The Spirit of reality guides the believers into all the reality of the Triune God and of all divine matters. The Spirit receives all that is of the Son in order to disclose it to the believers. Regarding this, the Lord Jesus says, “He shall glorify Me, for He shall receive of Mine and shall disclose it to you. All that the Father has is Mine; therefore I said that He receives of Mine and shall disclose it to you” (16:14-15). All that the Father is and has is embodied in the Son (Col. 2:9), and all that the Son is and has is revealed as reality to us through the Spirit. Therefore, the Spirit of reality reveals to the believers all that the Son is. This means that our understanding of the Son is by the Spirit, who has received whatever the Son is and then reveals this to us.
The Father, who is the source, the origin, has many riches. Whatever the Father has is the Son’s, and what the Son has is received by the Spirit. Since what the Spirit receives is disclosed or transmitted to us, we become the destination. The Father is embodied in the Son, the Son is transfigured to be the Spirit, and the Spirit is the reaching of the divine Trinity to us. Therefore, we are the destination of the Triune God. All that the Triune God is and has has been disclosed and transmitted to us. Because we are organically united to the Spirit, that is, organically united to the processed Triune God, whatever He is and has now is our portion as our reality. Therefore, as the Spirit receives all that the Son has and unveils it to us, the revelation of the mystery of Christ, the church, is completed.
Referring to the things which God has prepared for those who love Him, Paul says in 1 Corinthians 2:10, “God has revealed them to us through the Spirit; for the Spirit searches all things, even the depths of God.” The depths of God refer to the deep things of God, which are Christ in many aspects as our eternal portion, foreordained, prepared, and given to us freely by God. These have never arisen in man’s heart, but they are revealed to us in our spirit by God’s Spirit.
God reveals the deep and hidden things to us through the Spirit, for these things have not been seen by man’s eyes, heard by man’s ears, nor have they come up in man’s heart (1 Cor. 2:9). This means that man has no idea concerning them, no thought of them. They are altogether mysterious, hidden in God, and beyond human understanding. But God has revealed them to us through the Spirit.
To have something revealed to us is different from being taught about that thing. To teach is related to our mind; to reveal, to our spirit. To realize the deep and hidden things God has prepared for us, our spirit is more necessary than our mind.
First Corinthians 2:10 says that the Spirit searches all things, even the depths of God. The Greek word rendered “searches” includes active research and implies accurate knowledge not in discovering but in exploring. The Spirit of God explores the depths of God concerning Christ and shows them to us in our spirit for our realization and participation. The life-giving Spirit is moving and searching within us to impart the riches of Christ, including the revelation of the church as the mystery of Christ, into our being.
The revelation of the mystery of Christ by the Holy Spirit is found in the Epistles, especially in the Epistles of Paul. In Ephesians 3:3b and 4 he says, “I have written previously in brief, by which, in reading it, you can perceive my understanding in the mystery of Christ.”
The expression “the mystery of Christ” is very profound. Paul considered the church the mystery of Christ. The church truly is a mystery.
Whereas unbelievers may think of the church as a physical building, the Brethren teachers a century and a half ago pointed out that the church is not a material building but the assembly. The Greek word for church, ekklesia, denotes a called-out assembly. This indicates that the church is a congregation, an assembly of those people who have been called out of the world by God. Hence, the church is a called-out congregation. However, if the church were merely a group of genuine believers called out of the world by God, the church would not be a mystery. We need to understand why Paul regards the church as a mystery.
What is the crucial matter which makes the church a mystery? This crucial matter is Christ. Christ Himself is a mystery. In Colossians 1:25-27 Paul indicates clearly that Christ is a mystery. “I became a minister according to the stewardship of God, which was given to me for you, to complete the word of God, the mystery which has been hidden from the ages and from the generations, but now has been manifested to His saints; to whom God willed to make known what are the riches of the glory of this mystery among the nations, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory.” Through the divine word and by the Holy Spirit this mysterious Christ, who is the unique mystery, has been imparted into us. The mysterious Christ, who is the mystery of God, has been ministered into our being, and now we have Him within us. This is the reason Paul says, “Christ in you, the hope of glory.”
Christ as the mystery within us makes us all parts of a totality which is the mystery of Christ. This totality, the mystery of Christ, is the church. This is the sense in which the church is a mystery.
Christ as the indwelling mystery is our righteousness, holiness, victory, life, living, and testimony. Anyone who has this mystery within him should be recognized as a brother. This mystery within us responds to the mystery within other believers. Furthermore, this mystery governs us, rules us, controls us, for this mystery is a great Ruler, the King of kings and the Lord of lords. This mystery also causes us to love one another. We love one another not because we have been taught to love but because we have a loving factor — Christ as the mystery — within us. If we do not love one another, we do not have peace and joy. But if we love one another, we are filled with peace and joy.
