Fellowship in the Church

Transcript

GR 2318
06/06/2021
Fellowship in the Church
Ephesians 3:1-6
Gil Rugh

We’re going to Ephesians chapter 3 in your Bibles, the book of Ephesians chapter 3. Paul’s writing this letter to a church that he had established and he had spent about three years of his life and ministry at that church. That became a center and all of Asia (Asia Minor as we would think of it) would have heard the gospel as Paul centered the ministry there in Ephesus. Now he’s writing back to them a few years later. It’s a letter about the church, what the church is, and how the church is to function. Perhaps it’s the key letter in the New Testament on the church. We think of the pastoral epistles, and they indeed are important in the conducting of the church, but Ephesians talks about the church established as a unique entity by God. You’ll note that Paul reminds us in chapter 3 verse 1 that he’s writing as I, Paul, the prisoner of Christ Jesus for the sake of you Gentiles. And as I worked on this portion, I couldn’t help but think of Paul’s situation. We come together as a church and there’s so much going on in the world that distracts us and wants to draw us into the issues and conflicts and concerns that are going on in our day; and we come together as the church and we say let’s talk about Ephesians 3 and the doctrine of the church. If we’re not careful we think that doesn’t really seem to be that practical, so much is going on in the world and we come and talk about this doctrinal issue. But if you stop and think, Paul is writing as a prisoner; as recorded at the end of the book of Acts, he is held in house arrest as a Roman prisoner. This is not just a passing event, this goes on for almost five years from the record of what’s taking place.
Yet the Spirit of God directs Paul to write about what God is doing in building the church in this day—not about the injustices of the Roman system, not about how unfair Paul has been treated, and not why he shouldn’t be in prison, but write about the church. What is important is not what the world is experiencing, but what God is doing in His work of salvation in the world. If we as God’s people lose that focus and get sidetracked into the issues and affairs of the world then there’s no one left to bring the message of God’s salvation. So again, appreciate Paul, who can write as a prisoner but does not bemoan his situation and does not talk about the injustices that he’s endured, but he talks about what God would have him address, the uniqueness of what God is doing. And it’s a uniqueness that characterizes our day, God is building the church. Jesus said I will build My church, the gates of Hades will not prevail against us. And that’s what Paul is talking about, that’s what the Spirit of God directs him to address.
I want to just look back and remind ourselves of Paul’s physical situation. Come back to the book of Acts, Acts chapter 24. Paul’s been arrested. You can go back and pick up in about Acts 21 if you want to read the closing chapters of Acts. You’ll see Paul’s life as it’s the background for writing the letter to the Ephesians because the imprisonment that’s recorded is what he’s experiencing when he writes the letter to the Ephesians. Acts 24:27, he’d been arrested. The Jews had stirred up opposition, preaching the truth of the gospel of Jesus Christ has raised antagonism, the Jews are strongly opposed. The Romans don’t care but they want peace, that was what they were concerned about in their empire. Everywhere they appointed leaders and governors, they had to keep the peace. So when the peace is unsettled the Romans intervene and Paul is arrested. So verse 27, “But after two years had passed, Felix was succeeded by Porcius Festus, and wishing to do the Jews a favor, Felix left Paul imprisoned.” You see here Paul was unfairly and unjustly arrested, but he’s remained a prisoner for two years. The Roman governor has done nothing and now you have a change of governors. It’s all politicized; we say today everything’s become political, and that’s not new, here you have one Roman governor changing for another Roman governor. What’s important for these governors is to keep the peace. So to do the Jews a favor—don’t want to get them all riled up—I’ll keep Paul imprisoned so the new governor coming in won’t have to deal with that turmoil. So Paul has now another Roman governor, and he has the opportunity to share the gospel. Paul doesn’t get diverted from what God has called him and appointed him to be and to do, which was to minister the gospel. He’s done that with Felix to the point that Felix became too frightened to continue the conversation. Paul didn’t hold back no matter what the situation was.
