“The Mysteries of Life Can Be Solved” (Part 2)

We are looking this week at some of the mysteries of life revealed in the New Testament.  They are huge, and should affect how we live and think and hope. Today we see…

Mystery #3 – How Do Jews and Gentiles Get Together?

Another mystery made clear in the New Testament relates to this unifying factor.  Paul actually said he was an “administrator” of this mystery and of the news that relates to Jesus Christ and how He ties together Old and New.  Notice:

“This mystery is that through the gospel the Gentiles are heirs together with Israel, members together of one body, and sharers together in the promise in Christ Jesus” (Eph. 3:6)

Some people think that the Bible is divided into two books – the Old Testament and the New Testament.  They even have the caricature that people were saved or forgiven in the Old Testament by works and by faith in the New. Not true, of course.

Instead, salvation has always been by grace through faith, based on either the promise of a Redeemer or the accomplishment of the Redeemer. “Lay your hand on the head of the lamb,” many fathers would say in the Old Testament.  And no one quite understood how this blood offering would be a substitute for them, but they believed.  Millions of lambs later, John the Baptist proclaims, “Behold the Lamb of the God, who takes away the sins of the world” (John 1:29).  And so Jesus arrives and accomplishes salvation as the Lamb of the Father.

The mystery is solved.  And now we know it clearly – that Jews and Gentiles together make up the body of Christ today, and that Christ ties together the prophesies of the old with the fulfillment of the new, and that we all participate in the promises made to Abraham.

In another place Paul even says that we who believe in Jesus Christ are spiritual Jews, of the seed of Abraham (Gal. 3:9, 14, 29). No longer should we wonder how the Old and New get mixed together.  It is because of the church, the body of Christ.

So church is not just something we do on Sundays, but rather the connection with Jesus Christ that includes people from all over the universe who are one with Abraham and David and Rahab and the rest of the Jews in the Old Testament who believed.

The mystery is solved.  It is revealed.  The church is God’s wonderful way of showing us how to come together in Christ.

Mystery #4 – What Happens to our Bodies after Death?

We have to think they wondered about life after death in the Old Testament.  There are hints of something more, but not a lot of them.  Job said pretty clearly:

“I know my redeemer lives… in my flesh I

will see God” (Job 19:25, 26).

But there still were shadows connected with life after the grave.  It was a mystery.

So Paul announces in 1 Corinthians 15:51, that grand chapter about the risen Christ and the implications:

“Behold I show you a mystery: we shall not all sleep,

but we will all be changed.”

Incidentally, a plaque with that verse was in our church nursery when I was little – “We shall not all sleep, but we will all be changed.”  Nice humor. Paul of course meant that not everyone would have his or her body put to sleep, or die, before Christ came back to change all believers.

Paul understood that Christ could return at any moment. And so do we. But we also know that the mystery about what happens after death has been cleared up – just as Christ arose from the grave, He will raise us up.

Verse 52 of 1 Corinthians 15 clarifies:  “in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye,” Christ will raise our sleeping bodies from the dead. Like all other mysteries, this one keeps us going.  Even in tragedy.  Even in pain.  We at least hang on to the resurrection that Jesus Christ has promised.  We should not be sitting there and wondering what will happen after death.

True, news commentators are not allowed to talk about anything except the death of the celebrity, for instance. But we know there is the promise of being “absent from the body, present with the Lord” for all believers, and also the promise of this physical resurrection of the body at the return of Christ.

You are noticing, no doubt, how all the mysteries have their revelation or clarity connected with the Lord Jesus Christ!  He is the center of God’s plans.  He is the beloved Son, in whom God the Father is well pleased.  He is the one we should honor constantly.

He must be at the heart of all we do as a church, the subject or underlying theme of every sermon, and the one we love with all our hearts!

We’ll take one final look at these mysteries tomorrow…