Christ could not speak to the first group of apostles concerning this aspect of the church because by that time the Spirit of reality had not yet entered into them. But after His resurrection He became the life-giving Spirit, and He breathed Himself as such a Spirit into the apostles (John 20:22). From that time the apostles had within them the Spirit of reality to reveal the deeper and more profound aspects of Christ and the church. In particular, these aspects were revealed to Paul. He could write his Epistles because he had the Spirit of reality within him revealing to him Christ as the mystery of God and the church as the mystery of Christ.
Through resurrection Christ became a wonderful Spirit, and as this Spirit He is now within us. This Spirit is a mystery. As believers, we all have something mysterious within us, and this mystery is Christ. The Christ who is the life-giving Spirit dwelling within us, therefore, is the essence, element, substance, and factor which make the church mysterious and cause every member of the church to be a mystery. For this reason, in the eyes of our unbelieving relatives and friends we are a mystery, and they cannot understand us. We are the mysterious members of the mysterious Body of Christ, the church.
The revelation of the mystery of Christ, the church, was given to the apostles and prophets. In Ephesians 3:3a Paul says, “By revelation the mystery was made known to me,” and in verse 5 he says that this mystery “in other generations was not made known to the sons of men, as it has now been revealed to His holy apostles and prophets.” Among the apostles who received the revelation of the deeper aspect of the church as the mystery of Christ, Paul was the leading one. The deeper and more profound aspect of the church, the church as the mystery of Christ, was fully revealed to Paul. To carry out this revelation was Paul’s ministry for the producing of the church.
In Ephesians 3:5b Paul says that this mystery has been revealed to the apostles and prophets “in spirit.” We would emphasize the fact once again that the spirit here refers to the mingled spirit, to the regenerated human spirit of the apostles and prophets indwelt by and mingled with the Holy Spirit of God. Such a mingled spirit is the means by which the Holy Spirit revealed the church as the mystery of Christ to the apostles and prophets. In order to receive this revelation today, we also need such a spirit. The mingled spirit is the organ in which the deep and profound matter of the church as the mystery of Christ is revealed.
In order to see the church as the hidden mystery in God’s eternal economy, we should not only exercise our eyes to read the Word and our mind to understand but also our spirit to apprehend. We need to open our being, be poor in spirit, and pray that the Lord would reveal to our spirit what is on His heart concerning the church. Then we shall be enlightened, and we shall see the church as the mystery of Christ.
The revelation of the mystery of Christ, the church, by the Holy Spirit concerns God’s wisdom in mystery. In 1 Corinthians 2:6 and 7 Paul says, “We speak wisdom among those who are full-grown, yet a wisdom not of this age, neither of the rulers of this age, who are being brought to naught; but we speak God’s wisdom in a mystery, the wisdom which has been hidden, which God predestined before the ages for our glory.” God’s wisdom is Christ (1 Cor. 1:24), who is the hidden mystery predestined, pre-designated, and foreordained before the ages, in eternity, for our glory. According to verse 7, God’s wisdom is in a mystery; it is a mysterious wisdom. God’s wisdom is the wisdom which has been hidden and which God predestinated before the ages for our glory. God’s wisdom is our destiny, and this destiny was determined by God, decided by Him, beforehand. In eternity God determined our destiny. He predestined His wisdom to be for our glory. This means that in eternity He decided that His wisdom would be our destiny and glory.
As God’s center and as our portion for our enjoyment, Christ is God’s wisdom in a mystery, a wisdom that is deep and profound, beyond human understanding. Within God there is something which Paul describes as wisdom in a mystery. This wisdom has been hidden and predestined before the ages for our glory. As believers we have a destiny, and this destiny is the ultimate and consummate portion of our enjoyment. God’s wisdom in a mystery has not only been hidden but also predestined by God to become our destiny for our glory.
The revelation of the church as the mystery of Christ by the Holy Spirit is the foundation upon which the church is built. Paul refers to this in Ephesians 2:20, where he says that the church is “being built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets.” We may have difficulty understanding what the foundation is in this verse. First Corinthians 3:11 says, “Other foundation no one is able to lay besides that which is being laid, which is Jesus Christ.” Christ is the only foundation. Nevertheless, Ephesians 2:20 speaks of the foundation of the apostles and prophets. This does not mean, however, that the apostles and prophets themselves are the foundation. Since the mystery of Christ has been revealed to the apostles, the revelation they received is considered the foundation upon which the church is built. This corresponds to the rock in Matthew 16:18, which is not only Christ Himself but also the revelation concerning Christ upon which Christ will build His church. Therefore, the foundation of the apostles and prophets is the revelation they received regarding Christ and the church for the building of the church. The church is built upon this revelation. This is the meaning of the foundation in Ephesians 2:20.
Upon what are we in the Lord’s recovery building the church? To say that we are building upon Christ is too vague and indefinite. We need to build the church upon the revelation received by the apostles and prophets. The so-called churches established according to nationalities, doctrines, and practices are not built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets. In contrast to all these so-called churches, we in the Lord’s recovery must be able to affirm strongly that the churches in the recovery are built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets. This means that the churches in the Lord’s recovery are built according to the revelation received by the apostles and prophets.