So now with a new governor, the minor Jewish king if I can say it that way, King Agrippa comes in. So they get along. There is a Jewish leader representing the Roman government (really, Agrippa’s appointed by the Romans) then you have this Roman governor. So they decide they’ll listen to Paul. Paul presents his message to them. The conclusion is down in chapter 26, verse 31, there the king and the governor and Bernice, the wife of Agrippa, agree, “This man is not doing anything worthy of death or imprisonment.” Acts 26:32, “And Agrippa said to Festus, ‘This man might have been set free if he had not appealed to Caesar.’ ” I just want to note this: both the Jewish leader and the Roman leader agree Paul has been unjustly imprisoned. These last two years he’s been treated unfairly, he didn’t deserve to be imprisoned. But he’s not going to be released, Paul appealed to Caesar, so they decide they’ll send him on to Caesar. You might think, why didn’t they just say, look, there’s no reason to send him to Caesar and bother Caesar, we both agree he didn’t do anything wrong; the Jews were wrong, Paul is innocent. But he’s going to Caesar.
You see in this it’s not a matter of Paul thinking he’s innocent. Even the Roman and Jewish political authorities say he’s been mistreated. You don’t find Paul railing in his letter to the Ephesians: I just want you to know how unjustly I’ve been treated and how unfair it’s been. He understands God’s hand is in this, it’s what we call the providence of God. He rules, He directs, and He uses even the sinful activities of men to accomplish His purposes. So Paul’s not unsettled, rattled, or distracted. He uses this time when he’s before Festus and Agrippa. Read his conversation with Felix. It’s not about railing about the injustices of the Roman system and how they’re not functioning according to their governing rules and laws and this and that. Paul will express the accusations against him are false, but he’s not caught up in trying to talk about reforming the system. This is my time to tell you about Christ. How else would Paul have gotten to address Festus? Previously, Felix he’d addressed. Now Agrippa with his wife Bernice. God has worked in a unique way to put Paul in a position that people are going to hear the gospel who otherwise would not have heard it. Agrippa’s going to have to say, Paul, if you keep going, you’ll convince me to be a Christian. This is not the time to explain to them how the system ought to work and be sure they’re operating according to, quote, ‘their constitution’. This is the time to say I want to be what God has appointed me to be.
You come over to chapter 28. Remember, over two years have gone by since he was imprisoned, two years have gone by and there’s been a change of government. He’s still imprisoned, and he’s brought the gospel before Festus and Agrippa. You come over to chapter 28 verse 11. “At the end of three months,” they’re going to send him on, but time’s going by, another three months, “At the end of three months we set sail,” so time’s rolling by. It seems, Lord, I could be out traveling, planting churches, representing You, and spreading Your word; yet here I am. (He doesn’t know it, but he’s only seven years away from execution when he writes Ephesians.) And he’s still imprisoned. So months go by and you know what happens? He leaves on the ship and what happens on the ship? It goes down. It gets broken up in a storm, and now he is brought on to an island. Finally he’s brought to Rome. Where does the book of Acts end? Look at verse 30 of chapter 28. “And he stayed two full years in his own rented quarters and was welcoming all who came to him.” In effect, he’s under house arrest; he’s not the kind of prisoner who has to be put in a prison, but he has to be confined with a Roman soldier. He can rent his own place and have visitors, but he’s not free to travel around, people can come visit him. But being under house arrest with a Roman soldier 24/7 you’re still a prisoner, you’re not going anywhere, this person is really in charge of you.
So you add this together, two years in prison in Caesarea, two years imprisoned in Rome under house arrest, and then the months that have gone by in-between in the travel and shipwreck and everything going on, and yet what’s Paul writing to the Ephesians about? The wonder of what God has done in establishing His church. We look at this letter and we don’t want to lose sight of the wonder of what God is doing today. The confusion and the noises of the world (what we call it today), the injustices, the confusion, the uncertainty… What we are about is what God is doing in the world today. The church is what God is doing, it’s something unique and special. And in all the discussion and conflict going on in our own country about racial divide and everything, we have to be sure the church is clear on these issues. The church is not going to fix the world. But in the church we need to be clear about what God is doing, we need to be sure we reflect His work.
So Paul is going to move us along in chapter 3 of Ephesians. The background for this when he starts chapter 3 verse 1 “For this reason” is what he said in verses 11 to 22 of chapter 2. He led into this talking about the Gentiles who were at one time cut off and excluded from the work that God was doing in the world. There were Gentiles that were saved -- tonight we’ll talk about Rahab the harlot in Joshua 2; we’ll talk about a Canaanite Gentile woman who experienced God’s salvation -- Gentiles were saved, and the Old Testament prophesied Gentiles being saved in the kingdom. But all of the Old Testament and through the gospels was about salvation being of the Jews; salvation is found in Israel, and for Gentiles to get saved they had to come to the Jews, they had to come to the God of Israel. Some of you are familiar with the story of Naaman the Syrian who was cured of his leprosy by God’s prophet, and what did he do when he was going to return to his homeland Assyria? He took the dirt from Israel with him because he realized this is the holy land, this is where God reveals Himself, it’s the God of this land that must be worshiped. He even asked for God’s forgiveness if he has to take the king he serves into the temple of the god that the king worships. He becomes identified with Israel and Israel’s God and the worship of Israel.
So now he’s telling us, Paul is, in verse 11 and following of chapter 2, God’s doing something new in the world today. The Gentiles were formerly cut off from God. The Mosaic Law created a barrier, intentionally, by God for His people. And the laws of the Mosaic Law… circumcision was required by a baby boy at eight days, and all the dietary laws and the religious laws, and the political laws… Israel was an exclusive nation. You could be stoned to death by worshiping another god, that was not tolerated, this was not an open society, it was only the worship of the God of Israel. Parents were to have their children stoned if they were to promote the worship of another god. This was a theocracy established under the Mosaic Law. Now that barrier’s been broken down and now God has created a new entity. The end of Ephesians 2:15, “So that in Himself,” in Christ, “He might make the two into one new man.” It’s not the old man adjusted. It’s not the nation Israel any longer. Now it’s not been replaced, but it’s not the focal point of what God is doing in the world. God’s work of salvation will now focus in a new entity comprised of all races, all nationalities, Jew and Gentile alike. Verse 16, “And might reconcile them both in one body to God through the cross, by it having put to death the enmity.” The big racial divide is between Jew and Gentile, that’s what Paul is dealing with and saying, God has broken that down as well with all other barriers, but those were the two from God’s perspective and God’s work. God now is not going to be working in and through the nation Israel, but He’s going to be working in a new entity called the church. We will be joined together as one, one body, one building, a temple in which the Holy Spirit dwells.
So chapter 3 opens up. “For this reason I, Paul, the prisoner of Christ Jesus for the sake of you Gentiles.” And then you have that hyphen at the end there, an extended hyphen, he’s going to break off. “For this reason,” but then as he talks about being a prisoner of Christ Jesus for the sake of the Gentiles, in verses 2 to 13, he’s going to give an explanation of why he’s a prisoner and what is involved in saying it’s for the sake of the Gentiles. He’s going to explain more fully the uniqueness and the newness of what God is doing in building the church. Then when you get down to verse 14, you’ll note he begins with the same exact wording, in Greek as well as what we have in English, “For this reason.” That’s what he said when he started verse 1 of chapter 3, “For this reason.” Now he’s had a digression, which is of great importance, but he’s going to continue the thought of verse 1, he’s going to go on to say how he prays for them. But first you have to understand the uniqueness of the ministry I have and see my being a prisoner in this context.
You know what often happens, and this could happen to the church at Ephesus… Paul had spent three years of his life ministering there, and he was well-known. Now he’s been a prisoner for going on five years, it doesn’t look good. Things are… you know if this happens to Paul how are we going to continue on? So what Paul wants to do is encourage them, in verse 13 as he ends this digression, “Therefore I ask you not to lose heart at my tribulations on your behalf.” Sometimes you look and see what happens to another believer and it discourages you. Paul says this is not a cause of discouragement, he’s reminding them God is at work. While I was gone, one of the books I keep in Colorado, “The Providence of God” by the Puritan Flavel… He says one of the problems Christians have is they don’t think enough about the providence of God. The providence of God is God working in all situations, all circumstances of our lives as His people. He said, I encourage Christians to make a note of all the times God works so you don’t forget so when you get to those times of forgetfulness and discouragement, you remind yourself, yeah, God’s hand is in this.
For Paul, he’s a prisoner, he’s wasted five years of a life that’s going to be cut short by execution and a little over five more years. But they’re not wasted years, they’re God’s appointed years for Paul. So he doesn’t want the Ephesians to lose track. Paul has been sidetracked for four and a half to five years, he’s imprisoned, when is he going to get out? It seems like Christianity is getting weaker. Wait a minute, I don’t want you to lose heart over my tribulations. So that’s part of what’s going on here, keep your focus, this is God at work. Paul was a prisoner for four or five years because that was God’s plan for Paul. The Jews didn’t cause it, and the Romans didn’t cause it. God used the sin of those people and the injustice of those people to bring about His purposes for Paul. We say that’s a strange way to do it. I hope God doesn’t put me in prison. Well, I hope God doesn’t put me in prison either, unless it would bring more glory to Him. You know, Paul had come to the point in his life where he could say I rejoice in my weaknesses more than my strength because when I’m weak, I’m really strong, because that’s when God uses me in the greatest way.
So just a reminder, when he says, in verse 1 of chapter 3, “For this reason I, Paul.” And that emphasis there, “I, Paul,” that’s to draw attention not to himself for selfish reasons, but, “I, Paul, the prisoner of Christ Jesus.” Let’s get this in perspective right away. The Sovereign that I serve, the Master that I have. I am a prisoner of Christ Jesus. I’m not a prisoner of the Jews, I’m not a prisoner of the Romans, and I’m not a prisoner because of the injustices of the system that’s in operation. They don’t even follow their own laws, as a Roman citizen I should have been set free on day one and blah, blah, blah. Not for Paul. The providence of God… This is God’s plan for me. I’m a prisoner of Jesus Christ, I’m His slave. He’s my master, and it’s for the sake of you Gentiles, God has done this for the good of the Gentiles. How did Paul end up here in the first place? Preaching the gospel, and he’s the apostle to the Gentiles. It’s my ministry and you Gentiles are to benefit from it. That’s why down in verse 13 at the end of this section he’ll say, “Therefore I ask you not to lose heart at my tribulations on your behalf,” this is all part of what God laid out for me. Remember in Acts chapter 9 when the prophet was sent to heal Paul’s blindness? He was struck blind in the road to Damascus, what does He tell? He says I will show him what great things he must suffer on My behalf. We think of Him as the great apostle Paul. Part of his greatness was he suffered greatly. Read 2 Corinthians 11 again, we get the idea it was one trial after another, after another, and made him among the greatest men that God ever used, as we would look at it. I’m the prisoner of Christ Jesus for the sake of you Gentiles.
I just think the distractions of the world… so often as I look at the history, somehow churches and Christians get caught up in the world and all that’s going on in the world just begins to absorb us and we become occupied with what the world is occupied with. We begin to lose our perspective, and that’s a danger. This is a day where we’re bombarded, we carry it with us and we can catch up every three minutes on the news. It’s just always pouring in and pretty soon we think we’ve got to do something. I was watching a biography of a man that some of you may have seen. It was on public television, and part of what it showed clearly, even though it was produced by unbelievers, was the way he thinks he got sidetracked, caught up in the things that were going on, that made it seem like he thought he could have a greater ministry than he was having. The thing was, even that program had at the end, he came back to where he started. Our goal is not to get off in the middle, but stay on track. That’s what Paul’s doing.
So, he wants to explain now. When I say I’m the prisoner of Christ Jesus, and it’s for the sake of you Gentiles, let me elaborate on what God is doing in the world today. He was not only doing it in Paul’s day, but it’s the same thing He’s doing today. “If indeed you have heard of the stewardship of God’s grace which was given to me for you.” If you have indeed heard, and that’s pressed in a way that we say it has the assurance that you do know this because he spent three years with them, ministering to them as Gentiles, and being a center of the truth going out to other cities like the seven churches of Asia Minor in Revelation 2 and 3. That became a center of ministry to Asia Minor, even though Paul was centered in Ephesus. Of course, they’d heard of his stewardship. That word ‘stewardship’ means an administration. It’s two words, we may talk about that in the next study more fully, but it’s a compound word, the word ‘house’ and the word ‘law’. Basically it was used of someone who had house law, who ruled over a household. It may have been a very important slave who had been given the responsibility of managing the household affairs of a great mansion, for example. So that’s the picture. Paul sees himself as an administrator of God’s grace. He had responsibility and the oversight and the dispensing of God’s grace. It “was given to me for you.” So Paul’s not elevating himself, this is God’s grace. It’s a stewardship of responsibility which God is administering through me. It was given to me, so this is not something I take on myself. This is something God has dispensed to me and placed upon me. It’s something he would be accountable to the Owner of the house, if you will.
And it was for you, because he’s writing to a Gentile church, we picked that up at the end of chapter 2. What is he going to say? (verse 3)“That by revelation there was made known to me the mystery, as I wrote before in brief.” And he wrote about that; I think he’s primarily talking about verses 11 to 22, He just wrote about it. He’s going to talk about here the mystery, it’s a revelation, it’s a mystery that was revealed. That word ‘mystery,’ we’ve talked about, means something that had not been made known before, but is now being made known. It’s not something complicated. It’s something that could not be made known because God had not planned to make it known until this time. This is important. This means you do not find the church in the Old Testament. You can read commentaries that will talk about the church in the Old Testament; they equate Israel and the church. Paul tells us this is something that was not revealed in the Old Testament, so don’t get confused. This is not the church being Israel. It’s not the kingdom. Three good commentaries in the sense they are for… that I was just working on for this passage, they would have basically our theology. But they kept talking about Paul talking about people being placed into the kingdom here.
The kingdom that the Old Testament talks about cannot be what’s talked about here. He’s talking about a new entity. He said in chapter 2 verse 15 we’re made “into one new man.” The kingdom is not new information. The church is new; it’s a new man, it’s a new building, and it’s a new body. He keeps emphasizing this. It’s a mystery that is now revealed. We want to understand this. In the church today, there is confusion all over because we don’t understand this basic truth. It’s clear. I got on the internet just yesterday afternoon and checked on an evangelical denomination. They say we believe in salvation by grace alone through faith alone in Christ alone. We take a literal interpretation of the days in the creation account in Genesis 1. When it comes to prophecy, we believe the church is the new Israel and the church is the kingdom and went… Wait a minute. Somewhere along the line, we’ve gone off the road. It’s the new thing -- you’ve made it the old thing. So we want to be careful, otherwise we miss what God is doing today. And the church is off doing things that it’s created, and not being part of what God is doing.
“By revelation there was made known to me.” You could not know this otherwise. You could study the Old Testament until the day you die, being an expert in Aramaic and Hebrew and Greek, and you wouldn’t find the church, it’s not there. It’s something God kept hidden, and when God decides to hide something, you won’t find it. It can only be found and it can only be known when God says now, I want to tell you something. That’s what Paul says happens. “By revelation there was made known to me the mystery.” He’d talked about the mystery; turn back to chapter 1, verse 9. “He made known to us the mystery of His will.” In fact, this word ‘mystery’ is going to be used six times in the book of Ephesians, more often than any other single book in the New Testament. It’s used more times than six times in other books, but not that many times in any other one book. He’ll explain mystery here. It’ll come up several times in these following verses, but let’s just walk through these. “Made known to me the mystery.” Let me say something. Some people think well, you who think the church is new think oh, Christ got crucified and God had to change His plan. God wasn’t changing His plan. Isaiah 53 prophesied the crucifixion of Christ. Now God revealed, as a result of judgment on Israel and the rejection of their Messiah, God had planned a new entity called the church. It will not replace Israel, but it’s a new entity that will function as the focus of God’s work until God resumes His program after the church with the nation Israel. That’s why we want to be careful. This new entity doesn’t replace the church, although it does become the focal point in God’s work of salvation. It’s a unique entity. Israel is still Israel; it’s just on the sidetrack of judgment. God’s still working there to bring them to a place He would have them be in preparation for the seventieth week of Daniel, but God’s work of salvation is not focused in the nation Israel today. He focuses in the Gentile world. Some Jews are saved, Paul’s made that clear. We are joined together, Jew or Gentile or whatever race, whatever nationality and so on, into one body.
So “by revelation there was made known to me the mystery, as I wrote before in brief.” So Paul wants them to know how he knew this. It wasn’t because he was smarter or because he was a better Old Testament scholar with his pharisaical background. No, it was new information, it was revelation. Ephesians 3:4, “By referring to this, when you read you can understand my insight into the mystery of Christ.” So you wonder how did Paul get to know this? Where did Paul get this? Because you can’t get it out of the Old Testament, where did he get it? He got it directly from God. He’s not the only one because other apostles and prophets… We saw them in verse 20 of chapter 2, and he’s going to bring them up at the end of verse 5 when he talks about this mystery, the mystery of Christ, what God was doing now as a result of the death and resurrection of Christ.
He’s doing something, which, verse 5 says, “Which in other generations was not made known to the sons of men.” That’s a Hebrew way of saying human beings. It wasn’t revealed to humanity. “In other generations was not made known.” How many times does God have to tell us that what He is now doing in Christ: making a new man, a new building, a new organization, the church. He just keeps saying it was not made known in other generations. The Old Testament prophets didn’t get this information. Now again, it doesn’t mean that God didn’t have it in His plan. When you have children, you sometimes tell them certain things. There are certain things you planned to not tell them, and quite frankly, if they would have had enough information to ask about it, you just tell them it’s none of their business. At least that’s what they told me when I was being raised. Today, now you don’t want to nick their very sensitive psychic, but we won’t go there. But God just chose, He’s sovereign, He decides when He will make known what He wants to make known. That shouldn’t surprise anybody. “In other generations (it) was not made known to the sons of men.” It doesn’t say that God didn’t know it or that God didn’t plan it, but human beings didn’t know it. Old Testament prophets didn’t know it. “As it has now been revealed to His holy apostles and prophets in the Spirit.” That phrase “as it has been revealed” connects it to the idea, and I think most grammatical commentators are agreed on this, it’s referring to the fact He is now revealing it. It wasn’t revealed in past generations; now it is being revealed.
Through His holy… these are those set apart. That word ‘holy…’ we saw it early in Ephesians, apostles and prophets. That’s the same group that’s up in chapter 2 verse 20. So Paul’s not the only one to receive this information, he wasn’t even the first one, and in fact this has been a matter of progressive revelation. Paul wasn’t even saved when God began to reveal the truth of the church because when did the church start? Acts chapter 2, Peter preached that sermon, he preached the death, burial, and resurrection of Christ. The church began with the baptism of the Spirit in Acts 2. Paul doesn’t even get saved until Acts 9. So there’s revelation going on.
Come back to Acts 10. We see there’s progress in this, God reveals more and more. In Acts chapter 10, Peter goes for the first time... The church started in Acts chapter 2. The gospel is not really carried to the Gentiles until Acts 10, where remember, Peter’s taking a nap before lunch and he sees in a vision a sheet let down from heaven, and there are all kinds of unclean animals. Now realize this, Peter still hasn’t grasped that the Mosaic Law is done, you no longer are operating under that. You’re in Acts 10. God tells him these are all kinds of unclean animals, unclean because the Mosaic Law said the Jews should not eat these particular animals. They would be ceremonially defiling. Peter, he’s in a trance, as verse 10 tells us. Verse 13 of Acts 10, “A voice came to him” from heaven and said, “Get up, Peter, kill and eat!” And you’ve got to like Peter, Peter says, “By no means, Lord.” Now just think of the contradiction. If He’s Lord, you don’t tell Him no. But when the Lord says Peter, get up and eat, Peter says by no means, Lord. “’For I have never eaten anything unholy and unclean.’”
Well, there’s a mixture here. We can smile because we appreciate the confusion for Peter, but the Lord puts him in his place. He doesn’t go into a digression to explain how the Mosaic Law has been finished. He just tells him, but blank, verse 15, “What God has cleansed, no longer consider unholy.” That puts it nice and concisely, I (God) decide what’s holy and unholy, and you do what I tell you. So Peter understands from this that he should go to the house of an unclean, defiling Gentile, go into that house, share the gospel, and have dinner. Peter goes to that house… you’re familiar… I just summarized it for you. Peter goes in, and he tells them, you know, I’d have never come to your house at your invitation if God hadn’t given me special instruction. There’s a clear divide between Jew and Gentile, even this Gentile who is viewed positively by the Jews. He’s still a defiled Gentile, you don’t go to his house, it’s not properly cleansed, and his food you can’t eat.
The Holy Spirit… Peter preaches the gospel and the Holy Spirit comes upon them. Amazingly, the Gentiles can receive the Holy Spirit. Preaching the gospel, you know what happens? Come to chapter 11. Verse 1, “Now the apostles and the brethren who were throughout Judea heard that the Gentiles also had received the word of God. And when Peter came up to Jerusalem, those who were circumcised,” these Jewish leaders, “took issue with him, saying, ‘You went to uncircumcised men and ate with them.’ ” It doesn’t matter that they heard the gospel and believed it and the Holy Spirit came upon them. The whole issue here is you defiled yourself. What were you thinking, going to the house of a Gentile? We think we have racial divide today, and we do. But this is deep racial divide. It doesn’t matter that a Gentile wanted to be a good neighbor and invite you to his house, you don’t go. If he prepares something for you to eat, you don’t eat it. In fact, you’d be better off to not touch him because he could defile you. So Peter explains what God told him in that vision or trance. Acts 11:15, “And as I began to speak, the Holy Spirit fell upon them just as He did upon us at the beginning. And I remembered” Jesus told us “you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit.” They were baptized with the Holy Spirit, we were baptized with the Holy Spirit. And you know what? Look at verse 18. “When they heard this, they quieted down and glorified God, saying, ‘Well then, God has granted to the Gentiles also the repentance that leads to life.’” Miracle of miracles, wonder of wonder God’s going to save Gentiles! Now, these Gentiles didn’t come to the Jewish tabernacle. They didn’t offer themselves for circumcision. They didn’t look to the priest for the cleansing so they could convert to Judaism. They got the Holy Spirit as Gentiles. This is a miracle!
But you know, that’s not the end of it. You get to chapter 15 and if I remember correctly, which is dubious, chapter 15, the Council of Jerusalem, is about fourteen years after chapter 2. So time’s going by, fourteen years. The church began in Acts 2 and the church has been in existence and growing, new material’s been coming in, as we saw in Acts chapter 10. But now we’re going to have a debate, Acts chapter 15, do the Gentiles who trust Christ and get the Holy Spirit need to be circumcised and submit to the Mosaic Law to have their salvation completed? So chapter 15 opens up. “Some men came down from Judea.” Judea is the central point because that’s where Jerusalem is. That becomes the focal point of what we might call high Judaism, strong Jewish focus even when believers… But they come down and they say they’re teaching the brethren. And down, remember everything comes down from Jerusalem in the Bible, so it doesn’t mean they’re going north or south. In the Bible, everything goes down when you’re going from Jerusalem. “Unless you are circumcised according to the custom of Moses, you cannot be saved.” Paul and Barnabas now have debate with them, a great discussion, dissention, argument here. So they decide to go to Jerusalem because that’s where the apostles are centered—Peter, James, and John. These have maintained their center in Jerusalem. Remember, persecution scattered believers, but the apostles remained so they could become the focal point, the center of the growing church, if you will.
Verse 5, “But some of the sect of the Pharisees who had believed stood up, saying, ‘It is necessary to circumcise them and to direct them to observe the Law of Moses.’ ” Now you note, they don’t say Christ wasn’t the Messiah. They don’t deny that He paid the penalty for sin in His death on the cross. They don’t deny He was raised from the dead. They say that’s not enough. You believe that, and these are called Pharisees who had believed, verse 5. I take it that means they’d acknowledged Jesus was the Messiah and His crucifixion was to pay the penalty for sin, the fulfillment of Isaiah 53 and so on. He was raised… But that’s not enough. This is the debate going on fourteen years after the church was established. We’re at the center of Christianity, if you will, the center of the church still. Now Paul got saved in Acts 9, we had the house of Cornelius in Acts 10, we have missionary journeys going on. But these apostles are still the authority doctrinally for the church. What is resolved here is no, Gentiles don’t have to keep the Mosaic Law.
So we’re making clear. The Jews are free to follow the Mosaic Law if they want, as far as dietary laws and that, but they cannot make it necessary for salvation, just like you may get saved out of any kind of background, a Jewish background or German background. If you get saved you don’t have to quit eating Jewish food or German food or whatever other foods you like. So that’s it. They can still be Jews. We want to be careful here. We don’t say, well, the Jews have to become Gentiles. But their nationality, their racial distinctions, along with other distinctions, are not what join them together in a relationship with oneness in the church. In the church we have been made one. If you like Italian food and not German food, that’s fine. Marilyn likes a lot of things I don’t like food-wise. In fact I don’t know what she doesn’t like, I’m more picky, but we’re still one. We’re married, and we get along fine, most of the time. When I say, what in the world is that (pinching his nose)? ‘That’s a Jewish pickle.’ Well, it wasn’t made to be eaten. At any rate it doesn’t have to do with this directly.
We come together in Christ as one body, that’s the point that was settled in Acts. We want to be careful, if a Jew decides he’d still prefer to not have a ham sandwich, I don’t make it an issue. A lot of you eat your own way, you think protein diets are right, you think high carb diets are right, you think this diet is right, that’s fine! But when you make it a spiritual issue it’s not fine. This is a major spiritual issue because the Mosaic Law was a spiritual issue, and it was necessary. You weren’t saved by keeping the Law, but if you were going to be an obedient Jew who really believed in the God of Israel, you submitted yourself to the commandments He gave. That’s all changed now because the God who gave those laws to Israel now was doing something different. He has the authority to do it.
So come back to Ephesians chapter 3. This was not made known as it’s now being made known, it’s made known to the sons of men. That would include us, that’s why we have to have this right. It was revealed to Paul and other apostles and prophets, given to the church. But it’s given to the sons of men; down through history it’s for us. We are just as responsible before God as His people to know this material and to put it into practice. So there’s no room for racial divide in the church, there’s no room for those divisions, but we still can have our identity. You don’t have to pretend you’re of another race or nationality or another fill-in-the-blank. There’s a oneness, fine, good.
Apostles and prophets, we noted they are the same in that they both receive revelation. Prophets could get new revelation and they could encourage and instruct people with it. Apostles are broader, they not only receive new revelation and taught it, but they had an administrative responsibility, as Paul shows in his establishing churches and organizing the church and so on.
What is God revealing? Verse 6. “To be specific, that the Gentiles are fellow heirs.” He creates three words here, we have them translated. It’s a preposition in Greek, ‘syn’. We bring it over ‘sun’, making it a compound word here. “The Gentiles are fellow heirs and fellow members of the body, and fellow partakers of the promise in Christ Jesus through the gospel.” So there can be no exclusion here… the Gentiles now… and this is what they realize, they’re not outsiders. The Jews have to realize this; we all have to realize it. In Christ Gentiles are fellow heirs, fellow heirs. Now the connection is with Jews with other whatever-the-nationality. We are joined together as fellow heirs, “fellow members of the body.” There’s only one body. We better be careful. We’ll get more into this in chapter 4, but there’s only one body. We have to be careful, this is what God is doing. “Fellow partakers of the promise in Christ Jesus.” The promise of the Holy Spirit, He’s the Holy Spirit of promise as we have seen. The salvation that God had promised is realized now in the church, a new entity. That was promised to Israel in the kingdom but that’s a different issue. It’s the same Holy Spirit. The provision was made in the same way, in the death of Christ, but what God revealed was there was an entity that would come between the crucifixion of Christ and the coming of Christ to establish the kingdom called the church. That’s something totally new, that’s why sometimes we put a parentheses there, it hadn’t been revealed.
That all takes place in Christ “through the gospel.” Be careful. Some Christians find different ways… Racial divide… Southern Presbyterians back in the 1800s, some of the theologies they wrote were embarrassing. I mentioned this. I have some of them, and I don’t want to even think professing Christians wrote this stuff. They were racially divided, they divided the churches racially. It wasn’t a problem with Scripture; it was a problem with man not handling the Scripture properly. Now we want to be careful as Christians we don’t run out and say we shouldn’t have racial divide in our country because Christ has come. He has not. He is come and He’s taken care of it, but only for those who are in Him, it’s “in Christ Jesus through the gospel.” We are going to have divide, but that’s God’s intention, He divided the races. He divided the nationality because we know what’s going to happen. When we get to the seventieth Week of Daniel, you finally get everybody together under one ruler, not Christ, but the Antichrist. And what do you have? You have a one-world government with a one-world worship system. Just like you couldn’t buy food without a mask, you won’t be able to get into the grocery store without the number. That’s where we’re going.
We’re not going to fix the world; what we bring to the world is the life-changing gospel. If the church gets confused, we’ll get dragged out into the world trying to deal with its problems its ways. The only solution I have to the racial problems of our country is Jesus Christ, the gospel. The church ought to be a model of that, this is the place where people of all diversities have been brought together in a oneness with one another. This is what Paul goes on, verse 7 that transitions into verse 8, that he is proclaiming. So this is what God’s doing today, this is the revelation we have. There is no excuse for us not to be clear on what the church is, how it is to function, what it must be in the world, and what our ministry is. Paul doesn’t lose focus. He’s not called by God to fix the Roman system. They had some laws that were great, but they didn’t follow them. Paul’s not there to fix it, he’s there to bring Christ. We’re here not to fix our country, not to fix the world around us, and not to fix our city, but to bring the saving gospel of Jesus Christ so God can make people new and bring them together in a relationship with Himself and one another.
Let’s pray together. Thank You, Lord, for the riches of Your word. Lord, a word that is alive and powerful, just as relevant, just as necessary, just as important, and just as true 2,000 years after the Holy Spirit directed the apostle Paul to write these truths. Lord, we would take them to heart. We would grasp them, meditate upon them. Lord, we want them to be sure in our own lives, personally -- that they are applied in our life as a church. We appreciate the beauty and wonder and uniqueness of what You are doing in the world today in adding men, women, and young people to the church of Jesus Christ. Thank You for the blessing that is ours to fellowship and serve You. We commit this time to You in Christ’s name. Amen.